Confession

I am glad that you have come,
    Arthur, from the dusty town;
You must throw aside your cares,
    And relax your legal frown.
Coke and Littleton, avaunt!
    You have ruled him through the day;
In this quiet, sylvan haunt,
    Be content to yield your sway.

It is pleasant, is it not,
    Sitting here beneath the trees,
While the restless wind above
    Ripples over leafy seas?

Often, when the twilight falls,
    In the shadow, quite alone,
I have sat till starlight came,
    Listening to its monotone.
Yet not always quite alone,--
    Brother, let me take the place
Just behind you now the moon
    Shines no longer in my face.

It is near two months ago
    Since I met him, as I think,
By God's mercy, when my hor...

[From Farmer Harrington's Calendar.]

SEPTEMBER 10, 18 - .

        Ah me! it makes a sinner wondrous blue,
        To see so many other sinners too!
        When I rake over all my faults, and then
        Notice the same, or worse, in other men,
        It makes me very much surprised and sad,
        That Heaven should see Earth turning out so bad!

        Vice, vice, vice, vice! The country's mean enough,
        And has some villains that are pretty rough;
        But in this town, where art and nature both
        Are shoved into their very greatest growth,
        And where the utmost of all things is found,
        The Devil has his best men on the ground,
        And gives them weapons meeting his own views,
        And all th...

It was a robber's daughter, and her name was Alice Brown;
Her father was the terror of a small Italian town;
Her mother was a foolish, weak, but amiable old thing;
But it isn't of her parents that I'm going for to sing.

As Alice was a-sitting at her window-sill one day,
A beautiful young gentleman he chanced to pass that way;
She cast her eyes upon him, and he looked so good and true,
That she thought, "I could be happy with a gentleman like you!"

And every morning passed her house that cream of gentlemen,
She knew she might expect him at a quarter unto ten,
A sorter in the Custom-house, it was his daily road
(The Custom-house was fifteen minutes' walk from her abode).

But Alice was a pious girl, who knew it wasn't wise
To look at strange young sorters with...

Your troubles shrink not, though I feel them less
Here, far away, than when I tarried near;
I even smile old smiles with listlessness -
Yet smiles they are, not ghastly mockeries mere.

A thought too strange to house within my brain
Haunting its outer precincts I discern:
- That I will not show zeal again to learn
Your griefs, and sharing them, renew my pain . . .

It goes, like murky bird or buccaneer
That shapes its lawless figure on the main,
And each new impulse tends to make outflee
The unseemly instinct that had lodgment here;
Yet, comrade old, can bitterer knowledge be
Than that, though banned, such instinct was in me!

1866.

Who is Sylvia? What is she
That early every morning
You desert your family
And rush to see her, scorning
Your once cherished ma and me?

Are her playthings such a treat?
I will steal 'em from her;
Better that than not to meet
My son and heir all summer,
Save when he comes home to eat.

Or is she herself the one
And only real attraction?
Has your little heart begun
To get that sort of action?
Better wait a few years, son.

"Murder will out:"--and so will truth sometimes;
For once I'll prove it in a dozen lines.--

At one of those parties where Julia's sweet face
Added interest to beauty, and archness to grace,
Where many fine folks met; and one very great,
Proud and stupid, an embryo minister sate;
Like a damper he came to put good humour out,
And it chanced that, as Julia's pet-bird flew about.
It presumptuously 'lit on this mighty man's head;
When her lore-laughing sister, sweet Eleanor, said,
"Naughty bird! I must cage you for being so rude,
On Lord------head, oh! how dare you intrude?"
"Let it rest," replied Julia, with an exquisite grace,
"Don't frighten it off--for it likes a soft place!"