THE devil and the devil’s brood Around a boiling caldron hung, While in a nook in merry mood Grim Death a dainty ditty sung; For guided by a baleful star

“I JEALOUS? Pooh!—Doth not… Pursue his vessel o’er the billows… No, jealous, no!—From whence thos… —'Tis but the wind among the willo… “Ha, jealous, ha!—Did darling spe…

“A PHANTOM to me thou appeares… But spite of this seeming I know The magical image thou wearest, Is real as the lilies in blow; As real and as rare as the fairest…

WRAPT in fancy by a river, That flows onward ever, ever, Down I sat me while the moon In her fairest vesture shone— All was still as death, when lo!

FROM the pipe-end off it glides, Many hued appearing; What, if cynic harsh derides, Sets the boys a-staring. In their eyes gleam its dyes,

THEY cry, ‘How light the heart a… From which proceed such strains of gladness!’ They can’t discern the pangs that… And seek to drive the bard to madn…

HEAVEN-GIFTED was the mortal… A bard the chords of whose great s… Who deemed the mighty universe its… From which at the Creator’s touch… An instrument it is by which a gam…

Now Gladstone’s party bears the b… And now Disraeli’s—now The people really cannot tell, For whom their hands to show. Now this way, la, now that incline…

IN despite of the cold and the gl… To ornament summer’s bleak tomb, Blooms the snowdrop; and lo! at th… Sad Flora is thrilled with deligh… And exults in the moments to come.

IN the coal-pit, or the factory, I toil by night or day, And still to the music of labour I lilt my heart-felt lay; I lilt my heart-felt lay

WILTED is the leaf, and blown By the cold wind up and down, That beheld thy promise fair, Maiden with the dark brown hair! Shatter’d is this heart, and hurl’…

AWAY to the well lilted Annie; Away with her skiel to the well; Away to the well whistled Johnnie… The pride and delight of the dell. Sweet, sweet is the well; but ah,…

CAN this be her? Her dark eyes… Two planets in the midnight heaven… Her cheeks the blood-dyed rose—her… The snow upon the mountains driven… Her tongue’s a silver bell to hear…

AT Backworth sung till echo rung, A bard whose feelings were, In what to young and old he sung Of little Dolly Dare. ‘Tho’ Lizzy’s sweet and Polly’s n…