Works

The Muse who comes each morning
In rozy gauze is clad;
Her head is crowned with flowers,
Her eyes are clear and glad.

Upon her virgin bosom
Bloom lilies of white fire,...

Ne'ra crowns me with a purple wreath
That she with her own dainty hands did twine;
Gold-hearted blossoms and blue buds in sheath,
Mingled with veined green leaves of the wild vine.
...

The night is young yet; an enchanted night
In early summer: calm and darkly bright.

I love the Night, and every little breeze
She brings, to soothe the sleep of dreaming trees.
...

With pen in hand and pipe in mouth,
And claret iced to quench my drouth,
I sit upon my balcony
That overlooks the sparkling sea,
Serenly gay, and cool, and bland
With pipe in mouth and pen in hand....

What! Don't you our M'cenas know
The man who started, years ago,
Our Wild Australian Author show?

You don't? Your ignorance sublime
Exceeds - to use a Boston rhyme
The taciturnity of time.
...

Very often, when I'm drinking,
Of the old days I am thinking,
Of the good old days when living was a Joy,
And each morning brought new Pleasure,
And each night brought Dreams of Treasure,...

Choose who will the wiser part,
I have held her heart to heart;

And have felt her heart-strings stirred,
And her soul's still singing heard

For one golden-haloed hour...

And after all, and after all,
Our passionate prayers, and sighs, and tears,
Is life a reckless carnival?
And are they lost, our golden years?

Ah, no; ah, no; for, long ago,...

By a black wharf I stood lately,
When the night was at its noon;
Keen, malicious stars were shining,
And a wicked, white-faced moon.

And I saw a stately vessel,
Built in fashion quaint and old;...

These are the flowers of sleep
That nod in the heavy noon,
Ere the brown shades eastward creep
To a drowsy and dreamful tune,
These are the flowers of sleep.

Love's lilies are passion-pale,...

Soul, dost thou shudder at the narrow tomb?
Heart, dost thou dread to moulder in the dust,
To meet the fate that all things mortal must,
Strength in its pride, and beauty in its bloom?...

They say that fair Romance is dead, and in her cold grave lying low,
The green grass waving o'er her head, the mould upon her breasts of snow;...

Give thou a gift to me
From thy treasure-house, O sea!

Said a red-lipped laughing girl
While the summer yet was young;

And the sea laughed back and flung
At her feet a priceless pearl.
...

If I were young as you, Sixteen,
And you were old as I,
I would not be as I have been,
You would not be so shy,
We should not watch with careless mien
The golden days go by,...

What shall a man remember
In days when he is old,
And Life is a dying ember,
And Fame a story told?

Power, that came to leave him?
Wealth, to the wild waves blown?...

A child came singing through the dusty town
A song so sweet that all men stayed to hear,
Forgetting for a space their ancient fear
Of evil days and death and fortune's frown.
...

I am the Vision and the Dream
Of trembling Age, and yearning Youth;
I am the Sorceress Supreme.
I am Illusion; I am Truth.

I am the Queen to whom belongs
The royal right great gifts to give;...

I learnt the language of the birds,
A new St Francis I would be;
But, when I understood their words,
The birds were preaching unto me.

'Tis said that the Passion Flower,
With its figures of spear and sword
And hammer and nails, is a symbol
Of the Woe of our Blessed Lord.

So still in the Heart of Beauty...

Lo, upon the carpet, where
Throned upon a heap of slain
Blue-eyed dolls of beauty rare
(Ah, they pleaded all in vain!)
Sits the Infant Tamerlane!

Broken toys upon the floor...