Works

Years since (but names to me before),
Two sisters sought at eve my door;
Two song-birds wandering from their nest,
A gray old farm-house in the West.

How fresh of life the younger one,...

While with Ambition's hectic flame
He wastes the midnight oil,
And dreams, high-throned on heights of fame,
To rest him from his toil, -

Death's Angel, like a vast eclipse,...

O sight of shame, and pain, and dole!
O fearful thought a convict Soul!

Rang the refrain along the hall, the prison,
Rose to the roof, the vaults of heaven above,...

God sent his Singers upon earth
With songs of sadness and of mirth,
That they might touch the hearts of men,
And bring them back to heaven again.

The first, a youth, with soul of fire,...

The yellow sky grows vivid as the sun:
The sea glittering, and the hills dun.

The stones quiver. Twenty pounds of lead
Fold upon fold, the air laps my head.
...

(For the Rev. Edward F. Garesche, S. J.)



There was a little maiden
In blue and silver drest,
She sang to God in Heaven
And God within her breast.

It flooded me with pleasure,...

Out yonder in the moonlight, wherein God's Acre lies,
Go angels walking to and fro, singing their lullabies.
Their radiant wings are folded, and their eyes are bended low,...

I

He sang above the vineyards of the world.
And after him the vines with woven hands
Clambered and clung, and everywhere unfurled
Triumphing green above the barren lands;...

Ethereal, faint that music rang,
As, with the bosom of the breeze,
It rose and fell and murmuring sang
Aeolian harmonies!

I turned; again the mournful chords,
In random rhythm lightly flung...

Hark to that faint, ethereal twang
That from the bosom of the breeze
Has caught its rise and fall: there rang
'olian harmonies!

I looked; again the mournful, chords,
In random rhythm lightly flung...

There was a singing woman
Came riding across the mead
At the time of the mild May weather,
Tameless, tireless;
This song she sung: "I am fair, I am young!"
And many turned to heed.
...

What should I be but a prophet and a liar,
Whose mother was a leprechaun, whose father was a friar?
Teethed on a crucifix and cradled under water,
What should I be but the fiend's god-daughter?
...

We're more than partners, Ned 'n' me,
Two sections permanently righted.
Yiv seen us on the mooch, maybe,
Like remnants lovin'ly united.
Ned's only got one stump, the left;...

This is the mouth-filling song of the race that was run by a Boomer.
Run in a single burst, only event of its kind,
Started by Big God Nqong from Warrigaborrigarooma,...

"Now what, we ask, is become of this Sinking Fund--these eight millions of surplus above expenditure, which were to reduce the interest of the national debt by the amount of four hundred thousand pounds annually? Where, indeed,...

The Siren may be said to be
The Chorus-Lady of the Sea;
Tho' Mermaids claim her as their kin,
Instead of fishy tail and fin
Two shapely feet rejoice the view
(With all that appertains thereto)....

Wail! wail! and smite your lyres' sonorous gold,
And beckon naked beauty from the sea
In arms and breasts and hips of godly mold,
Dark, strangling hair carousing to the knee.
...

Steer hither, steer your wing'd pines,
All beaten mariners,
Here lie Love's undiscover'd mines,
A prey to passengers;
Perfumes far sweeter than the best
Which makes the Phoenix' urn and nest....

If that we thus are guilty doth appear,
Ah, guilty tho' we are, grave judges, hear!
Ah, yes; if ever you in your sweet youth
'Midst pleasure's borders missed the track of truth,...

Beware the Sissy Boy my child,
Not because he's very wild;
The Sissy Boy is never that,
Although he'll run if you say "Scat!"
The Sissy Boy's infinitesimal,
He is not worth a duodecimal.
...