HAME, HAME, HAME
HAME, hame, hame, O hame fain wad I be,
O, hame, hame, hame, to my ain countree!
When the flower is i' the bud and the leaf is on the tree, The larks shall sing me hame in my ain countree. Hame, hame, hame, O hame fain wad I be,
O hame, hame, hame, to my ain countree !
The green leaf o' loyaltie's beginning for to fa',
The bonnie white rose it is withering an' a';
But I'll water 't wi' the blude of usurping tyrannie,
An' green it will graw in my ain countree.
O, there's nocht now frae ruin my country can save,
But the keys o' kind heaven, to open the grave:
That a' the noble martyrs wha died for loyaltie,
May rise again an' fight for their ain countree.
The great now are gane, a' wha ventured to save,
The new grass is springing on the tap o' their grave;
But the sun thro' the mirk blinks blythe in my e'e,
'I'll shine on ye yet in your ain countree.'
Hame, hame, hame, O hame fain wad I be,
Hame, hame, hame, to my ain countree!
287. THE SUN RISES BRIGHT IN FRANCE
THE sun rises bright in France,
And fair sets he;
But he has tint the blythe blink he had
In my ain countree.
Oh, it's nae my ain ruin
That saddens ay my e'e,
But the dear Marie I left behin',
Wi' sweet bairnies three.
My lanely hearth burned bonnie,
And smiled my ain Marie ;
I've left a' my heart behin'
In my ain countree.
The bud comes back to summer,
And the blossom to the bee;
But I'll win back, oh, never,
To my ain countree.
Oh, I am leal to high Heaven,
Where soon I hope to be,
An' there I'll meet ye a' soon
Frae my ain countree!
288. CARE-CHARMER SLEEP
CARE-CHARMER Sleep, son of the sable Night,
Brother to Death, in silent darkness born,
Relieve my languish, and restore the light;
With dark forgetting of my care return.
And let the day be time enough to mourn
The shipwreck of my ill-adventured youth:
Let waking eyes suffice to wail their scorn,
Without the torment of the night's untruth.
Cease, dreams, the images of day-desires,
To model forth the passions of the morrow;
Never let rising Sun approve you liars
To add more grief to aggravate my sorrow:
Still let me sleep, embracing clouds in vain,
And never wake to feel the day's disdain.
289. LOVE IS A SICKNESS LOVE is a sickness full of woes, All remedies refusing;
A plant that with most cutting grows,
Most barren with best using.
Why so?
More we enjoy it, more it dies;
If not enjoyed, it sighing cries
Heigh-ho!
Love is a torment of the mind,
A tempest everlasting;
And Jove hath made it of a kind
Not well, nor full, nor fasting.
Why so?
More we enjoy it, more it dies;
If not enjoyed, it sighing cries
Heigh-ho!
S. DANIEL (Hymen's Triumph).
290. O BLESSED LETTERS
O BLESSED Letters! that combine in one
All ages past, and make one live with all.
By you we do confer with who are gone,
And the dead-living unto council call;
By you the unborn shall have communion
Of what we feel and what doth us befall.
What good is like to this, To do worthy the writing, and to write Worthy the reading, and the world's delight? S. DANIEL (Musophilus).
291. WHEN MEN SHALL FIND THY FLOWER, THY GLORY,
WHEN men shall find thy flower, thy glory, pass,
And thou with careful brow, sitting alone,
Received hast this message from thy glass,
That tells the truth and says that all is gone;
Fresh shalt thou see in me the wounds thou mad'st,
Though spent thy flame, in me the heat remaining:
I that have loved thee thus before thou fad'st-
My faith shall wax, when thou art in thy waning.
The world shall find this miracle in me,
That fire can burn when all the matter's spent:
Then what my faith hath been thyself shalt see,
And that thou wast unkind thou mayst repent.
Thou mayst repent that thou hast scorned my tears,
When Winter snows upon thy sable hairs.
A LITTLE cross
To tell my loss;
A little bed
To rest my head;
A little tear is all I crave
Upon my very little grave.
I strew thy bed,
Who loved thy lays,
The tear I shed,
The cross I raise,
With nothing more upon it than—
Here lies the little friend of man.
