Works

My dog and I are both grown old;
On these wild downs we watch all day;
He looks in my face when the wind blows cold,
And thus methinks I hear him say:

The gray stone circlet is below,...

[1]

'What! shall I lose them one by one,
This stupid coward throng?
And never shall the wolf have done?
They were at least a thousand strong,
But still they've let poor Robin[2] fall a prey!...

I had folded my flock, and my heart was o'erflowing,
I loiter'd beside the small lake on the heath;
The red sun, though down, left his drapery glowing,
And no sound was stirring, I heard not a breath:...

We now, held in captivity,
Spring to our bondage nor grieve,
See now, how it is blesseder,
Brothers, to give than receive!
Keep trust, wherefore we were made,
Paying the debt that we owe;...

Worthy of either song or story
Are the shires round frith of Moray,
Here lies the valley of Strathspey,
Famed for its music, lively, gay,
Elgin cathedral's 'prentice aisle
Is glory of that ruined pile....

My awkward grossness grows: I go down, through

I maintain my self in the conviction
that I have as much to say as others
and more apposite ways of saying it

Certainly I feel it has all been said...

Robert of Sicily, brother of Pope Urbane
And Valmond, Emperor of Allemaine,
Apparelled in magnificent attire,
With retinue of many a knight and squire,
On St. John's eve, at vespers, proudly sat...

[1]

Sick in his den, we understand,
The king of beasts sent out command
That of his vassals every sort
Should send some deputies to court -
With promise well to treat
Each deputy and suite;...

Vientecico murmurador, Que lo gozas y andas todo, &c.


Airs, that wander and murmur round,
Bearing delight where'er ye blow!
Make in the elms a lulling sound,...

1
Though no high-hung bells or din
Of braggart bugles cry it in -
What is sound? Nature's round
Makes the Silver Jubilee.

2
Five and twenty years have run...

The yellow sky grows vivid as the sun:
The sea glittering, and the hills dun.

The stones quiver. Twenty pounds of lead
Fold upon fold, the air laps my head.
...

What should I be but a prophet and a liar,
Whose mother was a leprechaun, whose father was a friar?
Teethed on a crucifix and cradled under water,
What should I be but the fiend's god-daughter?
...

"Now what, we ask, is become of this Sinking Fund--these eight millions of surplus above expenditure, which were to reduce the interest of the national debt by the amount of four hundred thousand pounds annually? Where, indeed,...

You remember--don't you, brother--
In our early years,
The counsels of our poor, dear mother,
And her hopes and fears?
She told us to love one another--
Brother, dry your tears!
...

TO MR MURRAY.[135]

'Not to admire, is all the art I know,
To make men happy, and to keep them so.'
(Plain truth, dear Murray, needs no flowers of speech,
So take it in the very words of Creech.)[136]...

"Whose are the little beds," I asked,
"Which in the valleys lie?"
Some shook their heads, and others smiled,
And no one made reply.

"Perhaps they did not hear," I said;
"I will inquire again....

The sloe was lost in flower,
The April elm was dim;
That was the lover's hour,
The hour for lies and him.

If thorns are all the bower,
If north winds freeze the fir,
Why, 'tis another's hour,...

A Snake, in a fix, tried a File
For a dinner. "'Tis not worth your while,"
Said the steel, "don't mistake;
I'm accustomed to take,
To give's not the way of a File."

We May Meet Our Match

(Roumanian)


When winter trees bestrew the path,
Still to the twig a leaf or twain
Will cling and weep, not Winter's wrath,
But that foreknown forlorner pain--...

"Deny your God!" they ringed me with their spears;
Blood-crazed were they, and reeking from the strife;
Hell-hot their hate, and venom-fanged their sneers,
And one man spat on me and nursed a knife....