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The stars, a jolly company,
I envied, straying late and lonely;
And cried upon their revelry:
"O white companionship! You only
In love, in faith unbroken dwell,
Friends radiant and inseparable!"
...

If I ever be worthy or famous,
Which I'm sadly beginning to doubt,
When the angel whose place 'tis to name us
Shall say to my spirit, 'Pass out!'
I wish for no sniv'lling about me...

The Text is from a manuscript at Balliol College, Oxford, No. 354, already referred to in the First Series (p. 80) as supplying a text of The Nut-brown Maid. The manuscript, which is of the early part of the sixteenth century, ...

[Restored Romaunt.]

It was a Jolly Miller lived on the River Dee;
He looked upon his piller, and there he found a flea:
"O Mr. Flea! you have bit' me,
And you shall shorely die!"...

1

O dear Six-pence, I've got Six-pence,
I love Six-pence as I love my life;
I'll spend a penny on't, and I'll lend another on't,
And I'll carry fourpence home to my wife.

2
...

Sun on the eiderdown
breaks tiny corners off the bedspread, declares green plants its bidding
before summoning Fragonard's maiden
off her swing - so richly dressed
in picture from the sunlit wall.
...

Last night I lay awake and heard the wind,
That madman jongleur of the world of air,
Making wild music: now he seemed to fare
With harp and lute, so intimately twinned...

A little Maid sat in a Jonquil Tree,
Singing alone,
In a low love-tone,
And the wind swept by with a wistful moan;
For he longed to stay
With the Maid all day;
But he knew
As he blew...

I chanced the other eve,
But how I ne'er will tell,
The paper to receive.
That's published down in hell.

In general one may guess,
I little care to see
This free-corps of the press...

IN A LETTER TO A PERSON OF QUALITY. 1728


SIR, 'twas a most unfriendly part
In you, who ought to know my heart,
Are well acquainted with my zeal
For all the female commonweal -...

Heart-sick of his journey was the Wanderer;
Footsore and parched was he;
And a Witch who long had lurked by the wayside,
Looked out of sorcery.

"Lift up your eyes, you lonely Wanderer,"...

I.

Hark, the rain is on my roof!
Every murmur, through the dark,
Stings me with a dull reproof
Like a half-extinguished spark.
Me! ah me! how came I here,
Wide awake and wide alone!...

Some of my friends (for friends I must suppose
All, who, not daring to appear my foes,
Feign great good will, and, not more full of spite
Than full of craft, under false colours fight),...

Our journey had advanced;
Our feet were almost come
To that odd fork in Being's road,
Eternity by term.

Our pace took sudden awe,
Our feet reluctant led.
Before were cities, but between,...

Beneath the waning moon I walk at night,
And muse on human life, for all around
Are dim uncertain shapes that cheat the sight,
And pitfalls lurk in shade along the ground,...

A thousand times ten thousand times
More swift than the sun's swift light
Were the Morning Wings in their flight
On - On -
West of the Universe,
Thro' the West
To Chaos-night.

Tune - "Maggy Lauder."


I.

I married with a scolding wife
The fourteenth of November;
She made me weary of my life,
By one unruly member.
Long did I bear the heavy yoke,...

I

Let others sing of gold and gear, the joy of being rich;
But oh, the days when I was poor, a vagrant in a ditch!
When every dawn was like a gem, so radiant and rare,...

How must have thrilled the great Creator's mind
With radiant, glad and satisfying joy,
Ever new self-expressive forms to find
In those six days of rapturous employ!
How must He have delighted when He made...

When heavy on my tired mind
The world, and worldly things, do weigh,
And some sweet solace I would find,
Into the sky I love to stray,
And, all alone, to wander round
In lone seclusion from the ground....