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Oh! it is not just the men who face the guns,
Not the fighters at the Front alone, to-day
Who will bring the longed-for close to the bloody fray, for those
Could not carry on that fray without the ones...

The kine of my rather, they are straying from my keeping;
The young goat's at mischief, but little can I do:
For all through the night did I hear the Banshee keening;...

To His August Highness, Monseigneur The Prince De Conti.[2]

The gods, for that themselves are good,
The like in mortal monarchs would.
The prime of royal rights is grace;...

That way look, my Infant, lo!
What a pretty baby-show!
See the kitten on the wall,
Sporting with the leaves that fall,
Withered leaves, one, two, and three
From the lofty elder-tree!...

In our Fifth Harry's reign, when 'twas the fashion
To thump the French, poor creatures! to excess;--
Tho' Britons, now a days, shew more compassion,
And thump them, certainly, a great deal less;--
...

1

Such star-like lustre lights her Eyes,
They must have darted from a Sphere,
Our duller System to surprise,
Outshining all the Planets here;
And, having wander'd from their wonted place,...

Reader! if you have Genius, you'll discover,
Do what you will to keep it cool,
It, now and then, in spite of you, boils over,
Upon a fool.

Haven't you (lucky man if not) been vex'd,...

He would go, they could not keep him, for he came of fighting stock;
Though his widowed mother pleaded, he was firm as any rock.
Well he loved the patient woman who had nursed him on her breast,...

The Combat.



I.

Fair as the earliest beam of eastern light,
When first, by the bewildered pilgrim spied,
It smiles upon the dreary brow of night...

The Chase.



Harp of the North! that mouldering long hast hung
On the witch-elm that shades Saint Fillan's spring
And down the fitful breeze thy numbers flung,...

The Prophecy.



I.

The rose is fairest when 't is budding new,
And hope is brightest when it dawns from fears;
The rose is sweetest washed with morning dew...

I turn round
Like a dumb beast in a show.
Neither know what I am
Nor where I go,
My language beaten
Into one name;
I am in love
And that is my shame.
What hurts the soul...

Soon as Glumdalclitch miss'd her pleasing care,
She wept, she blubber'd, and she tore her hair:
No British miss sincerer grief has known,
Her squirrel missing, or her sparrow flown....

The lonely sunsets flare forlorn
Down valleys dreadly desolate;
The lordly mountains soar in scorn
As still as death, as stern as fate.

The lonely sunsets flame and die;...

Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.
...

("L'Orient! qu'y voyez-vous, po'tes?")

[PRELUDE, b.]


Now, vot'ries of the Muses, turn your eyes,
Unto the East, and say what there appears!
"Alas!" the voice of Poesy replies,...

If all must suffer equally, and pay
In equal share for that sin wrought by Eve,
O Thou, if Thou wilt deign to answer, say:
Why are the poor tormented? why made grieve
The innocent? why are the free enslaved?...

Fly swift, my light gazelle,
To her who now lies waking,
To hear thy silver bell
The midnight silence breaking.
And, when thou com'st, with gladsome feet,
Beneath her lattice springing,...

[1]

"Depend upon yourself alone,"
Has to a common proverb grown.
'Tis thus confirm'd in Aesop's way: -
The larks to build their nests are seen
Among the wheat-crops young and green;...

LINES WRITTEN BY THE AUTHOR'S BROTHER, EDWARD BLISS EMERSON, WHILST SAILING OUT OF BOSTON HARBOR, BOUND FOR THE ISLAND OF PORTO RICO, IN 1832

Farewell, ye lofty spires
That cheered the holy light!...