Works

My Lily snatches not my gift;
Glad is she to be fed,
But to her mouth she will not lift
The piece of broken bread,
Till on my lips, unerring, swift,
The morsel she has laid.
...

Out alone in the winter rain,
Intent on giving and taking pain.
But never was I far out of sight
Of a certain upper-window light.
The light was what it was all about:...

TORQUEMADA

In the heroic days when Ferdinand
And Isabella ruled the Spanish land,
And Torquemada, with his subtle brain,
Ruled them, as Grand Inquisitor of Spain,...

THE LEGEND BEAUTIFUL

"Hads't thou stayed, I must have fled!"
That is what the Vision said.

In his chamber all alone,
Kneeling on the floor of stone,
Prayed the Monk in deep contrition...

ELIZABETH

I

"Ah, how short are the days! How soon the night overtakes us!
In the old country the twilight is longer; but here in the forest...

To the tune of King John and the Abbot of Canterbury.

Who has e'er been at Paris must needs know the Greve,
The fatal retreat of th' unfortunate brave,
Where honour and justice most oddly contribute...

There came a Thief one night to Robin's Castle,
He climbed up into a Tree;
And sitting with his head among the branches,
A wondrous Sight did see.

For there was Robin supping at his table,...

The mind is Beauty's thief, the poet takes
The golden spendthrift's trail among the blooms
Where she stands tossing silver in the lakes,
And twisting bright swift threads on airy looms....

Two thieves, pursuing their profession,
Had of a donkey got possession,
Whereon a strife arose,
Which went from words to blows.
The question was, to sell, or not to sell;...

Now, dear, it isn't the bold things,
Great deeds of valour and might,
That count the most in the summing up of life at the end of the day.
But it is the doing of old things,...

The fields are fair in autumn yet, and the sun's still shining there,
But we bow our heads and we brood and fret, because of the masks we wear;
Or we nod and smile the social while, and we say we're doing well,...

Great Alexander was wise Philips son,
He to Amyntas, Kings of Macedon;
The cruel proud Olympias was his Mother,
She to Epirus warlike King was daughter.
This Prince (his father by Pausanias slain)...

My Lords, we heard you speak: you told us all
That England's honest censure went too far,
That our free press should cease to brawl,
Not sting the fiery Frenchman into war....

There's no wind along these seas,
Out oars for Stavenger!
Forward all for Stavenger!
So we must wake the white-ash breeze,
Let fall for Stavenger!
A long pull for Stavenger!
...

I

"There is a Thorn, it looks so old,
In truth, you'd find it hard to say
How it could ever have been young,
It looks so old and grey.
Not higher than a two years' child...

(For the Rev. Charles L. O'Donnell, C. S. C.)



The garden of God is a radiant place,
And every flower has a holy face:
Our Lady like a lily bends above the cloudy sod,...

The days of these two years like busy ants
Have gone, confused and happy and distressed,
Rich, yet sad with aching wants,
Crowded, yet lonely and unblessed.

I stare back as they vanish in a swarm,...

Within my heart a worm had long been hid.
I knew it not when I went down and chid
Because some servants of my inner house
Had not, I found, of late been doing well,
But then I spied the horror hideous...

The night is sad with silver and the day is glad with gold,
And the woodland silence listens to a legend never old,
Of the Lady of the Fountain, whom the faery people know,...

The thought beneath so slight a film
Is more distinctly seen, --
As laces just reveal the surge,
Or mists the Apennine.