Works

I woke at midnight, and my heart,
My beating heart, said this to me:
Thou seest the moon, how calm and bright!
The world is fair by day and night,
But what is that to thee?...

World, take good notice, silver stars fading,
Milky hue ript, weft of white detaching,
Coals thirty-eight, baleful and burning,
Scarlet, significant, hands off warning,...

Old wortermelon time is a-comin' round again,
And they ain't no man a-livin' any tickleder'n me,
Fer the way I hanker after wortermelons is a sin -
Which is the why and wharefore, as you can plainly see.
...

If thou anything hast, let me have it, I'll pay what is proper;
If thou anything art, let us our spirits exchange.

Sir Knight of the world's oldest order,
Sir Knight of the Army of God,
You have crossed the strange mystical border,
The ground-floor of truth you have trod;
You stand on the typical threshold...

"Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself."

Would I, to save my dear child dutiful,
Dare the white breakers on a storm-rent shore?
Ay, truly, Thou all good, all beautiful,...

Hither, Flora, Queen of Flowers!
Haste thee from old Brompton's bowers--
Or, (if sweeter that abode)
From the King's well-odored Road,
Where each little nursery bud
Breathes the dust and quaffs the mud....

Wreath the bowl
With flowers of soul,
The brightest wit can find us;
We'll take a flight
Towards heaven to-night,
And leave dull earth behind us.
Should Love amid
The wreaths be hid,...

My dear old friends - It jes beats all,
The way you write a letter
So's ever' last line beats the first,
And ever' next-un's better! -
W'y, ever' fool-thing you putt down
You make so interestin',...

I thought those youthful hearts were bleak and bare,
That not a germ had ever flourished there,
Unless perchance the night-shade of despair,
Which blooms amid the sunless wilderness.
...

If, in the month of dark December,
Leander, who was nightly wont
(What maid will not the tale remember?)
To cross thy stream broad Hellespont.

If, when the wint'ry tempest roar'd,...

When first the fane, that, white, on Kingswood-Pen,
Arrests, far off, the pausing stranger's ken,
Echoed the hymn of praise, and on that day,
Which seemed to shine with more auspicious ray,...

To a good Man of most dear memory
This Stone is sacred. Here he lies apart
From the great city where he first drew breath,
Was reared and taught; and humbly earned his bread,...

Great and omnipotent that Power must be,
That wings the whirlwind and directs the storm,
That, by a strong convulsion, severed thee,
And wrought this wondrous chasm in thy form.
...

Sons of the bright, green island,
Gathered by the pine-fringed lake,
In honour of his memory,
Who battled for your sake,
Listen, we too pay our tribute
To a fame that well endures;...

Peruse my leaves thro' ev'ry part,
And think thou seest my owner's heart,
Scrawl'd o'er with trifles thus, and quite
As hard, as senseless, and as light;
Expos'd to ev'ry coxcomb's eyes,...

Be my companion under cool arcades
That frame some drowsy street and dazzling square
Beyond whose flowers and palm-tree promenades
White belfries burn in the blue tropic air....

Ken ye ought o' Captain Grose?
Igo and ago,
If he's amang his friends or foes?
Iram, coram, dago.

Is he south or is he north?
Igo and ago,
Or drowned in the river Forth?...

Thou whom chance may hither lead,
Be thou clad in russet weed,
Be thou deck'd in silken stole,
Grave these maxims on thy soul.
Life is but a day at most,
Sprung from night, in darkness lost;...

A plague on your languages, German and Norse!
Let me have the song of the kettle;
And the tongs and the poker, instead of that horse
That gallops away with such fury and force...