Works

I never shall furgit that night when father hitched up Dobbin,
An' all us youngsters clambered in an' down the road went bobbin'
To school where we was kep' at work in every kind o' weather,...

Waltz in, waltz in, ye little kids, and gather round my knee,
And drop them books and first pot-hooks, and hear a yarn from me.
I kin not sling a fairy tale of Jinnys fierce and wild,...

"I mean to build a hall anon,
And shape two turrets there,
And a broad newelled stair,
And a cool well for crystal water;
Yes; I will build a hall anon,
Plant roses love shall feed upon,...

I wanted the gold, and I sought it;
I scrabbled and mucked like a slave.
Was it famine or scurvy - I fought it,
I hurled my youth into the grave.
I wanted the gold and I got it -...

The Sphinx is drowsy,
Her wings are furled:
Her ear is heavy,
She broods on the world.
"Who'll tell me my secret,
The ages have kept?--
I awaited the seer
While they slumbered and slept:--...

(To Marcel Schwob in friendship and in admiration)

In a dim corner of my room for longer than my fancy thinks
A beautiful and silent Sphinx has watched me through the shifting gloom.
...

She was half Lady and half cat--
What is so wonderful in that?
Half of our lady friends (so say
The other half) are Cats to-day.
In Egypt she made quite a stir,
They carved huge Images of her....

I know all about the Sphinx -
I know even what she thinks,
Staring with her stony eyes
Up forever at the skies.

For last night I dreamed that she
Told me all the mystery -...

Yellowish-grey sand, soft at the top, hard, grating below ... sand without end, where-ever one looks.

And above this sandy desert, above this sea of dead dust, rises the immense head of the Egyptian sphinx.
...

Out of the Latin Quarter
I came to the lofty door
Where the two marble Sphinxes guard
The Pavillon de Flore.
Two Cockneys stood by the gate, and one
Observed, as they turned to go,...

This is the song
The spice-tree sings:
"Hunger and fire,
Hunger and fire,
Sky-born Beauty -
Spice of desire,"
Under the spice-tree
Watch and wait,
Burning maidens
And lads that mate....

A spider sewed at night
Without a light
Upon an arc of white.
If ruff it was of dame
Or shroud of gnome,
Himself, himself inform.
Of immortality
His strategy
Was physiognomy.

Don't kill the spider, little Fred,
But come and stand by me,
And watch him spin that slender thread,
Which we can hardly see.

How patiently, now up, now down,
He brings that tiny line!...

The sun shines bright, the morning's fair,
The gossamers float on the air,
The dew-gems twinkle in the glare,
The spider's loom
Is closely plied, with artful care,
Even in my room.
...

Once I loved a spider
When I was born a fly,
A velvet-footed spider
With a gown of rainbow-dye.
She ate my wings and gloated.
She bound me with a hair.
She drove me to her parlor...

[1]

'O Jupiter, whose fruitful brain,
By odd obstetrics freed from pain,
Bore Pallas,[2] erst my mortal foe,[3]
Pray listen to my tale of woe.
This Progne[4] takes my lawful prey....

There are not leaders to lead us to honour, and yet without leaders we sally,
Each man reporting for duty alone, out of sight, out of reach, of his fellow....

Oh, what was it he meant
By his question as he went?
"I am making a loom,
'T will be up in April's bloom;
If you think it may be,
Spin for me!"

Oh, what shall I believe?...

As I calmly sat and span,

Toiling with all zeal,
Lo! a young and handsome man

Pass'd my spinning-wheel.

And he praised, what harm was there?

Sweet the things he said...

"Cada puta hile."--Don Quixote, i. 46.


Without my dinner here I lie,
And all because that proctor
With her stout bull-dogs passed, and I
Mocked her.

For Clara is at Girton too,...