The lilly cheek, the “purple light of love,”The liquid lustre of the melting eye,–Mary! of these the Poet sung, for theseDid Woman triumph! with no angry frownView this degrading conquest. At that ageNo MAID OF ARC had snatch’d from coward manThe heaven-blest sword of Liberty; thy sexCould boast no female ROLAND’S martyrdom;No CORDE’S angel and […]

With wayworn feet a Pilgrim woe-begoneLife’s upward road I journeyed many a day,And hymning many a sad yet soothing layBeguil’d my wandering with the charms of song.Lonely my heart and rugged was my way,Yet often pluck’d I as I past alongThe wild and simple flowers of Poesy,And as beseem’d the wayward Fancy’s childEntwin’d each random […]

“Lo I, the man who erst the Muse did askHer deepest notes to swell the Patriot’s meeds,Am now enforst a far unfitter taskFor cap and gown to leave my minstrel weeds,”For yon dull noise that tinkles on the airBids me lay by the lyre and go to morning prayer. Oh how I hate the sound! […]

DACTYLICS. Weary way-wanderer languid and sick at heartTravelling painfully over the rugged road,Wild-visag’d Wanderer! ah for thy heavy chance! Sorely thy little one drags by thee bare-footed,Cold is the baby that hangs at thy bending backMeagre and livid and screaming its wretchedness. [1] Woe-begone mother, half anger, half agony,As over thy shoulder thou lookest to […]

[GREEK (transliterated):Tin gar potaeisomaitan chai schuliches tromeontiErchomenan nechuon ana t’aeria, chai melan aima.Theocritos] Dark HORROR, hear my call!Stern Genius hear from thy retreatOn some old sepulchre’s moss-cankered seat,Beneath the Abbey’s ivied wallThat trembles o’er its shade;Where wrapt in midnight gloom, alone,Thou lovest to lie and hearThe roar of waters near,And listen to the deep dull […]

[Greek (transliterated):Kai pagas fileoimi ton enguthen aechon achthein,A terpei psopheoisa ton agrikon, thchi tarassei. MOSCHOS.] Faint gleams the evening radiance thro’ the sky,The sober twilight dimly darkens round;In short quick circles the shrill bat flits by,And the slow vapour curls along the ground. Now the pleas’d eye from yon lone cottage seesOn the green mead […]

And they have drown’d thee then at last! poor Phillis!The burthen of old age was heavy on thee.And yet thou should’st have lived! what tho’ thine eyeWas dim, and watch’d no more with eager joyThe wonted call that on thy dull sense sunkWith fruitless repetition, the warm SunWould still have cheer’d thy slumber, thou didst […]

Go thou and seek the House of Prayer!I to the Woodlands wend, and thereIn lovely Nature see the GOD OF LOVE.The swelling organ’s pealWakes not my soul to zeal,Like the wild music of the wind-swept grove.The gorgeous altar and the mystic vestRouse not such ardor in my breast,As where the noon-tide beamFlash’d from the broken […]

Written on the FIRST of DECEMBER, 1793. Tho’ now no more the musing earDelights to listen to the breezeThat lingers o’er the green wood shade,I love thee Winter! well. Sweet are the harmonies of Spring,Sweet is the summer’s evening gale,Pleasant the autumnal winds that shakeThe many-colour’d grove. And pleasant to the sober’d soulThe silence of […]

Orleans was hush’d in sleep. Stretch’d on her couchThe delegated Maiden lay: with toilExhausted and sore anguish, soon she closedHer heavy eye-lids; not reposing then,For busy Phantasy, in other scenesAwakened. Whether that superior powers,By wise permission, prompt the midnight dream,Instructing so the passive [1] faculty;Or that the soul, escaped its fleshly clog,Flies free, and soars […]

Remove far from me vanity and lies; give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me. The words of Agur. The Title of the following Poem will probably remind the Reader of Akenside’s Hymn to the Naiads, but the manner in which I have treated the subject fortunately precludes comparison. HYMN […]

Divers Princes and Noblemen being assembled in a beautiful and fair Palace, which was situate upon the river Rhine, they beheld a boat or small barge make toward the shore, drawn by a Swan in a silver chain, the one end fastened about her neck, the other to the vessel; and in it an unknown […]

In Finland there is a Castle which is called the New Rock, moated about with a river of unfounded depth, the water black and the fish therein very distateful to the palate. In this are spectres often seen, which foreshew either the death of the Governor, or some prime officer belonging to the place; and […]

Poussin! most pleasantly thy pictur’d scenesBeguile the lonely hour; I sit and gazeWith lingering eye, till charmed FANCY makesThe lovely landscape live, and the rapt soulFrom the foul haunts of herded humankindFlies far away with spirit speed, and tastesThe untainted air, that with the lively hueOf health and happiness illumes the cheekOf mountain LIBERTY. My […]

Fly, son of Banquo! Fleance, fly!Leave thy guilty sire to die.O’er the heath the stripling fled,The wild storm howling round his head.Fear mightier thro’ the shades of nightUrged his feet, and wing’d his flight;And still he heard his father cryFly, son of Banquo! Fleance, fly. Fly, son of Banquo! Fleance, flyLeave thy guilty sire to […]

The stories of the two following ballads are wholly imaginary. I may say of each as John Bunyan did of his ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’, “It came from mine own heart, so to my head,And thence into my fingers trickled;Then to my pen, from whence immediatelyOn paper I did dribble it daintily.” JASPAR Jaspar was poor, and […]

In September, 1798, a Dissenting Minister of Bristol, discovered a Sailor in the neighbourhood of that City, groaning and praying in a hovel. The circumstance that occasioned his agony of mind is detailed in the annexed Ballad, without the slightest addition or alteration. By presenting it as a Poem the story is made more public, […]

The circumstance related in the following Ballad happened about forty years ago in a village adjacent to Bristol. A person who was present at the funeral, told me the story and the particulars of the interment, as I have versified them. THE CROSS ROADS. There was an old man breaking stonesTo mend the turnpike way,He […]

Written from London. Margaret! my Cousin!–nay, you must not smile;I love the homely and familiar phrase;And I will call thee Cousin Margaret,However quaint amid the measured lineThe good old term appears. Oh! it looks illWhen delicate tongues disclaim old terms of kin,Sirring and Madaming as civillyAs if the road between the heart and lipsWere such […]

And wherefore do the Poor complain?The rich man asked of me,–Come walk abroad with me, I saidAnd I will answer thee. Twas evening and the frozen streetsWere cheerless to behold,And we were wrapt and coated well,And yet we were a-cold. We met an old bare-headed man,His locks were few and white,I ask’d him what he […]