Works

1.

When I rov'd a young Highlander o'er the dark heath,
And climb'd thy steep summit, oh Morven of snow! [1]
To gaze on the torrent that thunder'd beneath,...

When I set out for Lyonnesse,
A hundred miles away,
The rime was on the spray,
And starlight lit my lonesomeness
When I set out for Lyonnesse
A hundred miles away.
...

"When it comes night,
We put out the light.
Some blow with a puff,
Some turn down and snuff;
But neat folks prefer
A nice extinguis_her_.
So here I send you back
One to put on Mr. Jack."

I.

When I think on the happy days
I spent wi' you, my dearie;
And now what lands between us lie,
How can I be but eerie!

II.

How slow ye move, ye heavy hours,...

Up in the attic where I slept
When I was a boy, a little boy,
In through the lattice the moonlight crept,
Bringing a tide of dreams that swept
Over the low, red trundle-bed,...

When I was a much younger man,
my spiritual homeland was a scrub-mile of bush with thicket
leaves the size of your palms.

Saucer-size holes of white air enveloped the edge of trees...

The second time I lived on earth
Was several hundred years ago;
And, royal by my second birth,
I know as much as most men know.
I was a king who held the reins
As never modern monarch can;...

When I was still a youthful wight,

So full of enjoyment and merry,
The painters used to assert, in spite,

That my features were small yes, very;
Yet then full many a beauteous child...

It was June, and I was twenty.
All my wisdom, poor but plenty,
Never learned Festina lente.
Youth is gone, but whither went he?

Madeline came down the orchard
With a mischief in her eye,...

I will not know when I am dead
If sun or moon is overhead;
I'll stretch out flat without a sound
Inside a box beneath the ground,
And never rise again to see
Branches lifting on a tree,...

When I was young the silk
of my mind
hard as a peony head
unfurled
and wind bloomed the parachute:

The air-head tugged me
up,
tore my roots loose and drove
high, so high
...

When I would muse in boyhood
The wild green woods among,
And nurse resolves and fancies
Because the world was young,
It was not foes to conquer,
Nor sweethearts to be kind,...

Tune - "The lass that made the bed for me."



I.

When Januar' wind was blawing cauld,
As to the north I took my way,
The mirksome night did me enfauld,...

When June is here - what art have we to sing
The whiteness of the lilies midst the green
Of noon-tranced lawns? Or flash of roses seen
Like redbirds' wings? Or earliest ripening...

When Klopstock England defied,
Uprose William Blake in his pride;
For old Nobodaddy aloft
. . . and belch'd and cough'd;
Then swore a great oath that made Heaven quake,...

Perhaps one is in prison -
fidgeting as time
draws to a close -
a scrap of house tunic
between the fingers
or when labouring to break
cuticles on swollen fingers...

When Lide married him - w'y, she had to jes dee-fy
The whole poppilation! - But she never bat' an eye!
Her parents begged, and threatened - she must give him up - that he...

We rode, we rode against the wind.
The countless lights along the town
Made the town blacker for their fire,
And you were always looking down.

To 'scape the blustering breath of March,...

When lilacs last in the door-yard bloom'd,
And the great star early droop'd in the western sky in the night,
I mourn'd'and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.
...

They leave us - artists, singers, all
When London calls aloud,
Commanding to her Festival
The gifted crowd.

She sits beside the ship-choked Thames,
Sad, weary, cruel, grand;...