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Poems and Essays

By the late William Caldwell Roscoe. (Edited with a Prefatory Memoir, by his Brother-in-law, Richard Holt Hutton)
Roscoe, William Caldwell (1823-1859)

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MINOR POEMS.
  
[Clouds and mists and vapours dim]
  
THE FALSE FONTANLEE.
  
F. M.
  
AD PYRRHAM.
  
TO LAURA R.,
  
ARIADNE.
  
A NIGHTINGALE IN EASTBURY WOODS.
  
AFTER THE HUNGARIAN WAR.
  
OPPORTUNITY.
  
LINES AFTER MY FATHER'S DEATH.
  
TO THE PLANET VENUS,
  
[Rarely to our mortal eyes]
  
TO THE MARCH SUN.
  
A DREAM AND NO DREAM.
  
VENIT.
  
[When I asked her, “Wilt thou kiss me?’]
  
THE GOLDEN DAYS.
  
LOVE'S CREED.
  
[On many an English lady's face]
  
EXCUSE.
  
[A presence! a glory celestial!]
  
SONG.
  
OVER THE WEST.
  
“FREI IST DER BURSCH!”
  
TO LITTLE A. C. IN THE GARDEN AT EASTBURY.
  
FOR EVER.
  
AFTER MY SISTER'S DEATH.
  
AT THE SAME TIME.
  
AT NIGHT, AFTER MY SISTER'S DEATH.
  
[Why fear that the departed grieves]
  
FORD GREY OF WERKE TO HIS MISTRESS.
  
[I have a thought that fain would speak]
  
“IF IT DIE, IT BRINGETH FORTH MUCH FRUIT.”
  
MUSIC.
  
A BLIND GIRL'S QUESTIONINGS.
  
BEFORE DAWN.
  
BY THE SEASHORE.
  
A VISION.
  
[Lord, at thy feet we do not kneel]
  
THE YEAR OF LOVE.
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SONNETS.
  
A WET AUTUMN.
  
AT THE CHESHIRE POINT, LINLEY WOOD.
  
[Like a musician that with flying finger]
  
AT NIGHT.
  
MY FATHER'S DEATH.
  
TO MY MOTHER.
  
GIBSON'S STATUE OF AURORA.
  
TO M. S.
  
M. S.
  
TO THE REV. JOHN HAMILTON THOM.
  
[O Muse the Comforter! that in this vale]
  
TO A LADY PREFERRING CALM TO PASSIONATE POETRY.
  
LAUDATRIX TEMPORIS ACTI.
  
MIDNIGHT ON NEW YEAR'S EVE.
  
THE TWO NIGHTS.
  
A CHRISTMAS SONNET.
  
[Sad is my lot; among the shining spheres]
  
TO A FRIEND IN GRIEF.
  
TO A FRIEND.
  
IN DEJECTION. I.
  
IN DEJECTION II.
  
I
  
II
  
III
  
DAYBREAK IN FEBRUARY.
  
SYMBOLS OF VICTORY.
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ELIDUKE, COUNT OF YVELOC.
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ACT I
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Scene I.
 II. 
Scene II.
 III. 
Scene III.
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ACT II.
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Scene I.
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Scene II.
 III. 
Scene III.
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ACT III.
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Scene I.
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Scene II.
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Scene III.
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ACT IV.
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Scene I.
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Scene II.
 III. 
Scene III.
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ACT V.
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Scene I.
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Scene II.
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Scene III.
 IV. 
Scene IV.
 V. 
Scene V.
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VIOLENZIA.
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ACT I.
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Scene I.
 II. 
Scene II.
 III. 
Scene III.
 IV. 
Scene IV.
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ACT II.
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Scene I.
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Scene II.
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Scene III.
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Scene IV.
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Scene V.
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Scene VI.
 VII. 
Scene VII.
 VIII. 
Scene VIII.
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ACT III.
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Scene I.
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Scene II.
 III. 
Scene III.
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ACT IV.
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Scene I.
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Scene II.
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Scene III.
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Scene IV.
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Scene V.
 VI. 
Scene VI.
 VII. 
Scene VII.
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ACT V.
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Scene I.
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Scene II.
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Scene III.
  
[The bubble of the silver-springing waves]

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60

FORD GREY OF WERKE TO HIS MISTRESS.

[_]

Written after reading the trial of Ford Lord Grey for a conspiracy to induce Lord Berkeley's daughter to leave her father's home.

When I perceive thee weeping, I am broken
With bitterer anguish than my heart can bear,
And in thy troubled face when I see spoken
The mixture of thy passion and despair,
My spirit rushes to my rainy eyes
With weariness of our long miseries.
What I endure! O woe! what I endure
To hear thee paint our lies and wickedness!
And that worst grief, shameful detection sure,
All our brief joys outlasting wretchedness,—
With quivering lips and wide-appealing palms
Accusing me, the author of thy harms.
But when I picture thee, with locked-up door,
Alone, flung on the ground, and with faint cries
Beating the senseless and obdurate floor
In thy grief's insupportable ecstasies,
As thou didst tell me once thou didst,—oh, why
Make me believe you suffer more than I?
61

For now this picture makes a slave of me:
Whether to stale ambition I return,
Or shake the days with monstrous revelry,
Or through the long nights watch the white stars burn,
Still, still thine image doth like death pursue me,
And cold despair in place of blood runs through me.
1848.
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