Works

Whut you say, dah? huh, uh! chile,
You 's enough to dribe me wile.
Want a sto'y; jes' hyeah dat!
Whah' 'll I git a sto'y at?
Di'n' I tell you th'ee las' night?
Go 'way, honey, you ain't right....

I pass a cobbler's shop along the street
And pause a moment at the door-step, where,
In nature's medley, piping cool and sweet,
The songs that thrill the swamps when spring is near,...

Tarry thou yet, late lingerer in the twilight's glory:
Gay are the hills with song: earth's faery children leave
More dim abodes to roam the primrose-hearted eve,...

Up and be doing, all who have a hand
To lift, a back to bend. It must not be
In times like these that vaguely linger we
To air our vaunts and hopes; and leave our land
...

There was a graven image of Desire
Painted with red blood on a ground of gold
Passing between the young men and the old,
And by him Pain, whose body shone like fire,...

Why speak of Giamschid rubies
Whence rosy starlight drips?
I know a richer crimson,
The ruby of her lips.

Why speak of pearls of Oman
That shells of ocean sheathe?
I know a purer nacre,...

WRITTEN ON THE RIVER ST. LAWRENCE.[1]


et remigem cantus hortatur.
QUINTILIAN.


Faintly as tolls the evening chime
Our voices keep tune and our oars keep time....

Come to the casement, we'll watch the snow
Softly descending on earth below,
Fairer and whiter than spotless down
Or the pearls that gleam in a monarch's crown,
Clothing the earth in its robe's bright flow;...

The rose-tints have faded from out of the West,
From the Mountain's high peak, from the river's broad breast.
And, silently shadowing valley and rill,
The twilight steals noiselessly over the hill....

Rest here, my horse, the night is dull, - the blood-sick stars are gone,
Listen, for thou like me wert bred in far Saskatchewan.
And this September night at home, under a happier sky,...

Folks has be'n to town, and Sahry
Fetched 'er home a pet canary,
And of all the blame', contrary,
Aggervatin' things alive!
I love music - that I love it
When it's free - and plenty of it;...

"Love brought Me down; and cannot love make thee
Carol for joy to Me?
Hear cheerful robin carol from his tree,
Who owes not half to Me
I won for thee."
...

I made a bitter song
When I was a boy,
About a girl
With hot earth-coloured hair,
Who lived with me
And left me.

I made a sour song
On her marriage-day,
That ever his kisses...

O the precipice Titanic
Of the congregated Fall,
And the angle oceanic
Where the deepening thunders call -
And the Gorge so grim,
And the firmamental rim!
Multitudinously thronging...

Play, Phoebus, on thy lute,
And we will sit all mute;
By listening to thy lyre,
That sets all ears on fire.

Hark, hark! the God does play!
And as he leads the way...

Shipmate, leave the ghostly shadows,
Where thy boon companions throng!
We will put to sea together
Through the twilight with a song.

Leering closer, rank and girding,...

Remember, my love, the object we saw
That beautiful morning in June:
By a bend in the path a carcass reclined
On a bed sown with pebbles and stones;

Her legs were spread out like a lecherous whore,...

"Break me my bounds, and let me fly
To regions vast of boundless sky;
Nor I, like piteous Daphne, be
Root-bound. Ah, no! I would be free
As yon same bird that in its flight...

Our Lord Who did the Ox command
To kneel to Judah's King,
He binds His frost upon the land
To ripen it for Spring,
To ripen it for Spring, good sirs,
According to His Word....

A song of the good green grass!
A song no more of the city streets;
A song of farms'a song of the soil of fields.

A song with the smell of sun-dried hay, where the nimble pitchers handle the pitch-fork;...