Works

Once wisdom dwelt in tomes of ponderous size,
While friendship from a pocketbook would talk;
But now that knowledge in small compass lies,
And floats in almanacs, as light as cork,...

Whoe'er thou art, approach, and, with a sigh,
Mark where the small remains of Greatness lie.[2]
There sleeps the dust of Him for ever gone;
How near the Scene where once his Glory shone!...

Are the guests of this house still doom'd to be cheated?
Sure the Fates have decreed they by halves should be treated.
In the days of good John[1] if you came here to dine,...

We came na here to view your warks
In hopes to be mair wise,
But only, lest we gang to hell,
It may be nae surprise:

For whan we tirl'd at your door,
Your porter dought na hear us;...

Yes, 'tis the pulse of life! my fears were vain!
I wake, I breathe, and am myself again.
Still in this nether world; no seraph yet!
Nor walks my spirit, when the sun is set,...

Curse on ungrateful man, that can be pleas'd,
And yet can starve the author of the pleasure!
O thou my elder brother in misfortune,
By far my elder brother in the muses,
With tears I pity thy unhappy fate!...

The night winds howled, the billows dashed
Against the tossing chest;
And Dana' to her broken heart
Her slumbering infant pressed.

"My little child", in tears she said,
"To wake and weep is mine,...

We're travelling down a carnival road, are met at intersections by
varying faces: poets as eyes in collapsed black holes, even the
universe as extension of the stellar poet. Then, they are transformed,...

The fair Pomona flourish'd in his reign;
Of all the virgins of the sylvan train
None taught the trees a nobler race to bear,
Or more improved the vegetable care.
To her the shady grove, the flowery field,...

The fair Pomona flourish'd in his reign;
Of all the Virgins of the sylvan train,
None taught the trees a nobler race to bear,
Or more improv'd the vegetable care.
To her the shady grove, the flow'ry field,...

On the Downs, in the Weald, on the Marshes,
I heard the Old Gods say:
'Here come Very Many People:
'We must go away.

'They take our land to delight in,
'But their delight destroys....

Very true, the linnets sing
Sweetest in the leaves of spring:
You have found in all these leaves
That which changes and deceives,
And, to pine by sun or star,
Left them, false ones as they are....

Strange grows the river on the sunless evenings!
The river comforts me, grown spectral, vague and dumb:
Long was the day; at last the consoling shadows come:
Sufficient for the day are the day's evil things!...

O Christ of God! whose life and death
Our own have reconciled,
Most quietly, most tenderly
Take home thy star-named child!

Thy grace is in her patient eyes,
Thy words are on her tongue;...

Light, light,--the last:
Till the night be done,
Keep the watch for stars and sun, and eyelids over-cast.

Once there seemed a sky,
Brooding over men....

While fond, sad memories all around us throng,
Silence were sweeter than the sweetest song;
Yet when the leaves are green and heaven is blue,
The choral tribute of the grove is due,...

There was an old woman who lived in a shoe,
Who had so many children she didn't know what to do;
She gave them some broth without any bread,
And whipt them all soundly and sent them to bed.
...

Motion's the dead giveaway,
eye catcher, the revealing risk:
the caterpillar sulls on the hot macadam

but then, risking, ripples to the bush:
the cricket, startled, leaps the...

The days of a man are threescore years and ten.
The days of his life were half a man's, whom we
Lament, and would yet not bid him back, to be
Partaker of all the woes and ways of men....

"You never attained to Him?" "If to attain
Be to abide, then that may be."
"Endless the way, followed with how much pain!"
"The way was He."