Some like drink In a pint pot, Some like to think; Some not. Strong Dutch Cheese, Old Kentucky Rye, Some like these; Not I. Some like Poe And others like Scott, Some like Mrs. Stowe; Some not. Some li...

Here, perfect to a wish, We offer, not a dish, But just the platter: A book that’s not a book, A pamphlet in the look But not the matter. I own in disarray; As to the flowers of May The frosts of Wint...

As seamen on the seas With song and dance descry Adown the morning breeze An islet in the sky: In Araby the dry, As o’er the sandy plain The panting camels cry To smell the coming rain. So all things ...

The pamphlet here presented Was planned and printed by A printer unindent-ed, A bard whom all decry. The author and the printer, With various kinds of skill, Concocted it in Winter At Davos on the Hil...

See how the children in the print Bound on the book to see what’s in’t! O, like these pretty babes, may you Seize and apply this volume too! And while your eye upon the cuts With harmless ardour open ...

Reader, your soul upraise to see, In yon fair cut designed by me, The pauper by the highwayside Vainly soliciting from pride. Mark how the Beau with easy air Contemns the anxious rustic’s prayer, And ...

Broad gazing on untrodden lands, See where adventurous Cortez stands; While in the heavens above his head, The Eagle seeks its daily bread. How aptly fact to fact replies: Heroes and Eagles, hills and...

See in the print, how moved by whim Trumpeting Jumbo, great and grim, Adjusts his trunk, like a cravat, To noose that individual’s hat. The sacred Ibis in the distance Joys to observe his bold resista...

Mark, printed on the opposing page, The unfortunate effects of rage. A man (who might be you or me) Hurls another into the sea. Poor soul, his unreflecting act His future joys will much contract, And ...

With storms a-weather, rocks a-lee, The dancing skiff puts forth to sea. The lone dissenter in the blast Recoils before the sight aghast. But she, although the heavens be black, Holds on upon the star...

The careful angler chose his nook At morning by the lilied brook, And all the noon his rod he plied By that romantic riverside. Soon as the evening hours decline Tranquilly he’ll return to dine, And b...

The Abbot for a walk went out A wealthy cleric, very stout, And Robin has that Abbot stuck As the red hunter spears the buck. The djavel or the javelin Has, you observe, gone bravely in, And you may h...

The frozen peaks he once explored, But now he’s dead and by the board. How better far at home to have stayed Attended by the parlour maid, And warmed his knees before the fire Until the hour when folk...

Industrious pirate! see him sweep The lonely bosom of the deep, And daily the horizon scan From Hatteras or Matapan. Be sure, before that pirate’s old, He will have made a pot of gold, And will retire...

For certain soldiers lately dead Our-reverent dirge shall here be said. Them, when their martial leader called, No dread preparative appalled; But leaden hearted, leaden heeled, I marked them steadfas...

Unlike the common run of men, I wield a double power to please, And use the Graver and the Pen With equal aptitude and ease. I move with that illustrious crew, The ambidextrous Kings of Art; And every...

Alone above the stream it stands, Above the iron hill, The topsy-turvy, tumble-down, Yet habitable mill. Still as the ringing saws advance To slice the humming deal, All day the pallid miller hears Th...

The first pine to the second said: “My leaves are black, my branches red; I stand upon this moor of mine, A hoar, unconquerable pine.” The second sniffed and answered: “Pooh, I am as good a pine as yo...

Now long enough has day endured, Or King Apollo Palinured, Seaward be steers his panting team, And casts on earth his latest gleam. But see! the Tramps with jaded eye Their destined provinces espy. Lo...

The howling desert miles around, The tinkling brook the only sound⁠— Wearied with all his toils and feats, The traveller dines on potted meats; On potted meats and princely wines, Not wisely but too w...

The echoing bridge you here may see, The pouring lynn, the waving tree, The eager angler fresh from town⁠— Above, the contumelious clown. The angler plies his line and rod, The clodpole stands with ma...

Come lend me an attentive ear A startling moral tale to hear, Of Pirate Rob and Chemist Ben, And different destinies of men. Deep in the greenest of the vales That nestle near the coast of Wales, The ...

In eighteen twenty Deacon Thin Feu’d the land and fenced it in, And laid his broad foundations down About a furlong out of town. Early and late the work went on. The carts were toiling ere the dawn; T...

For the long nights you lay awake And watched for my unworthy sake: For your most comfortable hand That led me through the uneven land: For all the story-books you read: For all the pains you comforte...

In winter I get up at night And dress by yellow candlelight. In summer, quite the other way⁠— I have to go to bed by day. I have to go to bed and see The birds still hopping on the tree, Or hear the g...

It is very nice to think The world is full of meat and drink, With little children saying grace In every Christian kind of place....

When I was down beside the sea, A wooden spade they gave to me To dig the sandy shore. My holes were empty like a cup, In every hole the sea came up, Till it could come no more....

All night long, and every night, When my mamma puts out the light, I see the people marching by, As plain as day, before my eye. Armies and emperors and kings, All carrying different kinds of things, ...

A child should always say what’s true, And speak when he is spoken to, And behave mannerly at table: At least as far as he is able....

The rain is raining all around, It falls on field and tree, It rains on the umbrellas here, And on the ships at sea....

Three of us afloat in the meadow by the swing, Three of us aboard in the basket on the lea. Winds are in the air, they are blowing in the spring, And waves are on the meadow like the waves there are a...

Up into the cherry-tree Who should climb but little me? I held the trunk with both my hands And looked abroad on foreign lands. I saw the next-door garden lie, Adorned with flowers, before my eye, And...

Whenever the moon and stars are set, Whenever the wind is high, All night long in the dark and wet, A man goes riding by. Late in the night when the fires are out, Why does he gallop and gallop about?...

I should like to rise and go Where the golden apples grow;⁠— Where below another sky Parrot islands anchored lie, And, watched by cockatoos and goats, Lonely Crusoes building boats;⁠— Where in sunshin...

Of speckled eggs the birdie sings And nests among the trees; The sailor sings of ropes and things In ships upon the seas. The children sing in far Japan, The children sing in Spain; The organ with the...

When I am grown to man’s estate I shall be very proud and great, And tell the other girls and boys Not to meddle with my toys....

We built a ship upon the stairs All made of the back-bedroom chairs And filled it full of sofa pillows To go a-sailing on the billows. We took a saw and several nails, And water in the nursery pails; ...

Dark brown is the river, Golden is the sand. It flows along forever, With trees on either hand. Green leaves a-floating, Castles of the foam, Boats of mine a-boating⁠— Where will all come home? On goe...

Whenever Auntie moves around, Her dresses make a curious sound; They trail behind her up the floor, And trundle after through the door....

When I was sick and lay a-bed, I had two pillows at my head, And all my toys beside me lay To keep me happy all the day. And sometimes for an hour or so I watched my leaden soldiers go, With different...

From breakfast on all through the day At home among my friends I stay; But every night I go abroad Afar into the land of Nod. All by myself I have to go, With none to tell me what to do⁠— All alone be...

I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me, And what can be the use of him is more than I can see. He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head; And I see him jump before me, when I...

Every night my prayers I say, And get my dinner every day; And every day that I’ve been good, I get an orange after food. The child that is not clean and neat, With lots of toys and things to eat, He ...

I woke before the morning, I was happy all the day, I never said an ugly word, but smiled and stuck to play. And now at last the sun is going down behind the wood, And I am very happy, for I know that...

The lights from the parlour and kitchen shone out Through the blinds and the windows and bars; And high overhead and all moving about, There were thousands of millions of stars. There ne’er were such ...

Bring the comb and play upon it! Marching, here we come! Willie cocks his Highland bonnet, Johnnie beats the drum. Mary Jane commands the party, Peter leads the rear; Feet in time, alert and hearty, E...

The friendly cow, all red and white, I love with all my heart: She gives me cream with all her might, To eat with apple-tart. She wanders lowing here and there, And yet she cannot stray, All in the pl...

The world is so full of a number of things, I’m sure we should all be as happy as kings....

I saw you toss the kites on high And blow the birds about the sky; And all around I heard you pass, Like ladies’ skirts across the grass⁠— O wind, a-blowing all day long, O wind, that sings so loud a ...

Over the borders, a sin without pardon, Breaking the branches and crawling below, Out through the breach in the wall of the garden, Down by the banks of the river, we go. Here is the mill with the hum...

