This verse be thine, my friend, nor thou refuse
This from no venal or ungrateful Muse.
Whether thy hand strike out some free design,
Where life awakes, and dawns at every line;
Or blend in beauteous tints the colour'd mass,
And from the canvas call the mimic face:
Read these instructive leaves, in which conspire
Fresnoy's close art, and Dryden's native fire:
And, reading, wish like theirs our fate and fame,
So mix'd our studies, and so join'd our name;
Like them to shine through long succeeding age,
So just thy skill, so regular my rage.

Smit with the love of sister-arts we came,
And met congenial, mingling flame with flame;
Like friendly colours found them both unite,
And each from each contract new strength and light.
How oft in pleasing tasks we wear ...

I Saw the daughters of the Dawn come dancing o'er the hills;
The winds of Morn danced with them, oh, and all the sylphs of air:
I saw their ribboned roses blow, their gowns, of daffodils,
As over eyes of sapphire tossed the wild gold of their hair.

I saw the summer of their feet imprint the earth with dew,
And all the wildflowers open eyes in joy and wonderment:
I saw the sunlight of their hands waved at each bird that flew,
And all the birds, as with one voice, to their wild love gave vent.

"And, oh I" I said, "how fair you are I how fair! how very fair!
Oh, leap, my heart; and laugh, my heart! as laughs and leaps the Dawn!
Mount with the lark and sing with him and cast away your care!
For love and life are come again and night and sorrow gone!"

I saw the acoly...

Every day is Judgment Day,
Count on no to-morrow.
He who will not, when he may,
Act to-day, to-day, to-day,
Doth but borrow
Sorrow.

"Why, Minstrel, these untuneful murmurings
Dull, flagging notes that with each other jar?"
"Think, gentle Lady, of a Harp so far
From its own country, and forgive the strings."
A simple answer! but even so forth springs,
From the Castalian fountain of the heart,
The Poetry of Life, and all 'that' Art
Divine of words quickening insensate things.
From the submissive necks of guiltless men
Stretched on the block, the glittering axe recoils;
Sun, moon, and stars, all struggle in the toils
Of mortal sympathy; what wonder then
That the poor Harp distempered music yields
To its sad Lord, far from his native fields?

Blaspheme not thou thy sacred life, nor turn
    O'er joys that God hath for a season lent,
    Perchance to try thy spirit, and its bent,
Effeminate soul and base! weakly to mourn.
There lies no desert in the land of life,
For e'en that tract that barrenest doth seem,
Laboured of thee in faith and hope, shall teem
With heavenly harvests and rich gatherings, rife.
Haply no more, music, and mirth and love,
And glorious things of old and younger art,
Shall of thy days make one perpetual feast;
But when these bright companions all depart,
Lay thou thy head upon the ample breast
Of Hope, and thou shalt hear the angels sing above.

They leave us so to the way we took,
As two in whom them were proved mistaken,
That we sit sometimes in the wayside nook,
With mischievous, vagrant, seraphic look,
And try if we cannot feel forsaken.

The woods of Arcady are dead,
And over is their antique joy;
Of old the world on dreaming fed;
Grey Truth is now her painted toy;
Yet still she turns her restless head:
But O, sick children of the world,
Of all the many changing things
In dreary dancing past us whirled,
To the cracked tune that Chronos sings,
Words alone are certain good.
Where are now the warring kings,
Word be-mockers? -- By the Rood,
Where are now the watering kings?
An idle word is now their glory,
By the stammering schoolboy said,
Reading some entangled story:
The kings of the old time are dead;
The wandering earth herself may be
Only a sudden flaming word,
In clanging space a moment heard,
Troubling the endless reverie.
Then nowise worship dusty deeds,
Nor s...

God gives not only corn for need,
But likewise sup'rabundant seed;
Bread for our service, bread for show,
Meat for our meals, and fragments too:
He gives not poorly, taking some
Between the finger and the thumb;
But for our glut and for our store,
Fine flour press'd down, and running o'er.

I saw a child some four years old,
Along a meadow stray;
Alone she went unchecked untold
Her home not far away.

She gazed around on earth and sky
Now paused, and now proceeded;
Hill, valley, wood, she passed them by,
Unmarked, perchance unheeded.

And now gay groups of roses bright,
In circling thickets bound her
Yet on she went with footsteps light,
Still gazing all around her.

And now she paused, and now she stooped,
And plucked a little flower
A simple daisy 'twas, that drooped
Within a rosy bower.

The child did kiss the little gem,
And to her bosom pressed it;
And there she placed the fragile stem,
And with soft words caressed it.

I love to read a lesson true,
From nature's open book
And oft I lear...

I have gone sometimes by the gates of Death
And stood beside the cavern through whose doors
Enter the voyagers into the unseen.
From that dread threshold only, gazing back,
Have eyes in swift illumination seen
Life utterly revealed, and guessed therein
What things were vital and what things were vain.
Know then, like a vast ocean from my feet
Spreading away into the morning sky,
I saw unrolled my vanished days, and, lo,
Oblivion like a morning mist obscured
Toils, trials, ambitions, agitations, ease,
And like green isles, sun-kissed, with sweet perfume
Loading the airs blown back from that dim gulf,
Gleamed only through the all-involving haze
The hours when we have loved and been beloved.

