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I had been almost happy for an hour,
Lost to the world that knew me in the park
Among strange faces; while my little girl
Leaped with the squirrels, chirruped with the birds...

Warm yellowy-green
In the blue serene,
How they skip and sway
On this autumn day!
They cannot know
What has happened below, -
That their boughs down there
Are already quite bare,...

The following lines occur in the Swiftiana, and are by Mr. Wilson, the editor, ascribed to Swift. - Scott.

" - - The rascal! that's too mild a name;
Does he forget from whence he came?...

A metropolitan rat invited
His country cousin in town to dine:
The country cousin replied, "Delighted."
And signed himself, "Sincerely thine."
The town rat treated the country cousin
To half a dozen...

Do not despise the humble weed,
For the Lord He first sowed the seed,
Perhaps it bears most precious fruit,
And useful leaves and potent root.

Though it seems now a useless weed,...

[1]

Between two citizens
A controversy grew.
The one was poor, but much he knew:
The other, rich, with little sense,
Claim'd that, in point of excellence,
The merely wise should bow the knee...

Now, Jurymen, hear my advice
All kinds of vulgar prejudice
I pray you set aside:
With stern judicial frame of mind,
From bias free of every kind,
This trial must be tried!
...

Fate says, and flaunts her stores of gold,
"I'll loan you happiness untold.
What is it you desire of me?"
A perfect hour in which to be
In love with life, and glad, and good,...

As I did walk in meadows green
I heard the summer noon resound
With call of myriad things unseen
That leapt and crept upon the ground.

High overhead the windless air...

It was deadly cold in Danbury town
One terrible night in mid November,
A night that the Danbury folk remember
For the sleety wind that hammered them down,
That chilled their faces and chapped their skin,...

White handkerchiefs wave from the short black pier
As we glide to the grand old sea,
But the song of my heart is for none to hear
If one of them waves for me.
A roving, roaming life is mine,...

The little dream she had forgot
Oh, long and long ago,
Came back across the April fields
And touched her garment so
(As might a wind-blown primrose cling
And one scarce guess or know.)
...

What saw you in your flight to-day,
Crows, awinging your homeward way?

Went you far in carrion quest,
Crows, that worry the sunless west?

Thieves and villains, you shameless things!...

He only sees both sides of that dark vail
That hangs before men's eyes--
He only. It is well!
Hope ever stands unseen
Behind the screen,
For knowledge would bring Hope to sudden death,...

A bulrush stood on a river's rim,
And an oak that grew near by
Looked down with cold hauteur on him,
And addressed him this way: "Hi!"
The rush was a proud patrician, and
He retorted, "Don't you know,...

"Fine feathers," Jack thought, "make fine fowls;
I'll be envied of bats & of owls:"
But the peacocks' proud eyes
Saw through his disguise,
And Jack fled the assembly of fowls.
...

All night I lay upon the rocks:
And now the dawn comes up this way,
One great star trembling in her locks
Of rosy ray.

I can not tell the things I've seen;
The things I've heard I dare not speak....

I.

I Heard the hylas in the bottomlands
Piping a reed-note in the praise of Spring:
The South-wind brought the music on its wing,
As 't were a hundred strands...

In vale of Thames oft' times are seen
The cattle graze 'mong sweetest green,
Or there contented with their fate
The gentle cows do ruminate.

And enjoy a double pleasure...

[Bk. III. vi., October, 1846.]


A lion camped beside a spring, where came the Bird
Of Jove to drink:
When, haply, sought two kings, without their courtier herd,
The moistened brink,...