Where are those honours, IDA! once your own, When Probus fill'd your magisterial throne? As ancient Rome, fast falling to disgrace, Hail'd a Barbarian in her C'sar's place,...
I'm up and down, and round about, Yet all the world can't find me out; Though hundreds have employ'd their leisure, They never yet could find my measure. I'm found almost in every garden,...
Brown foundling of the Western wood, Babe of primeval wildernesses! Long on my table thou hast stood Encounters strange and rude caresses; Perchance contented with thy lot,...
Though I, alas! a prisoner be, My trade is prisoners to set free. No slave his lord's commands obeys With such insinuating ways. My genius piercing, sharp, and bright, Wherein the men of wit delight....
Bless Jesus Christ, O Cardoness, With grateful lifted eyes, Who said that not the soul alone But body too, must rise: For had he said, "the soul alone From death I will deliver;"...
Brown was my friend, and faithful--but so fat! He came to see me in the twilight dim; I rose politely and invited him To take a seat--how heavily he sat!
I marched three miles through scorching sand, With zeal in heart, and notes in hand; I rode four more to Great St. Mary, Using four legs, when two were weary: To three fair virgins I did tie men,...
When your soft welcomings were said, This curl was waving on your head, And when we walked where breakers dinned It sported in the sun and wind, And when I had won your words of grace...
Reader, I was born, and cried; I crack'd, I smelt, and so I died. Like Julius Caesar's was my death, Who in the senate lost his breath. Much alike entomb'd does lie The noble Romulus and I:...
Time was when I was free as air, The thistle's downy seed my fare, My drink the morning dew; I perch'd at will on every spray, My form genteel, my plumage gay, My strains for ever new.
The Sun, that seemed so mildly to retire, Flung back from distant climes a streaming fire, Whose blaze is now subdued to tender gleams, Prelude of night's approach with soothing dreams....
1. Oh! take the pure gem to where southerly breezes, Waft repose to some bosom as faithful as fair, In which the warm current of love never freezes, As it rises unmingled with selfishness there,...
O gate, how cam'st thou here? Gate. I was brought from Chelsea last year, Batter'd with wind and weather. Inigo Jones put me together; Sir Hans Sloane Let me alone: Burlington brought me hither.
Your hooves have stamped at the black margin of the wood, Even where horrible green parrots call and swing. My works are all stamped down into the sultry mud....
I love to look on a scene like this, Of wild and careless play, And persuade myself that I am not old And my locks are not yet gray; For it stirs the blood in old man's heart, And makes his pulses fly,...