Works

Perch' Febo non torce.


What time bright Phoebus doth not stretch and bend
His shining arms around this terrene sphere,
The people call that season dark and drear...

Their height in heaven comforts not,
Their glory nought to me;
'T was best imperfect, as it was;
I 'm finite, I can't see.

The house of supposition,
The glimmering frontier...

How strange it seems! These Hebrews in their graves,
Close by the street of this fair seaport town,
Silent beside the never-silent waves,
At rest in all this moving up and down!
...

Where are the songs I used to know,
Where are the notes I used to sing?
I have forgotten everything
I used to know so long ago;
Summer has followed after Spring;
Now Autumn is so shrunk and sere,...

Oh! it is not just the men who face the guns,
Not the fighters at the Front alone, to-day
Who will bring the longed-for close to the bloody fray, for those
Could not carry on that fray without the ones...

[1]

A noted thief, the kite,
Had set a neighbourhood in fright,
And raised the clamorous noise
Of all the village boys,
When, by misfortune, - sad to say, -
A nightingale fell in his way....

Clear shone the moon, my mansion walls
Towered white above the wood,
Near, down the dark oak avenue
An humble cottage stood.

My gardener's cottage, small and brown,
Yet precious unto me;...

Up to the throne of God is borne
The voice of praise at early morn,
And he accepts the punctual hymn
Sung as the light of day grows dim:

Nor will he turn his ear aside...

The laddies by the banks o' Nith,
Wad trust his Grace wi' a', Jamie,
But he'll sair them, as he sair'd the King,
Turn tail and rin awa', Jamie.

Up and waur them a', Jamie,
Up and waur them a';...

I dreamed a dream: I stood upon a height,
A mountain's utmost eminence of snow,
Whence I beheld the plain outstretched below
To a far sea-horizon, dim and white.
Beneath the sun's expiring, ghastly light,...

The last night that she lived,
It was a common night,
Except the dying; this to us
Made nature different.

We noticed smallest things, --
Things overlooked before,...

It has ever been so, my friend, and will ever remain so:
Weakness has rules for itself, vigor is crowned with success.

Light on the towns and cities, and peace for evermore!
The Big Five met in the world's light as many had met before,
And the future of man is settled and there shall be no more war.
...

I dreamed, and lo, I saw in my dream a beautiful gateway,
Arched at the top, and crowned with turrets lance-windowed and olden,
And sculptured in arabesque, all knotted and woven and spangled;...

The lightning spun your garment for the night
Of silver filaments with fire shot thru,
A broidery of lamps that lit for you
The steadfast splendor of enduring light....

O gone are now those eager great glad days of days, but I remember
Yet even yet the light that turned the saddest of sad hours to mirth;
I remember how elate I swung upon the thrusting bowsprits,...

CHORUS

If with voice of words or prayers thy sons may reach thee,
We thy latter sons, the men thine after-birth,
We the children of thy grey-grown age, O Earth,...

There is a lasting little flower,
That everybody knows,
Yet none has thought to think about
The little Native Rose.

The wattle and the waratah,
The world has heard of those;...

The little needle always knows the North,
The little bird remembereth his note,
And this wise Seer within me never errs.
I never taught it what it teaches me;
I only follow, when I act aright.
...

The little old poem that nobody reads
Blooms in a crowded space,
Like a ground-vine blossom, so low in the weeds
That nobody sees its face -
Unless, perchance, the reader's eye...