Works

Spoken At The Westminster Election Next After His Decease.


Our good old friend is gone; gone to his rest,
Whose social converse was itself a feast.
O ye of riper years, who recollect...

[1]

(WRITTEN MAY, 1832.)


All, as he left it!--even the pen,
So lately at that mind's command,
Carelessly lying, as if then
Just fallen from his gifted hand.
...

Dearer to me, thou pile of dust!
Tho' with the wild flow'r simply crown'd,
Than the vast dome or beauteous bust,
By genius form'd, by wit renown'd.

Wave, thou wild flow'r! for ever wave,...

How many verses have I thrown
Into the fire because the one
Peculiar word, the wanted most,
Was irrecoverably lost!

Fortune! I thank thee: gentle goddess! thanks!
Not that my muse, though bashful, shall deny
She would have thank'd thee rather hadst thou cast
A treasure in her way; for neither meed...

In your beautiful book, dear Mary,
With pages so white and fair,
I pause ere I trace the first sentence,
And thoughtfully breathe a prayer:--

That in the dew of the morning,...

Nature in charms is exhaustless, in beauty ever reviving;
And, like Nature, fair art is inexhaustible too.
Hail, thou honored old man! for both in thy heart thou preservest...

Once wisdom dwelt in tomes of ponderous size,
While friendship from a pocketbook would talk;
But now that knowledge in small compass lies,
And floats in almanacs, as light as cork,...

Whoe'er thou art, approach, and, with a sigh,
Mark where the small remains of Greatness lie.[2]
There sleeps the dust of Him for ever gone;
How near the Scene where once his Glory shone!...

Are the guests of this house still doom'd to be cheated?
Sure the Fates have decreed they by halves should be treated.
In the days of good John[1] if you came here to dine,...

We came na here to view your warks
In hopes to be mair wise,
But only, lest we gang to hell,
It may be nae surprise:

For whan we tirl'd at your door,
Your porter dought na hear us;...

Yes, 'tis the pulse of life! my fears were vain!
I wake, I breathe, and am myself again.
Still in this nether world; no seraph yet!
Nor walks my spirit, when the sun is set,...

Curse on ungrateful man, that can be pleas'd,
And yet can starve the author of the pleasure!
O thou my elder brother in misfortune,
By far my elder brother in the muses,
With tears I pity thy unhappy fate!...

The night winds howled, the billows dashed
Against the tossing chest;
And Dana' to her broken heart
Her slumbering infant pressed.

"My little child", in tears she said,
"To wake and weep is mine,...

We're travelling down a carnival road, are met at intersections by
varying faces: poets as eyes in collapsed black holes, even the
universe as extension of the stellar poet. Then, they are transformed,...

The fair Pomona flourish'd in his reign;
Of all the virgins of the sylvan train
None taught the trees a nobler race to bear,
Or more improved the vegetable care.
To her the shady grove, the flowery field,...

The fair Pomona flourish'd in his reign;
Of all the Virgins of the sylvan train,
None taught the trees a nobler race to bear,
Or more improv'd the vegetable care.
To her the shady grove, the flow'ry field,...

On the Downs, in the Weald, on the Marshes,
I heard the Old Gods say:
'Here come Very Many People:
'We must go away.

'They take our land to delight in,
'But their delight destroys....

Very true, the linnets sing
Sweetest in the leaves of spring:
You have found in all these leaves
That which changes and deceives,
And, to pine by sun or star,
Left them, false ones as they are....

Strange grows the river on the sunless evenings!
The river comforts me, grown spectral, vague and dumb:
Long was the day; at last the consoling shadows come:
Sufficient for the day are the day's evil things!...