Works

When you meet an ancient man,
Be as silent as you can;
So when old age comes to you,
Courtesies shall gather too.

And King Billy's horse will start
From our street and from our heart,...

A surtax on the ecosystem;
so many raindrops, mists
and bud breakings
record spring days,
that the movement of sap
fluids and other vital
juices involves all life on a colossal...

In K'hln, a town of monks and bones,
And pavements fang'd with murderous stones
And rags, and hags, and hideous wenches;
I counted two and seventy stenches,
All well defined, and several stinks!...

The Colonel went out sailing,
He spoke with Turk and Jew,
With Christian and with Infidel,
For all tongues he knew.
"O what's a wifeless man?' said he,
And he came sailing home....

[By A New Chum]

(Air: 'So Early in the Morning.')


When first I came to Sydney Cove
And up and down the streets did rove,
I thought such sights I ne'er did see...

(Chorus.) Come praise Colonus' horses, and come praise
The wine-dark of the wood's intricacies,
The nightingale that deafens daylight there,
If daylight ever visit where,
Unvisited by tempest or by sun,...

The little man with the vague beard and guise
Pulled at the wicket. "Come inside!" he said,
"I'll show you all we've got now -- it was size
You wanted? -- oh, dry colors! Well" -- he led...

How bright is Earth's rich gown
None but an Airman knows
Yellow, and green, and brown -
How bright is Earth's rich gown!
I see, as I gaze down,
Its purple, cream, and rose....

In the race of the flowers that's run due,

As the HARTSTONGUE pants at the well

And the HOUNDSTONGUE laps the SUNDEW.

Here's VENUS'-COMBE for MAIDENHAIR:
While KING-CUPS drink BELLA-DONNA,...

I

Four hundred years ago a tangled waste
Lay sleeping on the west Atlantic's side;
Their devious ways the Old World's millions traced
Content, and loved, and labored, dared and died,...

How in God's name did Columbus get over
Is a pure wonder to me, I protest,
Cabot, and Raleigh too, that well-read rover,
Frobisher, Dampier, Drake, and the rest.
Bad enough all the same,...

Behind him lay the gray Azores,
Behind the Gates of Hercules;
Before him not the ghost of shores,
Before him only shoreless seas.
The good mate said: "Now we must pray,
For lo! the very stars are gone....

Chains, my good lord: in your raised brows I read
Some wonder at our chamber ornaments.
We brought this iron from our isles of gold.
Does the king know you deign to visit him...

Steer on, bold sailor Wit may mock thy soul that sees the land,
And hopeless at the helm may droop the weak and weary hand,
Yet ever ever to the West, for there the coast must lie,...

This weeping willow!
Why do you not plant a few
For the millions of children not yet born,
As well as for us?
Are they not non-existent, or cells asleep
Without mind?...

(Written on the exhumation and reburial in Spain of the bones of Christopher Columbus.)


Once more upon the ocean's heaving breast
He lays his head, not like the lover bold...

Out o' the wilderness, dusty an' dry
(Time, an' 'igh time to be trekkin' again!)
Oo is it 'eads to the Detail Supply?
A section, a pompom, an' six 'undred men.
...

Come, when the pale moon like a petal
Floats in the pearly dusk of spring,
Come with arms outstretched to take me,
Come with lips pursed up to cling.

Come, for life is a frail moth flying,...

This is the song for a soldier
To sing as he rides from home
To the fields afar where the battles are
Or over the ocean's foam:
'Whatever the dangers waiting
In the lands I have not seen,...

Come back, come back, behold with straining mast
And swelling sail, behold her steaming fast;
With one new sun to see her voyage o'er,
With morning light to touch her native shore.
Come back, come back....