Works

To every gentle Muse in vain allied,
In youth's full early morning HEADLEY died!
Too long had sickness left her pining trace,
With slow, still touch, on each decaying grace:...

When the last sunshine of expiring Day
In Summer's twilight weeps itself away,
Who hath not felt the softness of the hour
Sink on the heart, as dew along the flower?...

Stretched on the dying Mother's lap, lies dead
Her new-born Babe; dire ending of bright hope!
But Sculpture here, with the divinest scope
Of luminous faith, heavenward hath raised that head...

O Lord of life, thy quickening voice
Awakes my morning song!
In gladsome words I would rejoice
That I to thee belong.

I see thy light, I feel thy wind;
The world, it is thy word;...

Now again the yellow sun
Shines upon my window-pane;
Now anothor day's begun,
I can laugh and play again.

I must try to-day to be
Kind in all I say and do;
Then will God be pleased with me,...

O'er Time's mighty billows borne,
Angels lead the purple morn;
Chasing far the shades of night
From the burning throne of light:
Where their glorious wings unfold,
There the east is streaked with gold;...

English Translation below Original

Hymnus Matutinus


Nox et tenebrae et nubila,
confusa mundi et turbida,
lux intrat, albescit polus,
Christus venit, discedite.
...

Most blest is he who in the morning time
Sets forth upon his journey with no staff
Shaped by another for his use. Who sees
The imminent necessity for toil,
And with each morning wakens to the thought...

When you will the mountains roam
And your pack are making,
Put therein not much from home,
Light shall be your taking!
Drag no valley-fetters strong
To those upland spaces,...

Serene he stands, with mist serenely crowned,
And draws a cloak of trees about his breast.
The thunder roars but cannot break his rest
And from his rugged face the tempests bound....

(with apologies to Frederic Taber Cooper)

I well recall (and who does not)
The circus bill-board hippopotamus,
whose wide distended jaws
For fear and terror were good cause.
...

Move eastward, happy earth, and leave
Yon orange sunset waning slow:
From fringes of the faded eve,
O, happy planet, eastward go;
Till over thy dark shoulder glow
Thy silver sister-world, and rise...

THE DREAMER

I

He was a Dreamer of the Days:
Indolent as a lazy breeze
Of midsummer, in idlest ways
Lolling about in the shade of trees.
The farmer turned - as he passed him by...

Ere I go hence and be no more
Seen to the world, I'll give the score
I owe unto a female child,
And that is this, a verse enstyled
My daughter's dowry; having which,...

Mr. MacCall at Cleveland Hall,
Sunday evening-date to fix
Fifteenth April, sixty-six,
Speech reported and redacted
By a fellow much distracted.

I

Who lectures? No mere scorner;...

I have beheld two lovers in a night
Hatched o'er with moonshine from their stolen delight
(When this to that, and that to this, had given
A kiss to such a jewel of the heaven,...

This, the most humorous example of vers de soci't' in the English language, well illustrates the position of a parson in a family of distinction at that period.

...

She Discourseth of Nothing to Eat and the Cost thereof.

Why Merdle--why did you bring Dinewell to-day?
So very, though welcome, so quite unexpected!

For dinner, if any, I'm sure I can't say,...

But he's an old fogy, you may know by this sign--
He don't smoke tobacco, drink lager or wine;
And swears that rich gravy, roast pork or chop,
Would kill a big ostrich, if stuffed in his crop.
...

But this is concocted by rules so complete;
Though piquant, is healthy and easy digested;
And if you will note it as slowly we eat,
The contents I'll give for our friends interested.
...