Works

Our hopes are wild imaginings,
Our schemes are airy castles,
Yet these, on earth, are lords and kings,
And we their slaves and vassals;
Your dream, forsooth, of buoyant youth,
Most ready to deceive is;...

A Preface and a Piracy


Prologue

Of borrow'd plumes I take the sin,
My extracts will apply
To some few silly songs which in
These pages scatter'd lie.
...

'Beneath the greenwood bough.'
- W. Scott.

Lightly the breath of the spring wind blows,
Though laden with faint perfume,
'Tis the fragrance rare that the bushman knows,...

'Gillian's dead, God rest her bier,
How I loved her many years syne;
Marion's married, but I sit here,
Alive and merry at three-score year,
Dipping my nose in Gascoigne wine.'
- Wamba's Song, Thackeray....

In Five Parts


Part I
Visions in the Smoke

Rest, and be thankful! On the verge
Of the tall cliff rugged and grey,
But whose granite base the breakers surge,...

'Then hey for boot and horse, lad!
And round the world away!
Young blood will have its course, lad!
And every dog his day!'
- C. Kingsley.


There's a formula which the west country clowns...

Translation from Horace


When he, that shepherd false, 'neath Phrygian sails,
Carried his hostess Helen o'er the seas,
In fitful slumber Nereus hush'd the gales,...

Am I waking? Was I sleeping?
Dearest, are you watching yet?
Traces on your cheeks of weeping
Glitter, 'Tis in vain you fret;
Drifting ever! drifting onward!
In the glass the bright sand runs...

'Nec propter vitam vivendi perdere causas.'

Though the pitcher that goes to the sparkling rill
Too oft gets broken at last,
There are scores of others its place to fill...

An open country.
LAURENCE RABY and FORREST, BRIAN AYLMER and PRESCOT.

Forrest:
I've won the two tosses from Prescot;
Now hear me, and hearken and heed,...

Though I have loved you well, I ween,
And you, too, fancied me,
Your heart hath too divided been
A constant heart to be.
And like the gay and youthful knight,
Who loved and rode away,...

Lay me low, my work is done;
I am weary. Lay me low,
Where the wild flowers woo the sun,
Where the balmy breezes blow,
Where the butterfly takes wing,
Where the aspens, drooping, grow,...