The Wreck of the Julie Plante
A LEGEND OF LAC ST. PIERRE
by William Henry Drummond (1854-1907)

On wan dark night on Lac St. Pierre,
      De win’ she blow, blow, blow,
An’ de crew of de wood scow “Julie Plante”
      Got scar’t an’ run below—
For de win’ she blow lak hurricane
      Bimeby she blow some more,
An’ de scow bus’ up on Lac St. Pierre
      Wan arpent from de shore.

De captinne walk on de fronte deck,
      An’ walk de hin’ deck too–
He call de crew from up de hole
      He call de cook also.
De cook she’s name was Rosie,
      She come from Montreal,
Was chambre maid on lumber barge,
      On de Grande Lachine Canal.

De win’ she blow from nor’-eas’-wes,’—a
      De sout’ win’ she blow too,
W’en Rosie cry “Mon cher captinne,
      Mon cher, w’at I shall do?”
Den de Captinne t’row de big ankerre,
      But still the scow she dreef,
De crew he can’t pass on de shore,
      Becos’ he los’ hees skeef.

De night was dark lak’ wan black cat,
      De wave run high an’ fas’,
W’en de captinne tak’ de Rosie girl
      An’ tie her to de mas’.
Den he also tak’ de life preserve,
      An’ jomp off on de lak’,
An’ say, “Good-bye, ma Rosie dear,
      I go drown for your sak’.”

Nex’ morning very early
      ’Bout ha’f-pas’ two–t’ree–four–
De captinne–scow–an’ de poor Rosie
      Was corpses on de shore,
For de win’ she blow lak’ hurricane
      Bimeby she blow some more,
An’ de scow bus’ up on Lac St. Pierre,
      Wan arpent from de shore.

Moral

Now all good wood scow sailor man
      Tak’ warning by dat storm
An’ go an’ marry some nice French girl
      An’ leev on wan beeg farm.
De win’ can blow lak’ hurricane
      An’ s’pose she blow some more,
You can’t get drown on Lac St. Pierre
      So long you stay on shore.

Views: 9

The New Colossus
by Emma Lazarus (1849-1887)

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Views: 22

“when god lets my body be”
by E.E. Cummings (1892-1969)

when god lets my body be

From each brave eye shall sprout a tree
fruit that dangles therefrom

the purpled world will dance upon
Between my lips which did sing

a rose shall beget the spring
that maidens whom passion wastes

will lay between their little breasts
My strong fingers beneath the snow

Into strenuous birds shall go
my love walking in the grass

their wings will touch with her face
and all the while shall my heart be

With the bulge and nuzzle of the sea

Views: 24

When the Frost Is on the Punkin
by James Whitcomb Riley (1849—1916)

When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock,
And you hear the kyouck and the gobble of the struttin’ turkey-cock,
And the clackin’; of the guineys and the cluckin’ of the hens
And the rooster’s hallylooyer as he tiptoes on the fence;
O it’s then the times a feller is a-feelin’ at his best,
With the risin’ sun to greet him from a night of peaceful rest,
As he leaves the house, bareheaded, and goes out to feed the stock,
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock.

They’s somethin kindo’ harty-like about the atmusfere
When the heat of summer’s over and the coolin’ fall is here —
Of course we miss the flowers, and the blossums on the trees
And the mumble of the hummin’-birds and buzzin’ of the bees;
But the air’s so appetizin’; and the landscape through the haze
Of a crisp and sunny morning of the airly autumn days
Is a pictur’ that no painter has the colorin’ to mock —
When the frost is on the punkin and fodder’s in the shock.

The husky, rusty russel of the tossels of the corn,
And the raspin’ of the tangled leaves, as golden as the morn;
The stubble in the furries — kindo’ lonesome-like, but still
A preachin’ sermons to us of the barns they growed to fill;
The strawstack in the medder, and the reaper in the shed;
The hosses in theyr stalls below — the clover overhead! —
O, it sets my hart a—clickin’ like the tickin’ of a clock,
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock!

Then your apples all is gethered, and the ones a feller keeps
Is poured around the celler-floor in red and yeller heaps;
And your cider-makin’s over, and your wimmern-folks is through
With their mince and apple-butter, and theyr souse and saussage, too!
I don’t know how to tell it — but if sich a thing could be
As the Angels wantin’ boardin’, and they’d call around on me —
I’d want to ‘commodate ’em — all the whole—indurin’ flock —
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock!

Views: 16

Thorp Green
by Branwell Brontë (1817-1848)

I sit, this evening, far away,
         From all I used to know,
And nought reminds my soul to-day
         Of happy long ago.

Unwelcome cares, unthought-of fears,
         Around my room arise;
I seek for suns of former years
         But clouds o’ercast my skies.

Yes–Memory, wherefore does thy voice
         Bring old times back to view,
As thou wouldst bid me not rejoice
         In thoughts and prospects new?

I’ll thank thee, Memory, in the hour
         When troubled thoughts are mine–
For thou, like suns in April’s shower,
         On shadowy scenes wilt shine.

I’ll thank thee when approaching death
         Would quench life’s feeble ember,
For thou wouldst even renew my breath
         With thy sweet word ‘Remember’!

