Works

This is the mouth-filling song of the race that was run by a Boomer.
Run in a single burst, only event of its kind,
Started by Big God Nqong from Warrigaborrigarooma,...

The first time that Peter denied his Lord
He shrank from the cudgel, the scourge and the cord,
But followed far off to see what they would do,
Till the cock crew, till the cock crew,...

The God of Fair Beginnings
Hath prospered here my hand,
The cargoes of my lading,
And the keels of my command.
For out of many ventures
That sailed with hope as high,...

I was Lord of Cities very sumptuously builded.
Seven roaring Cities paid me tribute from far.
Ivory their outposts were,the guardrooms of them gilded,
And garrisoned with Amazons invincible in war.
...

You couldn't pack a Broadwood half a mile,
You mustn't leave a fiddle in the damp
You couldn't raft an organ up the Nile,
And play it in an Equatorial swamp.
I travel with the cooking-pots and pails,...

BOMBAY

Royal and Dower-royal, I the Queen
Fronting thy richest sea with richer hands,
A thousand mills roar through me where I glean
All races from all lands.


CALCUTTA
...

Hear now the Song of the Dead, in the North by the torn berg-edges,
They that look still to the Pole, asleep by their hide-stripped sledges.
Song of the Dead in the South, in the sun by their skeleton horses,...

Ere Mor the Peacock flutters, ere the Monkey People cry,
Ere Chil the Kite swoops down a furlong sheer,
Through the Jungle very softly flits a shadow and a sigh,
He is Fear, O Little Hunter, he is Fear!...

Know this, my brethren, Heaven is clear
And all the clouds are gone,
The Proper Sort shall flourish now,
Good times are coming on",
The evil that was threatened late
To all of our degree...

One from the ends of the earth, gifts at an open door,
Treason has much, but we, Mother, thy sons have more!
From the whine of a dying man, from the snarl of a wolf-pack freed,...

How shall she know the worship we would do her?
The walls are high, and she is very far.
How shall the woman's message reach unto her
Above the tumult of the packed bazaar?...

Being the Words of the Tune Hummed at Her Lathe by Mrs. L. Embsay, Widow



The fans and the beltings they roar round me.
The power is shaking the floor round me...

The Sons of Mary seldom bother, for they have inherited that good part;
But the Sons of Martha favour their Mother of the careful soul and the troubled heart....

There are not leaders to lead us to honour, and yet without leaders we sally,
Each man reporting for duty alone, out of sight, out of reach, of his fellow....

Man goes to Man! Cry the challenge through the Jungle!
He that was our Brother goes away.
Hear, now, and judge, O ye People of the Jungle,
Answer, who can turn him, who shall stay?
...

This is the midnight-let no star
Delude us-dawn is very far.
This is the tempest long foretold,
Slow to make head but sure to hold

Stand by! The lull 'twixt blast and blast...

Once, on a glittering ice-field, ages and ages ago,
Ung, a maker of pictures, fashioned an image of snow.
Fashioned the form of a tribesman, gaily he whistled and sung,...

"Now there were two men in one city; the one rich, and the other poor."



Jack Barrett went to Quetta
Because they told him to.
He left his wife at Simla
On three-fourths his monthly screw....

The Stranger within my gate,
He may be true or kind,
But he does not talk my talk,
I cannot feel his mind.
I see the face and the eyes and the mouth,
But not the soul behind.
...

I pray! My little body and whole span
Of years is Thine, my Owner and my Man.
For Thou hast made me, unto Thee I owe
This dim, distressed half-soul that hurts me so,...