Poems by James Henry Leigh Hunt

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Ariadne Waking

The moist and quiet morn was scarcely breaking,

When Ariadne in her bower was waking;

Her eyelids still were closing, and she heard

But indistinctly yet a little bird,

That in the leaves o’erhead, waiting the sun,

Seemed answering another distant one.

She waked, but stirred not, only just to please

Her pillow-nestling cheek; while the full seas,

James Henry Leigh Hunt

Bellman's Verses For 1814

Huzza, my boys! our friends the Dutch have risen,

Our good old friends, and burst the Tyrant's prison!

Aye, and have done it without bloodshed too,

Like men, to sense as well as freedom true.

The moment, I'll be sworn, that Ocean heard it,

With a new dance of waters it bestirr'd it;

And Trade, reviving from her trance of death,

Took a new lease of sunshine and of breath.

James Henry Leigh Hunt

The Field Of Battle

The Deed of Blood is o'er!

And, hark, the Trumpet's mournful breath

Low murmurs round it a Note of Death—

The Mighty are no more!

How solemn slow that distant Groan!—

O, could AMBITION, wild with fear,

The deep prophetic Warning hear,

And, looking, listning vain around

James Henry Leigh Hunt

The Olive Of Peace

Now sheath'd is the Sword that was wild as the blast:

The Tempest of Slaughter and Terror is past;

Old ALBION her Neighbour all smilingly hails—

For the OLIVE of PEACE blooms again in our Vales!

Beam on the day,

Thou Olive gay:

"Matchless is he

Who planted thee;

James Henry Leigh Hunt

Walcheren Expedition

Ye brave, enduring Englishmen,

Who dash through fire and flood,

And spend with equal thoughtlessness

Your money and your blood,

I sing of that black season,

Which all true hearts deplore,

When ye lay,

Night and day,

James Henry Leigh Hunt

The Negro Boy

Cold blows the wind, and while the tear

Bursts trembling from my swollen eyes,

The rain's big drop, quick meets it there,

And on my naked bosom flies!

O pity, all ye sons of Joy,

The little wand'ring Negro-boy.

These tatter'd clothes, this ice-cold breast

By Winter harden'd into steel,

James Henry Leigh Hunt

The Glove and the Lions

King Francis was a hearty king, and loved a royal sport,

And one day as his lions fought, sat looking on the court;

The nobles filled the benches, and the ladies in their pride,

And 'mongst them sat the Count de Lorge, with one for whom he sighed:

And truly 'twas a gallant thing to see that crowning show,

Valour and love, and a king above, and the royal beasts below.

Ramped and roared the lions, with horrid laughing jaws;

They bit, they glared, gave blows like beams, a wind went with their paws;

James Henry Leigh Hunt

On Receiving A Crown Of Ivy From John Keats

A Crown of of ivy! I submit my head

To the young hand that gives it, --young, 'tis true,

But with a right, for 'tis a poet's too.

How pleasant the leaves feel! and how they spread

With their broad angles, like a nodding shed

Over both eyes! and how complete and new,

As on my hand I lean, to feel them strew

My sense with freshness, -- Fancy's rustling bed!

James Henry Leigh Hunt

Sudden Fine Weather

Reader! what soul that loaves a verse can see

The spring return, nor glow like you and me?

Hear the quick birds, and see the landscape fill,

Nor long to utter his melodious will?

This more than ever leaps into the veins,

When spring has been delay'd by winds and rains,

And coming with a burst, comes like a show,

Blue all above, and basking green below,

James Henry Leigh Hunt

On The Same (On Receiving A Crown Of Ivy From Keats)

It is a lofty feeling, yet a kind,

Thus to be topped with leaves; -- to have a sense

Of honour-shaded thought,-- an influence

As from great nature's fingers, and be twined

With her old, sacred, verdurous ivy-bind,

As though she hallowed with that sylvan fence

A head that bows to her benevolence,

Midst pomp of fancied trumpets in the wind.

James Henry Leigh Hunt

A Thought Or Two On Reading Pomfret's

I have been reading Pomfret's "Choice" this spring,

A pretty kind of -- sort of -- kind of thing,

Not much a verse, and poem none at all,

Yet, as they say, extremely natural.

And yet I know not. There's an art in pies,

In raising crusts as well as galleries;

And he's the poet, more or less, who knows

The charm that hallows the least truth from prose,

James Henry Leigh Hunt

Robin Hood, An Outlaw

Robin Hood is an outlaw bold

Under the greenwood tree;

Bird, nor stag, nor morning air

Is more at large than he.

They sent against him twenty men,

Who joined him laughing-eyed;

They sent against him thirty more,

And they remained beside.

James Henry Leigh Hunt