Works

Why does she so long delay?
Night is waning fast away;
Thrice have I my lamp renewed,
Watching here in solitude,
Where can she so long delay?
Where, so long delay?
...

Why don't the men propose, mamma?
Why don't the men propose?
Each seems just coming to the point,
And then away he goes;
It is no fault of yours, mamma,
That everybody knows;...

Why do they prate of the blessings of peace? we have made them a curse,
Pickpockets, each hand lusting for all that is not its own;
And lust of gain, in the spirit of Cain, is it better or worse...

Why do ye call the poet lonely,
Because he dreams in lonely places?
He is not desolate, but only
Sees, where ye cannot, hidden faces.

Why should I pine? when there in Spain
Are eyes to woo, and not in vain;
Dark eyes, and dreamily divine:
And lips, as red as sunlit wine;

Sweet lips, that never know disdain:...

They called me the weakling, the simpleton,
For my brothers were strong and beautiful,
While I, the last child of parents who had aged,
Inherited only their residue of power....

So in the shadow by the nimble flood
He made her whistles of the willow wood,
Flutes of one note with mellow slender tone;
(A robin piping in the dusk alone).
Lively the pleasure was the wand to bruise,...

To Coroner Merival, greetings, but a voice
Dissentient from much that goes the rounds,
Concerning Elenor Murray. Here's my word:
Give men and women freedom, save the land...

BEING AN EXCELLENT NEW SONG, SUPPOSED TO BE MADE, AND SUNG IN THE STREETS OF DUBLIN, BY WILLIAM WOOD, IRONMONGER AND HALFPENNY-MONGER. 1725


My dear Irish folks,
Come leave off your jokes,...

Wilt pray for me?
They tell me I have Fame;
I plead with thee,
Sometimes just fold my name
In beautiful "Hail Marys"!
And you give me more
Than all the world besides....

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....

'Tis the moon of the sere, falling leaves.
From the heads of the maples the west-wind
Plucks the red-and-gold plumage and grieves
on the meads for the rose and the lily;...

Winter's comin'! Top coits an' nickerbockers begin to be sowt up. A chap enjoys his bed a bit better, an' doesn't like gettin' up in a mornin' quite as weel. Tawkin' abaat enjoyin' bed makes me think ova young chap aat o' Midgl...

Lycidas

Thyrsis, the music of that murm'ring spring,
Is not so mournful as the strains you sing.
Nor rivers winding thro' the vales below,
So sweetly warble, or so smoothly flow....

Wouldst thou, my friend, mount up to the highest summit of wisdom,
Be not deterred by the fear, prudence thy course may deride
That shortsighted one sees but the bank that from thee is flying,...

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.
...

Ere God had built the mountains,
Or raised the fruitful hills;
Before he fill'd the fountains
That feed the running rills;
In me, from everlasting,
The wonderful I AM,...

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.

Little leaves and flow'rets too,

Scatter we with gentle hand,
Kind young spring-gods to the view,

Sporting on an airy band.

Zephyr, bear it on the wing,
...

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:...