Works

A trader sailed from Stepney town -
Wake her up! Shake her up! Try her with the mainsail!
A trader sailed from Stepney town
With a keg full of gold and a velvet gown:
Ho, the bully rover Jack,...

Snowdrift of the mountains,
Spindrift of the sea,
We who down the border
Rove from gloom to glee,--

Snowdrift of the mountains,
Spindrift of the sea,
There be no such gypsies...

When the sap runs up the tree.
And the vine runs o'er the wall,
When the blossom draws the bee,
From the forest comes a call,
Wild, and clear, and sweet, and strange,
Many-tongued and murmuring...

Though your body be confined
And soft love a prisoner bound,
Yet the beauty of your mind
Neither check nor chain hath found.
Look out nobly, then, and dare
Even the fetters that you wear....

I, a princess, king-descended, decked with jewels, gilded, drest,
Would rather be a peasant with her baby at her breast,
For all I shine so like the sun, and am purple like the west.
...

By England's side we stand,
We grasp her royal hand,
And pay her rightful homage through her Son;
Thank God for England's care!
Thank God for Britain's heir!...

It is easy to stand in the pulpit, or in the closet to kneel,
And say: 'God do this; God do that! -
Make the world better; relieve the sorrows of man; for the sake of
Thy Son,...

Our hopes are wild imaginings,
Our schemes are airy castles,
Yet these, on earth, are lords and kings,
And we their slaves and vassals;
Your dream, forsooth, of buoyant youth,
Most ready to deceive is;...

[On an advertisement of A Comedy of Sighs.]


Mr. Aubrey Beer de Beers,
You're getting quite a high renown;
Your Comedy of Leers, you know,
Is posted all about the town;...

Give to barrows, trays and pans
Grace and glimmer of romance;
Bring the moonlight into noon
Hid in gleaming piles of stone;
On the city's paved street
Plant gardens lined with lilacs sweet;...

Art is a gipsy,
Fickle as fair,
Good to kiss and flirt with,
But marry - if you dare!

I.

What precious thing are you making fast
In all these silken lines?
And where and to whom will it go at last?
Such subtle knots and twines!

I am tying up all my love in this,...

In placid hours well-pleased we dream
Of many a brave unbodied scheme.
But form to lend, pulsed life create,
What unlike things must meet and mate:
A flame to melt--a wind to freeze;...

Artist, fashion! talk not long!
Be a breath thine only song!

A Phantasy.


I know not how I found you
With your wild hair a-blow,
Nor why the world around you
Would never let me know:
Perhaps 't was Heaven relented,
Perhaps 't was Hell resented...

Yes, let Art go, if it must be
That with it men must starve -
If Music, Painting, Poetry
Spring from the wasted hearth.

Pluck out the flower, however fair,
Whose beauty cannot bloom,...

When I behold a forest spread
With silken trees upon thy head;
And when I see that other dress
Of flowers set in comeliness;
When I behold another grace
In the ascent of curious lace,...

Though critics may bow to art, and I am its own true lover,
It is not art, but heart, which wins the wide world over.

Though smooth be the heartless prayer, no ear in Heaven will mind it,...

When Art goes bounding, lean,
Up hill-tops fired green
To pluck a rose for life.

Life like a broody hen
Cluck-clucks him back again.

But when Art, imbecile,
Sits old and chill...

He faced his canvas (as a seer whose ken
Pierces the crust of this existence through)
And smiled beyond on that his genius knew
Ere mated with his being. Conscious then...