A real poet he was, but desultory, rarely able to remain fixed at work and carry out a project to the end. He was an excellent ballad-writer, but he could do better than write ballads. He began a great poem on the “Quest of the Sangreal,” but it remains a fragment.
Here is one short specimen of a ballad, the lament of a Cornish mother over her dead child:—
“They say ’tis a sin to sorrow—
That what God doth is best,
But ’tis only a month to-morrow
I buried it from my breast.
“I know it should be a pleasure
Your child to God to send;
But mine was a precious treasure,
To me and my poor friend.