Works

"Not by the justice that my father spurn'd,
Not for the thousands whom my father slew,
Altars unfed and temples overturn'd,
Cold hearts and thankless tongues, where thanks are due;...

My child wafts peace.
When I lean over him,
It is not just the smell of soap.

All the people were children wafting peace.
(And in the whole land, not even one...

"Alive?" And I leapt in my wonder,
Was faint of my joyance,
And grasses and grove shone in garments
Of glory to me.

"She lives, in a plenteous well-being,
To-day as aforehand;...

Tune - "The Collier Laddie."


I.

Where live ye, my bonnie lass?
An' tell me what they ca' ye;
My name, she says, is Mistress Jean,
And I follow the Collier Laddie....

Well hast thou spoken, and yet not taught
A feeling strange or new;
Thou hast but roused a latent thought,
A cloud-closed beam of sunshine brought
To gleam in open view.
...

Men may sing of their Havanas, elevating to the stars
The real or fancied virtues of their foreign-made cigars;
But I worship Nicotina at a different sort of shrine,...

My country need not change her gown,
Her triple suit as sweet
As when't was cut at Lexington,
And first pronounced "a fit."

Great Britain disapproves "the stars;"
Disparagement discreet, --...

Farther in summer than the birds,
Pathetic from the grass,
A minor nation celebrates
Its unobtrusive mass.

No ordinance is seen,
So gradual the grace,
A pensive custom it becomes,...

What is it in old fiddle-chunes 'at makes me ketch my breath
And ripples up my backbone tel I'm tickled most to death? -
Kindo' like that sweet-sick feelin', in the long sweep of a swing,...

Last night in my feverish dreams I heard
A voice like the moan of an autumn sea,
Or the low, sad wail of a widowed bird,
And it said "My darling, come home to me."
...

My dear mistress has a heart
Soft as those kind looks she gave me,
When with love's resistless art,
And her eyes, she did enslave me;
But her constancy's so weak,
She's so wild and apt to wander,...

Fate has given me many a gift
To which men most aspire,
Lovely, precious and costly things,
But not my heart's desire.

Many a man has a secret dream
Of where his soul would be,...

Aw wodn't care to live at all,
Unless aw could be jolly!
Let sanctimonious skinflints call
All recreation folly.

Aw still believe this world wor made
For fowk to have some fun in;...

My dove, my beautiful one,
Arise, arise!
The night-dew lies
Upon my lips and eyes.

The odorous winds are weaving
A music of sighs:
Arise, arise,
My dove, my beautiful one!
...

In my dream, methought I trod,
Yesternight, a mountain road;
Narrow as Al Sirat's span,
High as eagle's flight, it ran.

Overhead, a roof of cloud
With its weight of thunder bowed;...

Hear now a curious dream I dreamed last night
Each word whereof is weighed and sifted truth.

I stood beside Euphrates while it swelled
Like overflowing Jordan in its youth:...

The other night, from cares exempt,
I slept and what d'you think I dreamt?
I dreamt that somehow I had come
To dwell in Topsy-Turveydom -

Where vice is virtue virtue, vice:...

I've been home a long time among the vast porticos,
Which the mariner sun has tinged with a million fires,
Whose grandest pillars, upright, majestic and cold...

Here sparrows build upon the trees,
And stockdove hides her nest;
The leaves are winnowed by the breeze
Into a calmer rest;
The black-cap's song was very sweet,
That used the rose to kiss;...

Half hands hold my fate.
Where will it sink...
My steps are tiny, like those of a woman.
One evening lay waste all dreams.
Sleep does not come to me -