Works

Ask not why hearts turn Magazines of passions,
And why that grief is clad in sev'ral fashions;
Why She on progress goes, and doth not borrow
The smallest respite from th'extreams of sorrow,...

I dwelt in the shade of a city,
She far by the sea,
With folk perhaps good, gracious, witty;
But never with me.

Her form on the ballroom's smooth flooring
I never once met,...

A German Christmas Eve




...

Argument.--For a jest, the king disguises himself and his men once more, this time in Lincoln green, which he purchases off Robin Hood. The whole party proceeds to Nottingham, where the appearance of so many green mantles cause...

ON THE SUPPOSED DEATH OF PARTRIDGE THE ALMANACK MAKER.[1] 1708


Well; 'tis as Bickerstaff has guest,
Though we all took it for a jest:
Partridge is dead; nay more, he dy'd,...

Ah! did you ever hear the Spring
Calling you through the snow,
Or hear the little blackbird sing
Inside its egg - or go
To that green land where grass begins,
Each tiny seed, to grow?
...

What hast thou not withstood,
Tempest-despising tree,
Whose bloat and riven wood
Gapes now so hollowly,
What rains have beaten thee through many years,...

(Coronation Year, 1911)


God save England, blessed by Fate,
So old, yet ever young:
The acorn isle from which the great
Imperial oak has sprung!
And God guard Scotland's kindly soil,...

1746
The weary day rins down and dies,
The weary night wears through:
And never an hour is fair wi' flower,
And never a flower wi' dew.
I would the day were night for me,...

O the Queen may keep her golden
Crown and sceptre of command!
I would give them both twice over
To be King of Babyland.

Sure, it is a wondrous country
Where the beanstalks grow apace,...

On young Albert Ramsbottom's birthday
His parents asked what he'd like most;
He said to see t' Tower of London
And gaze upon Anne Boleyn's ghost.

They thowt this request were unusual...

Such oranges! so fresh and sweet,
So large and lovely - and so cheap!
They lay in one delicious heap,
And added to the sumptuous feast
For each and all in taste expert
The acme of all fine dessert;...

To you who live in chill degree,
As map informs, of fifty-three,
And do not much for cold atone,
By bringing thither fifty-one,
Methinks all climes should be alike,
From tropic e'en to pole arctique;...

Deluded mortals, whom the great
Choose for companions t'te-'-t'te;
Who at their dinners, en famille,
Get leave to sit whene'er you will;
Then boasting tell us where you dined,...

A light exists in spring
Not present on the year
At any other period.
When March is scarcely here

A color stands abroad
On solitary hills
That science cannot overtake,...

I cried all night to you,
I called till day was here;
Perhaps you could not come,
Or were too tir'd, dear.

Your chair I set by mine,
I made the dim hearth glow,
I whispered, 'When he comes...

i.

It seems a year, and more, since last we met,
Since roseate spring repaid, in part, its debt
To thy bright eyes, and o'er the lowlands fair
Made daffodils so like thy golden hair...

i.

O Love! O Lustre of the sunlit earth
That knows thy step and revels in the worth
Of thy much beauty! Is't thy will anew,
Famed as thou art, to marvel that I sue...

All the morn a spirit gay
Breathes within my heart a rhyme,
'Tis but hide and seek we play
In and out the courts of Time.

Fairy lover, when my feet
Through the tangled woodland go,...

A crazy man that found a cup,
When all but dead of thirst,
Hardly dared to wet his mouth
Imagining, moon-accursed,
That another mouthful
And his beating heart would burst....