English

How like a column, Radcliffe, left alone
For the great mark of virtue, those being gone
Who did, alike with thee, thy house upbear,
Stand'st thou, to show the times what you all were!
Two bravely in the battle fell, and died,
Upbraiding rebels' arms, and barbarous pride;
And two, that would have fallen as great, as they,
The Belgic fever ravishèd away.
Thou, that art all their valour, all their spirit,
And thine own goodness to increase thy merit,
Than whose I do not know a whiter soul,
Nor could I, had I seen all Nature's roll,

Since men have left to do praiseworthy things,
Most think all praises flatteries. But truth brings
That sound, and that authority with her name,
As, to be raised by her, is only fame.
Stand high, then, Howard, high in eyes of men,
High in thy blood, thy place, but highest then,
When, in men's wishes, so thy virtues wrought,
As all thy honours were by them first sought:
And thou designed to be the same thou art,
Before thou wert it, in each good man's heart.
Which, by no less confirmed, than thy king's choice,

Sir Luckless, troth, for luck's sake pass by one:
He that woos every widow, will get none.

When you look at a picture you always can see
If a Man of Sense has Painted he
Then never flinch but keep up a Jaw
About freedom & Jenny suck awa'

Men marvel at the works of man
And with unstinted praises sing
The greatness of some worldly thing
Encompassed during one life's span;
An empire built, kingdom born.
And straightway men sound man's own horn.

The human brain's a wondrous work,
So chant the sages and the deans—
Those thought and labour go-betweens,
Who ever life's deep mysteries shirk.
A steel ribbed ship, an engine new—
Ah, mighty things strong man doth do!

Man rears great piles of chiselled stone,
And builds across the roaring streams,

Aforefinger of stone, dreamed by a sculptor, points to the sky.
It says: This way! this way!

Four lions snore in stone at the corner of the shaft.
They too are the dream of a sculptor.
They too say: This way! this way!

The street cars swing at a curve.
The middle-class passengers witness low life.
The car windows frame low life all day in pictures.

Two Italian cellar delicatessens
sell red and green peppers.
The Florida bananas furnish a burst of yellow.
The lettuce and the cabbage give a green.

‘How does the Water
Come down at Lodore?’
My little boy asked me
Thus, once on a time;
And moreover he tasked me
To tell him in rhyme.
Anon at the word,
There first came one daughter
And then came another,
To second and third
The request of their brother,
And to hear how the water
Comes down at Lodore,
With its rush and its roar,
As many a time
They had seen it before.
So I told them in rhyme,
For of rhymes I had store:
And 'twas in my vocation

In yonder mill I rested,
And sat me down to look
Upon the wheel's quick glimmer,
And on the flowing brook.

As in a dream before me,
The saw, with restless play,
Was cleaving through a fire-tree
Its long and steady way.

The tree through all its fibres
With living motion stirred,
And, in a dirge-like murmur,
These solemn words I heard:

Oh, thou who wanderest hither,
A timely guest thou art!
For thee, this cruel engine
Is passing through my heart.

Swallow from beyond the sea!
That, with every dawn again,
Sitting on the balcony,
Utterest that plaintive strain!
What is that thou tellest me?
Swallow from beyond the sea.

Haply thou, for him who went
From thee, and forgot his mate,
Dost lament to my lament,
Widowed, lonely, desolate.
Ever, then, lament with me,
Swallow from beyond the sea.

Happier yet art thou than I.
Thee thy trusty wings may bear,
Over lake and cliff to fly,
Filling with thy cries the air,
Calling him continually,

Who dares affirm this is no pious age,
When Charity begins to tread the stage?
When actors who at best are hardly savers,
Will give a night of benefit to weavers?
Stay,--let me see, how finely will it sound!
Imprimis, From his Grace an hundred pound.
Peers, clergy, gentry, all are benefactors;
And then comes in the Item of the actors.
Item, the actors, freely gave a day,--
The poet had no more who made the play.

But whence this wondrous charity in players?
They learnt it not at sermons, or at prayers: