Works

I.

The Pobble who has no toes
Had once as many as we;
When they said, "Some day you may lose them all;"
He replied, "Fish fiddle de-dee!"
And his Aunt Jobiska made him drink...

The youngest poet down the shelves was fumbling
In a dim library, just behind the chair
From which the ancient poet was mum-mumbling
A song about some Lovers at a Fair,...

I do not love to wed,
Though I do like to woo;
And for a maidenhead
I'll beg and buy it too.

I'll praise and I'll approve
Those maids that never vary;
And fervently I'll love,...

Just as those final words were penned, the sun broke out in power,
And gladdened all things; but, as chanced, within that very hour,
Air blackened, thunder growled, fire flashed from clouds that hid the sky,...

Maria! I have every good
For thee wish'd many a time,
Both sad, and in a cheerful mood,
But never yet in rhyme.


To wish thee fairer is no need,
More prudent, or more sprightly,...

What, he on whom our voices unanimously ran,
Made Pope at our last Conclave? Full low his life began:
His father earned the daily bread as just a fisherman.
...

1

Father of Light! great God of Heaven!
Hear'st thou the accents of despair?
Can guilt like man's be e'er forgiven?
Can vice atone for crimes by prayer?


2
...

RESIDENCE IN FRANCE

Even as a river, partly (it might seem)
Yielding to old remembrances, and swayed
In part by fear to shape a way direct,
That would engulph him soon in the ravenous sea...

All through the Castle of High-bred Ease,
Where the chief employment was do-as-you-please,
Spread consternation and wild despair.
The queen was wringing her hands and hair;...

I have been thinking of the victims bound
In Naples, dying for the lack of air
And sunshine, in their close, damp cells of pain,
Where hope is not, and innocence in vain...

(Note: That is, without the mark of union with Sweden.)
(See Note 66)

I
Tri-colored flag, and pure,
Thou art our hard-fought cause secure;
Thor's hammer-mark of might...

(For Warren Winslow, Dead At Sea)
Let man have dominion over the fishes of the sea and
the fowls of the air and the beasts and the whole earth,
and every creeping creature that moveth upon the earth.

I...

The Text.--As printed in Sharpe's Ballad Book, from the Skene MS. (No. 8). It is fragmentary--regrettably so, especially as stanzas 10-12 belong to Thomas Rymer.

...

There blooms no bud in May
Can for its white compare
With snow at break of day,
On fields forlorn and bare.

For shadow it hath rose,
Azure, and amethyst;
And every air that blows...

KNIGHT AND WAMBA.

There came three merry men from south, west, and north,
Ever more sing the roundelay;
To win the Widow of Wycombe forth,
And where was the widow might say them nay?
...

There is a shame of nobleness
Confronting sudden pelf, --
A finer shame of ecstasy
Convicted of itself.

A best disgrace a brave man feels,
Acknowledged of the brave, --...

The listless Palm-trees catch the breeze above
The pile-built huts that edge the salt Lagoon,
There is no Breeze to cool the heat of love,
No wind from land or sea, at night or noon.
...

(Suggested by the book of Mr. Ed. C. Randall.)



'There is no death, there are no dead.'
From zone to zone, from sphere to sphere,
The souls of all who pass from here...

There is no God? If one should stand at noon
Where the glow rests, and the warm sunlight plays,
Where earth is gladdened by the cordial rays
And blossoms answering, where the calm lagoon...

'There is no God,' the wicked saith,
'And truly it's a blessing,
For what He might have done with us
It's better only guessing.'

'There is no God,' a youngster thinks,
'or really, if there may be,...