Works

The Argument.


Rintrah roars & shakes his fires in the burdend air;
Hungry clouds swag on the deep

Once meek, and in a perilous path,
The just man kept his course along...

The massy Ways, carried across these heights
By Roman perseverance, are destroyed,
Or hidden under ground, like sleeping worms.
How venture then to hope that Time will spare...

"In Him we live, and move, and have our being."

The measureless gulfs of air are full of Thee:
Thou Art, and therefore hang the stars; they wait,
And swim, and shine in God who bade them be,...

When God's wrath-cloud is o'er me,
Affrighting heart and mind;
When days seem dark before me,
And days seem black behind;
Those friends who think they know me,
Who deem their insight keen,...

The merchant, to secure his treasure,
Conveys it in a borrowed name:
Euphelia serves to grace my measure,
But Cloe is my real flame.

My softest verse, my darling lyre
Upon Euphelia's toilet lay...

Written to Miss Alice L. F. Fitzgerald, Edith Cavell memorial nurse, going to the front.


Your fine white hand is Heaven's gift
To cure the wide world, stricken sore,
Bleeding at the breast and head,...

[HE] I have a song to sing, O!
[SHE] Sing me your song, O!
[HE] It is sung to the moon
By a love-lorn loon,
Who fled from the mocking throng, O!
It's the song of a merryman, moping mum,...

A twangling harp for Mary,
A silvery flute for John,
And now we'll play the livelong day,
'The Miller and his Son.'

'The Miller went a-walking
All in the forest high,...

A Miller and Son once set out for the fair,
To sell a fine ass they had brought up with care;
And the way that they started made everyone stare.

To keep the Ass fresh, so the beast would sell dear...

[1]

To M. De Maucroix.[2]

Because the arts are plainly birthright matters,
For fables we to ancient Greece are debtors;
But still this field could not be reap'd so clean...

He buried his Gold in a hole.
One saw, and the treasure he stole.
Said another, "What matter?
Don't raise such a clatter,
You can still go & sit by the hole."

Use Alone Gives Value

[1]

'Tis use that constitutes possession.
I ask that sort of men, whose passion
It is to get and never spend,
Of all their toil what is the end?
What they enjoy of all their labours...

A monkey, to reform the times,
Resolved to visit foreign climes;
For therefore toilsomely we roam
To bring politer manners home.
Misfortunes serve to make us wise:
Poor pug was caught, and made a prize;...

A weight of awe, not easy to be borne,
Fell suddenly upon my Spirit cast
From the dread bosom of the unknown past,
When first I saw that family forlorn.
Speak Thou, whose massy strength and stature scorn...

I dare not look at those dear eyes,
The sun was never half so bright,
There surely more of rapture lies
Than ever bless'd a mortal's sight.

In thy sweet face I see impress'd...

Like a maid on her bridal morn I rise,
With the smile on her lip and the tear in her eyes;
Whilst the breeze my crimson banner unfurls,
I wreathe my locks with the purest pearls;...

From an ode "In Commemoration of the Founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony."

The morn that breaks its heart of gold
Above the purple hills;
The eve, that spills...

The typewriter ticketh no more in the twilight;
The mother of poets is sitting alone;
Only the katydid teases the noonday;
Where are the good-for-naught wanderbirds flown?
...

By scattered rocks and turbid waters shifting,
By furrowed glade and dell,
To feverish men thy calm, sweet face uplifting,
Thou stayest them to tell

The delicate thought that cannot find expression,...

[1]

A prelate's mule of noble birth was proud,
And talk'd, incessantly and loud,
Of nothing but his dam, the mare,
Whose mighty deeds by him recounted were, -...