Works

1.
Bear witness, Erin! when thine injured isle
Sees summer on its verdant pastures smile,
Its cornfields waving in the winds that sweep
The billowy surface of thy circling deep!...

Know, that I would accounted be
True brother of a company
That sang, to sweeten Ireland's wrong,
Ballad and story, rann and song;
Nor be I any less of them,
Because the red-rose-bordered hem...

Arise, my Isabel, arise!
The sun shoots forth his early ray,
The hue of love is in the skies,
The birds are singing, come away!
O come, my Isabella, come,
With inky tendrils hanging low;...

A Beautiful Little Girl.

Fair as some sea-child, in her coral bower,
Decked with the rare, rich treasures of the deep;
Mild as the spirit of the dream whose power...

Come near me with thy lips, and, breathe o'er mine
Their breath, for I consume with love's desire, -
Thine ivory arms about me clasp and twine,
And beam upon mine eye thine eye's soft fire;...

I often thought to write to thee, what time
I almost fancied heaven-born, genius mine,
And fondly hoped my island harp to wake,
To some new strain sung for my country's sake....

I

Beneath the vine-clad eaves,
Whose shadows fall before
Thy lowly cottage door,
Under the lilac's tremulous leaves,
Within thy snowy clasped hand
The purple flowers it bore....

I

Beneath the vine-clad eaves,
Whose shadows fall before
Thy lowly cottage door
Under the lilac's tremulous leaves,
Within thy snowy claspe'd hand
The purple flowers it bore....

My country, I the walls, the arches see,
The columns, statues, and the towers
Deserted, of our ancestors;
But, ah, the glory I do not behold,
The laurel and the sword, that graced
Our sires of old....

The bowers whereat, in dreams, I see
The wantonest singing birds,
Are lips, and all thy melody
Of lip-begotten words,

Thine eyes, in Heaven of heart enshrined,
Then desolately fall,...

So, I've battled it through on my own, Jack,
I have done with all dreaming and doubt.
Though 'stoney' to-night and alone, Jack,
I am watching the Old Year out.
I have finished with brooding and fears,...

BRIGHTON, JUNE, 1825.


This life, dear Corry, who can doubt?--
Resembles much friend Ewart's[1] wine,
When first the rosy drops come out,
How beautiful, how clear they shine!...

I bring the simplest pledge of love,
Friend of my earlier days;
Mine is the hand without the glove,
The heart-beat, not the phrase.

How few still breathe this mortal air...

This is your month, the month of "perfect days,"
Birds in full song and blossoms all ablaze.
Nature herself your earliest welcome breathes,
Spreads every leaflet, every bower inwreathes;...

"Friendship! mysterious cement of the soul!
Sweet'ner of life and solder of society!
I owe thee much!"

Blair.


Dear Smith, the sleest, paukie thief,
That e'er attempted stealth or rief,...

On a blank leaf of "poems printed, not published.


Well thought! who would not rather hear
The songs to Love and Friendship sung
Than those which move the stranger's tongue,...

Your trail runs to the westward,
And mine to my own place;
There is water between our lodges,
And I have not seen your face.

But since I have read your verses
'Tis easy to guess the rest,...

Our dearest joys forever flow
From fountains of the Long Ago,
That from the heights of pleasures past
Flood all the present valleys vast,
And with eternal glees provide
The future's endless ocean tide....

O lyrist of the lowly and the true,
The song I sought for you
Hides yet unsung. What hope for me to find,
Lost in the d'dal mind,
The living utterance with lovely tongue!
To say, as erst was sung...

The lark's in the sky, love,
The flowers on the lea,
The whitethorn's in bloom, love,
To please thee and me;
'Neath its shade we can rest, love,
And sit on the hill,
And as last we met, love,...