Works

"Non injussa cano."
Virg.


POET. I sing of POPE--

FRIEND. What, POPE, the Twitnam Bard,
Whom Dennis, Cibber, Tibbald push'd so hard!
POPE of the Dunciad! POPE who dar'd to woo,...

Before me, careless lying,
Young Love his ware comes crying;
Full soon the elf untreasures
His pack of pains and pleasures,--
With roguish eye,
He bids me buy
From out his pack of treasures.
...

(TERCENTENARY, 1608-1908)

"Stops of various Quills."--LYCIDAS.


What need of votive Verse
To strew thy Laureat Herse
With that mix'd Flora of th' Aonian Hill?
Or Mincian vocall Reed,...

"Now the Graces are four and the Venuses two,
And ten is the number of Muses;
For a Muse and a Grace and a Venus are you,--
My dear little Molly Trefusis!"

...

They dwell in the odour of camphor,
They stand in a Sheraton shrine,
They are "warranted early editions,"
These worshipful tomes of mine;--

In their creamiest "Oxford vellum,"...

(After Anthony Hamilton.)

To G. S.


She that I love is neither brown nor fair,
And, in a word her worth to say,
There is no maid that with her may
Compare.
...

Too oft we hide our Frailties' Blame
Beneath some simple-sounding Name!
So Folks, who in gilt Coaches ride,
Will call Display but Proper Pride;
So Spendthrifts, who their Acres lose,...

I drink of the Ale of Southwark, I drink of the Ale of Chepe;
At noon I dream on the settle; at night I cannot sleep;
For my love, my love it groweth; I waste me all the day;...

(For A Fresco.)


Firstly thou, churl son of Janus,
Rough for cold, in drugget clad,
Com'st with rack and rheum to pain us;--
Firstly thou, churl son of Janus.
Caverned now is old Sylvanus;...

Across the grass I see her pass;
She comes with tripping pace,--
A maid I know,--and March winds blow
Her hair across her face;--
With a hey, Dolly! ho, Dolly!
Dolly shall be mine,...

"--portentaque Thessala rides?"
--Hor.
"--Thessalian portents do you flout?"
* *


CARDENIO'S fortunes ne'er miscarried
Until the day CARDENIO married....

Missal of the Gothic age,
Missal with the blazoned page,
Whence, O Missal, hither come,
From what dim scriptorium?

Whose the name that wrought thee thus,
Ambrose or Theophilus,...

"Sermons in stones."


Who were you once? Could we but guess,
We might perchance more boldly
Define the patient weariness
That sets your lips so coldly;...

"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;...