Works

IF truth give pleasure, surely we should try;
To found our tales on what we can rely;
Th' experiment repeatedly I've made,
And seen how much realities persuade:
They draw attention: confidence awake;...

[1]

Upon a sandy, uphill road,
Which naked in the sunshine glow'd,
Six lusty horses drew a coach.
Dames, monks, and invalids, its load,
On foot, outside, at leisure trode....

There was a grand coachman,
Who drove the Lord Mayor;
And never drove less than
A carriage and pair.

He wore a red waistcoat,
He carried a whip,
And when the boys saw him,...

Our brows are bound with spindrift and the weed is on our knees;
Our loins are battered 'neath us by the swinging, smoking seas.
From reef and rock and skerry, over headland, ness, and voe,...

WE'RE told, that once a cobbler, BLASE by name;
A wife had got, whose charms so high in fame;
But as it happened, that their cash was spent,
The honest couple to a neighbour went,...

A cobbler sang from morn till night;
'Twas sweet and marvellous to hear,
His trills and quavers told the ear
Of more contentment and delight,
Enjoy'd by that laborious wight...

There was once a cobbler who was so light hearted that he sang from morning to night. It was wonderful to watch him at his work, and more wonderful still to hear his runs and trills. He was in fact happier than the Seven Sages....

Come sit we by the fire's side,
And roundly drink we here;
Till that we see our cheeks ale-dy'd
And noses tann'd with beer.

You see this pebble-stone? It's a thing I bought
Of a bit of a chit of a boy i' the mid o' the day -
I like to dock the smaller parts-o'-speech,
As we curtail the already cur-tail'd cur...

[1]

Upon a tree there mounted guard
A veteran cock, adroit and cunning;
When to the roots a fox up running,
Spoke thus, in tones of kind regard: -
'Our quarrel, brother, 's at an end;...

There lived, as authors tell, in days of yore,
A widow somewhat old, and very poor:
Deep in a cell her cottage lonely stood,
Well thatch'd, and under covert of a wood.
This dowager, on whom my tale I found,...

[1]

A cock scratch'd up, one day,
A pearl of purest ray,
Which to a jeweller he bore.
'I think it fine,' he said,
'But yet a crumb of bread
To me were worth a great deal more.'
...

If you will listen to advice
You will avoid the Cockatrice--
A caution I need hardly say
Wholly superfluous to-day.
Yet had you lived when they were rife
Such warning might have saved your life....

Would that someone would knock Mr. Bryan into a cocked hat. - WOODROW WILSON.


It ain't really a hat at all, Ed:
You know that, don't you?
When you bowl over six out of the nine pins,...

[1]

A youthful mouse, not up to trap,
Had almost met a sad mishap.
The story hear him thus relate,
With great importance, to his mother: -
'I pass'd the mountain bounds of this estate,...

Muse'hide his name of whom I sing,
Lest his surviving house thou bring
For his sake into scorn,
Nor speak the school from which he drew
The much or little that he knew,
Nor place where he was born....

From Woolwich and Brentford and Stamford Hill, from Richmond into the Strand,
Oh, the Cockney soul is a silent soul, as it is in every land!
But out on the sand with a broken band it's sarcasm spurs them through;...

The Ass gave a horrible bray,
Cock crowed; Lion scampered away;
Ass judged he was scared
By the bray, and so dared
To pursue; Lion ate him they say.

Don't Take All The Credit To Yourself

A rooster, while scratching for grain,
Found a Pearl. He just paused to explain
That a jewel's no good
To a fowl wanting food,
And then kicked it aside with disdain.
...

As far as I can see this autumn haze
That spreading in the evening air both way,
Makes the new moon look anything but new,
And pours the elm-tree meadow full of blue,...