Works

Lo! Victress on the peaks!
Where thou, with mighty brow, regarding the world,
(The world, O Libertad, that vainly conspired against thee;)
Out of its countless beleaguering toils, after thwarting them all;...

There's more in words than I can teach:
Yet listen, Child! I would not preach;
But only give some plain directions
To guide your speech and your affections.
Say not you 'love' a roasted fowl,...

A slumber did my spirit seal;
I had no human fears:
She seem'd a thing that could not feel
The touch of earthly years.

No motion has she now, no force;
She neither hears nor sees;...

I.

O thou dread Power, who reign'st above!
I know thou wilt me hear,
When for this scene of peace and love
I make my prayer sincere.

II.

The hoary sire, the mortal stroke,...

I've told you many a tale, my child, of the old heroic days
Of Indian wars and massacre, of villages ablaze
With savage torch, from Ville Marie to the Mission of Trois Rivieres...

I.

While great events were on the gale,
And each hour brought a varying tale,
And the demeanour, changed and cold,
Of Douglas fretted Marmion bold,
And, like the impatient steed of war...

I.

The train has left the hills of Braid;
The barrier guard have open made
(So Lindesay bade) the palisade,
That closed the tented ground;
Their men the warders backward drew,...

When dark December glooms the day,
And takes our autumn joys away;
When short and scant the sunbeam throws,
Upon the weary waste of snows,
A cold and profitless regard,
Like patron on a needy bard,...

Heap on more wood! the wind is chill;
But let it whistle as it will,
We'll keep our Christmas merry still.
Each age has deemed the new-born year
The fittest time for festal cheer;...

He came from tumbled country past the humps of Buffalo
Where the snow sits on the mountain 'n' the Summer aches below.
He'd a silly name like Archie. Squattin' sullen on the ship,...

"There, on the left!" said the colonel: the battle had shuddered and faded away,
Wraith of a fiery enchantment that left only ashes and blood-sprinkled clay -...

The blast from Freedom's Northern hills, upon its Southern way,
Bears greeting to Virginia from Massachusetts Bay:
No word of haughty challenging, nor battle bugle's peal,...

If men should rise and return to the noise and time of the tourney,
The name and fame of the tabard, the tangle of gules and gold,
Would these things stand and suffice for the bourne of a backward journey,...

Complacent Fictions were they, yet the same
Involved a history of no doubtful sense,
History that proves by inward evidence
From what a precious source of truth it came....

They who have seen the noble Roman's scorn
Break forth at thought of laying down his head,
When the blank day is over, garroted
In his ancestral palace, where, from morn...

Long has the dew been dried on tree and lawn:
O'er man and beast a not unwelcome boon
Is shed, the languor of approaching noon;
To shady rest withdrawing or withdrawn...

Forbear to deem the Chronicler unwise,
Ungentle, or untouched by seemly ruth,
Who, gathering up all that Time's envious tooth
Has spared of sound and grave realities,...

"Thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks
In Vallombrosa where Etrurian shades
High over-arch'd embower."
- Paradise Lost.


"Vallombrosa, I longed in thy shadiest wood...

The gentlest Shade that walked Elysian plains
Might sometimes covet dissoluble chains;
Even for the tenants of the zone that lies
Beyond the stars, celestial Paradise,...

'Mid crowded obelisks and urns
I sought the untimely grave of Burns;
Sons of the Bard, my heart still mourns
With sorrow true;
And more would grieve, but that it turns
Trembling to you!
...