Works

Day goeth bold in cloth of gold,
A royal bridegroom he;
But Night in jewelled purple walks,
A Queen of Mystery.

Day filleth up his loving-cup
With vintage golden-clear;...

The awful seers of old, who wrote in words
Like drops of blood great thoughts that through the night
Of ages burn, as eyes of lions light
Deep jungle-dusks; who smote with songs like swords...

Soul of the leaping flame;
Heart of the scarlet fire,
Spirit that hath for name
Only the name - Desire!

Subtle art thou and strong;
Glowing in sunlit skies;
Sparkling in wine and song;...

For some forty years, and over,
Poets had with me their way;
And they made me think that Sorrow
Owned the Night and owned the Day;
And the corpse beneath the clover
Had a hopeful word to say.
...

I have been dreaming all a summer day
Of rare and dainty poems I would write;
Love-lyrics delicate as lilac-scent,
Soft idylls woven of wind, and flower, and stream,...

Stand up, my young Australian,
In the brave light of the sun,
And hear how Freedom's battle
Was in the old days lost - and won.
The blood burns in my veins, boy,
As it did in years of yore,...

The days go by, the days go by,
Sadly and wearily to die:
Each with its burden of small cares,
Each with its sad gift of gray hairs
For those who sit, like me, and sigh,...

It was a day of sombre heat:
The still, dense air was void of sound
And life; no wing of bird did beat
A little breeze through it, the ground
Was like live ashes to the feet....

Fade off the ridges, rosy light,
Fade slowly from the last gray height,
And leave no gloomy cloud to grieve
The heart of this enchanted eve!

All things beneath the still sky seem...

The day and its delights are done;
So all delights and days expire:
Down in the dim, sad West the sun
Is dying like a dying fire.

The fiercest lances of his light...

It may have been a fragment of that higher
Truth dreams, at times, disclose;
It may have been to Fond Illusion nigher,
But thus the story goes:

A fierce sun glared upon a gaunt land, stricken...

Once from the world of living men
I passed, by a strange fancy led,
To a still City of the Dead,
To call upon a citizen.

He had been famous in his day;
Much talked of, written of, and praised...

See how it flashes,
This grape-blood fine!
Our beards it splashes,
O comrade mine!
Life dust and ashes
Were, wanting wine.

Amontillado
Fires heart and eyes;
Champagne the shadow...

Say little: where she lies, so let her rest:
What cares she now for Fame, and what for Art?
What for applause? She has played out her part.
Her hands are folded calmly on her breast,
God knows the best!...

Over a slow-dying fire,
Dreaming old dreams, I am sitting;
The flames leap up and expire;
A woman sits opposite knitting.

I've taken a Fate to wife;
She knits with a half-smile mocking...

Through the noiseless doors of Death
Three passed out, as with one breath.

Two had faces stern as Fate,
Stamped with unrelenting hate.

One upon her lips of guile...

What know we of the dead, who say these things,
Or of the life in death below the mould,
What of the mystic laws that rule the old
Gray realms beyond our poor imaginings...

Love is the sunlight of the soul,
That, shining on the silken-tress'd head
Of her we love, around it seems to shed
A golden angel-aureole.

And all her ways seem sweeter ways...

(In Memory of Henry Kendall)


Ah! that God once would touch my lips with song
To pierce, as prayer doth heaven, earth's breast of iron,
So that with sweet mouth I might sing to thee,...

'Wanted Kind Person to take charge of baby Boy (or Girl),' etc. - Any newspaper, any day.
'Early this morning the body of an infant was found on a doorstep in -- Street,' etc. - Any newspaper, every other day.

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