Works

The breezes waved the silver grass,
Waist-high along the siding,
And to the creek we ne'er could pass
Three boys on bare-back riding;
Beneath the sheoaks in the bend
The waterhole was brimming,...

Only the prism's obstruction shows aright
The secret of a sunbeam, breaks its light
Into the jewelled bow from blankest white;
So may a glory from defect arise:
Only by Deafness may the vexed Love wreak...

Dear heart, why will you use me so?
Dear eyes that gently me upbraid,
Still are you beautiful, but O,
How is your beauty raimented!

Through the clear mirror of your eyes,...

"I have loved thee with an everlasting love."

Dear is the lost wife to a lone man's heart,
When in a dream he meets her at his door,
And, waked for joy, doth know she dwells apart,...

Dear is the memory of our wedded lives,
And dear the last embraces of our wives
And their warm tears; but all hath suffer'd change;
For surely now our household hearths are cold,...

Our Motherland, dear Motherland,
The source of beauty and of Art,
Who but thy children understand
The love which permeates each heart!
We see, through rainbow-tints of tears,...

A poor wood-chopper, with his fagot load,
Whom weight of years, as well as load, oppress'd,
Sore groaning in his smoky hut to rest,
Trudged wearily along his homeward road....

This morning, while we sat in talk
Of spring and apple-bloom,
Lo! Death stood in the garden walk,
And peered into the room.

Your back was turned, you did not see
The shadow that he made....

Time is the bound of things; where'er we go
Fate gives a meeting, Death's the end of woe.

What is yonder white thing in the forest?
Is it snow, or can it swans perchance be?
Were it snow, ere this it had been melted,
Were it swans, they all away had hastend....

Turn to Britannia's triumphs on the main:
See Nelson, pale and fainting, 'mid the slain,
Whilst Victory sighs, stern in the garb of war,
And points through clouds the rocks of Trafalgar!...

Down the broad Ha-Ha W'k-pa[BS]
the band took their way to the Games at Ke'za[8]
While the swift-footed hunters by land
ran the shores for the elk and the bison.
Like mag's[BT] ride the birchen canoes...

"They run! they run!" - "Who run?" Not they
Who faced that decimating fire
As coolly as if human ire
Were rooted from their hearts;
They run, while he who led the way
So bravely on that glorious day,...

Death stands above me, whispering low
I know not what into my ear:
Of his strange language all I know
Is, there is not a word of fear.

The Spring spreads one green lap of flowers
Which Autumn buries at the fall,
No chilling showers of Autumn hours
Can stay them or recall;
Winds sing a dirge, while earth lays out of sight...

OH, would I resembled

The country girls fair,
Who rosy-red ribbons

And yellow hats wear!

To believe I was pretty

I thought was allow'd;
In the town I believed it
...

Little Boy! Halloo! - halloo!
Can't you hear me calling you? -
Little Boy that used to be,
Come in here and play with me.

Take, dear, my little sheaf of songs,
For, old or new,
All that is good in them belongs
Only to you;

And, singing as when all was young,
They will recall
Those others, lived but left unsung -...

And so, to you, who always were
Perseus, D'Artagnan, Lancelot
To me, I give these weedy rhymes
In memory of earlier times.
Now all those careless days are not.
Of all my heroes, you endure.
...

They rode through the bannered city -
The King and the Commoner,
And the hopes of the world were with them,
And the heart of the world was astir.
For the moss-grown walls seemed falling...