Works

Skilled mariner, and counted sane and wise,
That was a curious thing which chanced to me,
So good a sailor on so fair a sea.
With favouring winds and blue unshadowed skies,...

There overtook me and drew me in
To his down-hill, early-morning stride,
And set me five miles on my road
Better than if he had had me ride,
A man with a swinging bag for'load...

Oh, there's some that breeds the Devon that's as solid as a stone,
And there's some that breeds the brindle which they call the "Goulburn Roan";
But amongst the breeds of cattle there are very, very few...

The Gurgling Imps of Mummery Mum
Lived in the Land of the Crimson Plum,
And a language very strange had they,
'Twas merely a chattering ricochet.

The Gurgling Imps of Mummery Mum...

I wish we might go gypsying one day the while we're young--
On a blue October morning
Beneath a cloudless sky,
When all the world's a vibrant harp
The winds o' God have strung,...

My good man - he's an old, old man -
And my good man got a fall,
To buy me a bargain so fast he ran
When he heard the gypsies call:
"Buy, buy brushes,
Baskets wrought o' rushes....

The gyres! the gyres! Old Rocky Face, look forth;
Things thought too long can be no longer thought,
For beauty dies of beauty, worth of worth,
And ancient lineaments are blotted out....

I read on de paper mos' ev'ry day, all about Jubilee
An' grande procession movin' along, an' passin' across de sea,
Dat's chil'ren of Queen Victoriaw comin' from far away...

O, who can blame de winter, never min' de hard he 's blowin'
'Cos w'en de tam is comin' for passin' on hees roun'
De firse t'ing he was doin' is start de sky a snowin'...

Elected Silence, sing to me
And beat upon my whorl'd ear,
Pipe me to pastures still and be
The music that I care to hear.

Shape nothing, lips; be lovely-dumb:
It is the shut, the curfew sent...

The hag is astride
This night for to ride,
The devil and she together;
Through thick and through thin,
Now out and then in,
Though ne'er so foul be the weather.

A thorn or a burr...

The staff is now greas'd;
And very well pleas'd,
She cocks out her arse at the parting,
To an old ram goat
That rattles i' th' throat,
Half-choked with the stink of her farting.
...

"Hae ye heard whit ma auld mither's postit tae me?
It fair maks me hamesick," says Private McPhee.
"And whit did she send ye?" says Private McPhun,
As he cockit his rifle and bleezed at a Hun....

By chapel bare, with walls sea-beat
The lichened urns in wilds are lost
About a carved memorial stone
That shows, decayed and coral-mossed,
A form recumbent, swords at feet,...

It is of Corca Dubhne she was, and she had her youth seven times over, and every man that had lived with her died of old age, and her grandsons and great-grandsons were tribes and races. And through a hundred years she wore upo...

Not only men of stormy minds,
The storms of trouble know,
All creatures of this earth must find
A share of earthly woe!

Ye whose pure hearts with pity swell,
For pain by all incurr'd;...

The halcyon hangs o'er ocean,
The sea-lark skims the brine;
This bright world's all in motion,
No heart seems sad but mine.

To walk thro' sun-bright places,
With heart all cold the while;...

She is free of the trap and the paddle,
The portage and the trail,
But something behind her savage life
Shines like a fragile veil.

Her dreams are undiscovered,
Shadows trouble her breast,...

The half-moon westers low, my love,
And the wind brings up the rain;
And wide apart lie we, my love,
And seas between the twain.

I know not if it rains, my love,
In the land where you do lie;...

The days have slain the days,
and the seasons have gone by
And brought me the summer again;
and here on the grass I lie
As erst I lay and was glad
ere I meddled with right and with wrong....