Works

There was one Mrs. Cameron of 50 years of age and the fattest woman in all Inverness-shire who got up this Mountain some few years ago, true she had her servants, but then she had her self. She ought to have hired Sisyphus,,...

"Be careful for nothing," Phil. iv. 6. Revised version, "Be not anxious."


Of all the precepts in the Book
By word of inspiration given,
That bear the import, tone, and look...

'Be not attached.' So runs the great command
For those who seek to 'know' and 'understand.'
Who sounds the waters of the deeper sea
Must first draw up his anchor and go free.
...

Be not content - contentment means inaction;
The growing soul aches on its upward quest;
Satiety is twin to satisfaction;
All great achievements spring from life's unrest.
...

Be not dismayed, be not dismayed when death
Sets its white seal upon some worshipped face.
Poor human nature for a little space
Must suffer anguish, when that last drawn breath...

Be not sad because all men
Prefer a lying clamour before you:
Sweetheart, be at peace again,
Can they dishonour you?

They are sadder than all tears;
Their lives ascend as a continual sigh....

Between us now and here -
Two thrown together
Who are not wont to wear
Life's flushest feather -
Who see the scenes slide past,
The daytimes dimming fast,
Let there be truth at last,...

The cypress stood up like a church
That night we felt our love would hold,
And saintly moonlight seemed to search
And wash the whole world clean as gold;
The olives crystallized the vales'...

O wonderful! In sport we climbed the tree,
Eager and laughing, as in all our play,
To see the eggs where, in the nest, they lay,
But silent fell before the mystery.
...

Bird of the summering North,
Whither away?
Fly you so gaily forth
Simply to stay
Nested in northern bowers
Till the late flushing flowers
Turn in October hours
Ashen and gray?
...

Around the house the flakes fly faster,
And all the berries now are gone
From holly and cotoneaster
Around the house. The flakes fly! - faster
Shutting indoors that crumb-outcaster...

This fireglow is a red womb
In the night, where you're folded up
On your doom.

And the ugly, brutal years
Are dissolving out of you,
And the stagnant tears.

I the great vein that leads...

I.

I'll tell you a Fairy Tale that's new:
How the merry Elves o'er the ocean flew
From the Emerald isle to this far-off shore,
As they were wont in the days of yore;...

Hail Britannia's noblest daughter,
Who is surrounded by the water
Of many a lake and broad sea,
Land of beaver and of maple tree.

Her lofty brow is wreathed with smiles,...

I

Here am I yet, another twelvemonth spent,
One-third departed of the mortal span,
Carrying on the child into the man,
Nothing into reality. Sails rent,
And rudder broken, reason impotent...

O happy they whose hearts receive
The implanted word with faith; believe
Because their fathers did before,
Because they learnt, and ask no more
High triumphs of convictions wrought,...

Tune - "On a bank of flowers."


I.

On a bank of flowers, in a summer day,
For summer lightly drest,
The youthful blooming Nelly lay,
With love and sleep opprest;...

It surely cannot be too soon, and never is too late,
It tones with all Australia's tune to praise one's native State,
And so I bring an old refrain from days of posts and rails,...

There was an Old Derry down Derry,
Who loved to see little folks merry;
So he made them a Book,
And with laughter they shook,
At the fun of that Derry down Derry!

There was an Old Man with a beard,
Who said, "It is just as I feared! -
Two Owls and a Hen,
Four Larks and a Wren,
Have all built their nests in my beard!"