Restore the joy

Autumn I love thy latter end to view
In cold novembers day so bleak & bare
When like lifes dwindld thread worn nearly thro
Wi lingering pottering pace & head bleachd bare
Thou like an old man bids the world adieu
I love thee well & often when a child
Have roamd the bare brown heath a flower to find
& in the moss clad vale & wood bank wild
Have cropt the little bell flowers paley blue
That trembling peept the sheltering bush behind
When winnowing north winds cold & blealy blew
How have I joyd wi dithering hands to find
Each fading flower & still how sweet the blast
Woud bleak novembers hour Restore the joy thats past

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The chasm

There is a chasm in the heart of man 
 
That nothing fathoms like a gulph at sea 
 
A depth of darkness lines may never span 
 
A shade unsunned in dark eternity 
 
Thoughts without shadows — that eye can see 
 
Or thought imagine tis unknown to fame 
 
Like day at midnight such its youth to me 
 
At ten years old it boyhoods secret came 
 
Now manhoods forty past tis just the same

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His yearly task

At length the stir of rural labours still
& industry her care awhile foregoes
When winter comes in earnest to fulfil
His yearly task at bleak Novembers close
& stops the plough & hides the field in snows
When frost locks up the stream in chill delay
& mellows on the hedge the jetty sloes
For little birds then toil hath time for play
& nought but threshers flails awake the dreary day

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He doth dithering sit

The boy that scareth from the spiry wheat
The melancholy crow in hurry weaves
Beneath an ivied tree his sheltering seat
Of rushy flags & sedges tied in sheaves
Or from the field a shock of stubble thieves
There he doth dithering sit & entertain
His eyes with marking the storm driven leaves
Oft spying nests where he spring eggs had ta'en
& wishing in his heart twas summer-time again

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My life

My life hath been one love—no blot it out

My life hath been one chain of contradictions


Madhouses Prisons wh---re shops—never doubt


But that my life hath had some strong convictions

That such was wrong—religion makes restrictions

I would have followed—but life turned a bubble


& clumb the jiant stile of maledictions


They took me from my wife & to save trouble


I wed again & made the error double


Yet abscence claims them both & keeps them too

& locks me in a shop in spite of law


Among a low lived set & dirty crew


Here let the Muse oblivions curtain draw


& let man think—for God hath often saw


Things here too dirty for the light of day


For in a madhouse there exists no law—


Now stagnant grows my too refined clay
I envy birds their wings to flue away

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Life was

Life was & is & still will be

Of cares the endless history

By hopes conceived by trouble penned

Which joys began & sorrows end

 

If at the first a smile appears

'Tis but the prologue unto tears

Where each leaf is when turned oer

The echo of those turned before

 

Life was & is & will be on

A ruin with its glory gone

A wreck that braves the storms in vain

For calms it neer shall know again

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I venture forth

The sharp wind shivers in the warm gorse blossoms
& trembles in the dead grass oer the heath
The silver rain pearls in the wild flowers bosoms
& moistens minute flowers of moss beneath
There i' the morning dew I early ramble
What time beneath the fern the weary moth
Hides from the sun in dew drops hangs the bramble
As down the rabbit track I venture forth

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