Works

1.

Parent of golden dreams, Romance!
Auspicious Queen of childish joys,
Who lead'st along, in airy dance,
Thy votive train of girls and boys;
At length, in spells no longer bound,...

Tell me, proud Rome, why dost these edicts read,
These many laws by prince or people made,
Or answers by the prudent duly weighed,
When now thou canst the world no longer lead?...

Strike home, strong-hearted man! Down to the root
Of old oppression sink the Saxon steel.
Thy work is to hew down. In God's name then
Put nerve into thy task. Let other men...

Quennelles. Lady of the Gold Horse with Diamond Eyes.
A bottle of Napoleon brandy for the Count and two Persian
lions carved in wood.
Salads Nicoise.
Dinners at Pr' Catalan in the Bois, a Toronto equivalent....

Is the song of Rosa mute?
Once such lays inspired her lute!
Never doth a sweeter song
Steal the breezy lyre along,
When the wind, in odors dying,
Woos it with enamor'd sighing.
...

The wisest soul, by anguish torn,
Will soon unlearn the lore it knew;
And when the shrining casket's worn,
The gem within will tarnish too.

But love's an essence of the soul,...

Rose, when I remember you,
Little lady, scarcely two,
I am suddenly aware
Of the angels in the air.
All your softly gracious ways
Make an island in my days
Where my thoughts fly back to be...

My wooing's ended: now my wedding's near
When gloves are giving, gilded be you there.

Roses, you can never die,
Since the place wherein ye lie,
Heat and moisture mix'd are so
As to make ye ever grow.

Rotha, my Spiritual Child! this head was grey
When at the sacred font for thee I stood;
Pledged till thou reach the verge of womanhood,
And shalt become thy own sufficient stay:...

On he goes, the little one,
Bud of the universe,
Pediment of life.

Setting off somewhere, apparently.
Whither away, brisk egg?
...

Making his advances
He does not look at her, nor sniff at her,
No, not even sniff at her, his nose is blank.

Only he senses the vulnerable folds of skin
That work beneath her while she sprawls along...

Along the back of the baby tortoise
The scales are locked in an arch like a bridge,
Scale-lapping, like a lobster's sections
Or a bee's.

Then crossways down his sides
Tiger-stripes and wasp-bands....

I thought he was dumb,
I said he was dumb,
Yet I've heard him cry.

First faint scream,
Out of life's unfathomable dawn,
Far off, so far, like a madness, under the horizon's dawning rim,...

I.

All hail! inexorable lord!
At whose destruction-breathing word,
The mightiest empires fall!
Thy cruel, woe-delighted train,
The ministers of grief and pain,
A sullen welcome, all!...

Who tamed your lawless Tartar blood?
What David bearded in her den
The Russian bear in ages when
You strode your black, unbridled stud,
A skin-clad savage of your steppes?...

I pledge myself thro' thick and thin,
To labor still with zeal devout
To get the Outs, poor devils, in,
And turn the Ins, the wretches, out.

I pledge myself, tho' much bereft...

Olor Iscanus queries: 'Why should we
Vex at the land's ridiculous miserie?'
So on his Usk banks, in the blood-red dawn
Of England's civil strife, did careless Vaughan...

Most tangible of all the gods that be,
O Santa Claus - our own since Infancy!
As first we scampered to thee - now, as then,
Take us as children to thy heart again.

Be wholly good to us, just as of old:...

Sapho, I will choose to go
Where the northern winds do blow
Endless ice, and endless snow;
Rather than I once would see
But a winter's face in thee,
To benumb my hopes and me.