Works

Time, who with soft pale ashes veils the brand
Of many a hope that flared against the sky
To plant its heaven-storming banners high,
Has touched you with no desecrating hand;...

A man there came, whence none could tell,
Bearing a Touchstone in his hand;
And tested all things in the land
By its unerring spell.

Quick birth of transmutation smote...

Thirteen as twelve my Murray always took,
He was a publisher. The new Police
Have neater ways of bringing men to book,
So Juan found himself before J.P.'s
Accused of storming through that placed nook...

Lo! carpet-bag and bagger occupy the land,
And prove the touring season actively begun;
His personnel and purpose can none misunderstand,
For each upon his frontlet bears his honest brand -
The fool-ish one!...

Joust First.


I.

Bright shone the lists, blue bent the skies,
And the knights still hurried amain
To the tournament under the ladies' eyes,
Where the jousters were Heart and Brain....

Ralph would fight in Edith's sight,
For Ralph was Edith's lover,
Ralph went down like a fire to the fight,
Struck to the left and struck to the right,
Roll'd them over and over....

SAILING TO BYZANTIUM

I

That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
-- Those dying generations -- at their song,...

It was deep night, and over Jerusalem's low roofs
The moon floated, drifting through high vaporous woofs.
The moonlight crept and glistened silent, solemn, sweet,
Over dome and column, up empty, endless street;...

Amid the desolation of a city,
Which was the cradle, and is now the grave
Of an extinguished people, - so that Pity

Weeps o'er the shipwrecks of Oblivion's wave,...

There is a room serene and fair,
All palpitant with light and air;
Free from the dust, world's noise and fuss -
God's Tower-room in each of us.

Oh! many a stair our feet must press,...

(For W. M. Letts)


The roads look up to Holy Cross,
The sturdy towers look down,
And show a kindly word to all
Who pass by Worcester Town;
And once you'd see the boys at play,...

The Town Karnteel! It's who'll reveal
Its praises jushtifiable?
For who can sing av anything
So lovely and reliable?
Whin Summer, Spring, or Winter lies
From Malin's Head to Tipperary,...

The: Prohibitionists made me Town Marshal
When the saloons were voted out,
Because when I was a drinking man,
Before I joined the church, I killed a Swede
At the saw-mill near Maple Grove....

'sop, Babrius, Horace, Prior, and Pope.


Our friend Dan Prior had, you know,
A tale exactly ' propos;
Name a town life - and, in a trice,
He had a story of two mice.
...

Crab-Faced, crab-tongued, with deep-set eyes that glared,
Unfriendly and unfriended lived the crone
Upon the common in her hut, alone,
Past which but seldom any villager fared....

There lies afar behind a western hill
The Town without a Market, white and still;
For six feet long and not a third as high
Are those small habitations. There stood I,
Waiting to hear the citizens beneath...

With Verse, is Form the first, or Sense?
Hereon men waste their Eloquence.


"Sense (cry the one Side), Sense, of course.
How can you lend your Theme its Force?
How can you be direct and clear,...

THE PERSONS

D'ANIRA, wife of Heracles.
An Attendant.
HYLLUS, son of Heracles and D'anira.
CHORUS of Trachinian Maidens.
A Messenger.
LICHAS, the Herald.
A Nurse.
An Old Man....

Now this is not a dismal song, like some I've sung of late,
When I've been brooding all day long about my muddled fate;
For though I've had a rocky time I'll never quite forget,...

They bear, in place of classic names,
Letters and numbers on their skin.
They play their grisly blindfold games
In little boxes made of tin.
Sometimes they stalk the Zeppelin,...