Children, you are very little, And your bones are very brittle; If you would grow great and stately, You must try to walk sedately. You must still be bright and quiet, And content with simple diet; An...

Little Indian, Sioux or Crow, Little frosty Eskimo, Little Turk or Japanee, O! don’t you wish that you were me? You have seen the scarlet trees And the lions over seas; You have eaten ostrich eggs, An...

The sun is not a-bed when I At night upon my pillow lie; Still round the earth his way he takes, And morning after morning makes. While here at home, in shining day, We round the sunny garden play, Ea...

My tea is nearly ready and the sun has left the sky; It’s time to take the window to see Leerie going by; For every night at tea-time and before you take your seat, With lantern and with ladder he com...

My bed is like a little boat; Nurse helps me in when I embark; She girds me in my sailor’s coat And starts me in the dark. At night, I go on board and say Good night to all my friends on shore; I shut...

The moon has a face like the clock in the hall; She shines on thieves on the garden wall, On streets and fields and harbour quays, And birdies asleep in the forks of the trees. The squalling cat and t...

How do you like to go up in a swing, Up in the air so blue? Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing Ever a child can do! Up in the air and over the wall, Till I can see so wide, Rivers and trees and c...

A birdie with a yellow bill Hopped upon the window sill, Cocked his shining eye and said: “Ain’t you ’shamed, you sleepy-head?”...

Smooth it slides upon its travel, Here a wimple, there a gleam⁠— O the clean gravel! O the smooth stream! Sailing blossoms, silver fishes, Paven pools as clear as air⁠— How a child wishes To live down...

Come up here, O dusty feet! Here is fairy bread to eat. Here in my retiring room, Children, you may dine On the golden smell of broom And the shade of pine; And when you have eaten well, Fairy stories...

Faster than fairies, faster than witches, Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches; And charging along like troops in a battle, All through the meadows the horses and cattle: All of the sights of the hi...

Late lies the wintry sun a-bed, A frosty, fiery sleepy-head; Blinks but an hour or two; and then, A blood-red orange, sets again. Before the stars have left the skies, At morning in the dark I rise; A...

Through all the pleasant meadow-side The grass grew shoulder-high, Till the shining scythes went far and wide And cut it down to dry. These green and sweetly smelling crops They led in wagons home; An...

The coach is at the door at last; The eager children, mounting fast And kissing hands, in chorus sing: Goodbye, goodbye, to everything! To house and garden, field and lawn, The meadow-gates we swang u...

When the bright lamp is carried in, The sunless hours again begin; O’er all without, in field and lane, The haunted night returns again. Now we behold the embers flee About the firelit hearth; and see...

When the bright lamp is carried in, The sunless hours again begin; O’er all without, in field and lane, The haunted night returns again. Now we behold the embers flee About the firelit hearth; and see...

All round the house is the jet-black night; It stares through the window-pane; It crawls in the corners, hiding from the light, And it moves with the moving flame. Now my little heart goes a-beating l...

Last, to the chamber where I lie My fearful footsteps patter nigh, And come from out the cold and gloom Into my warm and cheerful room. There, safe arrived, we turned about To keep the coming shadows ...

When children are playing alone on the green, In comes the playmate that never was seen. When children are happy and lonely and good, The Friend of the Children comes out of the wood. Nobody heard him...

O it’s I that am the captain of a tidy little ship, Of a ship that goes a-sailing on the pond; And my ship it keeps a-turning all around and all about; But when I’m a little older, I shall find the se...

Down by a shining water well I found a very little dell, No higher than my head. The heather and the gorse about In summer bloom were coming out, Some yellow and some red. I called the little pool a s...

Summer fading, winter comes⁠— Frosty mornings, tingling thumbs, Window robins, winter rooks, And the picture story-books. Water now is turned to stone Nurse and I can walk upon; Still we find the flow...

These nuts, that I keep in the back of the nest Where all my lead soldiers are lying at rest, Were gathered in autumn by nursie and me In a wood with a well by the side of the sea. This whistle we mad...

What are you able to build with your blocks? Castles and palaces, temples and docks. Rain may keep raining, and others go roam, But I can be happy and building at home. Let the sofa be mountains, the ...

At evening when the lamp is lit, Around the fire my parents sit; They sit at home and talk and sing, And do not play at anything. Now, with my little gun, I crawl All in the dark along the wall, And f...

The lamps now glitter down the street; Faintly sound the falling feet; And the blue even slowly falls About the garden trees and walls. Now in the falling of the gloom The red fire paints the empty ro...

When at home alone I sit And am very tired of it, I have just to shut my eyes To go sailing through the skies⁠— To go sailing far away To the pleasant Land of Play; To the fairy land afar Where the Li...

When the golden day is done, Through the closing portal, Child and garden, flower and sun, Vanish all things mortal. As the blinding shadows fall, As the rays diminish, Under evening’s cloak, they all...

Birds all the sunny day Flutter and quarrel, Here in the arbour-like Tent of the laurel. Here in the fork The brown nest is seated; Four little blue eggs The mother keeps heated. While we stand watchi...

All the names I know from nurse: Gardener’s garters, Shepherd’s purse, Bachelor’s buttons, Lady’s smock, And the Lady Hollyhock. Fairy places, fairy things, Fairy woods where the wild bee wings, Tiny ...

Great is the sun, and wide he goes Through empty heaven without repose; And in the blue and glowing days More thick than rain he showers his rays. Though closer still the blinds we pull To keep the sh...

When the grass was closely mown, Walking on the lawn alone, In the turf a hole I found And hid a soldier underground. Spring and daisies came apace; Grasses hide my hiding-place; Grasses run like a gr...

In the other gardens And all up the vale, From the autumn bonfires See the smoke trail! Pleasant summer over, And all the summer flowers, The red fire blazes, The grey smoke towers. Sing a song of sea...

The gardener does not love to talk, He makes me keep the gravel walk; And when he puts his tools away, He locks the door and takes the key. Away behind the currant row Where no one else but cook may g...

Dear Uncle Jim, this garden ground, That now you smoke your pipe around, Has seen immortal actions done And valiant battles lost and won. Here we had best on tip-toe tread, While I for safety march ah...

If two may read aright These rhymes of old delight And house and garden play, You two, my cousins, and you only, may. You in a garden green With me were king and queen, Were hunter, soldier, tar, And ...

You too, my mother, read my rhymes For love of unforgotten times, And you may chance to hear once more The little feet along the floor....

Chief of our aunts⁠—not only I, But all your dozen of nurslings cry⁠— What did the other children do? And what were childhood, wanting you?...

The red room with the giant bed Where none but elders lay their head; The little room where you and I Did for a while together lie, And, simple suitor, I your hand In decent marriage did demand; The g...

Some day soon this rhyming volume, if you learn with proper speed, Little Louis Sanchez, will be given you to read. Then shall you discover that your name was printed down By the English printers, lon...

As from the house your mother sees You playing round the garden trees, So you may see, if you will look Through the windows of this book, Another child, far, far away, And in another garden, play. But...

Go, little book, and wish to all Flowers in the garden, meat in the hall, A bin of wine, a spice of wit, A house with lawns enclosing it, A living river by the door, A nightingale in the sycamore!...

The gauger walked with willing foot, And aye the gauger played the flute; And what should Master Gauger play But Over the Hills and Far Away? Whene’er I buckle on my pack And foot it gaily in the trac...

On the great streams the ships may go About men’s business to and fro. But I, the egg-shell pinnace, sleep On crystal waters ankle-deep: I, whose diminutive design, Of sweeter cedar, pithier pine, Is ...

It is the season now to go About the country high and low, Among the lilacs hand in hand, And two by two in fairyland. The brooding boy, the sighing maid, Wholly fain and half afraid, Now meet along t...

A naked house, a naked moor, A shivering pool before the door, A garden bare of flowers and fruit And poplars at the garden foot: Such is the place that I live in, Bleak without and bare within. Yet s...

Far from the loud sea beaches Where he goes fishing and crying, Here in the inland garden Why is the sea-gull flying? Here are no fish to dive for; Here is the corn and lea; Here are the green trees r...

Friend, in my mountain-side demesne, My plain-beholding, rosy, green And linnet-haunted garden-ground, Let still the esculents abound. Let first the onion flourish there, Rose among roots, the maiden-...

A picture-frame for you to fill, A paltry setting for your face, A thing that has no worth until You lend it something of your grace, I send (unhappy I that sing Laid by a while upon the shelf) Becaus...

