Works

Nay, blame me not; I might have spared
Your patience many a trivial verse,
Yet these my earlier welcome shared,
So, let the better shield the worse.

And some might say, "Those ruder songs...

Fold now thine arms and hang the head,
Like to a lily withered;
Next look thou like a sickly moon,
Or like Jocasta in a swoon;
Then weep and sigh and softly go,
Like to a widow drown'd in woe,...

It is the first mild day of March:
Each minute sweeter than before
The redbreast sings from the tall larch
That stands beside our door.

There is a blessing in the air,...

Lines written by the late A. L. Gordon
On 4th August, 1853,
Being three days before he sailed for Australia.

Across the trackless seas I go,
No matter when or where,...

With a copy of "The Supernaturalism Of New England."


Dear Sister! while the wise and sage
Turn coldly from my playful page,
And count it strange that ripened age
Should stoop to boyhood's folly;...

O sister, God is very good--
Thou art a woman now:
O sister, be thy womanhood
A baptism on thy brow!

For what?--Do ancient stories lie
Of Titans long ago,
The children of the lofty sky...

'T is said that each succeeding year
Another circlet weaves
Within each living, waving tree;
Yet not in buds or leaves,--
But far within the silent core,
The tiny shuttles ply,...

I.

Old fables are not all a lie
That tell of wondrous birth,
Of Titan children, father Sky,
And mighty mother Earth.

Yea, now are walking on the ground
Sons of the mingled brood;...

(AGED SIXTEEN)

Dear boy unborn: the son but of my dream,
Promise of yet unrisen day,
Come, sit beside me; let us talk, and seem
To take such cares and courage for your way,...

1.

Those flaxen locks, those eyes of blue
Bright as thy mother's in their hue;
Those rosy lips, whose dimples play
And smile to steal the heart away,
Recall a scene of former joy,...

Fanny! were all the world like thee,
How cheerly then this life would glide,
Dear emblem of Fidelity!
Long may'st thou grace thy master's side.

Long cheer his hours of solitude,...

Oh, dear, how will it end?
Peggy and Susie how naughty you are.
You little know where you are,
Going so far, and so high,
Nearly up to the sky.
Perhaps it's a Giant who lives there,...

That is the only true secret, which in the presence of all men
Lies, and surrounds thee for ay, but which is witnessed by none.

Adieu! Adieu! may angels guard thee,
Hovering near thee night and day,
For all thy good deeds God reward thee,
The rest forgive and blot away.

May no gift nor grace be missing,...

Though fancy and the might of rhyme,
That turneth like the tide,
Have borne me many a musing time,
Beloved, from thy side,

Ah yet, I pray thee, deem not, Sweet,
Those hours were given in vain;...

O once I had a true love,
As blest as I could be:
Patty was my turtle dove,
And Patty she loved me.
We walked the fields together,
By roses and woodbine,
In Summer's sunshine weather,...

I can write no stately proem
As a prelude to my lay;
From a poet to a poem
I would dare to say.

For if of these fallen petals
One to you seem fair,
Love will waft it till it settles...

(See Note 12)

Pray, take these pearls! - and my thanks for them
You lavished, the home of my youth to gem!
The thousands of hours of peaceful luster
Your spirit has filled, are pearls that cluster...

Vppon this sinfull earth
If man can happy be,
And higher then his birth,
(Frend) take him thus from me.

Whome promise not deceiues
That he the breach should rue,
Nor constant reason leaues...

I should have been too glad, I see,
Too lifted for the scant degree
Of life's penurious round;
My little circuit would have shamed
This new circumference, have blamed
The homelier time behind.
...