Works

How the returning days, one after one,
Come ever in their rhythmic round, unchanged,
Yet from each loop'd robe for every man
Some new thing falls. Happy is he
Who fronts them without fear, and like the gods...

(WITH MANY APOLOGIES TO THE LAUREATE.)

And Willie, my eldest born, is gone, you say, little Anne,
Ruddy and white, and strong on his legs, he looks like a man;...

There trudges one to a merry-making
With a sturdy swing,
On whom the rain comes down.

To fetch the saving medicament
Is another bent,
On whom the rain comes down.
...

1712.


Parnassia laurus
Parva sub ingenti matris se subjicit umbra.

VIRG.


When Rome, my lord, in her full glory shone,
And great Augustus rul'd the globe alone,...

And is it among rude untutored Dales,
There, and there only, that the heart is true?
And, rising to repel or to subdue,
Is it by rocks and woods that man prevails?...

It is not the fear of death
That damps my brow;
It is not for another breath
I ask thee now;
I can die with a lip unstirr'd
And a quiet heart -
Let but this prayer be heard
Ere I depart.
...

It was many and many a year ago,
In a city by the sea,
That a man there lived whom I happened to know
By the name of Andrew M'Crie;
And this man he slept in another room,...

Andrew Rykman's dead and gone;
You can see his leaning slate
In the graveyard, and thereon
Read his name and date.

'Trust is truer than our fears,'
Runs the legend through the moss,...

With pannikins all rusty,
And billy burnt and black,
And clothes all torn and dusty,
That scarcely hide his back;
With sun-cracked saddle-leather,
And knotted greenhide rein,...

Easter Monday in the city,
Rattle, rattle, rumble, rush;
Tom and Jerry, Nell and Kitty,
All the down-the-harbour 'push,'
Little thought have they, or pity,
For a wanderer from the bush.
...

We've mooast on us, at one 'time or another, accidentally dropt amang company withaat havin ony idea o' spendin mich time wi' em, an' yet we've kept stoppin an' stoppin, feelin as happy as con be, an' niver thinkin for a minit ...

When England did enjoy her Halsion dayes,
Her noble Sidney wore the Crown of Bayes;
As well an honour to our British Land,
As she that sway'd the Scepter with her hand;
Mars and Minerva did in one agree,...

Worried with debts and past all hopes of bail,
His pen he prostitutes t' avoid a gaol.
ROSCOM.


Let not the 'hungry' Bavius' angry stroke
Awake resentment, or your rage provoke;...

'Tis not that I design to rob
Thee of thy birthright, gentle Bob,
For thou art born sole heir, and single,
Of dear Mat Prior's easy jingle;
Not that I mean, while thus I knit...

By Mr. Doddington, Afterwards Lord Melcombe.


--Qu' censet amiculus, ut si
C'cus iter monstrare velit

HOR.


Though strength of genius, by experience taught,...

The summer day is closed, the sun is set:
Well they have done their office, those bright hours,
The latest of whose train goes softly out
In the red West. The green blade of the ground...

They say that she died of a broken heart
(I tell the tale as 'twas told to me);
But her spirit lives, and her soul is part
Of this sad old house by the sea.

Her lover was fickle and fine and French:...

Our brethren of England, who love us so dear,
And in all they do for us so kindly do mean,
(A blessing upon them!) have sent us this year,
For the good of our church, a true English dean....

Dramatis Person'

First Tourist
Second Tourist
Yuba Bill, Driver
A Stranger



First Tourist

Look how the upland plunges into cover,...

Open the window, and let the air
Freshly blow upon face and hair,
And fill the room, as it fills the night,
With the breath of the rain's sweet might.
Hark! the burthen, swift and prone!...