Works

If you give me your attention, I will tell you what I am:
I'm a genuine philanthropist all other kinds are sham.
Each little fault of temper and each social defect...

The Text is from Kinloch's MSS., 'from the recitation of T. Kinnear, Stonehaven.' Child remarks of it that 'probably by the fortunate accident of being a fragment' it 'leaves us to put our own construction upon the weird seaman...

Our eyes are not made proof against the fair,
Nor hands against the touch of gold.
Fidelity is sadly rare,
And has been from the days of old.
Well taught his appetite to check,...

A Cow sought a mouthful of hay;
But a Dog in the manger there lay,
And he snapped out "how now?"
When most mildly, the Cow
Adventured a morsel to pray.

Don't Be Selfish

Our eyes are not made proof against the fair,
Nor hands against the touch of gold.
Fidelity is sadly rare,
And has been from the days of old.
Well taught his appetite to check,...

Our hands are no more proof against gold than our eyes are proof against beauty. There are but few who guard their treasures with care enough.


...

On the grey rock of Cashel the mind's eye
Has called up the cold spirits that are born
When the old moon is vanished from the sky
And the new still hides her horn.
...

An envoy of the Porte Sublime,
As history says, once on a time,
Before th' imperial German court[2]
Did rather boastfully report,
The troops commanded by his master's firman,...

It almost makes me cry to tell
What foolish Harriet befell.
Mamma and Nurse went out one day
And left her all alone at play.
Now, on the table close at hand,
A box of matches chanced to stand;...

Mamma and Nurse went out one day,
And left Pauline alone at play;
Around the room she gayly sprang,
Clapp'd her hands, and danced, and sang.
Now, on the table close at hand,...

It fell upon a summer night
The village folk were soundly sleeping,
Unconscious of the glamour white
In which the moon all things was steeping;
One window only showed a light;...

The dreams of my heart and my mind pass,
Nothing stays with me long,
But I have had from a child
The deep solace of song;

If that should ever leave me,
Let me find death and stay...

A CLOISTERED nun had a lover
Dwelling in the neighb'ring town;
Both racked their brains to discover
How they best their love might crown.
The swain to pass the convent-door! -...

If wars were won by feasting,
0r victory by song,
Or safety found in sleeping sound,
How England would be strong!
But honour and dominion
Are not maintained so.
They're only got by sword and shot,...

("Oh! vous aurez trop dit.")

[Bk. III. xiv., April, 1843.]


Ah, you said too often to your angel
There are other angels in the sky -
There, where nothing changes, nothing suffers,...

[1]

The eagle, through the air a queen,
And one far different, I ween,
In temper, language, thought, and mien, -
The magpie, - once a prairie cross'd.
The by-path where they met was drear,...

("Encore si ce banni n'e't rien aim' sur terre.")

[V, iv., August, 1832.]


Too hard Napoleon's fate! if, lone,
No being he had loved, no single one,
Less dark that doom had been....

Well sang the Bard who called the grave, in strains
Thoughtful and sad, the "narrow house." No style
Of fond sepulchral flattery can beguile
Grief of her sting; nor cheat, where he detains...

I had a passion when I was a child
For a most pleasant idleness. In June,
When the thick masses of the leaves were stirr'd
With a just audible murmur, and the streams
Fainted in their cool places to a low...

The moon on the one hand, the dawn on the other:
The moon is my sister, the dawn is my brother.
The moon on my left and the dawn on my right.
My brother, good morning: my sister, good night.