Works

"Should the poor be flattered?"

Shakspeare.

But now his radiant course is run,
For Matthew's course was bright;
His soul was like the glorious sun,
A matchless heav'nly light!

...

"Will I come?" That is pleasant! I beg to inquire
If the gun that I carry has ever missed fire?
And which was the muster-roll-mention but one -
That missed your old comrade who carries the gun?
...

Girl with the burning golden eyes,
And red-bird song, and snowy throat:
I bring you gold and silver moons
And diamond stars, and mists that float.
I bring you moons and snowy clouds,...

Thousands each day pass by, which we,
Once past and gone, no more shall see.

Among white peaks a rock, hewn altar-wise,
Marks the long frontier of our mighty lands.
Apart its dark tremendous sculpture stands,
Too steep for snow, and square against the skies....

At Market-Hill, as well appears
By chronicle of ancient date,
There stood for many hundred years
A spacious thorn before the gate.

Hither came every village maid,...

(THEN UNFINISHED.)


Though all the nations now
Peace gathers under her white wings,
The minds of Italy will ne'er be free
From the restraints of their old lethargy,...

What god, what genius did the pencil move,
When Kneller painted these?
'Twas friendship, warm as Phoebus, kind as Love,
And strong as Hercules.

. . . In a dark street she met and spoke to me,
Importuning, one wet and mild March night.
We walked and talked together. O her tale
Was very common; thousands know it all!...

One hour to madness and joy!
O furious! O confine me not!
(What is this that frees me so in storms?
What do my shouts amid lightnings and raging winds mean?)
...

O thou, whom poesy abhors,
Whom prose has turned out of doors,
Heard'st thou that groan? proceed no further;
'Twas laurell'd Martial roaring murther!

'ONE-MAN-ONE-VOTE!' You hear the people shouting.
The walls of Mammon tremble ere they fall.
ONE-MAN-ONE-VOTE! Is this a time for doubting?
The poets have been prophets after all.
...

The feudal Keep, the bastions of Cohorn,
Even when they rose to check or to repel
Tides of aggressive war, oft served as well
Greedy ambition, armed to treat with scorn...

On Ettrick Forest's mountains dun
'Tis blithe to hear the sportsman's gun,
And seek the heath-frequenting brood
Far through the noonday solitude;
By many a cairn and trenched mound,...

To E. B. B.


I
There they are, my fifty men and women
Naming me the fifty poems finished!
Take them, Love, the book and me together:
Where the heart lies, let the brain lie also.
...

Beyond expression, delicately fine,
Beneath her slender fingers swept the sound
Of 'witching tones, melodious, divine;
Soothing and soft upon the sense they wound,
Join'd with the syrens' music, as it were,...

"Thou great First Cause," Creator, King, and Lord,
The worm that breathed at Thy commanding word,
And dies whene'er Thou wilt, presumptuous man,
Has dared the mazes of Thy path to scan;...

We poets pride ourselves on what
We feel, and not what we achieve;
The world may call our children fools,
Enough for us that we conceive.
A little wren that loves the grass
Can be as proud as any lark...

Oh, stay, harmonious and sweet sounds, that die
In the long vaultings of this ancient fane!
Stay, for I may not hear on earth again
Those pious airs, that glorious harmony;...

Thou who shalt stop, where Thames' translucent wave
Shines a broad mirror through the shadowy cave;
Where lingering drops from mineral roofs distil,
And pointed crystals break the sparkling rill,...