The Cambridge Book of Poetry and Song

But colder still the cold winds blew, And deeper still the deep drifts

grew,

And his mare, a beautiful Morgan brown,

At last in her struggles floundered down,

Where a log in a hollow lay.

In vain, with a neigh and a frenzied snort,

She plunged in the drifting snow, While her master urged, till his

breath grew short,

With a word and a gentle blow; But the snow was deep, and the tugs were tight;

His hands were numb and had lost their might;

So he wallowed back to his half-filled sleigh,

And strove to shelter himself till day, With his coat and buffalo.

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'Tis the hour of midnight past; The old trees writhe and bend no more In the whirl of the rushing blast. The silent moon with her peaceful light

Looks down on the hills with snow all white,

And the giant shadow of Camel's
Hunip,
[stump,
The blasted pine and the ghostly
Afar on the plain are cast.

But cold and dead by the hidden log
Are they who came from the town:
The man in his sleigh, and his faith-
ful dog,

And his beautiful Morgan brown,

He has given the last faint jerk of In the wide snow-desert, far and

the rein,

To rouse up his dying steed; And the poor dog howls to the blast in vain

For help in his master's need.

For awhile he strives with a wistful cry

To catch a glance from his drowsy eye,

grand,

With his cap on his head and the reins in his hand,

The dog with his nose on his master's feet,

And the mare half seen through the crusted sleet,

Where she lay when she floundered down.

GEORGE ELIOT (MARIAN EVANS CROSS).

O MAY I JOIN THE CHOIR
INVISIBLE.

O MAY I join the choir invisible
Of these immortal dead who live
again

In minds made better by their presence; live

In pulses stirred to generosity,

In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn Of miserable aims that end with self,

In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars,

And with their mild persistence urge men's minds

To vaster issues.

So to live is heaven: To make undying music in the world, Breathing a beauteous order, that controls

With growing sway the growing life of man.

So we inherit that sweet purity For which we struggled, failed and agonized

With widening retrospect that bred despair.

Rebellious flesh that would not be
subdued,

A vicious parent shaming still its
child,
[solved;
Poor anxious penitence, is quick dis-
Its discords quenched by meeting
harmonies,

Die in the large and charitable air.
And all our rarer, better, truer self,
That sobbed religiously in yearning
song,

That watched to ease the burden of
the world,

Laboriously tracing what must be,
And what may yet be better,-saw

within

A worthier image for the sanctuary,
And shaped it forth before the mul-
titude,

Divinely human, raising worship so
To higher reverence more mixed
with love,-
[Time
That better self shall live till human

Shall fold its eyelids, and the human
sky

Be gathered like a scroll within the
tomb,
Unread forever.

This is life to come, Which martyred men have made more glorious

For us, who strive to follow.

May I reach That purest heaven,-be to other souls

The cup of strength in some great agony,

Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love,

Beget the smiles that have no cruelty,
Be the sweet presence of a good dif-
fused,

And in diffusion ever more intense!
So shall I join the choir invisible,
Whose music is the gladness of the
world.

JANE ELLIOT.

THE FLOWers of the forest.

I'VE heard the lilting at our ewe-milking,
Lasses a-lilting before the dawn of day;

But now they are moaning on ilka green loaning -
The Flowers of the Forest are a' wede away.

At buchts, in the morning, nae blithe lads are scorning,
The lasses are lonely, and dowie, and wae;

Nae daffin', nae gabbin', but sighing and sabbing,
Ilk ane lifts her leglen and hies her away.

In hairst, at the shearing, nae youths now are jeering,
The bandsters are lyart, and runkled, and gray;
At fair, or at preaching, nae wooing, nae fleeching -
The Flowers of the Forest are a' wede away.

At e'en, at the gloaming, nae swankies are roaming,
'Bout stacks wi' the lasses at bogle to play;
But ilk ane sits drearie, lamenting her dearie -
The Flowers of the Forest are a' wede away.

Dool and wae for the order sent our lads to the border
The English, for ance, by guile wan the day;

The Flowers of the Forest, that foucht aye the foremost,
The prime o' our land, are cauld in the clay.

Because my home is near.

Why come they not? They do not

come

My breaking heart to meet!
A heavier darkness on me falls,-
I cannot lift my feet.

Oh, yes, they come!-they never fail
To listen for my sighs;

My poor heart brightens when it

meets

The sunshine of their eyes. Again they come to meet me,-God! Wilt thou the thought forgive? If 'twere not for my dog and cat, I think I could not live.

This heart is like a churchyard stone;
My playful cat and honest dog
My home is comfort's grave;

Are all the friends I have; And yet my house is filled with friends,

But foes they seem, and are.
What makes them hostile ? IGNO-

RANCE;
Then let me not despair.

My heart grows faint when home I But oh! I sigh when home I come,

May God the thought forgive! If 'twere not for my dog and cat, I think I could not live.

THE PRESS.

GOD said, "Let there be light!" Grim darkness felt his might,

And fled away;

Then startled seas and mountains cold

Shone forth, all bright in blue and gold,

And cried,-"Tis day! 'tis day!"

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RALPH WALDO EMERSON.

ODE.

O TENDERLY the haughty day
Fills his blue urn with fire;
One morn is in the mighty heaven,
And one in our desire.

The cannon booms from town to

town,

Our pulses are not less,

For he that worketh high and wise,
Nor pauses in his plan,

Will take the sun out of the skies
Ere freedom out of man.

THE PROBLEM.

I LIKE a church; I like a cowl;

The joy-bells chime their tidings I love a prophet of the soul;

down,

Which children's voices bless.

For he that flung the broad blue fold
O'er mantling land and sea,
One third part of the sky unrolled
For the banner of the free.

The men are ripe of Saxon kind
To build an equal state,-
To take the statute from the mind,
And make of duty fate.

United States! the ages plead,-
Present and past in under-song,-
Go put your creed into your deed,
Nor speak with double tongue.

For sea and land don't understand, Nor skies without a frown

See rights for which the one hand fights

By the other cloven down.

And on my heart monastic aisles Fall like sweet strains, or pensive smiles;

Yet not for all his faith can see Would I that cowled churchman be.

Why should the vest on him allure, Which I could not on me endure?

Not from a vain or shallow thought His awful Jove young Phidias brought,

Never from lips of cunning, fell
The thrilling Delphic oracle;
Out from the heart of nature rolled
The burdens of the Bible old;
The litanies of nations came,
Like the volcano's tongue of flame,
Up from the burning core below,-
The canticles of love and woe;
The hand that rounded Peter's dome,
And groined the aisles of Christian
Rome,

Wrought in a sad sincerity;

Be just at home; then write your scroll Himself from God he could not free;

Of honor o'er the sea,

And bid the broad Atlantic roll A ferry of the free.

And, henceforth, there shall be no chain,

Save underneath the sea

He builded better than he knew;The conscious stone to beauty grew.

Knowest thou what wove yon woodbird's nest

Of leaves, and feathers from her breast?

The wires shall murmur through the Or how the fish outbuilt her shell,

main

Sweet songs of Liberty.

The conscious stars accord above,
The waters wild below,

And under, through the cable wove,
Her fiery errands go.

Painting with morn each annual cell?
Or how the sacred pine-tree adds
To her old leaves new myriads?
Such and so grew these holy piles,
Whilst love and terror laid the tiles.
Earth proudly wears the Parthenon,
As the best gem upon her zone;

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