Master Simon’s inn, the “Flowing Source”–“Good Entertainment for Man and Beast”–leant over the riverside by the ferry, a mile and a half above Ponteglos town. The fresh water of Cuckoo River met the salt Channel tide right under its windows, by the wooden ladder where Master Simon chained his ferry-boat. Fourteen miles inland, a brown […]

A puff of north-east wind shot over the hill, detached a late December leaf from the sycamore on its summit, and swooped like a wave upon the roofs and chimney-stacks below. It caught the smoke midway in the chimneys, drove it back with showers of soot and wood-ash, and set the townsmen sneezing who lingered […]

ADDRESSED TO RASSELAS, PRINCE OF ABBYSSINIA. I.–THE FIRST PARISH MEETING. Troy Town,5 December, 1894. My Dear Prince,–I feel sure that you, as a sympathetic student of western politics and manners, must be impatient to hear about our first Parish Meeting in Troy; and so I am catching the earliest post to inform you that from […]

A LIGHTSHIP IDYLL. When first the Trinity Brothers put a light out yonder by the Gunnel Rocks, it was just a trifling makeshift affair for the time–none of your proper lightships with a crew of twelve or fourteen hands; and my father and I used to tend it, taking turn and turn with two other […]

Extract from the Memoirs of GABRIEL FOOT, Highwayman. Our plan of attack upon Nanscarne House was a simple one. The old baronet, Sir Harry Dinnis, took a just pride in his silver-ware. Some of it dated from Elizabeth: for Sir Harry’s great-great-grandfather, as the unhappy alternative of melting it down for King Charles, had taken […]

By W. W. Behold! I am not one that goes to Lectures or the pow-wow of Professors. The elementary laws never apologise: neither do I apologise. I find letters from the Dean dropt on my table–and every one is signed by the Dean’s name– And I leave them where they are; for I know that […]

The Pervigilium Veneris–of unknown authorship, but clearly belonging to the late literature of the Roman Empire–has survived in two MSS., both preserved at Paris in the Bibliotheque Nationale. Of these two MSS. the better written may be assigned (at earliest) to the close of the seventh century; the other (again at earliest) to the close […]

HEWLETT! as ship to shipLet us the ensign dip.There may be who despiseFor dross our merchandise,Our balladries, our balesOf woven tales;Yet, Hewlett, the glad galesFavonian! And what sprayOur dolphins toss’d in play,Full in old Triton’s beard, on Iris’ shimmering veils! Scant tho’ the freight of goldCommercial in our hold,Paestum, EridanusPerchance have barter’d us‘Bove chrematistic care

(Poitevin) The bold Marine comes back from war,So kind:The bold Marine comes back from war,So kind:With a raggety coat and a worn-out shoe.“Now, poor Marine, say, whence come you,All so kind?” I travel back from the war, madame,So kind:I travel back from the war, madame,So kind:For a glass of wine and a bowl of whey,‘Tis […]

(Roumanian) When winter trees bestrew the path,Still to the twig a leaf or twainWill cling and weep, not Winter’s wrath,But that foreknown forlorner pain–To fall when green leaves come again. I watch’d him sleep by the furrow–The first that fell in the fight.His grave they would dig to-morrow:The battle called them to-night. They bore him […]

O’er the tears that we shed, dearThe bitter vines twist,And the hawk and the red deerThey keep where we kiss’d:All broken lies the shielingThat sheltered from rain,With a star to pierce the ceiling,And the dawn an empty pane. Thro’ the mist, up the moorway,Fade hunters and pack;From the ridge to thy doorwayHappy voices float back […]

From my farm, from her farmFurtively we came.In either home a hearth was warm:We nursed a hungrier flame. Our feet were foul with mire,Our faces blind with mist;But all the night was naked fireAbout us where we kiss’d. To her farm, to my farm,Loathing we returned;Pale beneath a gallow’s armThe planet Saturn burned.

Over the rim of the Moor,And under the starry sky,Two men came to my doorAnd rested them thereby. Beneath the bough and the star,In a whispering foreign tongue,They talked of a land afarAnd the merry days so young! Beneath the dawn and the boughI heard them arise and go:And my heart it is aching nowFor […]

Hush! and again the chatter of the starlingAthwart the lawn!Lean your head close and closer. O my darling!–It is the dawn.Dawn in the dusk of her dream,Dream in the hush of her bosom, unclose!Bathed in the eye-bright beam,Blush to her cheek, be a blossom, a rose! Go, nuptial night! the floor of Ocean tressingWith moon […]

All night a fountain pleads,Telling her beads,Her tinkling beads monotonous ‘neath the moon;And where she springs atween,Two statues lean–Two Kings, their marble beards with moonlightstrewn. Till hate had frozen speech,Each hated each,Hated and died, and went unto his place:And still inveterateThey lean and hateWith glare of stone implacable, face to face. One, who bade set […]

From “Arion,” an unpublished Masque I He. Aglai-a! Aglai-a!Sweet, awaken and be glad.She. Who is this that calls Aglaia?Is it thou, my dearest lad?He.‘Tis Arion, ’tis Arion,Who calls thee from sleep–From slumber who bids theeTo follow and numberHis kids and his sheep.She. Nay, leave to entreat me!If mother should spy onUs twain, she would beat […]

Small is my secret–let it pass–Small in your life the share I had,Who sat beside you in the class,Awed by the bright superior lad:Whom yet with hot and eager faceI prompted when he missed his place. For you the call came swift and soon:But sometimes in your holidaysYou meet me trudging home at noonTo dinner […]

Before Vittoria, June 20, 1813 O Mary Leslie, blithe and shrillThe bugles blew for Spain:And you below the Castle HillStood in the crowd your lane.Then hearts were wild to watch us pass,Yet laith to let us go!While mine said, “Fare-ye-well, my lass!”And yours, “God keep my Jo!” Here by the bivouac fire, aboveThese fields of […]

Know you her secret none can utter?Hers of the Book, the tripled Crown?Still on the spire the pigeons flutter,Still by the gateway flits the gown;Still on the street, from corbel and gutter,Faces of stone look down. Faces of stone, and stonier faces–Some from library windows wanForth on her gardens, her green spaces,Peer and turn to […]

I E. W. B. Archbishop of Canterbury: sometime the First Bishopof Truro. October 1896 The Church’s outpost on a neck of land–By ebb of faith the foremost left the last–Dull, starved of hope, we watched the driven sandBlown through the hour-glass, covering our past,Counting no hours to our relief–no hailAcross the hills, and on the […]