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,

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
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.