Works

Thrive, gentle plant! and weave a bower
For Mary and for me,
And deck with many a splendid flower,
Thy foliage large and free.


Thou camest from Eartham, and wilt shade
(If truly I divine)...

Oh no, not this! This is a Roman face,
Superb, composed, with such a matron grace
As that of great Cornelia, never thee.
Young princess of an ancient poetry!

Nor do I wish thy beauty from its grave;...

O Ary Scheffer! when beneath thine eye,
Touched with the light that cometh from above,
Grew the sweet picture of the dear Lord's love,
No dream hadst thou that Christian hands would tear...

And this reft house is that the which he built,
Lamented Jack! And here his malt he pil'd,
Cautious in vain! These rats that squeak so wild,
Squeak, not unconscious of their father's guilt....

A Spaniel, Beau, that fares like you,
Well fed, and at his ease,
Should wiser be than to pursue
Each trifle that he sees.


But you have kill'd a tiny bird,
Which flew not till to-day,...

Every happy expression in these stanzas may fairly be claimed by the Hon. W. B. Dalley (Author's note)


Deep under the spires of a hill, by the feet of the thunder-cloud trod,...

Fool, to put up four crosses at your door,
Put up your wife, she's CROSSER than all four.

The devil got notice that Grose was a-dying,
So whip! at the summons, old Satan came flying;
But when he approach'd where poor Francis lay moaning,
And saw each bed-post with its burden a-groaning,...

Hear, Land o' Cakes and brither Scots,
Frae Maidenkirk to Johnny Groat's;
If there's a hole in a' your coats,
I rede you tent it:
A chiel's amang you taking notes,
And, faith, he'll prent it!
...

"Should the poor be flattered?"

Shakspeare.

But now his radiant course is run,
For Matthew's course was bright;
His soul was like the glorious sun,
A matchless heav'nly light!

...

So witches bent on bad pursuits,
Assume the shapes of filthy brutes.

High as Longinus to the stars ascends,
So deeply Carthy to the centre tends.


RATIO INTER LONGINUM ET CARTHIUM COMPUTATA

Aethereas quantum Longinus surgit in auras,...

Tell me not what too well I know
About the bard of Sirmio.
Yes, in Thalia's son
Such stains there are, as when a Grace
Sprinkles another's laughing face
With nectar, and runs on.

"Late, late yestreen I saw the new moone
Wi' the auld moone in hir arme."
'Ballad of Sir Patrick Spence, Percy's Reliques.'


Once I could hail (howe'er serene the sky)...

Once I pass'd through a populous city, imprinting my brain, for future use, with its shows, architecture, customs, and traditions;...

Ye wise, instruct me to endure
An evil, which admits no cure;
Or, how this evil can be borne,
Which breeds at once both hate and scorn.
Bare innocence is no support,...

When other fair ones to the shades go down,
Still Chloe, Flavin, Delia, stay in town:
Those ghosts of beauty wandering here reside,
And haunt the places where their honour died.

Tune - "If he be a butcher neat and trim."


I.

On Cessnock banks a lassie dwells;
Could I describe her shape and mien;
Our lasses a' she far excels,...

"Who first invented work?" asks Elia, he
Whose life to an ungenial task was wed,
And answers, "Satan"; but it could not be -
On idleness his foul ambition fed;
By idleness the heavenly domiciles...

I Thought of the road through the glen,
With its hawk's nest high in the pine;
With its rock, where the fox had his den,
'Mid tangles of sumach and vine,
Where she swore to be mine.
...