Works

AN ODE, IN HONOUR OF ST CECILIA'S DAY.


'Twas at the royal feast, for Persia won
By Philip's warlike son:
Aloft in awful state
The godlike hero sate
On his imperial throne:...

Next, then, the peacock, gilt
With all its feathers. Look, what gorgeous dyes
Flow in the eyes!
And how deep, lustrous greens are splashed and spilt
Along the back, that like a sea-wave's crest...

They laughed at me as "Prof. Moon,"
As a boy in Spoon River, born with the thirst
Of knowing about the stars.
They jeered when I spoke of the lunar mountains,
And the thrilling heat and cold,...

Yes, let me tell of Jennet, my last child;
In her the charms of all the rest ran wild,
And sprouted as they pleased. Still by my side,
I own she was my favourite, was my pride,...

Emigravit, October Vi., Mdcccxcii.


Grief there will be, and may,
When King Apollo's bay
Is cut midwise;
Grief that a song is stilled,
Grief for the unfulfilled
Singer that dies.
...

Why was I not devoured by self-contempt,
And rotted down by indifference
And impotent revolt like Indignation Jones?
Why, with all of my errant steps
Did I miss the fate of Willard Fluke?...

The silvery dimness of a happy dream
I've known of late. Methought where Byron moans,
Like some wild gulf in melancholy zones,
I passed tear-blinded. Once a lurid gleam
Of stormy sunset loitered on the sea,...

(Westminster, October 12, 1892)

Great man of song, whose glorious laurelled head
Within the lap of death sleeps well at last,
Down the dark road, seeking the deathless dead,...

Dolly's home's far away,
Far away in Algiers,
On the African coast,
She won't see it for years.

But she whispers at night,
And her eyes fill with tears;
"How I wish--how I wish,...

Who played with a Loaded Gun, and, on missing his Sister was reprimanded by his Father.

Young Algernon, the Doctor's Son,
Was playing with a Loaded Gun.
He pointed it towards his Sister,...

Shrieks out of smoke, a flame of dung-straw fire
That is not quenched but hath for only fruit
What writhes and dies not in its rotten root:
Two things made flesh, the visible desire...

Deluded mortals, whom the great
Choose for companions t'te-'-t'te;
Who at their dinners, en famille,
Get leave to sit whene'er you will;
Then boasting tell us where you dined,...

A liberty bond! What a queer contradiction!
Although truth, as you've heard, may be stranger than fiction.
For Liberty should from all fetters release us,
While bonds hold one fast, whether pauper or Croesus....

As one, who, from an antechamber dim,
Is ushered suddenly to his surprise
Before a gathering of the great and wise,
Feels for the moment all his senses swim,
Then looks around him like a veteran grim...

'A Library in a garden! The phrase seems to contain the whole felicity of man.' - Mr. EDMUND GOSSE in Gossip in a Library.

A world of books amid a world of green,
Sweet song without, sweet song again within...

Know you, winds that blow your course
Down the verdant valleys,
That somewhere you must, perforce,
Kiss the brow of Alice?
When her gentle face you find,
Kiss it softly, naughty wind.
...

Dear little Alice lay dying; -
I see her as if 'twas to-day,
And we stood round her snowy bed, crying,
And watching her life ebb away.

'Twas a beautiful day in the spring,...

Alice was walking beside the White Knight in Looking Glass Land.

"You are sad." the Knight said in an anxious tone: "let me sing you a song to comfort you."
...

The post-boy drove with fierce career,
For threatening clouds the moon had drowned;
When, as we hurried on, my ear
Was smitten with a startling sound.

As if the wind blew many ways,...

SICK, Alice grown, and fearing dire event,
Some friend advised a servant should be sent
Her confessor to bring and ease her mind; -
Yes, she replied, to see him I'm inclined;...