Works

When I was but a little lad
One thing I could not bear,
It was to stand at mother's knee
And have her comb my hair.

They didn't keep boys' hair as short
As it's kept now-a-days,...

A Broken rainbow on the skies of May,
Touching the dripping roses and low clouds,
And in wet clouds its scattered glories lost:
So in the sorrow of her soul the ghost
Of one great love, of iridescent ray,...

The firm house lingers, though averse to square
With the new city street it has to wear A number in.
But what about the brook
That held the house as in an elbow-crook?...

Absent from thee I languish still;
Then ask me not, when I return?
The straying fool 'twill plainly kill
To wish all day, all night to mourn.

Dear! from thine arms then let me fly,...

LACON: For a kiss or two, confess,
What doth cause this pensiveness,
Thou most lovely neat-herdess?
Why so lonely on the hill?
Why thy pipe by thee so still,
That erewhile was heard so shrill?...

TO ---

You like the trifling triolet:
Well, here are three or four.
Unless your likings I forget,
You like the trifling triolet.
Against my conscience I abet
A taste which I deplore;...

Too many, Lord, abuse thy grace,
In this licentious day;
And while they boast they see thy face,
They turn their own away.


Thy book displays a gracious light
That can the blind restore;...

Whut you say, dah? huh, uh! chile,
You 's enough to dribe me wile.
Want a sto'y; jes' hyeah dat!
Whah' 'll I git a sto'y at?
Di'n' I tell you th'ee las' night?
Go 'way, honey, you ain't right....

All the trees and bushes of the garden
Display their bright new green.

But above them all, still bare,
The great old acacia stands,
His solitary bent black branches stark...

Tarry thou yet, late lingerer in the twilight's glory:
Gay are the hills with song: earth's faery children leave
More dim abodes to roam the primrose-hearted eve,...

Up and be doing, all who have a hand
To lift, a back to bend. It must not be
In times like these that vaguely linger we
To air our vaunts and hopes; and leave our land
...

Rest here, my horse, the night is dull, - the blood-sick stars are gone,
Listen, for thou like me wert bred in far Saskatchewan.
And this September night at home, under a happier sky,...

Folks has be'n to town, and Sahry
Fetched 'er home a pet canary,
And of all the blame', contrary,
Aggervatin' things alive!
I love music - that I love it
When it's free - and plenty of it;...

I made a bitter song
When I was a boy,
About a girl
With hot earth-coloured hair,
Who lived with me
And left me.

I made a sour song
On her marriage-day,
That ever his kisses...

O the precipice Titanic
Of the congregated Fall,
And the angle oceanic
Where the deepening thunders call -
And the Gorge so grim,
And the firmamental rim!
Multitudinously thronging...

Play, Phoebus, on thy lute,
And we will sit all mute;
By listening to thy lyre,
That sets all ears on fire.

Hark, hark! the God does play!
And as he leads the way...

Shipmate, leave the ghostly shadows,
Where thy boon companions throng!
We will put to sea together
Through the twilight with a song.

Leering closer, rank and girding,...

Fly hence, pale care, no more remember
Past sorrows with the fled December,
But let each pleasant cheek appear
Smooth as the childhood of the year,
And sing a carol here....

What poets feel not, when they make,
A pleasure in creating,
The world, in its turn, will not take
Pleasure in contemplating

I.

Some drink to Friendship, some to Love,
Through whom the world is fair, perdie!
But I to one these others prove,
Who leaps 'mid lions for a glove,
Or dies to set another free...