Works

The doors were wide, the story saith,
Out of the night came the patient wraith.
He might not speak, and he could not stir
A hair of the Baron's minniver.
Speechless and strengthless, a shadow thin,...

'Less you want your toes trod off you'd better get back at once,
For the bullocks are walking two by two,
The byles are walking two by two,
And the elephants bring the guns.
Ho! Yuss!...

So we settled it all when the storm was done
As comfy as comfy could be;
And I was to wait in the barn, my dears,
Because I was only three;
And Teddy would run to the rainbow's foot...

There was a strife 'twixt man and maid
Oh that was at the birth of time!
But what befall 'twixt man and maid,,
Oh that's beyond the grip of rhyme.
'Twas, 'Sweet, I must not bide with you,'...

The sun set, but set not his hope:
Stars rose; his faith was earlier up:
Fixed on the enormous galaxy,
Deeper and older seemed his eye;
And matched his sufferance sublime
The taciturnity of time....

Loving she is, and tractable, though wild;
And Innocence hath privilege in her
To dignify arch looks and laughing eyes;
And feats of cunning; and the pretty round
Of trespasses, affected to provoke...

I.

He is to weet a melancholy carle:
Thin in the waist, with bushy head of hair
As hath the seeded thistle when in parle
It holds the Zephyr, ere it sendeth fair...

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...

Two words there 'are, both short, of beauty rare,

Whose sounds our lips so often love to frame,

But which with clearness never can proclaim
The things whose own peculiar stamp they bear.
...

I.

She stood at Greenwich, motionless amid
The ever-shifting crowd of passengers.
I marked a big tear quivering on the lid
Of her deep-lustrous eye, and knew that hers...

On they ride on they ride
Only three hundred,
Ride the brave Body-Guard,
From the "Prairie Scouts" sundered:
Two thousand riflemen,
Ambushed on either side,
The signal of slaughter bide:...

Our columns are broken, defeated, and fled;
We are gathered, a few from the flying and dead,
Where the green flag is up and our wounded remain
Imploring for water and groaning in pain....

Air--Stephenos



Lo, a knight in armour standing,
Ready for the foe;
Thee we greet, belov'd Companion,
Thee we know.

Keep thine oath, oh new made soldier,...

At five o'clock they ring a tinkly bell;
The April dawn glimmers along the beds,
There is a lifting up of weary heads
From weary pillows. Our old citadel
Hath still held out, and while the miracle...

Frail are the best of us, brothers
God's charity cover us all
Yet we ask for perfection in others,
And scoff when they stumble and fall.
Shall we give him a fish or a serpent...

I

Unarmed she goeth; yet her hands
Strike deeper awe than steel-caparison'd bands.
No fatal hurt of foe she fears, -
Veiled, as with mail, in mist of gentle tears.


II
...

I.
What am I doing, you say to me, 'wasting the sweet summer hours'?
Haven't you eyes? I am dressing the grave of a woman with flowers.

II.
For a woman ruin'd the world, as God's own scriptures tell,...

("Je suis la Charit'.")

[February, 1837.]


"Lo! I am Charity," she cries,
"Who waketh up before the day;
While yet asleep all nature lies,
God bids me rise and go my way."
...

Qua nihil majus meliusve terris
Fata donav're, bonique divi;
Nec dabunt, quamvis redeant in aurum
Tempora priscum.
- Hor. Lib. iv. Ode 2.



...

Did sweeter Sounds adorn my flowing Tongue,
Than ever Man pronounc'd, or Angel sung:
Had I all Knowledge, Human and Divine,
That Thought can reach, or Science can define;...