"God bless the man who first invented sleep!" So Sancho Panza said, and so say I: And bless him, also, that he didn't keep His great discovery to himself; nor try To make it - as the lucky fellow might -...
Dour river Jaded with monotony of lights Diving off mast heads.... Lights mad with creating in a river... turning its sullen back... Heave up, river......
From false assumption rose, and, fondly hailed By superstition, spread the Papal power; Yet do not deem the Autocracy prevailed Thus only, even in error's darkest hour....
Ungrateful Country, if thou e'er forget The sons who for thy civil rights have bled! How, like a Roman, Sidney bowed his head, And Russel's milder blood the scaffold wet;...
Would that our scrupulous Sires had dared to leave Less scanty measure of those graceful rites And usages, whose due return invites A stir of mind too natural to deceive;...
Closing the sacred Book which long has fed Our meditations, give we to a day Of annual joy one tributary lay; This day, when, forth by rustic music led, The village Children, while the sky is red...
Praised be the Rivers, from their mountain springs Shouting to Freedom, "Plant thy banners here!" To harassed Piety, "Dismiss thy fear, And in our caverns smooth thy ruffled wings!"...
Where long and deeply hath been fixed the root In the blest soil of gospel truth, the Tree, (Blighted or scathed tho' many branches be, Put forth to wither, many a hopeful shoot)...
Deep is the lamentation! Not alone From Sages justly honoured by mankind; But from the ghostly tenants of the wind, Demons and Spirits, many a dolorous groan Issues for that dominion overthrown:...
Grant, that by this unsparing hurricane Green leaves with yellow mixed are torn away, And goodly fruitage with the mother spray; 'Twere madness, wished we, therefore, to detain,...
The saintly Youth has ceased to rule, discrowned By unrelenting Death. O People keen For change, to whom the new looks always green! Rejoicing did they cast upon the ground...
How fast the Marian death-list is unrolled! See Latimer and Ridley in the might Of Faith stand coupled for a common flight! One (like those prophets whom God sent of old)...
Methinks that I could trip o'er heaviest soil, Light as a buoyant bark from wave to wave, Were mine the trusty staff that Jewel gave To youthful Hooker, in familiar style...
Aid, glorious Martyrs, from your fields of light, Our mortal ken! Inspire a perfect trust (While we look round) that Heaven's decrees are just: Which few can hold committed to a fight...
Scattering, like birds escaped the fowler's net, Some seek with timely flight a foreign strand; Most happy, re-assembled in a land By dauntless Luther freed, could they forget...
Watch, and be firm! for, soul-subduing vice, Heart-killing luxury, on your steps await. Fair houses, baths, and banquets delicate, And temples flashing, bright as polar ice,...
As, when a storm hath ceased, the birds regain Their cheerfulness, and busily retrim Their nests, or chant a gratulating hymn To the blue ether and bespangled plain; Even so, in many a re-constructed fane,...
But what if One, through grove or flowery mead, Indulging thus at will the creeping feet Of a voluptuous indolence, should meet Thy hovering Shade, O venerable Bede!...