Works

Fine and feathery artisan,
Best of Plumists (if you can
With your art so far presume)
Make for me a Prince's Plume--
Feathers soft and feathers rare,
Such as suits a Prince to wear.
...

Brisk methinks I am, and fine
When I drink my cap'ring wine:
Then to love I do incline,
When I drink my wanton wine:
And I wish all maidens mine,
When I drink my sprightly wine:...

Elizabeth it is in vain you say
"Love not", thou sayest it in so sweet a way:
In vain those words from thee or L. E. L.
Zantippe's talents had enforced so well:
Ah! if that language from thy heart arise,...

H a! if yo'd nobbut known that lass,
A w'm sure yo'd call her bonny;
N oa other could her charms surpass,
N oa other had as monny.
A n ha aw lost mi peace o' mind,
H ark! an aw'll tell if yor inclined....

Merry, merry little child,
Active, playful, sometimes wild;
Rosy cheeks, and ringlets rare,
Glossy black, with eyes compare.
All, all these belong to thee,
Right pleasant little Margerie....

My life is bitter with thy love; thine eyes
Blind me, thy tresses burn me, thy sharp sighs
Divide my flesh and spirit with soft sound,
And my blood strengthens, and my veins abound....

Like some sad spirit from an unknown shore
Thou comest with two children in thine arms:
Flushed, poppied Sleep, whom mortals aye adore,
Her flowing raiment sculptured to her charms....

"Archer. How many are there, Scrub?"
"Scrub. Five-and-forty, Sir." Beaux' Stratagem.

"For shame - let the linen alone!" M. W. of Windsor.


Mr. Scrub - Mr. Slop - or whoever you be!...

The wide, bright temple of the world I found,
And entered from the dizzy infinite
That I might kneel and worship thee in it;
Leaving the singing stars their ceaseless round...

(Terpsichore)

Read at the Annual Dinner of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, at Cambridge, August 24, 1843.

In narrowest girdle, O reluctant Muse,
In closest frock and Cinderella shoes,...

I am stirred by the dream of an afternoon
Of a perfect day - though it was not June;
The lilt of winds, and the droning tune
That a busy city was humming.

And a bronze-brown head, and lips like wine...

How hushed and still are earth and air,
How languid 'neath the sun's fierce ray -
Drooping and faint - the flowrets fair,
On this hot, sultry, summer day!
Vainly I watch the streamlet blue...

How good some years of life may be!
Ah, once it was not guessed by me,
Past years would shine, like some bright sea,
In golden dusks of memory.

Ere then the music of the dawn...

You found my life, a poor lame bird
That had no heart to sing,
You would not speak the magic word
To give it voice and wing.

Yet sometimes, dreaming of that hour,
I think, if you had known...

Vine leaves rustled, moonbeams shone,
Summer breezes softly sighed;
You and I were all alone
In a kingdom fair and wide
You, a Queen, in all your pride,
I, a vassal, by your side.
...

The fight was over, and the battle won
A soldier, who beneath his chieftain's eye
Had done a might deed and done it well,
And done it as the world will have it done,...

1.
A portal as of shadowy adamant
Stands yawning on the highway of the life
Which we all tread, a cavern huge and gaunt;
Around it rages an unceasing strife...

"Here is a lantern, my little boy,"
Said a father to his child,
"And yonder's a wood, a lonely wood,
Tangled, and rough, and wild;
And now, this night, - this very hour,
Though gloomy and dark it be,...

This is the weird of a world-old folk,
That not till the last link breaks,
Not till the night is blackest,
The blood of Hengist wakes.
When the sun is black in heaven,
The moon as blood above,...

Well Sir, 'tis granted, I said Dryden's Rhimes,
Were stoln, unequal, nay dull many times:
What foolish Patron, is there found of his,
So blindly partial, to deny me this?...