Friendship

He gave us all a good-bye cheerily
    At the first dawn of day;
We dropped him down the side full drearily
    When the light died away.
It's a dead dark watch that he's a-keeping there,
And a long, long night that lags a-creeping there,
Where the Trades and the tides roll over him
    And the great ships go by.

He's there alone with green seas rocking him
    For a thousand miles round;
He's there alone with dumb things mocking him,
    And we're homeward bound.
It's a long, lone watch that he's a-keeping there,
And a dead cold night that lags a-creeping there,
While the months and the years roll over him
    And the great ships go by.

I wonder if the tramps come near enough
    As they thrash to and fro,
And the battle-ships' bells rin...

I Picked a rustic nosegay lately,
And bore it homewards, musing greatly;
When, heated by my hand, I found
The heads all drooping tow'rd the ground.
I plac'd them in a well-cool'd glass,
And what a wonder came to pass
The heads soon raised themselves once more.
The stalks were blooming as before,
And all were in as good a case
As when they left their native place.


*    *    *    *

So felt I, when I wond'ring heard
My song to foreign tongues transferr'd.

'Your ringlets, your ringlets,
That look so golden-gay,
If you will give me one, but one,
To kiss it night and day,
The never chilling touch of Time
Will turn it silver-gray;
And then shall I know it is all true gold
To flame and sparkle and stream as of old.
Till all the comets in heaven are cold,
And all her stars decay.'
'Then take it, love, and put it by;
This cannot change, nor yet can I.'

'My ringlet, my ringlet,
That art so golden-gay,
Now never chilling touch of Time
Can turn thee silver-gray;
And a lad may wink, and a girl may hint,
And a fool may say his say;
For my doubts and fears were all amiss,
And I swear henceforth by this and this,
That a doubt will only come for a kiss,
And a fear to be kiss'd away.'
'Then ...

Dainty little Love came tripping
    Down the hill,
Smiling as he thought of sipping
    Sweets at will.
        SHE said, "No,
        Love must go."
Dainty little Love came tripping
    Down the hill.

Dainty little Love went sighing
    Up the hill,
All his little hopes were dying -
    Love was ill.
        Vain he tried
        Tears to hide.
Dainty little Love went sighing
    Up the hill.

Redoubted King, of courage leonine,
I mark thee, Richard! urgent to equip
Thy warlike person with the staff and scrip;
I watch thee sailing o'er the midland brine;
In conquered Cyprus see thy Bride decline
Her blushing cheek, love-vows upon her lip,
And see love-emblems streaming from thy ship,
As thence she holds her way to Palestine.
My Song, a fearless homager, would attend
Thy thundering battle-axe as it cleaves the press
Of war, but duty summons her away
To tell how, finding in the rash distress
Of those Enthusiasts a subservient friend,
To giddier heights hath clomb the Papal sway.

1.
Bear witness, Erin! when thine injured isle
Sees summer on its verdant pastures smile,
Its cornfields waving in the winds that sweep
The billowy surface of thy circling deep!
Thou tree whose shadow o'er the Atlantic gave
Peace, wealth and beauty, to its friendly wave, its blossoms fade,
And blighted are the leaves that cast its shade;
Whilst the cold hand gathers its scanty fruit,
Whose chillness struck a canker to its root.

2.
I could stand
Upon thy shores, O Erin, and could count
The billows that, in their unceasing swell,
Dash on thy beach, and every wave might seem
An instrument in Time the giant's grasp,
To burst the barriers of Eternity.
Proceed, thou giant, conquering and to conquer;
March on thy lonely way! The nations fall
Bene...

Once upon a time there lived a Tinkle-Tinkle. I cannot tell you what he was like, because no man knows, not even the Tinkle-Tinkle himself. Sometimes he lived on the ground, sometimes in a tree, sometimes in the water, sometimes in a cave; and I can't tell you what he lived on, for no man knows, not even the Tinkle-Tinkle himself.

One day the Tinkle-Tinkle was going through a wood, when he heard a piteous weeping. He stopped, for he was a kindly Tinkle-Tinkle, and found two small dormice sobbing under a tree because they had been cruelly deserted by their parents. He wiped their eyes tenderly and took them to his cave home; but I cannot tell you how he went, for no man knows, not even the Tinkle-Tinkle. However, when he got there he put the dormice to bed in his grandmother's boots, for which he had never found any use before, ...

        [One version of the following song, which I believe to be the genuine one, is written on the last leaf of MS. Harl. 6580, between the lines of a fragment of an old charter, originally used for binding the book, in a hand of the end of the seventeenth century, but unfortunately it is scarcely adapted for the "ears polite" of modern days.]

    A man of words and not of deeds,
    Is like a garden full of weeds;
    And when the weeds begin to grow,
    It's like a garden full of snow;
    And when the snow begins to fall,
    It's like a bird upon the wall;
    And when the bird away does fly,
    It's like an eagle in the sky;
    And when the sky begins to roar,
    It's like a lion at the door;
    And when the door begins to crack,
    It's like a stick across you...

Who supports herself, and an aged and infirm Mother, by selling Stockings and Gloves of her own Knitting, which she offers to Travellers as they pass by; in doing which she has been known to run close by the Side of a Carriage for several Miles.

Poor Blind Bet.


The morning purple on the hill,
The village spire, the ivy'd tow'r,
The sparkling wheel of yonder mill,
The grove, green field, and op'ning flow'r,
Are lost to thee!

Dark child of Nature, as thou art!
Yet thy poor bosom heaves no sigh;
E'en now thy dimpling cheeks impart
Their knowledge of some pleasure nigh: -
'Tis good for thee!

