My heart it said nay; I looked for Jamie back; But the wind it blew high, and the ship it was a wrack, His ship it was a wrack why didna Jamie dee, Or why do I live to cry, Wae 's me? My father urgit sair: my mother didna speak; But she looked in my break: face till my heart was like to They gi'ed him my hand, but my heart was at the sea: Sae auld Robin Gray he was gudeman to me. I hadna been a wife a week but only four, Till he said, "I'm come hame to marry thee." Oh, sair, sair did we greet, and muckle did we We took but ae kiss, and I bad him gang away : I gang like a ghaist, and I carena to spin; I daurna think on Jamie, for that waud be a sin; For auld Robin Gray he is kind unto me. JEAN Or a' the airts the wind can blaw, For there the bonnie lassie lives, The lassie I lo❜e best: There wild woods grow and rivers row, But day and night my fancy's flight I see her in the dewy flowers, I hear her charm the air: There's not a bonnie flower that springs But minds me o' my Jean. Robert Burns. TO A WATERFOWL WHITHER, 'midst falling dew, While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, Far through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue Thy solitary way? Vainly the fowler's eye Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong, Thy figure floats along. Seek'st thou the plashy brink Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide, There is a Power whose care Teaches thy way along that pathless coast, Lone wandering, but not lost. All day thy wings have fanned, At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere; And soon that toil shall end; Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend Soon o'er thy sheltered nest. Thou 'rt gone, Hath swallowed up thy form, yet on my heart He who from zone to zone Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, In the long way that I must tread alone Will lead my steps aright. William Cullen Bryant. SAILORS' SONG To sea, to sea! The calm is o'er; The wanton water leaps in sport, And rattles down the pebbly shore; The dolphin wheels, the sea-cows snort; And unseen mermaids' pearly song Comes bubbling up, the weeds among. Fling broad the sail, dip deep the oar: To sea, to sea! the calm is o'er. To sea, to sea! our wide-winged bark The anchor heaves, the ship swings free, Thomas Lovell Beddoes. CARCASSONNE I'm growing old, I've sixty years; You see the city from the hill, They tell me every day is there The curé's right; he says that we Are ever wayward, weak, and blind; Ambition ruins all mankind. Yet could I there two days have spent, While still the autumn sweetly shone, Ah me! I might have died content When I had looked on Carcassonne, When I had looked on Carcassonne. Thy pardon, father, I beseech, |