Works

Here the frailest leaves of me, and yet my strongest-lasting:
Here I shade and hide my thoughts - I myself do not expose them,
And yet they expose me more than all my other poems.

There is no Paradise like that which lies
Deep in the heavens of her azure eyes:
There is no Eden here on Earth that glows
Like that which smiles rich in her mouth's red rose.

The sands upon the ocean side
That change about with every tide,
And never true to one abide,
A woman's love I liken to.

The summer zephyrs, light and vain,
That sing the same alluring strain...

HERMANN AND DOROTHEA.

So tow'rd the sun, now fast sinking to rest, the two walk'd together,
Whilst he veil'd himself deep in clouds which thunder portended....

She is so winsome and so wise
She sways me at her will,
And oft the question will arise,
What mission does she fill?
O then I say with pride untold,
And love beyond degree,...

"Ah, with torn heart I see them still,
Wee unused clothes and empty cot.
Though glad my love has missed the ill
That falls to woman's lot.

"No tangled paths for her to tread...

The aloes grow upon the sand,
The aloes thirst with parching heat;
Year after year they waiting stand,
Lonely and calm, and front the beat
Of desert winds; and still a sweet...

He touched me, so I live to know
That such a day, permitted so,
I groped upon his breast.
It was a boundless place to me,
And silenced, as the awful sea
Puts minor streams to rest.
...

Tune - "The Dusty Miller."


I.

Hey, the dusty miller,
And his dusty coat;
He will win a shilling,
Or he spend a groat.
Dusty was the coat,
Dusty was the colour,...

Hickety Pickety My Black Hen.


Hickety, pickety, my black hen,
She lays eggs for gentlemen;



Gentlemen come every day
To see what my black hen doth lay.

Give me a board so I can trace on
How high I have gone as a mason,
Said worker on true square cut stone
Unto some knights of good St. John.

Each one of them could trace with ease...

Tune - "Katherine Ogie."


I.

Ye banks, and braes, and streams around
The castle o' Montgomery,
Green be your woods, and fair your flowers,
Your waters never drumlie!...

"Who but hails the sight with pleasure
When the wings of genius rise,
Their ability to measure
With great enterprise;
But in man was ne'er such daring
As yon Hawk exhibits, pairing...

All those who quality do prize
Must study color, taste and size,
And keep their dishes clean and sweet,
And all things round their factories neat,
For dairymen insist that these...

From Hiram Maxim's hair you'd think
His specialty was spilling ink--
You'd never dream he'd spilt more blood
Than any one man since the Flood.

Ah, Posthumus! our years hence fly
And leave no sound: nor piety,
Or prayers, or vow
Can keep the wrinkle from the brow;
But we must on,
As fate does lead or draw us; none,...

Call me no more,
As heretofore,
The music of a feast;
Since now, alas!
The mirth that was
In me is dead or ceas'd.

Before I went,
To banishment,
Into the loathed west,...

There was a thought he hid from all men's eyes,
And by his prudent life and deeds of worth
He left a goodly record upon earth
As one both pure and wise.

But when he reached a dark unsightly door...

It may have been a fragment of that higher
Truth dreams, at times, disclose;
It may have been to Fond Illusion nigher,
But thus the story goes:

A fierce sun glared upon a gaunt land, stricken...

Be those few hours, which I have yet to spend,
Blest with the meditation of my end;
Though they be few in number, I'm content;
If otherwise, I stand indifferent,
Nor makes it matter, Nestor's years to tell,...