Now who will speak, and lie not, And pledge not life, but give? Slaves herd with herded cattle: The dawn grows bright for battle, And if we die, we die not; And if we live, we live....
These are the words of Jacob's wives, the words Which Leah spake and Rachel to his ears, When, in the shade at eventide, he sat By the tent door, a palm-tree overhead,...
He stood on the wood-crowned summit Of our mountain's regal height, And gazed on the scene before him, By October's golden light, And his dark eyes, earnest, thoughtful, Lit up with a softer ray...
Erewhile, before the world was old, When violets grew and celandine, In Cupid's train we were enrolled: Erewhile! Your little hands were clasped in mine, Your head all ruddy and sun-gold...
A rail fence is more than that on a country dawn moving by lots over hill & stone; it barely pauses in the small of the field's lap, then is caught in grey positioning as light unfurls the sky. ...
Nasal intonations of light and clicking tongues... publicity of windows stoning me with pent-up cries... smells of abattoirs... smells of long-dead meat.
What is meant by active service 'Ere where sin is leakin' loose, 'N' the oldest 'and's as nervis As a dog-bedevilled goose, Has bin writ be every poet What can rhyme it worth a dam,...
Do you remember, passer-by, the path I wore across the lot where now stands the opera house Hasting with swift feet to work through many years? Take its meaning to heart:...
The child of Mary Queen of Scots, A shifty mother's shiftless son, Bred up among intrigues and plots, Learned in all things, wise in none. Ungainly, babbling, wasteful, weak,...
From purest wells of English undefiled None deeper drank than he, the New World's child, Who in the language of their farm-fields spoke The wit and wisdom of New England folk,...
Thou shouldst have sung the swan-song for the choir That filled our groves with music till the day Lit the last hilltop with its reddening fire, And evening listened for thy lingering lay....
The Text of the ballad is here given from Kinloch's MSS., where it is in the handwriting of John Hill Burton when a youth. The text of the song Waly, waly, I take from Ramsay's Tea-Table Miscellany. The song and the ballad have...