We watch’d her breathing thro’ the night,

Why was I ever farrowed, whyNot spitted for a roaster?In this world, pigs, as well as men,Must dance to fortune’s fiddlings,But must I give the classics up,For barley-meal and middlings?Of what avail that I could spellAnd read, just like my betters,If I must come to this at last,To litters, not to letters?Oh, why are pigs…

Of worldly toil, vain wishes, and hard strife,And fruitless thought, in Care’s eternal thrall,Yet more sweet honey than of bitter gallI taste, through thee, my Eve, my sweet wife.Then what was Man’s lost Paradise!—how rifeOf bliss, since love is with him in his fall!Such as our own pure passion still might frame,Of this fair earth,…

That in this little chamber there is foundBoth earth and heaven—my universe of love!All that my God can give me, or remove,Here sleeping, save myself, in mimic death.Sweet that in this small compass I behoveTo live their living and to breathe their breath!Almost I wish that, with one common sigh,We might resign all mundane care…

It was the time of roses—We pluck’d them as we pass’d!That churlish season never frown’dOn early lovers yet:O no—the world was newly crown’dWith flowers when first we met!‘Twas twilight, and I bade you go,But still you held me fast;It was the time of roses—We pluck’d them as we pass’d!

For Nature, when his head was made,Forgot to dot his eyes.So, like a Christmas pedagogue,Poor Tim was forced to do –Look out for pupils; for he hadA vacancy for two.There’s some have specs to help their sightOf objects dim and small :But Tim had specks within his eyes,And could not see at all.Now Tim he…

When he sets the rivers free,Thou dost still lock up thy heart;—Thou that shouldst outlast the snow,But in the whiteness of thy brow?Scorn and cold neglect are madeFor winter gloom and winter wind,But thou wilt wrong the summer air,Breathing it to words unkind,—Breath which only should belongTo love, to sunlight, and to song!When the little…