Works

Canto I

I

Act first, scene first. A study. Of a kind
Half cell, half salon, opulent yet grave;
Rare books, low-shelved, yet far above the mind
Of common man to compass or to crave;...

If ever sea-maid, from her coral cave,
Beneath the hum of the great surge, has loved
To pass delighted from her green abode,
And, seated on a summer bank, to sing
No earthly music; in a spot like this,...

Far, far from here,
The Adriatic breaks in a warm bay
Among the green Illyrian hills; and there
The sunshine in the happy glens is fair,
And by the sea, and in the brakes....

Addressed to the Right Hon. Lady Anne Hamilton.


When princely Hamilton's abode
Ennobled Cadyow's Gothic towers,
The song went round, the goblet flow'd,,
And revel sped the laughing hours.
...

Lo, I the man that whilom lov'd and lost,
Not dreading loss, do sing again of love;
And like a man but lately tempest-toss'd,
Try if my stars still inauspicious prove:
Not to make good that poets never can...

Why might I not for once be of that sect,
Which hold that souls, when Nature hath her right,
Some other bodies to themselves elect;
And sunlike make the day, and license night?...

Fairest, when by the rules of palmistry
You took my hand to try if you could guess
By lines therein if any wight there be
Ordain'd to make me know some happiness;...

Were't not for you, here should my pen have rest
And take a long leave of sweet poesy;
Britannia's swains, and rivers far by west,
Should hear no more mine oaten melody;...

Sing soft, ye pretty birds, while C'lia sleeps,
And gentle gales play gently with the leaves;
Learn of the neighbour brooks, whose silent deeps
Would teach him fear, that her soft sleep bereaves...

As a dare-gale skylark scanted in a dull cage
Man's mounting spirit in his bone-house, mean house, dwells -
That bird beyond the remembering his free fells;
This in drudgery, day-labouring-out life's age.
...

Cain and Abel were brothers born.
(Koop-la! Come along, cows!)
One raised cattle and one raised corn.
(Koop-la! Come along! Co-hoe!)

And Cain he farmed by the river-side,...

As I, with hopeless love o'erthrown,
With love o'erthrown, with love o'erthrown,
And this is truth I tell,
As I, with hopeless love o'erthrown,
Was sadly walking all alone,
...

Old King Caraway
Supped on cake,
And a cup of sack
His thirst to slake;
Bird in arras
And hound in hall
Watched very softly
Or not at all;
Fire in the middle,
Stone all round...

Festivals have I seen that were not names:
This is young Buonaparte's natal day,
And his is henceforth an established sway,
Consul for life. With worship France proclaims...

Is it a reed that's shaken by the wind,
Or what is it that ye go forth to see?
Lords, lawyers, statesmen, squires of low degree,
Men known, and men unknown, sick, lame, and blind,...

A thousand knights have rein'd their steeds
To watch this line of sand-hills run,
Along the never silent Strait,
To Calais glittering in the sun:

To look toward Ardres' Golden Field...

Here's the spot. Look around you. Above on the height
Lay the Hessians encamped. By that church on the right
Stood the gaunt Jersey farmers. And here ran a wall,
You may dig anywhere and you'll turn up a ball....

Tune - "Caledonian Hunt's Delight."


I.

There was once a day - but old Time then was young -
That brave Caledonia, the chief of her line,
From some of your northern deities sprung,...

The water spouts up from the ground
And there doth form a pond around,
'Tis fed from no apparent rills,
And it near by drives several mills.

And here the little ponds are seen...

In the solemn days of old,
Two men met in Boston town,
One a tradesman frank and bold,
One a preacher of renown.
Cried the last, in bitter tone:
"Poisoner of the wells of truth!...