Works

Some born of homely parents
For ages settled down,
The steady generations
Of village, farm, and town:
And some of dusky fathers
Who wandered since the flood,
The fairest skin or darkest...

A weary lot is thine, fair maid,
A weary lot is thine!
To pull the thorn thy brow to braid,
And press the rue for wine.
A lightsome eye, a soldier's mien,
A feather of the blue,...

Oh, gentlemen, listen, I pray;
Though I own that my heart has been ranging,
Of nature the laws I obey,
For nature is constantly changing.
The moon in her phases is found,...

The banked oars fell an hundred strong,
And backed and threshed and ground,
But bitter was the rowers' song
As they brought the war-boat round.


They had no heart for the rally and roar...

Perfection ever is the price of toil.
Of marchings long, and hardships by the way,
Of burdens borne, oft in the heat of day,
'Tis then as right the victor claims the spoil.
...

Wake for the sun, that scatters into flight,
The poker players who have stayed all night;
Drives husbands home with reeling steps, and then--
Gives to the sleepy "cops" an awful fright.
...

I

Wail! for the Law has scattered into flight
Those Drinks that were our sometime dear Delight;
And still the Morals-tinkers plot and plan
New, sterner, stricter Statutes to indite.


II...

Wake! for the Golden Cat has put to flight
The Mouse of Darkness with his Paw of Light:
Which means, in Plain and simple every-day
Unoriental Speech--The Dawn is bright.



...

Upon the shore, a mile or more
From traffic and confusion,
An oyster dwelt, because he felt
A longing for seclusion;
Said he: "I love the stillness of
This spot. It's like a cloister."...

Under an oak-tree in a woodland, where
The dreaming Spring had dropped it from her hair,
I found a flower, through which I seemed to gaze
Beyond the world and see what no man dare...

(OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE, QUEEN'S, DECEMBER)

(To Hugh Brooks)

I

The walls make a funnel, packed full; the distant gate
Bars us from inaccessible light and peace....

When the last colours of the day
Have from their burning ebbed away,
About that ruin, cold and lone,
The cricket shrills from stone to stone;
And scattering o'er its darkened green,...

I know a cliff, whose steep and craggy brow
O'erlooks the troubled ocean, and spurns back
The advancing billow from its rugged base;
Yet many a goodly rood of land lies deep...

By the shore, a plot of ground
Clips a ruined chapel round,
Buttressed with a grassy mound;
Where Day and Night and Day go by
And bring no touch of human sound.

Washing of the lonely seas,...

"O 'Melia, my dear, this does everything crown!
Who could have supposed I should meet you in Town?
And whence such fair garments, such prosperi-ty?" -
"O didn't you know I'd been ruined?" said she.
...

There is the ruined water-mill
With its rotten wheel, that stands as still
As its image that sleeps in the glassy pool
Where the water snake coils dim and cool
In the flaky light of the setting sun...

Most honourable and bountifull Ladie, there bee long sithens deepe sowed in my brest the seede of most entire love and humble affection unto that most brave knight, your noble brother deceased; which, taking roote, began in his...

Oh, thankless Crimean land! in ruin laid
Are now the castles that were once your pride!
Here serpents and the owls from daylight hide,
And robbers arm them for the nightly raid....

If thou wouldst live unruffled by care,
Let not the past torment thee e'er;
As little as possible be thou annoy'd,
And let the present be ever enjoy'd;
Ne'er let thy breast with hate be supplied,...