Works

Just from the sentry's tramp
(I must take it again at ten),
I have laid my musket down,
And seized instead my pen;
For, pacing my lonely round
In the chilly twilight gray,...

'Tis just three months and eke a day,
Since in the meadows, raking hay,
On looking up I chanced to see
The manor's lord, young Arnold Lee,
With a loose hand on the rein,
Riding slowly down the lane....

Underneath protected branches, from the highway just aloof;
Stands the house of Grand'ther Baldwin, with its gently sloping roof.

Square of shape and solid-timbered, it was standing, I have heard,...

What else do they live for? They live but for this;
And nothing but this ever troubles their thinking;
Rich eating, rich dressing, and flirting's their bliss,
And life's better purposes constantly blinking.
...

"What else do they live for in this world beside?"

What else but for Kittys or one of the same,
Do mothers their daughters at schools give the touch
That leaves them to live as a wife but in name...

And now by your leave I will try to expound it,
In truth as it is and the way that I found it.

My dinner, sometimes, like things transcendental
And things more substantial, like women and wine...

Florence wears an added grace,
All her earlier honors crowning;
Dante's birthplace, Art's fair home,
Holds the dust of Barrett Browning.

Guardian of the noble dead...

Some turkey? why yes--the least mite will suffice;
A side bone and dressing and bit of the breast;
The tip of the rump--that's it--and one o' the fli's--
In spite of the doctor: my appetite's none of the best,...

But this is concocted by rules so complete;
Though piquant, is healthy and easy digested;
And if you will note it as slowly we eat,
The contents I'll give for our friends interested.
...

'If wishes were horses'--I've heard when a girl--
'If wishes were horses, the beggars would ride'--
If wishes were pheasants, I'd wish with a skirl
Till cooked ones came flying and sat by my side.
...

Though Houris are handsome, though lovely the place--
More lovely perhaps than our own country seat--
I never could see, in the light of free grace
What pleasure they have there with nothing to eat.
...

Come, John, Jane, and Susan, the soup take away,
And bring in the turbot, the sheep's head and bass;
And have you got lobster and salad to-day?
And see that the celery's all right in the glass.
...

"Now Merdle--now Colonel--I know you are waiting.
And thinking my talking to eating's a bar,
Still hoping, by tasting, my appetite sating,
Will give you the license to smoke a cigar.
...

"Phoebe! Phoebe! Where is the chit?
When I want her most she's out of the way.
Child, you're running a long account
Up, to be squared on Judgment-day.

"Where have you been? and what have you there?"...

An old frog lived in a dismal swamp,
In a dismal kind of way;
And all that he did, whatever befell,
Was to croak the livelong day.
Croak, croak, croak,
When darkness filled the air,...

In the far-off Polar seas,
Far beyond the Hebrides,
Where the icebergs, towering high,
Seem to pierce the wintry sky,
And the fur-clad Esquimaux
Glides in sledges o'er the snow,...

It is the year's high noon,
The earth sweet incense yields,
And o'er the fresh, green fields
Bends the clear sky of June.

I leave the crowded streets,
The hum of busy life,...

One autumn day, when hedges yet were green,
And thick-branched trees diffused a leafy gloom,
Hard by where Avon rolls its silvery tide,
I stood in silent thought by Shakspeare's tomb.
...