Four Years Old:—A Nursery Song
  
… “Pien d’ amori,
Pien di canti, e pien di fiori.”—FRUGONI.
  
Full of little loves of ours,
Full of songs, and full of flowers.

AH, little ranting Johnny,
For ever blithe and bonny,
And...

Poet: Leigh Hunt

  SLEEP breathes at last from out thee,
    My little patient boy;
  And balmy rest about thee
    Smooths off the day’s annoy.
      I sit me down, and think
    Of all thy winning ways;
Yet almost wish, with sudden shrink,
    That I had...

Poet: Leigh Hunt

Jaffar, the Barmecide, the good vizier,
The poor man’s hope, the friend without a peer,
Jaffar was dead, slain by a doom unjust;
And guilty Haroun, sullen with mistrust
Of what the good, and e’en the bad, might say,
Ordained that no man living from that...

Poet: Leigh Hunt

JENNY 1 kissed me when we met,
  Jumping from the chair she sat in.
Time, you thief! who love to get
  Sweets into your list, put that in.
Say I ’m weary, say I ’m sad;
  Say that health and wealth have missed me;
Say I ’m growing old, but add—...

Poet: Leigh Hunt

Paraphrase from the Greek
T’ OTHER day, as I was twining
Roses for a crown to dine in,
What, of all things, midst the heap,
Should I light on, fast asleep,
But the little desperate elf,
The tiny traitor,—Love himself!
By the wings I pinched...

Poet: Leigh Hunt

Abou Ben ADHEM (may his tribe increase!)
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
And saw within the moonlight in his room,
Making it rich and like a lily in bloom,
An angel writing in a book of gold:
Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,
And...

Poet: Leigh Hunt

Green little vaulter in the sunny grass,
Catching your heart up at the feel of June,—
Sole voice that ’s heard amidst the lazy noon,
When even the bees lag at the summoning brass;
And you, warm little housekeeper, who class
With those who think the candles...

Poet: Leigh Hunt

HALLO!—what?—where, what can it be
That strikes up so deliciously?
I never in my life—what? no!
That little tin box playing so?
It really seemed as if a sprite
Had struck among us swift and light,
And come from some minuter star
To treat us...

Poet: Leigh Hunt

It flows through old, hushed Ægypt and its sands,
  Like some grave, mighty thought threading a dream;
  And times and things, as in that vision, seem
Keeping along it their eternal stands,—
Caves, pillars, pyramids, the shepherd bands
  That roamed...

Poet: Leigh Hunt

There came a man, making his hasty moan
Before the Sultan Mahmoud on his throne,
And crying out, “My sorrow is my right,
And I will see the Sultan, and to-night.”
“Sorrow,” said Mahmoud, “is a reverend thing:
I recognize its right, as king with king;...

Poet: Leigh Hunt