Works

The Autumn promised, and he keeps
His word unto the meadow-rose.
The pure, bright lightnings herald Spring,
Serene and glad the fresh earth shows.
The rain has quenched her children's thirst,...

(J. M. D.)


I thank Thee Father that I feel Thee near,
That it is hand of Thine that s raised to smite,
Oh, make Thy loving kindness to appear,
Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right!
...

On thee, blest youth, a father's hand confers
The maid thy earliest, fondest wishes knew.
Each soft enchantment of the soul is hers;
Thine be the joys to firm attachment due.
...

The greatest monarch may be stabb'd by night
And fortune help the murderer in his flight;
The vilest ruffian may commit a rape,
Yet safe from injured innocence escape;
And calumny, by working under ground,...

Nay, more than violets
These thoughts of thine, friend!
Rather thy reedy brook--
Taw's tributary--
At midnight murmuring,
Descried them, the delicate
Dark-eyed goddesses,...

Fair Lady! can I sing of flowers
That in Madeira bloom and fade,
I who ne'er sate within their bowers,
Nor through their sunny lawns have strayed?
How they in sprightly dance are worn...

Joyful lady, sing!
And I will lurk here listening,
Though nought be done, and nought begun,
And work-hours swift are scurrying.

Sing, O lady, still!
Aye, I will wait each note you trill,...

These locks, which fondly thus entwine,
In firmer chains our hearts confine,
Than all th' unmeaning protestations
Which swell with nonsense, love orations.
Our love is fix'd, I think we've prov'd it;...

When, casting many a look behind,
I leave the friends I cherish here--
Perchance some other friends to find,
But surely finding none so dear--

Haply the little simple page,...

Golden-hair'd Ally whose name is one with mine,
Crazy with laughter and babble and earth's new wine,
Now that the flower of a year and a half is thine,
O little blossom, O mine, and mine of mine,...

Come with me, little maid,
Nay, shrink not, thus afraid
I'll harm thee not!
Fly not, my love, from me
I have a home for thee
A fairy grot,
Where mortal eye
Can rarely pry,...

I could wish you all who love,
That ye could your thoughts remove
From your mistresses, and be
Wisely wanton, like to me,
I could wish you dispossessed
Of that fiend that mars your rest,...

Thou art not dead, O sweet lost melody,
Sung beyond memory,
When golden to the winds this world of ours
Waved wild with boundless flowers;
Sung in some past when wildernesses were,-...

Madonna, mistress, I would build for thee
An altar deep in the sad soul of me;
And in the darkest corner of my heart,
From mortal hopes and mocking eyes apart,
Carve of enamelled blue and gold a shrine...

You say, you love me! that I thus must prove:
It that you lie, then I will swear you love.

Missal of the Gothic age,
Missal with the blazoned page,
Whence, O Missal, hither come,
From what dim scriptorium?

Whose the name that wrought thee thus,
Ambrose or Theophilus,...

Are the sports of our youth so displeasing?
Is love but the folly you say?
Benumbed with the winter, and freezing,
You scold at the revels of May.

For you once a nymph had her charms,...

Why art thou here, little, motherless one, -
Why art thou here in this bleak world alone?
With that innocent smile on thy beautiful brow,
What hath this stern world for such as thou?
...

To thee, O father of the stately peaks,
Above me in the loftier light to thee,
Imperial brother of those awful hills
Whose feet are set in splendid spheres of flame,...

Wee, modest, crimson-tipped flow'r,
Thou's met me in an evil hour;
For I maun crush amang the stoure
Thy slender stem:
To spare thee now is past my pow'r,
Thou bonnie gem.
...