Works

When beechen buds begin to swell,
And woods the blue-bird's warble know,
The yellow violet's modest bell
Peeps from the last year's leaves below.

Ere russet fields their green resume,...

We all know the face of the chap who can tell
How he led the victorious van,
Through whose terrible yell all the enemy fell
Or fled from this murderous man.
...

Out of the dark pure twilight, where the stream
Flows glimmering, streaked by many a birdlike bark
That skims the gloom whence towers and bridges gleam
Out of the dark,
...

The sky and sea glared hard and bright and blank:
Down the one steep street, with slow steps firm and free,
A tall girl paced, with eyes too proud to thank
The sky and sea.
...

[AFTER JAMES THOMSON.]

As I came through the Valley of Despair,
As I came through the valley, on my sight,
More awful than the darkness of the night,
Shone glimpses of a Past that had been fair,...

(SUNG AT HIS WIFE'S GRAVE)
(See Note 48)

Your house to guests has shelter lent,
While you with pen were seated.
In silent quest they came and went,
You saw them not, nor greeted....

Nay, more than violets
These thoughts of thine, friend!
Rather thy reedy brook--
Taw's tributary--
At midnight murmuring,
Descried them, the delicate
Dark-eyed goddesses,...

After venting all my spite,
Tell me, what have I to write?
Every error I could find
Through the mazes of your mind,
Have my busy Muse employ'd,
Till the company was cloy'd....

1.

This Band, which bound thy yellow hair
Is mine, sweet girl! thy pledge of love;
It claims my warmest, dearest care,
Like relics left of saints above.


2.
...

Though fate upon this faded flower
His withering hand has laid,
Its odour'd breath defies his power,
Its sweets are undecayed.

And thus, although thy warbled strains
No longer wildly thrill,...

Found Solitary Among the Hills.


I.

O pansy-violet,
With early April wet,
How frail and pure you look
Lost in this glow-worm nook
Of heaven-holding hills:...

I would not venture to dispraise or praise.
Too well I know the indifference which bounds
A poet in the narrow working-grounds
Where he is blind and deaf in all his ways.
...

Though I have loved you well, I ween,
And you, too, fancied me,
Your heart hath too divided been
A constant heart to be.
And like the gay and youthful knight,
Who loved and rode away,...

1

Ah, heedless girl! why thus disclose
What ne'er was meant for other ears;
Why thus destroy thine own repose,
And dig the source of future tears?


2
...

The face of glory and her pleasant voice,
O fortunate youth, now recognize,
And how much nobler than effeminate sloth
Are manhood's tested energies.
Take heed, O generous champion, take heed,...

Belated wanderer of the ways of spring,
Lost in the chill of grim November rain,
Would I could read the message that you bring
And find in it the antidote for pain.
...

Lady! that in the prime of earliest youth
Wisely hast shunned the broad way and the green,
And with those few art eminently seen,
That labour up the Hill of Heavenly Truth,...

Vane, quid affectas faciem mihi ponere, pictor?
A'ris et lingua sum filia;
Et, si vis similem pingere, pinge sonum. AUSONIUS.

Once more, Enchantress of the soul,
Once more we hail thy soft controul....

My pretty flower,
How cam'st thou here?
Around thee all
Is sad and sere,
The brown leaves tell
Of winter's breath,
And all but thou
Of doom and death.

The naked forest...

WRITTEN AT LACOCK ABBEY, JANUARY, 1832.


When I would sing thy beauty's light,
Such various forms, and all so bright,
I've seen thee, from thy childhood, wear,
I know not which to call most fair,...