THE INDIAN SERENADE I arise from dreams of thee The wandering airs they faint O beloved as thou art! O lift me from the grass! On my lips and eyelids pale. My cheek is cold and white, alas! My heart beats loud and fast; O! press it close to thine again, Percy Bysshe Shelley Oliver Wendell Holmes, Died 1894 October the Seventh GREEN GROW THE RASHES O! Green grow the rashes O, Green grow the rashes O; The sweetest hours that e'er I spend There's naught but care on ev'ry han', An' 't were na for the lasses O? The war'ly race may riches chase, Gie me a canny hour at e'en, For you sae douce, ye sneer at this; Auld Nature swears, the lovely dears Robert Burns CUPID SWALLOWED T'other day, as I was twining The tiny traitor, - Love himself! By the wings I pinched him up Like a bee, and in a cup Of my wine I plunged and sank him; And what d'ye think I did?—I drank him! Faith, I thought him dead. Not he! There he lives with tenfold glee; Leigh Hunt KISSING HER HAIR Kissing her hair, I sat against her feet: wound, and found it sweet; Made fast therewith her hands, drew down her eyes, Deep as deep flowers, and dreamy like dim skies; With her own tresses bound, and found her fair, – Kissing her hair. Sleep were no sweeter than her face to me, What pain could get between my face and hers? Algernon Charles Swinburne ADVICE TO A GIRL Never love unless you can Men, that but one Saint adore, Men, when their affairs require, If these and such-like you can bear, Then like, and love, and never fear! Thomas Campion ABSENCE When I think on the happy days How slow ye move, ye heavy hours, It was na sae ye glinted by Anon LULLABY Sweet and low, sweet and low, Wind of the western sea! Come from the dying moon, and blow, While my little one, while my pretty one, sleeps. Sleep and rest, sleep and rest, Rest, rest, on mother's breast, Father will come to thee soon; Father will come to his babe in the nest, Silver sails all out of the west Under the silver moon: Sleep, my little one, sleep, my pretty one, sleep. Alfred Tennyson "BREAK, BREAK, BREAK" Break, break, break, On thy cold gray stones, O Sea! And I would that my tongue could utter O well for the fisherman's boy, That he shouts with his sister at play! O 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 O for the touch of a vanish'd hand, Break, break, break, At the foot of thy crags, O Sea! But the tender grace of a day that is dead Alfred Tennyson |