A Shadow Boat Naught she knows of sorrow, All her thoughts are white. Long time since I lost her, Now the darkness keeps her; I am dull and pain-worn, Oh, children, if you meet her, Send back my other Me! Grace Denio Litchfield [1849 A SHADOW BOAT UNDER my keel another boat Sails as I sail, floats as I float; Silent and dim and mystic still, It steals through that weird nether-world, The foam before its prow is curled, Vainly I peer, and fain would see What phantom in that boat may be Yet half I dread, lest I with ruth Some ghost of my dead past divine, Some gracious shape of my lost youth, Would draw me downward through the brine! Arlo Bates [1850 437 A LAD THAT IS GONE Sing me a song of a lad that is gone; Mull was astern, Rum on the port, Sing me a song of a lad that is gone; Give me again all that was there, Sing me a song of a lad that is gone; Billow and breeze, islands and seas, All that was good, all that was fair, All that was me is gone. Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894] CARCASSONNE * "I'm growing old, I've sixty years; I've failed my dearest wish to gain. *For the original of this poem see page 3844. Carcassonne I see full well that here below Bliss unalloyed there is for none; "You see the city from the hill, Had but the vintage plenteous grown— "They tell me every day is there Not more or less than Sunday gay; In shining robes 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! What joy to dwell in Carcassonne! "The vicar'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, Ah, me! I might have died content "Thy pardon, Father, I beseech, My wife, our little boy, Aignan, Have travelled even to Narbonne; My grandchild has seen Perpignan; And I have not seen Carcassonne!" 439 So crooned, one day, close by Limoux, We left, next morning, his abode, But (Heaven forgive him!) half-way on The old man died upon the road. He never gazed on Carcassonne. Translated by John R. Thompson from the French of Gustave Nadaud [1820- ? ] CHILDHOOD OLD Sorrow I shall meet again, And Joy, perchance-but never, never, And yet I would not call thee back, Dear Childhood, lest the sight of me, Thine old companion, on the rack THE WASTREL ONCE, when I was little, as the summer night was falling, Among the purple upland fields I lost my barefoot way; The road to home was hidden fast, and frightful shadows, crawling Along the sky-line, swallowed up the last kind light of day; And then I seemed to hear you In the twilight, and be near you; Seemed to hear your dear voice callingThrough the meadows, calling, calling And I followed and I found you, Flung my tired arms around you, And rested on the mother-breast, returned, tired out from play. Troia Fuit Down the days from that day, though I trod strange paths unheeding, Though I chased the jack-o'-lanterns of so many mad dened years, Though I never looked behind me, where the home-lights Though I never looked enough ahead to ken the Inn of Still I knew your heart was near me, That your ear was strained to hear me, I should run to you the faster And be sure that I was dearer for your sacrifice of tears. Now on life's last Summertime the long last dusk is falling, Night-passages that maze me with the ultimate dismay. I shall hear you, Mother, calling— I shall fight and follow--find you Though the grave-clothes swathe and bind you, And I know your love will answer: "Here's my laddie home from play!" Reginald Wright Kauffman [1877 TROIA FUIT THE world was wide when I was young, |