A lover of the moorland bare And honest country winds you were; The silver-skimming rain you took; And love the floodings of the brook, Dew, frost and mountains, fire and seas, Tumultuary silences, Wi...

The unfathomable sea, and time, and tears, The deeds of heroes and the crimes of kings Dispart us; and the river of events Has, for an age of years, to east and west More widely borne our cradles. Tho...

Youth now flees on feathered foot, Faint and fainter sounds the flute, Rarer songs of gods; and still Somewhere on the sunny hill, Or along the winding stream, Through the willows, flits a dream; Flit...

Even in the bluest noonday of July, There could not run the smallest breath of wind But all the quarter sounded like a wood; And in the chequered silence and above The hum of city cabs that sought the...

I sit and wait a pair of oars On cis-Elysian river-shores. Where the immortal dead have sate, ’Tis mine to sit and meditate; To re-ascend life’s rivulet, Without remorse, without regret; And sing my A...

Dear Andrew, with the brindled hair, Who glory to have thrown in air, High over arm, the trembling reed, By Ale and Kail, by Till and Tweed: An equal craft of hand you show The pen to guide, the fly t...

In ancient tales, O friend, thy spirit dwelt; There, from of old, thy childhood passed; and there High expectation, high delights and deeds, Thy fluttering heart with hope and terror moved. And thou h...

The year runs through her phases; rain and sun, Springtime and summer pass; winter succeeds; But one pale season rules the house of death. Cold falls the imprisoned daylight; fell disease By each lean...

Who comes tonight? We ope the doors in vain. Who comes? My bursting walls, can you contain The presences that now together throng Your narrow entry, as with flowers and song, As with the air of life, ...

Where the bells peal far at sea Cunning fingers fashioned me. There on palace walls I hung While that Consuelo sung; But I heard, though I listened well, Never a note, never a trill, Never a beat of t...

We see you as we see a face That trembles in a forest place Upon the mirror of a pool Forever quiet, clear, and cool; And, in the wayward glass, appears To hover between smiles and tears, Elfin and hu...

I read, dear friend, in your dear face Your life’s tale told with perfect grace; The river of your life I trace Up the sun-chequered, devious bed To the far-distant fountain-head. Not one quick beat o...

Under the wide and starry sky, Dig the grave and let me lie. Glad did I live and gladly die, And I laid me down with a will. This be the verse you grave for me: Here he lies where he longed to be; Hom...

If I have faltered more or less In my great task of happiness; If I have moved among my race And shown no glorious morning face; If beams from happy human eyes Have moved me not; if morning skies, Boo...

Out of the sun, out of the blast, Out of the world, alone I passed Across the moor and through the wood To where the monastery stood. There neither lute nor breathing fife, Nor rumour of the world of ...

Not yet, my soul, these friendly fields desert, Where thou with grass, and rivers, and the breeze, And the bright face of day, thy dalliance hadst; Where to thine ear first sang the enraptured birds; ...

It is not yours, O mother, to complain, Not, mother, yours to weep, Though nevermore your son again Shall to your bosom creep, Though nevermore again you watch your baby sleep. Though in the greener p...

O Mother, lay your hand on my brow! O mother, mother, where am I now? Why is the room so gaunt and great? Why am I lying awake so late? Fear not at all: the night is still. Nothing is here that means ...

Yet, O stricken heart, remember, O remember How of human days he lived the better part. April came to bloom and never dim December Breathed its killing chills upon the head or heart. Doomed to know no...

Peace and her huge invasion to these shores Puts daily home; innumerable sails Dawn on the far horizon and draw near; Innumerable loves, uncounted hopes To our wild coasts, not darkling now, approach:...

With half a heart I wander here As from an age gone by A brother⁠—yet though young in years, An elder brother, I. You speak another tongue than mine, Though both were English born. I towards the night...

I am a kind of farthing dip, Unfriendly to the nose and eyes; A blue-behinded ape, I skip Upon the trees of Paradise. At mankind’s feast, I take my place In solemn, sanctimonious state, And have the a...

Sing clearlier, Muse, or evermore be still, Sing truer or no longer sing! No more the voice of melancholy Jaques To wake a weeping echo in the hill; But as the boy, the pirate of the spring, From the ...

The bed was made, the room was fit, By punctual eve the stars were lit; The air was still, the water ran, No need was there for maid or man, When we put up, my ass and I, At God’s green caravanserai....

We travelled in the print of olden wars; Yet all the land was green; And love we found, and peace, Where fire and war had been. They pass and smile, the children of the sword⁠— No more the sword they ...

For love of lovely words, and for the sake Of those, my kinsmen and my countrymen, Who early and late in the windy ocean toiled To plant a star for seamen, where was then The surfy haunt of seals and ...

Here all is sunny, and when the truant gull Skims the green level of the lawn, his wing Dispetals roses; here the house is framed Of kneaded brick and the plumed mountain pine, Such clay as artists fa...

“My house,” I say. But hark to the sunny doves That make my roof the arena of their loves, That gyre about the gable all day long And fill the chimneys with their murmurous song: “Our house,” they say...

My body which my dungeon is, And yet my parks and palaces:⁠— Which is so great that there I go All the day long to and fro, And when the night begins to fall Throw down my bed and sleep, while all The...

Say not of me that weakly I declined The labours of my sires, and fled the sea, The towers we founded and the lamps we lit, To play at home with paper like a child. But rather say: “In the afternoon o...

Ori, my brother in the island mode, In every tongue and meaning much my friend, This story of your country and your clan, In your loved house, your too much honoured guest, I made in English. Take it,...

It fell in the days of old, as the men of Taiárapu tell, A youth went forth to the fishing, and fortune favoured him well. Támatéa his name: gullible, simple, and kind. Comely of countenance, nimble o...

Thus was Rahéro’s treason; thus and no further it sped. The king sat safe in his place and a kindly fool was dead. But the mother of Támatéa arose with death in her eyes. All night long, and the next,...

Rahéro was there in the hall asleep: beside him his wife, Comely, a mirthful woman, one that delighted in life; And a girl that was ripe for marriage, shy and sly as a mouse; And a boy, a climber of t...

In all the land of the tribe was neither fish nor fruit, And the deepest pit of popoi stood empty to the foot.22 The clans upon the left and the clans upon the right Now oiled their carven maces and s...

In all the land of the tribe was neither fish nor fruit, And the deepest pit of popoi stood empty to the foot.22 The clans upon the left and the clans upon the right Now oiled their carven maces and s...

Hark! away in the woods⁠—for the ears of love are sharp⁠— Stealthily, quietly touched, the note of the one-stringed harp.25 In the lighted house of her father, why should Taheia start? Taheia heavy of...

Dawn as yellow as sulphur leaped on the naked peak, And all the village was stirring, for now was the priest to speak. Forth on his terrace he came, and sat with the chief in talk; His lips were black...

It chanced that as Rua sat in the valley of silent falls He heard a calling of doves from high on the cliffy walls. Fire had fashioned of yore, and time had broken, the rocks; There were rooting crann...

This is the tale of the man Who heard a word in the night In the land of the heathery hills, In the days of the feud and the fight. By the sides of the rainy sea, Where never a stranger came, On the a...

On the loch-sides of Appin, When the mist blew from the sea, A Stewart stood with a Cameron: An angry man was he. The blood beat in his ears, The blood ran hot to his head, The mist blew from the sea,...

And now there was speech in the south, And a man of the south that was wise, A periwig’d lord of London,32 Called on the clans to rise. And the riders rode, and the summons Came to the western shore, ...

There fell a war in a woody place, Lay far across the sea, A war of the march in the mirk midnight And the shot from behind the tree, The shaven head and the painted face, The silent foot in the wood,...

From the bonny bells of heather They brewed a drink long-syne, Was sweeter far than honey, Was stronger far than wine. They brewed it and they drank it, And lay in a blessed swound For days and days t...

The sheets were frozen hard, and they cut the naked hand; The decks were like a slide, where a seaman scarce could stand; The wind was a nor’-wester, blowing squally off the sea; And cliffs and spouti...

Give to me the life I love, Let the lave go by me, Give the jolly heaven above And the byway nigh me. Bed in the bush with stars to see, Bread I dip in the river⁠— There’s the life for a man like me, ...

Once only by the garden gate Our lips were joined and parted. I must fulfil an empty fate And travel the uncharted. Hail and farewell! I must arise, Leave here the fatted cattle, And paint on foreign ...

