Works

What! and not one to heave the pious sigh!
Not one whose sorrow-swoln and aching eye
For social scenes, for life's endearments fled,
Shall drop a tear and dwell upon the dead!...

There is a pause in nature, ere the storm
Rushes resistless in its awful might;
There is a softening twilight, ere the morn
Expands her wings of glory into light.
...

When first I came to town, resolved
To fight my way alone,
No prouder foot than mine e'er trod
Upon the pavement stone;
But I am one in thousands,
And why should I repine?...

[It is hoped that all Scottish characteristics known to the Southron are here: pawkiness and pride of race; love of the dram; redness of hair; eldership of, and objection to instrumental music in the Kirk; hatred of the Sassena...

Angel of Peace, the hounds of war,
Unleashed, are all abroad,
And war's foul trade again is made
Man's leading aim in life.
Blood dyes the billow and the sod;
The very winds are rife...

Thank God for rest, where none molest,
And none can make afraid;
For Peace that sits as Plenty's guest
Beneath the homestead shade!
Bring pike and gun, the sword's red scourge,...

Still in thy streets, O Paris! doth the stain
Of blood defy the cleansing autumn rain;
Still breaks the smoke Messina's ruins through,
And Naples mourns that new Bartholomew,...

If heaven were to do again,
And on the pasture bars,
I leaned to line the figures in
Between the dotted starts,

I should be tempted to forget,
I fear, the Crown of Rule,...

It has a 'point' of neither sex
But comes in guise of both,
And, doubly dangerous complex,
It is a thing to loathe,
A lady with her sweet, sad smile,
A gentleman on oath.
...

The Word came down to Dives in Torment where he lay:
"Our World is full of wickedness, My Children maim and slay,
"And the Saint and Seer and Prophet
"Can make no better of it...

"Great peace in Europe! Order reigns
From Tiber's hills to Danube's plains!"
So say her kings and priests; so say
The lying prophets of our day.
Go lay to earth a listening ear;...

It was but a little thing,
Yet I knew it meant to me
Ease from what had given a sting
To the very birdsinging
Latterly.

But I would not welcome it;
And for all I then declined...

The seeking souls, by baleful fires made blind,
Torn by entrapping brambles, thirsty and mad,
Hear on the lonely waste the stealthy pad
And half-held breath of glaring beasts behind;...

What's riches to him
That has made a great peacock
With the pride of his eye?
The wind-beaten, stone-grey,
And desolate Three-rock
Would nourish his whim.
Live he or die...

[1]

The peacock[2] to the queen of heaven
Complain'd in some such words: -
'Great goddess, you have given
To me, the laughing-stock of birds,
A voice which fills, by taste quite just,...

The Peacock considered it wrong
That he had not the nightingale's song;
So to Juno he went,
She replied, "Be content
With thy having, & hold thy fool's tongue!"

Do Not Quarrel With Nature

Kanzo Makame, the diver, sturdy and small Japanee,
Seeker of pearls and of pearl-shell down in the depths of the sea,
Trudged o'er the bed of the ocean, searching industriously.
...

ONCE on a time, as hist'ry's page relates,
A lord, possessed of many large estates,
Was angry with a poor and humble clod,
Who tilled his grounds and feared his very nod....

[1]

To judge no man by outside view,
Is good advice, though not quite new.
Some time ago a mouse's fright
Upon this moral shed some light.
I have for proof at present,...

He loved the brook's soft sound,
The swallow swimming by.
He loved the daisy-covered ground,
The cloud-bedappled sky.
To him the dismal storm appeared
The very voice of God;...