G. DARLEY.
293. IT IS NOT BEAUTY I DEMAND
IT is not Beauty I demand,
A crystal brow, the moon's despair,
Nor the snow's daughter, a white hand,
Nor mermaid's yellow pride of hair:
Tell me not of your starry eyes,
Your lips that seem on roses fed,
Your breasts where Cupid trembling lies,
Nor sleeps for kissing of his bed :-
A bloomy pair of vermeil cheeks
Like Hebe's in her ruddiest hours,
A breath that softer music speaks
Than summer winds a-wooing flowers.
These are but gauds: nay, what are lips?
Coral beneath the ocean-stream,
Whose brink when your adventurer sips
Full oft he perisheth on them.
And what are cheeks but ensigns oft
That wave hot youth to fields of blood?
Did Helen's breast, though ne'er so soft,
Do Greece or Ilium any good?
Give me, instead of Beauty's bust,
A tender heart, a loyal mind,
Which with temptation I could trust,
Yet never linked with error find.
294. WHEREFORE, UNLAURELLED BOY WHEREFORE, unlaurelled Boy,
Whom the contemptuous Muse will not inspire, With a sad kind of joy,
Still sing'st thou to thy solitary lyre?
The melancholy winds
Pour through unnumbered reeds their idle woes,
And every Naiad finds
A stream to weep her sorrow as it flows.
Her sighs unto the air
The wood-maid's native oak doth broadly tell, And Echo's fond despair
Intelligible rocks re-syllable.
Wherefore then should not I,
Albeit no haughty Muse my breast inspire,
Fated of grief to die,
Impart it to a solitary lyre?
HAIL, adamantine Steel! magnetic Lord!
King of the prow, the ploughshare, and the sword!
True to the pole, by thee the pilot guides
His steady helm amid the struggling tides;
Braves with broad sail the immeasurable sea,
Cleaves the dark air, and asks no star but thee.—
By thee the ploughshare rends the matted plain,
Inhumes in level rows the living grain;
Intrusive forests quit the cultured ground,
And Ceres laughs, with golden fillets crowned.-
O'er restless realms, when scowling discord flings
Her snakes, and loud the din of battle rings;
Expiring strength, and vanquished courage feel
Thy arm resistless, adamantine Steel!
E. DARWIN (The Botanic Garden).
296. THE PAPYRUS
PAPYRA, throned upon the banks of Nile,
Spread her smooth leaf, and waved her silver style.
The storied pyramid, the laurelled bust,
The trophied arch had crumbled into dust;
The sacred symbol, and the epic song
(Unknown the character, forgot the tongue),
With each unconquered chief, or sainted maid,
Sunk undistinguished in Oblivion's shade.
Sad o'er the scattered ruins Genius sighed,
And infant Arts but learned to lisp, and died,
Till to astonished realms Papyra taught
To paint in mystic colours sound and thought.
With Wisdom's voice to print the page sublime,
And mark in adamant the steps of Time.
E. DARWIN (The Botanic Garden).
297. THE SOLDIER GOING TO THE FIELD
PRESERVE thy sighs, unthrifty
But, first, I'll chide thy cruel theft :
Can I in war delight,
Thy tears to thread, instead of Who (being of my heart bereft)
On bracelets of thy hair.
The trumpet makes the echo hoarse,
And wakes the louder drum. Expense of grief gains no remorse, When sorrow should be dumb.
For I must go where lazy Peace
Will hide her drowsy head, And, for the sport of kings, increase
The number of the dead.
Can have no heart to fight?
Thou knowst, the sacred laws of
old
Ordained a thief should pay,
To quit him of his theft, sevenfold
What he had stolen away.
Thy payment shall but double be,
Ŏh then with speed resign
My own seduced heart to me,
Accompanied with thine.
SIR W. DAVENANT.
298. SHE NE'ER SAW COURTS, YET COURTS COULD
SHE ne'er saw courts, yet courts could have undone,
With untaught looks and an unpractised heart;
Her nets, the most prepared could never shun ;
For Nature spread them in the scorn of art.
She never had in busy cities been,
Ne'er warmed with hopes, nor e'er allayed with fears;
Not seeing punishment, could guess no sin;
And sin not seeing, ne'er had use of tears.
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