Works

O Native scenes, nought to my heart clings nearer
Than you, ye Edens of my youthful hours;
Nought in this world warms my affections dearer
Than you, ye plains of white and yellow flowers;...

"Mooar fowk get wed nor what do weel,"
A've heeard mi mother say;
But mooast young lads an lasses too,
Think just th' contrary way.
An lasses mooar nor lads it seems,
To wed seem nivver flaid;...

1.
What are little boys made of?
What are little boys made of?
Frogs and snails and puppy-dog's tails,
And that are little boys made of.

2.
What are little girls made of?...

Enmity be between ye! Your union too soon is cemented;
Ye will but learn to know truth when ye divide in the search.

We are tired who follow after
Phantasy and truth that flies:
You with only look and laughter
Stain our hearts with richest dyes.

When you break upon our study
Vanish all our frosty cares;...

All I can say is, I saw it!
The room was as bare as your hand.
I locked in the swarth little lady, I swear,
From the head to the foot of her, well, quite as bare!...

I am not prone to moralize
In scientific doubt
On certain facts that Nature tries
To puzzle us about, -
For I am no philosopher
Of wise elucidation,
But speak of things as they occur,...

In all faith, we did our part:
generated punctually, prepared adequately,
ejected promptly,
and swam in the approved manner
in the appropriate direction;
did all instinctive things well,...

Up through the mystic deeps of sunny air
I cried to God - 'O Father, art Thou there?'
Sudden the answer, like a flute, I heard:
It was an angel, though it seemed a bird.

Primitive


I ate my fill of a whale that died
And stranded after a month at sea. . . .
There is a pain in my inside.
Why have the Gods afflicted me?
Ow! I am purged till I am a wraith!...

Beside me, in the car, she sat,
She spake not, no, nor looked to me
From her to me, from me to her,
What passed so subtly, stealthily?
As rose to rose that by it blows
Its interchanged aroma flings;...

I dreamed I had come into an immense underground temple with lofty arched roof. It was filled with a sort of underground uniform light.
...

I

A subtle chain of countless rings
The next unto the farthest brings;
The eye reads omens where it goes,
And speaks all languages the rose;
And, striving to be man, the worm...

As a fond mother, when the day is o'er,
Leads by the hand her little child to bed,
Half willing, half reluctant to be led,
And leave his broken playthings on the floor,...

O simple Nature, how I do delight
To pause upon thy trifles--foolish things,
As some would call them.--On the summer night,
Tracing the lane-path where the dog-rose hings...

Nature, to him no message dost thou bear
Who in thy beauty findeth not the power
To gird himself more strongly for the hour
Of night and darkness. Oh, what colours rare...

TO MY FRIEND CHARLES BOOTH NETTLETON

I

The young queen Nature, ever sweet and fair,
Once on a time fell upon evil days.
From hearing oft herself discussed with praise,...

White as white butterflies that each one dons
Her face their wide white wings to shade withal,
Many moon-daisies throng the water-spring.
While couched in rising barley titlarks call,...

Nature has a thousand choirs
Singing in the sylvan shadows,
And the music of her lyres
Echoes in the merry meadows;
Always glad with golden glee
Sounds her happy melody,...

Winters know
Easily to shed the snow,
And the untaught Spring is wise
In cowslips and anemonies.
Nature, hating art and pains,
Baulks and baffles plotting brains;
Casualty and Surprise...