Works

They took away your drink from you,
The kind old humanizing glass;
Soon they will take tobacco too,
And next they'll take our demi-tasse.
Don't say, "The bill will never pass,"...

My love
Has told me
That he needs me.

That's why
I take good care of myself
Watch out where I'm going and
Fear that any drop of rain
Might kill me.

Ellisland, Monday Evening.

Your news and review, Sir, I've read through and through, Sir,
With little admiring or blaming;
The papers are barren of home-news or foreign,...

When midnight came to close the year,
We sighed to think it thus should take
The hours it gave us--hours as dear
As sympathy and love could make
Their blessed moments,--every sun...

Thou who hast taught the teachers of mankind
How from the least of things the mightiest grow,
What marvel jealous Nature made thee blind,
Lest man should learn what angels long to know?...

Shut not so soon; the dull-eyed night
Has not as yet begun
To make a seizure on the light,
Or to seal up the sun.

No marigolds yet closed are;
No shadows great appear;...

"Nil ego contulerim jucundo sanus amico." - HORACE.


Dear LONG, in this sequester'd scene,
While all around in slumber lie,
The joyous days, which ours have been
Come rolling fresh on Fancy's eye;...

Strawberries that in gardens grow
Are plump and juicy fine,
But sweeter far as wise men know
Spring from the woodland vine.

No need for bowl or silver spoon,
Sugar or spice or cream,...

FROM BERMUDA, JANUARY, 1804.


Oh, what a sea of storm we've past!--
High mountain waves and foamy showers,
And battling winds whose savage blast
But ill agrees with one whose hours...

What others have with cheapness seen and ease
In varnish'd maps, by th' help of compasses,
Or read in volumes and those books with all
Their large narrations incanonical,...

You say I love not, 'cause I do not play
Still with your curls, and kiss the time away.
You blame me, too, because I can't devise
Some sport, to please those babies in your eyes; -...

On, as thou hast begun, brave youth, and get
The palm from Urbin, Titian, Tintoret,
Brugel and Coxu, and the works outdo
Of Holbein and that mighty Rubens too.
So draw and paint as none may do the like,...

That little pretty bleeding part
Of foreskin send to me:
And I'll return a bleeding heart
For New-Year's gift to Thee.

Rich is the gem that Thou did'st send,
Mine's faulty too and small;...

Two-faced Janus,[1] god of Time!
Be my Phoebus while I rhyme;
To oblige your crony Swift,
Bring our dame a new year's gift;
She has got but half a face;
Janus, since thou hast a brace,...

I.

Friend of the dead, and friend of all my days
Even since they cast off boyhood, I salute
The song saluting friends whose songs are mute
With full burnt-offerings of clear-spirited praise....

Gift of the Hero, on his dying day,
To her, whose pity watched, for ever nigh;
Oh! could he see the proud, the happy ray,
This relic lights up on her generous eye,
Sighing, he'd feel how easy 'tis to pay...

Men sought, ambition's thirst to slake,
The lost elixir old
Whose magic touch should instant make
The meaner metals gold.

A nobler alchymy is thine
Which love from pain doth press:...

Coming, clean from the Maryland-end
Of this great National Road of ours,
Through your vast West; with the time to spend,
Stopping for days in the main towns, where
Every citizen seemed a friend,...

Mother says, "Be in no hurry,
Marriage oft means care and worry."

Auntie says, with manner grave,
"Wife is synonym for slave."

Father asks, in tones commanding,...

1.
How, my dear Mary, are you critic-bitten
(For vipers kill, though dead) by some review,
That you condemn these verses I have written,
Because they tell no story, false or true?...