Works

They called Thee Merry England, in old time;
A happy people won for thee that name
With envy heard in many a distant clime;
And, spite of change, for me thou keep'st the same...

From North and South, and East and West,
They come!
The sorely tried, the much oppressed,
Their Faith and Love to manifest,
They come!
They come to tell of work well done,...

(Macmillan's Magazine, March 1869.)


I

I would not if I could undo my past,
Tho' for its sake my future is a blank;
My past, for which I have myself to thank,...

What can be said in New Year rhymes,
That's not been said a thousand times?

The new years come, the old years go,
We know we dream, we dream we know.

We rise up laughing with the light,...

What can be said in New Year rhymes,
That's not been said a thousand times?

The new years come, the old years go,
We know we dream, we dream we know.

We rise up laughing with the light,...

We zot bezide the leafy wall,
Upon the bench at evenfall,
While aunt led off our minds wrom ceare
Wi' veairy teales, I can't tell where,
An' vound us woone among her stock...

There were four loves that one by one,
Following the seasons and the sun,
Passed over without tears, and fell
Away without farewell.

The first was made of gold and tears,...

From the depths of the green garden-closes
Where the summer in darkness dozes
Till autumn pluck from his hand
An hour-glass that holds not a sand;
From the maze that a flower-belt encloses...

The year outgrows the spring it thought so sweet,
And clasps the summer with a new delight,
Yet wearied, leaves her languors and her heat
When cool-browed autumn dawns upon his sight.
...

To-night I close my eyes and see
A strange procession passing me,
The years before I saw your face
Go by me with a wistful grace;
They pass, the sensitive, shy years,...

"Time in advance behind him hides his wings." - YOUNG.


As comes amain the glossy flying raven,
That with unwavering wing, breast on the view,
Cleaves slow the lucid air beneath the blue,...

How do you know that the pilgrim track
Along the belting zodiac
Swept by the sun in his seeming rounds
Is traced by now to the Fishes' bounds
And into the Ram, when weeks of cloud...

I left the farm when mother died and changed my place of dwelling
To daughter Susie's stylish house right on the city street:
And there was them before I came that sort of scared me, telling...

A TALE WITH A STING IN IT.

Ah!
There you are!
I was certain I heard a strange voice from afar.
Mamma calls me a pup, but I'm wiser than she;
One ear cocked and I hear, half an eye and I see;...

When shall I see the white-thorn leaves agen,
And yellowhammers gathering the dry bents
By the dyke side, on stilly moor or fen,
Feathered with love and nature's good intents?...

Who could describe you, child of mystery
And silence, born among these solitudes?
Within whose look there is a secrecy,
Old as these wanderingwoods,
And knowledge, cousin to the morning-star,...

When beechen buds begin to swell,
And woods the blue-bird's warble know,
The yellow violet's modest bell
Peeps from the last year's leaves below.

Ere russet fields their green resume,...

Our rides in all directions bend,

For business or for pleasure,
Yet yelpings on our steps attend,

And barkings without measure.
The dog that in our stable dwells,
...

The wind it blew, and the ship it flew,
And it was "Hey for hame!"
But up an' cried the skipper til his crew,
"Haud her oot ower the saut sea faem."

Syne up an' spak the angry king:...

The moon gave no light.
The clouds rode slowly over, broad and white,
From the soft south west.
The wind, that cannot rest,
Soothed and then waked the darkness of the yew...