“Oh who is that young sinner with the handcuffs on his wrists?And what has he been after that they groan and shake their fists?And wherefore is he wearing such a conscience-stricken air?Oh they're taking him to prison for the color of his hair.”

“The Grizzly Bear is huge and wild;He has devoured the infant child.The infant child is not awareIt has been eaten by a bear.""Infant Innocence”

“In the morning, in the morning,In the happy field of hay,Oh they looked at one anotherBy the light of day.In the blue and silver morningOn the haycock as they lay,Oh they looked at one anotherAnd they looked away.”

“Diffugere NivesHorace, Odes, iv, 7The snows are fled away, leaves on the shawsAnd grasses in the mead renew their birth,The river to the river-bed withdraws,And altered is the fashion of the earth.The Nymphs and Graces three put off their fearAnd unapparelled in the woodland play.The swift hour and the brief prime of the yearSay to the soul, Thou wast not born for aye.Thaw follows frost; hard on the heel of springTreads summer sure to die, for hard on hersComes autumn with his apples scattering;Then back to wintertide, when nothing stirs.But oh, whate'er the sky-led seasons mar,Moon upon moon rebuilds it with her beams;Come we where Tullus and where Ancus areAnd good Aeneas, we are dust and dreams.Torquatus, if the gods in heaven shall addThe morrow to the day, what tongue has told?Feast then thy heart, for what thy heart has hadThe fingers of no heir will ever hold.When thou descendest once the shades among,The stern assize and equal judgment o'er,Not thy long lineage nor thy golden tongue,No, nor thy righteousness, shall friend thee more.Night holds Hippolytus the pure of stain,Diana steads him nothing, he must stay;And Theseus leaves Pirithous in the chainThe love of comrades cannot take away.”

“Along the field as we came byA year ago, my love and I,The aspen over stile and stoneWas talking to itself alone.'Oh who are these that kiss and pass?A country lover and his lass;Two lovers looking to be wed;And time shall put them both to bed,But she shall lie with earth above,And he beside another love.'And sure enough beneath the treeThere walks another love with me, And overhead the aspen heavesIts rainy-sounding silver leaves;And I spell nothing in their stir,But now perhaps they speak to her,And plain for her to understandThey talk about a time at handWhen I shall sleep with clover clad,And she beside another lad.”

“Oh many a peer of England brews Livelier liquor than the Muse,And malt does more than Milton can To justify God’s ways to man.”

“VIII'Farewell to barn and stack and tree,Farewell to Severn shore.Terence, look your last at me,For I come home no more.'The sun burns on the half-mown hill,By now the blood is dried;And Maurice amongst the hay lies stillAnd my knife is in his side.'My mother thinks us long away;'Tis time the field were mown.She had two sons at rising day,To-night she'll be alone.'And here's a bloody hand to shake,And oh, man, here's good-bye;We'll sweat no more on scythe and rake,My blood hands and I.'I wish you strength to bring you pride,And a love to keep you clean,And I wish you luck, come Lammastide,At racing on the green.'Long for me the rick will wait,And long will wait the fold,And long will stand the empty plate,And dinner will be cold.'IXOn moonlit heath and lonesome bankThe sheep beside me graze;And yon the gallows used to clankFast by the four cross ways.A careless shepherd once would keepThe flocks by moonlight there,And high amongst the glimmering sheepThe dead man stood on air.They hang us now in Shrewsbury jail:The whistles blow forlorn.And trains all night groan on the railTo men that die at morn.There sleeps in Shrewsbury jail to-night,Or wakes, as may betide,A better lad, if things went right,Than most that sleep outside.And naked to the hangman's nooseThe morning clocks will ringA neck God made for other useThan strangling in a string.And sharp the link of life will snap,And dead on air will standHeels that held up as straight a chapAs treads upon the land.So here I'll watch the night and waitTo see the morning shine,When he will hear the stroke of eightAnd not the stroke of nine;And wish my friend as sound a sleepAs lads' I did not know,That shepherded the moonlit sheepA hundred years ago.”