SAILORS' SONG-CARCASSONNE
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
Shall billowy cleave its sunny way,
And with its shadow, fleet and dark,
Break the caved Tritons' azure day,
Like mighty eagle soaring light
O'er antelopes on Alpine height.
The anchor heaves, the ship swings free,
The sails swell full. To sea, to sea!
Thomas Lovell Beddoes.
I'm growing old, I've sixty years;
I've labored all my life in vain :
In all that time of hopes and fears
I've failed my dearest wish to gain.
I see full well that here below
Bliss unalloyed there is for none,
My prayer will ne'er fulfillment know, -
I never have seen Carcassonne,
I never have seen Carcassonne.
You see the city from the hill,
It lies beyond the mountains blue;
And yet to reach it one must still
Five long and weary leagues pursue,
And, to return, as many more.
Ah! had the vintage plenteous grown!
The grape withheld its yellow store:
I shall not look on Carcassonne,
I shall not look on Carcassonne.
They tell me every day is there
No more nor less than Sunday gay;
In shining jewels and garments fair
The people walk upon their way.
One gazes there on castle walls
As grand as those of Babylon,
A bishop, and two generals:
I do not know fair Carcassonne,
I do not know fair Carcassonne.
The curé's right; he says that we
Are ever wayward, weak, and blind;
He tells us in his homily
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,
In this my prayer if I offend;
One sometimes sees beyond his reach,
From childhood to his journey's end.
My wife, our little boy, Aignan,
Have traveled even to Narbonne ;
My grandchild has seen Perpignan,
And I have not seen Carcassonne,
And I have not seen Carcassonne.
So crooned, one day, close by Limoux,
A peasant, double bent with age.
"Rise up, my friend," said I; "with you
I'll go upon this pilgrimage."
We left next morning his abode,
But (Heaven forgive me!) half way on
The old man died upon the road;
He never gazed on Carcassonne.
Each mortal has his Carcassonne.
From the French of Gustave Nadaud.
I HAVE got a new-born sister;
I was nigh the first that kissed her.
When the nursing-woman brought her
To Papa, his infant daughter,
How Papa's dear eyes did glisten!
She will shortly be to christen;
And Papa has made the offer
I shall have the naming of her.
Now I wonder what would please her,
Charlotte, Julia, or Louisa?
Ann and Mary, they 're too common;
Joan's too formal for a woman;
Jane's a prettier name beside,
But we had a Jane that died.
They would say, if 't was Rebecca,
That she was a little Quaker.
Edith 's pretty, but that looks
Better in old English books;
Ellen 's left off long ago;
Blanche is out of fashion now.
None that I have named as yet
Are so good as Margaret.
Emily is neat and fine;
What do you think of Caroline ?
How I'm puzzled and perplexed
What to choose or think of next!
I am in a little fever
Lest the name that I should give her
Should disgrace her or defame her;
I will leave Papa to name her.
IN the old days (a custom laid aside
With breeches and cocked hats) the people sent
Their wisest men to make the public laws.
And so, from a brown homestead, where the Sound
Drinks the small tribute of the Mianas,
Waved over by the woods of Rippowams,
And hallowed by pure lives and tranquil deaths,
Stamford sent up to the councils of the State
Wisdom and grace in Abraham Davenport.
'T was on a May-day of the far old year
Seventeen hundred eighty, that there fell
Over the bloom and sweet life of the spring,
Over the fresh earth and the heaven of noon,
A horror of great darkness, like the night
In day of which the Norland sagas tell,
The Twilight of the Gods. The low-hung sky Was black with ominous clouds, save where its rim Was fringed with a dull glow, like that which climbs
The crater's sides from the red hell below.
Birds ceased to sing, and all the barn-yard fowls Roosted; the cattle at the pasture bars
Lowed, and looked homeward; bats on leathern wings
Flitted abroad; the sounds of labor died;
Men prayed, and women wept ; all ears grew sharp
To hear the doom-blast of the trumpet shatter
The black sky, that the dreadful face of Christ
Might look from the rent clouds, not as He looked
A loving guest at Bethany, but stern
As Justice and inexorable Law.
Meanwhile in the old State House, dim as ghosts, Sat the lawgivers of Connecticut,
Trembling beneath their legislative robes.
"It is the Lord's Great Day! Let us adjourn,"
Some said; and then, as if with one accord,
All eyes were turned to Abraham Davenport.
He rose, slow cleaving with his steady voice.
The intolerable hush. "This well may be
The Day of Judgment which the world awaits;
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