Works

They proved we could not think nor see,
They proved we could not write,
They proved we drank the day away
And raved through half the night.
They proved our stars were never up,...

"Listen my child," said the old pine tree, to the little one nestling near,
"For the storm clouds troop together to-night, and the wind of the north I hear...

The curtain rose; in thunders long and loud
The galleries rung; the veteran actor bowed.
In flaming line the telltales of the stage
Showed on his brow the autograph of age;...

The old remain, the young are gone.
The farm dreams lonely on the hill:
From early eve to early dawn
A cry goes with the whippoorwill
"The old remain, the young are gone."
...

The old sea captain has sailed the seas
So long, that the waves at mirth,
Or the waves gone wild, and the crests of these,
Were as near playmates from birth:
He has loved both the storm and the calm, because...

He puts the poem by, to say
His eyes are not themselves to-day!

A sudden glamour o'er his sight -
A something vague, indefinite -

An oft-recurring blur that blinds...

A man he was of Scottish race,
And ancient Scottish name;
Of common mould, but lofty mien,
That dignified his frame.
And he lived a humble, quiet life,
Obscure, unknown to fame;...

"What's not destroyed by Time's devouring Hand?
Where's Troy, and where's the May-Pole in the Strand?"
Bramston's "Art of Politicks."


It stands in the stable-yard, under the eaves,...

I know very well t'was purty hard case
If dere 's not on de worl' some beeger place
Dan village of Cote St. Paul,
But we got mebbe sixty-five house or more
Wit' de blacksmit' shop an' two fine store...

'T is pleasant to bear recollections in mind
Of joys that time hurries away--
To look back on smiles that have passed like the wind,
And compare them with frowns of to-day....

I have seen old ships sail like swans asleep
Beyond the village which men still call Tyre,
With leaden age o'ercargoed, dipping deep
For Famagusta and the hidden sun...

In early times the pioneer
When a few acres he did clear,
He found 'an ample recompense
For splitting rails and making fence.

Though it was crooked as a snake,
And zigzag style did not awake,...

There came an Old Soldier to my door,
Asked a crust, and asked no more;
The wars had thinned him very bare,
Fighting and marching everywhere,
With a Fol rol dol rol di do.
...

(On the Embankment in stormy weather.)


A livid sky on London
And like iron steeds that rear
A shock of engines halted,
And I knew the end was near:...

I

Under rocks whereon the rose
Like a streak of morning glows;
Where the azure-throated newt
Drowses on the twisted root;
And the brown bees, humming homeward,
Stop to suck the honeydew;...

With its rude walls of stone and its moss-covered roof--
('Tis a picture inwoven with memory's woof)--
It stands there to-day, as it stood in the years
When we knew naught of sorrow--nor anguish--nor tears;...

Wrap me up in me stockwhip and blanket,
And bury me deep down below,
Where this piffle and sham won't disgust me,
In the land where the coolibahs grow;
For I've stayed with some well-to-do people,...

Riches I hold in light esteem,
And Love I laugh to scorn;
And lust of fame was but a dream,
That vanished with the morn:

And if I pray, the only prayer
That moves my lips for me...

A statesman is an easy man,
He tells his lies by rote;
A journalist makes up his lies
And takes you by the throat;
So stay at home' and drink your beer
And let the neighbours' vote,...

Nothing on the grey roof, nothing on the brown,
Only a little greening where the rain drips down;
Nobody at the window, nobody at the door,
Only a little hollow which a foot once wore;...