New songs of innocence :: :: University of Virginia Library

The pines, like a Roman legion,
March up the mountain side
To the bleak and barren region
Where the drooping birks abide.
Each birk is a gleaming fountain
Of unavailing tears;
The pines will carry the mountain,
Like the Romans in bygone years.

Don't look so sad, my Willie;
Though Poesy be driven
From her perch on earth most hilly,
She has all the scope of heaven.
She has wings that well can bear her
O'er the mounting flood of Prose;
In our ark, too, we could spare her
A chamber, if she chose.

Why are your eyes so troubled?
Here comes your joy and mine,
Who all our joy has doubled—
As straight as a mountain pine.
Like a conqueror he advances;
Like a drooping birk are you—
There will never be hostile glances,
I hope, between you two.

My Celt, with the grace of motion
In your supple limbs that lies;
With the passion and pain of ocean
In the depths of your great grey eyes;
And you, little sturdy Roman,
Or Saxon, or what you will,
With your front to friend or foeman,
And your mind unchanging still—

Which will better face the dangers
Of the pilgrimage of life?
The thrusts of unmeaning strangers,
The throes of inward strife?
I ask not which will achieve most
Of what men call success;
In happiness I believe most,
And a love that grows not less.

My sons, could I unravel
The skein of Time for you—
How far these feet must travel,
How much these hands must do—
I might weep for the pain and sorrow
My little ones must endure;
But I look to a kinder morrow
The wounds of earth to cure!