Works

Celebrate our anniversary ' can't you see
tonight the snowy night of our first winter
comes back again in every road and tree -
that winter night of diamantine splendour.
...

On bridges small and bridges great
Stands Nepomucks in ev'ry state,
Of bronze, wood, painted, or of stone,
Some small as dolls, some giants grown;
Each passer must worship before Nepomuck,...

Non ' sempre di colpa.


Love is not always harsh and deadly sin:
If it be love of loveliness divine,
It leaves the heart all soft and infantine
For rays of God's own grace to enter in....

Non vider gli occhi miei.


I saw no mortal beauty with these eyes
When perfect peace in thy fair eyes I found;
But far within, where all is holy ground,...

Celia, we know, is sixty-five,
Yet Celia's face is seventeen;
Thus winter in her breast must live,
While summer in her face is seen.

How cruel Celia's fate, who hence...

Fond man, that canst believe her blood
Will from those purple channels flow;
Or that the pure untainted flood
Can any foul distemper know;
Or that thy weak steel can incise...

What can I say? What Arguments can prove
My Truth? What Colors can describe my Love?
If it's Excess and Fury be not known,
In what Thy Celia has already done?
...

I've a head like a concertina: I've a tongue like a button-stick,
I've a mouth like an old potato, and I'm more than a little sick,
But I've had my fun o' the Corp'ral's Guard: I've made the cinders fly,...

I.

We hate the Saxon and the Dane,
We hate the Norman men--
We cursed their greed for blood and gain,
We curse them now again.
Yet start not, Irish-born man!
If you're to Ireland true,...

Ogni cencio vuol entrare in bucato.
- Italian Proverb.

Mr. Buxton Forman received the following self-explanatory letter from Browning:

'19 WARWICK CRESCENT. W., July 27, '76.
...

By vain affections unenthralled,
Though resolute when duty called
To meet the world's broad eye,
Pure as the holiest cloistered nun
That ever feared the tempting sun,
Did Fermor live and die....

A hundred times the bells of Brown
Have rung to sleep the idle summers,
And still to-day clangs clamouring down
A greeting to the welcome comers.

And far, like waves of morning, pours...

I.

Our fathers' God! from out whose hand
The centuries fall like grains of sand,
We meet to-day, united, free,
And loyal to our land and Thee,
To thank Thee for the era done,...

Buildings above the leafless trees
Loom high as castles in a dream,

While one by one the lamps come out
To thread the twilight with a gleam.

There is no sign of leaf or bud,...

A hunter once in that grove reclined,
To shun the noon's bright eye,
And oft he wooed the wandering wind,
To cool his brow with its sigh,
While mute lay even the wild bee's hum,...

Dear Reader, should you chance to go
To Hades, do not fail to throw
A "Sop to Cerberus" at the gate,
His anger to propitiate.
Don't say "Good dog!" and hope thereby
His three fierce Heads to pacify....

Down with the rosemary and bays,
Down with the misletoe;
Instead of holly, now up-raise
The greener box, for show.

The holly hitherto did sway;
Let box now domineer,...

Come, bring with a noise,
My merry, merry boys,
The Christmas Log to the firing;
While my good Dame, she
Bids ye all be free;
And drink to your heart's desiring.

With the last year's brand...

Down with the rosemary, and so
Down with the bays and misletoe;
Down with the holly, ivy, all
Wherewith ye dress'd the Christmas hall;
That so the superstitious find...

I.
If It be pleasant to look on, stalled in the packed serai,
Does not the Young Man try Its temper and pace ere he buy?
If She be pleasant to look on, what does the Young Man say?...