Works

From The Purgatorio Of Dante, Canto 28, Lines 1-51.


And earnest to explore within - around -
The divine wood, whose thick green living woof
Tempered the young day to the sight - I wound
...

Matilda Jane wor fat an fair,
An nobbut just sixteen;
Shoo'd ruddy cheeks an reddish hair,
An leet blue wor her een.
Shoo weighed abaat two hundred pund,
Or may be rayther mooar,...

Ten o'clock! Well, I'm sure I can't help it!
I'm up go away from the door!
Now, children, I'll speak to your mother
If you pound there like that any more.

How tired I do feel? Where's that cushion?...

Round clouds roll in the arms of the wind,
The round earth rolls in a clasp of blue sky,
And see, where the budding hazels are thinned,
The wild anemones lie
In undulating shivers beneath the wind.
...

Gray earth, gray mist, gray sky:
Through vapors hurrying by,
Larger than wont, on high
Floats the horned, yellow moon.
Chill airs are faintly stirred,
And far away is heard,...

When with the virgin morning thou dost rise,
Crossing thyself come thus to sacrifice;
First wash thy heart in innocence; then bring
Pure hands, pure habits, pure, pure every thing....

In the waste hour
Between to-day and yesterday
We watched, while on my arm -
Living flesh of her flesh, bone of her bone -
Dabbled in sweat the sacred head...

If Nature, for a favourite child,
In thee hath tempered so her clay,
That every hour thy heart runs wild,
Yet never once doth go astray,

Read o'er these lines; and then review...

(DIED, APRIL 15, 1888)

Within that wood where thine own scholar strays,
O! Poet, thou art passed, and at its bound
Hollow and sere we cry, yet win no sound
But the dark muttering of the forest maze...

A stranger, schooled to gentle arts,
He stept before the curious throng;
His path into our waiting hearts
Already paved by song.

Full well we knew his choristers,...

"Nah, Matty! what meeans all this fuss?
Tha'rt as back'ard as back'ard can be;
Ther must be some reason, becoss
It used to be diff'rent wi' thee.

Aw've nooaticed, 'at allus befoor...

O Love! divinest dream of youth,
Thy day of ecstacy is o'er,
My bosom, touch'd by time and truth,
Thrills at thy dear deceits no more.

Nor thou, Ambition! e'er again,...

Nay, I cannot come into the garden just now,
Tho' it vexes me much to refuse:
But I must have the next set of waltzes, I vow,
With Lieutenant de Boots of the Blues.
...

PART I

I.

I hate the dreadful hollow behind the little wood,
Its lips in the field above are dabbled with blood-red heath,
The red-ribb'd ledges drip with a silent horror of blood,...

Around the castle turrets fiercely moaned the autumn blast,
And within the old lords daughter seemed dying, dying fast;
While o'er her couch in frenzied grief the stricken father bent,...

Out of the church she followed them
With a lofty step and mien:
His bride was like a village maid,
Maude Clare was like a queen.

'Son Thomas,' his lady mother said,
With smiles, almost with tears:...

Maude Muller, on nice summer day,
Raked in meadows sveet vith hay.

Her eyes ban sharp lak gude sharp knife;
She ban nice girl, ay bet yure life.

Before she ban dar wery long,...

Maud Muller on a summer's day,
Raked the meadow sweet with hay.

Beneath her torn hat glowed the wealth
Of simple beauty and rustic health.

Singing, she wrought, and her merry glee...

Crouching in the early morning,
Came the swarth and naked "Sioux;"[CF]
On the village, without warning,
Fell the sudden, savage blow.
Horrid yell and crack of rifle
Mingle as the flames arise;...

PART I.

I sat and sewed, and sang some tender tune,
Oh, beauteous was that morn in early June!
Mellow with sunlight, and with blossoms fair:
The climbing rose-tree grew about me there,...