And the gathered power of my soul was moving Spheres of silver and changing worlds: Above the battlements over Time! Edgar Lee Masters. 25 RICHARD CORY* WHENEVER Richard Cory went down town, And he was always quietly arrayed, And he was always human when he talked; But still he fluttered pulses when he said, "Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked. And he was rich,-yes, richer than a king,— 8 12 *From "The Children of the Night"; copyright, 1896, 1897, by Edwin Arlington Robinson; published by Charles Scribner's Sons. By permission of the publishers. So on we worked, and waited for the light, THE FIDDLER OF DOONEY WHEN I play on my fiddle in Dooney, I passed my brother and cousin: I read in my book of songs I bought at the Sligo fair. When we come at the end of time, He will smile on the three old spirits, For the good are always the merry, And the merry love the fiddle, And the merry love to dance: 16 And when the folk there spy me, They will all come up to me, With "Here is the fiddler of Dooney!" And dance like a wave of the sea. .20 W. B. Yeats. AN OLD WOMAN OF THE ROADS* O TO have a little house! To own the hearth and stool and all! The heaped up sods upon the fire, The pile of turf against the wall! To have a clock with weights and chains A dresser filled with shining delft, Speckled and white and blue and brown! 8 I could be busy all the day Clearing and sweeping hearth and floor, And fixing on their shelf again My white and blue and speckled store! 12 I could be quiet there at night The ticking clock and the shining delft! 16 Och! but I'm weary of mist and dark, And roads where there's never a house nor bush, *Used by permission of the author and his publishers, The Macmillan Company. And tired I am of bog and road, And the crying wind and the lonesome hush! 20 And I am praying to God on high, Padraic Colum. 24 SHE HEARS THE STORM THERE was a time in former years— I should have murmured anxiously, But now the fitful chimney-roar, The mud of Mellstock Leaze, The candle slanting sooty wick'd, The thuds upon the thatch, The eaves-drops on the window flicked, The clacking garden-hatch, 8 12 16 And what they mean to wayfarers, I scarcely heed or mind; He has won that storm-tight roof of hers Thomas Hardy. 20 "GRANDMITHER, THINK NOT I FORGET" GRANDMITHER, think not I forget, when I come back to town,. An' wander the old ways again, an' tread them up and down. I never smell the clover bloom, nor see the swallows pass, Wi'out I mind how good ye were unto a little lass; I never hear the winter rain a-pelting all night through Wi'out I think and mind me of how cold it falls on you. An' if I come not often to your bed beneath the thyme, Mayhap 't is that I'd change wi' ye, and gie my bed for thine, Would like to sleep in thine. I never hear the summer winds among the roses blow ΙΟ Wi'out I wonder why it was ye loved the lassie so. Ye gave me cakes and lollipops and pretty toys a score |