Works

The schools marched in procession in happiness and pride,
The city bands before them, the soldiers marched beside;
Oh, starched white frocks and sashes and suits that high schools wear,...

(Written after the British Service at Trinity Church, New York)


I.

Before those golden altar-lights we stood,
Each one of us remembering his own dead....

Though dead the flower,
That, from her tower,
Love flung you in some perfect hour:
Though quenched the light,
That, on the height,
Faith built, a beacon in the fight:
Though gone the star,...

All night the ways of Heaven were desolate,
Long roads across a gleaming empty sky.
Outcast and doomed and driven, you and I,
Alone, serene beyond all love or hate,
Terror or triumph, were content to wait,...

They who take courage from their own defeat
Are victors too, no matter how much beat.

How strange, in some brief interval of rest,
Backward to look on her far-stretching past.
To see how much is conquered and repressed,
How much is gained in victory at last!...

Victory comes late,
And is held low to freezing lips
Too rapt with frost
To take it.
How sweet it would have tasted,
Just a drop!
Was God so economical?
His table 's spread too high for us...

An Anticipation

As sure as God's in His Heaven,
As sure as He stands for Right,
As sure as the hun this wrong hath done,
So surely we win this fight!

Then!--...

As fought the Paladins of old,
With gleaming swords and spirit bold,
To thwart the schemes of base Lothar,
Give France to Karl in holy war,
So would we battle for the right,...

What d'ye think, lad; what d'ye think,
As the roaring crowds go by?
As the banners flare and the brasses blare
And the great guns rend the sky?
As the women laugh like they'd all gone mad,...

Translated

Armies of box that sportively engage
And mimic real battles in their rage,
Pleased I recount; how, smit with glory's charms,
Two mighty Monarchs met in adverse arms,...

When our downcast looks be smileless,
Under others' wrongs an' slightens,
When our daily deeds be guileless,
An' do meet unkind requitens,
You can meake us zome amends...

The sky was
a ringed net of honeyed light,
(colours from peeled apples)
funnelling cloud ...
tumbler over dice
(the carrot throat
lemonade pie)
twin coins in a fountain...

This Height a ministering Angel might select:
For from the summit of BLACK COMB (dread name
Derived from clouds and storms!) the amplest range
Of unobstructed prospect may be seen...

When sinks my heart in hopeless gloom,
And life can shew no joy for me;
And I behold a yawning tomb,
Where bowers and palaces should be;

In vain you talk of morbid dreams;...

Dark is the night,
The fire burns faint and low,
Hours - days - years,
Into grey ashes go;
I strive to read,
But sombre is the glow.

Thumbed are the pages,
And the print is small;...

I. Off Gilbatrar

Beyond the sleepy hills of Spain,
The sun goes down in yellow mist,
The sky is fresh with dewy stars
Above a sea of amethyst.
Yet in the city of my love...

(AFTER J. D.)

Maecenas. John. George. Arthur. Grant. Richard.

MAECENAS.

What ho! a merry Christmas! Pff!
Sharp blows the frosty blizzard's whff!
Pile on more logs and let them roll,...

Dodder capitulates on his bum,
skulks under fence posts
a twitch of Timothy weed prying
apart his massive lips.

A strip of lavatory paper
his golden rule; the
merrie lad bakes ready made...

We said farewell, my youth and I,
When all fair dreams were gone or going,
And Love's red lips were cold and dry.

When white blooms fell from tree-tops high,
Our Austral winter's way of snowing,...