Works

Instead of orient pearls of jet
I sent my love a carcanet;
About her spotless neck she knit
The lace, to honour me or it:
Then think how rapt was I to see
My jet t'enthral such ivory.

Browning wrote this poem in 1842 for Macready's son, who was ill. He had also written the Pied Piper of Hamelin at the same time.


Crescenzio, the Pope's Legate at the High Council, Trent,...

Tune - "Salt-fish and dumplings."


I.

I coft a stane o' haslock woo',
To make a wat to Johnny o't;
For Johnny is my only jo,
I lo'e him best of ony yet....

I sawe a Mayd sitte on a Bank,
Beguiled by Wooer fayne and fond;
And whiles His flatterynge Vowes She drank,
Her Nurselynge slipt within a Pond!

All Even Tide they Talkde and Kist,...

Alone
I sit in the dusk and see
Surely the living faces, dear to me,
Of comrades who have thrown
All that they had, the fruit of all desire,
Upon an altar fire.

They heard,...

Tune - "Kellyburn Braes."


I.

There lived a carle on Kellyburn braes,
(Hey, and the rue grows bonnie wi' thyme),
And he had a wife was the plague o' his days;...

Tune - "Hey ca' thro'."


I.

Up wi' the carles o' Dysart,
And the lads o' Buckhaven,
And the kimmers o' Largo,
And the lasses o' Leven.
Hey, ca' thro', ca' thro',...

The Text is taken from Sandys' Christmas Carols, where it is printed from a broadside. The only alterations, in which I have followed Professor Child, are the obvious correction of 'east' for 'west' (8.1), and the insertion of ...

0 Lord, at Joseph's humble bench
Thy hands did handle saw and plane;
Thy hammer nails did drive and clench,
Avoiding knot and humouring grain.

That thou didst seem, thou wast indeed,...

The summer dawn came over-soon,
The earth was like hot iron at noon
In Nazareth;
There fell no rain to ease the heat,
And dusk drew on with tired feet
And stifled breath.
...

"Owd John's got past his work," said they,
Last week as ever was -- "don't pay
To send by him. He's stoopid, too,
And brings things what won't never do.
We'll send by post, he is that slow....

("Oh! qu'est-ce que c'est donc que l'Inconnu.")

[January, 1871.]


Who then - oh, who, is like our God so great,
Who makes the seed expand beneath the mountain's weight;...

At a point where the old road crosses
The river, and turns to the right,
I'd camped with the team; and the hosses
Was all fixed up for the night.
I'd been to the town to carry
A load to the Cudgegong;...

1

A carrion crow sat on an oak,
Derry, derry, derry, decco;
A carrion crow sat on an oak,
Watching a tailor shaping his cloak.
Heigh-ho! the carrion crow,
Derry, derry, derry, decco.
...

[1]

The Pha'ton who drove a load of hay
Once found his cart bemired.
Poor man! the spot was far away
From human help - retired,
In some rude country place,...

See, as the carver carves a rose,
A wing, a toad, a serpent's eye,
In cruel granite, to disclose
The soft things that in hardness lie,
So this one, taking up his heart,...

(We lay our story in the East.
Because 'tis Eastern? Not the least.
We place it there because we fear
To bring its parable too near,
And seem to touch with impious hand
Our dear, confiding native land.)...

He was a man with wide and patient eyes,
Grey, like the drift of twitch-fires blown in June,
That, without fearing, searched if any wrong
Might threaten from your heart. Grey eyes he had...

THOSE who in fables deal, bestow at ease
Both names and titles, freely as they please.
It costs them scarcely any thing, we find.
And each is nymph or shepherdess designed;...

I

Deep, smoldering colors of the land and sea
Burn in these stones, that, by some mystery,
Wrap fire in sleep and never are consumed.
Scarlet of daybreak, sunset gleams half spent...