Works

Karshish, the picker-up of learning's crumbs,
The not-incurious in God's handiwork
(This man's-flesh he hath admirably made,
Blown like a bubble, kneaded like a paste,...

The figure that thou here seest . . . Tut!
Was it for gentle Shakespeare put?
- B. JORSON. (Adapted.)



I 'next poet?' No, my hearties,
I nor am nor fain would be!...

I.
Kentish Sir Byng stood for his King,
Bidding the crop-headed Parliament swing:
And, pressing a troop unable to stoop
And see the rogues flourish and honest folk droop,...

He. Ah, the bird-like fluting
Through the ash-tops yonder,
Bullfinch-bubblings, soft sounds suiting
What sweet thoughts, I wonder?
Fine-pearled notes that surely
Gather, dewdrop-fashion,...

There's heaven above, and night by night
I look right through its gorgeous roof;
No suns and moons though e'er so bright
Avail to stop me; splendor-proof
I keep the broods of stars aloof:...

There's Heaven above, and night by night,
I look right through its gorgeous roof
No sun and moons though e'er so bright
Avail to stop me; splendour-proof
I keep the broods of stars aloof:...

The rain set early in to-night,
The sullen wind was soon awake,
It tore the elm-tops down for spite,
And did its worst to vex the lake,
I listened with heart fit to break;...

Flower, I never fancied, jewel, I profess you!
Bright I see and soft I feel the outside of a flower.
Save but glow inside and jewel, I should guess you,
Dim to sight and rough to touch: the glory is the dower....

Man I am and man would be, Love, merest man and nothing more.
Bid me seem no other! Eagles boast of pinions, let them soar!
I may put forth angel's plumage, once unmanned, but not before.
...

Hist, but a word, fair and soft!
Forth and be judged, Master Hugues!
Answer the question I've put you so oft:
What do you mean by your mountainous fugues?
See, we're alone in the loft,
...

I.
I wish that when you died last May,
Charles, there had died along with you
Three parts of spring's delightful things;
Ay, and, for me, the fourth part too.

II....

I

The grey sea and the long black land;
And the yellow half-moon large and low;
And the startled little waves that leap
In fiery ringlets from their sleep,
As I gain the cove with pushing prow,...

Ah, did you once see Shelley plain,
And did he stop and speak to you?
And did you speak to him again?
How strange it seems, and new!

But you were living before that,
And you are living after,...

I.
All I believed is true!
I am able yet
All I want, to get
By a method as strange as new:
Dare I trust the same to you?

II.
If at night, when doors are shut,...

This is a spray the Bird clung to,
Making it blossom with pleasure,
Ere the high tree-top she sprang to,
Fit for her nest and her treasure.
Oh, what a hope beyond measure...

Now, don't, sir! Don't expose me!
Just this once! This was the first and only time, I'll swear,
Look at me, see, I kneel, the only time,
I swear, I ever cheated, yes, by the soul...

Frowned the Laird on the Lord: 'So, red-handed I catch thee?
Death-doomed by our Law of the Border!
We've a gallows outside and a chiel to dispatch thee:
Who trespasses, hangs: all's in order.'
...

FERRARA


That's my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now: Fr' Pandolf's hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands....

All that I know
Of a certain star,
Is, it can throw
(Like the angled spar)
Now a dart of red,
Now a dart of blue,
Till my friends have said
They would fain see, too,...

All I can say is, I saw it!
The room was as bare as your hand.
I locked in the swarth little lady, I swear,
From the head to the foot of her, well, quite as bare!...