Works

I've known ere now an interfering branch
Of alder catch my lifted ax behind me.
But that was in the woods, to hold my hand
From striking at another alder's roots,
And that was, as I say, an alder branch....

Daily walked the fair and lovely
Sultan's daughter in the twilight, -
In the twilight by the fountain,
Where the sparkling waters plash.

Daily stood the young slave silent...

Good Father John O'Hart
In penal days rode out
To a Shoneen who had free lands
And his own snipe and trout.
In trust took he John's lands;
Sleiveens were all his race;...

That night, when through the mooring-chains
The wide-eyed corpse rolled free,
To blunder down by Garden Reach
And rot at Kedgeree,
The tale the Hughli told the shoal
The lean shoal told to me.
...

From Heaven's Gate to Hampstead Heath
Young Bacchus and his crew
Came tumbling down, and o'er the town
Their bursting trumpets blew.

The silver night was wildly bright,
And madly shone the Moon...

Now wouldn't you expect to find a man an awful crank
That's staked out nigh three hundred claims, and every one a blank;
That's followed every fool stampede, and seen the rise and fall...

One moment bid the horses wait,
Since tiffin is not laid till three,
Below the upward path and straight
You climbed a year ago with me.
Love came upon us suddenly
And loosed, an idle hour to kill,...

The Honourable M. T. Nutt
About the bush did jog.
Till, passing by a settler's hut,
He stopped and bought a dog.

Then started homewards full of hope,
Alas, that hopes should fail!...

Who knocks at the Geraldine's door to-night
In the black storm and the rain?
With the thunder crash and the shrieking wind
Comes the moan of a creature's pain.

And once they knocked, yet never a stir...

Dedication


Of great limbs gone to chaos,
A great face turned to night--
Why bend above a shapeless shroud
Seeking in such archaic cloud
Sight of strong lords and light?
...

The moon and all her starry train
Were fading from the morning sky,
When home the ball-room belle again
Returned, with throbbing pulse and brain,
Flushed cheek and tearful eye.
...

The Text of this ballad was sent to Professor Child by Mr. C. E. Dalrymple of Kinaldie, Aberdeenshire, from whose version the printed variants (Notes and Queries, Third Series, vii. 393, and Aytoun's Ballads of Scotland, i. 75)...

I'll tell of the Battle of Hastings,
As happened in days long gone by,
When Duke William became King of England,
And 'Arold got shot in the eye.

It were this way - one day in October...

Squire wants the bay horse,
For it is the best.
Squire holds the mortgage;
Where's the interest?
Haven't got the interest,
Can't raise a sou;
Shan't sell the bay horse,
Whatever he may do....

PREFACE
...

'Twould ring the bells of Heaven
The wildest peal for years,
If Parson lost his senses
And people came to theirs,
And he and they together
Knelt down with angry prayers
For tamed and shabby tigers...

O curfew of the setting sun! O Bells of Lynn!
O requiem of the dying day! O Bells of Lynn!

From the dark belfries of yon cloud-cathedral wafted,
Your sounds aerial seem to float, O Bells of Lynn!...

The sun looks over a little hill
And floods the valley with gold -
A torrent of gold;
And the hither field is green and still;
Beyond it a cloud outrolled,
Is glowing molten and bright;...

Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity!
Draw round my bed: is Anselm keeping back?
Nephews, sons mine . . . ah God, I know not! Well,
She, men would have to be your mother once,...

A lassie sells the War Cry on the corner
And the big drum booms, and the raucous brass horns
Mingle with the cymbals and the silver triangle.
I stand a moment listening, then my friend...