Clear and cool, clear and cool,By laughing shallow, and dreaming pool;Cool and clear, cool and clear,By shining shingle, and foaming weir;Under the crag where the ouzel sings,And the ivied wall where the church-bell rings,Undefiled, for the undefiled;Play by me, bathe in me, mother and child. Dank and foul, dank and foul,By the smoky town in […]

On the Death of Leopold, King of the Belgians {A} A King is dead! Another master mindIs summoned from the world-wide council hall.Ah, for some seer, to say what links behind–To read the mystic writing on the wall! Be still, fond man: nor ask thy fate to know.Face bravely what each God-sent moment brings.Above thee […]

A harper came over the Danube so wide,And he came into Alaric’s hall,And he sang the song of the little BaltungTo him and his heroes all. How the old old Balt and the young young BaltRode out of Caucaland,With the royal elephant’s trunk on helmAnd the royal lance in hand. Thuringer heroes, counts and knights,Pricked […]

‘So the foemen have fired the gate, men of mine;And the water is spent and gone?Then bring me a cup of the red Ahr-wine:I never shall drink but this one. ‘And reach me my harness, and saddle my horse,And lead him me round to the door:He must take such a leap to-night perforce,As horse never […]

‘Qu’est Qu’il Dit’ {A} Espion aile de la jeune amanteDe l’ombre des palmiers pourquoi ce cri?Laisse en paix le beau garcon plaider et vaincre–Pourquoi, pourquoi demander ‘Qu’est qu’il dit?’ ‘Qu’est qu’il dit?’ Ce que tu dis toi-memeChaque mois de ce printemps eternel;Ce que disent les papillons qui s’entre-baisent,Ce que dit tout bel jeun etre a […]

It was Sir John, the fair young Priest,He strode up off the strand;But seven fisher maidens he left behindAll dancing hand in hand. He came unto the wise wife’s house:‘Now, Mother, to prove your art;To charm May Carleton’s merry blue eyesOut of a young man’s heart.’ ‘My son, you went for a holy man,Whose heart […]

He wiled me through the furzy croft;He wiled me down the sandy lane.He told his boy’s love, soft and oft,Until I told him mine again. We married, and we sailed the main;A soldier, and a soldier’s wife.We marched through many a burning plain;We sighed for many a gallant life. But his–God kept it safe from […]

September 21, 1870 {A} Speak low, speak little; who may singWhile yonder cannon-thunders boom?Watch, shuddering, what each day may bring:Nor ‘pipe amid the crack of doom.’ And yet–the pines sing overhead,The robins by the alder-pool,The bees about the garden-bed,The children dancing home from school. And ever at the loom of BirthThe mighty Mother weaves and […]

They drift away. Ah, God! they drift for ever.I watch the stream sweep onward to the sea,Like some old battered buoy upon a roaring river,Round whom the tide-waifs hang–then drift to sea. I watch them drift–the old familiar faces,Who fished and rode with me, by stream and wold,Till ghosts, not men, fill old beloved places,And, […]

(Written for music to be sung at a parish industrial exhibition) See the land, her Easter keeping,Rises as her Maker rose.Seeds, so long in darkness sleeping,Burst at last from winter snows.Earth with heaven above rejoices;Fields and gardens hail the spring;Shaughs and woodlands ring with voices,While the wild birds build and sing. You, to whom your […]

The boy on the famous gray pony,Just bidding good-bye at the door,Plucking up maiden heart for the fencesWhere his brother won honour of yore. The walk to ‘the Meet’ with fair children,And women as gentle as gay,–Ah! how do we male hogs in armourDeserve such companions as they? The afternoon’s wander to windward,To meet the […]

The Legend of La Brea {A} Down beside the loathly Pitch Lake,In the stately Morichal, {331b}Sat an ancient Spanish Indian,Peering through the columns tall. Watching vainly for the flashingOf the jewelled colibris; {331c}Listening vainly for their hummingRound the honey-blossomed trees. ‘Few,’ he sighed, ‘they come, and fewer,To the cocorite {331d} bowers;Murdered, madly, through the forestsWhich […]

1 ‘Are you ready for your steeple-chase, Lorraine, Lorraine, Lorree?Barum, Barum, Barum, Barum, Barum, Barum, Baree,You’re booked to ride your capping race to-day at Coulterlee,You’re booked to ride Vindictive, for all the world to see,To keep him straight, to keep him first, and win the run for me.Barum, Barum,’ etc. 2 She clasped her new-born […]

Martin Lightfoot’s Song {A} Come hearken, hearken, gentles all,Come hearken unto me,And I’ll sing you a song of a Wood-LyonCame swimming out over the sea. He ranged west, he ranged east,And far and wide ranged he;He took his bite out of every beastLives under the greenwood tree. Then by there came a silly old wolf,‘And […]

Oh! I wish I were a tiny browny bird from out the south,Settled among the alder-holts, and twittering by the stream;I would put my tiny tail down, and put up my tiny mouth,And sing my tiny life away in one melodious dream. I would sing about the blossoms, and the sunshine and the sky,And the […]

Read at Sion College, January 10th, 1871. When I accepted the unexpected and undeserved honour of being allowed to lecture here, the first subject which suggested itself to me was Natural Theology. It is one which has taken up much of my thought for some years past, {313} which seems to me more and more […]

Note: Lecture delivered at Reading, 1846. Ladies and gentlemen, I speak to you to-night as to persons assembled, somewhat, no doubt, for amusement, but still more for instruction. Institutions such as this were originally founded for the purpose of instruction; to supply to those who wish to educate themselves some of the advantages of a […]

Note: A Lecture delivered at the Royal Institution. I said, that Superstition was the child of Fear, and Fear the child of Ignorance; and you might expect me to say antithetically, that Science was the child of Courage, and Courage the child of Knowledge. But these genealogies–like most metaphors–do not fit exactly, as you may […]

Note: A Lecture delivered at the Mechanics’ Institute, Odiham, 1857. Ladies and gentlemen, we may of course think of anything which we choose in a gravel-pit, as we may anywhere else. Thought is free: at least so we fancy. But the most right sort of thought, after all, is thought about what lies nearest us; […]

Note: A Lecture delivered at the Royal Institution, London, 1867. Having accepted the very great honour of being allowed to deliver here two lectures, I have chosen as my subject Superstition and Science. It is with Superstition that this first lecture will deal. The subject seems to me especially fit for a clergyman; for he […]