Works

On great cathedral window I have seen
A summer sunset swoon and sink away,
Lost in the splendours of immortal art.
Angels and saints and all the heavenly hosts,
With smiles undimmed by half a thousand years,...

Two angels, one of Life and one of Death,
Passed o'er our village as the morning broke;
The dawn was on their faces, and beneath,
The sombre houses hearsed with plumes of smoke.
...

God called the nearest angels who dwell with Him above:
The tenderest one was Pity, the dearest one was Love.

"Arise," He said, "my angels! a wail of woe and sin...

We walked along, while bright and red
Uprose the morning sun;
And Matthew stopped, he looked, and said
`The will of God be done!'

A village schoolmaster was he,
With hair of glittering grey;...

As Life's unending column pours,
Two marshalled hosts are seen, -
Two armies on the trampled shores
That Death flows black between.

One marches to the drum-beat's roll,...

Two asses tracking, t'other day,
Of which each in his turn,
Did incense to the other burn,
Quite in the usual way, -
I heard one to his comrade say,
"My lord, do you not find...

Bright glittering lights are gleaming in yonder mansion proud,
And within its walls are gathered a gemmed and jewelled crowd;
Robes of airy gauze and satin, diamonds and rubies bright,...

Bobbie Burns and Bobbie Browning,
They're the boys I'd like to see.
Though I'm not the boy for Bobbie,
Bobbie is the boy for me!

Bobbie Browning was the good boy;
Turned the language inside out,...

It was a vision ...

Two angels appeared to me ... two genii.

I say angels, genii, because both had no clothes on their naked bodies, and behind their shoulders rose long powerful wings.
...

[1]

Two bulls engaged in shocking battle,
Both for a certain heifer's sake,
And lordship over certain cattle,
A frog began to groan and quake.
'But what is this to you?'...

[1]

Two cocks in peace were living, when
A war was kindled by a hen.
O love, thou bane of Troy! 'twas thine
The blood of men and gods to shed
Enough to turn the Xanthus red
As old Port wine!...

In yonder old cathedral
Two lovely coffins lie;
In one, the head of the state lies dead,
And a singer sleeps hard by.

Once had that King great power
And proudly ruled the land--...

Valour and Innocence
Have latterly gone hence
To certain death by certain shame attended.
Envy, ah! even to tears!,
The fortune of their years
Which, though so few, yet so divinely ended.
...

"So awkward, so shambling a gait!"
Mrs Crab did her daughter berate,
Who rejoined, "It is true
I am backward; but you
Needed lessons in walking quite late."

Look At Home

It was shearing time at the Myall Lake,
And then rose the sound through the livelong day
Of the constant clash that the shear-blades make
When the fastest shearers are making play;...

Two lean and hungry mastiffs once espied
A dead ass floating on a water wide.
The distance growing more and more,
Because the wind the carcass bore, -
"My friend," said one, "your eyes are best;...

[1]

The Virtues should be sisters, hand in hand,
Since banded brothers all the Vices stand:
When one of these our hearts attacks,
All come in file; there only lacks,...

Two doves once cherish'd for each other
The love that brother hath for brother.
But one, of scenes domestic tiring,
To see the foreign world aspiring,
Was fool enough to undertake...

I will that if I say a heavy thing
Your tongues forgive me; seeing ye know that spring
Has flecks and fits of pain to keep her sweet,
And walks somewhile with winter-bitten feet....

Read at the unveiling of the bust of Elizabeth Fry at the Friends' School, Providence, R. I.

A. D. 1209.

Amidst Thuringia's wooded hills she dwelt,
A high-born princess, servant of the poor,...