Works

Remember the glories of Brien the brave,
Tho' the days of the hero are o'er;
Tho' lost to Mononia and cold in the grave,[2]
He returns to Kinkora no more.[3]...

Mark how the feathered tenants of the flood,
With grace of motion that might scarcely seem
Inferior to angelical, prolong
Their curious pastime! shaping in mid air...

We are not always glad when we smile:
Though we wear a fair face and are gay,
And the world we deceive
May not ever believe
We could laugh in a happier way. -
Yet, down in the deeps of the soul,...

Tune - "Duncan Gray."


I.

Weary fa' you, Duncan Gray,
Ha, ha, the girdin o't!
Wae gae by you, Duncan Gray,
Ha, ha, the girdin o't!
When a' the lave gae to their play,...

I stoompled oud ov a dafern,
Berauscht mit a gallon of wein,
Und I rooshed along de strassen,
Like a derriple Eberschwein.

Und like a lordly boar-pig,
I doomplet de soper folk;...

Shadowed so long by the storm-cloud of danger,
Thou whom the prayers of an empire defend,
Welcome, thrice welcome! but not as a stranger,
Come to the nation that calls thee its friend!
...

We'll go no more a-roving by the light of the moon.
November glooms are barren beside the dusk of June.
The summer flowers are faded, the summer thoughts are sere....

We must get home! How could we stray like this? -
So far from home, we know not where it is, -
Only in some fair, apple-blossomy place
Of children's faces - and the mother's face -...

We never know we go, -- when we are going
We jest and shut the door;
Fate following behind us bolts it,
And we accost no more.

Is it true, ye gods, who treat us
As the gambling fool is treated;
O ye, who ever cheat us,
And let us feel we're cheated!
Is it true that poetical power,
The gift of heaven, the dower...

It's moughty tiahsome layin' 'roun'
Dis sorrer-laden earfly groun',
An' oftentimes I thinks, thinks I,
'T would be a sweet t'ing des to die,
An' go 'long home.
...

We were two green rushes by opposing banks,
And the small stream ran between.
Not till the water beat us down
Could we be brought together,
Not till the winter came...

What do poets want with gold,
Cringing slaves and cushioned ease;
Are not crusts and garments old
Better for their souls than these?

Gold is but the juggling rod
Of a false usurping god,...

Now, while thy rounded cheek is fresh and fair,
While beauty lingers, laughing, in thine eyes,
Ere thy young heart shall meet the stranger, "Care,"
Or thy blithe soul become the home of sighs,...

What General has a good army in himself, has a good army;
He happy in himself, or she happy in herself, is happy,
But I tell you you cannot be happy by others, any more than you can beget or conceive a child by others.

God is above the sphere of our esteem,
And is the best known, not defining Him.

What God would outwardly alone control,
And on his finger whirl the mighty Whole?
He loves the inner world to move, to view
Nature in Him, Himself in Nature too,
So that what in Him works, and is, and lives,...

(An epistle from a narrow-minded old gentleman to a young artist of superior intellect and intense realism.)


Your thoughts are for the poor and weak?
Ah, no, the picturesque's your passion!...

The moon's a holy owl-queen.
She keeps them in a jar
Under her arm till evening,
Then sallies forth to war.

She pours the owls upon us.
They hoot with horrid noise...

Where now the huts are empty,
Where never a camp-fire glows,
In an abandoned canyon,
A Gambler's Ghost arose.
He muttered there, "The moon's a sack
Of dust." His voice rose thin:...