Works

Once on the year's last eve in my mind's might
Sitting in dreams, not sad, nor quite elysian,
Balancing all 'twixt wonder and derision,
Methought my body and all this world took flight,...

Good old days--dear old days
When my heart beat high and bold--
When the things of earth seemed full of life,
And the future a haze of gold!
Oh, merry was I that winter night,...

O, Cartmel bells ring soft to-night,
And Cartmel bells ring clear,
But I lie far away to-night,
Listening with my dear;

Listening in a frosty land
Where all the bells are still...

I have not any fearful tale to tell
Of fabled giant or of dragon-claw,
Or bloody deed to pilfer and to sell
To those who feed, with such, a gaping maw;
But what in yonder hamlet there befell,...

Now you are mine, to-night at last I say it;
You're a dove I have bought for sacrifice,
And to-night I slay it.

Here in my arms my naked sacrifice!
Death, do you hear, in my arms I am bringing...

The Earth moans in her sleep
Like an old mother
Whose sons have gone to the war,
Who weeps silently in her heart
Till dreams comfort her.

The Earth tosses
As if she would shake off humanity,...

Its net oft at aw have mich to do wi' parties. Th' fact is aw'm wed, an' young fowk dooant want me, becoss they say aw've made my markets, an' wed fowk dooant oft ax me becoss aw suppose aw dooant oft ax them. But this month la...

(Address of the carrier of the New-York Mirror, on the first day of the year.)


Air--"Songs of Shepherds and Rustical Roundelays."



...

How have I wandered here to this vaulted room
In the house of life? - the floor was ruffled with gold
Last evening, and she who was softly in bloom,
Glimmered as flowers that in perfume at twilight unfold
...

The bed of flowers

Loosens amain,
The beauteous snowdrops

Droop o'er the plain.
The crocus opens

Its glowing bud,
Like emeralds others,

Others, like blood....

I

Within the town of Buffalo
Are prosy men with leaden eyes.
Like ants they worry to and fro,
(Important men, in Buffalo.)
But only twenty miles away
A deathless glory is at play:...

A ceaseless, awful, falling sea, whose sound
Shakes earth and air, and whose resistless stroke
Shoots high the volleying foam like cannon smoke!
How dread and beautiful the floods, when, crowned...

I.

Roar, raging torrent! and thou, mighty river,
Pour thy white foam on the valley below;
Frown, ye dark mountains! and shadow for ever
The deep rocky bed where the wild rapids flow....

It happened once in early spring,
While there did float great thick ice cakes,
That then a gale did quickly bring
Them all down from the upper lakes.

And from Buffalo to Lake Erie,...

Niagara, thou mighty flood.
I've seen thee fall, I've heard thee roar,
And on the frightful verges stood,
That overhang thy rocky shore.

I've sailed o'er surging waves below,...

Gazing on rapids mighty sea,
Struggling fiercely to be free,
But drawn downwards in its course
By gravitation's wondrous force,
O'er those perpendicular walls,
Hurled 'mong mighty rocks it falls,...

Upon the "table-rock" I stand,
And gaze into the depths profound,
In ecstacy at sights so grand,
And deafened by the sound
Of rushing waters, as they leap
Like maddened steeds, down hillside steep....

TO serve the shop as 'prentice was the lot;
Of one who had the name of Nicaise got;
A lad quite ignorant beyond his trade,
And what arithmetick might lend him aid;
A perfect novice in the wily art,...

Were you not ashamed, fellow citizens,
When my estate was probated and everyone knew
How small a fortune I left? -
You who hounded me in life,
To give, give, give to the churches, to the poor,...

Thistle and darnell and dock grew there,
And a bush, in the corner, of may,
On the orchard wall I used to sprawl
In the blazing heat of the day;
Half asleep and half awake,...