Golden Numbers Part 34

_So Sweet Is She_

Have you seen but a bright lily grow, Before rude hands have touched it?

Have you marked but the fall of the snow, Before the soil hath s.m.u.tched it?

Have you felt the wool of the beaver?

Or swan's down ever?

Or have smelt o' the bud of the brier?

Or the nard i' the fire?

Or have tasted the bag of the bee?

Oh, so white! oh, so soft! oh, so sweet, is she!

BEN JONSON.

_From "The Triumph of Charis."_

_I Love My Jean_

Of a' the airts the wind can blaw, I dearly like the west, For there the bonnie la.s.sie lives, The la.s.sie I lo'e best; There wild woods grow, and rivers row, And monie a hill between; But day and night my fancy's flight Is ever wi' my Jean.

I see her in the dewy flowers, I see her sweet and fair; I hear her in the tunefu' birds, I hear her charm the air: There's not a bonnie flower that springs By fountain, shaw, or green; There's not a bonnie bird that sings, But minds me o' my Jean.

ROBERT BURNS.

_My Nannie's Awa'_

Now in her green mantle blythe nature arrays, An' listens the lambkins that bleat o'er the braes, While birds warble welcome in ilka green shaw; But to me it's delightless--my Nannie's awa'.

The snaw-drap an' primrose our woodlands adorn, An' violets bathe in the weet o' the morn; They pain my sad bosom, sae sweetly they blaw, They mind me o' Nannie--an' Nannie's awa'.

Thou lav'rock that springs frae the dews of the lawn, The shepherd to warn o' the gray-breaking dawn, An' thou mellow mavis that hails the night-fa', Give over for pity--my Nannie's awa'.

Come, autumn, sae pensive, in yellow an' gray, An' soothe me wi' tidings o' nature's decay; The dark, dreary winter, an' wild-driving snaw, Alane can delight me--now Nannie's awa'.

ROBERT BURNS.

INTERLEAVES

_The World of Waters_

"The sea has the sun for a harper." She has also among her myriad worshippers Swinburne, the poet-harpist, who sweeps all the strings of his n.o.ble instrument in her praise.

There can be no worthier introduction to a group of sea-poems than lines "all gold seven times refined," selected almost at random from a great poet whom you will be glad to read later on.

_"Green earth has her sons and her daughters, And these have their guerdons; but we Are the wind's and the sun's and the water's, Elect of the sea."_

_"She is pure as the wind and the sun, And her sweetness endureth forever."_

_"For the wind, with his wings half open, at pause in the sky, neither fettered nor free, Leans waveward and flutters the ripple to laughter!"_

_"But for hours upon hours As a thrall she remains Spell-bound as with flowers And content in their chains, And her loud steeds fret not, and lift not a lock of their deep white manes."_

_"And all the rippling green grew royal gold Between him and the far sun's rising rim."_

_"Where the horn of the headland is sharper And her green floor glitters with fire, The sea has the sun for a harper, The sun has the sea for a lyre."_

_"The waves are a pavement of amber, By the feet of the sea-winds trod, To receive in a G.o.d's presence-chamber Our father, the G.o.d."_

IX

THE WORLD OF WATERS

_To the Ocean_

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean--roll!

Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain; Man marks the earth with ruin--his control Stops with the sh.o.r.e;--upon the watery plain The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain A shadow of man's ravage, save his own, When for a moment, like a drop of rain, He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, Without a grave, unknell'd, uncoffin'd and unknown.

His steps are not upon thy paths--thy fields Are not a spoil for him--thou dost arise And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields For earth's destruction thou dost all despise, Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies, And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray, And howling, to his G.o.ds, where haply lies His petty hope in some near port or bay, And dashest him again to earth--there let him lay.

The armaments which thunderstrike the walls Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake, And monarchs tremble in their capitals, The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make Their clay creator the vain t.i.tle take Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war; These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake, They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar Alike the Armada's pride, or spoils of Trafalgar.

Thy sh.o.r.es are empires, changed in all save thee-- a.s.syria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they?

Thy waters wasted them while they were free, And many a tyrant since: their sh.o.r.es obey The stranger, slave or savage; their decay Has dried up realms to deserts--not so thou.

Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play-- Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow-- Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now.

Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form Gla.s.ses itself in tempests: in all time, Calm or convulsed--in breeze, or gale, or storm, Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime Dark-heaving;--boundless, endless, and sublime-- The image of Eternity--the throne Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime The monsters of the deep are made; each zone Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.

GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON.

_From "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage."_

_A Life on the Ocean Wave_[14]

A life on the ocean wave, A home on the rolling deep, Where the scattered waters rave, And the winds their revels keep!

Like an eagle caged I pine On this dull unchanging sh.o.r.e: Oh! give me the flashing brine, The spray and the tempest's roar!

Once more on the deck I stand Of my own swift-gliding craft: Set sail! farewell to the land!

The gale follows fair abaft.