Works

I love this gray old church, the low, long nave,
The ivied chancel and the slender spire;
No less its shadow on each heaving grave,
With growing osier bound, or living brier;...

My good man - he's an old, old man -
And my good man got a fall,
To buy me a bargain so fast he ran
When he heard the gypsies call:
"Buy, buy brushes,
Baskets wrought o' rushes....

(1571.)


The old mayor climbed the belfry tower,
The ringers ran by two, by three;
"Pull, if ye never pulled before;
Good ringers, pull your best," quoth he....

Drop, drop from the leaves of lign aloes,
O honey-dew! drop from the tree.
Float up through your clear river shallows,
White lilies, beloved of the bee.

Let the people, O Queen! say, and bless thee,...

ABSENT.

We sat on grassy slopes that meet
With sudden dip the level strand;
The trees hung overhead - our feet
Were on the sand.

Two silent girls, a thoughtful man,...

As I came round the harbor buoy,
The lights began to gleam,
No wave the land-locked water stirred,
The crags were white as cream;
And I marked my love by candle-light
Sewing her long white seam....

I.

When I had guineas many a one
Nought else I lack'd 'neath the sun,
I had two eyes the bluest seen,
A perfect shape, a gracious mien,
I had a voice might charm the bale...

Only you'd have me speak.
Whether to speak
Or whether to be silent is all one;
Whether to sleep and in my dreaming front
Her small scared face forlorn; whether to wake...

Once on a time there walked a mariner,
That had been shipwrecked; - on a lonely shore,
And the green water made a restless stir,
And a great flock of mews sped on before....

"In Him we live, and move, and have our being."

The measureless gulfs of air are full of Thee:
Thou Art, and therefore hang the stars; they wait,
And swim, and shine in God who bade them be,...

There are who give themselves to work for men, -
To raise the lost, to gather orphaned babes
And teach them, pitying of their mean estate,
To feel for misery, and to look on crime...

I.

Who pipes upon the long green hill,
Where meadow grass is deep?
The white lamb bleats but followeth on -
Follow the clean white sheep.
The dear white lady in yon high tower,...

The doom'd king pacing all night through the windy fallow.
'Let me alone, mine enemy, let me alone,'
Never a Christian bell that dire thick gloom to hallow,...

Marvels of sleep, grown cold!
Who hath not longed to fold
With pitying ruth, forgetful of their bliss,
Those cherub forms that lie,
With none to watch them nigh,...

In The Concluding Part Of A Discourse On Fame.


(He thinks.)

If there be memory in the world to come,
If thought recur to SOME THINGS silenced here,...

The white moon wasteth,
And cold morn hasteth
Athwart the snow,
The red east burneth
And the tide turneth,
And thou must go.

Think not, sad rover,
Their story all over...

"The time of the singing of birds is come."

Thick orchards, all in white,
Stand 'neath blue voids of light,
And birds among the branches blithely sing,
For they have all they know;...

Though all great deeds were proved but fables fine,
Though earth's old story could be told anew,
Though the sweet fashions loved of them that sue
Were empty as the ruined Delphian shrine -...

"He doeth all things well."

Thou hast been alway good to me and mine
Since our first father by transgression fell.
Through all Thy sorest judgments love doth shine -...

"Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light."

Thou that sleepest not afraid,
Men and angels thee upbraid;
Rise, cry, cry to God aloud,...