• Read more about LINES WRITTEN HASTILY (1822)

LINES WRITTEN HASTILY, WHILE IN KING-STREET, MARGATE, IN AUGUST 1822, AND GIVEN TO
MR. FREEMAN OF MINSTER (1822)

Visitor! whoe’er thou art,

Respect the vine, which climbs this door;

If pain or sorrow wring thy heart,

Seek health along the breezy shore.

• Read more about MAY-DAY WITH THE MUSES (1822)

ROSAMOND’S SONG OF HOPE

Sweet Hope, so oft my childhood’s friend,

I will believe thee still,

For thou canst joy with sorrow blend,

Where grief alone would kill.

When disappointments wrung my heart,5

• Read more about MAY-DAY WITH THE MUSES (1822)

THE SOLDIER’S HOME

My untried muse shall no high tone assume,

Nor strut in arms;—farewell my cap and plume:

Brief be my verse, a task within my power,

I tell my feelings in one happy hour;

But what an hour was that! when from the main5

• Read more about MAY-DAY WITH THE MUSES (1822)

THE SHEPHERD’S DREAM: OR, FAIRIES’ MASQUERADE

I had folded my flock, and my heart was o’erflowing,

I loiter’d beside the small lake on the heath;

The red sun, though down, left his drapery glowing,

And no sound was stirring, I heard not a breath:

• Read more about MAY-DAY WITH THE MUSES (1822)

THE FORESTER

Born in a dark wood’s lonely dell,

Where echoes roar’d, and tendrils curl’d

Round a low cot, like hermit’s cell,

Old Salcey Forest

⁽¹⁾

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THE DRUNKEN FATHER

Poor Ellen married Andrew Hall,

Who dwells beside the moor,

Where yonder rose-tree shades the wall,

And woodbines grace the door.

Who does not know how blest, how loved5

• Read more about MAY-DAY WITH THE MUSES (1822)

THE INVITATION

O for the strength to paint my joy once more!

That joy I feel when Winter’s reign is o’er;

When the dark despot lifts his hoary brow,

And seeks his polar-realm’s eternal snow.

Though black November’s fogs oppress my brain,5

• Read more about MAY-DAY WITH THE MUSES (1822)

MAY-DAY WITH THE MUSES (1822)

Contents

The Invitation

The Drunken Father

The Forester

• Read more about LITTLE DAVY’S NEW HAT (1815)

LITTLE DAVY’S NEW HAT (1815)

Introduction

• Read more about SONG THE MAN IN THE MOON (c. 1812)

SONG. THE MAN IN THE MOON LOOK’D DOWN ONE NIGHT (c. 1812)

⁽¹⁾

The tune, ‘Ligrum cus’, appears in Volume V of Aird’s Selection of Scotch, English,
Irish and Foreign Airs (Glasgow, 1801). The title, apparently corrupt Irish Gaelic,