Works

Kings must be dauntless; subjects will contemn
Those who want hearts and wear a diadem.

I was thinking last night, as I sat in the cars,
With the charmingest prospect of cinders and stars,
Next Thursday is - bless me! - how hard it will be,
If that cannibal president calls upon me!
...

My latest tribute here I send,
With this let your collection end.
Thus I consign you down to fame
A character to praise or blame:
And if the whole may pass for true,
Contented rest, you have your due....

Vigil strange I kept on the field one night:
When you, my son and my comrade, dropt at my side that day,
One look I but gave, which your dear eyes return'd, with a look I shall never forget;...

A well there is in the west country,
And a clearer one never was seen;
There is not a wife in the west country
But has heard of the Well of St. Keyne.

An oak and an elm-tree stand beside,...

We never know we go, -- when we are going
We jest and shut the door;
Fate following behind us bolts it,
And we accost no more.

What is to come we know not. But we know
That what has been was good, was good to show,
Better to hide, and best of all to bear.
We are the masters of the days that were:...

"What kind of a person are you," I heard them say to me.
I'm a person with a complex plumbing of the soul,
Sophisticated instruments of feeling and a system...

Be the mistress of my choice,
Clean in manners, clear in voice;
Be she witty, more than wise,
Pure enough, though not precise;
Be she showing in her dress,
Like a civil wilderness,...

There wasn't two purtier farms in the state
Than the couple of which I'm about to relate; -
Jinin' each other - belongin' to Brown,
And jest at the edge of a flourishin' town....

Cards, and swords, and a lady's love,
That is a tale worth reading,
An insult veiled, a downcast glove,
And rapiers leap unheeding.
And 'tis O! for the brawl,
The thrust, the fall,...

When I'm killed, don't think of me
Buried there in Cambrin Wood,
Nor as in Zion think of me
With the Intolerable Good.
And there's one thing that I know well,
I'm damned if I'll be damned to Hell!
...

The second time I lived on earth
Was several hundred years ago;
And, royal by my second birth,
I know as much as most men know.
I was a king who held the reins
As never modern monarch can;...

When Klopstock England defied,
Uprose William Blake in his pride;
For old Nobodaddy aloft
. . . and belch'd and cough'd;
Then swore a great oath that made Heaven quake,...

When Love is kind,
Cheerful and free,
Love's sure to find
Welcome from me.

But when Love brings
Heartache or pang,
Tears, and such things--
Love may go hang!

If Love can sigh...

Only in August my heart was aflame,
Catching the scent of your Wind-stirred hair,
Now, though you spread it to soften my sleep
Through the night, I should hardly care.
...

Where is David? . . . O God's people,
Saul has passed, the good and great.
Mourn for Saul the first-anointed -
Head and shoulders o'er the state.

He was found among the Prophets:...

Slow de night 's a-fallin',
An' I hyeah de callin,
Out erpon de lonesome hill;
Soun' is moughty dreary,
Solemn-lak an' skeery,
Sayin' fu' to "whip po' Will."

Now hit 's moughty tryin',...

I do not know his grace the Duke,
Outside whose gilded gate there died
Of want a feeble, poor old man,
With but his shadow at his side.

I do not know his Lady fair,
Who in a bath of milk doth lie;...

Why, oh why was Kater lifted
From the darkness, where he drifted
All unknown, and raised to honour,
Side by side with Dick O'connor,
In the Council, free from row?
Who is Kater, anyhow?
...