JOHN ANDERSON, MY JO

J

OHN ANDERSON, my jo,

John,

When we were first acquent,

Your locks were like the

raven,

Your bonnie brow was brent. But now your brow is beld, John, Your locks are like the snaw; But blessings on your frosty pow, John Anderson, my jo.

John Anderson, my jo, John,

We clamb the hill thegither;
And mony a canty day, John,
We've had wi' ane anither:
Now we maun totter down, John,
But hand in hand we'll go;
And sleep thegither at the foot,
John Anderson, my jo.

-Robert Burns.

L

LIFE

IFE we've been long to

gether

Through pleasant and through cloudy weather;

'Tis hard to part when friends

are dear

Perhaps 'twill cost a sigh, a tear;

Then steal away, give little warning, Choose thine own time;

Say not Good - Night, but in some brighter clime

Bid me Good-Morning.

-Anna Letitia Barbauld.

I

SONG OF THE BROOK

COME from haunts of coot
and hern:

I make a sudden sally
And sparkle out among the

fern,

To bicker down a valley.

By thirty hills I hurry down,
Or slip between the ridges,
By twenty thorps, a little town,
And half a hundred bridges.

Till last by Philip's farm I flow
To join the brimming river;
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.

I chatter over stony ways,
In little sharps and trebles;
I bubble into eddying bays,
I babble on the pebbles.

With many a curve my banks I fret
By many a field and fallow,

And many a fairy foreland set

With willow-weed and mallow.

I chatter, chatter, as I flow

To join the brimming river; For men may come and men may go, But I go on forever.

I wind about, and in and out,
With here a blossom sailing,
And here and there a lusty trout,
And here and there a grayling,

And here and there a foamy flake
Upon me, as I travel

With many a silvery waterbreak
Above the golden gravel,

And draw them all along, and flow
To join the brimming river;
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.

I steal by lawns and grassy plots:
I slide by hazel covers;

I move the sweet forget-me-nots
That grow for happy lovers.

I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance,
Among my skimming swallows;
I make the netted sunbeam dance
Against my sandy shallows.

I murmur under moon and stars
In brambly wildernesses;
I linger by my shingly bars,
I loiter round my cresses;

And out again I curve and flow
To join the brimming river,

For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.

-Alfred, Lord Tennyson.