Verbal Expression

by
Harriet R. White

When sporgles spanned the floreate mead
And cogwogs gleet upon the lea,
Uffia gopped to meet her love
Who smeeged upon the equat sea.

Dately she walked aglost the sand;
The boreal wind seet in her face;
The moggling waves yalped at her feet;
Pangwangling was her pace.

by Horatio Alger, Jr.

“A victory! –a victory!”
  Is flashed across the wires;
Speed, speed the news from State to State,
  Light up the signal fires!
Let all the bells from all the towers
  A joyous peal ring out;
We’ve gained a glorious victory,
  And put the foe to rout!

A mother heard the chiming bells;
  Her joy was mixed with pain.
“Pray God,” she said, “my gallant boy
  Be not among the slain!”
Alas for her! that very hour
  Outstretched in death he lay,
The color from his fair, young face
  Had scarcely passed away.

His nerveless hand still grasped the sword.
  He never more might wield,
His eyes were sealed in dreamless sleep
  Upon that bloody field.
The chestnut curls his mother oft
  Had stroked in fondest pride,
Neglected hung ia clotted locks,
  With deepest crimson dyed.

Ah! many a mother’s heart shall ache,
  And bleed with anguish sore,
When tidings come of him who marched
  So blithely forth to war.
Oh! sad for them, the stricken down
  In manhood’s early dawn,
And sadder yet for loving hearts.
  God comfort them that mourn!

Yes, victory has a fearful price
  Our hearts may shrink to pay,
And tears will mingle with the joy
  That greets a glorious day.
But he who dies in freedom’s cause,
  We cannot count him lost;
A battle won for truth and right
  Is worth the blood it cost!

O mothers! count it something gained
  That they, for whom you mourn,
Bequeath fair Freedom’s heritage
  To millions yet unborn;–
And better than a thousand years
  Of base, ignoble breath,
A patriot’s fragrant memory,
  A hero’s early death!

by Walter de la Mare
“What voice is that I hear
  Crying across the pool?”
“It is the voice of Pan you hear,
Crying his sorceries shrill and clear,
  In the twilight dim and cool.”

 ”What song is it he sings,
  Echoing from afar;
While the sweet swallow bends her wings,
Filling the air with twitterings,
  Beneath the brightening star?”

The woodman answered me,
  His faggot on his back:–
“Seek not the face of Pan to see;
Flee from his clear note summoning thee
  To darkness deep and black!”

 ”He dwells in thickest shade,
  Piping his notes forlorn
Of sorrow never to be allayed;
Turn from his coverts sad
  Of twilight unto morn!”

The woodman passed away
  Along the forest path;
His ax shone keen and grey
In the last beams of day:
  And all was still as death:–

Only Pan singing sweet
  Out of Earth’s fragrant shade;
I dreamed his eyes to meet,
And found but shadow laid
  Before my tired feet.

Comes no more dawn to me,
  Nor bird of open skies.
Only his woods’ deep gloom I see
  Till, at the end of all, shall rise,
Afar and tranquilly,
Death’s stretching sea.

by Emily Dickinson

Within my reach!
I could have touched!
I might have chanced that way!
Soft sauntered through the village,
Sauntered as soft away!
So unsuspected violets
Within the fields lie low,
Too late for striving fingers
That passed, an hour ago.

by Robert Burns
    The wintry west extends his blast,
      And hail and rain does blaw;
    Or the stormy north sends driving forth
      The blinding sleet and snaw;
    While tumbling brown, the burn comes down,
      And roars frae bank to brae;
    And bird and beast in covert rest,
      And pass the heartless day.

    “The sweeping blast, the sky o’ercast,”
      The joyless winter day
    Let others fear, to me more dear
      Than all the pride of May:
    The tempest’s howl, it soothes my soul,
      My griefs it seems to join;
    The leafless trees my fancy please,
      Their fate resembles mine!

    Thou Power Supreme, whose mighty scheme
      These woes of mine fulfil,
    Here, firm, I rest, they must be best,
      Because they are Thy will!
    Then all I want (O, do thou grant
      This one request of mine!)
    Since to enjoy Thou dost deny,
      Assist me to resign!