Works

I loved a little maiden
In the golden years gone by;
She lived in a mill, as they all do
(There is doubtless a reason why).
But she faded in the autumn
When the leaves began to fade,...

Sweetheart, that thou art fair I know,
More fair to me
Than flowers that make the loveliest show
To tempt the bee.

When other girls, whose faces are,
Beside thy face,...

Mourn that which will not come again,
The joy, the strength of early years.
Bow down thy head, and let thy tears
Water the grave where hope lies slain.

For tears are like a summer rain,...

In the oldest of our alleys,
By good bejants tenanted,
Once a man whose name was Wallace--
William Wallace--reared his head.
Rowdy Bejant in the college
He was styled:...

In vain you fervently extol,
In vain you puff, your cutty clay.
A twelvemonth smoked and black as coal,
'Tis redolent of rank decay
And bones of monks long passed away--
A fragrance I do not admire;...

Oh, who may this dead warrior be
That to his grave they bring?
'Tis William, Duke of Normandy,
The conqueror and king.

Across the sea, with fire and sword,
The English crown he won;...

Alas for the bird who was born to sing!
They have made him a cage; they have clipped his wing;
They have shut him up in a dingy street,
And they praise his singing and call it sweet....

Would you like to see a city given over,
Soul and body, to a tyrannising game?
If you would, there's little need to be a rover,
For St. Andrews is the abject city's name.
...

The Session's over. We must say farewell
To these east winds and to this eastern sea,
For summer comes, with swallow and with bee,
With many a flower and many a golfing swell.
...

Years grow and gather--each a gem
Lustrous with laughter and with tears,
And cunning Time a crown of years
Contrives for her who weareth them.

No chance can snatch this diadem,...

The Red King's gone a-hunting, in the woods his father made
For the tall red deer to wander through the thicket and the glade,
The King and Walter Tyrrel, Prince Henry and the rest...

It seems a hundred years or more
Since I, with note-book, ink and pen,
In cap and gown, first trod the floor
Which I have often trod since then;
Yet well do I remember when,...

This is the time when larks are singing loud
And higher still ascending and more high,
This is the time when many a fleecy cloud
Runs lamb-like on the pastures of the sky,...

There's a fiddler in the street,
And the children all are dancing:
Two dozen lightsome feet
Springing and prancing.

Pleasure he gives to you,
Dance then, and spare not!...

Last night for the first time, O Heart's Delight,
I held your hand a moment in my own,
The dearest moment which my soul has known,
Since I beheld and loved you at first sight.
...

I know the garden-close of sin,
The cloying fruits, the noxious flowers,
I long have roamed the walks and bowers,
Desiring what no man shall win:

A secret place to shelter in,...

I drove a golf-ball into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.

I lent five shillings to some men,...

Life is a house where many chambers be,
And all the doors will yield to him who tries,
Save one, whereof men say, behind it lies
The haunting secret. He who keeps the key,
...

When we have laid aside our last endeavour,
And said farewell to one or two that weep,
And issued from the house of life for ever,
To find a lodging in the house of sleep--
...

The life of earth, how full of pain,
Which greets us on our day of birth,
Nor leaves us while we yet retain
The life of earth.

There is a shadow on our mirth,
Our sun is blotted out with rain,...