Works

Trust my father, saith the eldest-born;
I did trust him ere the earth began;
Not to know him is to be forlorn;
Not to love him is--not to be man.

He that knows him loves him altogether;...

When the storm was proudest,
And the wind was loudest,
I heard the hollow caverns drinking down below;
When the stars were bright,
And the ground was white,...

Who lights the fire--that forth so gracefully
And freely frolicketh the fairy smoke?
Some pretty one who never felt the yoke--
Glad girl, or maiden more sedate than she.
...

Who would have thought that even an idle song
Were such a holy and celestial thing
That wickedness and envy cannot sing--
That music for no moment lives with wrong?
I know this, for a very grievous throng,...

Content Primroses,
With hearts at rest in your thick leaves' soft care,
Peeping as from his mother's lap the child
Who courts shy shelter from his own open air!--
Hanging Harebell,...

Willie speaks.

Is it wrong, the wish to be great,
For I do wish it so?
I have asked already my sister Kate;
She says she does not know.

Yestereve at the gate I stood...

They were parted then at last?
Was it duty, or force, or fate?
Or did a worldly blast
Blow-to the meeting-gate?

An old, short story is this!
A glance, a trembling, a sigh,...

Win' that blaws the simmer plaid
Ower the hie hill's shoothers laid,
Green wi' gerse, an' reid wi' heather--
Welcome wi' yer sowl-like weather!
Mony a win' there has been sent
Oot aneth the firmament--...

TO E.M. II.

Dear friend, you love the poet's song,
And here is one for your regard.
You know the "melancholy bard,"
Whose grief is wise as well as strong;

Already something understand...

I woke at midnight, and my heart,
My beating heart, said this to me:
Thou seest the moon, how calm and bright!
The world is fair by day and night,
But what is that to thee?...

Shepherd, on before thy sheep,
Hear thy lamb that bleats behind!
Scarce the track I stumbling keep!
Through my thin fleece blows the wind!

Turn and see me, Son of Man!...

O wild and dark! a night hath found me now
Wherein I mingle with that element
Sent madly loose through the wide staring rent
In yon tormented branches! I will bow
A while unto the storm, and thenceforth grow...

To whom the heavy burden clings,
It yet may serve him like a staff;
One day the cross will break in wings,
The sinner laugh a holy laugh.

The dwarfed Zacchaeus climbed a tree,...