Works

Little childer, - little childer;
Harken to an old man's ditty;
Tho yo live ith' country village, -
Tho yo live ith' busy city.
Aw've a little tale to tell yo, -
One 'at ne'er grows stale wi' tellin, -...

Where Humber pours his rich commercial stream
There dwelt a wretch, who breathed but to blaspheme;
In subterraneous caves his life he led,
Black as the mine in which he wrought for bread....

A man with expense and infinite toil,
By digging and dunging, ennobled his soil;
There fruits of the best your taste did invite,
And uniform order still courted the sight....

"Old woman, old woman, will you go a-shearing?
Speak a little louder, for I'm very hard of hearing."
Old Ballad.


Of all old women hard of hearing,
The deafest, sure, was Dame Eleanor Spearing!...

"There's nothing new"--Not that I go so far
As he who also said "There's nothing true,"
Since, on the contrary, I hold there are
Surviving still a verity or two;
But, as to novelty, in my conviction,...

1.
She was an aged woman; and the years
Which she had numbered on her toilsome way
Had bowed her natural powers to decay.
She was an aged woman; yet the ray...

Oh! tell me a tale of the airly days -
Of the times as they ust to be;
"Piller of Fi-er" and "Shakespeare's Plays"
Is a' most too deep fer me!
I want plane facts, and I want plane words,...

Where the sober-colored cultivator smiles
On his byles;
Where the cholera, the cyclone, and the crow
Come and go;
Where the merchant deals in indigo and tea,
Hides and ghi;...

M'cenas, you will be my death,--though friendly you profess yourself,--
If to me in a strain like this so often you address yourself:
"Come, Holly, why this laziness? Why indolently shock you us?...

You ask me, friend,
Why I don't send
The long since due-and-paid-for numbers;
Why, songless, I
As drunken lie
Abandoned to Lethean slumbers.

Long time ago
(As well you know)...

I went and stood outside myself,
Spelled the dark sky
And ship-lights nigh,
And grumbling winds that passed thereby.

Then next inside myself I looked,
And there, above
All, shone my Love,...

Poor throbbing heart! the battle wave of life
Beats strong against thee, yet thou strugglest on,
Breasting the mighty billows, though no kind, well-known voice,...

Hail native Language, that by sinews weak
Didst move my first endeavouring tongue to speak,
And mad'st imperfect words with childish tripps,
Half unpronounc't, slide through my infant-lipps,...

Ah why deceive ourselves! by no mere fit
Of sudden passion roused shall men attain
True freedom where for ages they have lain
Bound in a dark abominable pit,
With life's best sinews more and more unknit....

Hard task! exclaim the undisciplined, to lean
On Patience coupled with such slow endeavour,
That long-lived servitude must last for ever.
Perish the groveling few, who, prest between...

As leaves are to the tree whereon they grow
And wither, every human generation
Is, to the Being of a mighty nation,
Locked in our world's embrace through weal and woe;...

When I come in f'om de co'n-fiel' aftah wo'kin' ha'd all day,
It 's amazin' nice to fin' my suppah all erpon de way;
An' it 's nice to smell de coffee bubblin' ovah in de pot,...

For that old love I once adored
I decked my halls and spread my board
At Christmas time.
With all the winter's flowers that grow
I wreathed my room, and mistletoe
Hung in the gloom of my doorway,...

(TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN)

Hello! Hello!
Are you there? Are you there?
Ah! That you? Well,--
This is just to tell you
That there's trouble in the air...
Trouble,--...

An awful tempest mashed the air,
The clouds were gaunt and few;
A black, as of a spectre's cloak,
Hid heaven and earth from view.

The creatures chuckled on the roofs
And whistled in the air,...