Tlot-tlot, in the frosty silence! Tlot-tlot, in the echoing night!

Nearer he came and nearer! Her face was like a light! Her eyes grew wide for a moment! she drew one lat deep breath,

Then her finger moved in the moonlight,
Her musket shattered the moonlight,

Shattered her breast in the moonlight and warned himwith her death.

He turned; he spurred to the West; he did not know she stood

Bowed, with her head o'er the musket, drenched with her own red blood!

Not till the dawn he heard it, his face grew grey to hear How Bess, the landlord's daughter,

The landlord's black-eyed daughter, Had watched for her love in the moonlight, and died in the darkness there.

Back, he spurred like a madman, shrieking a curse to the sky,

With the white road smoking behind him and his rapier brandished high!

Blood-red were his spurs i' the golden noon; wine-red was his velvet coat,

When they shot him down on the highway,
Down like a dog on the highway,

And he lay in his blood on the highway, with the bunch of lace at his throat.

And still of a winter's night, they say, when the wind is in the trees,

When the moon is a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy

seas,

When the road is a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,

A highwayman comes riding,
Riding, riding,

A highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn-door.

Over the cobbles he clatters and clangs in the dark innyard;

He taps with his whip on the shutters, but all is locked and barred;

He whistles a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there

But the landlord's black-eyed daughter,

Bess, the landlord's daughter,

Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.

A Psalm of Life

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

(Born February 27, 1807; Died March 24, 1882)

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!—
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each tomorrow
Find us farther than today.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,

And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of life,

Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act, act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o'erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time.
Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.
Let us then be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.

Is there for honest poverty
That hings his head, and a' that?
The coward slave, we pass him by;
We dare be poor for a' that!
For a' that, and a' that,

Our toils obscure, and a' that;

The rank is but the guinea stamp-
The man's the gowd for a' that!
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What tho' on hamely fare we dine,

Wear hodden gray, and a' that?

Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine

A man's a man for a' that!

For a' that, and a' that,

Their tinsel show, and a' that;

The honest man, though e'er sae poor,

Is king o' men, for a' that!,

men, for a that c.Cor

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Ye see yon birkie ca'd a lord,

Wha struts, an' stares, an' a' that

Tho' hundreds worship at his word,
He's but a coof for a' that;
For a' that, and a' that,
. His riband, star, and a' that;
The man of independent mind,
He looks an' laughs at a' that.

A prince can mak a belted knight,
A marquis, duke, and a' that;

But an honest man's aboon his might—

Gude faith, he mauna fa' that!

For a' that, and a' that,

Their dignities, an' a' that;

The pith o' sense, and pride o' worth,

Are higher rank than a' that.

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Then let us pray that come it may,-
As come it will for a' that,-

That sense and worth, o'er a' the earth,

May bear the gree, an' a' that. prize, superion

For a' that, and a' that,

It's comin' yet, for a' that

That man to man, the warld o'er,
Shall brithers be for a' that.

X

Jest 'Fore Christmas

EUGENE FIELD

(Born September 3, 1850; Died November 4, 1895)

Father calls me William, sister calls me Will,
Mother calls me Willie, but the fellers call me Bill!
Mighty glad I ain't a girl-ruther be a boy,

Without them sashes, curls, an' things that's worn by
Fauntleroy!

Love to chawnk green apples an' go swimmin' in the
lake-

Hate to take the castor-ile they give for belly-ache!
'Most all the time, the whole year round, there ain't no
flies on me,

But jest 'fore Christmas I'm as good as I kin be!

Got a yeller dog named Sport, sick him on the cat;
First thing she knows she doesn't know where she is at!
Got a clipper sled, an' when us kids goes out to slide,
'Long comes the grocery cart, an' we all hook a ride!
But sometimes when the grocery man is worrited an'

cross,

He reaches at us with his whip, an' larrups up his hoss.
An' then I laff an' holler, "Oh, ye never teched me!"
But jest 'fore Christmas I'm as good as I kin be!

Gran'ma says she hopes that when I git to be a man,
I'll be a missionarer like her oldest brother, Dan,

As was et up by the cannibuls that live in Ceylon's Isle,
Where every prospeck pleases, an' only man is vile!
But gran'ma she has never been to see a Wild West show,
Nor read the life of Daniel Boone, or else I guess she'd
know

That Buff'lo Bill an' cowboys is good enough for me!
Excep' jest 'fore Christmas, when I'm as good as I kin be!

And then old Sport he hangs around, so solemn-like an' still,

His eyes they seem a-sayin': "What's the matter, little Bill?"

The old cat sneaks down off her perch an' wonders what's become

Of them two enemies of hern that used to make things hum!

But I am so perlite an' tend so earnestly to biz,

That mother says to father: "How improved our Willie is!"

But father, havin' been a boy hisself, suspicions me
When, jest 'fore Christmas, I'm as good as I kin be!

For Christmas, with its lots an' lots of candies, cakes, an' toys,

Was made, they say, for proper kids an' not for naughty

boys;

So wash yer face an' bresh yer hair, an' mind yer p's and q's,

And don't bust out yer pantaloons, and don't wear out yer shoes;

Say "Yessum" to the ladies, and "Yessur" to the men, An' when they's company, don't pass yer plate for pie again;

But, thinkin' of the things yer'd like to see upon that

tree,

Jest 'fore Christmas be as good as yer kin be!

From "The Poems of Eugene Field."

1911. Published by Charles Scribner's Sons