Works

Blue was the loch, [1] the clouds were gone,
Ben-Lomond in his glory shone,
When, Luss, I left thee; when the breeze
Bore me from thy silver sands,
Thy kirk-yard wall among the trees,...

Bless'd be the princes who have fought
For pompous names or wide dominion,
Since by their error we are taught
That happiness is but opinion.

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...

Ask why God made the gem so small,
And why so huge the granite?
Because God meant mankind should set
The higher value on it.

It rained last night,
But fair weather has come back
This morning.

The green clusters of the palm-trees
Open and begin to throw shadows.

But sorrow drifts slowly down about me.
...

See you, beneath yon cloud so dark,
Fast gliding along a gloomy bark?
Her sails are full,--though the wind is still,
And there blows not a breath her sails to fill!
...

While flowing rivers yield a blameless sport,
Shall live the name of Walton: Sage benign!
Whose pen, the mysteries of the rod and line
Unfolding, did not fruitlessly exhort...

Admiring Nature in her wildest grace,
These northern scenes with weary feet I trace;
O'er many a winding dale and painful steep,
Th' abodes of covey'd grouse and timid sheep,...

Rude is this Edifice, and Thou hast seen
Buildings, albeit rude, that have maintained
Proportions more harmonious, and approached
To closer fellowship with ideal grace....

1.
Dame, get up and bake your pies,
Bake your pies, bake your pies;
Dame, get up and bake your pies,
On Christmas-day in the morning.

2.
Dame, what makes your maidens lie,...

The Big rough boys from the runs out back were first where the balls flew free,
And yelled in the slang of the Outside Track: 'By God, it's a Christmas spree!'...

Yes, it was the mountain Echo,
Solitary, clear, profound,
Answering to the shouting Cuckoo,
Giving to her sound for sound!

Unsolicited reply
To a babbling wanderer sent;...

Yes; I write verses now and then,
But blunt and flaccid is my pen,
No longer talkt of by young men
As rather clever:

In the last quarter are my eyes,
You see it by their form and size;...

Fytte I
By Wood and Wold
[A Preamble]

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


Lightly the breath of the spring wind blows,
Though laden with faint perfume,...

You ask me, why, tho' ill at ease,
Within this region I subsist,
Whose spirits falter in the mist,
And languish for the purple seas.
It is the land that freemen till,
That sober-suited Freedom chose,...

There was a girl in our town
Who dearly loved to flirt,
But the home folks never noticed it at all.
The women in the neighborhood
All said she was too pert,
But she never even noticed them at all.
...

You'd entertain the universe in bed,
Foul woman; ennui makes you mean of soul.
To exercise your jaws at this strange sport
Each day you work a heart between your teeth.
Your eyes, illuminated like boutiques...

You felons on trial in courts;
You convicts in prison-cells, you sentenced assassins, chain'd and hand-cuff'd with iron;
Who am I, too, that I am not on trial, or in prison?...

I've noticed this happen, when everything is black,
When I'm down below zero and cannot get back,
When I feel like a sort of a National Debt,
That will go on for ages and never be met,...

Young England, what is then become of Old
Of dear Old England? Think they she is dead,
Dead to the very name? Presumption fed
On empty air! That name will keep its hold
In the true filial bosom's inmost fold...