Works

For W. P.

The little park was filled with peace,
The walks were carpeted with snow,
But every iron gate was locked.
Lest if we entered, peace would go.

We circled it a dozen times,...

Attempted in English verse after the original metre.
...

As I sate in my study, lone and still,
Thinking of Sergeant Talfourd's Bill,
And the speech by Lawyer Sugden made,
In spirit congenial, for "the Trade,"
Sudden I sunk to sleep and lo!...

They said he sent his love to me,
They wouldn't put it in my hand,
And when I asked them where it was
They said I couldn't understand.

I thought they must have hidden it,...

"My grandfather Squeers," said The Raggedy Man,
As he solemnly lighted his pipe and began -

"The most indestructible man, for his years,
And the grandest on earth, was my grandfather Squeers!
...

"In my young days," the grandmother said (Nodding her head,
Where cap and curls were as white as snow),
"In my young days, when we used to go
Rambling,
Scrambling;
Each little dirty hand in hand,...

'T is like stirring living embers when, at eighty, one remembers
All the achings and the quakings of "the times that tried men's souls";
When I talk of Whig and Tory, when I tell the Rebel story,...

I mind it was but yesterday:
The sun was dim, the air was chill;
Below the town, below the hill,
The sails of my son's ship did fill,
My Jacob, who was cast away.
...

In his great cushioned chair by the fender
An old man sits dreaming to-night,
His withered hands, licked by the tender
Warm rays of the red anthracite,
Are folded before him, all listless;...

Old Grandpere gat in the corner,
With his grandchild on his knee,
Looking up at his wrinkled visage,
For his winters were ninety-three.

Fair Eleanor's locks were flaxen,...

And so when he reached my bed
The General made a stand:
"My brave young fellow," he said,
"I would shake your hand."

So I lifted my arm, the right,
With never a hand at all;...

Underneath protected branches, from the highway just aloof;
Stands the house of Grand'ther Baldwin, with its gently sloping roof.

Square of shape and solid-timbered, it was standing, I have heard,...

In unterirdischer Kammer
Sprach grollend der alte Granit:
'Da droben den w'ss'rigen Jammer
Den mach' ich jetzt l'nger nicht mit.'

In his lair subterranean, grumbling...

Granny's come to our house,
And ho! My lawzy-daisy!
All the childern round the place
Is ist a-runnin' crazy!
Fetched a cake fer little Jake,
And fetched a pie fer Nanny,...

"What maks ye sae canty, granny dear?
Has some kin' body been for ye to speir?
Ye luik as smilin an' fain an' willin
As gien ye had fun a bonny shillin!"

"Ye think I luik canty, my bonny man,...

[Greek: Argureais logchaisi machou kai panta krataeseo.] [1]

(Reply of the Pythian Oracle to Philip of Macedon.)


1.

Oh! could LE SAGE'S [2] demon's gift
Be realis'd at my desire,...

Sir Launcelot rode overthwart and endlong in a wide forest, and held no path but as wild adventure led him... And he returned and came again to his horse, and took off his saddle and his bridle, and let him pasture; and unlaced...

Let penny-a-liners columns pour
Of turgid efflorescence,
Describe in language that would floor
Our Cayleys, Rouths, and Besants,
How Oxford oars as levers move,
While Cambridge mathematics,...

I

Ah, who shall sound the hero's funeral march?
And what shall be the music of his dirge?
No single voice may chant the Nation's grief,
No formal strain can give its woe relief....

I wanted to be County Judge
One more term, so as to round out a service
Of thirty years.
But my friends left me and joined my enemies,
And they elected a new man.
Then a spirit of revenge seized me,...