Works

I NOW DEDICATE, WITH EQUAL AFFECTION, REVERENCE, AND REGRET, A POEM
INSCRIBED TO HIM WHILE YET ALIVE IN WORDS WHICH ARE NOW RETAINED
BECAUSE THEY WERE LAID BEFORE HIM; AND TO WHICH, RATHER THAN CANCEL...

(News Item: "It remains true that two hundred English and American men were sacrificed for as many peasant women.")

Once more I read, writ out in blood and tears,
Across this midnight page of sea and sky,...

Well may my book come forth like public day
When such a light as you are leads the way,
Who are my work's creator, and alone
The flame of it, and the expansion.
And look how all those heavenly lamps acquire...

I, who have favour'd many, come to be
Grac'd now, at last, or glorified by thee,
Lo! I, the lyric prophet, who have set
On many a head the delphic coronet,
Come unto thee for laurel, having spent...

When I through all my many poems look,
And see yourself to beautify my book,
Methinks that only lustre doth appear
A light fulfilling all the region here.
Gild still with flames this firmament, and be...

Whence is it that, amazed, I hear
From yonder wither'd spray,
This foremost morn of all the year,
The melody of May?


And why, since thousands would be proud
Of such a favour shown,...

Madame, to shew the smoothnesse of my vaine,
Neither that I would haue you entertaine
The time in reading me, which you would spend
In faire discourse with some knowne honest friend,...

When evening's shadowy fingers fold
The flowers of every hue,
Some shy, half-opened bud will hold
Its drop of morning's dew.

Sweeter with every sunlit hour
The trembling sphere has grown,...

Enlightened Teacher, gladly from thy hand
Have I received this proof of pains bestowed
By Thee to guide thy Pupils on the road
That, in our native isle, and every land,...

Unwin, I should but ill repay
The kindness of a friend,
Whose worth deserves as warm a lay
As ever friendship penn'd,
Thy name omitted in a page
That would reclaim a vicious age.

...

Brooks, for they call'd you so that knew you best,
Old Brooks, who loved so well to mouth my rhymes,
How oft we two have heard St. Mary's chimes!
How oft the Cantab supper, host and guest,...

June 22, 1782.


My dear Friend,
If reading verse be your delight,
'Tis mine as much, or more, to write;
But what we would, so weak is man,
Lies oft remote from what we can....

You are a lord, an earl, nay more, a man
Who writes sweet numbers well as any can;
If so, why then are not these verses hurled,
Like Sybil's leaves, throughout the ample world?...

Wiessen and nature held a long contest
If she created or he painted best;
With pleasing thought the wondrous combat grew,
She still form'd fairer, he still liker drew....

I


For toils which patriots have endur'd,
For treason quell'd and laws secur'd,
In every nation Time displays
The palm of honourable praise.
Envy may rail; and faction fierce...

Spare me thy vengeance, Galloway,
In quiet let me live:
I ask no kindness at thy hand,
For thou hast none to give.

Imitated from Horace, lib. i, ode 3.


So may my Lady's prayers prevail,
And Canning's too, and lucid Bragge's,
And Eldon beg a favoring gale
From Eolus, that older Bags,...

So there you sit. And how much blood was shed
That you might sit there. Do such stories bore you?
Well, don't forget that others sat before you
who later sat on people. Keep your head!...

Roll on, thou ball, roll on!
Through pathless realms of Space
Roll on!
What, though I'm in a sorry case?
What, though I cannot meet my bills?
What, though I suffer toothache's ills?...

Come with rain. O loud Southwester!
Bring the singer, bring the nester;
Give the buried flower a dream;
make the settled snowbank steam;
Find the brown beneath the white;
But whate'er you do tonight,...