Classics Books

THE MORNING VISIT A sick man's chamber, though it often boastThe grateful presence of a literal toast,Can hardly claim, amidst its various wealth,The right unchallenged to propose a health;Yet though its tenant is denied the feast,Friendship must launch his sentiment at least,As prisoned damsels, locked from lovers' lips,Toss them a kiss from off their fingers' tips. The morning... more...

BILL AND JOE COME, dear old comrade, you and IWill steal an hour from days gone by,The shining days when life was new,And all was bright with morning dew,The lusty days of long ago,When you were Bill and I was Joe. Your name may flaunt a titled trailProud as a cockerel's rainbow tail,And mine as brief appendix wearAs Tam O'Shanter's luckless mare;To-day, old friend, remember stillThat I... more...

TO THE ELEVEN LADIES WHO PRESENTED ME WITH A SILVER LOVING CUP ON THE TWENTY-NINTH OF AUGUST, M DCCC LXXXIX "WHO gave this cup?" The secret thou wouldst stealIts brimming flood forbids it to reveal:No mortal's eye shall read it till he firstCool the red throat of thirst. If on the golden floor one draught remain,Trust me, thy careful search will be in vain;Not till the bowl is emptied... more...

TO MY READERS NAY, blame me not; I might have sparedYour patience many a trivial verse,Yet these my earlier welcome shared,So, let the better shield the worse. And some might say, "Those ruder songsHad freshness which the new have lost;To spring the opening leaf belongs,The chestnut-burs await the frost." When those I wrote, my locks were brown,When these I write—ah, well a-day!The autumn... more...

THE PILGRIM'S VISION IN the hour of twilight shadowsThe Pilgrim sire looked out;He thought of the "bloudy Salvages"That lurked all round about,Of Wituwamet's pictured knifeAnd Pecksuot's whooping shout;For the baby's limbs were feeble,Though his father's arms were stout. His home was a freezing cabin,Too bare for the hungry rat;Its roof was thatched with ragged... more...

AT MY FIRESIDE ALONE, beneath the darkened sky,With saddened heart and unstrung lyre,I heap the spoils of years gone by,And leave them with a long-drawn sigh,Like drift-wood brands that glimmering lie,Before the ashes hide the fire. Let not these slow declining daysThe rosy light of dawn outlast;Still round my lonely hearth it plays,And gilds the east with borrowed rays,While memory's mirrored... more...

GRANDMOTHER'S STORY OF BUNKER-HILL BATTLE AS SHE SAW IT FROM THE BELFRY 'T is like stirring living embers when, at eighty, one remembersAll the achings and the quakings of "the times that tried men's souls";When I talk of Whig and Tory, when I tell the Rebel story,To you the words are ashes, but to me they're burning coals. I had heard the muskets' rattle of the April... more...

I. O'er royal London, in luxuriant May,While lamps yet twinkled, dawning crept the day.Home from the hell the pale-eyed gamester steals;Home from the ball flash jaded Beauty's wheels;The lean grimalkin, who, since night began,Hath hymn'd to love amidst the wrath of man,Scared from his raptures by the morning star,Flits finely by, and threads the area bar;From fields suburban rolls the... more...

One of the "Poems of Sentiment and Reflection."—Ed.Spade! with which Wilkinson hath tilled his lands,And shaped these pleasant walks by Emont's side,Thou art a tool of honour in my hands;I press thee, through the yielding soil, with pride.Rare master has it been thy lot to know;Long hast Thou served a man to reason true;Whose life combines the best of high and low,The labouringmany and... more...

Lines Sing on, sweet feathered warbler, sing!Mount higher on thy joyous wing,And let thy morning anthem ringFull on my ear;Thou art the only sign of springI see or hear. The earth is buried deep in snow;The muffled streams refuse to flow,The rattling mill can scarcely go,For ice and frost:The beauty of the vale belowIn death is lost. Save thine, no note of joy is heard—Thy kindred songsters of the... more...