Works

Yonder see the morning blink:
The sun is up, and up must I,
To wash and dress and eat and drink
And look at things and talk and think
And work, and God knows why.
...

Tune - "Yon wild mossy mountains."


I.

Yon wild mossy mountains sae lofty and wide,
That nurse in their bosom the youth o' the Clyde,...

A golden largesse from a store untold
Announced the ruddy day's imperial birth,
And woke a loyal world to jubilant mirth
And hopes that boasted, madly over-bold.
Shadow and thunder from a dull cloud rolled,...

If in winter you shall drive
Birds from crumbs, you shall not thrive;
But if you feed them, they will fly
To sing it sweetly on the sky.

So throw up the window, and
Scatter with a lavish hand,...

Yorktown

From Yorktown's ruins, ranked and still,
Two lines stretch far o'er vale and hill:
Who curbs his steed at head of one?
Hark! the low murmur: Washington!...

Sound! sound! sound!
O colossal walls and crown'd
In one eternal thunder!
Sound! sound! sound!
O ye oceans overhead,
While we walk, subdued in wonder,
In the ferns and grasses, under...

With every rising of the sun
Think of your life as just begun.

The past has shrived and buried deep
All yesterdays - there let them sleep,

Nor seek to summon back one ghost...

"You are old, father William," the young man said,
"And your hair has become very white;
And yet you incessantly stand on your head,
Do you think, at your age, it is right?
...

You ask me, why, tho' ill at ease,
Within this region I subsist,
Whose spirits falter in the mist,
And languish for the purple seas.
It is the land that freemen till,
That sober-suited Freedom chose,...

There was a girl in our town
Who dearly loved to flirt,
But the home folks never noticed it at all.
The women in the neighborhood
All said she was too pert,
But she never even noticed them at all.
...

You'd entertain the universe in bed,
Foul woman; ennui makes you mean of soul.
To exercise your jaws at this strange sport
Each day you work a heart between your teeth.
Your eyes, illuminated like boutiques...

You do not want me, Zohrah.
Is it because I am maimed?
Yet Tamour-leng was maimed,
Going on crippled feet,
And he conquered the vast of the world.

You do not want me, Zohrah....

You don't believe -- I won't attempt to make ye:
You are asleep -- I won't attempt to wake ye.
Sleep on! sleep on! while in your pleasant dreams
Of Reason you may drink of Life's clear streams....

You felons on trial in courts;
You convicts in prison-cells, you sentenced assassins, chain'd and hand-cuff'd with iron;
Who am I, too, that I am not on trial, or in prison?...

I've noticed this happen, when everything is black,
When I'm down below zero and cannot get back,
When I feel like a sort of a National Debt,
That will go on for ages and never be met,...

You know where you did despise
(Tother day) my little Eyes,
Little Legs, and little Thighs,
And some things, of little Size,
You know where.

You, tis true, have fine black eyes,...

You'll love me yet! and I can tarry
Your love's protracted growing:
June reared that bunch of flowers you carry
From seeds of April's sowing.

I plant a heartful now: some seed...

You mustn't show weakness
and you've got to have a tan.
But sometimes I feel like the thin veils
of Jewish women who faint
at weddings and on Yom Kippur.

You mustn't show weakness...

You must n't swim till you're six weeks old,
Or your head will be sunk by your heels;
And summer gales and Killer Whales
Are bad for baby seals.


Are bad for baby seals, dear rat,...

You never can tell when you send a word,
Like an arrow shot from a bow
By an archer blind, be it cruel or kind,
Just where it may chance to go.
It may pierce the breast of your dearest friend....