In all the towns and cities fair
On Merry England's broad expanse,
No swordsman ever could compare
With THOMAS WINTERBOTTOM HANCE.

The dauntless lad could fairly hew
A silken handkerchief in twain,
Divide a leg of mutton too
And this without unwholesome strain.

On whole half-sheep, with cunning trick,
His sabre sometimes he'd employ
No bar of lead, however thick,
Had terrors for the stalwart boy.

At Dover daily he'd prepare
To hew and slash, behind, before
Which aggravated MONSIEUR PIERRE,
Who watched him from the Calais shore.

It caused good PIERRE to swear and dance,
The sight annoyed and vexed him so;
He was the bravest man in France
He said so, and he ought to know.

"Regardez donc, ce cochon gros
Ce po...

There is a land whereon the sun's warm gaze,
    God-like, all-seeing, falls right down through space,
And the weak Earth, quite smitten by its rays,
    Lies scorch'd and powerless with mute silent face,
Like a tranced body, where no changing glow
Tells that the life-streams through its channels flow.

Peopled it is by nations scant and few,
    Set far apart among the trackless sands,
Unlearn'd, uncultured, wild and swart of hue,
    Roaming the deserts in divided bands,
Where the green pastures call them, and the deer
Troop yet within the range of bow and spear.

Unhappy Afric! can thy boundless plains,
    Where the royal lion snuffs the free pure air,
And every breeze laughs at the tyrant's chains,
    Be but the nest of slavery and despair,
Rea...

Oh, where's the slave so lowly,
Condemned to chains unholy,
    Who, could he burst
    His bonds at first,
Would pine beneath them slowly?
What soul, whose wrongs degrade it,
Would wait till time decayed it,
    When thus its wing
    At once may spring
To the throne of Him who made it?

Farewell, Erin.--farewell, all,
Who live to weep our fall!

Less dear the laurel growing,
Alive, untouched and blowing,
    Than that, whose braid
    Is plucked to shade
The brows with victory glowing
We tread the land that bore us,
Her green flag glitters o'er us,
    The friends we've tried
    Are by our side,
And the foe we hate before us.

Farewell, Erin,--farewell, all,
Who live to weep our fall!

(The Argosy, March 1866.)


If he would come to-day, to-day, to-day,
    O, what a day to-day would be!
But now he's away, miles and miles away
    From me across the sea.

O little bird, flying, flying, flying
    To your nest in the warm west,
Tell him as you pass that I am dying,
    As you pass home to your nest.

I have a sister, I have a brother,
    A faithful hound, a tame white dove;
But I had another, once I had another,
    And I miss him, my love, my love!

In this weary world it is so cold, so cold,
    While I sit here all alone;
I would not like to wait and to grow old,
    But just to be dead and gone.

Make me fair when I lie dead on my bed,
    Fair where I am lying:
Perhaps he may come and ...

    Oft has our poet wish'd, this happy seat
    Might prove his fading Muse's last retreat:
    I wonder'd at his wish, but now I find
    He sought for quiet, and content of mind;
    Which noiseful towns, and courts can never know,
    And only in the shades like laurels grow.
    Youth, ere it sees the world, here studies rest,
    And age returning thence concludes it best.
    What wonder if we court that happiness
    Yearly to share, which hourly you possess;
    Teaching even you, while the vex'd world we show,
    Your peace to value more, and better know?
    'Tis all we can return for favours past,
    Whose holy memory shall ever last;
    For patronage from him whose care presides
    O'er every noble art, and every science guides:
    Bathurst,<...

Se 'l pensier che mi strugge.

HE SEEKS IN VAIN TO MITIGATE HIS WOE.


    Oh! that my cheeks were taught
By the fond, wasting thought
To wear such hues as could its influence speak;
Then the dear, scornful fair
Might all my ardour share;
And where Love slumbers now he might awake!
Less oft the hill and mead
My wearied feet should tread;
Less oft, perhaps, these eyes with tears should stream;
If she, who cold as snow,
With equal fire would glow--
She who dissolves me, and converts to flame.

Since Love exerts his sway,
And bears my sense away,
I chant uncouth and inharmonious songs:
Nor leaves, nor blossoms show,
Nor rind, upon the bough,
What is the nature that thereto belongs.
Love, and those beauteous eyes,

Life, thou art misery, or as such to me;
One name serves both, or I no difference see;
Tho' some there live would call thee heaven below,
But that's a nickname I've not learn'd to know:
A wretch with poverty and pains replete,
Where even useless stones beneath his feet
Cannot be gather'd up to say "they're mine,"
Sees little heaven in a life like thine.
Hope lends a sorry shelter from thy storms,
And largely promises, but small performs.
O irksome life! were but this hour my last!
This weary breath fain sighs for its decay;
O that my soul death's dreary vale had past,
And met the sunshine of a better day!

In the early morning-shine
Of a certain day divine,
I beheld a Maiden stand
With a pitcher in her hand;
Whence she poured into a cup
Until it was half filled up
Nectar that was golden light
In the cup of crystal bright.

And the first who took the cup
With pure water filled it up;
As he drank then, it was more
Ruddy golden than before:
And he leapt and danced and sang
As to Bacchic cymbals’ clang.

But the next who took the cup
With the red wine filled it up;
What he drank then was in hue
Of a heavy sombre blue:
First he reeled and then he crept,
Then lay faint but never slept.

And the next who took the cup
With the white milk filled it up;
What he drank at first seemed blood,
Then turned thick and brown as mu...

Under the snow in the dark and the cold,
    A pale little sprout was humming;
Sweetly it sang, 'neath the frozen mold,
    Of the beautiful days that were coming.