Thou seem'st to say "I've sunshine too;
'Tis beaming in a spotless breast;
No shade of guilt obstructs the view,
And there are many not so blest,

When the horns wear thin
And the noise, like a garment outworn,
Falls from the night,
The tattered and shivering night,
That thinks she is gay;
When the patient silence comes back,
And retires,
And returns,
Rebuffed by a ribald song,
Wounded by vehement cries,
Fleeing again to the stars
Ashamed of her sister the night;
Oh, then they steal home,
The blinded, the pitiful ones
With their gew-gaws still in their hands,
Reeling with odorous breath
And thick, coarse words on their tongues.
They get them to bed, somehow,
And sleep the forgiving,
Comes thru the scattering tumult
And closes their eyes.
The stars sink down ashamed
And the dawn awakes,
Like a youth who steals from a brothel,
Dizzy and sick.

I love a woman tenderly,
But cannot know if she loves me.
I press her hand, her lips I kiss,
But still love's full assurance miss.
Our waking life for ever seems
Cleft by a veil of doubt and dreams.

But love and night and sleep combine
In dreams to make her wholly mine.
A sure love lights her eyes' deep blue,
Her hands and lips are warm and true.
Always the fact unreal seems,
And truth I find alone in dreams.

[1]


        at Paris[2] et Fratres, et qui rapure sub illis.
        vix tenuere manus (scis hoc, Menelae) nefandas.
        OVID. Metam. lib. xiii. v. 202.


Go, Brothers in wisdom--go, bright pair of Peers,
    And my Cupid and Fame fan you both with their pinions!
The one, the best lover we have--of his years,
    And the other Prime Statesman of Britain's dominions.

Go, Hero of Chancery, blest with the smile
    Of the Misses that love and the monarchs that prize thee;
Forget Mrs. Angelo Taylor awhile,
    And all tailors but him who so well dandifies thee.

Never mind how thy juniors in gallantry scoff,
    Never heed how perverse affidavits may thwart thee,
But show the young...

When like an eaglet I first found my love,
For that the virtue I thereof would know,
Upon the nest I set it forth to prove
If it were of that kingly kind or no;
    But it no sooner saw my sun appear,
But on her rays with open eyes it stood,
To show that I had hatched it for the air,
And rightly came from that brave mounting brood;
    And when the plumes were summed with sweet desire,
To prove the pinions it ascends the skies;
Do what I could, it needsly would aspire
To my soul's sun, those two celestial eyes.
    Thus from my breast, where it was bred alone,
    It after thee is like an eaglet flown.

I hear them say to me, your crystal eyes,
'Strange love, what merit do you find in me?'
Be charming and be still! My heart, disturbed
By all except the candour of the flesh

Prefers to hide the secret of its hell
From you whose hand would rock me into sleep,
Nor will it show the legend writ with flame.
Passion I hate, and spirit plays me false!

Let us love gently. Eros in his den,
Hiding in sombre ambush, bends his bow.
I know his arsenal, his worn-out bolts,

Crime, madness, horror-oh pale marguerite,
Are we not both like the autumnal sun,
My o so cool, my fading Marguerite?

I.

Life and Thought have gone away
Side by side,
Leaving door and windows wide;
Careless tenants they!



II.

All within is dark as night:
In the windows is no light;
And no murmur at the door,
So frequent on its hinge before.



III.

Close the door, the shutters close,
Or thro’ the windows we shall see
The nakedness and vacancy
Of the dark deserted house.



IV.

Come away; no more of mirth
Is here or merry-making sound.
The house was builded of the earth,
And shall fall again to ground.



V.

Come away; for Life and Thought
Here no longer dwell,
But in a city glorious–
A great and distant city–have bought
A mansion incorruptib...

                    Ye have sung me your songs, ye have chanted your rimes
                    (I scorn your beguiling, O sea!)
                    Ye fondle me now, but to strike me betimes.
                    (A treacherous lover, the sea!)
                    Once I saw as I lay, half-awash in the night
                    A hull in the gloom -- a quick hail -- and a light
                    And I lurched o'er to leeward and saved her for spite
                    From the doom that ye meted to me.

                    I was sister to 'Terrible', seventy-four,
                    (Yo ho! for the swing of the sea!)
                    And ye sank her in fathoms a thousand or more
                    (Alas! for the might of the sea!)
                    Ye taunt me and si...

(Lines on the loss of the "Titanic")

I

    In a solitude of the sea
    Deep from human vanity,
And the Pride of Life that planned her, stilly couches she.

II

    Steel chambers, late the pyres
    Of her salamandrine fires,
Cold currents thrid, and turn to rhythmic tidal lyres.

III

    Over the mirrors meant
    To glass the opulent
The sea-worm crawls grotesque, slimed, dumb, indifferent.

IV

    Jewels in joy designed
    To ravish the sensuous mind
Lie lightless, all their sparkles bleared and black and blind.

V

    Dim moon-eyed fishes near
    Gaze at the gilded gear
And query: "What does this vaingloriousness down here?" . . .

VI

    Well: while was fash...

My love stood at the loanin' side
    An' held me by the hand,
The bonniest lad that e'er did bide
    In a' this waefu' land -
There's but ae bonnier to be seen
    Frae Pentland to the sea,
And for his sake but yestre'en
    I sent my love frae me.

I gi'ed my love the white white rose
    That's at my feyther's wa',
It is the bonniest flower that grows
    Whaur ilka flower is braw;
There's but ae bonnier that I ken
    Frae Perth unto the main,
An' that's the flower o' Scotland's men
    That's fechtin' for his ain.

Gin I had kept whate'er was mine
    As I hae gie'd my best,
My he'rt were licht by day, and syne
    The nicht wad bring me rest;
There is nae heavier he'rt to find
    Frae Forfar toon to Ayr,
As aye I...