Let others boast ther bit o' brass,
That's moor nor aw can do;
Aw'm nobbut one o'th' workin class,
'At's strugglin to pool throo;
An if it's little 'at aw get,
It's little 'at aw need;
An if sometimes aw'm pinched a bit,
Aw try to nivver heed.

Some fowk they tawk o' brokken hearts,
An mourn ther sorry fate,
Becoss they can't keep sarvent men,
An dine off silver plate;
Aw think they'd show more gradely wit
To listen to my creed,
An things they find they connot get,
Why, try to nivver heed.

Ther's some 'at lang for parks an halls,
An letters to ther name;
But happiness despises walls,
It's nooan a child o' fame.
A robe may lap a woeful chap,
Whose heart wi' grief may bleed,
Wol rags may rest on joyful breast,
Soa ha...

I.

    She is a winsome wee thing,
    She is a handsome wee thing,
    She is a bonnie wee thing,
        This sweet wee wife o' mine.

II.

    I never saw a fairer,
    I never lo'ed a dearer;
    And niest my heart I'll wear her,
        For fear my jewel tine.

III.

    She is a winsome wee thing,
    She is a handsome wee thing,
    She is a bonnie wee thing,
        This sweet wee wife o' mine.

IV.

    The warld's wrack we share o't,
    The warstle and the care o't;
    Wi' her I'll blythely bear it,
        And think my lot divine.

    Vegetarian, non - resistant, free-thinker, in ethics a Christian;
    Orator apt at the rhine-stone rhythm of Ingersoll.
    Carnivorous, avenger, believer and pagan.
    Continent, promiscuous, changeable, treacherous, vain,
    Proud, with the pride that makes struggle a thing for laughter;
    With heart cored out by the worm of theatric despair.
    Wearing the coat of indifference to hide the shame of defeat;
    I, child of the abolitionist idealism -
    A sort of Brand in a birth of half-and-half.
    What other thing could happen when I defended
    The patriot scamps who burned the court house
    That Spoon River might have a new one
    Than plead them guilty?
    When Kinsey Keene drove through
    The card - board mask of my life with a spear of light,...

The moan of a wintry soul
Melted into a summer song,
And the words, like the wavelet's roll,
Moved murmuringly along.

And the song flowed far and away,
Like the voice of a half-sleeping rill --
Each wave of it lit by a ray --
But the sound was so soft and so still,

And the tone was so gentle and low,
None heard the song till it had passed;
Till the echo that followed its flow
Came dreamingly back from the past.

'Twas too late! -- a song never returns
That passes our pathway unheard;
As dust lying dreaming in urns
Is the song lying dead in a word.

For the birds of the skies have a nest,
And the winds have a home where they sleep,
And songs, like our souls, need a rest,
Where they murmur the while we may weep.

  ...

Long time his pulse hath ceased to beat
But benefits, his gift, we trace,
Expressed in every eye we meet
Round this dear Vale, his native place.

To stately Hall and Cottage rude
Flowed from his life what still they hold,
Light pleasures, every day, renewed;
And blessings half a century old.

Oh true of heart, of spirit gay,
Thy faults, where not already gone
From memory, prolong their stay
For charity's sweet sake alone.

Such solace find we for our loss;
And what beyond this thought we crave
Comes in the promise from the Cross,
Shining upon thy happy grave.

I

In youth I have known one with whom the Earth
In secret communing held, as he with it,
In daylight, and in beauty, from his birth:
Whose fervid, flickering torch of life was lit
From the sun and stars, whence he had drawn forth
A passionate light such for his spirit was fit,
And yet that spirit knew, not in the hour
Of its own fervor, what had o’er it power.


II

Perhaps it may be that my mind is wrought
To a ferver by the moonbeam that hangs o’er,
But I will half believe that wild light fraught
With more of sovereignty than ancient lore
Hath ever told, or is it of a thought
The unembodied essence, and no more
That with a quickening spell doth o’er us pass
As dew of the night-time, o’er the summer grass?


