They tell me Simpkin is a saint
I've often wish'd he wasn't,
If 'tis a note of that complaint
To look so d—d unpleasant.

The world's no doubt a sorry place
For Simpkin; and, by Jabez,
The merest glimpsing of his face
Will wring and writhe a baby's.

A lout he is, a kill-joy loon
Where wit and mirth forgather;
In company I'd just as soon
Sit by an old bell-wether.

But Simpkin, I have heard men state,
Is kindly and well-meaning;
'Tis that his goodness is so great
It takes so much o' screening.

Can this be thou who, lean and pale,
With such immitigable eye
Didst look upon those writhing souls in bale,
And note each vengeance, and pass by
Unmoved, save when thy heart by chance
Cast backward one forbidden glance,
And saw Francesca, with child's glee,
Subdue and mount thy wild-horse knee
And with proud hands control its fiery prance?

With half-drooped lids, and smooth, round brow,
And eye remote, that inly sees
Fair Beatrice's spirit wandering now
In some sea-lulled Hesperides,
Thou movest through the jarring street,

Jehovah! God of justice! come,
Shine forth, most righteous God!
Come, strike the proud oppressor dumb,
Arise, lift up thy rod.

How long shall slavery, Lord! prevail?
How long shall crime abound?
How long shall haughty tyrants rail?
How long their boasts resound?

See, Lord! a helpless race they grind,
And tread them in the dust!
The widow and her babes they bind,
To feed their cruel lust!

Hear how the vile oppressor cries—
“The Lord will not behold;
The God of Jacob will not rise,
And cast me from his fold!”

Sweete ar the thoughtes, wher Hope persuadeth Happe,
Great ar the Joyes, wher Harte obtaynes requeste,
Dainty the lyfe, nurst still in Fortunes lappe.
Much is the ease, wher troubled mindes finde rest.
These ar the fruicts, that valure doth advaunce,
And cutes of Dread, by Hope of happy chaunce.

Thus Hope bringes Hap; but to the worthy wight,
Thus Pleasure comes; but after hard assay,
Thus Fortune yeldes, in mauger of her spight,
Thus happy state is none without delay.
Then must I needes advaunce my self by skyll,

Nor is my Number full, till I inscribe
Thee sprightly Soame, one of my righteous Tribe:
A Tribe of one Lip, Leven, and of One
Civil Behaviour, and Religion.
A Stock of Saints; where ev'ry one doth weare
A stole of white, (and Canonized here)
Among which Holies, be Thou ever known,
Brave Kinsman, markt out with the whiter stone:
Which seals Thy Glorie; since I doe prefer
Thee here in my eternall Calender.

Miserable ant
climbing up a house pillar
higher and higher.

A Boston man an ulster had,
An ulster with a cape that fluttered:
It smacked his face, and made him mad,
And polyglot remarks he uttered:
“I bought it at a bargain,” said he,
“I'm tired of the thing already.”

The wind that chanced to blow that day
Was easterly, and rather strong, too:
It loved to see the galling way
That clothes vex those whom they belong to:
“Now watch me,” cried this spell of weather,
“I'll rid him of it altogether.”

It whirled the man across the street,
It banged him up against a railing,

I bear in youth the sad infirmities
That use to undo the limb & sense of age:
It hath pleased Heaven to break the dream of bliss
Which lit my onward way with bright presage,
And my unserviceable limbs forego
The sweet delight I found in fields & farms,
On windy hills, whose tops with morning glow,
And lakes, smooth mirrors of Aurora's charms.
Yet I think on them in the silent night,
Still breaks that morn, though dim, to Memory's eye
And the firm soul does the pale train defy
Of grim Disease, that would her peace affright.

As I went down from Trenton
By a strip of canal sword-blade blue in the dusk,
I suddenly remembered
That this was the way to Camp Dix
And I remembered
Troop trains travelling in the night.

Strange is the influence that clings
To treasured tokens of the past,
And gives to most familiar things
Enchantments that shall hold us fast.

A splinter, any trifle small
From Shakespeare's house, has more, to-day,
Of deep suggestiveness than all
His best biographers can say.

With what devout idolatry,
What holy love, what tender care,
The mourning mother guards for aye
A tress of her dead darling's hair!

A maiden takes her jewel box
To while an idle hour away;
Or choose a bauble for her locks,