Works

Beg your pardon, old fellow! I think
I was dreaming just now when you spoke.
The fact is, the musical clink
Of the ice on your wine-goblet's brink
A chord of my memory woke.
...

I am growing old and weary
Ere yet my locks are gray;
Before me lies eternity,
Behind me but a day.
How fast the years are vanishing!
They melt like April snow:
It seems to me but yesterday...

'Twas in the flush of summer-time,
Some twenty years or more,
When Ernest lost his way, and crossed
The threshold of our door.
I'll ne'er forget his locks of jet,
His brow of Alpine snow,...

Round the house were lilacs and strawberries
And foal-foots spangling the paths,
And far away on the sand-hills, dewberries
Caught dust from the sea's long swaths.

Up the wolds the woods were walking,...

Twenty years hence my eyes may grow
If not quite dim, yet rather so,
Still yours from others they shall know
Twenty years hence.

Twenty years hence though it may hap
That I be called to take a nap...

Twist ye, twine ye! even so,
Mingle shades of joy and woe,
Hope, and fear, and peace, and strife,
In the thread of human life.

While the mystic twist is spinning,
And the infant's life beginning,...

Hear the loud swell of it, mighty pell mell of it,
Thousands of voices all blent into one:
See 'hell for leather' now trooping together, now
Down the long slope of the range at a run,...

Trudging by Corbie Ridge one winter's night,
(Unless old, hearsay memories tricked his sight),
Along the pallid edge of the quiet sky
He watched a nosing lorry grinding on,...

Two honder year ago, de worl' is purty slow
Even folk upon dis contree 's not so smart,
Den who is travel roun' an' look out de pleasan' groun'
For geev' de Yankee peop' a leetle start?...

Has no one said those daring
Kind eyes should be more learn'd?
Or warned you how despairing
The moths are when they are burned?
I could have warned you; but you are young,...

Let all chaste matrons, when they chance to see
My num'rous issue, praise and pity me:
Praise me for having such a fruitful womb,
Pity me, too, who found so soon a tomb.

You say you're young; but when your teeth are told
To be but three, black-ey'd, we'll think you old.

Soon did he Almighty Giver of all rest
Take those dear young Ones to a fearless nest;
And in Death's arms has long reposed the Friend
For whom this simple Register was penned....

Of gentle blood, his parents' only treasure,
Their lasting sorrow, and their vanish'd pleasure,
Adorn'd with features, virtues, wit, and grace,
A large provision for so short a race;...

Emma! 'tis early time for thee
To hear the sounds of minstrelsy,
That breathe around the rosy shrine
Of honest old Saint Valentine.

Too young art thou for strains of love;...

Here, where the Scottish muse immortal lives,
In sacred strains and tuneful numbers join'd,
Accept the gift; tho' humble he who gives,
Rich is the tribute of the grateful mind.
...

Time, since thou gav'st this flow'r to me,
Has often turn'd his glass of sand;
Perchance 'tis now unknown to thee
That once its breath perfum'd thy hand.

Oh, lovely maid! that thou may'st see...

Curse on ungrateful man, that can be pleas'd,
And yet can starve the author of the pleasure!
O thou my elder brother in misfortune,
By far my elder brother in the muses,
With tears I pity thy unhappy fate!...

Now and again
All my body springs alive,
And the life that is polarised in my eyes,
That quivers between my eyes and mouth,
Flies like a wild thing across my body,...

Was, Is, and Yet-to-Be
Were chatting over a cup of tea.

In tarnished finery smelling of must,
Was talked of people long turned to dust;

Of titles and honours and high estate,...