Works

Ye Bards in all your thousand dens,
Great souls with fewer pence than pens,
Sublime adorers of Apollo,
With folios full, and purses hollow;
Whose very souls with rapture glisten,...

Where the rails converge to the station yard
She stands one moment, breathing hard,

And then, with a snort and a clang of steel,
She settles her strength to the stubborn wheel,
...

The sextant of the meetinouse, which sweeps
And dusts, or is supposed too! and makes fiers,
And lites the gas and sometimes leaves a screw loose,
in which case it smells orful - worse than lampile;...

I knew that a baby was hid in the house;
Though I saw no cradle and heard no cry,
But the husband went tiptoeing round like a mouse,
And the good wife was humming a soft lullaby;...

All that a man can say of woman's charms,
Mine eyes have spoken and my lips have told
To you a thousand times. Your perfect arms
(A replica from that lost Melos mould),...

They walked the valley of the dead;
Lit by a weird half light;
No sound they made, no word they said;
And they were pale with fright.
Then suddenly from unseen places came...

Ah, London! London! our delight,
Great flower that opens but at night,
Great City of the Midnight Sun,
Whose day begins when day is done.

Lamp after lamp against the sky...

Read at a meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society.

No! never such a draught was poured
Since Hebe served with nectar
The bright Olympians and their Lord,
Her over-kind protector, -...

OCTOBER, 1746

MR. THOMAS PRINCE loquitur.

A fleet with flags arrayed
Sailed from the port of Brest,
And the Admiral's ship displayed
The signal: "Steer southwest."...

I had no where to go,
I had no money to spend:
"O come with me," the Beaver said,
"I live at the world's end."

"Does the world ever end!"
To the Beaver then said I:...

"I love the Lady of Merle," he said.
"She is not for thee!" her suitor cried.
And in the valley the lovers fought
By the salt river's tide.

The braver fell on the dewy sward:...

Who carries the gun?
A lad from over the Tweed.
Then let him go, for well we know
He comes of a soldier breed.
So drink together to rock and heather,
Out where the red deer run,...

It is the Police Commissioners,
All on a winter's day;
And they to prove the town water
Have set themselves away.

They went to the north, they went to the south,
And into the west went they,...

Into the woods my Master went,
Clean forspent, forspent.
Into the woods my Master came,
Forspent with love and shame.
But the olives they were not blind to Him,
The little gray leaves were kind to Him:...

Two knights rode forth at early dawn
A-seeking maids to wed,
Said one, "My lady must be fair,
With gold hair on her head."

Then spake the other knight-at-arms:
"I care not for her face,...

There is too much beauty upon this earth
For lonely men to bear,
Too many eyes, too enchanted skies,
Too many things too fair;
And the man who would live the life of a man...

Into the woods my Master went,
Clean forspent, forspent.
Into the woods my Master came,
Forspent with love and shame.
But the olives they were not blind to Him,
The little gray leaves were kind to Him:...

WRITTEN AT THE CASTLE OF DUBLIN, 1699


My Lord,[1] to find out who must deal,
Delivers cards about,
But the first knave does seldom fail
To find the doctor out.
...

[1]

WRITTEN IN AUGUST, 1702


I

Once on a time, as old stories rehearse,
A friar would need show his talent in Latin;
But was sorely put to 't in the midst of a verse,...

Dawn

On skies still and starlit
White lustres take hold,
And grey flushes scarlet,
And red flashes gold.
And sun-glories cover
The rose shed above her,
Like lover and lover...