Works

They brought me ambrotypes
Of the old pioneers to enlarge.
And sometimes one sat for me -
Some one who was in being
When giant hands from the womb of the world
Tore the republic....

I love thee, Sabbath morn! - I cannot say
But 'tis because my father loved thee so, -
Because my mother's care-worn face would grow
So sweetly placid in thy peaceful ray; -
...

The Sabbath bells are knolling slow,
The summer morn how fair!
Whilst father, mother, children go,
And seek the house of prayer.

Some, musing, roam the churchyard round,...

MARY H.


That "Sacred to the Memory"
Is clearly carven there I own,
And all may think that on the stone
The words have been inscribed by me
In bare conventionality.
...

Oh, the wild black swans fly westward still,
While the sun goes down in glory,
And away o'er lonely plain and hill
Still runs the same old story:
The sheoaks sigh it all day long,...

They tell me I am beautiful: they praise my silken hair,
My little feet that silently slip on from stair to stair:
They praise my pretty trustful face and innocent grey eye;...

Said Grenfell to my spirit, "You've been writing very free
Of the charms of other places, and you don't remember me.
You have claimed another native place and think it's Nature's law,...

When I went to the Bar as a very young man,
(Said I to myself said I),
I'll work on a new and original plan
(Said I to myself said I),
I'll never assume that a rogue or a thief...

Partly work and partly play
Ye must on S. Distaff's day:
From the plough soon free your team,
Then come home and fodder them.
If the maids a-spinning go,
Burn the flax and fire the tow;...

Thank God! Those gazers' eyes are gone at last!
The guards are crouching underneath the rock;
The lights are fading in the town below,
Around the cottage which this morn was ours....

Who'll buy a little boy? Look, yonder is he,
Fast asleep, sly rogue on his mother's knee;
So bold a young imp 'tisn't safe to keep,
So I'll part with him now, while he's sound asleep....

O take my hand, Walt Whitman!
Such gliding wonders! such sights and sounds!
Such join'd unended links, each hook'd to the next!
Each answering all each sharing the earth with all.
...

Sancta Maria! turn thine eyes,
Upon the sinner's sacrifice,
Of fervent prayer and humble love,
From thy holy throne above.
At morn, at noon, at twilight dim,
Maria! thou hast heard my hymn!...

Ye Lords and Commons, Men of Wit,
And Pleasure about Town;
Read this ere you translate one Bit
Of Books of high Renown.

Beware of Latin Authors all!
Nor think your Verses Sterling,...

I had not seen my son's dear face
(He chose the cloister by God's grace)
Since it had come to full flower-time.
I hardly guessed at its perfect prime,
That folded flower of his dear face.
...

See, I have climbed the mountain side
Up to this holy house of God,
Where once that Angel-Painter trod
Who saw the heavens opened wide,

And throned upon the crescent moon...

It was morning at St. Helen's, in the great and gallant days,
And the sea beneath the sun glittered wide,
When the frigate set her courses, all a-shimmer in the haze...

Argument.
...

Were I (who to my cost already am
One of those strange, prodigious creatures, man)
A spirit free to choose, for my own share,
What case of flesh and blood I pleased to wear,
I'd be a dog, a monkey or a bear,...

What, and how great, the virtue and the art
To live on little with a cheerful heart;
(A doctrine sage, but truly none of mine)
Let's talk, my friends, but talk before we dine;...