Works

If trees were tall and grasses short,
As in some crazy tale,
If here and there a sea were blue
Beyond the breaking pale,

If a fixed fire hung in the air
To warm me one day through,...

Oft bend the bow, and thou with ease shalt do
What others can't with all their strength put to.

Rudiments, Rudiments, and Rudiments!
'Thinketh one made them i' the fit o' the blues.

'Thinketh one made them with the 'tips' to match,
But not the answers; 'doubteth there be none,...

'Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such a one as thyself.'
- David, Psalms 50.21



['Will sprawl, now that the heat of day is best,
Flat on his belly in the pit's much mire,...

Call not the royal Swede unfortunate,
Who never did to Fortune bend the knee;
Who slighted fear; rejected steadfastly
Temptation; and whose kingly name and state...

Down with the rosemary, and so
Down with the bays and misletoe;
Down with the holly, ivy, all
Wherewith ye dress'd the Christmas hall;
That so the superstitious find...

As she's lying there in sherbet panties
looking somewhat disaffected, a nez perce
expression bordered by sleep,
think of the Sultan's regalia
his entourage of kings...

Five months ago the stream did flow,
The lilies bloomed within the sedge,
And we were lingering to and fro,
Where none will track thee in this snow,
Along the stream, beside the hedge....

When the horse has been unharnessed and we've flushed the old machine,
And the water o'er the sluice is running evenly and clean;
When there's thirty load before us, and the sun is high and bright,...

Away with silks, away with lawn,
I'll have no scenes or curtains drawn;
Give me my mistress as she is,
Dress'd in her nak'd simplicities;
For as my heart e'en so mine eye
Is won with flesh, not drapery.

Tune - "Cock up your beaver."


I.

When first my brave Johnnie lad
Came to this town,
He had a blue bonnet
That wanted the crown;
But now he has gotten
A hat and a feather,...

(Lyra Eucharistica, second edition, 1864.)


Oh, for the time gone by, when thought of Christ
Made His Yoke easy and His Burden light;
When my heart stirred within me at the sight...

"Come unto me!" Ah, gentlest word
E'er breathed in human ear!
"I am thy Savior and thy Lord;
Dear child, thou need'st not fear.

"Come unto me in sorrow's hour
When life seems dark and drear;...

Come unto me, the Master says:--
But how? I am not good;
No thankful song my heart will raise,
Nor even wish it could.

I am not sorry for the past,
Nor able not to sin;...

Weary soul, by care oppressed,
Wouldst thou find a place of rest?
Listen, Jesus calls to thee,
Come, and find thy rest in me!

Hungry soul, why pine and die
With exhaustless stores so nigh?...

Come up from the fields, father, here's a letter from our Pete;
And come to the front door, mother--here's a letter from thy dear son.

Lo, 'tis autumn;...

Dry your sweet cheek, long drown'd with sorrow's rain,
Since, clouds dispers'd, suns gild the air again.
Seas chafe and fret, and beat, and overboil,
But turn soon after calm as balm or oil....

I

Had this effulgence disappeared
With flying haste, I might have sent,
Among the speechless clouds, a look
Of blank astonishment;
But 'tis endued with power to stay,...

Earth has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,...

The Gentleman's Proposal.

Legge aurea,
S'ei piace, ei lice."

Come fly to these arms nor let beauties so bloomy
To one frigid owner be tied;...