To the heart of youth the world is a highwayside. Passing forever, he fares; and on either hand, Deep in the gardens golden pavilions hide, Nestle in orchard bloom, and far on the level land Call him ...

In dreams, unhappy, I behold you stand As heretofore: The unremembered tokens in your hand Avail no more. No more the morning glow, no more the grace, Enshrines, endears. Cold beats the light of time ...

She rested by the Broken Brook, She drank of Weary Well, She moved beyond my lingering look, Ah, whither none can tell! She came, she went. In other lands, Perchance in fairer skies, Her hands shall c...

The infinite shining heavens Rose and I saw in the night Uncountable angel stars Showering sorrow and light. I saw them distant as heaven, Dumb and shining and dead, And the idle stars of the night We...

Plain as the glistering planets shine When winds have cleaned the skies, Her love appeared, appealed for mine And wantoned in her eyes. Clear as the shining tapers burned On Cytherea’s shrine, Those b...

To you, let snow and roses And golden locks belong. These are the world’s enslavers, Let these delight the throng. For her of duskier lustre Whose favour still I wear, The snow be in her kirtle, The r...

Let Beauty awake in the morn from beautiful dreams, Beauty awake from rest! Let Beauty awake For Beauty’s sake In the hour when the birds awake in the brake And the stars are bright in the west! Let B...

I know not how it is with you⁠— I love the first and last, The whole field of the present view, The whole flow of the past. One tittle of the things that are, Nor you should change nor I⁠— One pebble ...

I will make you brooches and toys for your delight Of bird-song at morning and star-shine at night. I will make a palace fit for you and me Of green days in forests and blue days at sea. I will make m...

Berried brake and reedy island, Heaven below, and only heaven above, Through the sky’s inverted azure Softly swam the boat that bore our love. Bright were your eyes as the day; Bright ran the stream, ...

Son of my woman’s body, you go, to the drum and fife, To taste the colour of love and the other side of life⁠— From out of the dainty the rude, the strong from out of the frail, Eternally through the ...

Bright is the ring of words When the right man rings them, Fair the fall of songs When the singer sings them. Still they are carolled and said⁠— On wings they are carried⁠— After the singer is dead An...

In the highlands, in the country places, Where the old plain men have rosy faces, And the young fair maidens Quiet eyes; Where essential silence cheers and blesses, And forever in the hill-recesses He...

Home no more home to me, whither must I wander? Hunger my driver, I go where I must. Cold blows the winter wind over hill and heather; Thick drives the rain, and my roof is in the dust. Loved of wise ...

In rigorous hours, when down the iron lane The redbreast looks in vain For hips and haws, Lo, shining flowers upon my window-pane The silver pencil of the winter draws. When all the snowy hill And the...

The stormy evening closes now in vain, Loud wails the wind and beats the driving rain, While here in sheltered house With fire-ypainted walls, I hear the wind abroad, I hark the calling squalls⁠— “Blo...

In the belovèd hour that ushers day, In the pure dew, under the breaking grey, One bird, ere yet the woodland choirs awake, With brief réveillé summons all the brake: Chirp, chirp, it goes; nor waits ...

I knew thee strong and quiet like the hills; I knew thee apt to pity, brave to endure, In peace or war a Roman full equipt; And just I knew thee, like the fabled kings Who by the loud sea-shore gave j...

The morning drum-call on my eager ear Thrills unforgotten yet; the morning dew Lies yet undried along my field of noon. But now I pause at whiles in what I do, And count the bell, and tremble lest I h...

I have trod the upward and the downward slope; I have endured and done in days before; I have longed for all, and bid farewell to hope; And I have lived and loved, and closed the door....

He hears with gladdened heart the thunder Peal, and loves the falling dew; He knows the earth above and under⁠— Sits and is content to view. He sits beside the dying ember, God for hope and man for fr...

Farewell, fair day and fading light! The clay-born here, with westward sight, Marks the huge sun now downward soar. Farewell. We twain shall meet no more. Farewell. I watch with bursting sigh My late ...

God, if this were enough, That I see things bare to the buff And up to the buttocks in mire; That I ask nor hope nor hire, Nut in the husk, Nor dawn beyond the dusk, Nor life beyond death: God, if thi...

Trusty, dusky, vivid, true, With eyes of gold and bramble-dew, Steel-true and blade-straight, The great artificer Made my mate. Honour, anger, valour, fire; A love that life could never tire, Death qu...

Resign the rhapsody, the dream, To men of larger reach; Be ours the quest of a plain theme, The piety of speech. As monkish scribes from morning break Toiled till the close of light, Nor thought a day...

Since long ago, a child at home, I read and longed to rise and roam, Where’er I went, whate’er I willed, One promised land my fancy filled. Hence the long roads my home I made; Tossed much in ships; h...

The Silver Ship, my King⁠—that was her name In the bright islands whence your fathers came36⁠— The Silver Ship, at rest from winds and tides, Below your palace in your harbour rides: And the seafarers...

Forth from her land to mine she goes, The island maid, the island rose, Light of heart and bright of face: The daughter of a double race. Her islands here, in Southern sun, Shall mourn their Kaiulani ...

To see the infinite pity of this place, The mangled limb, the devastated face, The innocent sufferer smiling at the rod⁠— A fool were tempted to deny his God. He sees, he shrinks. But if he gaze again...

I knew a silver head was bright beyond compare, I knew a queen of toil with a crown of silver hair. Garland of valour and sorrow, of beauty and renown, Life, that honours the brave, crowned her himsel...

Long must elapse ere you behold again Green forest frame the entry of the lane⁠— The wild lane with the bramble and the briar, The year-old cart-tracks perfect in the mire, The wayside smoke, perchanc...

Do you remember⁠—can we e’er forget?⁠— How, in the coiled perplexities of youth, In our wild climate, in our scowling town, We gloomed and shivered, sorrowed, sobbed and feared? The belching winter wi...

The tropics vanish, and meseems that I, From Halkerside, from topmost Allermuir, Or steep Caerketton, dreaming gaze again. Far set in fields and woods, the town I see Spring gallant from the shallows ...

I heard the pulse of the besieging sea Throb far away all night. I heard the wind Fly crying and convulse tumultuous palms. I rose and strolled. The isle was all bright sand, And flailing fans and sha...

Let us, who part like brothers, part like bards; And you in your tongue and measure, I in mine, Our now division duly solemnise. Unlike the strains, and yet the theme is one: The strains unlike, and h...

In all the grove, nor stream nor bird Nor aught beside my blows was heard, And the woods wore their noonday dress⁠— The glory of their silentness. From the island summit to the seas, Trees mounted, an...

As the single pang of the blow, when the metal is mingled well, Rings and lives and resounds in all the bounds of the bell, So the thunder above spoke with a single tongue, So in the heart of the moun...

Let now your soul in this substantial world Some anchor strike. Be here the body moored;⁠— This spectacle immutably from now The picture in your eye; and when time strikes, And the green scene goes on...

We uncommiserate pass into the night From the loud banquet, and departing leave A tremor in men’s memories, faint and sweet And frail as music. Features of our face, The tones of the voice, the touch ...

Sing me a song of a lad that is gone, Say, could that lad be I? Merry of soul he sailed on a day Over the sea to Skye. Mull was astern, Rum on the port, Eigg on the starboard bow; Glory of youth glowe...

Blows the wind today, and the sun and the rain are flying, Blows the wind on the moors today and now, Where about the graves of the martyrs the whaups are crying, My heart remembers how! Grey recumben...

The embers of the day are red Beyond the murky hill. The kitchen smokes: the bed In the darkling house is spread: The great sky darkens overhead, And the great woods are shrill. So far have I been led...

The brilliant kernel of the night, The flaming lightroom circles me: I sit within a blaze of light Held high above the dusky sea. Far off the surf doth break and roar Along bleak miles of moonlit shor...

Blame me not that this epistle Is the first you have from me; Idleness hath held me fettered; But at last the times are bettered, And once more I wet my whistle Here in France beside the sea. All the ...

Far have you come, my lady, from the town, And far from all your sorrows, if you please, To smell the good sea-winds and hear the seas, And in green meadows lay your body down. To find your pale face ...

Far have you come, my lady, from the town, And far from all your sorrows, if you please, To smell the good sea-winds and hear the seas, And in green meadows lay your body down. To find your pale face ...

