Works

One moment bid the horses wait,
Since tiffin is not laid till three,
Below the upward path and straight
You climbed a year ago with me.
Love came upon us suddenly
And loosed, an idle hour to kill,...

"The Tree of Justice", Rewards and Fairies

About the time that taverns shut
And men can buy no beer,
Two lads went up to the keepers' hut
To steal Lord Pelham's deer.
...

Seven men from all the world back to Docks again,
Rolling down the Ratcliffe Road drunk and raising Cain:
Give the girls another drink 'fore we sign away,
We that took the Bolivar out across the Bay!
...

"Now this is the price of a stirrup-cup,"
The kneeling doctor said.
And syne he bade them take him up,
For he saw that the man was dead.

They took him up, and they laid him down...

It was our war-ship Clampherdown
Would sweep the Channel clean,
Wherefore she kept her hatches close
When the merry Channel chops arose,
To save the bleached marine.
...

When spring-time flushes the desert grass,
Our kafilas wind through the Khyber Pass.
Lean are the camels but fat the frails,
Light are the purses but heavy the bales,...

Abdhur Rahman, the Durani Chief, of him is the story told.
His mercy fills the Khyber hills, his grace is manifold;
He has taken toll of the North and the South, his glory reacheth far,...

Red Earl, and will ye take for guide
The silly camel-birds,
That ye bury your head in an Irish thorn,
On a desert of drifting words?

Ye have followed a man for a God, Red Earl,...

'Dymchurch Flit', Puck of Pook's Hill.


Bees! Bees! Hark to your bees!
"Hide from your neigbours as much as you please,
But all that has happened, to us you must tell,...

"The Mother Hive", Actions and Reactions
A Farmer of the Augustan Age
Perused in Virgil's golden page
The story of the secret won
From Proteus by Cyrene's son,
How the dank sea-god showed the swain...

Lo! What is this that I make, sudden, supreme, unrehearsed,
This that my clutch in the crowd pressed at a venture has raised?
Forward and onward I sprang when I thought (as I ought) I reversed,...

I've never sailed the Amazon,
I've never reached Brazil;
But the Don and Magdalena,
They can go there when they will!

Yes, weekly from Southampton
Great steamers, white and gold,...

It was not part of their blood,
It came to them very late
With long arrears to make good,
When the English began to hate.

They were not easily moved,
They were icy-willing to wait...

They christened my brother of old,
And a saintly name he bears,
They gave him his place to hold
At the head of the belfry-stairs,
Where the minister-towers stand
And the breeding kestrels cry....

"Gay go up and gay go down
To ring the Bells of London Town."
When London Town's asleep in bed
You'll hear the Bells ring overhead.
In excelsis gloria!
Ringing for Victoria,...

Ah! What avails the classic bent
And what the cultured word,
Against the undoctored incident
That actually occurred?


And what is Art whereto we press
Through paint and prose and rhyme,...

Open the old cigar-box, get me a Cuba stout,
For things are running crossways, and Maggie and I are out.

We quarrelled about Havanas, we fought o'er a good cheroot,...

The miracle of our land's speech so known
And long received, none marvel when 'tis shown!

We have such wealth as Rome at her most pride
Had not or (having) scattered not so wide;...

We know the Rocket's upward whizz;
We know the Boom before the Bust.
We know the whistling Wail which is
The Stick returning to the Dust.
We know how much to take on trust
Of any promised Paradise....

Hastily Adam our driver swallowed a curse in the darkness,
Petrol nigh at end and something wrong with a sprocket
Made him speer for the nearest town, when lo! at the crossways...