A Conversation We talked with open heart, and tongue Affectionate and true, A pair of friends, though I was young, And Matthew seventy-two. We lay beneath a spreading oak, Beside a mossy seat; And from the turf a fountain broke And gurgled at our feet. `Now, Matthew!' said I, `let us match This water's pleasant tune With some old border-song, or catch That suits a summer's noon; `Or of the church-clock and the chimes Sing here beneath the shade That half-mad thing of witty rhymes Which you last April made!' In silence Matthew lay, and eyed The spring ...

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My mother bore me in the southern wild, And I am black, but oh! my soul is white. White as an angel is the English child, But I am black as if bereaved of light. My mother taught me underneath a tree, And, sitting down before the heat of day, She took me on her lap and kissed me, And pointing to the east began to say: "Look on the rising sun, -there God does live And gives his light, and gives his heat away; And flowers and trees and ...

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I heard an Angel singing When the day was springing, "Mercy, Pity, Peace Is the world's release." Thus he sung all day Over the new mown hay, Till the sun went down And haycocks looked brown. I heard a Devil curse Over the heath and the furze, "Mercy could be no more, If there was nobody poor, And pity no more could be, If all were as happy as we." At his curse the sun went down, And the heavens gave a frown. Down pour'd the heavy rain Over the new reap'd grain ... And Miseries' increase Is Mercy, ...

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