Works

Love is maintain'd by wealth; when all is spent,
Adversity then breeds the discontent.

[1]


Missing or lost, last Sunday night,
A Waterloo coin whereon was traced
The inscription, "Courage!" in letters bright,
Tho' a little by rust of years defaced.
...

W'en you full o' worry
'Bout yo' wo'k an' sich,
W'en you kind o' bothered
Case you can't get rich,
An' yo' neighboh p'ospah
Past his jest desu'ts,
An' de sneer of comerds...

To write as your sweet mother does
Is all you wish to do.
Play, sing, and smile for others, Rose!
Let others write for you.

Or mount again your Dartmoor grey,
And I will walk beside,...

I must do as you do? Your way I own
Is a very good way. And still,
There are sometimes two straight roads to a town,
One over, one under the hill.

You are treading the safe and the well-worn way,...

Still take advice; though counsels, when they fly
At random, sometimes hit most happily.

No one worth possessing
Can be quite possessed;
Lay that on your heart,
My young angry dear;
This truth, this hard and precious stone,
Lay it on your hot cheek,
Let it hide your tear....

The following lines were written at the request of a little girl, who said she would recite them at a Sunday School entertainment. Prof. J. S. Blackie of Edinburgh, in a letter acknowledging the receipt of my book, said he cons...

First begin
Taking in.
Cargo stored,
All aboard,
Think about
Giving out.
Empty ship,
Useless trip!

Never strain
Weary brain,
Hardly fit,
Wait a bit!
After rest...

Jenny, Jenny, dry thi ee,
An' dunnot luk soa sad;
It grieves me varry mich to see
Tha freeats abaat yon lad;
For weel tha knows, withaat a daat,
Whearivver he may be,
Tho fond o' rammellin' abaat,...

I knew an old man at a Fair
Who made it his twice-yearly task
To clamber on a cider cask
And cry to all the yokels there:,

"Lovers to-day and for all time
Preserve the meaning of my rhyme:...

Ye poets ragged and forlorn,
Down from your garrets haste;
Ye rhymers, dead as soon as born,
Not yet consign'd to paste;

I know a trick to make you thrive;
O, 'tis a quaint device:...

Through the long hall the shuttered windows shed
A dubious light on every upturned head;
On locks like those of Absalom the fair,
On the bald apex ringed with scanty hair,...

Fasten your hair with a golden pin,
And bind up every wandering tress;
I bade my heart build these poor rhymes:
It worked at them, day out, day in,
Building a sorrowful loveliness...

I Wander by the edge
Of this desolate lake
Where wind cries in the sedge
Until the axle break
That keeps the stars in their round
And hands hurl in the deep
The banners of East and West...

Pale brows, still hands and dim hair,
I had a beautiful friend
And dreamed that the old despair
Would end in love in the end:
She looked in my heart one day
And saw your image was there;...

The powers whose name and shape no living creature knows
Have pulled the Immortal Rose;
And though the Seven Lights bowed in their dance and wept,
The Polar Dragon slept,...

I dreamed that I stood in a valley, and amid sighs,
For happy lovers passed two by two where I stood;
And I dreamed my lost love came stealthily out of the wood...

O cloud-pale eyelids, dream-dimmed eyes
The poets labouring all their days
To build a perfect beauty in rhyme
Are overthrown by a woman's gaze
And by the unlabouring brood of the skies:...

All things uncomely and broken, all things worn out and old,
The cry of a child by the roadway, the creak of a lumbering cart,
The heavy steps of the ploughman, splashing the wintry mould,...