Works

Already fallen plum-bloom stars the green
And apple-boughs as knarred as old toads' backs
Wear their small roses ere a rose is seen;
The building thrush watches old Job who stacks...

The sup'rabundance of my store,
That is the portion of the poor:
Wheat, barley, rye, or oats; what is't
But He takes toll of? all the grist.
Two raiments have I: Christ then makes...

The proudest now is but my peer,
The highest not more high;
To-day, of all the weary year,
A king of men am I.
To-day, alike are great and small,
The nameless and the known;...

Like to Ahasuerus, that shrewd prince,
I will begin, as is, these seven years now,
My daily wont, and read a History
(Written by one whose deft right hand was dust
To the last digit, ages ere my birth)...

What, he on whom our voices unanimously ran,
Made Pope at our last Conclave? Full low his life began:
His father earned the daily bread as just a fisherman.
...

The poplars are fell'd, farewell to the shade,
And the whispering sound of the cool colonnade;
The winds play no longer and sing in the leaves,
Nor Ouse on his bosom their image receives.

...

My poplars are like ladies trim,
Each conscious of her own estate;
In costume somewhat over prim,
In manner cordially sedate,
Like two old neighbours met to chat
Beside my garden gate.
...

Once I gave a "poppa-show":
And I had the greatest fun!
Every boy and girl I know
That is, nearly every one,
Came to see it: I just put
Some old toys into a box;
Paper things that I had cut,...

Hanging from the beam,
Slowly swaying (such the law),
Gaunt the shadow on your green,
Shenandoah!
The cut is on the crown
(Lo, John Brown),
And the stabs shall heal no more.
...

0h, late withdrawn from human-kind
And following dreams we never knew!
Varus, what dream has Fate assigned
To trouble you?

Such virtue as commends of law
Of Virtue to the vulgar horde...

Our hull is seldom painted,
Our decks are seldom stoned;
Our sails are patched and cobbled
And chains by rust marooned.
Our rigging is untidy,
And all things in accord:,
We always sail on Friday...

I watch you, gazing at me from the wall,
And wonder how you'd match your dreams with mine,
If, mastering time's illusion, I could call
You back to share this quiet candle-shine.
...

In some quaint Nurnberg maler-atelier
Uprummaged. When and where was never clear
Nor yet how he obtained it. When, by whom
'Twas painted - who shall say? itself a gloom
Resisting inquisition. I opine...

In some quaint N'rnberg maler-atelier
Uprummaged. When and where was never clear,
Nor yet how he obtained it. When, by whom
'T was painted, who shall say? itself a gloom
Resisting inquisition. I opine...

("Oui, ce front, ce sourire.")

[Bk. V. xxii., November, 1825.]


That brow, that smile, that cheek so fair,
Beseem my child, who weeps and plays:
A heavenly spirit guards her ways,...

His brow is seamed with line and scar;
His cheek is red and dark as wine;
The fires as of a Northern star
Beneath his cap of sable shine.

His right hand, bared of leathern glove,...

Oh the women of Old Portsmouth in their patience were sublime,
As in working and in praying they abided GOD's own time!
Marble saints in a stately Minster, in some land across the sea,...

Down here where the ships loom large in
The gloom when the sea-storms veer,
Down here on the south-west margin
Of the western hemisphere,
Where the might of a world-wide ocean...

The sun is wrapped within a pall of mist,
Moon of my life! enshroud yourself like him;
Sleep, damp your fires; be silent, dim,
And plunge to ennui's most profound abyss;
...

Though tangled and twisted the course of true love
This ditty explains,
No tangle's so tangled it cannot improve
If the Lover has brains.


...