Nous n’irons plus au bois We’ll walk the woods no more, But stay beside the fire, To weep for old desire And things that are no more. The woods are spoiled and hoar, The ways are full of mire; We’ll w...

Since I am sworn to live my life And not to keep an easy heart, Some men may sit and drink apart, I bear a banner in the strife. Some can take quiet thought to wife, I am all day at tierce and carte, ...

I who was young so long, Young and alert and gay, Now that my hair is grey, Begin to change my song. Now I know right from wrong, Now I know pay and pray, I who was young so long, Young and alert and ...

Of where or how, I nothing know; And why, I do not care; Enough if, even so, My travelling eyes, my travelling mind can go By flood and field and hill, by wood and meadow fair, Beside the Susquehannah...

Figure me to yourself, I pray⁠— A man of my peculiar cut⁠— Apart from dancing and deray,37 Into an Alpine valley shut; Shut in a kind of damned Hotel, Discountenanced by God and man; The food?⁠—Sir, y...

Brave lads in olden musical centuries, Sang, night by night, adorable choruses, Sat late by alehouse doors in April Chaunting in joy as the moon was rising: Moon-seen and merry, under the trellises, F...

The pleasant river gushes Among the meadows green; At home the author tushes; For him it flows unseen. The Birds among the Bushes May wanton on the spray; But vain for him who tushes The brightness of...

Here, from the forelands of the tideless sea, Behold and take my offering unadorned. In the Pacific air it sprang; it grew Among the silence of the Alpine air; In Scottish heather blossomed; and at la...

Thee, Mackintosh, artificer of light, Thee, the lone smoker hails! the student, thee; Thee, oft upon the ungovernable sea, The seaman, conscious of approaching night; Thou, with industrious fingers, h...

The jolly English Yellowboy Is a ’ansome coin when new, The Yankee Double-eagle Is large enough for two. O, these may do for seaport towns, For cities these may do; But the dibbs that takes the Hislan...

Adela, Adela, Adela Chart, What have you done to my elderly heart? Of all the ladies of paper and ink I count you the paragon, call you the pink. The word of your brother depicts you in part: “You rav...

I was a barren tree before, I blew a quenchèd coal, I could not, on their midnight shore, The lonely blind console. A moment, lend your hand, I bring My sheaf for you to bind, And you can teach my wor...

Light foot and tight foot, And green grass spread, Early in the morning, But hope is on ahead. Brief day and bright day, And sunset red, Early in the evening, The stars are overhead....

I ask good things that I detest, With speeches fair; Heed not, I pray Thee, Lord, my breast, But hear my prayer. I say ill things I would not say⁠— Things unaware: Regard my breast, Lord, in Thy day, ...

Lo! in thine honest eyes I read The auspicious beacon that shall lead, After long sailing in deep seas, To quiet havens in June ease. Thy voice sings like an inland bird First by the seaworn sailor he...

Though deep indifference should drowse The sluggish life beneath my brows, And all the external things I see Grow snow-showers in the street to me, Yet inmost in my stormy sense Thy looks shall be an ...

My heart, when first the blackbird sings, My heart drinks in the song: Cool pleasure fills my bosom through And spreads each nerve along. My bosom eddies quietly, My heart is stirred and cool As when ...

I dreamed of forest alleys fair And fields of gray-flowered grass, Where by the yellow summer moon My Jenny seemed to pass. I dreamed the yellow summer moon, Behind a cedar wood, Lay white on fields o...

As swallows turning backward When halfway o’er the sea, At one word’s trumpet summons They came again to me⁠— The hopes I had forgotten Came back again to me. I know not which to credit, O lady of my ...

My first gift and my last, to you I dedicate this fascicle of songs⁠— The only wealth I have: Just as they are, to you. I speak the truth in soberness, and say I had rather bring a light to your clear...

The old Chimaeras, old receipts For making “happy land,” The old political beliefs Swam close before my hand. The grand old communistic myths In a middle state of grace, Quite dead, but not yet gone t...

By sunny market-place and street Wherever I go my drum I beat, And wherever I go in my coat of red The ribbons flutter about my head. I seek recruits for wars to come⁠— For slaughterless wars I beat t...

I have left all upon the shameful field, Honour and Hope, my God, and all but life; Spurless, with sword reversed and dinted shield, Degraded and disgraced, I leave the strife. From him that hath not,...

I send to you, commissioners, A paper that may please ye, sirs (For troth they say it might be worse An’ I believe’t) And on your business lay my curse Before I leav’t. I thocht I’d serve wi’ you, sir...

The relic taken, what avails the shrine? The locket, pictureless? O heart of mine, Art thou not worse than that, Still warm, a vacant nest where love once sat? Her image nestled closer at my heart Tha...

About the sheltered garden ground The trees stand strangely still. The vale ne’er seemed so deep before, Nor yet so high the hill. An awful sense of quietness, A fullness of repose, Breathes from the ...

As when the hunt by holt and field Drives on with horn and strife, Hunger of hopeless things pursues Our spirits throughout life. The sea’s roar fills us aching full Of objectless desire⁠— The sea’s r...

I know not how, but as I count The beads of former years, Old laughter catches in my throat With the very feel of tears....

The air was full of sun and birds, The fresh air sparkled clearly. Remembrance wakened in my heart And I knew I loved her dearly. The fallows and the leafless trees And all my spirit tingled. My earli...

The summer sun shone round me, The folded valley lay In a stream of sun and odour, That sultry summer day. The tall trees stood in the sunlight As still as still could be, But the deep grass sighed an...

You looked so tempting in the pew, You looked so sly and calm⁠— My trembling fingers played with yours As both looked out the Psalm. Your heart beat hard against my arm, My foot to yours was set, Your...

As Love and Hope together Walk by me for a while, Link-armed the ways they travel For many a pleasant mile⁠— Link-armed and dumb they travel, They sing not, but they smile. Hope leaving, Love commence...

With caws and chirrupings, the woods In this thin sun rejoice. The Psalm seems but the little kirk That sings with its own voice. The cloud-rifts share their amber light With the surface of the mere⁠—...

Stout marches lead to certain ends, We seek no Holy Grail, my friends⁠— That dawn should find us every day Some fraction farther on our way. The dumb lands sleep from east to west, They stretch and tu...

Away with funeral music⁠—set The pipe to powerful lips⁠— The cup of life’s for him that drinks And not for him that sips....

Not thine where marble-still and white Old statues share the tempered light And mock the uneven modern flight, But in the stream Of daily sorrow and delight To seek a theme. I too, O friend, have stee...

Had I the power that have the will, The enfeebled will⁠—a modern curse⁠— This book of mine should blossom still A perfect garden-ground of verse. White placid marble gods should keep Good watch in eve...

O dull cold northern sky, O brawling sabbath bells, O feebly twittering Autumn bird that tells The year is like to die! O still, spoiled trees, O city ways, O sun desired in vain, O dread presentiment...

If you see this song, my dear, And last year’s toast, I’m confoundedly in fear You’ll be serious and severe About the boast. Blame not that I sought such aid To cure regret. I was then so lowly laid I...

You have been far, and I Been farther yet, Since last, in foul or fair An impecunious pair, Below this northern sky Of ours, we met. Now winter night shall see Again us two, While howls the tempest hi...

You remember, I suppose, How the August sun arose, And how his face Woke to trill and carolette All the cages that were set About the place. In the tender morning light All around lay strange and brig...

This gloomy northern day, Or this yet gloomier night, Has moved a something high In my cold heart; and I, That do not often pray, Would pray tonight. And first on Thee I call For bread, O God of might...

The wind is without there and howls in the trees, And the rain-flurries drum on the glass: Alone by the fireside with elbows on knees I can number the hours as they pass. Yet now, when to cheer me the...

Motley I count the only wear That suits, in this mixed world, the truly wise, Who boldly smile upon despair And shake their bells in Grandam Grundy’s eyes. Singers should sing with such a goodly cheer...

Hail! Childish slaves of social rules You had yourselves a hand in making! How I could shake your faith, ye fools, If but I thought it worth the shaking. I see, and pity you; and then Go, casting off ...

Swallows travel to and fro, And the great winds come and go, And the steady breezes blow, Bearing perfume, bearing love. Breezes hasten, swallows fly, Towered clouds forever ply, And at noonday, you a...

The wind may blaw the lee-gang way And aye the lift be mirk an’ gray, An deep the moss and steigh the brae Where a’ maun gang⁠— There’s still an hoor in ilka day For luve and sang. And canty hearts ar...

