Works

'Tis the opinion of the town
That Grim's a silly elf:
In trying to write Clinton down,
He went RIGHT DOWN HIMSELF.

Henceforth at miracles who'll dare to mock?
No wonder Orpheus' lyre could move the brutes,
Or Moses' rod strike water from the rock;
Lo! Shakspeare's genius melts the heart of Nutes,...

Well with the purpose does the place agree;
For e'en the very house is crack'd, you see.

Though I have found you like a snow-drop pale,
On sunny days have found you weak and still,
Though I have often held your girlish head
Drooped on my shoulder, faint from little ill: -
...

Sweet Spirit! Sister of that orphan one,
Whose empire is the name thou weepest on,
In my heart's temple I suspend to thee
These votive wreaths of withered memory.
...

Beneath this verdant hillock lies
Demar, the wealthy and the wise,
His heirs,[1] that he might safely rest,
Have put his carcass in a chest;
The very chest in which, they say,...

It is with humility really unassumed, it is with a sentiment even of awe, that I pen the opening sentence of this work: for of all conceivable subjects I approach the reader with the most solemn, the most comprehensive, the mos...

Evening brings us home,--
From our wanderings afar,
From our multifarious labours,
From the things that fret and jar;
From the highways and the byways,
From the hill-tops and the vales;...

When first, descending from the moorlands,
I saw the Stream of Yarrow glide
Along a bare and open valley,
The Ettrick Shepherd was my guide.

When last along its banks I wandered,...

It is a summer evening, calm and fair,
A warm, yet freshening glow is in the air;
Along its bank, the cool stream wanders slow,
Like parting friends that linger as they go....

Upon the eyes, the lips, the feet,
On all the passages of sense,
The atoning oil is spread with sweet
Renewal of lost innocence.

The feet, that lately ran so fast...

ORE cibum portans catulus dum spectat in undis,
Apparet liquido praedae melioris imago:
Dum speciosa diu damna admiratur, et alt'
Ad latices inhiat, cadit imo vortice praeceps...

To print our poems, the propulsive cause
Is fame - the breath of popular applause.

Father of Universal Man,
Where'er in this wide world he roam,
Not known to thee by kith or clan,
Nor height, nor breadth of mental dome,
Nor babbling tongue, nor sounding creed,...

I ain't a timid man at all, I'm just as brave as most,
I'll take my chance in open fight and die beside my post;
But riding round the 'ole day long as target for a Krupp,...

Relinquunt Ommia Servare Rem Publicam.

The old South Boston Aquarium stands
in a Sahara of snow now. Its broken windows are boarded.
The bronze weathervane cod has lost half its scales....

Health is the first good lent to men;
A gentle disposition then:
Next, to be rich by no by-ways;
Lastly, with friends t' enjoy our days.

Scene I
'Discontent'

LAURENCE RABY.

Laurence:
I said to young Allan M'Ilveray,
Beside the swift swirls of the North,
When, in lilac shot through with a silver ray,...

One sung of thee who left the tale untold,
Like the false dawns which perish in the bursting;
Like empty cups of wrought and daedal gold,
Which mock the lips with air, when they are thirsting.

I stood upon a heaven-cleaving turret
Which overlooked a wide Metropolis -
And in the temple of my heart my Spirit
Lay prostrate, and with parted lips did kiss
The dust of Desolations [altar] hearth -...