Works

I shall be spun. There is a voice within
Which tells me plainly I am all undone;
For though I toil not, neither do I spin,
I shall be spun.

April approaches. I have not begun...

Man is a watch, wound up at first, but never
Wound up again; Once down, he's down for ever.
The watch once down, all motions then do cease;
The man's pulse stopt, all passions sleep in peace.

She gave her soul and body for a carriage,
And livened lackey with a vacant grin,
And all the rest -house, lands -and called it marriage:
The bargain made, a husband was thrown in.
...

Put forth to watch, unschooled, alone,
'Twixt hostile earth and sky;
The mottled lizard 'neath the stone
Is wiser here than I.

What stir across the haze of heat?
What omen down the wind?...

From out a windy cleft there comes a gaze
Of eyes unearthly, which go to and fro
Upon the people's tumult, for below
The nations smite each other: no amaze
Troubles their liquid rolling, or affrays...

Beside a stricken field I stood;
On the torn turf, on grass and wood,
Hung heavily the dew of blood.

Still in their fresh mounds lay the slain,
But all the air was quick with pain...

("Dans l'alc've sombre.")

[XX., November, 1831.]


In the dusky nook,
Near the altar laid,
Sleeps the child in shadow
Of his mother's bed:
Softly he reposes,...

Above the roofs and chimney-tops,
And through the slow November rain,
A light from some far attic pane,
Shines twinkling through the water-drops.

Some lonely watcher waits and weeps,...

'Watchman, what of the night?'
'The stars are out in the sky;
And the merry round moon will be rising soon,
For us to go sailing by.'

'Watchman, what of the night?'...

A TRIO.


WATCHMAN.

Past twelve o'clock--past twelve.

Good night, good night, my dearest--
How fast the moments fly!
'Tis time to part, thou hearest...

Night-Lights are falling;
Girl of the street,
Go to your calling
If you would eat.
Lamplight and starlight
And moonlight superb,
Bright hope is a farlight,
So watch on the kerb....

Let others make the songs of love
For our young struggling nation;
But I will sing while e'er I live
The Songs of Irrigation;
For while the white man shall beget
The white man's son and daughter,...

"--portentaque Thessala rides?"
--Hor.
"--Thessalian portents do you flout?"
* *


CARDENIO'S fortunes ne'er miscarried
Until the day CARDENIO married....

A patch of meadow upland
Reached by a mile of road,
Soothed by the voice of waters,
With birds and flowers bestowed.

Hither I come for strength
Which well it can supply,...

The song of the water
Doomed ever to roam,
A beautiful exile,
Afar from its home.

The cliffs on the mountain,
The grand and the gray,
They took the bright creature
And hurled it away!...

I

"Begone, thou fond presumptuous Elf,"
Exclaimed an angry Voice,
"Nor dare to thrust thy foolish self
Between me and my choice!"
A small Cascade fresh swoln with snows...

On a wild Moor, all brown and bleak,
Where broods the heath-frequenting grouse,
There stood a tenement antique;
Lord Hoppergollop's country house.

Here Silence reign'd, with lips of glue,...

As I gae'd doon by the twa mill dams i' the mornin'
The water-hen cam' oot like a passin' wraith
And her voice cam' through the reeds wi' a sound of warnin',
"Faith - keep faith!"...

Alas, the moon should ever beam
To show what man should never see! -
I saw a maiden on a stream,
And fair was she!

I staid awhile, to see her throw
Her tresses black, that all beset...