What is the face, the fairest face, till Care, Till Care the graver⁠—Care with cunning hand, Etches content thereon and makes it fair, Or constancy, and love, and makes it grand?...

For some abiding central source of power, Strong-smitten steady chords, ye seem to flow And, flowing, carry virtue. Far below, The vain tumultuous passions of the hour Fleet fast and disappear; and as...

Fear not, dear friend, but freely live your days Though lesser lives should suffer. Such am I, A lesser life, that what is his of sky Gladly would give for you, and what of praise. Step, without troub...

Let love go, if go she will. Seek not, O fool, her wanton flight to stay. Of all she gives and takes away The best remains behind her still. The best remains behind; in vain Joy she may give and take ...

I do not fear to own me kin To the glad clods in which spring flowers begin; Or to my brothers, the great trees, That speak with pleasant voices in the breeze, Loud talkers with the winds that pass; O...

I am like one that for long days had sate, With seaward eyes set keen against the gale, On some lone foreland, watching sail by sail, The portbound ships for one ship that was late; And sail by sail, ...

Here in the quiet eve My thankful eyes receive The quiet light. I see the trees stand fair Against the faded air, And star by star prepare The perfect night. And in my bosom, lo! Content and quiet gro...

On now, although the year be done, Now, although the love be dead, Dead and gone; Hear me, O loved and cherished one, Give me still the hand that led, Led me on....

In the green and gallant Spring, Love and the lyre I thought to sing, And kisses sweet to give and take By the flowery hawthorn brake. Now is russet Autumn here, Death and the grave and winter drear, ...

Death, to the dead forevermore A King, a God, the last, the best of friends⁠— Whene’er this mortal journey ends Death, like a host, comes smiling to the door; Smiling, he greets us, on that tranquil s...

I who all the winter through Cherished other loves than you, And kept hands with hoary policy in marriage-bed and pew; Now I know the false and true, For the earnest sun looks through, And my old love...

Love⁠—what is love? A great and aching heart; Wrung hands; and silence; and a long despair. Life⁠—what is life? Upon a moorland bare To see love coming and see love depart....

Soon our friends perish, Soon all we cherish Fades as days darken⁠—goes as flowers go. Soon in December Over an ember, Lonely we hearken, as loud winds blow....

As one who having wandered all night long In a perplexed forest, comes at length In the first hours, about the matin song, And when the sun uprises in his strength, To the fringed margin of the wood, ...

Strange are the ways of men, And strange the ways of God! We tread the mazy paths That all our fathers trod. We tread them undismayed, And undismayed behold The portents of the sky, The things that we...

The wind blew shrill and smart, And the wind awoke my heart Again to go a-sailing o’er the sea, To hear the cordage moan And the straining timbers groan, And to see the flying pennon lie a-lee. O sail...

Man sails the deep awhile; Loud runs the roaring tide; The seas are wild and wide; O’er many a salt, o’er many a desert mile, The unchained breakers ride, The quivering stars beguile. Hope bears the s...

The cock’s clear voice into the clearer air Where westward far I roam, Mounts with a thrill of hope, Falls with a sigh of home. A rural sentry, he from farm and field The coming morn descries, And, ma...

Now when the number of my years Is all fulfilled, and I From sedentary life Shall rouse me up to die, Bury me low and let me lie Under the wide and starry sky. Joying to live, I joyed to die, Bury me ...

What man may learn, what man may do, Of right or wrong of false or true, While, skipper-like, his course he steers Through nine and twenty mingled years, Half misconceived and half forgot, So much I k...

Small is the trust when love is green In sap of early years; A little thing steps in between And kisses turn to tears. Awhile⁠—and see how love be grown In loveliness and power! Awhile, it loves the s...

Know you the river near to Grez, A river deep and clear? Among the lilies all the way, That ancient river runs today From snowy weir to weir. Old as the Rhine of great renown, She hurries clear and fa...

It’s forth across the roaring foam, and on towards the west, It’s many a lonely league from home, o’er many a mountain crest, From where the dogs of Scotland call the sheep around the fold, To where t...

Up with the sun, the breeze arose, Across the talking corn she goes, And smooth she rustles far and wide Through all the voiceful countryside. Through all the land her tale she tells; She spins, she t...

As in their flight the birds of song Halt here and there in sweet and sunny dales, But halt not overlong; The time one rural song to sing They pause; then following bounteous gales Steer forward on th...

Again I hear you piping, for I know the tune so well⁠— You rouse the heart to wander and be free, Though where you learned your music, not the God of song can tell, For you pipe the open highway and t...

In Schnee der Alpen⁠—so it runs To those divine accords⁠—and here We dwell in Alpine snows and suns, A motley crew, for half the year: A motley crew, we dwell to taste⁠— A shivering band in hope and f...

They tell me, lady, that today On that unknown Australian strand⁠— Some time ago, so far away⁠— Another lady joined the band. She joined the company of those Lovelily dowered, nobly planned, Who, smil...

Yes, friend, I own these tales of Arabia Smile not, as smiled their flawless originals, Age-old but yet untamed, for ages Pass and the magic is undiminished. Thus, friend, the tales of the old Camaral...

Behold, as goblins dark of mien And portly tyrants dyed with crime Change, in the transformation scene, At Christmas, in the pantomime, Instanter, at the prompter’s cough, The fairy bonnets them, and ...

Still I love to rhyme, and still more, rhyming, to wander Far from the commoner way; Old-time trills and falls by the brook-side still do I ponder, Dreaming tomorrow today. Come here, come, revive me,...

Long time I lay in little ease Where, placed by the Turanian, Marseilles, the many-masted, sees The blue Mediterranean. Now songful in the hour of sport, Now riotous for wages, She camps around her an...

Flower god, god of the spring, beautiful, bountiful, Cold-dyed shield in the sky, lover of versicles, Here I wander in April Cold, grey-headed; and still to my Heart, Spring comes with a bound, Spring...

Come, my beloved, hear from me Tales of the woods or open sea. Let our aspiring fancy rise A wren’s flight higher toward the skies; Or far from cities, brown and bare, Play at the least in open air. I...

Since years ago forevermore My cedar ship I drew to shore; And to the road and riverbed And the green, nodding reeds, I said Mine ignorant and last farewell: Now with content at home I dwell, And now ...

Whether upon the garden seat You lounge with your uplifted feet Under the May’s whole Heaven of blue; Or whether on the sofa you, No grown up person being by, Do some soft corner occupy; Take you this...

When Thomas set this tablet here, Time laughed at the vain chanticleer; And ere the moss had dimmed the stone, Time had defaced that garrison. Now I in turn keep watch and ward In my red house, in my ...

Hail, guest, and enter freely! All you see Is, for your momentary visit, yours; and we Who welcome you are but the guests of God, And know not our departure....

Lo, now, my guest, if aught amiss were said, Forgive it and dismiss it from your head. For me, for you, for all, to close the date, Pass now the ev’ning sponge across the slate; And to that spirit of ...

So live, so love, so use that fragile hour, That when the dark hand of the shining power Shall one from other, wife or husband, take, The poor survivor may not weep and wake....

Dear sir, good-morrow! Five years back, When you first girded for this arduous track, And under various whimsical pretexts Endowed another with your damned defects, Could you have dreamed in your desp...

Before this little gift was come The little owner had made haste for home; And from the door of where the eternal dwell, Looked back on human things and smiled farewell. O may this grief remain the on...

Go, little book⁠—the ancient phrase And still the daintiest⁠—go your ways, My Otto, over sea and land, Till you shall come to Nelly’s hand. How shall I your Nelly know? By her blue eyes and her black ...

My love was warm; for that I crossed The mountains and the sea, Nor counted that endeavour lost That gave my love to me. If that indeed were love at all, As still, my love, I trow, By what dear name a...

To her, for I must still regard her As feminine in her degree, Who has been my unkind bombarder Year after year, in grief and glee, Year after year, with oaken tree; And yet betweenwhiles my laudator ...

Farewell, and when forth I through the Golden Gates to Golden Isles Steer without smiling, through the sea of smiles, Isle upon isle, in the seas of the south, Isle upon island, sea upon sea, Why shou...

The broad sun, The bright day: White sails On the blue bay: The far-farers Draw away. Light the fires And close the door. To the old homes, To the loved shore, The far-farers Return no more....

Come, my little children, here are songs for you; Some are short and some are long, and all, all are new. You must learn to sing them very small and clear, Very true to time and tune and pleasing to t...

