Works

When I was but a little boy
Who hunted in the wood
To scare or mangle or destroy
A freakish elemental joy
That tasted life and found it good

I hardly heard the awful ban...

His shatter'd Empire thunders to the ground:
A myriad hearts peal laughter as it falls,
While red flags flutter on its ruined walls
And living joy darts all the world around....

The cold green rocks and lapping waves
Are all my world as here I sit
With downcast eye and heart that craves
The bush and blue sky over it.

The tide of years is washing by,...

What imps are these that come with scowl and leer?
Black motes upon the morning's amber beam,
They crowd and float about each happy dream
And blow upon pure joy the taint of fear....

The foamy waves are swishing
As patiently we thud,
But O the wave of wishing
That surges in my blood!

Along the ocean's rim, now,
With never-ceasing song,
I wish that I could swim now...

Far down the reach a creeping mist
Hung dim along the mountain side;
On shadowed water, sleek and whist,
I let the lazy shallop glide.

The ripple scarcely cut the green...

The patriot from his walls of brass
Is singing loudly as I pass;
With fearless heart and open eyes,
He shouts the ancient battle cries;
And, where I pause to hear him sing,
A silent crowd is listening....

The seeking souls, by baleful fires made blind,
Torn by entrapping brambles, thirsty and mad,
Hear on the lonely waste the stealthy pad
And half-held breath of glaring beasts behind;...

'There is no place,' he said,
'For love or pity here;
We dread and only dread
The moods that once were dear.

'We break the ancient spell,
And arm to take our part
Against the power of Hell.'...

Here lies the woven garb he wore
Of grass he gathered by the shore
Whereon the phantom waves still fret and foam
And sigh along the visionary sand.
'Where is he now?' you cry. 'What desolate land...

In what pearl-paven mossy cave
By what green sea
Art thou reclining, virgin of the wave,
In realms more full of splendid mystery
Than that strong northern flood whence came...

Time, who with soft pale ashes veils the brand
Of many a hope that flared against the sky
To plant its heaven-storming banners high,
Has touched you with no desecrating hand;...

I.
Yonder, with eyes that tears, not distance, dim,
With ears the wide world's thickness cannot daunt,
We see tumultuous miseries that haunt
The night's dead watches, hear the battle hymn...

Stupidity and Selfishness and Fear,
Who hold enslaved the intellect of Man,
Have found their victims here.

We saw them go, alert to seek the van
Where phantom Glory showered her withering leaves;...

Hey, Toby, Toby, Toby!'Dead?
The silence is a flood
That closes, choking, overhead,
And chills the living blood.

The leaping friend, whose jolly bark
Was greeting every night,...

Once more the Christian festival is near,
And I, for whom each day repeats all days
Continuously in ecstasy of praise,
Love's birthday lasting through the unending year,...

Where yonder ruddy-misted star
Is tumbling down the placid sky
The people's aims were not so high
As our heroic motives are;
To love and trust they set a bar,
And 'Profit' was their only cry;...

Behind us lay the homely shore
With youthful memories aureoled;
A sky of dazzling blue before,
We sailed a sea of molten gold.

To our old haven we return;
By smoky hills as grey as mud...

The world, all busy round us here of late,
Is still unchanged: but you are twenty-one.
The mind, victorious with the rising sun,
Steps boldly and blithely through the imagined gate...

O wistful eyes that haunt the gloom of sleep,
Are you my own, remembered from the night
I sat before my glass in dumb affright
And saw my cowering soul afraid to weep?...