Works

There lies afar behind a western hill
The Town without a Market, white and still;
For six feet long and not a third as high
Are those small habitations. There stood I,
Waiting to hear the citizens beneath...

Dimmi di grazia, amor.


Nay, prithee tell me, Love, when I behold
My lady, do mine eyes her beauty see
In truth, or dwells that loveliness in me
Which multiplies her grace a thousandfold?...

O the night was dark and the night was late,
And the robbers came to rob him;
And they picked the locks of his palace-gate,
The robbers that came to rob him -
They picked the locks of his palace-gate,...

[A Poem for Aviators]


How the Wings Were Made

From many morning-glories
That in an hour will fade,
From many pansy buds
Gathered in the shade,
From lily of the valley...

The Trees ask of Man what he lacks;
"One bit, just to handle my axe?"
All he asks--well and good:
But he cuts down the wood,
So well does he handle his axe!

"Give Me An Inch & I'll Take An Ell"

Glad as the weary traveller tempest-tost
To reach secure at length his native coast,
Who wandering long o'er distant lands has sped,
The night-blast wildly howling round his head,...

Woman's faith, and woman's trust
Write the characters in the dust;
Stamp them on the running stream,
Print them on the moon's pale beam,
And each evanescent letter
Shall be clearer, firmer, better,...

I'm Sairgeant Weelum Henderson frae Pairth,
That's wha I am!
There's jist ae bluidy regiment on airth
That's worth a damn;
An' gin the bonniest fechter o' the lot
Ye seek to see,...

Two neighbors, living on a hill,
Had each and side by side a mill.
The one was Jones, a thrifty wight
Whose mill in every wind went right.
The storm and tempest vainly spent...

Smoker's Club-Story


I waited at home all the while they were boating together -
My wife and my near neighbour's wife:
Till there entered a woman I loved more than life,...

Lo! very fair is she who knows the ways
Of joy: in pleasure's mocking wisdom old,
The eyes that might be cold to flattery, kind;
The hair that might be grey with knowledge, gold.
...

There's mony a man loves land and life,
Loves life and land and fee;
And mony a man loves fair women,
But never a man loves me, my love,
But never a man loves me.
O weel and weel for a' lovers,...

To the Wolf, from whose throat Dr Crane
Drew the bone, his long bill made it plain
He expected his fee:
Snarled Wolf--"Fiddle de dee,
Be thankful your head's out again."
...

Wild son of Heav'n, with laughter and alarm,
Now East, now West, now North, now South he goes,
Bearing in one harsh hand dark death and storm,
And in the other, sunshine and a rose.

The untold want, by life and land ne'er granted,
Now, Voyager, sail thou forth, to seek and find.

A woodcutter bought him a gander,
Or at least that was what he supposed,
As a matter of fact, 'twas a slander
As a later occurrence disclosed;
For they locked the bird up in the garret...

I had been almost happy for an hour,
Lost to the world that knew me in the park
Among strange faces; while my little girl
Leaped with the squirrels, chirruped with the birds...

Do not despise the humble weed,
For the Lord He first sowed the seed,
Perhaps it bears most precious fruit,
And useful leaves and potent root.

Though it seems now a useless weed,...

As he said vanity, so vain say I,
Oh! vanity, O vain all under Sky;
Where is the man can say, lo, I have found
On brittle Earth a Consolation sound?
What is't in honour to be set on high?...

'Ouse-keeper sent tha my lass, fur New Squire coom'd last night.
Butter an' heggs'yis'yis. I'll go' wi' tha back: all right;
Butter I warrants be prime, an' I warrants the heggs be as well,...