Works

When I reflect with serious sense,
While years and years run on,
How soon I may be summoned hence -
There's cook a-calling John.

Our lives are built so frail and poor,
On sand and not on rocks,...

"Some are born with a wooden spoon in their mouths,
and some with a golden ladle." GOLDSMITH.

"Some are born with tin rings in their noses, and
with silver ones." SILVERSMITH.
...

"It is the king's highway that we are in, and in this way it is that thou hast placed the lions." - BUNYAN.


What! shut the gardens; lock the latticed gate!
Refuse the shilling and the Fellow's ticket!...

Thou happy, happy elf!
(But stop, - first let me kiss away that tear) -
Thou tiny image of myself!
(My love, he's poking peas into his ear!)
Thou merry, laughing sprite!
With spirits feather-light,...

"Old woman, old woman, will you go a-shearing?
Speak a little louder, for I'm very hard of hearing."
Old Ballad.


Of all old women hard of hearing,
The deafest, sure, was Dame Eleanor Spearing!...

"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 -...

"Twa dogs, that were na thrang at hame,
Forgather'd ance upon a time." - BURNS.


One morn - it was the very morn
September's sportive month was born -
The hour, about the sunrise, early;...

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!
...

It's a shame, so it is, - men can't Let alone
Jobs as is Woman's right to do - and go about there Own -
Theirs Reforms enuff Alreddy without your new schools...

And has the earth lost its so spacious round,
The sky its blue circumference above,
That in this little chamber there is found
Both earth and heaven - my universe of love!...

(At No. 1, Newgate. Favored by Mr. Wontner.)


O Mary, I believed you true,
And I was blest in so believing;
But till this hour I never knew -
That you were taken up for thieving!
...

I saw old Autumn in the misty morn
Stand shadowless like Silence, listening
To silence, for no lonely bird would sing
Into his hollow ear from woods forlorn,
Nor lowly hedge nor solitary thorn;...

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,...

"By the North Pole, I do challenge thee!"
Love's Labour's Lost.



I.

Parry, my man! has thy brave leg
Yet struck its foot against the peg
On which the world is spun?...

"This fellow's wise enough to play the fool,
And to do that well craves a kind of wit."
Twelfth Night.


I.

Joseph! they say thou'st left the stage,
To toddle down the hill of life,...

Come, let us set our careful breasts,
Like Philomel, against the thorn,
To aggravate the inward grief,
That makes her accents so forlorn;
The world has many cruel points,...

"Up with me! - up with me into the sky!"
WORDSWORTH - on a Lark.



I.

Dear Graham, whilst the busy crowd,
The vain, the wealthy, and the proud,
Their meaner flights pursue,...

Oh Peace, oh come with me and dwell -
But stop, for there's the bell.
Oh Peace! for thee I go and sit in churches
On Wednesday, when there's very few
In loft or pew -...

MY DEAR SIR - The following Ode was written anticipating the tone of
some strictures on my writings by the gentleman to whom it is
addressed. I have not seen his book; but I know by hearsay that some...

"Martin in this has proved himself a very good man!"
- Boxiana.



I.

How many sing of wars,
Of Greek and Trojan jars -
The butcheries of men!...