Works

I know not in what place again I'll meet
The face I love - but there is not a street
In the wide world where you can wander, sweet,
Without my finding you, with those great eyes;...

(Lyra Messianica, 1864.)


O Christ, the Vine with living Fruit,
The twelvefold-fruited Tree of Life,
The Balm in Gilead after strife,
The valley Lily and the Rose;...

I'll not confer with Sorrow
Till to-morrow;
But Joy shall have her way
This very day.

Ho, eglantine and cresses
For her tresses!--
Let Care, the beggar, wait
Outside the gate.
...

Discourse was deemed Man's noblest attribute,
And written words the glory of his hand;
Then followed Printing with enlarged command
For thought, dominion vast and absolute...

I love the naked ages long ago
When statues were gilded by Apollo,
When men and women of agility
Could play without lies and anxiety,
And the sky lovingly caressed their spines,...

I love the night when the moon streams bright
On flowers that drink the dew--
When cascades shout as the stars peep out,
From boundless fields of blue;
But dearer far than moon or star,...

I love the thought of ancient, naked days
When Phoebus gilded statues with his rays.
Then women, men in their agility
Played without guile, without anxiety,
And, while the sky stroked lovingly their skin,...

I love you as I love the night's high vault
O silent one, 0 sorrow's lachrymal,
And love you more because you flee from me,
And temptress of my nights, ironically
You seem to hoard the space, to take to you...

I'm Nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us -- don't tell!
They 'd banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog...

A pretty task, Miss S - - , to ask
A Benedictine pen,
That cannot quite at freedom write
Like those of other men.

No lover's plaint my muse must paint
To fill this page's span,...

Timur, I hear, took the trouble to conquer the earth.
I don't understand him.
With a bit of hard liquor you can forget the earth.

I'm not saying anything against Alexander,...

What it was struck the terror into me?
This, Publius: closer! while we wait our turn
I'll tell you. Water's warm (they ring inside)
At the eighth hour, till when no use to bathe.
...

On seeing BRET HARTE come upon the Bench.

Thanks for an hour of laughing
In a world that is growing old;
Thanks for an hour of weeping
In a world that is growing cold;...

Whilst, in a dress that one might swear
The whole was made of woven air,
Pert Fashion spreads her senseless sway
Over the giddy and the gay
(Who think, by showing all their charms,...

When I play with little children
I must very gentle be;
I must always do to others
As I'd have them do to me.

I must like to give and lend them,
If they want my prettiest toy;...

The years have gathered grayly
Since I danced upon this leaze
With one who kindled gaily
Love's fitful ecstasies!
But despite the term as teacher,
I remain what I was then
In each essential feature...

SCENE.--Penenden Plain. In the middle, a caldron boiling. Thunder.--
Enter three Brunswickers.

1st Bruns.--Thrice hath scribbling Kenyon scrawled,

2d Bruns.--Once hath fool Newcastle bawled,
...

I need not go
Through sleet and snow
To where I know
She waits for me;
She will wait me there
Till I find it fair,
And have time to spare
From company.

When I've overgot...

I never lost as much but twice,
And that was in the sod;
Twice have I stood a beggar
Before the door of God!

Angels, twice descending,
Reimbursed my store.
Burglar, banker, father,...

I never loved you more, ma soeur
Than as I walked away from you that evening.
The forest swallowed me, the blue forest, ma soeur
The blue forest and above it pale stars in the west.
...