Home from the daisied meadows, where you linger yet⁠— Home, golden-headed playmate, ere the sun is set; For the dews are falling fast And the night has come at last. Home with you, home and lay your l...

Early in the morning I hear on your piano You (at least, I guess it’s you) proceed to learn to play. Mostly little minds should take and tackle their piano While the birds are singing in the morning o...

Fair Isle at Sea⁠—thy lovely name Soft in my ear like music came. That sea I loved, and once or twice I touched at isles of Paradise....

Loud and low in the chimney The squalls suspire; Then like an answer dwindles And glows the fire, And the chamber reddens and darkens In time like taken breath. Near by the sounding chimney The youth ...

I love to be warm by the red fireside, I love to be wet with rain: I love to be welcome at lamplit doors, And leave the doors again....

At last she comes, O never more In this dear patience of my pain To leave me lonely as before, Or leave my soul alone again....

Mine eyes were swift to know thee, and my heart As swift to love. I did become at once Thine wholly, thine unalterably, thine In honourable service, pure intent, Steadfast excess of love and laughing ...

Fixed is the doom; and to the last of years Teacher and taught, friend, lover, parent, child, Each walks, though near, yet separate; each beholds His dear ones shine beyond him like the stars. We also...

Men are Heaven’s piers; they evermore Unwearying bear the skyey floor; Man’s theatre they bear with ease, Unfrowning caryatides! I, for my wife, the sun uphold, Or, dozing, strike the seasons cold. Sh...

The angler rose, he took his rod, He kneeled and made his prayers to God. The living God sat overhead: The angler tripped, the eels were fed...

When loud by landside streamlets gush, And clear in the greenwood choirs the thrush, With sun on the meadows And songs in the shadows Comes again to me The gift of the tongues of the lea, The gift of ...

To what shall I compare her, That is as fair as she? For she is fairer⁠—fairer Than the sea. What shall be likened to her, The sainted of my youth? For she is truer⁠—truer Than the truth. As the stars...

When the sun comes after rain And the bird is in the blue, The girls go down the lane Two by two. When the sun comes after shadow And the singing of the showers, The girls go up the meadow, Fair as fl...

Late, O miller, The birds are silent, The darkness falls. In the house the lights are lighted. See, in the valley they twinkle, The lights of home. Late, O lovers, The night is at hand; Silence and da...

To friends at home, the lone, the admired, the lost The gracious old, the lovely young, to May The fair, December the beloved, These from my blue horizon and green isles, These from this pinnacle of d...

I, whom Apollo sometime visited, Or feigned to visit, now, my day being done, Do slumber wholly; nor shall know at all The weariness of changes; nor perceive Immeasurable sands of centuries Drink of t...

Tempest tossed and sore afflicted, sin defiled and care oppressed, Come to me, all ye that labour; come, and I will give ye rest. Fear no more, O doubting hearted; weep no more, O weeping eye! Lo, the...

Come to me, all ye that labour; I will give your spirits rest; Here apart in starry quiet I will give you rest. Come to me, ye heavy laden, sin defiled and care opprest, In your father’s quiet mansion...

I now, O friend, whom noiselessly the snows Settle around, and whose small chamber grows Dusk as the sloping window takes its load: The kindly hill, as to complete our hap, Has ta’en us in the shelter...

Since thou hast given me this good hope, O God, That while my footsteps tread the flowery sod And the great woods embower me, and white dawn And purple even sweetly lead me on From day to day, and nig...

God gave to me a child in part, Yet wholly gave the father’s heart: Child of my soul, O whither now, Unborn, unmothered, goest thou? You came, you went, and no man wist; Hapless, my child, no breast y...

Over the land is April, Over my heart a rose; Over the high, brown mountain The sound of singing goes. Say, love, do you hear me, Hear my sonnets ring? Over the high, brown mountain, Love, do you hear...

Light as the linnet on my way I start, For all my pack I bear a chartered heart. Forth on the world without a guide or chart, Content to know, through all man’s varying fates, The eternal woman by the...

Come, here is adieu to the city And hurrah for the country again. The broad road lies before me Watered with last night’s rain. The timbered country woos me With many a high and bough; And again in th...

It blows a snowing gale in the winter of the year; The boats are on the sea and the crews are on the pier. The needle of the vane, it is veering to and fro, A flash of sun is on the veering of the van...

There’s just a twinkle in your eye That seems to say I might, if I Were only bold enough to try An arm about your waist. I hear, too, as you come and go, That pretty nervous laugh, you know; And then ...

To all that love the far and blue: Whether, from dawn to eve, on foot The fleeing corners ye pursue, Nor weary of the vain pursuit; Or whether down the singing stream, Paddle in hand, jocund ye shoot,...

Thou strainest through the mountain fern, A most exiguously thin Burn. For all thy foam, for all thy din, Thee shall the pallid lake inurn, With well-a-day for Mr. Swin- Burne! Take then this quarto i...

When my young lady has grown great and staid, And in long raiment wondrously arrayed, She may take pleasure with a smile to know How she delighted men-folk long ago. For her long after, then, this tal...

Now bare to the beholder’s eye Your late denuded bindings lie, Subsiding slowly where they fell, A disinvested citadel; The obdurate corset, Cupid’s foe, The Dutchman’s breeches frilled below. Those t...

Nor judge me light, though light at times I seem, And lightly in the stress of fortune bear The innumerable flaws of changeful care⁠— Nor judge me light for this, nor rashly deem (Office forbid to mor...

Call it to mind, O my love. Dear were your eyes as the day, Bright as the day and the sky; Like the stream of gold and the sky above, Dear were your eyes in the grey. We have lived, my love, O, we hav...

Here lies Erotion, whom at six years old Fate pilfered. Stranger (when I too am cold, Who shall succeed me in my rural field), To this small spirit annual honours yield! Bright be thy hearth, hale be ...

Now Antoninus, in a smiling age, Counts of his life the fifteenth finished stage. The rounded days and the safe years he sees, Nor fears death’s water mounting round his knees. To him remembering not ...

Now in the sky And on the hearth of Now in a drawer the direful cane, That sceptre of the⁠ ⁠… reign, And the long hawser, that on the back Of Marsyas fell with many a whack, Twice hardened out of Scyt...

O Nepos, twice my neigh(b)our (since at home We’re door by door, by Flora’s temple dome; And in the country, still conjoined by fate, Behold our villas standing gate by gate), Thou hast a daughter, de...

You, Charidemus, who my cradle swung, And watched me all the days that I was young; You, at whose step the laziest slaves awake, And both the bailiff and the butler quake; The barber’s suds now blacke...

You fear⁠—Ligurra⁠—above all, you long⁠— That I should smite you with a stinging song. This dreadful honour you both fear and hope⁠— Both all in vain: you fall below my scope. The Lybian lion tears th...

Beyond the gates thou gav’st a field to till; I have a larger on my window-sill. A farm, d’ye say? Is this a farm to you, Where for all woods I spay one tuft of rue, And that so rusty, and so small a ...

O chief director of the growing race, Of Rome the glory and of Rome the grace, Me, O Quintilian, may you not forgive Before from labour I make haste to live? Some burn to gather wealth, lay hands on r...

My Martial owns a garden, famed to please, Beyond the glades of the Hesperides; Along Janiculum lies the chosen block Where the cool grottos trench the hanging rock. The moderate summit, something pla...

Go(d) knows, my Martial, if we two could be To enjoy our days set wholly free; To the true life together bend our mind, And take a furlough from the falser kind. No rich saloon, nor palace of the grea...

Wouldst thou be free? I think it not, indeed; But if thou wouldst, attend this simple rede: When quite contented Thou shall be free when thou canst dine at home And drink a small wine of the march of ...

Call me not rebel, though here at every word in what I sing If I no longer hail thee King and Lord Lord and King I have redeemed myself with all I had, And now possess my fortunes poor but glad. With ...

Look round: You see a little supper room; But from my window, lo! great Caesar’s tomb! And the great dead themselves, with jovial breath Bid you be merry and remember death....

This girl was sweeter than the song of swans, And daintier than the lamb upon the lawns Or Curine oyster. She, the flower of girls, Outshone the light of Erythraean pearls; The teeth of India that wit...

For these are sacred fishes all Who know that lord that is the lord of all; Come to the brim and nose the friendly hand That sways and can beshadow all the land. Nor only so, but have their names, and...

