Sweet childish days, that were as long

As twenty days are now.

To a Butterfly. I've watched you now a full half-hour.

Often have I sighed to measure
By myself a lonely pleasure, -
Sighed to think I read a book,
Only read, perhaps, by me.

As high as we have mounted in delight,
In our dejection do we sink as low.

To the Small Celandine.

Resolution and Independence. Stanza 4.

But how can he expect that others should
Build for him, sow for him, and at his call

Love him, who for himself will take no heed at all?

I thought of Chatterton, the marvellous boy,
The sleepless soul that perished in his pride;
Of him who walked in glory and in joy,
Following his plough, along the mountain-side.
By our own spirits we are deified;

We Poets in our youth begin in gladness,

Stanza 6

But thereof come in the end despondency and madness.

That heareth not the loud winds when they call,
And moveth all together, if it moves at all.

Stanza ?

And mighty poets in their misery dead.

Choice word and measured phrase above the reach
Of ordinary men.

Stanza 11

Stanza 14.

Stanza 17.

Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will;
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!

Earth has not anything to show more fair.

The holy time is quiet as a nun
Breathless with adoration.

It is a beauteous Evening.

Men are we, and must grieve when even the shade
Of that which once was great is passed away.

On the Extinction of the Venetian Republic.

Thou has left behind

Powers that will work for thee,

air, earth, and skies!

There's not a
breathing of the common wind
That will forget thee; thou hast great allies;
Thy friends are exultations, agonies,
And love, and man's unconquerable mind.1

To Toussaint L'Ouverture.

A Poet's Epitaph. Stanza 5.

He murmurs near the running brooks
A music sweeter than their own.

Stanza 10.

And you must love him, ere to you
He will seem worthy of your love.

The harvest of a quiet eye,

Stanza 11.

That broods and sleeps on his own heart.

Yet sometimes, when the secret cup

Of still and serious thought went round,
It seemed as if he drank it up,
He felt with spirit so profound.

My eyes are dim with childish tears,

My heart is idly stirred,

For the same sound is in my ears
Which in those days I heard.

A happy youth, and their old age
Is beautiful and free.

Stanza 13.

Matthew.

The Fountain.

Ibid.

And often, glad no more,
We wear a face of joy because

We have been glad of yore.

1 See Gray, page 382.

Ibid

The sweetest thing that ever grew
Beside a human door.

A youth to whom was given

So much of earth, so much of heaven.

Lucy Gray. Stanza 2.

Until a man might travel twelve stout miles,
Or reap an acre of his neighbor's corn.
Something between a hindrance and a help.
Drink, pretty creature, drink!

Lady of the Mere,

Sole-sitting by the shores of old romance.

Ruth.

The Brothers.

Michael.

The Pet Lamb.

A narrow Girdle of rough Stones and Crags.

And he is oft the wisest man

The Oak and the Broom.

Who is not wise at all.

"A jolly place," said he, "in times of old!
But something ails it now: the spot is cursed."

Hart-leap Well. Part it.

Hunt half a day for a forgotten dream.
Never to blend our pleasure or our pride
With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels.
Plain living and high thinking are no more.
The homely beauty of the good old cause
Is gone; our peace, our fearful innocence,
And pure religion breathing household laws.

Ibid.

Ibid.

O Friend! I know not which way I must look.
Milton! thou should'st be living at this hour:
England hath need of thee!

Thy soul was like a star, and dwelt apart :
So didst thou travel on life's common way
In cheerful godliness.

London, 1802.

We must be free or die who speak the tongue
That Shakespeare spake, the faith and morals hold
Which Milton held.
It is not to be thought of

A noticeable man, with large gray eyes.

Stanzas written in Thomson's Castle of Indolence.

We meet thee, like a pleasant thought,

When such are wanted.

The poet's darling.

Thou unassuming commonplace
Of Nature.

Oft on the dappled turf at ease
I sit, and play with similes,

Loose type of things through all degrees.
Sweet Mercy! to the gates of heaven
This minstrel lead, his sins forgiven;
The rueful conflict, the heart riven
With vain endeavour,

And memory of Earth's bitter leaven
Effaced forever.

To the Daisy.

Ibid.

To the same Flower.

Ibid.

Thoughts suggested on the Banks of the Nith.

The best of what we do and are,

Just God, forgive.!

For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago.

Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain
That has been, and may be again.

The music in my heart I bore
Long after it was heard no more.

Ibid.

The Solitary Reaper.

Yon foaming flood seems motionless as ice;
Its dizzy turbulence eludes the eye,
Frozen by distance.

A famous man is Robin Hood,
The English ballad-singer's joy.

Because the good old rule

Sufficeth them, the simple plan,

Ibid.

Ibid.

Address to Kilchurn Castle.

That they should take who have the power,
And they should keep who can.

Rob Roy's Grave.

Ibid.

The Eagle, he was lord above,

And Rob was lord below.

Rob Roy's Grave

Sonnet composed at·

Castle.

A brotherhood of venerable trees.

Let beeves and home-bred kine partake
The sweets of Burn-mill meadow;
The swan on still St. Mary's Lake
Float double, swan and shadow!

Every gift of noble origin

Yarrow Unvisited.

Is breathed upon by Hope's perpetual breath.

A remnant of uneasy light.

These Times strike Monied Worldlings.

Oh for a single hour of that Dundee

The Matron of Jedborough,

Who on that day the word of onset gave!1

Sonnet, in the Pass of Killicranky.

O Cuckoo shall I call thee bird,

Or but a wandering voice?

She was a phantom of delight

When first she gleamed upon my sight,
A lovely apparition, sent

To be a moment's ornament;
Her eyes as stars of twilight fair,
Like twilights too her dusky hair,
But all things else about her drawn
From May-time and the cheerful dawn.

To the Cuckoo.

She was a Phantom of Delight.

A creature not too bright or good
For human nature's daily food;
For transient sorrows, simple wiles,
Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles.

Ibid.

1 It was on this occasion [the failure in energy of Lord Mar at the battle of Sheriffmuir] that Gordon of Glenbucket made the celebrated exclamation,

"Oh for an hour of Dundee!"- MAHON: History of England, vol. i. p. 184.

Oh for one hour of blind old Dandolo,

The octogenarian chief, Byzantium's conquering foe!

BYRON: Childe Harold, canto iv. stanza 12.