Thou wast hard pressed, yet God concealed this thing From me; and thou wast wounded very sore, And beaten down, O son of Israel's king, Like wheat on threshing-flour. ...
I've been watchin' of 'em, parson, An' I'm sorry fur to say 'At my mind is not contented With the loose an' keerless way 'At the young folks treat the music; 'T ain't the proper sort o' choir....
What news to all alike brings startling sorrow? And he is dead, the vigorous chieftain dead? Nor e'en for him would death still brook to-morrow? No more shall followers vaunt and foemen dread;...
A sea-mew on a sea-king's wrist alighting, As the north sea-wind caught and strained and curled The raven-figured flag that led men fighting From field to green field of the water-world,...
Take, since you bade it should bear, These, of the seed of your sowing, Blossom or berry or weed. Sweet though they be not, or fair, That the dew of your word kept growing, Sweet at least was the seed....
Another pang for Southern hearts, That of late so oft have bled, Another name to add to the roll Of their mighty, patriot dead; A vacant place 'mid that phalanx proud. Of which each glorious name...
O blood and thunder! and oh blood and wounds! These are but vulgar oaths, as you may deem, Too gentle reader! and most shocking sounds: And so they are; yet thus is Glory's dream...
When Bishop Berkeley said 'there was no matter,' And proved it - 't was no matter what he said: They say his system 't is in vain to batter, Too subtle for the airiest human head;...
Ah! - What should follow slips from my reflection; Whatever follows ne'ertheless may be As _' propos_ of hope or retrospection, As though the lurking thought had follow'd free....
When amatory poets sing their loves In liquid lines mellifluously bland, And pair their rhymes as Venus yokes her doves, They little think what mischief is in hand;...
I want a hero: an uncommon want, When every year and month sends forth a new one, Till, after cloying the gazettes with cant, The age discovers he is not the true one;...
If from great nature's or our own abyss Of thought we could but snatch a certainty, Perhaps mankind might find the path they miss - But then 't would spoil much good philosophy....
Nothing so difficult as a beginning In poesy, unless perhaps the end; For oftentimes when Pegasus seems winning The race, he sprains a wing, and down we tend,...
O, Wellington! (or 'Villainton' - for Fame Sounds the heroic syllables both ways; France could not even conquer your great name, But punn'd it down to this facetious phrase -...
O ye! who teach the ingenuous youth of nations, Holland, France, England, Germany, or Spain, I pray ye flog them upon all occasions, It mends their morals, never mind the pain:...
The world is full of orphans: firstly, those Who are so in the strict sense of the phrase (But many a lonely tree the loftier grows Than others crowded in the forest's maze);...
O Love! O Glory! what are ye who fly Around us ever, rarely to alight? There 's not a meteor in the polar sky Of such transcendent and more fleeting flight. Chill, and chain'd to cold earth, we lift on high...
The antique Persians taught three useful things, To draw the bow, to ride, and speak the truth. This was the mode of Cyrus, best of kings - A mode adopted since by modern youth....
'There is a tide in the affairs of men Which, - taken at the flood,' - you know the rest, And most of us have found it now and then; At least we think so, though but few have guess'd...