Works

To what serves mortal beauty | dangerous; does set danc-
ing blood the O-seal-that-so | feature, flung prouder form
Than Purcell tune lets tread to? | See: it does this: keeps warm...

A white face, drooping, on a bending neck:
A tube-rose that with heavy petal curves
Her stem: a foam-bell on a wave that swerves
Back from the undulating vessel's deck.
...

The larks are loud above our leagues of whin
Now the sun's perfume fills their glorious gold
With odour like the colour: all the wold
Is only light and song and wind wherein...

Camden, most reverend head, to whom I owe
All that I am in arts, all that I know
(How nothing's that!), to whom my country owes
The great renown and name wherewith she goes;...

The pages of thy book I read,
And as I closed each one,
My heart, responding, ever said,
"Servant of God! well done!"

Well done! Thy words are great and bold;
At times they seem to me,...

Attend to Chaulieu's wanton lyre;
While, fluent as the sky-lark sings
When first the morn allures it's wings,
The epicure his theme pursues:
And tell me if, among the choir...

Dear architect of fine chateaux in air,
Worthier to stand for ever, if they could,
Than any built of stone or yet of wood,
For back of royal elephant to bear!

...

Statesman, I thank thee! and, if yet dissent
Mingles, reluctant, with my large content,
I cannot censure what was nobly meant.
But, while constrained to hold even Union less...

Champion of those who groan beneath
Oppression's iron hand:
In view of penury, hate, and death,
I see thee fearless stand.
Still bearing up thy lofty brow,
In the steadfast strength of truth,...

1.
The billows on the beach are leaping around it,
The bark is weak and frail,
The sea looks black, and the clouds that bound it
Darkly strew the gale.
Come with me, thou delightful child,...

May, 1785.


I gat your letter, winsome Willie;
Wi' gratefu' heart I thank you brawlie;
Tho' I maun say't, I wad be silly,
An' unco vain,
Should I believe, my coaxin' billie,...

The cherry-coloured velvet of your cloak
Time hath not soiled: its fair embroideries
Gleam as when centuries ago they spoke
To what bright gallant of Her Daintiness,...

Friend of the Wise! and Teacher of the Good!
Into my heart have I received that Lay
More than historic, that prophetic Lay
Wherein (high theme by thee first sung aright)...

O Winter! bar thine adamantine doors:
The north is thine; there hast thou built thy dark
Deep-founded habitation. Shake not thy roofs,
Nor bend thy pillars with thine iron car.'
...

No longer Beauty's many-colour'd robe
Adorns the autumnal scene; no longer play
The Zephyrs with her tresses; she has fled
To happier regions, and has left the year...

I asked my heart to say
Some word whose worth my love's devoir might pay
Upon my Lady's natal day.

Then said my heart to me:
`Learn from the rhyme that now shall come to thee...

Beyond the path of the outmost sun through utter darkness hurled,
Further than ever comet flared or vagrant star-dust swirled,
Live such as fought and sailed and ruled and loved and made our world.
...

Woman! experience might have told me
That all must love thee, who behold thee:
Surely experience might have taught
Thy firmest promises are nought;
But, plac'd in all thy charms before me,...

Close keep your lips, if that you mean
To be accounted inside clean:
For if you cleave them we shall see
There in your teeth much leprosy.

Those who have laid the harp aside
And turn'd to idler things,
From very restlessness have tried
The loose and dusty strings.
And, catching back some favourite strain,
Run with it o'er the chords again....