Works

Here, where the great hills fall away
To bays of silver sea,
I hold within my hand to-day
A wild thing, strange to me.

Behind me is the deep green dell
Where lives familiar light;...

Per ritornar l'.


As one who will reseek her home of light,
Thy form immortal to this prison-house
Descended, like an angel piteous,
To heal all hearts and make the whole world bright....

"What else do they live for in this world beside?"

What else but for Kittys or one of the same,
Do mothers their daughters at schools give the touch
That leaves them to live as a wife but in name...

There was a glorious time
At an epoch of my prime;
Mornings beryl-bespread,
And evenings golden-red;
Nothing gray:
And in my heart I said,
"However this chanced to be,
It is too full for me,...

"Ye have robbed," said he, "ye have slaughtered and made an end,
Take your ill-got plunder, and bury the dead:
What will ye more of your guest and sometime friend?"
"Blood for our blood," they said.
...

In a heavy time I dogged myself
Along a louring way,
Till my leading self to my following self
Said: "Why do you hang on me
So harassingly?"

"I have watched you, Heart of mine," I cried,...

Now heaven in mercy be kind to the wretch,
Who marries for money or fashion or folly;
He'd better accept of the noose of Jack Ketch
Than such a "help-meet;" or at once marry Dolly...

Now heaven in mercy be kind to the wretches
Who stay on the earth like this Mrs. Merdle!

More wretched than ever a wretch on the hurdle
Was drawn by all England's official Jack Ketches;...

The fire of hell this strange condition hath,
To burn, not shine, as learned Basil saith.

"To-morrow!" who'll warrant to-morrow we'll see?

Who'll care the next day or day after for dinner?

Or what the next fashion of new dress will be?

Or who Mrs. Grundy will say is the winner?
...

Do you not hear me calling, white deer with no horns?
I have been changed to a hound with one red ear;
I have been in the Path of Stones and the Wood of Thorns,...

See, sister, where the chickens trip,
All busy in the morn!
Look how their heads they dip and dip,
To peck the scattered corn!

Dear sister, shall we shut our eyes,
And to the sight be blind,...

(To James Russell Lowell.)


Not from the ranks of those we call
Philosopher or Admiral,--
Neither as LOCKE was, nor as BLAKE,
Is that Great Genius for whose sake
We keep this Autumn festival....

Tune - "Jumpin' John."


I.

Her daddie forbad, her minnie forbad;
Forbidden she wadna be:
She wadna trow't, the browst she brew'd
Wad taste sae bitterlie....

By night when others soundly slept,
And had at once both case and rest,
My waking eyes were open kept
And so to lie I found it best.

I sought Him whom my soul did love,...

Here, in our fairy bowers, we dwell,
Women our idol, life's best treasure!
Echo enchanted joys to tell,
Our feast of laugh, of love, and pleasure.
Say, is not this then bliss divine,...

When my arms wrap you round I press
My heart upon the loveliness
That has long faded from the world;
The jewelled crowns that kings have hurled
In shadowy pools, when armies fled;...

Here's a bottle and an honest friend!
What wad you wish for mair, man?
Wha kens before his life may end,
What his share may be o' care, man?
Then catch the moments as they fly,...

Here the frailest leaves of me, and yet my strongest-lasting:
Here I shade and hide my thoughts - I myself do not expose them,
And yet they expose me more than all my other poems.

I should not have shown in the flesh,
I ought to have gone as a ghost;
It was awkward, unseemly almost,
Standing solidly there as when fresh,
Pink, tiny, crisp-curled,
My pinions yet furled...