Works

Ah, Douglass, we have fall'n on evil days,
Such days as thou, not even thou didst know,
When thee, the eyes of that harsh long ago
Saw, salient, at the cross of devious ways,...

The sea is calm tonight.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast, the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay....

On these white cliffs, that calm above the flood
Uprear their shadowing heads, and at their feet
Hear not the surge that has for ages beat,
How many a lonely wanderer has stood!...

Farewell, farewell! Before our prow
Leaps in white foam the noisy channel,
A tourist's cap is on my brow,
My legs are cased in tourists' flannel:

Around me gasp the invalids -...

Samuel is forever talking of his elm -
But I did not need to die to learn about roots:
I, who dug all the ditches about Spoon River.
Look at my elm!
Sprung from as good a seed as his,...

You may boast about the landscapes fair so far across the sea
Of castled Rhine, and southern France, and favored Italy--
But have you seen, when Springtime flings the scented blossoms down,...

Down-adown-derry,
Sweet Annie Maroon,
Gathering daisies
In the meadows of Doone,
Hears a shrill piping,
Elflike and free,
Where the waters go brawling
In rills to the sea;...

Come, comrades, come, your glasses clink;
Up with your hands a health to drink,
The health of all that workers be,
In every land, on every sea.
And he that will this health deny,...

Noon-time an' June-time, down around the river!
Have to furse with 'Lizey Ann - but lawzy! I fergive her!
Drives me off the place, an' says 'at all 'at she's a-wishin',...

Down by the salley gardens my love and I did meet;
She passed the salley gardens with little snow-white
feet.
She bid me take love easy, as the leaves grow on the
tree;...

Tune., "King John and the Abbot of Canterbury."

I sing not old Jason who travell'd through Greece
To kiss the fair maids and possess the rich fleece,
Nor sing I AEneas, who, led by his mother,...

Down on the shore, on the sunny shore!
Where the salt smell cheers the land;
Where the tide moves bright under boundless light,
And the surge on the glittering strand;...

"Best time to kill a hog's when he's fat." - Old Saw.

Mostly folks is law-abidin'
Down on Wriggle Crick,
Seein' they's no Squire residin'
In our bailywick;
No grand juries, no suppeenies,...

I've done with joys an' misery,
An' why should I repine?
There's no one knows the past but me
An' that ol' dog o' mine.
We camp an' walk an' camp an' walk,
An' find it fairly good;...

Hark, the sound of it drawing nearer,
Clink of hobble and brazen bell;
Mark the passage of stalwart shearer,
Bidding Monaro soil farewell.

Where is he making for? Down the river,...

I.

Floating!
Floating--and all the stillness waits
And listens at the ivory gates,
Full of a dim uncertain presage
Of some strange, undelivered message.
There is no sound save from the bush...

I' be'n down to the Capital at Washington, D. C.,
Where Congerss meets and passes on the pensions ort to be
Allowed to old one-legged chaps, like me, 'at sence the war...

Linger no more, my beloved, by abbey and cell and cathedral;
Mourn not for holy ones mourning of old them who knew not the Father,
Weeping with fast and scourge, when the bridegroom was taken from them....

Dow's flat. That's its name;
And I reckon that you
Are a stranger? The same?
Well, I thought it was true,
For thar isn't a man on the river as can't spot the place at first view.
...

As through life you journey onward
Many a hill you'll have to climb;
Many a rough and dang'rous pathway,
You'll encounter time and time.
Now and then a gleam of sunshine,...