Works

In days gone by, the poets wrote
Sweet verses to the ladies fair;
Described the nightingale's clear note,
Or penned an Ode to Daphne's hair.

To dare all for a woman's smile...

I could resign that eye of blue.
How e'er its splendor used to thrill me;
And even that cheek of roseate hue,--
To lose it, Cloe, scarce would kill me.

That snowy neck I ne'er should miss,...

The lonely sunsets flare forlorn
Down valleys dreadly desolate;
The lordly mountains soar in scorn,
As still as death, as stern as fate.

The lonely sunsets flame and die;...

Not in the mines beyond the western main,
You say, Cordelia, was the metal sought,
Which a fine skill, of Indian growth, has wrought
Into this flexible yet faithful Chain;
Nor is it silver of romantic Spain...

She sitteth still who used to dance,
She weepeth sore and more and more -
Let us sit with thee weeping sore,
O fair France!

She trembleth as the days advance
Who used to be so light of heart: -...

Dear Miller: You and I despise
The cad who gathers books to sell 'em,
Be they but sixteen-mos in cloth
Or stately folios garbed in vellum.

But when one fellow has a prize...

Maxwell, if merit here you crave
That merit I deny,
You save fair Jessie from the grave,
An angel could not die.

Do you remember one immortal
Lost moment out of time and space,
What time we thought, who passed the portal
Of that divine disastrous place
Where Life was slain and Truth was slandered...

Loving friend, the gift of one,
Who, her own true faith, hath run,
Through thy lower nature;
Be my benediction said
With my hand upon thy head,
Gentle fellow-creature!
...

GENERAL IN HIS MAJESTY'S FORCES, MASTER-GENERAL OF THE ORDNANCE, CONSTABLE OF THE TOWER, ETC.

MY LORD,

...

Mossgiel, May 3, 1786.


I.

I hold it, Sir, my bounden duty,
To warn you how that Master Tootie,
Alias, Laird M'Gaun,
Was here to hire yon lad away...

Sweet are the pleasures that to verse belong,
And doubly sweet a brotherhood in song;
Nor can remembrance, Mathew! bring to view
A fate more pleasing, a delight more true...

FROM BERMUDA, JANUARY, 1804.


Oh, what a sea of storm we've past!--
High mountain waves and foamy showers,
And battling winds whose savage blast
But ill agrees with one whose hours...

What though I dreamed of mountain heights,
Of peaks, the barriers of the world,
Around whose tops the Northern Lights
And tempests are unfurled.

Mine are the footpaths leading through...

[1]Giovanni Battista Manso, Marquis of Villa, is an Italian Nobleman of the highest estimation among his countrymen, for Genius, Literature,and military accomplishments. To Him Torquato Tasso addressed his "Dialogue on Friendsh...

1Giovanni Battista Manso, Marquis of Villa, is an Italian Nobleman of the highest estimation among his countrymen, for Genius, Literature,and military accomplishments. To Him Torquato Tasso addressed his "Dialogue on Friendship...

The sun is sinking in the west,
Long grow the shadows dim;
Have patience, sister, to be blest,
Wait patiently for Him.

Thou knowest love, much love hast had,
Great things of love mayst tell,...

I

Whenas, (I love that 'whenas' word,
It shows I am a poet, too,)
Q. Horace Flaccus gaily stirred
The welkin with his tra-la-loo,
He little thought one donkey's back...

Thou, by whom, freed from rules constrained and wrong,
On truth and nature once again we're placed,
Who, in the cradle e'en a hero strong,
Stiffest the serpents round our genius laced,...

When one is forty years and seven,
Is seven and forty sad years old,
He looks not onward for his Heaven,
The future is too blank and cold,
Its pale flowers smell of graveyard mould;...