Works

I.

And now once more we stood within the walls
Of her old manor near the riverside;
Dead leaves lay rotting in its empty halls,
And here and there the ivy could not hide...

Hear! hear! hear!
Listen! the word
Of the mocking-bird!
Hear! hear! hear!
I will make all clear;
I will let you know
Where the footfalls go
That through the thicket and over the hill...

Superb and sole, upon a plumed spray
That o'er the general leafage boldly grew,
He summ'd the woods in song; or typic drew
The watch of hungry hawks, the lone dismay...

"Won't you look out of your window, Mrs. Gill?"
Quoth the Fairy, nidding, nodding in the garden;
" Can't you look out of your window, Mrs. Gill?"
Quoth the Fairy, laughing softly in the garden;...

Beautiful soup, so rich and green,
Waiting in a hot tureen!
Who for such dainties would not stoop?
Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!

Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!...

Virtutem videant intabescantque relicta.

She stood before her traitors bound and bare,
Clothed with her wounds and with her naked shame
As with a weed of fiery tears and flame,...

Year after year, as Summer suns come round,
Upon the Calais packet am I found:
Thence to Geneva hurried by express,
I halt for breakfast, bathe, and change my dress.
My well-worn knapsack to my back I strap;...

I am the very pattern of a modern Major-Gineral.
I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral;
I know the kings of England, and I quote the fights historical,
From Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical;...

Oh what a kiss
With filial passion overcharged is this!
To this misgiving breast
The child runs, as a child ne'er ran to rest
Upon the light heart and the unoppressed.

Unhoped, unsought!...

Rebellion is my theme all day;
I only wish 'twould come
(As who knows but perhaps it may?)
A little nearer home.


Yon roaring boys, who rave and fight
On t'other side the Atlantic,...

I come from nothing; but from where
Come the undying thoughts I bear?
Down, through long links of death and birth,
From the past poets of the earth.
My immortality is there.
...

Her time with equal prudence Silvia shares,
First writes her billet-doux, then says her prayers,
Her mass and toilette, vespers, and the play;
Thus God and Ashtaroth divide the day:...

When man and maiden meet, I like to see a drooping eye,
I always droop my own I am the shyest of the shy.
I'm also fond of bashfulness, and sitting down on thorns,
For modesty's a quality that womankind adorns....

[1]

Long since, a Mogul saw, in dream,
A vizier in Elysian bliss;
No higher joy could be or seem,
Or purer, than was ever his.
Elsewhere was dream'd of by the same...

HUSBAND.
The boy's my very image! See!
Even the scars my small-pox left me!

WIFE.
I can believe it easily
They once of all my senses reft me.

Doubtless an epoch important has with the century risen;
But the moment so great finds but a race of small worth.

She wanted her beauty too soon and must now forfeit it for the moment.
...

Beyond the wall the passion flower is blooming,
Strange hints of life along the winds are blown;
Within, the cowled and silent men are kneeling
Before an image on a cross of stone,...

1

Big-stomached, like friars
Who ogle a nun,
Quaff deep to their bellies' desires
From the old abbey's tun,
Grapes fatten with fires
Warm-filtered from moon and from sun.


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