Over the hill and over the dale,
And over the bourn to Dawlish--
Where gingerbread wives have a scanty sale
And gingerbread nuts are smallish.
...
This pleasant tale is like a little copse:
The honied lines so freshly interlace,
To keep the reader in so sweet a place,
So that he here and there full-hearted stops;
...
Upon my Life Sir Nevis I am pique'd
That I have so far panted tugg'd and reek'd
To do an honour to your old bald pate
And now am sitting on you just to bate,
...
OLD Meg she was a gipsy;
And liv'd upon the moors:
Her bed it was the brown heath turf,
And her house was out of doors.
...
1.
No, no! go not to Lethe, neither twist
Wolf's-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine;
...
UNFELT unheard, unseen,
I've left my little queen,
Her languid arms in silver slumber lying:
...
Give me a golden pen, and let me lean
On heaped-up flowers, in regions clear, and far;
Bring me a tablet whiter than a star,
Or hand of hymning angel, when 'tis seen
...
My spirit is too weak; mortality
Weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep,
And each imagined pinnacle and steep
Of godlike hardship tells me I must die
...
O golden-tongued Romance with serene lute!
Fair plumed Syren! Queen of far away!
Leave melodizing on this wintry day,
...
Small, busy flames play through the fresh laid coals,
And their faint cracklings o'er our silence creep
Like whispers of the household gods that keep
A gentle empire o'er fraternal souls.
...