III
<...

Oft I remember those whom I have known
    In other days, to whom my heart was led
    As by a magnet, and who are not dead,
    But absent, and their memories overgrown
With other thoughts and troubles of my own,
    As graves with grasses are, and at their head
    The stone with moss and lichens so o'erspread,
    Nothing is legible but the name alone.
And is it so with them?    After long years,
    Do they remember me in the same way,
    And is the memory pleasant as to me?
I fear to ask; yet wherefore are my fears?
    Pleasures, like flowers, may wither and decay,
    And yet the root perennial may be.

Lo! I must tell a tale of chivalry;
For large white plumes are dancing in mine eye.
Not like the formal crest of latter days:
But bending in a thousand graceful ways;
So graceful, that it seems no mortal hand,
Or e’en the touch of Archimago’s wand,
Could charm them into such an attitude.
We must think rather, that in playful mood,
Some mountain breeze had turned its chief delight,
To show this wonder of its gentle might.
Lo! I must tell a tale of chivalry;
For while I muse, the lance points slantingly
Athwart the morning air: some lady sweet,
Who cannot feel for cold her tender feet,
From the worn top of some old battlement
Hails it with tears, her stout defender sent:
And from her own pure self no joy dissembling,
Wraps round her ample robe with happy tr...

Lofty and enduring is the monument I've reared:
Come, tempests, with your bitterness assailing;
And thou, corrosive blasts of time, by all things mortal feared,
Thy buffets and thy rage are unavailing!

I shall not altogether die: by far my greater part
Shall mock man's common fate in realms infernal;
My works shall live as tributes to my genius and my art,--
My works shall be my monument eternal!

While this great Roman empire stands and gods protect our fanes,
Mankind with grateful hearts shall tell the story
How one most lowly born upon the parched Apulian plains
First raised the native lyric muse to glory.

Assume, revered Melpomene, the proud estate I've won,
And, with thine own dear hand the meed supplying,
Bind thou about the forehead of thy celebr...

1.

Breeze of the night in gentler sighs
More softly murmur o'er the pillow;
For Slumber seals my Fanny's eyes,
And Peace must never shun her pillow.


2.

Or breathe those sweet Æolian strains
Stolen from celestial spheres above,
To charm her ear while some remains,
And soothe her soul to dreams of love.


3.

But Breeze of night again forbear,
In softest murmurs only sigh:
Let not a Zephyr's pinion dare
To lift those auburn locks on high.


4.

Chill is thy Breath, thou breeze of night!
Oh! ruffle not those lids of Snow;
For only Morning's cheering light
May wake the beam that lurks below.


5.

Blest be that lip and azure eye!
Sweet Fanny, hallowed be thy Sleep!

I would I might be with thee, when the year
Begins to wane, and that thou walk'st alone
Upon the rocky strand, whilst loud and clear,
The autumn wind sings, from his cloudy throne,
Wild requiems for the summer that is gone.
Or when, in sad and contemplative mood,
Thy feet explore the leafy-paven wood:
I would my soul might reason then with thine,
Upon those themes most solemn and most strange,
Which every falling leaf and fading flower,
Whisper unto us with a voice divine;
Filling the brief space of one mortal hour,
With fearful thoughts of death, decay, and change,
And the high mystery of that after birth,
That comes to us, as well as to the earth.

(On Egdon Heath)



"What are you still, still thinking,"
    He asked in vague surmise,
"That stare at the wick unblinking
    With those great lost luminous eyes?"

"O, I see a poor moth burning
    In the candle-flame," said she,
Its wings and legs are turning
    To a cinder rapidly."

"Moths fly in from the heather,"
    He said, "now the days decline."
"I know," said she. "The weather,
    I hope, will at last be fine.

"I think," she added lightly,
    "I'll look out at the door.
The ring the moon wears nightly
    May be visible now no more."

She rose, and, little heeding,
    Her husband then went on
With his attentive reading
    In the annals of ages gone.

Outside the house a figure<...

