Your origin know,
Ere ye forth
As false spies
Into the Land of the Danes
Farther fare. 
Now, ye dwellers afar-off! 
Ye sailors of the sea! 
Listen to my
One-fold thought. 
Quickest is best
To make known
Whence your coming may be.”

THE SOUL’S COMPLAINT AGAINST THE BODY

FROM THE ANGLO-SAXON

Much it behoveth
Each one of mortals,
That he his soul’s journey
In himself ponder,
How deep it may be. 
When Death cometh,
The bonds he breaketh
By which were united
The soul and the body.

Long it is thenceforth
Ere the soul taketh
From God himself
Its woe or its weal;
As in the world erst,
Even in its earth-vessel,
It wrought before.

The soul shall come
Wailing with loud voice,
After a sennight,
The soul, to find
The body
That it erst dwelt in;—­
Three hundred winters,
Unless ere that worketh
The Eternal Lord,
The Almighty God,
The end of the world.

Crieth then, so care-worn,
With cold utterance,
And speaketh grimly,
The ghost to the dust: 
“Dry dust! thou dreary one! 
How little didst thou labor for me! 
In the foulness of earth
Thou all wearest away
Like to the loam! 
Little didst thou think
How thy soul’s journey
Would be thereafter,
When from the body
It should be led forth.”

FROM THE FRENCH

SONG

FROM THE PARADISE OF LOVE

Hark! hark! 
Pretty lark! 
Little heedest thou my pain! 
But if to these longing arms
Pitying Love would yield the charms
Of the fair
With smiling air,
Blithe would beat my heart again.

Hark! hark! 
Pretty lark! 
Little heedest thou my pain! 
Love may force me still to bear,
While he lists, consuming care;
But in anguish
Though I languish,
Faithful shall my heart remain.

Hark! hark! 
Pretty lark! 
Little heedest thou my pain! 
Then cease, Love, to torment me so;
But rather than all thoughts forego
Of the fair
With flaxen hair,
Give me back her frowns again.

Hark! hark! 
Pretty lark! 
Little heedest thou my pain!

SONG

And whither goest thou, gentle sigh,
  Breathed so softly in my ear? 
  Say, dost thou bear his fate severe
To Love’s poor martyr doomed to die? 
Come, tell me quickly,—­do not lie;
  What secret message bring’st thou here? 
And whither goest thou, gentle sigh,
  Breathed so softly in my ear? 
May heaven conduct thee to thy will
  And safely speed thee on thy way;
  This only I would humbly pray,—­
Pierce deep,—­but oh! forbear to kill. 
And whither goest thou, gentle sigh,
  Breathed so softly in my ear?