Works

Long have I longed, till I am tired
Of longing and desire;
Farewell my points in vain desired,
My dying fire;
Farewell all things that die and fail and tire.
...

He travels after a winter sun,
Urging the cattle along a cold red road,
Calling to them, a voice they know,
He drives his beasts above Cabra.

The voice tells them home is warm....

After him who did the mills own,
This place was called in honor Tilson;
Bright gleaming like to a beaming star,
Is clear waters of the Otter.

And it doth form here a vast pond,...

My meaning will be best unravell'd,
When I premise that Tim has travell'd.
In Lucas's by chance there lay
The Fables writ by Mr. Gay.
Tim set the volume on a table,
Read over here and there a fable:...

'Twas a place of fifty acres, in a lonely neighborhood,
And near a grove of somber pines the shackly farm-house stood;
And all the folks, for miles around, did solemnly declare...

A lang-backit, spilgie, fuistit auld carl
Gangs a' nicht rakin athort the warl
Wi' a pock on his back, luikin hungry an' lean,
His crook-fingert han' aye followin his e'en:...

Oh! Time, as it fleets, dooms a joy to decay,
From the chaplet of hope steals a blossom away,
Throws a cloud o'er the lustre of life's fairy scene,
And leaves but a thorn where the rosebud had been....

Unfathomable Sea! whose waves are years,
Ocean of Time, whose waters of deep woe
Are brackish with the salt of human tears!
Thou shoreless flood, which in thy ebb and flow
Claspest the limits of mortality,...

The ticking - ticking - ticking of the clock!
That vexed me so last night! "For though Time keeps
Such drowsy watch," I moaned, "he never sleeps,
But only nods above the world to mock...

Wait for the morning! Ah! We wait indeed
For daylight, we who toss about through stress
Of vacant-armed desires and emptiness
Of all the warm, warm touches that we need,...

Last night I watched for Death -
So sick of life was I! -
When in the street beneath
I heard his watchman cry
The hour, while passing by.

I called. And in the night
I heard him stop below,...

I.

Time, thy name is sorrow, says the stricken
Heart of life, laid waste with wasting flame
Ere the change of things and thoughts requicken,
Time, thy name.
...

Time flies. The swift hours hurry by
And speed us on to untried ways;
New seasons ripen, perish, die,
And yet love stays.
The old, old love - like sweet, at first,
At last like bitter wine -...

To A. J. H.




Time and the Earth -
The old Father and Mother -
Their teeming accomplished,
Their purpose fulfilled,
Close with a smile
For a moment of kindness,...

Oh, Time! thy merits who can know?
Thy real nature who discover?
The absent lover calls thee slow, -
"Too rapid," says the happy lover.

With bloom thy cheeks are now refin'd,...

As I was walkin on the strand,
I spied ane auld man sit
On ane auld black rock; and aye the waves
Cam washin up its fit.
His lips they gaed as gien they wad lilt,
But o' liltin, wae's me, was nane!...

"Is she still beautiful?" I asked of one
Who of the unforgotten faces told
That for long years I had not looked upon -
"Beautiful still - but she is growing old";
And for a space I sorrowed, thinking on...

It was my shame, and now it is my boast,
That I have loved you rather more than most.

I know it is early morning,
And hope is calling aloud,
And your heart is afire with Youth's desire
To hurry along with the crowd.
But linger a bit by the roadside,
And lend a hand by the way,...

On drives the road - another mile! and still
Time's horses gallop down the lessening hill
O why such haste, with nothing at the end!
Fain are we all, grim driver, to descend...