Works

By rugged ways and thro' the night
We struggle blindly toward the light;
And groping, stumbling, ever pray
For sight of long delaying day.
The cruel thorns beside the road...

By that Lake, whose gloomy shore
Sky-lark never warbles o'er,[2]
Where the cliff hangs high and steep,
Young St. Kevin stole to sleep.
"Here, at least," he calmly said,
"Woman ne'er shall find my bed."...

Far to the Northward there lies a land,
A wonderful land that the winds blow over,
And none may fathom or understand
The charm it holds for the restless rover;
A great grey chaos, a land half made,...

"To Be Filed For Reference", Plain Tales From the Hills



By the Hoof of the Wild Goat uptossed
From the cliff where she lay in the Sun
Fell the Stone
To the Tarn where the daylight is lost,...

Call him not heretic whose works attest
His faith in goodness by no creed confessed.
Whatever in love's name is truly done
To free the bound and lift the fallen one
Is done to Christ. Whoso in deed and word...

B.C. 570

(Macmillan's Magazine, October 1866.)


Here where I dwell I waste to skin and bone;
The curse is come upon me, and I waste
In penal torment powerless to atone....

Summer's face was rosiest, skies and woods were mellow,
Earth had heaven to friend, and heaven had earth to fellow,
When we met where wooded hills and meadows meet....

A scent of Esparto grass, and again I recall
That hour we spent by the weir of the paper-mill
Watching together the curving thunderous fall
Of frothing amber, bemused by the roar until...

I.

Green, watery jets of light let through
The rippling foliage drenched with dew;
Bland glow-worm glamours warm and dim
Above the mystic vistas swim,
Where, 'round the fountain's oozy urn,...

'Beneath the greenwood bough.'
- W. Scott.

Lightly the breath of the spring wind blows,
Though laden with faint perfume,
'Tis the fragrance rare that the bushman knows,...

Not though you die to-night, O Sweet, and wail,
A spectre at my door,
Shall mortal Fear make Love immortal fail,
I shall but love you more,
Who, from Death's House returning, give me still...

Calm is all nature as a resting wheel.
The kine are couched upon the dewy grass;
The horse alone, seen dimly as I pass,
Is cropping audibly his later meal:
Dark is the ground; a slumber seems to steal...

The Text is from a broadside in the Bagford collection (i. 65); other broadsides, very similar, are to be found in the Pepys, Roxburghe, and other collections. The ballad has often been reprinted; and more than one oral version...

The Text is from Kinloch's MSS., where it was written down from the recitation of Mary Barr: it is entitled 'The Earl of Rosslyn's Daughter.'

...

Earth, round, rolling, compact--suns, moons, animals--all these are words to be said;
Watery, vegetable, sauroid advances--beings, premonitions, lispings of the future,
Behold! these are vast words to be said.
...

(2 Probate Division, 192)

Aid me, Muses! my endeavour is to sing a woful song,
How a very learned bishop in the Arches Court went wrong.
Aid me, for duplex querela is an uninviting theme,...

This song of mine
Is a Song of the Vine,
To be sung by the glowing embers
Of wayside inns,
When the rain begins
To darken the drear Novembers.

It is not a song
Of the Scuppernong,...

(From the prose of Parkman.)

I. THE WINTER.

September bade the sail of Pontgrav'
Godspeed, and smil'd upon the infant nation;
October deckt the shores and hills with "gay...

PHI BETA KAPPA. - CAMBRIDGE, 1867

You bid me sing, - can I forget
The classic ode of days gone by, -
How belle Fifine and jeune Lisette
Exclaimed, "Anacreon, geron ei"?...

Who is the happy Warrior? Who is he
That every man in arms should wish to be?
It is the generous Spirit, who, when brought
Among the tasks of real life, hath wrought...