Works

A cloud has lowered that shall not soon pass o'er.
The world takes sides: whether for impious aims
With Tyranny whose bloody toll enflames
A generous people to heroic war;...

You flung your taunt across the wave
We bore it as became us,
Well knowing that the fettered slave
Left friendly lips no option save
To pity or to blame us.
...

While fates permit us, let's be merry;
Pass all we must the fatal ferry;
And this our life, too, whirls away,
With the rotation of the day.

Keep for the Young the impassioned smile
Shed from thy countenance, as I see thee stand
High on that chalky cliff of Britain's Isle,
A slender volume grasping in thy hand
(Perchance the pages that relate...

(See Note 43)

When Norse nature's dower
Tones will paint with power,
There is more than mountain-heights that tower, -
Plains spread wide-extending,
Whereon at their wending...

Was Time not harsh to you, or was he kind,
O pale Erinna of the perfect lyre,
That he has left no word of singing fire
Whereby you waked the dreaming Lesbian wind,
And kindled night along the lyric shore?...

Though sprightly Sappho force our love and praise,
A softer wonder my pleased soul surveys,
The mild Erinna, blushing in her bays.
So, while the sun's broad beam yet strikes the sight,...

Coy, sweet maid, I love so well,
Fair Estelle.
How much I love thee tongue can't tell,
Sweet Estelle.
But I love thee - love thee true -
More than violets love the dew,...

I slumbered with your poems on my breast
Spread open as I dropped them half-read through
Like dove wings on a figure on a tomb
To see, if in a dream they brought of you,
...

You sleep too well - too far away,
For sorrowing word to soothe or wound;
Your very quiet seems to say
How longed-for a peace you have found.

Else, had not death so lured you on,...

So you think you will be a Scotch lassie;
The braw Hieland lad in a kilt
Has taken your fancy, dear, has he?
And you, too, would be clad in a "tilt."

Well, not one will gainsay you nor blame you,...

O fair and stately maid, whose eyes
Were kindled in the upper skies
At the same torch that lighted mine;
For so I must interpret still
Thy sweet dominion o'er my will,
A sympathy divine.
...

A beam upon the myrtle fell
From dewy evening's purest sky,
'Twas like the glance I love so well,
Dear Eva, from thy moonlight eye.

I looked around the summer grove,...

My dear Everybody, -
The other day I lunched at a place
Where there was a pretty lady.
During the course of the talk
The pretty lady said to me,
"You see, Everybody is out of town
At present."...

GENERAL IN HIS MAJESTY'S FORCES, MASTER-GENERAL OF THE ORDNANCE, CONSTABLE OF THE TOWER, ETC.

MY LORD,

...

Mossgiel, May 3, 1786.


I.

I hold it, Sir, my bounden duty,
To warn you how that Master Tootie,
Alias, Laird M'Gaun,
Was here to hire yon lad away...

Artist, whose hand, with horror wing'd, hath torn
From the rank life of towns this leaf: and flung
The prodigy of full-blown crime among
Valleys and men to middle fortune born,...

1.

Oh! yes, I will own we were dear to each other;
The friendships of childhood, though fleeting, are true;
The love which you felt was the love of a brother,...

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...

Can I not come to Thee, my God, for these
So very many meeting hindrances,
That slack my pace, but yet not make me stay?
Who slowly goes, rids, in the end, his way....