Works

I.

I cannot rest o' the night, Mother,
For my heart is cold and wan:
I fear the return o' light, Mother,
Since my own true love is gone.
O winsome aye was his face, Mother,...

Where are they all departed,
The loved ones of my youth,
Those emblems white of purity,
Sweet innocence and truth?
When day-light drives the darkness,
When evening melts to night,...

She wore a sweet pink bonnet,
The sweetest ever known:
And as I gazed upon it,
My heart was not my own.
For - I know not why or wherefore -
A pink bonnet put on well,...

Breathless is the deep blue sky;
Breathless doth the blue sea lie;
And scarcely can my heart believe,
'Neath such a sky, on such a wave,
That Heaven can frown and billows rave,...

By the waters of Cam, as the shades were descending,
A Fellow sat moaning his desolate lot;
From his sad eyes were flowing salt rivulets, blending
Their tide with the river which heeded them not -
...

"Et potis es nigrum vitio praefigere Delta." - PERSIUS.


It was a young Examiner, scarce thirty were his years,
His name our University loves, honours, and reveres:...

O how shall I write a love-ditty
To my Alice on Valentine's day?
How win the affection or pity
Of a being so lively and gay?
For I'm an unpicturesque creature,
Fond of pipes and port wine and a doze...

As hard at work I trimmed the midnight lamp,
Yfilling of mine head with classic lore,
Mine hands firm clasped upon my temples damp,
Methought I heard a tapping at the door;...

He has gone to his grave in the strength of youth,
While life shone bright before him;
And we, who remember his worth and truth,
Stand vainly grieving o'er him.
...

[NOTE. - The following imitation of Cowper's Boadicea was written in 1858; most of its predictions have since been fulfilled.]

When the Cambridge flower-show ended,
And the flowers and guests were gone,...

Wish ye, sons of Alma Mater,
Long lost laurels to replace?
Listen to a stout old Pater,
Once renowned in many a race.
Now, alas! I'm fat and forty,
And my form grows round to view;...

Woe, woe is me! for whither can I fly?
Where hide me from Mathesis' fearful eye?
Where'er I turn the Goddess haunts my path,
Like grim Megoera in revengeful wrath:
In accents wild, that would awake the dead,...

[NOTE. - The following lines were written by request, to be read at a Meeting of the "Girls' Friendly Society."]


What should a maiden be? Pure as the rill,
Ere it has left its first home in the hill;...

"Up the high Alps, perspiring madman, steam,
To please the school-boys, and become a theme."
Cf. Juv. Sat. x, v. 106.


We who know not the charms of a glass below Zero,...

A lay sung in the Temple of Minerva Girtanensis.

...

A's my new policy called Annexation;
B is the Bother it causes the nation.
C is Lord Chelmsford, engaged with Zulus;
D the Disasters which give me 'the blues.'
E is the Effort I make to look merry;...

A's Aristides, or Gladstone the Good;
B is Lord B., whom I'd crush if I could.
C are Conservatives, full of mad pranks;
D are the Dunces who fill up their ranks.
E stands for Ewelme, of some notoriety;...

My miserable countrymen, whose wont is once a-year
To lounge in watering-places, disagreeable and dear;
Who on pigmy Cambrian mountains, and in Scotch or Irish bogs...