Works

There lived a fool.

For a long time he lived in peace and contentment; but by degrees rumours began to reach him that he was regarded on all sides as a vulgar idiot.
...

Here is a tale for children and their grannies:
There was a fool, a man who'd had his chances
But missed them, somehow; lost them, just for fancies,
Tag-ends of things with which he'd crammed crannies...

[1]

A fool pursued, with club and stone,
A sage, who said, 'My friend, well done!
Receive this guinea for your pains;
They well deserve far higher gains.
The workman's worthy of his hire,...

When all works that have
From cradle run to grave
From grave to cradle run instead;
When thoughts that a fool
Has wound upon a spool
Are but loose thread, are but loose thread;...

The bold young Autumn came riding along
One day where an elm-tree grew.
"You are fair," he said, as she bent down her head,
"Too fair for your robe's dull hue.
You are far too young for a garb so old;...

A harebell hung her wilful head:
"I am tired, so tired! I wish I was dead."

She hung her head in the mossy dell:
"If all were over, then all were well!"

The Wind he heard, and was pitiful,...

Come, Death, I'd have a word with thee;
And thou, poor Innocency;
And Love - a lad with broken wing;
And Pity, too:
The Fool shall sing to you,
As Fools will sing.
...

Many good works I've done and ended,
Ye take the praise I'm not offended;
For in the world, I've always thought
Each thing its true position hath sought.
When praised for foolish deeds am I,...

Never, no never, listen too long,
To the chattering wind in the willow, the night bird's song.

'Tis sad in sooth to lie under the grass,...

A fool, in town, did wisdom cry;
The people, eager, flock'd to buy.
Each for his money got,
Paid promptly on the spot,
Besides a box upon the head,
Two fathoms' length of thread....

[1]

Of fools come never in the reach:
No rule can I more wisely teach.
Nor can there be a better one
Than this, - distemper'd heads to shun.
We often see them, high and low....

On an arm of an oak hangs the prize
for the swiftest and strongest of runners
A blanket as red as the skies,
when the flames sweep the plains in October.
And beside it a strong, polished bow,...

Lord B. was a nobleman bold,
Who came of illustrious stocks,
He was thirty or forty years old,
And several feet in his socks.

To Turniptopville-by-the-Sea
This elegant nobleman went,...

"What is good for a bootless bene?"
With these dark words begins my Tale;
And their meaning is, whence can comfort spring
When Prayer is of no avail?

"What is good for a bootless bene?"...

----Ad coelum ardentia lumina tollens,
Lumina; nam teneras arcebant vincula palmas.

VIRG.


From lofty themes, from thoughts that soar'd on high,
And open'd wondrous scenes above the sky,...

Hic pietatis honos? sic nos in sceptra reponis!

VIRG.


Her Guilford clasps her, beautiful in death,
And with a kiss recalls her fleeting breath,
To tapers thus, which by a blast expire,...

It may be that I dreamed a dream; it may be that I saw
The forecast of a time to come by some supernal law.

I seemed to dwell in this same world, and in this modern time;...

Among a grave fraternity of Monks,
For One, but surely not for One alone,
Triumphs, in that great work, the Painter's skill,
Humbling the body, to exalt the soul;
Yet representing, amid wreck and wrong...

When you get tight in foreign lands
You never need go slinking,
No female neighbours lift their hands
And say 'The brute!, he's drinking!'
No mischief-maker runs with smiles
To give your wife a notion,...

Pear-tree.

By woodman's edge I faint and fail;
By craftsman's edge I tell the tale.

Chestnut-tree.

High in the wood, high o'er the hall,
Aloft I rise when low I fall.
...