Works

You didn't know Billy, did you? Well, Bill was one of the boys,
The greatest fellow you ever seen to racket an' raise a noise, -
An' sing! say, you never heard singing 'nless you heard Billy sing....

At half-past three a single bird
Unto a silent sky
Propounded but a single term
Of cautious melody.

At half-past four, experiment
Had subjugated test,
And lo! her silver principle...

Lord, Thou hast given me a cell
Wherein to dwell;
An little house, whose humble roof
Is weather-proof;
Under the spars of which I lie
Both soft and dry;
Where Thou my chamber for to ward...

(See Note 60)

God, we thank Thee for the dower
Thou gavest Norway in his power,
Whom in the grave we now shall lay!
Starlit paths of thoughts that awe us
His spirit found; his deeds now draw us...

My head is at your feet,
Two Cytherean doves,
The same, O cruel sweet,
As were the Queen of Love's;
They brush my dreaming brows
With silver fluttering beat,
Here in your golden house,...

To-night a strong south wind in thunder sings
Across the city. Now by salt wet flats,
And ridges perished with the breath of drought,
Comes up a deep, sonorous, gulf-like voice...

"The Manner of Men" - St. Paul
"Limits and Renewals" (1932)

I am made all things to all men,
Hebrew, Roman, and Greek,
In each one's tongue I speal,
Suiting to each my word,...

When I was dead, my spirit turned
To seek the much-frequented house:
I passed the door, and saw my friends
Feasting beneath green orange boughs;
From hand to hand they pushed the wine,...

I thought it pleasant when a manly sire
Weary of foreign travel, at the door
Of his own cottage left his dusty staff,
And entering in, sat down with those he loved...

The night was wide, and furnished scant
With but a single star,
That often as a cloud it met
Blew out itself for fear.

The wind pursued the little bush,
And drove away the leaves...

A thousand Martyrs I have made,
All sacrific'd to my desire;
A thousand Beauties have betray'd,
That languish in resistless Fire.
The untam'd Heart to hand I brought,...

At husking time the tassel fades
To brown above the yellow blades,
Whose rustling sheath enswathes the corn
That bursts its chrysalis in scorn
Longer to lie in prison shades.
...

Since I left the city's heat
For this sylvan, cool retreat,
High upon the hill-side here
Where the air is clean and clear,
I have lost the urban ways.
Mine are calm and tranquil days,...

At midnight hour I went, not willingly,

A little, little boy, yon churchyard past,
To Father Vicar's house; the stars on high

On all around their beauteous radiance cast,

At midnight hour....

At Noey's house - when they arrived with him -
How snug seemed everything, and neat and trim:
The little picket-fence, and little gate -
It's little pulley, and its little weight, -...

'Tis said that to the brow of yon fair hill
Two Brothers clomb, and, turning face from face,
Nor one look more exchanging, grief to still
Or feed, each planted on that lofty place...

A black and glassy float, opaque and still,
The loch, at furthest ebb supine in sleep,
Reversing, mirrored in its luminous deep
The calm grey skies; the solemn spurs of hill;...

The Pilgrimage To Kevlaar.

I.

At the window stood the mother,
In bed the sick son lay;
'Will you not get up, William,
And see them marching away?'

'I am so ill, O mother,...

At that hour when all things have repose,
O lonely watcher of the skies,
Do you hear the night wind and the sighs
Of harps playing unto Love to unclose
The pale gates of sunrise?
...

Who loves the white-thorn tree,
And the river running free?
There a maiden stood with me
In Summer weather.
Near a cottage far from town,
While the sun went brightly down...