An alley ran across the pleasant wood, On either side of whose broad opening stood Wide-armed green elms of many a year, great bowers Of perfect greenery in summer hours. A small red pathway slow mean...

The withered rushes made a flame Across the marsh of rusty red; The dreary plover ever came And sang above the old well-head. About it crouch the junipers, Green-black and dewed with berries white, An...

About us lies the summer night; The darkling earth is dusk below; But high above, the sky is bright Between the eve and morning glow. Clear white of dawn, and apple green, Sole lingering of the evenin...

Take not my hand as mine alone⁠— You do not trust to me⁠— I hold the hand of greater men Too far before to see. Follow not me, who only trace Stoop-head the prints of those Our mighty predecessors, wh...

All influences were in vain, The sun dripped gold among the trees, The fresh breeze blew, the woody plain Ruffled and whispered in the breeze. All day the sea was on one hand, The long beach shone wit...

We are as maidens one and all, In some shut convent place, Pleased with the flowers, the service bells, The cloister’s shady grace, That whiles, with fearful, fluttering hearts, Look outward thro the ...

The moon is sinking⁠—the tempestuous weather Grows worse, the squalls disputing our advance; And as the feet fall well and true together In the last moonlight, see! the standards glance! One hour, one...

The whole day thro’, in contempt and pity, I pass your houses and beat my drum, In the roar of people that go and come, In the sunlit streets of the city. Hark! do you hear the ictus coming, Mid the r...

The old world moans and topes, Is restless and ill at ease; And the old-world politicians Prescribe for the new disease. I have stooped my head to listen (Its voice is far from strong)39 For the burde...

I am like one that has sat alone All day on a level plain, With drooping head and trailing arms In a ceaseless pour of rain⁠— With drooping head and nerveless arms On the moorland flat and gray, Till ...

I sit up here at midnight, The wind is in the street, The rain besieges the windows Like the sound of many feet. I see the street lamps flicker, I see them wink and fail; The streets are wet and empty...

Link your arm in mine, my lad⁠— You and I together, You and I and all the rest Shall face the winter weather. Some to good, and some to harm, Some to cheer the others, All the world goes arm in arm, A...

I have a friend; I have a story; I have a life that’s hard to live; I love; my love is all my glory; I have been hurt and I forgive. I have a friend; none could be better; I stake my heart upon my fri...

Though day by day old hopes depart, Yet other hopes arise If still we bear a hopeful heart And forward-looking eyes. Of all that entered hand in hand With me the dusty plains⁠— Look round!⁠—not one re...

See, with strong heart O youth, the change Of mood and season in thy breast. The intrepid soul that dares the wider range Shall find securer rest. The variable moods they breed Are but as April sun an...

Here he comes, big with statistics, Troubled and sharp about fac’s. He has heap of the Form that is thinkable⁠— The stuff that is feeling, he lacks. Do you envy this whiskered absurdity, With pince-ne...

In autumn when the woods are red And skies are gray and clear, The sportsmen seek the wild fowls’ bed Or follow down the deer; And Cupid hunts by haugh and head, By riverside and mere. I walk, not see...

The look of Death is both severe and mild, And all the words of Death are grave and sweet; He holds ajar the door of his retreat; The hermitage of life, it may be styled; He pardons sinners, cleanses ...

Her name is as a word of old romance That thrills a careless reader out of sleep. Love and old art, and all things pure and deep Attend on her to honour her advance⁠— The brave old wars where bearded ...

Light as my heart was long ago, Now it is heavy enough; Now that the weather is rough, Now that the loud winds come and go, Winter is here with hail and snow, Winter is sorry and gruff. Light as last ...

Gather ye roses while ye may, Old time is still a-flying; A world where beauty fleets away Is no world for denying. Come lads and lasses, fall to play Lose no more time in sighing. The very flowers yo...

Since I am sworn to live my life, And not to keep an easy heart, Some men may sit and drink apart⁠— I bear a banner in the strife. Some can take quiet thought to wife⁠— I am all day at tierce and cart...

Whether we like it, or don’t, There’s a sort of bond in the fact That we all by one master were taught, By one master were bullied and whackt. And now all the more when we see Our class in so shrunken...

I saw red evening through the rain Lower above the steaming plain; I heard the hour strike small and still, From the black belfry on the hill. Thought is driven out of doors tonight By bitter memory o...

Last night we had a thunderstorm in style. The wild lightning streaked the airs, As though my God fell down a pair of stairs. The thunder boomed and bounded all the while; All cried and sat by watersi...

O lady fair and sweet Arise and let us go Where comes not rain or snow, Excess of cold or heat, To find a still retreat By willowy valleys low Where silent rivers flow. There let us turn our feet O la...

If I had wings, my lady, like a dove I should not linger here, But through the winter air toward my love, Fly swift toward my love, my fair, If I had wings, my lady, like a dove. If I had wings, my la...

All night through, raves or broods The fitful wind among the woods; All night through, hark! the rain Beats upon the window pane. And still my heart is far away, Still dwells in many a bygone day, And...

The rain is over and done; I am aweary, dear, of love; I look below and look above, On russet maiden, rustling dame, And love’s so slow and time so long, And hearts and eyes so blindly wrong, I am hal...

There where the land of love, Grown about by fragrant bushes, Sunken in a winding valley, Where the clear winds blow And the shadows come and go, And the cattle stand and low And the sheep bells and t...

Love is the very heart of spring; Flocks fall to loving on the lea And wildfowl love upon the wing, When spring first enters like a sea. When spring first enters like a sea Into the heart of everythin...

At morning on the garden seat I dearly love to drink and eat; To drink and eat, to drink and sing, At morning, in the time of spring. In winter honest men retire And sup their possets by the fire; But...

If I could arise and travel away Over the plains of the night and the day, I should arrive at a land at last Where all of our sins and sorrows are past And we’re done with the Ten Commandments. The na...

Good old ale, mild or pale, India ale and Burton, Give me a vat to swim a whale. When far along the verdant dale The far off spire appears, The mind reverts to Burton’s ale And dreams of different bee...

Nay, but I fancy somehow, year by year The hard road waxing easier to my feet; Nay, but I fancy as the seasons fleet I shall grow ever dearer to my dear. Hope is so strong that it has conquered fear; ...

My wife and I, in one romantic cot, The world forgetting, by the world forgot, Or high as the gods upon Olympus dwell, Pleased with what things we have, and pleased as well To wait in hope for those w...

Yes, I remember, and still remember wailing Wind in the clouds and rainy sea-horizon, Empty and lit with a low nocturnal glimmer; How in the strong, deep-plunging, transatlantic Emigrant ship we sang ...

Of Schooners, Islands and Maroons, And Buccaneers and Buried Gold, And Torches red and rising moons, If all the old romance retold Exactly in the ancient way, Can please, as me they pleased of old, Th...

Mother and sire, to you do I commend Tiny Erotion, who must now descend, A child, among the shadows, and appear Before hell’s bandog and hell’s gondolier. Of six hoar winters she had felt the cold, Bu...

Lo, in thy green enclosure here, Let not the ugly or the old appear, Divine Priapus; but with leaping tread The schoolboy, and the golden head Of the slim filly twelve years old⁠— Let these to enter a...

Far over seas an island is Whereon when day is done A grove of tossing palms Are printed on the sun. And all about the reefy shore Blue breakers flash and fall. There shall I go, methinks, When I am d...

On the gorgeous hills of morning A sudden piping of birds, A piping of all the forest, high and merry and clear, I lay in my tent and listened; I lay and heard them long, In the dark of the moonlit mo...

Rivers and winds among the twisted hills, Hears, and his hearing slowly fills, And hearkens, and his face is lit, Life facing, Death pursuing it. As with heaped bees at hiving time The boughs are clot...

I am a hunchback, yellow faced⁠— A hateful sight to see⁠— ‘T is all that other men can do To pass and let me be. I am a woman⁠—my hair is white⁠— I was a drunkard’s lass; The gin dances in my head⁠— I...

I look across the ocean, And kneel upon the shore, I look out seaward⁠—westward, My heart swells more and more. I see the great new nation, New spirit and new scope Rise there from the sea’s round sho...

“Life on the Lagoons,” by H. F. Brown, originally burned in the fire at Messrs. Kegan Paul, Trench & Co.’s. ↩ From “Travels with a Donkey.” ↩ See note 2. ↩ Introduction.⁠—This tale, of which I have no...