Works

When I was a much younger man,
my spiritual homeland was a scrub-mile of bush with thicket
leaves the size of your palms.

Saucer-size holes of white air enveloped the edge of trees...

When I was still a youthful wight,

So full of enjoyment and merry,
The painters used to assert, in spite,

That my features were small yes, very;
Yet then full many a beauteous child...

I will not know when I am dead
If sun or moon is overhead;
I'll stretch out flat without a sound
Inside a box beneath the ground,
And never rise again to see
Branches lifting on a tree,...

When I was young the silk
of my mind
hard as a peony head
unfurled
and wind bloomed the parachute:

The air-head tugged me
up,
tore my roots loose and drove
high, so high
...

When lilacs last in the door-yard bloom'd,
And the great star early droop'd in the western sky in the night,
I mourn'd'and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.
...

When the firmament quivers with daylight's young beam,
And the woodlands awaking burst into a hymn,
And the glow of the sky blazes back from the stream,
How the bright ones of heaven in the brightness grow dim....

I cannot but remember
When the year grows old--
October--November--
How she disliked the cold!

She used to watch the swallows
Go down across the sky,
And turn from the window...

When to sad Music silent you listen,
And tears on those eyelids tremble like dew,
Oh, then there dwells in those eyes as they glisten
A sweet holy charm that mirth never knew....

When yon full moon's with her white fleet of stars,
And but one bird makes music in the grove;
When you and I are breathing side by side,
Where our two bodies make one shadow, love;
...

When you and I
Grow up Polly
I mean that you and me,
Shall go sailing in a big ship
Right over all the sea.
We'll wait till we are older,
For if we went to-day,...

When you are old, and I am passed away
Passed, and your face, your golden face, is gray
I think, whate'er the end, this dream of mine,
Comforting you, a friendly star will shine...

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;...

How can I laugh or dance as others do,
Or ply my rock or reel?
My heart will still return to dreams of you
Beside my spinning-wheel.

My little dog he cried out in the dark,...

I remarked that man is saddest, and his heart is filled with woe,
When he hasn't any money, and his pants begin to go;
But I think I was mistaken, and there are many times I find...

When you wear a cloudy collar and a shirt that isn't white,
And you cannot sleep for thinking how you'll reach to-morrow night,
You may be a man of sorrows, and on speaking terms with Care,...

When you fear the barber's mirror when you go to get a crop,
Or in sorrow every morning comb your hair across the top:
When you titivate and do the little things you never used,...

I. M. - Margaret Emma Henley (1888-1894)



When you wake in your crib,
You, an inch of experience -
Vaulted about
With the wonder of darkness;
Wailing and striving...

Where are you sleeping to-night, My Lad,
Above-ground--or below?
The last we heard you were up at the front,
Holding a trench and bearing the brunt;--
But--that was a week ago.
...

Where is your dwelling, ye Sainted?
Thro' what Elysium more bright
Than fancy or hope ever painted,
Walk ye in glory and light?
Who the same kingdom inherits?
Breathes there a soul that may dare...

Where lies the Land to which yon Ship must go?
Fresh as a lark mounting at break of day,
Festively she puts forth in trim array;
Is she for tropic suns, or polar snow?...