Works

I passed by the school where I studied as a boy
and said in my heart: here I learned certain things
and didn't learn others. All my life I have loved in vain
the things I didn't learn. I am filled with knowledge,...

(With thoughts of Leslie Stephen)
(June 1897)



Aloof, as if a thing of mood and whim;
Now that its spare and desolate figure gleams
Upon my nearing vision, less it seems...

Hurrah for the Science Club!
Join it, ye fourth year men;
Join it, thou smooth-cheeked scrub,
Whose years scarce number ten

Join it, divines most grave;
Science, as all men know,...

The old man had his box and wheel
For grinding knives and shears.
No doubt his bell in village streets
Was joy to children's ears.
And I bethought me of my youth
When such men came around,...

A husband said unto his wife:
"Who deals in slander deals in strife;
Are we the heralds of disgrace,
To thunder, love, at all our race -
And, indiscriminate in rage,
To spare nor friend nor sex nor age?...

The Scorcher and the Howling Swell were riding through the land;
They wept like anything to see the hills on every hand;
"If these were only leveled down," they said, "it would be grand."
...

The Scorpion is as black as soot,
He dearly loves to bite;
He is a most unpleasant brute
To find in bed at night.

That no Scotsman is perfect, we freely confess,
Nor has been since the time of the fall;
Yet we think, notwithstanding and nevertheless,
He is "nae sheep-shank bane," after all....

Black Scots and red Scots,
Red Scots and black;
I hae dealt wi' the red Scot,
An' dealt wi' the black.

The Red Scot is angry.
Among the sons o' men,
He'll pay you a bawbee,...

With eyes that searched in the dark,
Peering along the line,
Stood the grim Scotsman, Hector Clark,
Driver of "Forty-nine".
And the veldt-fire flamed on the hills ahead,
Like a blood-red beacon sign....

("L', voyez-vous passer, la nu'e.")

[I., November, 1828.]


I.

Hast seen it pass, that cloud of darkest rim?
Now red and glorious, and now gray and dim,...

The cavalry-camp lies on the slope
Of what was late a vernal hill,
But now like a pavement bare -
An outpost in the perilous wilds
Which ever are lone and still;
But Mosby's men are there -...

When, one by one, the stars have trembled through
Eve's shadowy hues of violet, rose, and fire
As on a pansy-bloom the limpid dew
Orbs its bright beads; and, one by one, the choir...

Yes, here it is, behind the box,
That puzzle wrought so neatly--
That paradise of paradox--
We once knew so completely;
You see it? 'Tis the same, I swear,
Which stood, that chill September,...

What lovely things
Thy hand hath made:
The smooth-plumed bird
In its emerald shade,
The seed of the grass,
The speck of stone
Which the wayfaring ant
Stirs - and hastes on!
...

When from my fumbling hand the tired pen falls,
And in the twilight weary droops my head;
While to my quiet heart a still voice calls,
Calls me to join my kindred of the Dead:...

The Scroobious Snake,
who always wore a Hat on his Head, for
fear he should bite anybody.

The dream fell on him one calm summer night,
Stealing amid the waving of the corn,
That waited, golden, for the harvest morn--
The dream fell on him through the still moonlight.
...

A block of marble was so fine,
To buy it did a sculptor hasten.
'What shall my chisel, now 'tis mine -
A god, a table, or a basin?'

'A god,' said he, 'the thing shall be;...

Once a sculptor who saw for sale a block of marble was so struck with its beauty that he could not resist the temptation to buy it. When it was in his studio he thought to himself, "Now what shall my chisel make of it? Shall it...