'Though logic choppers rule the town, And every man and maid and boy Has marked a distant object down, An aimless joy is a pure joy,' Or so did Tom O'Roughley say That saw the surges running by,...
My two-fold Book! single in show But double in Contents, Neat, but not curiously adorn'd Which in his early youth, A poet gave, no lofty one in truth...
True laureate of the Anglo-Saxon race, Whose words have won the hearts of young and old; So free from cant, and yet replete with grace, Or prose or verse it glows like burnished gold;...
My gentle Anne, whom heretofore, When I was young, and thou no more Than plaything for a nurse, I danced and fondled on my knee, A kitten both in size and glee, I thank thee for my purse.
As there is music uninform'd by art In those wild notes, which, with a merry heart, The birds in unfrequented shades express, Who, better taught at home, yet please us less:...
My dearely loued friend how oft haue we, In winter evenings (meaning to be free,) To some well-chosen place vs'd to retire; And there with moderate meate, and wine, and fire,...
You know "The Teacups," that congenial set Which round the Teapot you have often met; The grave DICTATOR, him you knew of old, - Knew as the shepherd of another fold...
Pray, take these pearls! - and my thanks for them You lavished, the home of my youth to gem! The thousands of hours of peaceful luster Your spirit has filled, are pearls that cluster...
O daughter of our Southern sun, Sweet sister of each flower, Dost dream in terraced Avalon A shadow-haunted hour? Or stand with Guinevere upon Some ivied Camelot tower? ...
You make our faults too gross, and thence maintain Our darker future. May your fears be vain! At times the small black fly upon the pane May seem the black ox of the distant plain.
Poet, whose words are like the tight-packed seed Sealed in the capsule of a silver flower, Still at your art we wonder as we read, The art dynamic charging each word with power. ...
The fine delight that fathers thought; the strong Spur, live and lancing like the blowpipe flame, Breathes once and, quench'd faster than it came, Leaves yet the mind a mother of immortal song....