“A LITTLE while, a little while,The weary task is put away,And I can sing and I can smile,Alike, while I have holiday.Where wilt thou go, my harassed heart--What thought, what scene invites thee nowWhat spot, or near or far apart,Has rest for thee, my weary brow?There is a spot, 'mid barren hills,Where winter howls, and driving rain;But, if the dreary tempest chills,There is a light that warms again.The house is old, the trees are bare,Moonless above bends twilight's dome;But what on earth is half so dear--So longed for--as the hearth of home?The mute bird sitting on the stone,The dank moss dripping from the wall,The thorn-trees gaunt, the walks o'ergrown,I love them--how I love them all!Still, as I mused, the naked room,The alien firelight died away;And from the midst of cheerless gloom,I passed to bright, unclouded day.A little and a lone green laneThat opened on a common wide;A distant, dreamy, dim blue chainOf mountains circling every side.A heaven so clear, an earth so calm,So sweet, so soft, so hushed an air;And, deepening still the dream-like charm,Wild moor-sheep feeding everywhere.THAT was the scene, I knew it well;I knew the turfy pathway's sweep,That, winding o'er each billowy swell,Marked out the tracks of wandering sheep.Could I have lingered but an hour,It well had paid a week of toil;But Truth has banished Fancy's power:Restraint and heavy task recoil.Even as I stood with raptured eye,Absorbed in bliss so deep and dear,My hour of rest had fleeted by,And back came labour, bondage, care.”

“I went to the springs while the sun was still up, and sitting on a rocky outcrop above the cave mouth I watched the light grow reddish across the misty pools, and listened to the troubled voice of the water. After a while I moved farther up the hill, where I could hear birds singing near and far in the silence of the trees. The presence of the trees was very strong...The big oaks stood so many, so massive in their other life, in their deep, rooted silence: the awe of them came on me, the religion.”

“What is it that sometimes speaks in the soul so calmly, so clearly, that its earthly time is short? Is it the secret instinct of decaying nature, or the soul's impulsive throb, as immortality draws on? Be what it may, it rested in the heart of Eva, a calm, sweet, prophetic certainty that Heaven was near; calm as the light of sunset, sweet as the bright stillness of autumn, there her little heart reposed, only troubled by sorrow for those who loved her so dearly.”

“My love is like a red, red rose That's newly sprung in June: My love is like the melody That's sweetly played in tune. How fair art thou, my bonnie lass, So deep in love am I; And I will love thee still, my dear, Till all the seas gang dry. Till all the seas gang dry, my dear, And the rocks melt with the sun;I will love thee still, my dear, While the sands of life shall run. And fare thee weel, my only love. And fare thee weel awhile! And I will come again, my love, Though it were ten thousand mile.”

“And now, as I close my task, subduing my desire to linger yet, these faces fade away. But one face, shining on me like a Heavenly light by which I see all other objects, is above them and beyond them all. And that remains.I turn my head, and see it, in its beautiful serenity, beside me.My lamp burns low, and I have written far into the night; but the dear presence, without which I were nothing, bears me company.O Agnes, O my soul, so may thy face be by me when I close my life indeed; so may I, when realities are melting from me, like the shadows which I now dismiss, still find thee near me, pointing upward!”

“My dear, I could hardly keep still in my chair. I wanted to dash out of the house and leap in a taxi and say, "Take me to Charles's unhealthy pictures." Well, I went, but the gallery after luncheon was so full of absurd women in the sort of hats they should be made to eat, that I rested a little--I rested here with Cyril and Tom and these saucy boys. Then I came back at the unfashionable time of five o'clock, all agog, my dear; and what did I find? I found, my dear, a very naughty and very successful practical joke. It reminded me of dear Sebastian when he liked so much to dress up in false whiskers. It was charm again, my dear, simple, creamy English charm, playing tigers.”