Views: 20

A la Forest de Gastine
by Pierre de Ronsard (1524-1585)

Couché sous tes ombrages vers,
         Gastine, je te chante
Autant que les Grecs par leurs vers
         La forest d’Erymanthe.
Car malin, celer je ne puis
         A la race future
De combien obligé je suis
         A ta belle verdure:
Toy, qui sous l’abry de tes bois
         Ravy d’esprit m’amuses:
Toy, qui fais qu’à toutes les fois
         Me respondent les Muses:
Toy, par qui de ce mechant soin
         Tout franc je me délivre,
Lors qu’en toy je me pers bien loin.
         Parlant avec un livre.
Tes bocages soient tousjours pleins
         D’amoureuses brigades,
De Satyres et de Sylvains,
         La crainte des Naiades.
En toy habite désormais
         Des Muses le college,
Et ton bois ne sente jamais
         La flame sacrilège.

Views: 39

Hymn on Solitude
by James Thomson (1700-1748)

Hail, mildly pleasing Solitude,
Companion of the wise and good,
But from whose holy piercing eye
The herd of fools and villains fly.
Oh! how I love with thee to walk,
And listen to thy whispered talk,
Which innocence and truth imparts,
And melts the most obdurate hearts.
   A thousand shapes you wear with ease,
And still in every shape you please.
Now wrapt in some mysterious dream,
A lone philosopher you seem;
Now quick from hill to vale you fly,
And now you sweep the vaulted sky;
A shepherd next, you haunt the plain,
And warble forth your oaten strain;
A lover now, with all the grace
Of that sweet passion in your face;
Then, calmed to friendship, you assume
The gentle looking HERTFORD’s bloom,
As, with her MUSIDORA, she
(Her MUSIDORA fond of thee)
Amid the long-withdrawing vale
Awakes the rivalled nightingale.
   Thine is the balmy breath of morn,
Just as the dew-bent rose is born;
And, while meridian fervors beat,
Thine is the woodland dumb retreat;
But chief, when evening scenes decay
And the faint landscape swims away,
Thine is the doubtful soft decline,
And that best hour of musing thine.
   Descending angels bless thy train,
Thy virtues of the sage and swain—
Plain Innocence, in white arrayed,
Before thee lifts her fearless head;
Religion’s beams around thee shine
And cheer thy glooms with light divine;
About thee sports sweet Liberty,
And rapt Urania sings to thee.
   Oh, let me pierce thy secret cell,
And in thy deep recesses dwell!
Perhaps from Norwood’s oak-clad hill,
When Meditation has her fill,
I just may cast my careless eyes
Where London’s spiry turrets rise,
Think of its crimes, it cares, its pain,—
Then shield me in the woods again.

⁠

Views: 19

The Chimney Sweep
by William Blake (1757-1827)
because today is World Day Against Child Labor

When my mother died I was very young,
And my father sold me while yet my tongue
Could scarcely cry ‘ ‘weep! ‘weep! ‘weep! ‘weep!’
So your chimneys I sweep, and in soot I sleep.

There’s little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head,
That curl’d like a lamb’s back, was shav’d: so I said
‘Hush, Tom! never mind it, for when your head’s bare
You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair.’

And so he was quiet, and that very night,
As Tom was a-sleeping, he had such a sight!—
That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, and Jack,
Were all of them lock’d up in coffins of black.

And by came an Angel who had a bright key,
And he open’d the coffins & set them all free;
Then down a green plain leaping, laughing, they run
And wash in a river, and shine in the Sun.

Then naked & white, all their bags left behind,
They rise upon clouds, and sport in the wind;
And the Angel told Tom, if he’d be a good boy,
He’d have God for his father, & never want joy.

And so Tom awoke; and we rose in the dark,
And got with our bags & our brushes to work.
Tho’ the morning was cold, Tom was happy & warm;
So if all do their duty, they need not fear harm.

Views: 59

Simplex Munditiis
by Ben Jonson (1572-1637)

Still to be neat, still to be drest,
As you were going to a feast;
Still to be powder’d, still perfumed:
Lady, it is to be presumed,
Though art’s hid causes are not found,
All is not sweet, all is not sound.

Give me a look, give me a face
That makes simplicity a grace;
Robes loosely flowing, hair as free:
Such sweet neglect more taketh me
Than all th’ adulteries of art;
They strike mine eyes, but not my heart

Views: 47

Ode to a Nightingale
by John Keats (1795-1821)

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
   My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
   One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
‘Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
   But being too happy in thine happiness,—
      That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees
         In some melodious plot
   Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
      Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been
   Cool’d a long age in the deep-delved earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country green,
   Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!
O for a beaker full of the warm South,
   Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
      With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
         And purple-stained mouth;
   That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
      And with thee fade away into the forest dim:

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
   What thou among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret
   Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,
   Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
      Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
         And leaden-eyed despairs,
   Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
      Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.

Away! away! for I will fly to thee,
   Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
But on the viewless wings of Poesy,
   Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:
Already with thee! tender is the night,
   And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
      Cluster’d around by all her starry Fays;
         But here there is no light,
   Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown
      Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
   Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet
   Wherewith the seasonable month endows
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;
   White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
      Fast fading violets cover’d up in leaves;
         And mid-May’s eldest child,
   The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
      The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.

Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
   I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Call’d him soft names in many a mused rhyme,
   To take into the air my quiet breath;
      Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
   To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
      While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
         In such an ecstasy!
   Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain—
      To thy high requiem become a sod.

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
   No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
   In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
   Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
      She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
         The same that oft-times hath
   Charm’d magic casements, opening on the foam
      Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
   To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
   As she is fam’d to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
   Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
      Up the hill-side; and now ’tis buried deep
         In the next valley-glades:
   Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
      Fled is that music:—Do I wake or sleep?

Views: 25