Works

One Sunday morning - service done -
'Mongst tombstones shining in the sun,
A knot of bumpkins stood to chat
Of that and this, and this and that;
What people said of Polly Hatch -...

"Do you never deviate?"
John Bull.


In London once I lost my way
In faring to and fro,
And ask'd a little ragged boy
The way that I should go;

He gave a nod, and then a wink,...

"Sit down and fall to, said the Barmecide."
Arabian Nights.


At seven you just nick it,
Give card - get wine ticket;
Walk round through the Babel,
From table to table,...

Oh! what's befallen Bessy Brown,
She stands so squalling in the street;
She's let her pitcher tumble down,
And all the water's at her feet!

The little school-boys stood about,...

I.

Bianca! - fair Bianca! - who could dwell
With safety on her dark and hazel gaze,
Nor find there lurk'd in it a witching spell,
Fatal to balmy nights and blessed days?...

One day the dreary old King of Death
Inclined for some sport with the carnal,
So he tied a pack of darts on his back,
And quietly stole from his charnel.

His head was bald of flesh and of hair,...

"I really take it very kind,
This visit, Mrs. Skinner!
I have not seen you such an age -
(The wretch has come to dinner!)

"Your daughters, too, what loves of girls -...

Two swains or clowns - but call them swains -
Whilst keeping flocks on Salisbury plains,
For all that tend on sheep as drovers
Are turned to songsters or to lovers,
Each of the lass he call'd his dear,...

"A Day after the Fair." - Old Proverb.


John Day he was the biggest man
Of all the coachman kind,
With back too broad to be conceived
By any narrow mind.
...

Well hast thou cried, departed Burke,
All chivalrous romantic work
Is ended now and past! -
That iron age - which some have thought
Of metal rather overwrought -
Is now all overcast!
...

I.

Ah me! those old familiar bounds!
That classic house, those classic grounds
My pensive thought recalls!
What tender urchins now confine,
What little captives now repine,...

It is not death, that sometime in a sigh
This eloquent breath shall take its speechless flight;
That sometime these bright stars, that now reply
In sunlight to the sun, shall set in night;...

"Now's the time and now's the hour," - BURNS.

"Seven's the main." - CROCKFORD.



Pity the sorrows of a class of men,
Who, though they bow to fashion and frivolity,...

My pipe is lit, my grog is mix'd,
My curtains drawn and all is snug;
Old Puss is in her elbow-chair,
And Tray is sitting on the rug.
Last night I had a curious dream,...

What's life but full of care and doubt
With all its fine humanities,
With parasols we walk about,
Long pigtails, and such vanities.

We plant pomegranate trees and things,...

We watch'd her breathing through the night.
Her breathing soft and low,
As in her breast the wave of life
Kept heaving to and fro.

So silently we seem'd to speak,
So slowly moved about,...

'Twas off the Wash - the sun went down - the sea look'd black and grim,
For stormy clouds, with murky fleece, were mustering at the brim;
Titanic shades! enormous gloom! - as if the solid night...

Summer is gone on swallows' wings,
And Earth has buried all her flowers:
No more the lark,--the linnet--sings,
But Silence sits in faded bowers.
There is a shadow on the plain...

"Fly to the desert, fly with me." - LADY HESTER STANHOPE.



'Twas in the wilds of Lebanon, amongst its barren hills, -
To think upon it, even now, my very blood it chills! -...

I.

'Twas in the prime of summer time,
An evening calm and cool,
And four-and-twenty happy boys
Came bounding out of school:
There were some that ran and some that leapt,...