Works

This day, dear Bec, is thy nativity;
Had Fate a luckier one, she'd give it ye.
She chose a thread of greatest length,
And doubly twisted it for strength:
Nor will be able with her shears...

THE TWO MAIDENS.


[The following Verses were written for a country Penny Reading].

Two Bedfordshire maidens in one village dwelt;
Side by side in their Church every Sunday they knelt;...

"ONE GLASS OF BEER."

Ne quid nimis.


Tom Smith was the son of a Bedfordshire man;
(The Smiths, we all know, are a numerous clan)
He was happy and healthy and handsome and strong,...

FRED AND BILL.


Two twins were once born in a Bedfordshire home;
Such events in the best managed households may come;
Tho', as Tomkins remarked in a voice rather gruff,...

HOME, SWEET HOME.


I'm a Bedfordshire Chap, and Bill Stumps is my name,
And to tell it don't give me no manner of shame;
For a man as works honest and hard for his livin',...

O love is like an untamed steed! -
So hot of heart and wild of speed,
And with fierce freedom so in love,
The desert is not vast enough,
With all its leagues of glimmering sands,...

I have been tried,
Tried in the fire,
And I say this,
As the result of dire distress,
And tribulation sore--
That a man's happiness doth not consist
Of that he hath, but of the faith...

Counted three white pigeons
on a roof, near a gable
silhouetting a barn;
as an afterthought
killed as many nervy bluebottles
on the bedroom glass as
warnings to myself, perhaps,...

"Beds to the front of them,
Beds to the right of them,
Beds to the left of them,
Nobody blundered.
Beamed at by hungry souls,
Screamed at with brimming bowls,
Steamed at by army rolls,...

"Come, children, put away your toys;
Roll up that kite's long line;
The day is done for girls and boys--
Look, it is almost nine!
Come, weary foot, and sleepy head,
Get up, and come along to bed."
...

"It's bedtime, bedtime, Cissy dear,
It's time to put away,
Your little Noah's ark dear
Until another day,
You know it isn't right at all
To tire yourself with play.
...

The taste of an apple,
the cringing of a bee
as sun stops turning
a ladle over their skins;
the fire gold stains
on apple's skin,
the honey yellow, black bits
a hornet wrinkles in.

The wild oxalis
Among the valleys
Lifts up its chalice
Of pink and pearl;
And, balsam-breathing,
From out their sheathing,
The myriad wreathing
Green leaves uncurl.
...

Hear me, O beeches! You
That have with ageless anguish slowly risen
From earth's still secret prison
Into the ampler prison of aery blue.
Your voice I hear, flowing the valleys through...

There came a stranger to Walgett town,
To Walgett town when the sun was low,
And he carried a thirst that was worth a crown,
Yet how to quench it he did not know;...

March 1870 March 1913



I

O the opal and the sapphire of that wandering western sea,
And the woman riding high above with bright hair flapping free -...

In those old days which poets say were golden -
(Perhaps they laid the gilding on themselves:
And, if they did, I'm all the more beholden
To those brown dwellers in my dusty shelves,...

The dove laid some little sticks,
Then began to coo;
The gnat took his trumpet up
To play the day through;
The pie chattered soft and long -
But that she always does;
The bee did all he had to do,...

Beethoven At The Piano.


I.

See where Beethoven sits alone - a dream of days elysian,
A crownless king upon a throne, reflected in a vision -...

(After a glimpse of a certain monument in New York, during the Victory Celebration)


The thousand-windowed towers were all alight.
Throngs of all nations filled that glittering way;...