Loneliness

Poor Dick nah sleeps quietly, his labor is done,
Deeath shut off his steam tother day;
His engine, long active, has made its last run,
An his boiler nah falls to decay.
Maybe he'd his faults, but he'd vartues as well,
An tho' dearly he loved a gooid spree;
If he did onny harm it wor done to hissel: -
He wor allus a gooid friend to me.

His heart it wor tender, - his purse it wor free,
To a friend or a stranger i' need;
An noa matter ha humble or poor they might be,
At his booard they wor welcome to feed.
Wi' his pipe an his glass bi his foirside he'd sit,
Yet some fowk wi' him couldn't agree,
An tho' monny's the time 'at we've differed a bit,
He wor allus a gooid friend to me.

His word wor his bond, for he hated a lie,
An sickophants doubly des...

After the feast, my Shapcot, see
The fairy court I give to thee;
Where we'll present our Oberon, led
Half-tipsy to the fairy bed,
Where Mab he finds, who there doth lie,
Not without mickle majesty.
Which done, and thence remov'd the light,
We'll wish both them and thee good-night.

Full as a bee with thyme, and red
As cherry harvest, now high fed
For lust and action, on he'll go
To lie with Mab, though all say no.
Lust has no ears; he's sharp as thorn,
And fretful, carries hay in's horn,
And lightning in his eyes; and flings
Among the elves, if moved, the stings
Of peltish wasps; well know his guard -
Kings, though they're hated, will be fear'd.
Wine lead[s] him on. Thus to a grove,
Sometimes devoted unto love,
Tinselled with tw...

I know not whence I came,
    I know not whither I go;
But the fact stands clear that I am here
    In this world of pleasure and woe.
And out of the mist and murk,
    Another truth shines plain.
It is in my power each day and hour
    To add to its joy or its pain.

I know that the earth exists,
    It is none of my business why.
I cannot find out what it's all about,
    I would but waste time to try.
My life is a brief, brief thing,
    I am here for a little space.
And while I stay I would like, if I may,
    To brighten and better the place.

The trouble, I think, with us all
    Is the lack of a high conceit.
If each man thought he was sent to this spot
    To make it a bit more sweet,
How soon we could gladden the world.

She bewitched me in my childhood,
And the witch's charm is hidden -
Far beyond the wicked wildwood
I shall find it, I am bidden.

She commands me, she who bound me
With soft sorcery to follow;
In a golden snare who wound me
To her bosom's snowy hollow....

Comes a night-dark stallion sired
Of the wind; a mare his mother
Whom Thessalian madness fired,
And the hurricane his brother.

Then my soul delays no longer:
Though the night around is scowling,
Keenly mount him blacker, stronger
Than the tempest that is howling.

At our ears wild shadows whistle;
Brazen forks the lightning o'er us
Flames; and huge the thunder's missile
Bursts behind us, drags before us.

Over fire-scorched fields of stubble;
Iron forests da...

As dew leaves the cobweb lightly
Threaded with stars,
Scattering jewels on the fence
And the pasture bars;
As dawn leaves the dry grass bright
And the tangled weeds
Bearing a rainbow gem
On each of their seeds;
So has your love, my lover,
Fresh as the dawn,
Made me a shining road
To travel on,
Set every common sight
Of tree or stone
Delicately alight
For me alone.

Seen my lady home las' night,
Jump back, honey, jump back.
Hel' huh han' an' sque'z it tight,
Jump back, honey, jump back.
Hyeahd huh sigh a little sigh,
Seen a light gleam f'om huh eye,
An' a smile go flittin' by--
Jump back, honey, jump back.

Hyeahd de win' blow thoo de pine,
Jump back, honey, jump back.
Mockin'-bird was singin' fine,
Jump back, honey, jump back.
An' my hea't was beatin' so,
When I reached my lady's do',
Dat I could n't ba' to go--
Jump back, honey, jump back.

Put my ahm aroun' huh wais',
Jump back, honey, jump back.
Raised huh lips an' took a tase,
Jump back, honey, jump back.
Love me, honey, love me true?
Love me well ez I love you?
An' she answe'd, "'Cose I do"--
Jump back, honey, jump back.

Farewell! a long farewell! O Poverty,
Affection's fondest dream how hast thou reft!
But though, on thy stern brow no trace is left
Of youthful joys, that on the cold heart die,
With thee a sad companionship I seek,
Content, if poor; for patient wretchedness,
Tearful, but uncomplaining of distress,
Who turns to the rude storm her faded cheek;
And Piety, who never told her wrong;
And calm Content, whose griefs no more rebel;
And Genius, warbling sweet, his saddest song,
When evening listens to some village knell,
Long banished from the world's insulting throng;
With thee, and thy unfriended children dwell.

Beside a crib that holds a baby's stocking,
A tattered picture book, a broken toy,
A sleeping mother dreams that she is rocking
    Her fair-haired cherub boy.

Upon the cradle's side her light touch keeping,
She gently rocks it, crooning low a song;
And smiles to think her little one is sleeping,
    So peacefully and long.

Step light, breathe low, break not her rapturous dreaming,
Wake not the sleeper from her trance of joy,
For never more save in sweet slumber-seeming
    Will she watch o'er her boy.

God pity her when from her dream Elysian
She wakes to see the empty crib, and weep;
Knowing her joy was but a sleeper's vision,
    Tread lightly -let her sleep.

