Bishop Blougram's Apology

NO more wine? then we'll push back chairs and talk. A final glass for me, though: cool, i' faith! We ought to have our Abbey back, you see. It's different, preaching in basilicas, And doing duty in some masterpiece Like this of brother Pugin's, bless his heart! I doubt if they're half baked, those chalk rosettes, Ciphers and stucco-twiddlings everywhere; It's just like breathing in a lime-kiln: eh? These hot long ceremonies of our church

Imitations Of Horace: The First Epistle Of The Second Book

Ne Rubeam, Pingui donatus Munere (Horace, Epistles II.i.267) While you, great patron of mankind, sustain The balanc'd world, and open all the main; Your country, chief, in arms abroad defend, At home, with morals, arts, and laws amend; How shall the Muse, from such a monarch steal An hour, and not defraud the public weal? Edward and Henry, now the boast of fame, And virtuous Alfred, a more sacred name,

Lines Written After A Walk Before Supper

Tho' much averse, dear Jack, to flicker, To find a likeness for friend V----ker, I've made, thro' earth, and air, and sea, A voyage of discovery! And let me add (to ward off strife) For V----kers, and for V----kers' wife-- She, large and round, beyond belief, A superfluity of beef! Her mind and body of a piece, And both composed of kitchen-grease.

The Witch's Frolic

[Scene, the 'Snuggery' at Tappington.-- Grandpapa in a high-backed cane-bottomed elbow-chair of carved walnut-tree, dozing; his nose at an angle of forty-five degrees,--his thumbs slowly perform the rotatory motion described by lexicographers as 'twiddling.'--The 'Hope of the family' astride on a walking-stick, with burnt-cork mustachios, and a pheasant's tail pinned in his cap, solaceth himself with martial music.-- Roused by a strain of surpassing dissonance, Grandpapa Loquitur. ] Come hither, come hither, my little boy Ned!

A New Simile

IN THE MANNER OF SWIFT LONG had I sought in vain to find A likeness for the scribbling kind; The modern scribbling kind, who write In wit, and sense, and nature's spite: Till reading, I forget what day on, A chapter out of Tooke's Pantheon, I think I met with something there, To suit my purpose to a hair;

Autumn Friends

If one could bridge the distance with a word, A journey would become a pilgrimage. Elegant letters slant across the page. My leaf has found a home upon your coat. My kind critic, I think it is our fate To meet in stanzas of my poetry. Simile and metaphor must be our bond Until autumn blows one of us away.

The Door In The Dark

In going from room to room in the dark, I reached out blindly to save my face, But neglected, however lightly, to lace My fingers and close my arms in an arc. A slim door got in past my guard, And hit me a blow in the head so hard I had my native simile jarred. So people and things don't pair any more With what they used to pair with before.

Very Like A Whale

One thing that literature would be greatly the better for Would be a more restricted employment by the authors of simile and metaphor. Authors of all races, be they Greeks, Romans, Teutons or Celts, Can't seem just to say that anything is the thing it is but have to go out of their way to say that it is like something else. What does it mean when we are told That that Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold? In the first place, George Gordon Byron had enough experience To know that it probably wasn't just one Assyrian, it was a lot of

A Sorcerer Bids Farewell To Seem

I'm through with this grand looking-glass hotel where adjectives play croquet with flamingo nouns; methinks I shall absent me for a while from rhetoric of these rococo queens. Item : chuck out royal rigmarole of props and auction off each rare white-rabbit verb; send my muse Alice packing with gaudy scraps of mushroom simile and gryphon garb. My native sleight-of-hand is wearing out :

Fruit Of The Flower

My father is a quiet man With sober, steady ways; For simile, a folded fan; His nights are like his days. My mother's life is puritan, No hint of cavalier, A pool so calm you're sure it can Have little depth to fear. And yet my father's eyes can boast

Lying

To claim, at a dead party, to have spotted a grackle, When in fact you haven't of late, can do no harm. Your reputation for saying things of interest Will not be marred, if you hasten to other topics, Nor will the delicate web of human trust Be ruptured by that airy fabrication. Later, however, talking with toxic zest Of golf, or taxes, or the rest of it Where the beaked ladle plies the chuckling ice, You may enjoy a chill of severance, hearing

A Simile

What did we say to each other that now we are as the deer who walk in single file with heads high with ears forward with eyes watchful with hooves always placed on firm ground in whose limbs there is latent flight

An Epistle To Robert Lloyd, Esq.

'Tis not that I design to rob Thee of thy birthright, gentle Bob,-- For thou art born sole heir and single Of dear Mat Prior's easy jingle; Nor that I mean, while thus I knit My threadbare sentiments together, To show my genius or my wit, When God and you know I have neither, Or such, as might be better shown By letting poetry alone.

Tirocinium; Or, A Review Of Schools

It is not from his form, in which we trace Strength join'd with beauty, dignity with grace, That man, the master of this globe, derives His right of empire over all that lives. That form, indeed, the associate of a mind Vast in its powers, ethereal in its kind, That form, the labour of Almighty skill, Framed for the service of a freeborn will, Asserts precedence, and bespeaks control, But borrows all its grandeur from the soul.

Noey Bixler

Another hero of those youthful years Returns, as Noey Bixler's name appears. And Noey--if in any special way-- Was notably good-natured.--Work or play He entered into with selfsame delight-- A wholesome interest that made him quite As many friends among the old as young,-- So everywhere were Noey's praises sung. And he was awkward, fat and overgrown,

Floretty's Musical Contribution

All seemed delighted, though the elders more, Of course, than were the children.--Thus, before Much interchange of mirthful compliment, The story-teller said _his_ stories 'went' (Like a bad candle) _best_ when they went _out_,-- And that some sprightly music, dashed about, Would _wholly_ quench his 'glimmer,' and inspire Far brighter lights. And, answering this desire,

Ode To Rae Wilson Esq.

A WANDERER, Wilson, from my native land, Remote, O Rae, from godliness and thee, Where rolls between us the eternal sea, Besides some furlongs of a foreign sand,— Beyond the broadest Scotch of London Wall; Beyond the loudest Saint that has a call; Across the wavy waste between us stretch'd, A friendly missive warns me of a stricture, Wherein my likeness you have darkly etch'd, And though I have not seen the shadow sketch'd,

The Advice

Revolving in their destin'd sphere, The hours begin another year As rapidly to fly; Ah! think, Maria, (e'er in grey Those auburn tresses fade away So youth and beauty die. Tho' now the captivating throng Adore with flattery and song, And all before you bow; Whilst unattentive to the strain,

A Simile

I SAW the wild rose on its parent thorn, Half clos'd, soft blushing, thro' the glitt'ring dew, Wave on the breeze, and scent the breath of morn; Lelia, the lovely flow'r resembled you. Scarce had it spread to meet the orb of day, Its fragrant beauties op'ning to the view, When ruffian blasts have torn the rose away; Lelia--alas! it still resembles you! So, torn, by wild and lawless passion's force, From every social tie, thy lot must be;

Epistle To Earl Harcourt, On His Wishing Her To Spell Her Name With Of Catherine With A K.

AND can his antiquarian eyes, My Anglo-Saxon C despise? And does Lord Harcourt, day by day, Regret th' extinct initial K? And still, with ardour unabated, Labour to get it reinstated?-- I know, my Lord, your generous passion For ev'ry long-exploded fashion; And own the Catherine you delight in, Looks irresistibly inviting,