Works

"I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done
Than to be one of the twenty to follow my own teaching,"
- Merchant of Venice.

"Do as I tell you, and not as I do."
- Old Saying.
...

"Blow high, blow low." - SEA SONG.


As Mister B. and Mistress B.
One night were sitting down to tea,
With toast and muffins hot -
They heard a loud and sudden bounce,...

A Report Song in a Dream, between a shepherd and his nymph

Shall we go dance the hay? The hay?
Never pipe could ever play
Better shepherd's roundelay.
...

When I am cold and undesirous and my lids lie dead,
Come to watch by the body that loved you and say:
This is Rondagui, whom I killed and my heart regrets for ever.
...

Ponder my words, if so that any be
Known guilty here of incivility;
Let what is graceless, discomposed, and rude,
With sweetness, smoothness, softness be endued:
Teach it to blush, to curtsy, lisp, and show...

For Soldiers lost in Ocean Transports

When, after storms that woodlands rue,
To valleys comes atoning dawn,
The robins blithe their orchard-sports renew;
And meadow-larks, no more withdrawn...

Neobule, being tired,
Far too tired to laugh or weep,
From the hours, rosy and gray,
Hid her golden face away.
Neobule, fain of sleep,
Slept at last as she desired!

Neobule! is it well,...

Life wanes, and the bright sunlight of our youth
Sets o'er the mountain-tops, where once Hope stood.
Oh, Innocence! oh, Trustfulness! oh, Truth!
Where are ye all, white-handed sisterhood,...

I.

Oh, when I was a tiny boy,
My days and nights were full of joy,
My mates were blithe and kind! -
No wonder that I sometimes sigh,
And dash the tear-drop from my eye,
To cast a look behind!...

When I do sit apart
And commune with my heart,
She brings me forth the treasures once my own;
Shows me a happy place
Where leaf-buds swelled apace,
And wasting rims of snow in sunlight shone.
...

Did I dream of a song? or sing in a dream?
Why ask when the night only knoweth?
The night -- and the angel of sleep!
But ever since then a music deep,
Like a stream thro' a shadow-land, floweth...

"O Songs!" I said:
"Stop sounding in my soul
Just for a little while and let me sleep,
Resting my head on the breast
Of Silence;" but the rhythmic roll
Of a thousand songs swept on and on,...

Those hearts of ours -- how strange! how strange!
How they yearn to ramble and love to range
Down through the vales of the years long gone,
Up through the future that fast rolls on.
...

Old it is, and worn and battered,
As I lift it from the stall;
And the leaves are frayed and tattered,
And the pendent sides are shattered,
Pierced and blackened by a ball.
...

Because a steadfast flame of clear intent
Gave force and beauty to full-actioned life;
Because his way was one of firm ascent,
Whose stepping-stones were hewn of change and strife;...

I.

That phantoms fair, with radiant hair,
May seek at midnight hour
The sons of men, belov'd again,
And give them holy power;
That souls survive the mortal hive, and sinless come and go,...

If our own life is the life of a flower
(And that's what some sages are thinking),
We should moisten the bud with a health-giving flood
And 'twill bloom all the sweeter--
Yes, life's the completer...

Babe, if rhyme be none
For that sweet small word
Babe, the sweetest one
Ever heard,
Right it is and meet
Rhyme should keep not true
Time with such a sweet
Thing as you....

I look on the specious electrical light
Blatant, mechanical, crawling and white,
Wickedly red or malignantly green
Like the beads of a young Senegambian queen.
Showing, while millions of souls hurry on,...

Yes, dear Enchantress, - wandering far and long,
In realms unperfumed by the breath of song,
Where flowers ill-flavored shed their sweets around,
And bitterest roots invade the ungenial ground,...