Works

The martial courage of a day is vain,
An empty noise of death the battle's roar,
If vital hope be wanting to restore,
Or fortitude be wanting to sustain,
Armies or kingdoms. We have heard a strain...

Some time ago, in simple verse
I sang the story true
Of Captain Reece, the Mantelpiece,
And all her happy crew.

I showed how any captain may
Attach his men to him,...

Indicative of the passion of the people on the 15th of April, 1865

Goon Friday was the day
Of the prodigy and crime,
When they killed him in his pity,
When they killed him in his prime...

Not only on cross and gibbet,
By sword, and fire, and flood,
Have perished the world's sad martyrs
Whose names are writ in blood.

A woman lay in a hovel,
Mean, dismal, gasping for breath;...

"Tim Thompson, a little negro boy, was asked to dance for the amusement of some white toughs. He refused, saying he was a church member. One of the men knocked him down with a club and then danced upon his prostrate form. He th...

Through the straight pass of suffering
The martyrs even trod,
Their feet upon temptation,
Their faces upon God.

A stately, shriven company;
Convulsion playing round,...

Oh ye, who found in men's brief ways no sign
Of strength or help, so cast them forth, and threw
Your whole souls up to one ye deemed most true,
Nor failed nor doubted but held fast your line,...

Lov'st thou not, Alice, with the early tide
To see the hardy Fisher hoist his mast,
And stretch his sail towards the ocean wide, -
Like God's own beadsman going forth to cast...

I've paid for your sickest fancies; I've humoured your crackedest whim,
Dick, it's your daddy, dying; you've got to listen to him!
Good for a fortnight, am I? The doctor told you? He lied....

I've paid for your sickest fancies; I've humoured your crackedest whim,
Dick, it's your daddy, dying; you've got to listen to him!
Good for a fortnight, am I? The doctor told you? He lied....

'Put off that mask of burning gold
With emerald eyes.'
'O no, my dear, you make so bold
To find if hearts be wild and wise,
And yet not cold.'

'I would but find what's there to find,...

Allegorical Statue in the Style of the Renaissance

for Ernest Christophe, sculptor

Let us observe this prize, of Tuscan charm;
In how the muscles of the body flow...

I found me in a great surging space,
At either end a door,
And I said: "What is this giddying place,
With no firm-fixed floor,
That I knew not of before?"
"It is Life," said a mask-clad face.
...

1.
As I lay asleep in Italy
There came a voice from over the Sea,
And with great power it forth led me
To walk in the visions of Poesy.

2.
I met Murder on the way -...

On my wall hangs a Japanese carving,
The mask of an evil demon, decorated with gold lacquer.
Sympathetically I observe
The swollen veins of the forehead, indicating
What a strain it is to be evil.

SCENE: A moonlit glade on a summer midnight


THE POET

What consummation of the toiling moon
O'ercomes the midnight blue with violet,
Wherein the stars turn grey! The summer's green,...

I

THE WORKSHOP OF HEPHAESTUS

HEPHAESTUS (standing before the statue of Pandora.)
Not fashioned out of gold, like Hera's throne,
Nor forged of iron like the thunderbolts...

Argument. The Indian Government being minded to discover the economic condition of their lands, sent a Committee to inquire into it; and saw that it was good.

...

KING DAVID.
Knights mine, all that be in hall,
I have a counsel to you all,
Because of this thing God lets fall
Among us for a sign.
For some days hence as I did eat...

Three Kings have come to Bethlehem
With a trailing star in front of them.

MARY

What would you in this little place,
You three bright kings?

KINGS
...