Works

When hawthorn buds are creaming white,
And the red foolscap all stuck with may,
Then lasses walk with eyes alight,
And it's chimney-sweepers' dancing day.

For the chimney-sweeps of Cheltenham town,...

How few are they that voyage through the night
On that eternal quest,
For that strange light beyond our light,
That rest beyond our rest.

And they who, seeking beauty, once descry...

Green wing and ruby throat,
What shining spell, what exquisite sorcery,
Lured you to float
And fight with bees round this one flowering tree?

Petulant imps of light,...

The great roads are all grown over
That seemed so firm and white.
The deep black forests have covered them.
How should I walk aright?
How should I thread these tangled mazes,...

It is not over yet-the fight
Where those immortal dreamers failed.
They stormed the citadels of night
And the night praised them--and prevailed.
So long ago the cause was lost...

The man who discovered the use of a chair,
Odds--bobs--
What a wonderful man!
He used to sit down on it, tearing his hair,
Till he thought of a highly original plan....

I.

If souls could sing to heaven's high King
As blackbirds pipe on earth,
How those delicious courts would ring
With gusts of lovely mirth!
What white-robed throng could lift a song...

"I want to be new," said the duckling.
"O, ho!" said the wise old owl,
While the guinea-hen cluttered off chuckling
To tell all the rest of the fowl.

"I should like a more elegant figure,"...

"And that a reply be received before midnight."
British Ultimatum.


Their Day was at twelve of the night,
When the graves give up their dead.
And still, from the City, no light...

At noon, upon the mountain's purple height,
Above the pine-woods and the clouds it shone
No larger than the small white dome of shell
Left by the fledgling wren when wings are born....

"If I could whisper you all I know,"
Said the Old Fool in the Wood,
"You'd never say that green leaves grow.
You'd say, 'Ah, what a happy mood
The Master must be in today,
To think such thoughts,'...

The old gentleman, tapping his amber snuff-box
(A heart-shaped snuff-box with a golden clasp)
Stared at the dying fire. "I'd like them all
To understand, when I am gone," he muttered....

(New Jersey, 1918)


Its quiet graves were made for peace till Gabriel blows his horn.
Those wise old elms could hear no cry
Of all that distant agony--...

O Mystery of life,
That, after all our strife,
Defeats, mistakes,
Just as, at last, we see
The road to victory,
The tired heart breaks.

Just as the long years give...

Out of her darkened fishing-ports they go,
A fleet of little ships, whose every name--
Daffodil, Sea-lark, Rose and Surf and Snow,
Burns in this blackness like an altar-flame;
...

(1904)


The sunset lingered in the pale green West:
In rosy wastes the low soft evening star
Woke; while the last white sea-mew sought for rest;
And tawny sails came stealing o'er the bar.
...

(Written after hearing a line of Keats repeated by a passing stranger under the palms of Southern California.)


Under the palms of San Diego
Where gold-skinned Mexicans loll at ease,...

Why do we make our music?
Oh, blind dark strings reply:
Because we dwell in a strange land
And remember a lost sky.
We ask no leaf of the laurel,
We know what fame is worth;...

I.

There is one road, one only, to the Light:
A narrow way, but Freedom walks therein;
A straight, firm road through Chaos and old Night,
And all these wandering Jack-o-Lents of Sin.
...

Wonder in happy eyes
Fades, fades away:
And the angel-coloured skies
Whisper farewell.

Loveliness over the strings of the heart may stray
In fugitive melodies;...