Works

Talk not, my Lord, of unrequited love,
Since love requites itself most royally.
Do we not live but by the sun above,
And takes he any heed of thee or me?

Though in my firmament thou wilt not shine,...

The summer winds is sniffin' round the bloomin' locus' trees;
And the clover in the pastur is a big day fer the bees,
And they been a-swiggin' honey, above board and on the sly,...

What, thou, my friend! a man of rhymes,
And, better still, a man of guineas,
To talk of "patrons," in these times,
When authors thrive like spinning-jennies,
And Arkwright's twist and Bulwer's page...

Thou orb aloft full-dazzling! thou hot October noon!
Flooding with sheeny light the gray beach sand,
The sibilant near sea with vistas far and foam,
And tawny streaks and shades and spreading blue;...

'Thou shalt hear the fool's judgment....' You always told the truth, O great singer of ours. You spoke it this time, too.
...

"And fell on his neck, and kissed him."

Thou wert far off, and in the sight of heaven
Dead. And thy Father would not this should be;
And now thou livest, it is all forgiven;...

Always suddenly they are gone -
The friends we trusted and held secure -
Suddenly we are gazing on,
Not a smiling face, but the marble-pure
Dead mask of a face that nevermore...

Again the same strange might of eyes, that saw
In heaven and earth nought fairer, overcame
My sight with rapture of reiterate awe,
Again the same.

The self-same pulse of wonder shook like flame...

Out of the dark pure twilight, where the stream
Flows glimmering, streaked by many a birdlike bark
That skims the gloom whence towers and bridges gleam
Out of the dark,
...

The sky and sea glared hard and bright and blank:
Down the one steep street, with slow steps firm and free,
A tall girl paced, with eyes too proud to thank
The sky and sea.
...

Three fatal sisters wait upon each sin;
First, fear and shame without, then guilt within.

What saw I yesterday walking apart
In a leafy place where the cattle wait?
Something to keep for a charm in my heart -
A little sweet girl in a garden gate.
Laughing she lay in the gold sun's might,...

"Giving up three for one!" - mother,
You said in the long ago,
When father, yourself, and John, mother,
I left, o'er the deep to go.
"Giving up three for one!" - mother,...

There were three friends that buried the fourth,
The mould in his mouth and the dust in his eyes,
And they went south and east and north,
The strong man fights but the sick man dies.
...

Of all the blessings which my life has known,
I value most, and most praise God for three:
Want, Loneliness and Pain, those comrades true,

Who, masqueraded in the garb of foes...

I

When I remember them, those friends of mine,
Who are no longer here, the noble three,
Who half my life were more than friends to me,
And whose discourse was like a generous wine,...

I'll tell you an old-fashioned story
That Grandfather used to relate,
Of a joiner and building contractor;
'Is name, it were Sam Oglethwaite.

In a shop on the banks of the Irwell,...

I

I hear a voice, perchance I heard
Long ago, but all too low,
So that scarce a care it stirred
If the voice was real or no:
I heard it in my youth when first
The waters of my life outburst:...

Through foulest fogs of my own sluggish soul,
Through midnight glooms of all the wide world's guilt,
Through sulphurous cannon-clouds that surge and roll
Above the steam of blood in anger spilt;...

These fresh beauties, we can prove,
Once were virgins, sick of love,
Turn'd to flowers: still in some,
Colours go and colours come.