Oh, good gigantic smile o’ the brown old earth,
This autumn morning! How he sets his bones
To bask i’ the sun, and thrusts out knees and feet
For the ripple to run over in its mirth;
Listening the while, where on the heap of stones
The white breast of the sea-lark twitters sweet.
That is the doctrine, simple, ancient, true;
Such...
HAMELIN Town ’s in Brunswick,
By famous Hanover City;
The river Weser, deep and wide,
Washes its wall on the southern side;
A pleasanter spot you never spied;
But when begins my ditty,
Almost five hundred years ago,
To see the townsfolk suffer so
From vermin was a pity.
Rats!
They fought the...
Ah, did you once see Shelley plain,
And did he stop and speak to you,
And did you speak to him again?
How strange it seems, and new!
But you were living before that,
And also you are living after;
And the memory I started at—
My starting moves your laughter!
I crossed a moor, with a name of its own
And a...
JUST 1 for a handful of silver he left us,
Just for a ribbon to stick in his coat—
Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us,
Lost all the others she lets us devote;
They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver,
So much was theirs who so little allowed;
How all our copper had gone for his service!
Rags—were they purple,...
Shall I sonnet-sing you about myself?
Do I live in a house you would like to see?
Is it scant of gear, has it store of pelf?
“Unlock my heart with a sonnet-key?”
Invite the world, as my betters have done?
“Take notice: this building remains on view,
Its suites of reception every one,
Its private apartment and bedroom too;
(Peter Ronsard loquitur)
“HEIGHO,” yawned one day King Francis,
“Distance all value enhances!
When a man’s busy, why, leisure
Strikes him as wonderful pleasure—
’Faith, and at leisure once is he?
Straightway he wants to be busy.
Here we ’ve got peace; and aghast I ’m
Caught thinking war the true pastime!
Is there a reason...
On the sea and at the Hogue, sixteen hundred ninety-two,
Did the English fight the French—woe to France!
And the thirty-first of May, helter-skelter through the blue,
Like a crowd of frightened porpoises a shoal of sharks pursue,
Came crowding ship on ship to St. Malo on the Rance,
With the English fleet in view.
’T was the squadron that...
I Sprang to the stirrup, and Joris and he;
I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three;
“Good speed!” cried the watch as the gatebolts undrew,
“Speed!” echoed the wall to us galloping through.
Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest;
And into the midnight we galloped abreast.
Not a word to each other; we kept the great pace,—...
You know we French stormed Ratisbon:
A mile or so away,
On a little mound, Napoleon
Stood on our storming-day;
With neck out-thrust, you fancy how,
Legs wide, arms locked behind,
As if to balance the prone brow,
Oppressive with its mind.
Just as perhaps he mused, “My plans
That soar, to earth may fall,
...
King Charles, and who ’ll do him right now?
King Charles, and who ’s ripe for fight now?
Give a rouse: here ’s, in hell’s despite now,
King Charles!
Who gave me the goods that went since?
Who raised me the house that sank once?
Who helped me to gold I spent since?
Who found me in wine you drank once?
(Chorus)King Charles, and...
