Works

TO SHAKESPEARE

Longer than thine, than thine,
Is now my time of life; and thus thy years
Seem to be clasped and harboured within mine.
O how ignoble this my clasp appears!
...

As I stand by the cross on the lone mountain's crest,
Looking over the ultimate sea,
In the gloom of the mountain a ship lies at rest,
And one sails away from the lea:...

Much I owe to the Lands that grew,
More to the Lives that fed,
But most to Allah Who gave me two
Separate sides to my head.

Much I reflect on the Good and the True
In the Faiths beneath the sun,...

The Youths.

O Winter, O white winter, wert thou gone
No more within the wilds were I alone
Leaping with bent bow over stock and stone!

No more alone my love the lamp should burn,...

Just at the corner of the wall
We met yes, he and I -
Who had not faced in camp or hall
Since we bade home good-bye,
And what once happened came back all -
Out of those years gone by.
...

I heard an Angel Singing
When the day was springing:
"Mercy, pity, and peace,
Are the world's release."

So he sang all day
Over the new-mown hay,
Till the sun went down,...

FIRST SPIRIT:
O thou, who plumed with strong desire
Wouldst float above the earth, beware!
A Shadow tracks thy flight of fire -
Night is coming!
Bright are the regions of the air,...

Behold the rocky wall
That down its sloping sides
Pours the swift rain-drops, blending, as they fall,
In rushing river-tides!

Yon stream, whose sources run
Turned by a pebble's edge,...

I.

Immortal Imogen, crown'd queen above
The lilies of thy sex, vouchsafe to hear
A fairy dream in honor of true love -
True above ills, and frailty, and all fear, -...

O now that the genius of Bewick were mine,
And the skill which he learned on the banks of the Tyne.
Then the Muses might deal with me just as they chose,
For I'd take my last leave both of verse and of prose....

Beloved, gaze in thine own heart,
The holy tree is growing there;
From joy the holy branches start,
And all the trembling flowers they bear.
The changing colours of its fruit...

A still small voice spake unto me,
'Thou art so full of misery,
Were it not better not to be?'

Then to the still small voice I said;
'Let me not cast in endless shade
What is so wonderfully made.'...

Two neighbors, living on a hill,
Had each and side by side a mill.
The one was Jones, a thrifty wight
Whose mill in every wind went right.
The storm and tempest vainly spent...

Smoker's Club-Story


I waited at home all the while they were boating together -
My wife and my near neighbour's wife:
Till there entered a woman I loved more than life,...

Lo! very fair is she who knows the ways
Of joy: in pleasure's mocking wisdom old,
The eyes that might be cold to flattery, kind;
The hair that might be grey with knowledge, gold.
...

Tyger, tyger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?...

There's mony a man loves land and life,
Loves life and land and fee;
And mony a man loves fair women,
But never a man loves me, my love,
But never a man loves me.
O weel and weel for a' lovers,...

The heart that owns thy tyrant sway,
Whate'er its hopes may be,
Is like a bark that drifts away
Upon a shoreless sea!
No compass left to guide her on,
Upon the surge she's tempest-torn--...

There is a word you often see, pronounce it as you may,
'You bike,' 'you bikwe,' 'ubbikwe', alludin' to R.A.
It serves 'Orse, Field, an' Garrison as motto for a crest,...

My parents bow, and lead them forth,
For all the crowd to see -
Ah well! the people might not care
To cheer a dwarf like me.

They little know how I could love,
How I could plan and toil,...