A linnet in a gilded cage,— A linnet on a bough,— In frosty winter one might doubt Which bird is luckier now. But let the trees burst out in lea…
Before the winter morn, Before the earliest cock crow, Jesus Christ was born: Born in a stable, Cradled in a manger,
She sat and sang alway By the green margin of a stream, Watching the fishes leap and play Beneath the glad sunbeam. I sat and wept alway
The year stood at its equinox And bluff the North was blowing, A bleat of lambs came from the flo… Green hardy things were growing; I met a maid with shining locks
Why were you born when the snow wa… You should have come to the cuckoo… Or when grapes are green in the cl… Or, at least, when lithe swallows… For their far off flying
I dug and dug amongst the snow, And thought the flowers would neve… I dug and dug amongst the sand, And still no green thing came to h… Melt, O snow! the warm winds blow
I had a love in soft south land, Beloved through April far in May; He waited on my lightest breath, And never dared to say me nay. He saddened if my cheer was sad,
I wish you were a pleasant wren, And I your small accepted mate; How we’d look down on toilsome men… We’d rise and go to bed at eight Or it may be not quite so late.
Ah! changed and cold, how changed… With stiffened smiling lips and co… Changed, yet the same; much knowin… This was the promise of the days o… Grown hard and stubborn in the anc…
Seldom ‘can’t,’ Seldom ‘don’t’; Never ‘shan’t,’ Never ‘won’t.’
Dead in the cold, a song—singing t… Dead at the foot of a snowberry bu… Weave him a coffin of rush, Dig him a grave where the soft mos… Raise him a tombstone of snow.
Blind from my birth, Where flowers are springing I sit on earth All dark. Hark! hark!
A motherless soft lambkin Along upon a hill; No mother’s fleece to shelter him And wrap him from the cold: — I’ll run to him and comfort him,
I said of laughter: it is vain. Of mirth I said: what profits it? Therefore I found a book, and wri… Therein how ease and also pain, How health and sickness, every one
Heartsease in my garden bed, With sweetwilliam white and red, Honeysuckle on my wall: — Heartsease blossoms in my heart When sweet William comes to call,