Works

An unborn bird lies crumpled and curled,
A-dreaming of the world.

Round it, for castle-wall, a shell
Is guarding it well.

Hope is the bird with its dim sensations;...

Hope comes again, to this heart long a stranger,
Once more she sings me her flattering strain;
But hush, gentle syren--for, ah, there's less danger
In still suffering on, than in hoping again.
...

Summer is come again. The sun is bright,
And the soft wind is breathing. Airy joy
Is sparkling in thine eyes, and in their light
My soul is shining. Come; our day's employ...

When the weary night is fled,
And the morning sky is red,
Then my heart doth rise and say,
'Surely she will come to-day.'

In the golden blaze of noon,
'Surely she is coming soon.'...

Strong are thine arms, O love, & strong
Thine heart to live, and love, and long;
But thou art wed to grief and wrong:
Live, then, and long, though hope be dead!
Live on, & labour thro' the years!...

Hope evermore and believe, O man, for e'en as thy thought
So are the things that thou see'st; e'en as thy hope and belief.
Cowardly art thou and timid? they rise to provoke thee against them,...

None goes to warfare but with this intent -
The gains must dead the fears of detriment.

Hope holds to Christ the mind's own mirror out
To take His lovely likeness more and more.
It will not well, so she would bring about
An ever brighter burnish than before...

I think through the long, long evenings,
Such thoughts of intensest pain,
And I hope and watch for her coming,
But I hope and watch in vain,
My life is a long, long journey
Over a barren moor,...

Hope on, dear Heart, and you will see
The walls of worry fade and flee;
And sane of soul and sound of mind,
You 'll go your way of life and find
The paths, once barren, suddenly...

Like clouds that flit across the sky,
So follow hopes and fears.
What in these clouds see you and me
Dear Sweetheart, smiles or tears?

This little airy fleecy wing,
That flits across the blue,...

"Hark ye, hark to the winding horn;
Sluggards, awake, and front the morn!
Hark ye, hark to the winding horn;
The sun's on meadow and mill.
Follow me, hearts that love the chase;...

Unfading Hope! when life's last embers burn
When soul to soul, and dust to dust return,
Heaven to thy charge resigns the awful hour!
Oh! then thy kingdom comes, Immortal Power!...

What though the heaven be lowering now,
And look with a contracted brow?
We shall discover, by-and-by,
A repurgation of the sky;
And when those clouds away are driven,
Then will appear a cheerful heaven.

Once on a time there was a fagot-maker,
And he had seven sons.
Who could be aught but poor to feed and shelter
So many little ones?

For all were merely lads; not one was able...

"One time when I was pleasing to you, Lydia,
And when no other youth, preferred to me,
Your snowy neck could with his arms encircle,
Then happier I than Persia's King may be."
...

HORACE

When you were mine in auld lang syne,
And when none else your charms might ogle,
I'll not deny,
Fair nymph, that I
Was happier than a Persian mogul.

LYDIA
...

SENT TO HIM WHEN IN THE TOWER, 1716
...

Dick, thou'rt resolved, as I am told,
Some strange arcana to unfold,
And with the help of Buckley's[1] pen,
To vamp the good old cause again:
Which thou (such Burnet's shrewd advice is)...

THE INSCRIPTION

Poor floating isle, tost on ill fortune's waves,
Ordain'd by fate to be the land of slaves;
Shall moving Delos now deep-rooted stand;
Thou fix'd of old, be now the moving land!...