I hate the very noise of troublous man Who did and does me all the harm he can. Free from the world I would a prisoner be And my own shadow all my company; And lonely see the shooting stars appear,...
"Unriddle this riddle, my own Jenny love, Unriddle this riddle for me, And if ye unriddle the riddle aright, A kiss your prize shall be, And if ye riddle the riddle all wrong,...
The Spring is come forth, but no Spring is for me Like the Spring of my boyhood on woodland and lea, When flowers brought me heaven and knew me again, In the joy of their blooming o'er mountain and plain....
'T was somewhere in the April time, Not long before the May, A-sitting on a bank o' thyme I heard a maiden say, "My true love is a sailor, And ere he went away We spent a year together,...
O Native scenes, nought to my heart clings nearer Than you, ye Edens of my youthful hours; Nought in this world warms my affections dearer Than you, ye plains of white and yellow flowers;...
Sweet comes the morning In Nature's adorning, And bright shines the dew on the buds of the thorn, Where Mary Ann rambles Through the sloe trees and brambles;...
All nature owns with one accord The great and universal Lord: The sun proclaims him through the day, The moon when daylight drops away, The very darkness smiles to wear...
Serene she looks, she wears an angel's form, Her arching eyes are fix'd upon the sky, Gloomy, yet glist'ning 'tween black curls wip'd by, Like a bright rainbow painted on the storm:...
How sweet it us'd to be, when April first Unclos'd the arum-leaves, and into view Its ear-like spindling flowers their cases burst, Beting'd with yellowish white or lushy hue:...
O silly love! O cunning love! An old maid to trepan: I cannot go about my work For loving of a man. I cannot bake, I cannot brew, And, do the best I can, I burn the bread and chill the mash,...
And will she leave the lowly clowns For silk and satins gay, Her woollen aprons and drab gowns For lady's cold array? And will she leave the wild hedge rose, The redbreast and the wren,...
Agen I'll take my idle pen And sing my bonny mountain maid-- Sweet Phoebe of the Scottish glen, Nor of her censure feel afraid. I'll charm her ear with beauty's praise,...
Spring's sweets they are not fled, though Summer's blossom Has met its blight of sadness, drooping low; Still flowers gone by find beds in memory's bosom, Life's nursling buds among the weeds of woe....
Here morning in the ploughman's songs is met Ere yet one footstep shows in all the sky, And twilight in the east, a doubt as yet, Shows not her sleeve of grey to know her bye....
Upon the sabbath, sweet it is to walk 'Neath wood-side shelter of oak's spreading tree, Or by a hedge-row track, or padded balk; Or stretch 'neath willows on the meadow lea,...
She hastens out and scarcely pins her clothes To hear the news and tell the news she knows; She talks of sluts, marks each unmended gown, Her self the dirtiest slut in all the town....