Cupid on a summer day,
Wearied by unceasing play,
In a rose heart sleeping lay,
While, to guard the tricksy fellow,
Close above the fragrant bed
Back and forth a gruff bee sped,
And, to lull the sleepy head,
Played “Zoom! Zoom!” upon his ‘cello.

Little did the god surmise
That sweet Anna’s cerule eyes
Gazed on him with glad surprise,
Or that he was in such danger;
But the watchman bee, in haste,
Left his post that he might taste
of the honey nature placed
On the lips of that fair stranger.

Thus unwatched, from Cupid’s side
Anna stole the boy god’s pride,
All his love darts, and then hied
Far away from capture’s chances
And today she wields the prize;
For Love’s quiver still supplies
Darts that speed from Anna’s eyes

"There dwelt a nun in Dryburgh bower
Who ne'er beheld the day."


Twilight o'er the East is stealing,
And the sun is in the vale:
'T is a fitting moment, stranger,
To relate a wondrous tale.

'Neath this moss-grown rock and hoary
We will pause awhile to rest;
See, the drowsy surf no longer
Beats against its aged breast.

Years ago, traditions tell us,
When rebellion stirred the land,
And the fiery cross was carried
O'er the hills from band to band,--

And the yeoman at its summons
Left his yet unfurrowed field,
And the leader from his fortress
Sallied forth with sword and shield,--

Where the iron cross is standing
On yon rude and crumbling wall,
Dwelt a chieftain's orphan daughter,
In her broad ancestral ...

The strong sob of the chafing stream
That seaward fights its way
Down crags of glitter, dells of gleam,
Is in the hills to-day.

But far and faint, a grey-winged form
Hangs where the wild lights wane
The phantom of a bygone storm,
A ghost of wind and rain.

The soft white feet of afternoon
Are on the shining meads,
The breeze is as a pleasant tune
Amongst the happy reeds.

The fierce, disastrous, flying fire,
That made the great caves ring,
And scarred the slope, and broke the spire,
Is a forgotten thing.

The air is full of mellow sounds,
The wet hill-heads are bright,
And down the fall of fragrant grounds,
The deep ways flame with light.

A rose-red space of stream I see,
Past banks of tender fern;
A rad...

I Thank Thee, boundless Giver,
    That the thoughts Thou givest flow
In sounds that like a river
    All through the darkness go.
And though few should swell the pleasure,
    By sharing this my wine,
My heart will clasp its treasure,
    This secret gift of Thine.

My heart the joy inherits,
    And will oft be sung to rest;
And some wandering hoping spirits
    May listen and be blest.
For the sound may break the hours
    In a dark and gloomy mood,
As the wind breaks up the bowers
    Of the brooding sunless wood.

For every sound of gladness
    Is a prophet-wind that tells
Of a summer without sadness,
    And a love without farewells;
And a heart that hath no ailing,
    And an eye that is not dim,
And a faith that...

To range, deep-wrapt, along a heavenly height,
O'erseeing all that man but undersees;
To loiter down lone alleys of delight,
And hear the beating of the hearts of trees,
And think the thoughts that lilies speak in white
By greenwood pools and pleasant passages;

With healthy dreams a-dream in flesh and soul,
To pace, in mighty meditations drawn,
From out the forest to the open knoll
Where much thyme is, whence blissful leagues of lawn
Betwixt the fringing woods to southward roll
By tender inclinations; mad with dawn,

Ablaze with fires that flame in silver dew
When each small globe doth glass the morning-star,
Long ere the sun, sweet-smitten through and through
With dappled revelations read afar,
Suffused with saintly ecstasies of blue
As all th...

To the Right Honorable Mr. Dodington.


