How could I look upon the day?

They should have stabbed me where I lay,

Oriana

They should have trod me into clay,

Oriana.

O! breaking heart that will not break,

Oriana;

O! pale, pale face so sweet and meek,

Oriana.

Thou smilest, but thou dost not speak,

And then the tears run down my cheek,

Oriana:

What wantest thou ? whom dost thou seek,

Oriana ?

I cry aloud: none hear my cries,

Oriana.

Thou comest atween me and the skies.

Oriana.

I feel the tears of blood arise

Up from my heart unto my eyes,

Oriana.

Within thy heart my arrow lies,

Oriana.

O cursed hand! oh cursed blow!

Oriana!

O happy thou that liest low,

Oriana!

All night the silence seems to flow

Beside me in my utter woe,

Oriana.

A weary, weary way I go,

Oriana.

When Norland winds pipe down the sea,

Oriana,

I walk, I dare not think of thee,

Oriana.

Thou liest beneath the greenwood tree,

I dare not die and come to thee,

Oriana.

I hear the roaring of the sea,

Oriana.

CIRCUMSTANCE.

Two children in two neighbor villages
Playing mad pranks along the heathy leas;
Two strangers meeting at a festival;
Two lovers whispering by an orchard wall;
Two lives bound fast in one with golden ease;
Two graves grass-green beside a gray church-tower,
Washed with still rains and daisy-blossomed;
Two children in one hamlet born and bred;
So runs the round of life from hour to hour.

THE MERMAN.

WHO would be

A merman bold

Sitting alone,

Singing alone

Under the sea,

With a crown of gold,

On a throne ?

I would be a merman bold;

I would sit and sing the whole of the day;
I would fill the sea-halls with a voice of power;
But at night I would roam abroad, and play
With the mermaids in and out of the rocks,
Dressing their hair with the white sea-flower;
And holding them back by their flowing locks,
I would kiss them often under the sea,
And kiss them again till they kissed me
Laughingly, laughingly;

And then we would wander away, away
To the pale-green sea-groves straight and high,
Chasing each other merrily.

There would be neither moon nor star;

But the wave would make music above us afar ー Low thunder and light in the magic night

Neither moon nor star.

We would call aloud in the dreamy dells,
Call to each other and whoop and cry

All night, merrily, merrily;

They would pelt me with starry spangles and shells, Laughing and clapping their hands between,

All night, merrily, merrily;

But I would throw them back in mine
Turkis and agate and almondine:
Then leaping out upon them unseen,
I would kiss them often under the sea,
And kiss them again till they kissed me
Laughingly, laughingly.
O! what a happy life were mine
Under the hollow-hung ocean green!
Soft are the moss-beds under the sea;
We would live merrily, merrily.