THE BLIND BOY

For there's nae luck about the house,

There's nae luck at a';

There's little pleasure in the house

When our gudeman's awa.

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William Julius Mickle.

THE BLIND BOY

Он, say what is that thing called Light,
Which I must ne'er enjoy;
What are the blessings of the Sight:
Oh, tell your poor blind boy!

You talk of wondrous things you see;
You say the sun shines bright;
I feel him warm, but how can he
Or make it day or night?

My day or night myself I make
Whene'er I sleep or play;

And could I ever keep awake
With me 't were always day.

With heavy sighs I often hear
You mourn my hapless woe;
But sure with patience I can bear
A loss I ne'er can know.

Then let not what I cannot have

My cheer of mind destroy: Whilst thus I sing, I am a king, Although a poor blind boy.

Colley Cibber.

THE NIGHTINGALE IN THE STUDY

"COME forth! my catbird calls to me,
"And hear me sing a cavatina
That, in this old familiar tree,

Shall hang a garden of Alcina.

"These buttercups shall brim with wine
Beyond all Lesbian juice or Massic;
May not New England be divine?
My ode to ripening summer classic?

"Or, if to me you will not hark,

By Beaver Brook a thrush is ringing, Till all the alder-coverts dark

Seem sunshine-dappled with his singing.

"Come out beneath the unmastered sky,
With its emancipating spaces,
And learn to sing as well as I,
Without premeditated graces.

"What boot your many-volumed gains,
Those withered leaves forever turning,
To win, at best, for all your pains,
A nature mummy-wrapt in learning?

"The leaves wherein true wisdom lies

On living trees the sun are drinking; Those white clouds, drowsing through the skies, Grew not so beautiful by thinking.

THE NIGHTINGALE IN THE STUDY 31

"Come out! with me the oriole cries,
Escape the demon that pursues you!
And, hark, the cuckoo weatherwise,
Still hiding, farther onward woos you."

"Alas, dear friend, that, all my days, Has poured from thy syringa thicket The quaintly discontinuous lays

To which I hold a season-ticket,

"A season-ticket cheaply bought

With a dessert of pilfered berries, And who so oft my soul has caught With morn and evening voluntaries,

"Deem me not faithless, if all day

Among my dusty books I linger,
No pipe, like thee, for June to play
With fancy-led, half-conscious finger.

"A bird is singing in my brain

And bubbling o'er with mingled fancies,
Gay, tragic, rapt, right heart of Spain
Fed with the sap of old romances.

"I ask no ampler skies than those

His magic music rears above me, No falser friends, no truer foes,

And does not Doña Clara love me?

"Cloaked shapes, a twanging of guitars,

A rush of feet, and rapiers clashing,

Then silence deep with breathless stars,
And overhead a white hand flashing.

"O music of all moods and climes,

Vengeful, forgiving, sensuous, saintly, Where still, between the Christian chimes, The Moorish cymbal tinkles faintly!

"O life borne lightly in the hand,

For friend or foe with grace Castilian! O valley safe in Fancy's land,

Not tramped to mud yet by the million!

"Bird of to-day, thy songs are stale

To his, my singer of all weathers,

My Calderon, my nightingale,

My Arab soul in Spanish feathers.

"Ah, friend, these singers dead so long,
And still, God knows, in purgatory,
Give its best sweetness to all song,
To Nature's self her better glory."

James Russell Lowell.

THE FAIRIES

Up the airy mountain,
Down the rushy glen,
We dare n't go a-hunting
For fear of little men;

Wee folk, good folk,

Trooping all together;

THE FAIRIES

Green jacket, red cap,

And white owl's feather!

Down along the rocky shore
Some make their home:
They live on crispy pancakes
Of yellow tide-foam;
Some in the reeds

Of the black mountain lake,
With frogs for their watch-dogs,
All night awake.

High on the hilltop

The old King sits;

He is now so old and gray,
He's nigh lost his wits.
With a bridge of white mist
Columbkill he crosses,
On his stately journeys

From Slieveleague to Rosses;

Or going up with music

On cold starry nights,

To sup

with the queen

Of the gay Northern Lights.

They stole little Bridget

For seven years long; When she came down again, Her friends were all gone.

They took her lightly back,

Between the night and morrow;

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