Works

It was the schooner Hesperus,
That sailed the wintry sea;
And the skipper had taken his little daughter,
To bear him company.

Blue were her eyes as the fairy-flax,
Her cheeks like the dawn of day,...

Mute they wander,
Meeting yonder,
In the wondrous Spring new-born,
That though old as Time's first morn,
Brings fresh youth to all the living,
Now held fast, now far retreating,...

They know not my heart, who believe there can be
One stain of this earth in its feelings for thee;
Who think, while I see thee in beauty's young hour,
As pure as the morning's first dew on the flower,...

Tune - "Morag."


I.

Loud blaw the frosty breezes,
The snaws the mountains cover;
Like winter on me seizes,
Since my young Highland rover
Far wanders nations over....

It's hard what poor fowk mun put up wi'!
What insults an snubs they've to tak!
What bowin an scrapin's expected,
If a chap's a black coit on his back.
As if clooas made a chap ony better,...

No. I

I've something of the bull-dog in my breed,
The spaniel is developed somewhat less;
While life is in me I can fight and bleed,
But never the chastising hand caress....

"The time of the singing of birds is come."

Thick orchards, all in white,
Stand 'neath blue voids of light,
And birds among the branches blithely sing,
For they have all they know;...

At midnight, in the room where he lay dead
Whom in his life I had never clearly read,
I thought if I could peer into that citadel
His heart, I should at last know full and well
...

This heart that flutters near my heart
My hope and all my riches is,
Unhappy when we draw apart
And happy between kiss and kiss:
My hope and all my riches, yes!
And all my happiness.
...

This living hand, now warm and capable
Of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold
And in the icy silence of the tomb,
So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights...

This merit hath the worst, --
It cannot be again.
When Fate hath taunted last
And thrown her furthest stone,

The maimed may pause and breathe,
And glance securely round....

Aw like to see a lot o' lads
All frolicsome an free,
An hear ther noisy voices,
As they run an shaat wi' glee;
But if ther's onny sooart o' lad
Aw like better nor another,...

Ther's a spark just o'th tip o' mi pen,
An it may be poetical fire:
An suppoase 'at it is'nt - what then?
Wod yo bawk a chap ov his desire?

Aw'm detarmined to scribble away -...

Tho' humble the banquet to which I invite thee,
Thou'lt find there the best a poor bard can command:
Eyes, beaming with welcome, shall throng round, to light thee,...

Sage of the silver pen!
Wherever thy thought was heard,
Thou wert a leader of men.
Poet of honored word!
Knight of the eagle glance,
Piercing the depths of wrong,
"Justice" thy cry, and thy lance...

In all the towns and cities fair
On Merry England's broad expanse,
No swordsman ever could compare
With THOMAS WINTERBOTTOM HANCE.

The dauntless lad could fairly hew...

(To be sung to the Air of "An 'Orrible Tale.")

Oh list to this incredible tale
Of THOMSON GREEN and HARRIET HALE;
Its truth in one remark you'll sum...

Those days have gone, those happy days,
When we two loved to roam,
Beside the rivulet that strays,
Near by my rustic home.
Yes, they have fled, and in the past,
We've left them far behind,...

Though fickle Fortune has deceived me,
She promis'd fair and perform'd but ill;
Of mistress, friends, and wealth bereav'd me,
Yet I bear a heart shall support me still.
...

I watched them from the window, thy children at their play,
And I thought of all my own dear friends, who were far, oh, far away,
And childish loves, and childish cares, and a child's own buoyant gladness...