Works

There was a woman, and she was wise; woefully wise was she;
She was old, so old, yet her years all told were but a score and three;
And she knew by heart, from finish to start, the Book of Iniquity.
...

They certainly contrived to raise
Queer ladies in the olden days.
Either the type had not been fixed,
Or else Zoology got mixed.
I envy not primeval man
This female on the feathered plan....

A Hart by the hunters pursued,
Safely hid in a Vine, till he chewed
The sweet tender green,
And, through shaking leaves seen,
He was slain by his ingratitude.

Spare Your Benefactors

We saw the Regiment, alert and strong,
In marching line, on Soldiers' Field today,
Ah! ready they to battle with the wrong; -
This flower of youth - eager and brave and gay.
...

It is the Harvest Moon! On gilded vanes
And roofs of villages, on woodland crests
And their aerial neighborhoods of nests
Deserted, on the curtained window-panes...

I


Globed in Heav'n's tree of azure, golden mellow
As some round apple hung
High in hesperian boughs, thou hangest yellow
The branch-like mists among:...

The earth grows white with harvest; all day long
The sickles gleam, until the darkness weaves
Her web of silence o'er the thankful song
Of reapers bringing home the golden sheaves.
...

The earth grows white with harvest; all day long
The sickles gleam, until the darkness weaves
Her web of silence o'er the thankful song
Of reapers bringing home the golden sheaves.
...

Of all that Orient lands can vaunt
Of marvels with our own competing,
The strangest is the Haschish plant,
And what will follow on its eating.
What pictures to the taster rise,...

The last walls of shame fell,
And we rejoiced...
And we danced...
And we were blessed with the signing of the peace of the cowards...
Nothing terrifies us any more.
And nothing shames us....

The Hasty Higgeldipiggledy Hen,
who went to market in a Blue Bonnet and Shawl,
and bought a Fish for her Supper.

My hatband goes around my hat,
And while there's nothing strange in that,
It seems just like a lazy man
Who leaves off where he first began.

But then this fact is always true,...

An actor Gibbs, of Drury Lane -
Of very decent station,
Once happened in a part to gain
Excessive approbation:
It sometimes turns a fellow's brain
And makes him singularly vain...

(Moon Poems for the Children/Fairy-tales for the Children)
(What Uncle William told the Children)


Twelve snails went walking after night.
They'd creep an inch or so,
Then stop and bug their eyes...

Thanks, my Lord, for your venison, for finer or fatter
Never rang'd in a forest, or smok'd in a platter;
The haunch was a picture for painters to study,
The fat was so white, and the lean was so ruddy....

It stands alone on a haunted shore,
With curious words of deathless lore
On its massive gate impearled;
And its carefully guarded mystic key
Locks in its silent mystery...

Each heart has its haunted chamber,
Where the silent moonlight falls!
On the floor are mysterious footsteps,
There are whispers along the walls!

And mine at times is haunted...

Life is a house where many chambers be,
And all the doors will yield to him who tries,
Save one, whereof men say, behind it lies
The haunting secret. He who keeps the key,
...

There a tattered marigold
And dead asters manifold,
Showed him where the garden old
Of time bloomed:
Briar and thistle overgrew
Corners where the rose once blew,
Where the phlox of every hue...

"A jolly place, said he, in days of old,
But something ails it now: the spot is curst."
WORDSWORTH.


PART I.

Some dreams we have are nothing else but dreams,...