Therefore, sweet friends, as often as by Love
You rise absorb...

I.

A Master of a country school
Jump'd up one day from off his stool,
Inspired with firm resolve to try
To gain the best society;
So to the nearest baths he walk'd,
And into the saloon he stalk'd.
He felt quite. startled at the door,
Ne'er having seen the like before.
To the first stranger made he now
A very low and graceful bow,
But quite forgot to bear in mind
That people also stood behind;
His left-hand neighbor's paunch he struck
A grievous blow, by great ill luck;
Pardon for this he first entreated,
And then in haste his bow repeated.
His right hand neighbor next he hit,
And begg'd him, too, to pardon it;
But on his granting his petition,
Another was in like condition;
These compliments he paid to all,
Behind, before, a...

When Love, who ruled as Admiral o'er
Has rosy mother's isles of light,
Was cruising off the Paphian shore,
    A sail at sunset hove in sight.
"A chase, a chase! my Cupids all,"
Said Love, the little Admiral.

Aloft the winged sailors sprung,
    And, swarming up the mast like bees,
The snow-white sails expanding flung,
    Like broad magnolias to the breeze.
"Yo ho, yo ho, my Cupids all!"
Said Love, the little Admiral.

The chase was o'er--the bark was caught,
    The winged crew her freight explored;
And found 'twas just as Love had thought,
    For all was contraband aboard.
"A prize, a prize, my Cupids all!"
Said Love, the little Admiral.

Safe stowed in many a package there,
    And labelled slyly o'er, as "Glass,"
Were ...

Spray of song that springs in April, light of love that laughs through May,
Live and die and live for ever: nought of all thing far less fair
Keeps a surer life than these that seem to pass like fire away.
In the souls they live which are but all the brighter that they were;
In the hearts that kindle, thinking what delight of old was there.
Wind that shapes and lifts and shifts them bids perpetual memory play
Over dreams and in and out of deeds and thoughts which seem to wear
Light that leaps and runs and revels through the springing flames of spray.
Dawn is wild upon the waters where we drink of dawn to-day:
Wide, from wave to wave rekindling in rebound through radiant air,
Flash the fires unwoven and woven again of wind that works in play,
Working wonders more than heart may note or...

You know,
Don't you, Joe,
Those merry evenings long ago?
You know the room, the narrow stair,
The wreaths of smoke that circled there,
The corner table where we sat
For hours in after-dinner chat,
And magnified
Our little world inside.
You know,
Don't you, Joe?

Ah, those nights divine!
The simple, frugal wine,
The airs on crude Italian strings,
The joyous, harmless revelings,
Just fit for us - or kings!
At times a quaint and wickered flask
Of rare Chianti, or from the homelier cask
Of modest Pilsener a stein or so,
Amid the merry talk would flow;
Or red Bordeaux
From vines that grew where dear Montaigne
Held his domain.
And you remember that dark eye,
None too shy;
In fact, she seemed a bit too free
For y...

    For every evil under the sun,
    There is a remedy, or there is none.
    If there be one, try and find it;
    If there be none, never mind it.

    True wit has seen its best days long ago;
    It ne'er look'd up, since we were dipp'd in show:
    When sense in doggerel rhymes and clouds was lost,
    And dulness flourish'd at the actors' cost.
    Nor stopp'd it here; when tragedy was done,
    Satire and humour the same fate have run,
    And comedy is sunk to trick and pun.
    Now our machining lumber will not sell,
    And you no longer care for heaven or hell;
    What stuff can please you next, the Lord can tell.
    Let them, who the rebellion first began
    To wit restore the monarch, if they can;
    Our author dares not be the first bold man.
    He, like the prudent citizen, takes care
    To keep for better marts his staple ware;
    His toys are good enough for Sturbridge fair.
    Tric...

"I am a boxer, who does not inflict blows on the air, but I hit hard and straight at my own body." -- 1 Cor. ix. 26 (WEYMOUTH'S Translation).

'T'was breakfast time, and outside in the street
The factory men went by with hurrying feet.
And on the bridge, in dim December light,
The newsboys shouted of the great prize fight.
Then, as I dished the bacon, and served out
The porridge, all our youngsters gave a shout.
The letter-box had clicked, and through the din
The Picture News was suddenly pushed in.

John showed the lads the pictures, and explained
Just how the fight took place, and what was gained
By that slim winner. Then, he looked at me
As I sat, busy, pouring out the tea:
"Your mother is a boxer, rightly styled.
She hits the air sometimes, though," and Jo...

Daisies are over Nyren, and Hambledon
Hardly remembers any summer gone:
And never again the Kentish elms shall see
Mynn, or Fuller Pilch, or Colin Blythe.
Nor shall I see them, unless perhaps a ghost
Watching the elder ghosts beyond the moon.
But here in common sunshine I have seen
George Hirst, not yet a ghost, substantial,
His off-drives mellow as brown ale, and crisp
Merry late cuts, and brave Chaucerian pulls;
Waddington's fury and the patience of Dipper;
And twenty easy artful overs of Rhodes,
So many stanzas of the Faerie Queen.