English

Thick-fleeced bushes like a heifer's ear.
Out-fleeced spaniel's

On one who borrowed his sermons

Herclots's preachings I'll no longer hear:
They're out of date — lent sermons all the year.

On a Poetess

Miss M.'s a nightingale. 'Tis well
Your simile I keep.
It is the way with Philomel
To sing while others sleep.

By one of the old school who was bid to follow Mr. Browning's flights

To rise you bid me with the lark
With me 'tis rising in the dark.

Modern Poets

Our swans are now of such remorseless quill,
Themselves live singing and their hearers kill.

On a dunce who had not a word to say for himself

He's all that's bad, I know; a knave, a flat,
But his effrontery's not come to that.

IV

A calm and lovely paradise
Is Italy, for minds at ease.
The sadness of its sunny skies
Weighs not upon the lives of these.
The ruin'd aisle, the crumbling fane,
The broken column, vast and prone,
It may be joy — it may be pain —
Amid such wrecks to walk alone!
The saddest man will sadder be,
The gentlest lover gentler there,
As if, whate'er the spirit's key,

O Love, that lights this world,
Yet leaves us i' the dark; —
I led thee to my couch,
A grave-cloth was thy sark!
O Love, we would be clothed,
And thou hast left us stark.

Lancelot (crazed) sings —

Once there was a castle hall,
Fair, fair to see,
Armored dight, and splendored all,
Filled with shout o' revelry.
Came the hosts o' fate and rage
Thundered on its walls amain.
Sunken now like ruined age,
Never laughs its light again.

I loved a Queen and she loved me.

Morning her face is,
Blue seas her eyes,
All of earth's sweetness
In their light lies.

Coral her lips are,
Red reefs of doom,
There do Love's ships drive
Down to their doom.

There would I shipwreck,
Swooning to death,
Passing to darkness,
On the winds of her breath.

Blue is the summer morning's sky,
And birds are glad and merry.
And Anna's eyes are sweet and sly,
Her cheeks like any cherry; —
Her lips like dewy rosebuds are
Upon the gladsome morning.
She is my love, my heart's glad star,
In spite of all her scorning.

So fill the cup of gladness up
And drink to youth and morning.
Let sadness go with evening sup,
I'm hers for all her scorning.