Long, Dodington, in debt, I long have sought
To ease the burthen of my grateful thought;
And now a poet's gratitude you see;
Grant him two favours, and he'll ask for three:
For whose the present glory, or the gain?
You give protection, I a worthless strain.
You love and feel the poet's sacred flame;
And know the basis of a solid fame;
Tho' prone to like, yet cautious to commend,
You read with all the malice of a friend;
Nor favour my attempts that way alone,
But, more to raise my verse, conceal your own.
    An ill-tim'd modesty! turn ages o'er,
When wanted Britain bright examples more?
Her learning, and her genius too, decays,
And dark and cold are her declining days;
As if men now were of another cast,

Who fancied what a pretty sight
This Rock would be if edged around
With living snow-drops? circlet bright!
How glorious to this orchard-ground!
Who loved the little Rock, and set
Upon its head this coronet?

Was it the humour of a child?
Or rather of some gentle maid,
Whose brows, the day that she was styled
The shepherd-queen, were thus arrayed?
Of man mature, or matron sage?
Or old man toying with his age!

I asked 'twas whispered; The device
To each and all might well belong:
It is the Spirit of Paradise
That prompts such work, a Spirit strong,
That gives to all the self-same bent
Where life is wise and innocent.

How good it is, when overwrought,
To seek the woods and find a thought,
That to the soul's attentive sense
Delivers much in evidence
Of truths for which man long has sought
Truths, which no vulture years contrive
To rob the heart of, holding it
To all the glory infinite
Of beauty that shall aye survive.
Still shall it lure us. Year by year
Addressing now the spirit ear
With thoughts, and now the spirit eye
With visions that like gods go by,
Filling the mind with bliss and fear
In spite of modern man who mocks
The Loveliness of old, nor minds
The ancient myths, gone with the winds,
And dreams that people woods and rocks.

L' aura che 'l verde Lauro e l' aureo crine.

HE PRAYS THAT HE MAY DIE BEFORE LAURA.


    The balmy gale, that, with its tender sigh,
Moves the green laurel and the golden hair,
Makes with its graceful visitings and rare
The gazer's spirit from his body fly.
A sweet and snow-white rose in hard thorns set!
Where in the world her fellow shall we find?
The glory of our age! Creator kind!
Grant that ere hers my death shall first be met.
So the great public loss I may not see,
The world without its sun, in darkness left,
And from my desolate eyes their sole light reft,
My mind with which no other thoughts agree,
Mine ears which by no other sound are stirr'd
Except her ever pure and gentle word.

MACGREGOR.

Come, if thou'rt cold to Summer's charms,
Her clouds of green, her starry flowers,
And let this bird, this wandering bird,
Make his fine wonder yours;
He, hiding in the leaves so green,
When sampling this fair world of ours,
Cries cuckoo, clear; and like Lot's wife,
I look, though it should cost my life.

When I can hear that charmed one's voice,
I taste of immortality;
My joy's so great that on my heart
Doth lie eternity,
As light as any little flower,
So strong a wonder works in me;
Cuckoo! he cries, and fills my soul
With all that's rich and beautiful.

1.

Physician Nature! Let my spirit blood!
O ease my heart of verse and let me rest;
Throw me upon thy Tripod, till the flood
Of stifling numbers ebbs from my full breast.
A theme! a theme! great nature! give a theme;
Let me begin my dream.
I come I see thee, as thou standest there,
Beckon me not into the wintry air.

2.

Ah! dearest love, sweet home of all my fears,
And hopes, and joys, and panting miseries,
To-night, if I may guess, thy beauty wears
A smile of such delight,
As brilliant and as bright,
As when with ravished, aching, vassal eyes,
Lost in soft amaze,
I gaze, I gaze!

3.

Who now, with greedy looks, eats up my feast?
What stare outfaces now my silver moon!
Ah! keep that hand unravished at the lea...

    It was a high and holy sight,
    When Baldwin[2] and his train,
    With cross and crosier gleaming bright,
    Came chanting slow the solemn rite,
    To Gwentland's[3] pleasant plain.

    High waved before, in crimson pride,
    The banner of the Cross;
    The silver rood was then descried,
    While deacon youths, from side to side,
    The fuming censer toss.

    The monks went two and two along,
    And winding through the glade,
    Sang, as they passed, a holy song,
    And harps and citterns, 'mid the throng,
    A mingled music made.

    They ceased; when lifting high his hand,
    The white-robed prelate cried:
    Arise, arise, at Christ's command,
    To fight for his name in the Holy Land,

Even now the fragrant darkness of her hair
Had brushed my cheek; and once, in passing by,
Her hand upon my hand lay tranquilly:
What things unspoken trembled in the air!

Always I know, how little severs me
From mine heart's country, that is yet so far;
And must I lean and long across a bar,
That half a word would shatter utterly?

Ah might it be, that just by touch of hand,
Or speaking silence, shall the barrier fall;
And she shall pass, with no vain words at all,
But droop into mine arms, and understand!

    Elenor Murray asked to go in training
    And came to see me, but the school was full,
    We could not take her. Then she asked to stand
    Upon a list and wait, I put her off.
    She came back, and she came back, till at last
    I took her application; then she came
    And pushed herself and asked when she could come,
    And start to train. At last I laughed and said:
    "Well, come to-morrow." I had never seen
    Such eagerness, persistence. So she came.
    She tried to make a friend of me, perhaps
    Since it was best, I being in command.
    But anyway she wooed me, tried to please me.
    And spite of everything I grew to love her,
    Though I distrusted her. But yet again
    I had belief in her best self, though doubting
    The girl some...

Ah, how the Human Mind wearies herself
With her own wand'rings, and, involved in gloom
Impenetrable, speculates amiss!
Measuring, in her folly, things divine
By human, laws inscrib'd on adamant
By laws of Man's device, and counsels fix'd
For ever, by the hours, that pass, and die.
How? shall the face of Nature then be plow'd
Into deep wrinkles, and shall years at last
On the great Parent fix a sterile curse?
Shall even she confess old age, and halt
And, palsy-smitten, shake her starry brows?
Shall foul Antiquity with rust and drought
And famine vex the radiant worlds above?
Shall Time's unsated maw crave and engulf
The very heav'ns that regulate his flight?
And was the Sire of all able to fence
His works, and to uphold the circling worlds,
But throug...

I 'm ashamed, - that 's the fact, - it 's a pitiful case, -
Won't any kind classmate get up in my place?
Just remember how often I've risen before, -
I blush as I straighten my legs on the floor!

There are stories, once pleasing, too many times told, -
There are beauties once charming, too fearfully old, -
There are voices we've heard till we know them so well,
Though they talked for an hour they'd have nothing to tell.

Yet, Classmates! Friends! Brothers! Dear blessed old boys!
Made one by a lifetime of sorrows and joys,
What lips have such sounds as the poorest of these,
Though honeyed, like Plato's, by musical bees?

What voice is so sweet and what greeting so dear
As the simple, warm welcome that waits for us here?
The love of our boyhood still breat...

Th' mooin shone breet wi' silver leet,
An th' wind wor softly sighin;
Th' burds did sleep, an th' snails did creep,
An th' buzzards wor a flying;
Th' daisies donned ther neet caps on,
An th' buttercups wor weary,
When Jenny went to meet her John,
Her Rifleman, her dearie.

Her Johnny seemed as brave a lad
As iver held a rifle,
An if ther wor owt in him bad,
'Twor nobbut just a trifle.
He wore a suit o' sooity grey,
To show 'at he wor willin
To feight for th' Queen and country
When perfect in his drillin.

His heead wor raand, his back wor straight,
His legs wor long an steady,
His fist wor fully two pund weight,
His heart wor true an ready;
His upper lip wor graced at th' top
Wi' mustache strong an bristlin,
It railly wo...

Dear Earth, near Earth, the clay that made us men,
    The land we sowed,
    The hearth that glowed---
    O Mother, must we bid farewell to thee?
Fast dawns the last dawn, and what shall comfort then
    The lonely hearts that roam the outer sea?

Gray wakes the daybreak, the shivering sails are set,
    To misty deeps
    The channel sweeps---
    O Mother, think on us who think on thee!
Earth-home, birth-home, with love remember yet
    The sons in exile on the eternal sea.