Works

The man, in life wherever plac'd,
Hath happiness in store,
Who walks not in the wicked's way,
Nor learns their guilty lore!

Nor from the seat of scornful pride
Casts forth his eyes abroad,...

O Thou, the first, the greatest friend
Of all the human race!
Whose strong right hand has ever been
Their stay and dwelling place!

Before the mountains heav'd their heads
Beneath Thy forming hand,...

[1]

Thrysis - who for his Annette dear
Made music with his flute and voice,
Which might have roused the dead to hear,
And in their silent graves rejoice -
Sang once the livelong day,...

ORIGINAL.

N'offrant qu'un coeur ' la Beaut',
Nud comme la Verit',
Sans armes comme l'Innocence,
Sans a'les comme la Constance,
Tel fut l'Amour dans le siecle d'or,...

"What is good for a bootless bene?"
With these dark words begins my Tale;
And their meaning is, whence can comfort spring
When Prayer is of no avail?

"What is good for a bootless bene?"...

A woodcutter had broken or lost the handle of his hatchet and found it not easy to get it repaired at once. During the time, therefore, that it was out of use, the woods enjoyed a respite from further damage. At last the man ca...

Reputations may be made by the merest chances, and yet reputations control the fashions. That is a little prologue that would fit the case of all sorts of people. Everywhere around one sees prejudices, scheming, and obtuseness;...

Ere stopping or turning, to put foorth a hande
Is a charm that thy daies may be long in the land.

Though seventy-times-seven thee Fortune befriend,
O'ertaking at corners is Death in the end.
...

I had four brothers over the sea,
Perrie, Merrie, Dixi, Domine;
And they each sent a present unto me.
Petrum, Partrum, Paradisi, Tempore,
Perrie, Merrie, Dixi, Domine.
...

Four Princesses lived in a Green Tower
A Bright Green Tower in the middle of the sea;
And no one could think oh, no one could think
Who the Four Princesses could be.
...

Sweet faces, that from pictured casements lean
As from a castle window, looking down
On some gay pageant passing through a town,
Yourselves the fairest figures in the scene;...

Some young turkeys were lucky enough to find a tree which served them as a citadel against the assaults of a certain fox. He, one night, having made the round of the rampart and seen each turkey watching like a sentinel, exclai...

(Air: 'The Little Old Log Cabin in the Lane.')


I'm a broken-down old squatter, my cash it is all gone,
Of troubles and bad seasons I complain;
My cattle are all mortgaged, of horses I have none,...

I went in the fields with the leisure I got,
The stranger might smile but I heeded him not,
The hovel was ready to screen from a shower,
And the book in my pocket was read in an hour.
...

Amiens.

Dear DOLL, while the tails of our horses are plaiting,
The trunks tying on, and Papa, at the door,
Into very bad French is as usual translating
His English resolve not to give a sou more,...

Paris.

At length, my Lord, I have the bliss
To date to you a line from this
"Demoralized" metropolis;
Where, by plebeians low and scurvy,
The throne was turned quite topsy-turvy,...

Oh Dick! you may talk of your writing and reading,
Your Logic and Greek, but there's nothing like feeding;
And this is the place for it, DICKY, you dog,
Of all places on earth--the headquarters of Prog!...

"Return!"--no, never, while the withering hand
Of bigot power is on that hapless land;
While, for the faith my fathers held to God,
Even in the fields where free those fathers trod,...

My Lord, the Instructions, brought to-day,
"I shall in all my best obey."
Your Lordship talks and writes so sensibly!
And--whatsoe'er some wags may say--
Oh! not at all incomprehensibly.
...

What a time since I wrote!--I'm a sad, naughty girl--
For, tho' like a tee-totum, I'm all in a twirl;--
Yet even (as you wittily say) a tee-totum
Between all its twirls gives a letter to note 'em....