Works

Doon frae Jerus'lem a traveller took
The laigh road to Jericho;
It had an ill name an' mony a crook,
It was lang an' unco how.

Oot cam the robbers, an' fell o' the man,...

"What ails the world?" the poet cried;
"And why does death walk everywhere?
And why do tears fall anywhere?
And skies have clouds, and souls have care?"
Thus the poet sang, and sighed.
...

What am I, after all, but a child, pleas'd with the sound of my own name? repeating it over and over;
I stand apart to hear, it never tires me.

To you, your name also;...

Another expounder of life's thorny mazes
Excited our pity at fortune's hard fare,
And troubled the city's most troublesome places,
While singing his ditty of "Nothing to Wear."
...

Gie me a little humble cot,
A bit o' garden graand,
Set in some quiet an' sheltered spot,
Wi' hills an' trees all raand;

An' if besides mi hooam ther flows
A little mumuring rill,...

The "Haight," in Ashbury lived up to its name.
Sexual pioneers became commonplace.
Agribusiness consolidated the back to the land movement.
Joni Mitchell remortgaged all the tree museums....

What best I see in thee,
Is not that where thou mov'st down history's great highways,
Ever undimm'd by time shoots warlike victory's dazzle,
Or that thou sat'st where Washington sat, ruling the land in peace,...

Tune - "What can a young lassie do wi' an auld man."


I.

What can a young lassie, what shall a young lassie,
What can a young lassie do wi' an auld man?...

(Written for Miss Poole, and sung by her in the character of cowslip.)




I'm much too young to marry,
For I am only seventeen;
Why think I, then, of Harry?...

Wintertime, er Summertime,
Of late years I notice I'm,
Kindo'-like, more subjec' to
What the weather is. Now, you
Folks 'at lives in town, I s'pose,
Thinks its bully when it snows;...

Sixties idols were built to last.
A 70's idol is shoddy and throwaway by comparison.
Whatever became of Carnaby Street or bell bottoms?...

What counsel has the hooded moon
Put in thy heart, my shyly sweet,
Of Love in ancient plenilune,
Glory and stars beneath his feet,
A sage that is but kith and kin
With the comedian Capuchin?
...

What did it mean that noontide, when
You bade me pluck the flower
Within the other woman's bower,
Whom I knew nought of then?

I thought the flower blushed deeplier aye,...

What do I care, in the dreams and the languor of spring,
That my songs do not show me at all?
For they are a fragrance, and I am a flint and a fire,
I am an answer, they are only a call.
...

What do poets want with gold,
Cringing slaves and cushioned ease;
Are not crusts and garments old
Better for their souls than these?

Gold is but the juggling rod
Of a false usurping god,...

When I was young my teachers were the old.
I gave up fire for form till I was cold.
I suffered like a metal being cast.
I went to school to age to learn the past.
...

Now, while thy rounded cheek is fresh and fair,
While beauty lingers, laughing, in thine eyes,
Ere thy young heart shall meet the stranger, "Care,"
Or thy blithe soul become the home of sighs,...

What General has a good army in himself, has a good army;
He happy in himself, or she happy in herself, is happy,
But I tell you you cannot be happy by others, any more than you can beget or conceive a child by others.

God is above the sphere of our esteem,
And is the best known, not defining Him.

What God would outwardly alone control,
And on his finger whirl the mighty Whole?
He loves the inner world to move, to view
Nature in Him, Himself in Nature too,
So that what in Him works, and is, and lives,...