Works

TO LORD BOLINGBROKE.

St John, whose love indulged my labours past,
Matures my present, and shall bound my last!
Why will you break the Sabbath of my days?
Now sick alike of envy and of praise....

ADVERTISEMENT.
...

That is the earliest thing that I remember--
The narrow house in the long narrow street,
Dark rooms within and darkness out of doors
Where grasses in the garden lift in the wind,...

God made the bright, round sun;
He made the pretty flowers;
The little birds, the trees, the clouds
The rain that falls in showers.

He made papa, mamma,
And baby brother, too;...

While we to Jove select the holy victim
Whom apter shall we sing than Jove himself,
The god for ever great, for ever king,
Who slew the earthborn race, and measures right...

Oh, a wonderful horse is the Fly-Away Horse -
Perhaps you have seen him before;
Perhaps, while you slept, his shadow has swept

Through the moonlight that floats on the floor....

Fiddle-de-dee, Fiddle-de-dee,
The fly has married the humble bee.
Says the fly, says he,
"Will you marry me,
And live with me,
Sweet humble bee?"

Says the bee, says she,...

A harebell hung her wilful head:
"I am tired, so tired! I wish I was dead."

She hung her head in the mossy dell:
"If all were over, then all were well!"

The Wind he heard, and was pitiful,...

Come, Death, I'd have a word with thee;
And thou, poor Innocency;
And Love - a lad with broken wing;
And Pity, too:
The Fool shall sing to you,
As Fools will sing.
...

Say, St John, who alone peruse
With candid eye the mimic Muse,
What schemes of politics, or laws,
In Gallic lands the patriot draws!
Is then a greater work in hand,
Than all the tomes of Haines's band?...

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From wrongs of wicked men we draw
Excuses for our own: -
Such is the universal law.
Would you have mercy shown,
Let yours be clearly known.

A fowler's mirror served to snare...

Hard 'tis on a fox's traces

To arrive, midst forest-glades;
Hopeless utterly the chase is,

If his flight the huntsman aids.

And so 'tis with many a wonder,

...

Speaking within compass, as to fabulousness I prefer
Southcote to Northcote.
PIGROGROMITUS.


One day, or night, no matter where or when,
Sly Reynard, like a foot-pad, laid his pad...

I.

With fleet-limbed steeds and baying pack
They follow close on Reynard's track,
And wake the slumbering echoes round
With music of the horn and hound;
Through wood and field, o'er hill and dale,...

[1]

A fox, old, subtle, vigilant, and sly, -
By hunters wounded, fallen in the mud, -
Attracted, by the traces of his blood,
That buzzing parasite, the fly.
He blamed the gods, and wonder'd why...

[1]

A fox, though young, by no means raw,
Had seen a horse, the first he ever saw:
'Ho! neighbour wolf,' said he to one quite green,
'A creature in our meadow I have seen, -...

[1]

A cunning old fox, of plundering habits,
Great crauncher of fowls, great catcher of rabbits,
Whom none of his sort had caught in a nap,
Was finally caught in somebody's trap....

"Emam tua carmina sanus?"--MARTIAL.

F. OF H. I want a verse. It gives you little pains;--
You just sit down, and draw upon your brains.

Come, now, be amiable.

R. To hear you talk,...

Now have I left the world and all its tears,
And high above the sunny cloud-banks fly,
Alone in all this vast and lonely sky -
This limpid space in which the myriad spheres...

I freeze, I freeze, and nothing dwells
In me but snow and icicles.
For pity's sake, give your advice,
To melt this snow and thaw this ice.
I'll drink down flames; but if so be...