Works

(Air: 'A wet sheet and a flowing sea.')


A bright sun and a loosened rein,
A whip whose pealing sound
Rings forth amid the forest trees
As merrily forth we bound'...

Be ye stockmen or no, to my story give ear.
Alas! for poor Jack, no more shall we hear
The crack of his stockwhip, his steed's lively trot,
His clear 'Go ahead, boys,' his jingling quart pot.

Chorus...

The stockmen of Australia, what rowdy boys are they,
They will curse and swear an hurricane if you come in their way.
They dash along the forest on black, bay, brown, or grey,...

When I am in New York, I like to drop around at night,
To visit with my honest, genial friends, the Stoddards hight;
Their home in Fifteenth street is all so snug, and furnished so,...

Where dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water-rats;
There we've hid our faery vats,
Full of berries...

Have you seen an old grey stone on the seashore, when at high tide, on a sunny day of spring, the living waves break upon it on all sides - break and frolic and caress it - and sprinkle over its sea-mossed head the scattered pe...

An Old Sailor's Lament
December, 1861

I have a feeling for those ships,
Each worn and ancient one,
With great bluff bows, and broad in the beam:
Ay, it was unkindly done....

Last night the Stork came stalking,
And, Stork, beneath your wing
Lay, lapped in dreamless slumber,
The tiniest little thing!
From Babyland, out yonder
Beside a silver sea,...

Who can forget fair freedom's bird,
That has her genuine praises heard,
Confirm'd by frequent proof?
The patriot stork is sure to share
The brave Batavian's generous care,
While breeding on his roof,...

The stork who worms and frogs devours

That in our ponds reside,
Why should he dwell on high church-towers,

With which he's not allied?

Incessantly he chatters there,
...

I thought of you when I was wakened
By a wind that made me glad and afraid
Of the rushing, pouring sound of the sea
That the great trees made.

One thought in my mind went over and over...

The rough old Mr. Storm
Is whirling, swirling past
He makes the treetops bow their heads
And trembles at his blast.

He never stops to think
Of the damage he may do,...

There came a wind like a bugle;
It quivered through the grass,
And a green chill upon the heat
So ominous did pass
We barred the windows and the doors
As from an emerald ghost;...

This is the midnight-let no star
Delude us-dawn is very far.
This is the tempest long foretold,
Slow to make head but sure to hold

Stand by! The lull 'twixt blast and blast...

Said Paul Leroy to Barrow,
'Though the breach is steep and narrow,
If we only gain the summit
Then it's odds we hold the fort.
I have ten and you have twenty,
And the thirty should be plenty,...

Pallas, a goddess chaste and wise
Descending lately from the skies,
To Neptune went, and begg'd in form
He'd give his orders for a storm;
A storm, to drown that rascal Hort,[1]...

They met each other in the glade -
She lifted up her eyes;
Alack the day! Alack the maid!
She blushed in swift surprise.
Alas! alas! the woe that comes from lifting up the eyes.
...

This is the story of Black Earl Roderick, the story and the song of his pride and of his humbling; of the bitterness of his heart, and of the love that came to it at last; of his threatened destruction, and the strange and wond...

Shall I sing you a song, not short and not long,
Of a story-book fairy who hides all among
The covers and leaves of your pictures and prints,
And colors them all with such beautiful tints?
...

The little girls whom now you'll see
Were sisters in one family;
And both enjoyed an equal share
Of a kind mother's anxious care.
This one in neatness took a pride,
And oft the brush and comb applied;...