Works

Whatever comes, let's be content withal:
Among God's blessings there is no one small.

We may not climb the heavenly steeps
To bring the Lord Christ down;
In vain we search the lowest deeps
For Him who fills Heaven's throne.

But to the contrite spirit yet
A present help is He;...

We two boys together clinging,
One the other never leaving,
Up and down the roads going, North and South excursions making,
Power enjoying, elbows stretching, fingers clutching,...

Tune - "What can a young lassie do wi' an auld man."


I.

What can a young lassie, what shall a young lassie,
What can a young lassie do wi' an auld man?...

(Written for Miss Poole, and sung by her in the character of cowslip.)




I'm much too young to marry,
For I am only seventeen;
Why think I, then, of Harry?...

Wintertime, er Summertime,
Of late years I notice I'm,
Kindo'-like, more subjec' to
What the weather is. Now, you
Folks 'at lives in town, I s'pose,
Thinks its bully when it snows;...

Sixties idols were built to last.
A 70's idol is shoddy and throwaway by comparison.
Whatever became of Carnaby Street or bell bottoms?...

What counsel has the hooded moon
Put in thy heart, my shyly sweet,
Of Love in ancient plenilune,
Glory and stars beneath his feet,
A sage that is but kith and kin
With the comedian Capuchin?
...

What do I care, in the dreams and the languor of spring,
That my songs do not show me at all?
For they are a fragrance, and I am a flint and a fire,
I am an answer, they are only a call.
...

"Here, Charlotte," said Mamma one day.
"These stockings knit while I'm away,
And should you fail, be sure you'll find
Mamma is strict, although she's kind."


But Charlotte took a lazy fit,...

What have the cavalry done?
Cantered and trotted about,
Routin' the enemy out,
Causin' the beggars to run!
And we tramped along in the blazin' heat,
Over the veldt on our weary feet....

What if our numbers barely could defy
The arithmetic of babes, must foreign hordes,
Slaves, vile as ever were befooled by words,
Striking through English breasts the anarchy...

I have come with my verses - I think I may claim
It is not the first time I have tried on the same.
They were puckered in rhyme, they were wrinkled in wit;
But your hearts were so large that they made them a fit....

What is to come we know not. But we know
That what has been was good, was good to show,
Better to hide, and best of all to bear.
We are the masters of the days that were:...

Young Alick gate wed, as all gradely chaps do,
An tuk Sally for better or war;
A daycenter felly ne'er foller'd a ploo, -
Th' best lad ov his mother's bi far.
...

What soft, cherubic creatures
These gentlewomen are!
One would as soon assault a plush
Or violate a star.

Such dimity convictions,
A horror so refined
Of freckled human nature,...

Over the chimney the night-wind sang
And chanted a melody no one knew;
And the Woman stopped, as her babe she tossed,
And thought of the one she had long since lost,...

(Moon Poems for the Children/Fairy-tales for the Children)

The moon's an open furnace door
Where all can see the blast,
We shovel in our blackest griefs,
Upon that grate are cast...

The dim-winged spirits of the night
Do fear and serve me well.
They creep from out the hedges of
The garden where I dwell.

I wave my arms across the walk.
The troops obey the sign,...

What though my voice cease like a moan o' the wind?
Not the less shall I
Cast on this life a kindly eye,
Glad if through its mystery
Faint gleams of love and truth glance o'er my mind.
...