The Poetical Works of Henry Kirk White : With a Memoir by Sir Harris NicolasWhite, Henry Kirke
General
The Poetical Works of Henry Kirk White : With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas
White, Henry Kirke
Poetry
Come, Anna! come, and bring thy lute,
That with its tones, so softly sweet,
In cadence with my mellow flute,
We may beguile the noontide heat;
While near the mellow bee shall join,
To raise a harmony divine.
And then at eve, when silence reigns,
Except when heard the beetle's hum,
We'll leave the sober tinted plains,
To these sweet heights again we'll come;
And thou to thy soft lute shalt play
A solemn vesper to departing day.
MELODY.
Yes, once more that dying strain,
Anna, touch thy lute for me;
Sweet, when pity's tones complain,
Doubly sweet is melody.
While the Virtues thus enweave
Mildly soft the thrilling song,
Winter's long and lonesome eve
Glides unfelt, unseen, along.
Thus when life hath stolen away,
And the wintry night is near,
Thus shall virtue's friendly ray
Age's closing evening, cheer.
SONG.
BY WALLER.
A Lady of Cambridge lent Waller's Poems to the Author, and
when he returned them to her, she discovered an additional
stanza written by him at the bottom of the song here copied.
Go, lovely rose!
Tell her, that wastes her time on me,
That now she knows,
When I resemble her to thee,
How sweet and fair she seems to be.
Tell her that's young,
And shuns to have her graces spied,
That hadst thou sprung
In deserts, where no men abide,
Thou must have uncommended died.
Small is the worth
Of beauty from the light retired,
Bid her come forth,
Suffer herself to be desired,
And not blush so to be admired.
Then die, that she
The common fate of all things rare
May read in thee;
How small a part of time they share,
That are so wondrous sweet and fair.
[Yet, though thou fade,
From thy dead leaves let fragrance rise;
And teach the maid
That Goodness Time's rude hand defies,
That Virtue lives when Beauty dies.
H. K. WHITE.]
THE WANDERING BOY.
A SONG.
When the winter wind whistles along the wild moor,
And the cottager shuts on the beggar his door;
When the chilling tear stands in my comfortless eye,
Oh, how hard is the lot of the Wandering Boy.
The winter is cold, and I have no vest,
And my heart it is cold as it beats in my breast;
No father, no mother, no kindred have I,
For I am a parentless Wandering Boy.
Yet I had a home, and I once had a sire,
A mother who granted each infant desire;
Our cottage it stood in a wood-embower'd vale,
Where the ringdove would warble its sorrowful tale.
But my father and mother were summoned away,
And they left me to hard-hearted strangers a prey;
I fled from their rigour with many a sigh,
And now I'm a poor little Wandering Boy.
The wind it is keen, and the snow loads the gale,
And no one will list to my innocent tale;
I'll go to the grave where my parents both lie,
And death shall befriend the poor Wandering Boy.
CANZONET.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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