It seems so like my own

Because of the fasts I keep;

O God! that bread should be so dear,
And flesh and blood so cheap!

"Work-work-work!

My labor never flags;

And what are its wages? A bed of straw,

A crust of bread-and rags.

That shattered roof—and this naked floor

A table-a broken chair

And a wall so blank my shadow I thank
For sometimes falling there!

"Work-work-work

From weary chime to chime! Work-work-work

As prisoners work for crime! Band, and gusset, and seam,

Seam, and gusset, and band,

Till the heart is sick and the brain benumbed, As well as the weary hand.

"Work-work-work

In the dull December light!

And work-work-work

When the weather is warm and bright!

While underneath the eaves

The brooding swallows cling,

As if to show me their sunny backs,

And twit me with the Spring.

"Oh but to breathe the breath

Of the cowslip and primrose sweet,—

With the sky above my head,

And the grass beneath my feet!

For only one short hour

To feel as I used to feel,

Before I knew the woes of want

And the walk that costs a meal!

Ah! would 'twere so with many

A gentle girl and boy!
But were there ever any
Writhed not at passèd joy?
To know the change and feel it,
When there is none to heal it,
Nor numbed sense to steal it,

Was never said in rhyme.

John Keats [1795-1821]

THE DEAD FAITH

SHE made a little shadow-hidden grave

The day Faith died;

Therein she laid it, heard the clod's sick fall,

And smiled aside

"If less I ask," tear-blind, she mocked, "I may

Be less denied."

She set a rose to blossom in her hair,

The day Faith died

"Now glad," she said, "and free at last, I go,

And life is wide."

But through long nights she stared into the dark,

And knew she lied.

Fannie Heaslip Lea [18

THE BALLAD OF THE BOAT

THE stream was smooth as glass, we said, "Arise and let's away":

The Siren sang beside the boat that in the rushes lay;

And spread the sail, and strong the oar, we gaily took our

way.

When shall the sandy bar be crossed?

the bay?

When shall we find

The broadening flood swells slowly out o'er cattle-dotted

plains,

The stream is strong and turbulent, and dark with heavy

rains;

speed away.

When shall we find

uds; the sun, superbly

e sinks flaming at their

d light as jacinths on our

sed? When shall we find

now RO more we see

nk, and surging distantly

s of breakers far away. ossed, now shall we find the

head, and dimly to our sight waves gleam towering through

d soon, and start her from her

crossed, and we are in the bay.

as a shroud-enfolded ghost?
ult bursts in clangor on the coast?
he raging flood sweeps every oar

of sand? O boat, is this the bay?
Richard Garnett [1835-1906]

noen bild bobook

ELDORADO sai

ILY bedight,

gallant knight

shine and in shadow ad journeyed long, inging a song, bomo arch of Eldorado.mo

But he grew old

This knight so bold

And o'er his heart a shadow
Fell, as he found

No spot of ground
That looked like Eldorado.

And, as his strength Failed him at length, He met a pilgrim shadow: "Shadow," said he,

"Where can it be

This land of Eldorado?"

"Over the mountains

Of the moon,

Down the valley of the Shadow

Ride, boldly ride,"

The shade replied,

"If you seek for Eldorado!"

Edgar Allan Poe [1809-1849]

A LOST CHORD

SEATED one day at the Organ,
I was weary and ill at ease,
And my fingers wandered idly
Over the noisy keys.

I do not know what I was playing,
Or what I was dreaming then;
But I struck one chord of music,
Like the sound of a great Amen.

It flooded the crimson twilight,

Like the close of an Angel's Psalm, And it lay on my fevered spirit. With a touch of infinite calm.

It quieted pain and sorrow,

Like love overcoming strife; It seemed the harmonious echo From our discordant life.