Works

I.

Beneath an old beech-tree
They sat together,
Fair as a flower was she
Of summer weather.
They spoke of life and love,
While, through the boughs above,
The sunlight, like a dove,...

I am indeed the personage you know.
As for my wife, what happened long ago
You have a right to question me, as I
Am bound to answer.

('Son, a fit reply!'...

[The scene of this ancient fight, recorded by Froissart, is still called 'Altura de los Inglesos.' Five hundred years later Wellington's soldiers were fighting on the same ground.]

'Say, what saw you on the hill,...

Long since, I lived beneath vast porticoes,
By many ocean-sunsets tinged and fired,
Where mighty pillars, in majestic rows,
Seemed like basaltic caves when day expired.
...

In a coign of the cliff between lowland and highland,
At the sea-down's edge between windward and lee,
Walled round with rocks as an inland island,
The ghost of a garden fronts the sea....

I hope I'm not too orthodox
To give a joke away,
That took me like the chicken-pox
And left a debt to pay.

Let argument ignore the cost,
If it be dear or cheap,...

Awake! arise! the hour is late!
Angels are knocking at thy door!
They are in haste and cannot wait,
And once departed come no more.

Awake! arise! the athlete's arm...

They say that poison-sprinkled flowers
Are sweeter in perfume
Than when, untouched by deadly dew,
They glowed in early bloom.

They say that men condemned to die
Have quaffed the sweetened wine...

Oh, Youth! could dark futurity reveal
Her hidden worlds, unlock her cloud-hung gates,
Or snatch the keys of mystery from time,
Your souls would madden at the piercing sight...

O pouring westering streams
Shouting that I have leapt the mountain bar,
Down curve on curve my journey's white way gleams -
My road along the river of return.
...

'Maiden, thou wert thoughtless once
Of beauty or of grace,
Simple and homely in attire
Careless of form and face.
Then whence this change, and why so oft
Dost smooth thy hazel hair?...

When, to their airy hall, my Fathers' voice
Shall call my spirit, joyful in their choice;
When, pois'd upon the gale, my form shall ride,
Or, dark in mist, descend the mountain's side;...

Tune - "John Anderson my jo."


One night as I did wander,
When corn begins to shoot,
I sat me down to ponder,
Upon an auld tree root:
Auld Ayr ran by before me,
And bicker'd to the seas;...

What are the falling rills, the pendant shades,
The morning bowers, the evening colonnades,
But soft recesses for th' uneasy mind
To sigh unheard in, to the passing wind!...

O Wretched B----,[90] jealous now of all,
What god, what mortal shall prevent thy fall?
Turn, turn thy eyes from wicked men in place,
And see what succour from the patriot race....

After Death nothing is, and nothing, death,
The utmost limit of a gasp of breath.
Let the ambitious zealot lay aside
His hopes of heaven, whose faith is but his pride;
Let slavish souls lay by their fear...

Silver key of the fountain of tears,
Where the spirit drinks till the brain is wild;
Softest grave of a thousand fears,
Where their mother, Care, like a drowsy child,
Is laid asleep in flowers.

Afraid? Of whom am I afraid?
Not death; for who is he?
The porter of my father's lodge
As much abasheth me.

Of life? 'T were odd I fear a thing
That comprehendeth me
In one or more existences...

I.

I'm just in my glory when the cat I can tease,
Or I'm hunting for bird nests up in the trees,
And I wear out my pants in the seat and the knees;
I'm the pride of my daddy, my mammy's own joy--...

Now am I a tin whistle
Through which God blows,
And I wish to God I were a trumpet
But why, God only knows.