"How foolish your songs," said a lump of clay,
    "What is there, I ask, to prove them?
Just look at the walls between you and the day,
    Now, have you the strength to move them?"

But under the ice and under the snow
    The pale little sprout kept singing,
"I cannot tell how, but I know, I know,
    I know what the days are bringing."

"Birds, and blossoms, and buzzing bees,
    Blue, blue skies above me,
Bloom on the meadows and buds on the trees,
    And the great glad sun to love me."

A pebble spoke next: "You are quite absurd."
    It said, "with your song's insis...

    "Life's day is too brief," he said at dawn,
    "I would it were ten times longer,
    For great tasks wait for me further on."
    At noonday the wish was stronger.

    His place was in the thick of the strife,
    And hopes were nearing completeness,
    While one was crowning the joys of life
    With love's own wonderful sweetness.

    "Life's day is too brief for all it contains,
    The triumphs, the fighting, the proving,
    The hopes and desires, the joys and the pains -
    Too brief for the hating and loving."

            *        *        *        *        *

    To-night he sits in the shadows gray,
    While heavily sorrow presses.
    O the long, long day! O the weary day,
    With its failures and successes!

The bird within its nest
    Has sung its evening hymn,
And I must go to quiet rest,
    As the bright west grows dim.

I see the twinkling star,
    That, when the sun has gone,
Is shining out the first afar,
    To tell us day is done.

If on this day I've been
    A selfish, naughty child,
May God forgive the wrong I've done,
    And make me kind and mild.

May he still bless and keep
    My father, mother dear;
And may the eye that cannot sleep
    Watch o'er our pillows here,

And guard us from all ill,
    Through this long, silent night,
And bring us, by His holy will,
    To see the morning light.

Ere the morn the East has crimsoned,
When the stars are twinkling there,
(As they did in Watts's Hymns, and
Made him wonder what they were:)
When the forest-nymphs are beading
Fern and flower with silvery dew -
My infallible proceeding
Is to wake, and think of you.

When the hunter's ringing bugle
Sounds farewell to field and copse,
And I sit before my frugal
Meal of gravy-soup and chops:
When (as Gray remarks) "the moping
Owl doth to the moon complain,"
And the hour suggests eloping -
Fly my thoughts to you again.

May my dreams be granted never?
Must I aye endure affliction
Rarely realised, if ever,
In our wildest works of fiction?
Madly Romeo loved his Juliet;
Copperfield began to pine
When he hadn't been to school ye...

Here Rose and Magnolia
Our dearest enshrine,
The prayer of the south wind
Is thine and is mine,
For Child and for Mother
Here sweetly twice isled,
Brave Seamen are praying
For Mother and Child.

Where State must surround them
Beneath the Great Keep,
And green oaks of Windsor
Shade River and Steep,
For Child and Queen-Mother
The choristers aisled,
With armed men are chanting
For Mother and Child.

Away where the Heather
Blooms far o'er the Pine,
The Highlander's blessing
Is mine and is thine,
For Child and for Mother
Beloved and mild;
What heart does not bless them,
Dear Mother and Child.

Her arms across her breast she laid;
She was more fair than words can say;
Barefooted came the beggar maid
Before the king Cophetua.
In robe and crown the king stept down,
To meet and greet her on her way;
‘It is no wonder,’ said the lords,
‘She is more beautiful than day.’

As shines the moon in clouded skies,
She in her poor attire was seen;
One praised her ankles, one her eyes,
One her dark hair and lovesome mien.
So sweet a face, such angel grace,
In all that land had never been.
Cophetua sware a royal oath:
‘This beggar maid shall be my queen!’

Up, up, into the vast extended space,
Thou art ascending in thy majesty,
Beautiful moon, the queen of the pale sky!
But what is that which gathers on thy face,
A dark mysterious shade, eclipsing, slow,
The splendour of thy calm and steadfast light?
It is the shadow of this world of woe,
Of this vast moving world; portentous sight!
As if we almost stood and saw more near
Its very action - almost heard it roll
On, in the swiftness of its dread career,
As it hath rolled for ages! Hush, my soul!
Listen! there is no sound; but we could hear
The murmur of its multitudes, who toil
Through their brief hour. The heart might well recoil;
But this is ever sounding in His ear
Who made it, and who said, "Let there be light!"
And we, the creatures of a mortal hour,

E ach wish, my fairest child, I pen,
F or thee I write with earnest heart;
F or who shall say, that ere, again,
I shall behold thee; when we part
E 'en now the time is near, I start.

H ere are my wishes, then, sweet child,
A long life's pathway may thou go,
R ob'd white, as now, in virtue mild,
R etaining pure, thy virtue's snow.
I wish thee this, and wish thee more,--
S o long as thou on earth hath life,
O h! may thy heart be never sore,
N or vex'd with anxious care or strife!

Come home! come home! O loved and lost, we sigh
Thus, ever, while the weary days go by,
And bring thee not. We miss thy bright, young face,
Thy bounding step, thy form of girlish grace,
            Thy pleasant, tuneful voice, -
We miss thee when the dewy evening hours
Come with their coolness to our garden, bowers, -
We miss thee when the warbler's tuneful lay
Welcomes the rising glories of the day
            And all glad things rejoice!

Come home! - the vine that climbs our cottage eaves,
Hath a low murmur 'mid its glossy leaves
When the south wind sweeps by, that seems to be
Too deeply laden with sad thoughts of thee -
            Of thee, our absent one! -
The roses blossom, and their beauties die,
And the sweet violet opes its pensive eye
By t...

Here's to the four hinges of Friendship -
Swearing, Lying, Stealing and Drinking.
When you swear, swear by your country;
When you lie, lie for a pretty woman,
When you steal, steal away from bad company
And when you drink, drink with me.