Give me your patience, sister, while I frame Exact in capitals your golden name; Or sue the fair Apollo and he will Rouse from his heavy slumber and instill Great love in me for thee and Poesy....
"My son, these maxims make a rule, And lump them ay thegither; The Rigid Righteous is a fool, The Rigid Wise anither: The cleanest corn that e'er was dight May hae some pyles o' caff in;...
Along the graceless grass of town They rake the rows of red and brown, Dead leaves, unlike the rows of hay, Delicate, neither gold nor grey, Raked long ago and far away. ...
Expect na, Sir, in this narration, A fleechin', fleth'rin dedication, To roose you up, an' ca' you guid, An' sprung o' great an' noble bluid, Because ye're surnam'd like his Grace;...
Adieu, Rydalian Laurels! that have grown And spread as if ye knew that days might come When ye would shelter in a happy home, On this fair Mount, a Poet of your own,...
I dreamt of my daughter. She came and stroked my forelock with her hand. — Oh you have been away for long! — se told me, The child cast her glance right into my soul. My head was going round for joy,...
Advance, come forth from thy Tyrolean ground, Dear Liberty! stern Nymph of soul untamed; Sweet Nymph, O rightly of the mountains named! Through the long chain of Alps from mound to mound...
No one worth possessing Can be quite possessed; Lay that on your heart, My young angry dear; This truth, this hard and precious stone, Lay it on your hot cheek, Let it hide your tear....
The following lines were written at the request of a little girl, who said she would recite them at a Sunday School entertainment. Prof. J. S. Blackie of Edinburgh, in a letter acknowledging the receipt of my book, said he cons...
Fasten your hair with a golden pin, And bind up every wandering tress; I bade my heart build these poor rhymes: It worked at them, day out, day in, Building a sorrowful loveliness...
My fairest child, I have no song to give you; No lark could pipe in skies so dull and gray; Yet, if you will, one quiet hint I'll leave you, For every day.
One day a young enchantress told her suitor, A prince whose passion nothing could allay: “If you want me to believe your ardour, Go, Shah-zadeh, your royal brother slay.”...
How graceful the picture! the life, the repose! The sunbeam that plays on the porchstone wide; And the shadow that fleets o'er the stream that flows,...
Tell me, ye Zephyrs! that unfold, While fluttering o'er this gay Recess, Pinions that fanned the teeming mould Of Eden's blissful wilderness, Did only softly-stealing hours...
In a coign of the cliff between lowland and highland, At the sea-down's edge between windward and lee, Walled round with rocks as an inland island, The ghost of a garden fronts the sea....