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With heavy groans did I approach my friends,
Heavy as though the mountains I would move.
The flagon they were murdering; they poured
Into the cup, wild-eyed, the grape's red blood....

WINTER.

Awake--arise! all my stormy powers,
The earth, the fair earth, again is ours!
At my stern approach, pale Autumn flings down
In the dust her broken and faded crown;...

Fair Moon, that at the chilly day's decline
Of sharp December through my cottage pane
Dost lovely look, smiling, though in thy wane!
In thought, to scenes, serene and still as thine,...

Life is not all for effort: there are hours,
When fancy breaks from the exacting will,
And rebel thought takes schoolboy's holiday,
Rejoicing in its idle strength. 'Tis then,...

Like the vulture
Who on heavy morning clouds
With gentle wing reposing
Looks for his prey,
Hover, my song!

For a God hath
Unto each prescribed
His destined path,
Which the happy one...

My son, if you go to the races to battle with Ikey and Mo,
Remember, it's seldom the pigeon can pick out the eye of the crow;
Remember, they live by the business; remember, my son, and go slow.
...

Go, little book,
To him who, on a lute with horns of pearl,
Sang of the white feet of the Golden Girl:
And bid him look
Into thy pages: it may hap that he
May find that golden maidens dance through thee.

With a ho-ho-ho! and a hi-hi-hi!
With a canzonet and tabor,
Thus, with ho-ho-ho! and our hi-hi-hi!
We amble, ramble, gambol, I
And my lily-fingered neighbor.

With a ha-ha-ha! and a he-he-he!...

With how sad steps, O Moon, thou climb'st the sky,
"How silently, and with how wan a face!"
Where art thou? Thou so often seen on high
Running among the clouds a Wood-nymph's race!...

First, there's the entrance, narrow, and so small,
The hat-stand seems to fill the tiny hall;
That staircase, too, has such an awkward bend,
The carpet rucks, and rises up on end!...

It was what you bore with you, Woman,
Not inly were,
That throned you from all else human,
However fair!

It was that strange freshness you carried
Into a soul...

With rosy hand a little girl prest down
A boss of fresh-cull'd cowslips in a rill:
Often as they sprang up again, a frown
Show'd she disliked resistance to her will:...

When sycamore leaves wer a-spreaden
Green-ruddy in hedges,
Bezide the red doust o' the ridges,
A-dried at Woak Hill;

I packed up my goods, all a-sheenen
Wi' long years o' handlen,...

'The hills like giants at a hunting lay
Chin upon hand, to see the game at bay.'
- Browning.



You'll take my tale with a little salt,
But it needs none, nevertheless,...

Sometimes I long to write an ode
And magnify his name,
The man of honor, on the road
To opulence and fame,
On whom was never aid bestowed
By any helpful dame.
...

All Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair -
The bees are stirring - birds are on the wing -
And Winter slumbering in the open air,
Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring!...

"Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself."

Would I, to save my dear child dutiful,
Dare the white breakers on a storm-rent shore?
Ay, truly, Thou all good, all beautiful,...

My dear old friends - It jes beats all,
The way you write a letter
So's ever' last line beats the first,
And ever' next-un's better! -
W'y, ever' fool-thing you putt down
You make so interestin',...

Vertiginosus, inops, surdus, male gratus amicis;
Non campana sonans, tonitru non ab Jove missum,
Quod mage mirandum, saltem si credere fas est,
Non clamosa meas mulier jam percutit aures.

Thou whom chance may hither lead,
Be thou clad in russet weed,
Be thou deck'd in silken stole,
Grave these counsels on thy soul.

Life is but a day at most,
Sprung from night, in darkness lost;...