Works

I.

Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary,
And leave old Scotia's shore?
Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary,
Across th' Atlantic's roar?

II.

O sweet grows the lime and the orange,...

A dying mother gave to you
Her child a many years ago;
How in your gracious love he grew,
You know, dear, patient heart, you know.

The mother's child you fostered then...

Mary, you know I've no love nonsense,
And though I pen on such a day,
I don't mean flirting, on my conscience,
Or writing in the courting way.

Though Beauty hasn't formed your feature,...

Tune - "Death of Captain Cook."


I.

Thou lingering star, with less'ning ray,
That lov'st to greet the early morn,
Again thou usherest in the day
My Mary from my soul was torn....

The twentieth year is well nigh past
Since first our sky was overcast;
Ah! would that this might be the last!
My Mary!


Thy spirits have a fainter flow
I see thee daily weaker grow...

1.
How, my dear Mary, are you critic-bitten
(For vipers kill, though dead) by some review,
That you condemn these verses I have written,
Because they tell no story, false or true?...

1.

This faint resemblance of thy charms,
(Though strong as mortal art could give,)
My constant heart of fear disarms,
Revives my hopes, and bids me live.


2.
...

(On hearing she was leaving the moving-pictures for the stage.)



Mary Pickford, doll divine,
Year by year, and every day
At the moving-picture play,
You have been my valentine.
...

My dearest Mary, wherefore hast thou gone,
And left me in this dreary world alone?
Thy form is here indeed - a lovely one -
But thou art fled, gone down the dreary road,...

1.
Maiden, quench the glare of sorrow
Struggling in thine haggard eye:
Firmness dare to borrow
From the wreck of destiny;
For the ray morn's bloom revealing
Can never boast so bright an hue...

The lilly cheek, the "purple light of love,"
The liquid lustre of the melting eye,--
Mary! of these the Poet sung, for these
Did Woman triumph! with no angry frown
View this degrading conquest. At that age...

1.
Mine eyes were dim with tears unshed;
Yes, I was firm - thus wert not thou; -
My baffled looks did fear yet dread
To meet thy looks - I could not know
How anxiously they sought to shine...

What though around thee blazes
No fiery rallying sign?
From all thy own high places,
Give heaven the light of thine!
What though unthrilled, unmoving,
The statesman stand apart,...

Friend, if you thinke my Papers may supplie
You, with some strange omitted Noueltie,
Which others Letters yet haue left vntould,
You take me off, before I can take hould
Of you at all; I put not thus to Sea,...

G o on your way, my youthful friend,
E arth's joys and woes to feel,
O 'er rough and smooth, your course will tend,
R ight on, thro' woe and weal,
G ird up yourself then, for the fight,...

My noble friend, you challenge me to write
To you in verse, and often you recite,
My promise to you, and to send you newes;
As 'tis a thing I very seldome vse,
And I must write of State, if to Madrid,...

HEWLETT! as ship to ship
Let us the ensign dip.
There may be who despise
For dross our merchandise,
Our balladries, our bales
Of woven tales;
Yet, Hewlett, the glad gales...

Though many suns have risen and set
Since thou, blithe May, wert born,
And Bards, who hailed thee, may forget
Thy gift, thy beauty scorn;
There are who to a birthday strain
Confine not harp and voice,...

I have no heart to write verses to May;
I have no heart - yet I'm cheerful today;
I have no heart - she has won mine away
So - I have no heart to write verses to May.

I.

O sweet are the memories when backward we gaze
Through the vista of years to our schoolboy days,
When faces now vanished to the vision appear
And the music of voices long hushed we can hear,...