The forest huge of ancient Caledon
Is but a name, no more is Inglewood,
That swept from hill to hill, from flood to flood:
On her last thorn the nightly moon has shone;
Yet still, though unappropriate Wild be none,
Fair parks spread wide where Adam Bell might deign
With Clym o' the Clough, were they alive again,
To kill for merry feast their venison.
Nor wants the holy Abbot's gliding Shade
His church with monumental wreck bestrown;
The feudal Warrior-chief, a Ghost unlaid,
Hath still his castle, though a skeleton,
That he may watch by night, and lessons con
Of power that perishes, and rights that fade.

Half close your eyelids, loosen your hair,
And dream about the great and their pride;
They have spoken against you everywhere,
But weigh this song with the great and their pride;
I made it out of a mouthful of air,
Their children’s children shall say they have lied.

Morn hath a secret that she never tells:
'Tis on her lips and in her maiden eyes -
I think it is the way to Paradise,
Or of the Fount of Youth the crystal wells.
The bee hath no such honey in her cells
Sweet as the balm that in her bosom lies,
As in her garden of the budding skies
She walks among the silver asphodels.

He that is loveless and of heart forlorn,
Let him but leave behind his haunted bed,
And set his feet toward yonder singing star,
Shall have for sweetheart this same secret morn;
She shall come running to him from afar,
And on her cool breast lay his lonely head.

        Let the sea make a noise, let the floods clap their hands.

                                                                                                            PSALM XCVIII.


    Sweet rural scene!
    Of flocks and green!
At careless ease my limbs are spread;
    All nature still,
    But yonder rill;
And list'ning pines nod o'er my head:

    In prospect wide,
    The boundless tide!
Waves cease to foam, and winds to roar;
    Without a breeze,
    The curling seas
Dance on, in measure to the shore.

    Who sings the source
    Of wealth and force?
Vast field of commerce, and big war,
    Where wonders dwell!
    Where terrors swell!
And Neptune thunders from his car?

    Where? where are t...

1.
How, my dear Mary, are you critic-bitten
(For vipers kill, though dead) by some review,
That you condemn these verses I have written,
Because they tell no story, false or true?
What, though no mice are caught by a young kitten,
May it not leap and play as grown cats do,
Till its claws come? Prithee, for this one time,
Content thee with a visionary rhyme.

2.
What hand would crush the silken-winged fly,
The youngest of inconstant April's minions,
Because it cannot climb the purest sky,
Where the swan sings, amid the sun's dominions?
Not thine. Thou knowest 'tis its doom to die,
When Day shall hide within her twilight pinions
The lucent eyes, and the eternal smile,
Serene as thine, which lent it life awhile.

3.
To thy fair feet a win...

In the midway of this our mortal life,
I found me in a gloomy wood, astray
Gone from the path direct: and e'en to tell
It were no easy task, how savage wild
That forest, how robust and rough its growth,
Which to remember only, my dismay
Renews, in bitterness not far from death.
Yet to discourse of what there good befell,
All else will I relate discover'd there.
How first I enter'd it I scarce can say,
Such sleepy dullness in that instant weigh'd
My senses down, when the true path I left,
But when a mountain's foot I reach'd, where clos'd
The valley, that had pierc'd my heart with dread,
I look'd aloft, and saw his shoulders broad
Already vested with that planet's beam,
Who leads all wanderers safe through every way.

Then was a little respite to the ...

    Now Robin lies in his last lair,
    He'll gabble rhyme, nor sing nae mair,
    Cauld poverty, wi' hungry stare,
        Nae mair shall fear him;
    Nor anxious fear, nor cankert care,
        E'er mair come near him.

    To tell the truth, they seldom fash't him,
    Except the moment that they crush't him;
    For sune as chance or fate had hush't 'em,
        Tho' e'er sae short,
    Then wi' a rhyme or song he lash't 'em,
        And thought it sport.

    Tho' he was bred to kintra wark,
    And counted was baith wight and stark.
    Yet that was never Robin's mark
        To mak a man;
    But tell him he was learned and clark,
        Ye roos'd him than!

Whence comes it that there liveth not
A man contented with his lot?
Here's one who would a soldier be,
Whom soldiers all with envy see.

A fox to be a wolf once sigh'd.
With disappointments mortified,
Who knows but that, his wolfship cheap,
The wolf himself would be a sheep?

I marvel that a prince[1] is able,
At eight, to put the thing in fable;
While I, beneath my seventy snows,
Forge out, with toil and time,
The same in labour'd rhyme,
Less striking than his prose.

The traits which in his work we meet,
A poet, it must be confess'd,
Could not have half so well express'd:
He bears the palm as more complete.
'Tis mine to sing it to the pipe;
But I expect that when the sands
Of Time have made my hero ripe,
He'...

Last night
I watched a star fall like a great pearl into the sea,
Till my ego expanding encompassed sea and star,
Containing both as in a trembling cup.

Whence are ye, vague desires,
Which carry men along,
However proud and strong;
Which, having ruled to-day,
To-morrow pass away?
Whence are ye, vague desires?
Whence are ye?

Which women, yielding to,
Find still so good and true;
So true, so good to-day,
To-morrow gone away.
Whence are ye, vague desires?
Whence are ye?

From seats of bliss above,
Where angels sing of love;
From subtle airs around,
Or from the vulgar ground,
Whence are ye, vague desires?
Whence are ye?

A message from the blest,
Or bodily unrest;
A call to heavenly good,
A fever in the blood
What are ye, vague desires?
What are ye?

Which men who know you best
Are proof against the least,
And rushing on to-day,
To-mo...