Works

We have sung the song of the droving days,
Of the march of the travelling sheep,
How by silent stages and lonely ways
Thin, white battalions creep.
But the man who now by the land would thrive...

When the darkened Fifties dip to the North,
And frost and the fog divide the air,
And the day is dead at his breaking-forth,
Sirs, it is bitter beneath the Bear!

Far to Southward they wheel and glance,...

Oh, take me where the wild flowers bloom!


Oh, take me where the wild flowers bloom!
I'm dying, mother dear!
And shades of ever deepening gloom
Are round, and o'er me here, -...

I.

In the day my thoughts are tender
When I muse on my ladye fair.
There is never one to offend her,
For each is pure as a prayer.
They float like spirits above her,...

In a blue dusk the ship astern
Uplifts her slender spars,
With golden lights that seem to burn
Among the silver stars.
Like fleets along a cloudy shore
The constellations creep,...

The sun was lost in a leaden sky,
And the shore lay under our lee;
When a great Sou' Wester hurricane high
Came rollicking up the sea.
He played with the fleet as a boy with boats...

(Old English Manner.)

A MORN OF MAY.

All the clouds about the sun lay up in golden creases,
(Merry rings the maiden's voice that sings at dawn of day;)...

(Old English Manner.)

APPRENTICED.

Come out and hear the waters shoot, the owlet hoot, the owlet hoot;
Yon crescent moon, a golden boat, hangs dim behind the tree, O!...

TIRED.

I.

O, I would tell you more, but I am tired;
For I have longed, and I have had my will;
I pleaded in my spirit, I desired:
"Ah! let me only see him, and be still...

I.

I woke in the night, and the darkness was heavy and deep:
I had known it was dark in my sleep,
And I rose and looked out,
And the fathomless vault was all sparkling, set thick round about...

THE COMING IN OF THE "MERMAIDEN."

The moon is bleached as white as wool,
And just dropping under;
Every star is gone but three,
And they hang far asunder, -
There's a sea-ghost all in gray,...

I.

The sky has turned its heart away,
The earth its sorrow found;
The daisies turn from childhood's play,
And creep into the ground.

The earth is black and cold and hard;...

I.

Back shining from the pane, the fire
Seems outside in the snow:
So love set free from love's desire
Lights grief of long ago.

The dark is thinned with snow-sheen fine,...

I saw when I looked up, on either hand,
A pale high chalk-cliff, reared aloft in white;
A narrowing rent soon closed toward the land, -
Toward the sea, an open yawning bight.
...

I walked beside a dark gray sea.
And said, "O world, how cold thou art!
Thou poor white world, I pity thee,
For joy and warmth from thee depart.

"Yon rising wave licks off the snow,...

When I hear the waters fretting,
When I see the chestnut letting
All her lovely blossom falter down, I think, "Alas the day!"
Once with magical sweet singing,
Blackbirds set the woodland ringing,...

Swamps of wild rush-beds, and sloughs' squashy traces,
Grounds of rough fallows with thistle and weed,
Flats and low vallies of kingcups and daisies,
Sweetest of subjects are ye for my reed:
...

I. THE PERSONIFIED SENTIMENTAL

Affection's charm no longer gilds
The idol of the shrine;
But cold Oblivion seeks to fill
Regret's ambrosial wine.
Though Friendship's offering buried lies...

Follow a shaddow, it still flies you,
Seeme to flye it, it will pursue:
So court a mistris, she denies you;
Let her alone, she will court you.
Say, are not women truly, then,...

There's the daisy, the woodbine,
And crow-flower so golden;
There's the wild rose, the eglantine,
And May-buds unfolding;
There are flowers for my fairy,
And bowers for my love:...