Works

[On sending a certain telegram.]


Majestic Monarch! whom the other gods,
For fear of their immediate removal,
Consulting hourly, seek your awful nod's
Approval;
...

FROM THE CITY OP WASHINGTON.


If former times had never left a trace
Of human frailty in their onward race,
Nor o'er their pathway written, as they ran,
One dark memorial of the crimes of man;...

If after times
Should pay the least attention to these rhymes,
I bid them learn
'Tis not my own heart here
That doth so often seem to break and burn -
O no such thing! -
Nor is it my own dear...

Come, sit we under yonder tree,
Where merry as the maids we'll be;
And as on primroses we sit,
We'll venture, if we can, at wit;
If not, at draw-gloves we will play,
So spend some minutes of the day;...

Here's to the maid with Fancy Free;
If Cupid's necromancy
Imprison not her heart, maybe,
It will arrest her Fancy.

"Tuque, Testudo, resonare septem
Callida nervis."
Hor. iii. 11.


Monster Chelonian, you suggest
To some, no doubt, the calm,--
The torpid ease of islets drest
In fan-like fern and palm;...

My rhymes are rough, and often in my rhyming
I've drifted, silver-sailed, on seas of dream,
Hearing afar the bells of Elfland chiming,
Seeing the groves of Arcadie agleam.
...

Thou who hast slept all night upon the storm,
Waking renew'd on thy prodigious pinions,
(Burst the wild storm? above it thou ascended'st,
And rested on the sky, thy slave that cradled thee,)...

My dear Sir, -
I suppose you are having an excellent time just now.
There are a large number of counties
In England and Scotland,
And I am not acquainted with one of them
Wherein your bang-bang...

FROM BERMUDA, JANUARY, 1804.


Lady! where'er you roam, whatever land
Woos the bright touches of that artist hand;
Whether you sketch the valley's golden meads,...

I.

At times our Britain cannot rest,
At times her steps are swift and rash;
She moving, at her girdle clash
The golden keys of East and West.


II.
...

Dear Master in our classic town,
You, loved by all the younger gown
There at Balliol,
Lay your Plato for one minute down,

II

And read a Grecian tale re-told,...

Lonesome on earth's loneliest deep,
Sailor! who dost thy vigil keep--
Off the Cape of Storms dost musing sweep
Over monstrous waves that curl and comb;
Of thee we think when here from brink...

Thou hast fallen in thine armor,
Thou martyr of the Lord
With thy last breath crying "Onward!"
And thy hand upon the sword.
The haughty heart derideth,
And the sinful lip reviles,...

Would I could talk as the flowers talk
To my soul! and the stars, in their ceaseless walk
Through Heaven! and tell to the high and low
The things that they say, so all might know...

The World, its hopes and fears, have pass'd away;
No more its trifling thou shalt feel or see;
Thy hopes are ripening in a brighter day,
While these left buds thy monument shall be....

God has his plans, and what if we
With our sight be too blind to see
Their full fruition; cannot he,
Who made it, solve the mystery?
One whom we loved has fall'n asleep,...

Farewell, too little, and too lately known,
Whom I began to think, and call my own:
For sure our souls were near allied, and thine
Cast in the same poetic mould with mine!...

Written After Perusing The Interesting Memoir Composed By Her Husband, The Rev. Greville Ewing.


Daughter of Scotland! may a stranger twine
One cypress wreath around thy honoured urn?--...

To draw no envy, Shakespeare, on thy name,
Am I thus ample to thy book and fame;
While I confess thy writings to be such
As neither man nor muse can praise too much;...