If, and the thing is wildly possible, the charge of writing nonsense were ever brought against the author of this brief but instructive poem, it would be based, I feel convinced, on the line

"Then the bowsprit got mixed with the rudder sometimes"

In view of this painful possibility, I will not (as I might) appeal indignantly to my other writings as a proof that I am incapable of such a deed: I will not (as I might) point to the strong moral purpose of this poem itself, to the arithmetical principles so cautiously inculcated in it, or to its noble teachings in Natural History, I will take the more prosaic course of simply explaining how it happened.

The Bellman, who was almost morbidly sensitive about appearances, used to have the bowsprit unshipped once or twice a week to be revarnished, and it more than o...

There is a path that leads
Through purple iron-weeds,
By button-bush and mallow
Along a creek;
A path that wildflowers hallow,
That wild birds seek;
Roofed thick with eglantine
And grape and trumpet-vine.

This side, blackberries sweet
Glow cobalt in the heat;
That side, a creamy yellow,
In summertime
The pawpaws slowly mellow;
And autumn's prime
Strews red the Chickasaw,
Persimmon brown and haw.

The glittering dragon-fly,
A wingéd flash, goes by;
And tawny wasp and hornet
Seem gleams that drone;
The beetle, like a garnet,
Slips from the stone;
And butterflies float there,
Spangling with gold the air.

Here the brown thrashers hide,
The chat and cat-bird chide;
The blue kingfisher houses
Ab...

    Spring, among her sylvan shades,
    And the gladness of her glades,
        Once in dreamy hours was straying,
    Where sweet Music with her throngs
    Of glad melodies and songs
        In the happy vales was playing.

    Pan beheld the fairy maids
    As they gamboled in the shades,
        And he swore they should not sever.
    But that o'er the blooming land,
    Heart to heart and hand in hand,
        They should wander on forever.

    Thus when come the gentle days
    O'er the wildwood's tangled ways,
        There is found no gloomy weather;
    For among the leafy bowers
    And the valleys bright with flowers
        Spring and Music walk together!

    When chirping crickets fainter cry,
    And pale stars blossom in the sky,
    And twilight's gloom has dimmed the bloom
    And blurred the butterfly:

    When locust-blossoms fleck the walk,
    And up the tiger-lily stalk
    The glow-worm crawls and clings and falls
    And glimmers down the garden-walls:

    When buzzing things, with double wings
    Of crisp and raspish flutterings,
    Go whizzing by so very nigh
    One thinks of fangs and stings: -

    O then, within, is stilled the din
    Of crib she rocks the baby in,
    And heart and gate and latch's weight
    Are lifted - and the lips of Kate.

The days grow shorter, the nights grow longer;
    The headstones thicken along the way,
And life grows sadder, but love grows stronger,
    For those who walk with us day by day.

The tear comes quicker, the laugh comes slower;
    The courage is lesser to do and dare;
And the tide of joy in the heart falls lower,
    And seldom covers the reefs of care.

But all true things in the world seem truer;
    And the better things of earth seem best,
And friends are dearer, as friends are fewer,
    And love is ALL as our sun dips west.

Then let us clasp hands as we walk together,
    And let us speak softly in love's sweet tone;
For no man knows on the morrow whether
    We two pass on - or but one alone.

The chestnut casts his flambeaux, and the flowers
Stream from the hawthorn on the wind away,
The doors clap to, the pane is blind with showers.
Pass me the can, lad; there’s an end of May.

There’s one spoilt spring to scant our mortal lot,
One season ruined of our little store.
May will be fine next year as like as not:
Oh ay, but then we shall be twenty-four.

We for a certainty are not the first
Have sat in taverns while the tempest hurled
Their hopeful plans to emptiness, and cursed
Whatever brute and blackguard made the world.

It is in truth iniquity on high
To cheat our sentenced souls of aught they crave,
And mar the merriment as you and I
Fare on our long fool’s-errand to the grave.

Iniquity it is; but pass the can.
My lad, n...