Alas! I can't, for tell me, how Can I be gamesome, aged now? Besides, ye see me daily grow Here, winter-like, to frost and snow; And I, ere long, my girls, shall see Ye quake for cold to look on me.
Did I or love, or could I others draw To the indulgence of the rugged law, The first foundation of that zeal should be By reading all her paragraphs in thee, Who dost so fitly with the laws unite,...
I can but name thee, and methinks I call All that have been, or are canonical For love and bounty to come near, and see Their many virtues volum'd up in thee; In thee, brave man! whose incorrupted fame...
Welcome to this my college, and though late Thou'st got a place here (standing candidate) It matters not, since thou art chosen one Here of my great and good foundation.
Next is your lot, fair, to be number'd one, Here, in my book's canonisation: Late you come in; but you a saint shall be, In chief, in this poetic liturgy.
When first I find those numbers thou dost write, To be most soft, terse, sweet, and perpolite: Next, when I see thee tow'ring in the sky, In an expansion no less large than high;...
Since shed or cottage I have none, I sing the more, that thou hast one; To whose glad threshold, and free door I may a Poet come, though poor; And eat with thee a savoury bit,...
A strong discomfort in the dress Dwindling the clothes to nothingness Saving, for due decorum placed, A huckaback about the waist, Or wanton towel-et, whose touch...
Mortal my mate, bearing my rock-a-heart Warm beat with cold beat company, shall I Earlier or you fail at our force, and lie The ruins of, rifled, once a world of art?...
When after many lusters thou shalt be Wrapt up in sear-cloth with thine ancestry; When of thy ragg'd escutcheons shall be seen So little left, as if they ne'er had been;...
Tell me, young man, or did the Muses bring Thee less to taste than to drink up their spring, That none hereafter should be thought, or be A poet, or a poet-like but thee?...
Stand with thy graces forth, brave man, and rise High with thine own auspicious destinies: Nor leave the search, and proof, till thou canst find These, or those ends, to which thou wast design'd....
Nor is my number full till I inscribe Thee, sprightly Soame, one of my righteous tribe; A tribe of one lip, leaven, and of one Civil behaviour, and religion; A stock of saints, where ev'ry one doth wear...
Our Poet, who has taught the Western breeze To waft his songs before him o'er the seas, Will find them wheresoe'er his wanderings reach Borne on the spreading tide of English speech...
Spouse of penniless Ibycus, Thus late, bring to a close all thy delinquencies, All thy studious infamy:- Nearing swiftly the grave - (that not an early one) -...
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!...
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...
1. The keen stars were twinkling, And the fair moon was rising among them, Dear Jane! The guitar was tinkling, But the notes were not sweet till you sung them Again.