Works

They stream across the fading western sky
A sable cloud, far o'er the lonely leas;
Now parting into scattered companies,
Now closing up the broken ranks, still high...

Do not cry for me, Mother, seeing me in the grave.

I

This greatest hour was hallowed and thandered
By angel's choirs; fire melted sky.
He asked his Father:"Why am I abandoned...?"...

Here is cruel Frederick, see!
A horrid wicked boy was he;
He caught the flies, poor little things,
And then tore off their tiny wings,
He killed the birds, and broke the chairs,...

Nero commanded; but withdrew his eyes
From the beholding death and cruelties.

'Tis but a dog-like madness in bad kings,
For to delight in wounds and murderings:
As some plants prosper best by cuts and blows,
So kings by killing do increase their foes.

What large, dark hands are those at the window
Lifted, grasping in the yellow light
Which makes its way through the curtain web
At my heart to-night?

Ah, only the leaves! So leave me at rest,...

Nothing can be more loathsome than to see
Power conjoin'd with Nature's cruelty.

As our mother the Frigate, bepainted and fine,
Made play for her bully the Ship of the Line;
So we, her bold daughters by iron and fire,
Accost and decoy to our masters' desire.
...

Thou see'st me, Lucia, this year droop;
Three zodiacs fill'd more, I shall stoop;
Let crutches then provided be
To shore up my debility:
Then, while thou laugh'st, I'll sighing cry,...

If you're going to drop the gauntlet
at least put on the dress
of a full warrior -
paint, rouge, lipstick,
sheer stockings and
enough powder to smother
a savage;
then form a straight line...

"Instigator of the ruin -
Whichsoever thou mayst be
Of the masterful of Europe
That contrived our misery -
Hear the wormwood-worded greeting
From each city, shore, and lea
Of thy victims:...

Do we weep for the heroes who died for us,
Who living were true and tried for us,
And dying sleep side by side for us;
The Martyr-band
That hallowed our land
With the blood they shed in a tide for us?...

1

Moths, if they dream dusk,
sport esurient hip-flasks on their wings -
gangster rum-runners better to sully dark,
traverse caravans of colour
amid silk-routes
to dazzle Prester John,...

Spake one upon the vessel's prow, before
The sinking sun had kissed the glittering seas:
"'Twas here Columbus with his Genoese
Steered his frail barks toward the unknown store,...

As one long struggling to be free,
O suffering isle! we look to thee
In sympathy and deep desire
That thy fair borders yet shall hold
A people happy, self-controlled,
Saved and exalted - as by fire....

A woman is a trough
hardly that - a river,
a pond to sail a small boat thru,
rapids to manoeuvre.

A woman commandingly tall
receptive as water,
quicksilver to the light...

A man that had six mortal wounds, a man
Violent and famous, strode among the dead;
Eyes stared out of the branches and were gone.

Then certain Shrouds that muttered head to head...

A man came slowly from the setting sun,
To Emer, raddling raiment in her dun,
And said, "I am that swineherd whom you bid
Go watch the road between the wood and tide,...

Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Just a word i' thi ear, -
Aw hooap we shall net disagree;
But aw'm foorced to admit as aw watch thi each year,
At tha seems a big humbug to me.
...

Tell it to the locked-up trees,
Cuckoo, bring your song here!
Warrant, Act and Summons, please,
For Spring to pass along here!
Tell old Winter, if he doubt,
Tell him squat and square, a!
Old Woman!...