Works

My wife contrived a fleecy thing
Her husband to infold,
For 'tis the pride of woman still
To cover from the cold:
My daughter made it a new text
For a sermon very old.
...

William Williams his name was - or so he said; - Bill Williams they
called him, and them 'at knowed him best called him Bill Bills.

The first I seed o' Bills was about two weeks after he got here. The...

So long as 'neath the Kalka hills
The tonga-horn shall ring,
So long as down the Solon dip
The hard-held ponies swing,
So long as Tara Devi sees
The lights of Simla town,...

It's Oh, for the hills, where the wind's some one
With a vagabond foot that follows!
And a cheer-up hand that he claps upon
Your arm with the hearty words, "Come on!
We'll soon be out of the hollows,...

Two roadways lead from this land to That, and one is the road of Prayer;
And one is the road of Old-time Songs, and every note is a stair.

A shabby old man with a music machine on the sordid city street;...

The wild duck fly over
From river to river
And so the young lover
Goes roving for ever.

They fly together,
He walks alone:
No maiden can tether
Him with her moan.
...

In the ancient house of ages,
See, they cannot rest!
With a hope, which awe assuages,
Tremble all the blest.
For the son and heir eternal,
To be son yet more,
Leaves his stately chair supernal...

They were parted at last, although
Each was tenderly dear;
As asunder their eyes did go,
When first alone and near.

'Tis an old story this--
A trembling and a sigh,...

The ordered intermingling
of the real and the dream,--
The mill above the river,
and the mist above the stream;
The life of ceaseless labor,
brave with song and cheery call--...

As one who cons at evening o'er an album all alone,
And muses on the faces of the friends that he has known,
So I turn the leaves of fancy till, in shadowy design,...

From the terrace here, where the hills indent,
You can see the uttermost battlement
Of the castle there; the Cliffords' home;
Where the seasons go and the seasons come
And never a footstep else doth fall...

("Jamais elle ne raille.")

[Bk. III. xiii.]


Where your brood seven lie,
Float in calm heavenly,
Life passing evenly,
Waterfowl, waterfowl! often I dream
For a rest...

"Is that the Three-and-Twentieth, Strabo mine,
Marching below, and we still gulping wine?"
From the sad magic of his fragrant cup
The red-faced old centurion started up,...

And what will ye hear, my daughters dear? -
Oh, what will ye hear this night?
Shall I sing you a song of the yuletide cheer,
Or of lovers and ladies bright?
...

Warped... gland-dry...
With spine askew
And body shrunken into half its space...
Well-used as some cracked paving-stone...
Bearing on his grimed and pitted front
A stamp... as of innumerable feet.

..."Una selva oscura." - Dante.


Awake or sleeping (for I know not which)
I was or was not mazed within a wood
Where every mother-bird brought up her brood
Safe in some leafy niche...

"I have twankled the strings of the twinkering rain;
I have burnished the meteor's mail;
I have bridled the wind
When he whinnied and whined
With a bunch of stars tied to his tail;...

When I go to tea with the little Smiths, there are eight of them there, but there's only one of me,
Which makes it not so easy to have a fancy tea-party as if there were two or three....

Everything goes to its rest;
The hills are asleep in the noon;
And life is as still in its nest
As the moon when she looks on a moon
In the depth of a calm river's breast...

The dinner-bell, the dinner-bell
Is ringing loud and clear;
Through hill and plain, through street and lane,
It echoes far and near;
From curtained hall and whitewashed stall,
Wherever men can hide,...