Works

"Get up! let us flee from the Foe,"
Said the Man: but the Ass said, "Why so?"
"Will they double my load,
Or my blows? Then, by goad,
And by stirrup, I've no cause to go."

Your Reasons Are Not Mine

How dazzling the sunbeams awoke on the spray,
When Australia first rose in the distance away,
As welcome to us on the deck of the bark,
As the dove to the vision of those in the ark!...

'Dearest of distillation! last and best!----
------How art thou lost!--------'

Parody On Milton


Ye Irish lords, ye knights an' squires,
Wha represent our brughs an' shires,...

Now Europe balanced, neither side prevails;
For nothing's left in either of the scales.

When Chewed-ear Jenkins got hitched up to Guinneyveer McGee,
His flowin' locks, ye recollect, wuz frivolous an' free;
But in old Hymen's jack-pot, it's a most amazin' thing,...

Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,...

This is the tale that was told to me by the man with the crystal eye,
As I smoked my pipe in the camp-fire light, and the Glories swept the sky;...

A son of elder sons I am,
Whose boyhood days were cramped and scant,
Through ages of domestic sham
And family lies and family cant.
Come, elder brothers mine, and bring...

Oh, say, have you seen at the Willows so green
So charming and rurally true
A singular bird, with a manner absurd,
Which they call the Australian Emeu?
Have you
Ever seen this Australian Emeu?
...

Red Earl, and will ye take for guide
The silly camel-birds,
That ye bury your head in an Irish thorn,
On a desert of drifting words?

Ye have followed a man for a God, Red Earl,...

In the oldest of our alleys,
By good bejants tenanted,
Once a man whose name was Wallace--
William Wallace--reared his head.
Rowdy Bejant in the college
He was styled:...

Cardelia. Smilinda.

Cardelia.
The Basset-Table spread, the Tallier come;
Why stays Smilinda in the Dressing-Room?
Rise, pensive Nymph, the Tallier waits for you:

Smilinda....

Air--Contented I am.


I.

The mess-tent is full, and the glasses are set,
And the gallant Count Thomond is president yet;
The veteran stands, like an uplifted lance,...

[One of the notable features of Baltimore is the big bell that hangs in the city hall tower, to strike the hour and sound the fire alarm. It is called "Big Sam," and weighs 5,000 pounds]

...

I quarrel not with Destiny,
But make the best of everything -
The best is good enough for me.

Leave Discontent alone, and she
Will shut her month and let you sing.
I quarrel not with Destiny....

What are the mortal facts
With which we deal? The man is thirty years,
Most vital, in a richness physical,
Of musical heart and feeling; and the woman
Is twenty-eight, a cradle warm and rich...

From this bleeding hand of mine,
Take this sprig of Eglantine:
Which, though sweet unto your smell,
Yet the fretful briar will tell,
He who plucks the sweets, shall prove
Many thorns to be in love.

Sweet are the hours when roseate spring
With health and joy salutes the day.
When zephyr, borne on wanton wing,
Soft whispering, wakes the blushing May.
Sweet are the hours, yet not so sweet...

"Nimium ne crede colori." - Virgil, [Ecl. ii. 17]

O trust not, ye beautiful creatures, to hue,
Though your hair were as red, as your stockings are blue.




...

'A tavern is the rendezvous, the exchange, the staple of good fellows. I have heard my great-grandfather tell, how his great-great-grandfather should say, that it was an old proverb when his great-grandfather was a child, that ...