Works

Yersel' is't? Imphm! Man that's bad!
A kin' o' thinness o' the blude?
Gaed aff las' nicht intil a dwam?
Keep's a'! But that's rale nesty, Tam!
An' lossin' taste noo for the dram?...

I

The hot sunflowers by the glaring pike
Lift shields of sultry brass; the teasel tops,
Pink-thorned, advance with bristling spike on spike
Against the furious sunlight. Field and copse...

Why do we pity those who weep? The pain
That finds a ready outlet in the flow
Of salt and bitter tears is blessed woe,
And does not need our sympathies. The rain...

Gnarled acorn-oaks against a west
Of copper, cavernous with fire;
A wind of frost that gives no rest
To such lean leaves as haunt the brier,
And hide the cricket's vibrant wire.
...

[Footnote: In the Grand River, at Brantford, July 30th, 1875, Miss Jessie Hamilton, adopted daughter of C.H. Waterous, Esq., Brantford, aged 14 years and 3 months, and Miss Ella E. Murton, only daughter of John W. Murton, Esq.,...

Gloomy cliffs, so worn and wasted with the washing of the waves,
Are ye not like giant tombstones round those lonely ocean graves?
Are ye not the sad memorials, telling of a mighty grief...

Drowning is not so pitiful
As the attempt to rise.
Three times, 't is said, a sinking man
Comes up to face the skies,
And then declines forever
To that abhorred abode...

TO MISS GRACE KING

Down in the old French quarter,
Just out of Rampart street,
I wend my way
At close of day
Unto the quaint retreat
Where lives the Voodoo Doctor...

I lectured last upon the morbus sacer,
Or falling sickness, epilepsy, of old
In Palestine and Greece so much ascribed
To deities or devils. To resume
We find it caused by morphological...

Don't think these few lines which I send, a reproach,
From my Muse in a car, to your Muse in a coach.
The great god of poems delights in a car,
Which makes him so bright that we see him from far;...

1718

Dear Dean, since in cruxes and puns you and I deal,
Pray why is a woman a sieve and a riddle?
'Tis a thought that came into my noddle this morning,
In bed as I lay, sir, a-tossing and turning....

Thus spoke great Bedel[1] from his tomb:
"Mortal, I would not change my doom,
To live in such a restless state,
To be unfortunately great;
To flatter fools, and spurn at knaves,...

Her majesty never shall be my exalter;
And yet she would raise me, I know, by a halter!

Grave Dean of St. Patrick's, how comes it to pass,
That you, who know music no more than an ass,
That you who so lately were writing of drapiers,
Should lend your cathedral to players and scrapers?...

POPE has the talent well to speak,
But not to reach the ear;
His loudest voice is low and weak,
The Dean too deaf to hear.

Awhile they on each other look,
Then different studies choose;...

On one Delacourt's complimenting Carthy on his Poetry

Carthy, you say, writes well - his genius true,
You pawn your word for him - he'll vouch for you.
So two poor knaves, who find their credit fail,...

I cannot tell you, Coroner, the cause
Of death of Elenor Murray, not until
My chemical analysis is finished.
Here is the woman's heart sealed in this jar,
I weighed it, weight nine ounces, if she had...

Aroused and angry,
I thought to beat the alarum, and urge relentless war;
But soon my fingers fail'd me, my face droop'd, and I resign'd myself,
To sit by the wounded and soothe them, or silently watch the dead....

Too far away, oh love, I know,
To save me from this haunted road,
Whose lofty roses break and blow
On a night-sky bent with a load

Of lights: each solitary rose,
Each arc-lamp golden does expose...

Genius of Dryden and of Pope,
Both did take a mighty scope,
The first he virgil did translate,
The second showed us Troys fate.
On English themes they oft did sing
And high their muses flight did wing.