Then some they rade, and some they ran, Out o'er the grass and bent; But ere the foremost could win up, And after the Gordon he is gane, Sae fast as he might dri'e; And soon i' the Gordon's foul heart's blood Unknown ARIEL'S SONGS WHERE the bee sucks, there suck I: There I couch when owls do cry: On the bat's back I do fly After summer merrily. Merrily, merrily, shall I live now, Under the blossom that hangs on the bough! COME unto these yellow sands, And then take hands: (The wild waves whist) Foot it featly here and there; And, sweet Sprites, the burthen bear. Hark, hark! Bow-wow. The watchdogs bark: Bow-wow. Hark, hark! I hear The strain of strutting chanticleer Shakespeare BREAK, BREAK, BREAK BREAK, break, break, On thy cold, gray stones, O Sea! Oh, well for the fisherman's boy, That he shouts with his sister at play! Oh, well for the sailor lad, That he sings in his boat on the bay! And the stately ships go on To their haven under the hill; But oh, for the touch of a vanished hand, Break, break, break, At the foot of thy crags, O Sea! But the tender grace of a day that is dead Will never come back to me. Alfred Tennyson. SHAMEFUL DEATH THERE were four of us about that bed; He did not die in the night, When neither sun nor moon was bright, He was not slain with the sword, Knight's axe, or the knightly spear, Yet spoke he never a word After he came in here; I cut away the cord From the neck of my brother dear. He did not strike one blow, For the recreants came behind, In a place where the hornbeams grow, A path right hard to find, For the hornbeam boughs swing so That the twilight makes it blind. They lighted a great torch then, When his arms were pinioned fast; I am threescore and ten, And my hair is all turned gray, And am glad to think of the moment when I am threescore and ten, And my strength is mostly passed, But long ago I and my men, When the sky was overcast, And the smoke rolled over the reeds of the fen, Slew Sir Guy of the Dolorous Blast. And now, knights, all of you, I pray you, pray for Sir Hugh, A good knight and a true, And for Alice, his wife, pray too. William Morris. TO A MOUNTAIN DAISY WEE, modest, crimson-tippèd flower, For I maun crush amang the stour To spare thee now is past my power, Alas! it's no thy neebor sweet, When upward springing, blythe, to greet Cauld blew the bitter-biting north Scarce reared above the parent earth The flaunting flowers our gardens yield O' clod or stane Adorns the histie stibble-field, There, in thy scanty mantle clad, But now the share uptears thy bed, Robert Burns. |