Works

Hearken! now the hermit bee
Drones a quiet threnody;
Greening on the stagnant pool
The criss-cross light is beautiful;
In the venomed yew tree wings
Preen and flit. The linnet sings.
...

A rat, of quite the smallest size,
Fix'd on an elephant his eyes,
And jeer'd the beast of high descent
Because his feet so slowly went.
Upon his back, three stories high,
There sat, beneath a canopy,...

One's own importance to enhance,
Inspirited by self-esteem,
Is quite a common thing in France;
A French disease it well might seem.
The strutting cavaliers of Spain
Are in another manner vain....

An uncommonly small rat was watching an uncommonly big elephant and sneering at the slowness of his steps.
...

An Eagle swooped from out the sky,
And carried off a sheep.
A Raven seeing him, said: "I
Could do that too if I should try.
His meal comes mighty cheap."

Of all that well-fed flock was one...

[1]

The bird of Jove bore off a mutton,
A raven being witness.
That weaker bird, but equal glutton,
Not doubting of his fitness
To do the same with ease,
And bent his taste to please,...

Between the folding sea-downs,
In the gloom
Of a wailful wintry nightfall,
When the boom
Of the ocean, like a hammering in a hollow tomb,

Throbbed up the copse-clothed valley
From the shore...

There falls with every wedding chime
A feather from the wing of Time.
You pick it up, and say 'How fair
To look upon its colors are!'
Another drops day after day
Unheeded; not one word you say....

There is an Eminence, of these our hills
The last that parleys with the setting sun;
We can behold it from our orchard-seat;
And, when at evening we pursue out walk
Along the public way, this Peak, so high...

A scene, which 'wildered fancy viewed
In the soul's coldest solitude,
With that same scene when peaceful love
Flings rapture's colour o'er the grove,
When mountain, meadow, wood and stream...

Scene: ASHDOWN FOREST IN MAY

Persons: H.--A POET; C.--HIS DAUGHTER

H. Here then, if you insist, my daughter: still,
I must confess that I preferred the hill....

They have met, they have met! now their pinions unfurl
In that city whose pavement is gold,
Whose every gate is of one liquid pearl,
And her beauty and glory untold;
...

Why mourns the ingenuous Moralist, whose mind
Science has stored, and Piety refined,
That fading Chivalry displays no more
Her pomp and stately tournaments of yore!
Lo! when Philosophy and Truth advance,...

The Kirk of Ulpha to the pilgrim's eye
Is welcome as a star, that doth present
Its shining forehead through the peaceful rent
Of a black cloud diffused o'er half the sky:...

Eden! till now thy beauty had I viewed
By glimpses only, and confess with shame
That verse of mine, whate'er its varying mood,
Repeats but once the sound of thy sweet name:...

Hast ever tramped along the road
That has no end?
The far brown winding road, your one
Fast friend
A tattered weather-beaten swag,
A silent mate
To send
His dumb warm comfort to the heart,...

Dead Petra in her hill-tomb sleeps,
Her stones of emptiness remain;
Around her sculptured mystery sweeps
The lonely waste of Edom's plain.

From the doomed dwellers in the cleft...

IX

'My lips do need thy breath,
My lips do need thy smile,
And my pallid eyne, that light in thine
Which met the stars erewhile:
Yet go with light and life
If that thou lovest one...

The sportive sylphs that course the air,
Unseen on wings that twilight weaves,
Around the opening rose repair,
And breathe sweet incense o'er its leaves.

With sparkling cups of bubbles made,...

Life's pathway is full o' deep ruts,
An we mun tak gooid heed lest we stumble;
Man is made up of "ifs" and of "buts,"
It seems pairt ov his natur to grumble.

But if we'd all anxiously tak...