Works

0 Lord, at Joseph's humble bench
Thy hands did handle saw and plane;
Thy hammer nails did drive and clench,
Avoiding knot and humouring grain.

That thou didst seem, thou wast indeed,...

Heavily slumbered noonday bright
Upon the lone field, glory-dight,
A burnished grassy sea:
The child, in gorgeous golden hours,
Through heaven-descended starry flowers,
Went walking on the lea.
...

Heavily lay the warm sunlight
Upon the green blades shining bright,
An outspread grassy sea:
She through the burnished yellow flowers
Went walking in the golden hours
That slept upon the lea.
...

The infant lies in blessed ease
Upon his mother's breast;
No storm, no dark, the baby sees
Invade his heaven of rest.
He nothing knows of change or death--
Her face his holy skies;...

"Little one, who straight hast come
Down the heavenly stair,
Tell us all about your home,
And the father there."

"He is such a one as I,
Like as like can be.
Do his will, and, by and by,...

A clock aeonian, steady and tall,
With its back to creation's flaming wall,
Stands at the foot of a dim, wide stair.
Swing, swang, its pendulum goes,
Swing--swang--here--there!...

I.

What human form is this? what form divine?
And who are these that gaze upon his face
Mild, beautiful, and full of heavenly grace,
With whose reflected light the gazers shine?...

The Lord gaed wi' a crood o' men
Throu Jericho the bonny;
'Twas ill the Son o' Man to ken
Mang sons o' men sae mony:

The wee bit son o' man Zacchay
To see the Maister seekit;...

And must I ever wake, gray dawn, to know
Thee standing sadly by me like a ghost?
I am perplexed with thee that thou shouldst cost
This earth another turning! All aglow...

The witch lady walked along the strand,
Heard a roaring of the sea,
On the edge of a pool saw a dead man's hand,
Good thing for a witch lady!

Lightly she stepped across the rocks,...

The weary Old Year is dead at last;
His corpse 'mid the ruins of Time is cast,
Where the mouldering wrecks of lost Thought lie,
And the rich-hued blossoms of Passion die...

The Deil's forhooit his ain, his ain!
The Deil's forhooit his ain!
His bairns are greitin in ilka neuk,
For the Deil's forhooit his ain.

The Deil he tuik his stick and his hat,...

1.

LORD, I do choose the higher than my will.
I would be handled by thy nursing arms
After thy will, not my infant alarms.
Hurt me thou wilt--but then more loving still,...

1.

SO shall abundant entrance me be given
Into the truth, my life's inheritance.
Lo! as the sun shoots straight from out his tomb,
God-floated, casting round a lordly glance...

DEDICATION

Sweet friends, receive my offering. You will find
Against each worded page a white page set:--
This is the mirror of each friendly mind
Reflecting that. In this book we are met....

1.

I AM a little weary of my life--
Not thy life, blessed Father! Or the blood
Too slowly laves the coral shores of thought,
Or I am weary of weariness and strife....

Sweet friends, receive my offering. You will find
Against each worded page a white page set:--
This is the mirror of each friendly mind
Reflecting that. In this book we are met....

1.

I TO myself have neither power nor worth,
Patience nor love, nor anything right good;
My soul is a poor land, plenteous in dearth--
Here blades of grass, there a small herb for food--...

1.

LORD, what I once had done with youthful might,
Had I been from the first true to the truth,
Grant me, now old, to do--with better sight,
And humbler heart, if not the brain of youth;...

1.

ALAS, my tent! see through it a whirlwind sweep!
Moaning, poor Fancy's doves are swept away.
I sit alone, a sorrow half asleep,
My consciousness the blackness all astir....