Works

I saw Lord Buddha towering by my gate
Saying: "Once more, good youth, I stand and wait."
Saying: "I bring you my fair Law of Peace
And from your withering passion full release;...

Little leaves and flow'rets too,

Scatter we with gentle hand,
Kind young spring-gods to the view,

Sporting on an airy band.

Zephyr, bear it on the wing,
...

In the heart of a rose
Lies the heart of a maid;
If you be not afraid
You will wear it. Who knows?

In the pink of its bloom,
Lay your lips to her cheek;
Since a rose cannot speak,...

There are two images,
a moon within reach
yet trapped under snow -
an old woman's threadbare shawl
with peasants furiously working brooms
scraping ice shavings
into howls and husks of frenzy.
...

With rosy hand a little girl prest down
A boss of fresh-cull'd cowslips in a rill:
Often as they sprang up again, a frown
Show'd she disliked resistance to her will:...

I.
I dream of a red-rose tree.
And which of its roses three
Is the dearest rose to me?

II.
Round and round, like a dance of snow
In a dazzling drift, as its guardians, go...

Clerk, corresponding,
'Rooster and Comb',
Here I sit idle
'Thinking of home';
I must be grafting,
Living to earn,
More correspondence,
'Write by return.'

Clerk in employ of...

Alone in Rome. Why, Rome is lonely too;--
Besides, you need not be alone; the soul
Shall have society of its own rank.
Be great, be true, and all the Scipios,
The Catos, the wise patriots of Rome,...

The Cock is crowing,
The stream is flowing,
The small birds twitter,
The lake doth glitter,
The green field sleeps in the sun;
The oldest and youngest
Are at work with the strongest;...

Mute Memory stands at Valour's awful shrine,
In tears Britannia mourns her hero dead;
A world's regret, brave ABERCROMBIE's thine,
For nature sorrow'd as thy spirit fled!
...

I have a little Grandchild dear,
Who sends to me on each new year
A valuable present:
Not costly gift from store-house bought,
But one that her own hands have wrought,
Therefore to me more pleasant....

The gallant Youth, who may have gained,
Or seeks, a 'winsome Marrow,'
Was but an Infant in the lap
When first I looked on Yarrow;
Once more, by Newark's Castle-gate
Long left without a warder,...

Yes, holy be thy resting place
Wherever thou may'st lie;
The sweetest winds breathe on thy face,
The softest of the sky.

And will not guardian Angles send
Kind dreams and thoughts of love,...

If in winter you shall drive
Birds from crumbs, you shall not thrive;
But if you feed them, they will fly
To sing it sweetly on the sky.

So throw up the window, and
Scatter with a lavish hand,...

I make this rhyme of my lady and me
To give me ease of my misery,
Of my lady and me I make this rhyme
For lovers in the after-time.
And I weave its warp from day to day
In a golden loom deep hid away...

One asked of regret,
And I made reply:
To have held the bird,
And let it fly;
To have seen the star
For a moment nigh,
And lost it
Through a slothful eye;
To have plucked the flower...

You remember Ellen, our hamlet's pride,
How meekly she blest her humble lot,
When the stranger, William, had made her his bride,
And love was the light of their lowly cot....

Your riches taught me poverty.
Myself a millionnaire
In little wealths, -- as girls could boast, --
Till broad as Buenos Ayre,

You drifted your dominions
A different Peru;...

When one who has wandered out of the way
Which leads to the hills of joy,
Whose heart has grown both cold and grey,
Though it be but the heart of a boy--
When such a one turns back his feet...

I'll do my best to win whene'er I woo:
That man loves not who is not zealous too.