Works

To R. F. B.




We are the Choice of the Will: God, when He gave the word
That called us into line, set in our hand a sword;

Set us a sword to wield none else could lift and draw,...

We are with France - not by the ties
Of treaties made with tongue in cheek,
The ancient diplomatic lies,
The paper promises that seek
To hide the long maturing guile,
Planning destruction with a smile....

Wearies my love of my letters?
Does she my silence command?
Sunders she Love's rosy fetters
As though they were woven of sand?
Tires she too of each token
Indited with many a sigh?...

O little feet! that such long years
Must wander on through hopes and fears,
Must ache and bleed beneath your load;
I, nearer to the wayside inn
Where toil shall cease and rest begin,...

This April sun has wakened into cheer
The wintry paths of thought, and tinged with gold
These threadbare leaves of fancy brown and old.
This is for us the wakening of the year...

Weary of dreaming what never comes true,
Weary of thinking what never is new,
Of endeav'ring, yet never succeeding to do.

Weary of walking the dusty, old ways,
Weary of saying what every one says,...

Tune - "Duncan Gray."


I.

Weary fa' you, Duncan Gray,
Ha, ha, the girdin o't!
Wae gae by you, Duncan Gray,
Ha, ha, the girdin o't!
When a' the lave gae to their play,...

I would have gone; God bade me stay:
I would have worked; God bade me rest.
He broke my will from day to day,
He read my yearnings unexpressed
And said them nay.

Now I would stay; God bids me go:...

The strongest creature for his size
But least equipped for combat
That dwells beneath Australian skies
Is Weary Will the Wombat.

He digs his homestead underground,
He's neither shrewd nor clever;...

Once I dipt into the future far as human eye could see,
And I saw the Chief Forecaster, dead as any one can be
Dead and damned and shut in Hades as a liar from his birth,...

A day without rain is like
a day without sunshine

I

This is the weather the cuckoo likes,
And so do I;
When showers betumble the chestnut spikes,
And nestlings fly:
And the little brown nightingale bills his best,...

Weave in! weave in, my hardy life!
Weave yet a soldier strong and full, for great campaigns to come;
Weave in red blood! weave sinews in, like ropes! the senses, sight weave in!...

Warp and Woof and Tangle,--
Weavers of Webs are we.
Living and dying--and mightier dead,
For the shuttle, once sped, is sped--is sped;--
Weavers of Webs are we.
...

Let Webster's lofty face
Ever on thousands shine,
A beacon set that Freedom's race
Might gather omens from that radiant sign.



1854

Why did all manly gifts in Webster fail?...

Do you remember, O Delphic Apollo,
The sunset hour by the river, when Mickey M'Grew
Cried, "There's a ghost," and I, "It's Delphic Apollo,".
And the son of the banker derided us, saying, "It's light...

We cover thee, sweet face.
Not that we tire of thee,
But that thyself fatigue of us;
Remember, as thou flee,
We follow thee until
Thou notice us no more,
And then, reluctant, turn away...

A solemn thing it was, I said,
A woman white to be,
And wear, if God should count me fit,
Her hallowed mystery.

A timid thing to drop a life
Into the purple well,...

I tell thee, Dick, where I have been;
Where I the rarest things have seen;
Oh, things without compare!
Such sights again can not be found
In any place on English ground,
Be it at wake or fair.
...

Thou God, whose high, eternal Love
Is the only blue sky of our life,
Clear all the Heaven that bends above
The life-road of this man and wife.

May these two lives be but one note...