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When Robin Hood and Little John
Down a down, a down, a down,
Went o'er yon bank of broom,
Said Robin Hood to Little John,
"We have shot for many a pound:
Hey down, a down, a down.
...

Robin Hood's mother, these twelve years now,
Has been gone from her earthly home;
And Robin has paid, he scarce knew how,
A sum for a noble tomb.

The church-yard lies on a woody hill,...

I.

Robin shure in hairst,
I shure wi' him,
Fient a heuk had I,
Yet I stack by him.

II.

I gaed up to Dunse,
To warp a wab o' plaiden,
At his daddie's yett,...

Fate is a mahout astride a large elephant, impersonal
as dark sun with winds raging across a desert. Fate is
the old bones of dead Indians being resurrected as
ground mist on the edge of a salt marsh.
...

Oh many times did Ernest Hyde and I
Argue about the freedom of the will.
My favorite metaphor was Prickett's cow
Roped out to grass, and free you know as far
As the length of the rope....

Hallo there! A glass!

Ha! the draught's truly sweet!
If for drink go my shoes,

I shall still have my feet.

A maiden and wine,

With sweet music and song,...

It might have been so different a year
To what has been; the summer's guileless play
Not all a jest, comes back to me to-day
In added sweetness, and provokes a tear....

ROSALIND, HELEN, AND HER CHILD.

SCENE. THE SHORE OF THE LAKE OF COMO.

HELEN:
Come hither, my sweet Rosalind.
'Tis long since thou and I have met;
And yet methinks it were unkind...

Sweet Hope, so oft my childhood's friend,
I will believe thee still,
For thou canst joy with sorrow blend,
Where grief alone would kill.

When disappointments wrung my heart,...

Beautiful spoils! borne off from vanquish'd death!
Upon my heart's high altar shall ye lie,
Mov'd but by only one adorer's breath,
Retaining youth, rewarding constancy.

A Spring o'erhung with many a flow'r,
The grey sand dancing in its bed,
Embank'd beneath a Hawthorn bower,
Sent forth its waters near my head:
A rosy Lass approach'd my view;...

Row gently here,
My gondolier,
So softly wake the tide,
That not an ear.
On earth, may hear,
But hers to whom we glide.
Had Heaven but tongues to speak, as well
As starry eyes to see,...

The Text is taken from the same manuscript as the last. This manuscript is ascribed, from the style of handwriting, to the reign of Henry VI. The ballad is there written without division into stanzas in twenty-four long lines....

(Air: 'Ben Bolt.')


Oh! don't you remember Black Alice, Sam Holt'
Black Alice, so dusky and dark,
The Warrego gin, with the straw through her nose,
And teeth like a Moreton Bay shark.
...

I ran away from home with the circus,
Having fallen in love with Mademoiselle Estralada,
The lion tamer.
One time, having starved the lions
For more than a day,...

A handful of red sand, from the hot clime
Of Arab deserts brought,
Within this glass becomes the spy of Time,
The minister of Thought.

How many weary centuries has it been...

Say, lovely youth, that dost my heart command,
Can Phaon's eyes forget his Sappho's hand?
Must then her name the wretched writer prove,
To thy remembrance lost, as to thy love?...

What, and how great, the virtue and the art
To live on little with a cheerful heart;
(A doctrine sage, but truly none of mine)
Let's talk, my friends, but talk before we dine;...

SATIRES AND EPISTLES OF HORACE IMITATED. -


ADVERTISEMENT.
...

"Sixpence a week," says the girl to her lover,
"Aunt used to bring me, for she could confide
In me alone, she vowed. 'Twas to cover
The cost of her headstone when she died.
And that was a year ago last June;...