Works

The darkest, strangest mystery
I ever read, or heern, or see,
Is 'long of a drink at Taggart's Hall, -
Tom Taggart's of Gilgal.

I've heern the tale a thousand ways,...

Pain has an element of blank;
It cannot recollect
When it began, or if there were
A day when it was not.

It has no future but itself,
Its infinite realms contain...

When, wild and spent, I fly before
Some steadfast Fate, serene, malign,
Let me not think, Lord, I implore
Those dark and awful eyes are thine!

Oh, when the dogs of life are loose,...

Out of the darkness, fretted sometimes in its sleeping,
Jets of sparks in fountains of blue come leaping
To sight, revealing a secret, numberless secrets keeping.
...

I nothing did all yesterday
But listen to the singing rain
On roof and weeping window-pane,
And, 'whiles I'd watch the flying spray
And smoking breakers in the bay:
Nothing but this did I all day -...

(Keewatin.)

A land untamed, whose myriad isles
Are set in branching lakes that vein
Illimitable silent woods,
Voiceful in Fall, when their defiles,
Rich with the birch's golden rain,...

Alas! that we are deaf and blind
To meanings all about us hid!
What secrets lurk the woods amid?
What prophecies are on the wind?

What tidings do the billows bring
And cry in vain upon the strand?...

"All hail!" the bells of Christmas rang,
"All hail!" the monks at Christmas sang,
The merry monks who kept with cheer
The gladdest day of all their year.

But still apart, unmoved thereat,...

The smell of the sea in my nostrils,
The sound of the sea in mine ears;
The touch of the spray on my burning face,
Like the mist of reluctant tears.

The blue of the sky above me,...

Perhaps already you may know
Sir Blennerhasset Portico?
A Captain in the Navy, he -
A Baronet and K.C.B.
You do? I thought so!
It was that Captain's favourite whim
(A notion not confined to him)...

Hark! some wild trumpeter some strange musician,
Hovering unseen in air, vibrates capricious tunes to-night.

I hear thee, trumpeter listening, alert, I catch thy notes,...

O learned man who never learned to learn,
Save to deduce, by timid steps and small,
From towering smoke that fire can never burn
And from tall tales that men were never tall....

Twenty, forty, sixty, eighty
A hundred years ago,
All through the night with lantern bright
The Watch trudged to and fro,
And little boys tucked snug abed
Would wake from dreams to hear -...

Jim Bowker, he said, ef he'd had a fair show,
And a big enough town for his talents to grow,
And the least bit assistance in hoein' his row,
Jim Bowker, he said,...

She sits among the iris stalks
Of babbling brooks; and leans for hours
Among the river's lily flowers,
Or on their whiteness walks:
Above dark forest pools, gray rocks...

(From 'A Faun's Holiday')

Come, ye sorrowful, and steep
Your tired brows in a nectarous sleep:
For our kisses lightlier run
Than the traceries of the sun
By the lolling water cast...

'Arcane danze
D'immortal piede i ruinosi gioghi
Scossero e l'ardue selve (oggi romito
Nido de' vend).'
- LEOPARDI.


Through the country to the town
Ran a rumour and renown,...

Unnumbered gods may unremembered die;
A thousand creeds may perish and pass by;
Yet do I lift mine eyes to ONE on high.

Unnamed be HE from whom creation came;
There is no word whereby to speak His name...

(Expanded from an Epigram of Piron.)


Stella, 'tis not your dainty head,
Your artless look, I own;
'Tis not your dear coquettish tread,
Or this, or that, alone;
...

WRITTEN IN COVE CHURCH-YARD; AND OCCASIONED BY OBSERVING MY OWN SHADOW THROWN ACROSS A GRAVE.


"Tell me, thou grassy mound,
What dost thou cover?
In thy folds hast thou bound
Soldier or lover?...