Works

You've a manner all so mellow,
My old friend,
That it cheers and warms a fellow,
My old friend,
Just to meet and greet you, and
Feel the pressure of a hand
That one may understand,...

Tune - "My Peggy's Face."



I.

My Peggy's face, my Peggy's form,
The frost of hermit age might warm;
My Peggy's worth, my Peggy's mind,
Might charm the first of human kind....

I thirst, but not as once I did,
The vain delights of earth to share;
Thy wounds, Emmanuel, all forbid
That I should seek my pleasures there.


It was the sight of thy dear cross...

O aptly named, Illustrious One!
Thou art that flower fair
That filled this vast and changeful world
With mystic perfume rare -
Shedding on all the balmy breath
Of countless virtues high,...

The faint sun tipt the rising ground,
No blustering wind, the air was still;
The blue mist, thinly scatter'd round,
Verg'd along the distant hill:
Delightful morn! from labour free...

White as white butterflies that each one dons
Her face their wide white wings to shade withal,
Many moon-daisies throng the water-spring.
While couched in rising barley titlarks call,...

I see the wild and dashing waves
Break madly on the shore;
With glee I watch their stately course,
With joy I hear their roar.
The howling of the wildest storm,
The shrieking of the gull...

In vain we fondly strive to trace
The soul's reflection in the face;
In vain we dwell on lines and crosses,
Crooked mouth or short proboscis;
Boobies have looked as wise and bright...

When winter's cold and summer's heat
Shall come and go again,
A hundred years will be complete
Since Marion crossed the main,
And brought unto this wild retreat
His dark-eyed wife of Spain.
...

Frowning over the riddle that Daniel told,
Down through the mist hung garden, below a feeble sun,
The King of Persia walked: oh, the chilling cold!
His mind was webbed with a grey shroud vapour-spun.
...

The people along the sand
All turn and look one way.
They turn their back on the land.
They look at the sea all day.

As long as it takes to pass
A ship keeps raising its hull;...

To mute and to material things
New life revolving summer brings;
The genial call dead Nature hears,
And in her glory reappears.
But oh, my Country's wintry state
What second spring shall renovate?...

"His 'prentice han'
He tried on man,
And then he made the lasses."




"And now," quoth the Minister, (eased of his panics,
And ripe for each pastime the summer affords,)...

Sir,--
...

New feet within my garden go,
New fingers stir the sod;
A troubadour upon the elm
Betrays the solitude.

New children play upon the green,
New weary sleep below;...

With all humility we beg
To inform the public, that Tom Tegg--
Known for his spunky speculations
In buying up dead reputations,
And by a mode of galvanizing
Which, all must own, is quite surprising,...

Dear Coz, as I know neither you nor Miss Draper,
When Parliament's up, ever take in a paper,
But trust for your news to such stray odds and ends
As you chance to pick up from political friends-...

I

One mile more is
Where your door is
Mother mine! -
Harvest's coming,
Mills are strumming,
Apples fine,
And the cider made to-year will be as wine.

II
...

There all the golden codgers lay,
There the silver dew,
And the great water sighed for love,
And the wind sighed too.
Man-picker Niamh leant and sighed
By Oisin on the grass;...

OCCASIONED BY "APOLLO TO THE DEAN" 1720


Parnassus, February the twenty-seventh.
The poets assembled here on the eleventh,
Convened by Apollo, who gave them to know...