Works

We learnt the creed at Hungerford,
We learnt the creed at Bourke;
We learnt it in the good times
And learnt it out of work.
We learnt it by the harbour-side
And on the billabong:...

'Tis a wonderful time when these hours begin,
These long 'small hours' of night,
When grass is crisp, and the air is thin,
And the stars come close and bright.
The moon hangs caught in a silvery veil,...

Ask me no more: the moon may draw the sea;
The cloud may stoop from heaven and take the shape,
With fold to fold, of mountain or of cape;
But O too fond, when have I answer'd thee?
Ask me no more....

Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white;
Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk;
Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font:
The fire-fly wakens: waken thou with me....

Our enemies have fall'n, have fall'n: the seed,
The little seed they laugh'd at in the dark,
Has risen and cleft the soil, and grown a bulk
Of spanless girth, that lays on every side...

A SHORT STRAIN OF MUSIC FROM THE ORCHESTRA.


There breathes a language known and felt
Far as the pure air spreads its living zone;
Wherever rage can rouse, or pity melt,...

America will not turn back;
She did not idly start,
But weighed full carefully and well
Her grave, important part.
She chose the part of Freedom's friend,
And will pursue it, to the end.
...

A Mother's Name.


I.

I love the sound! The sweetest under Heaven,
That name of mother, - and the proudest, too.
As babes we breathe it, and with seven times seven...

He shtood peside de Kloster-place,
Oopon de Rheinisch shore,
Und dere he saw a lofely face,
He'd seen in treams pefore.

'Feinslieb, und will'st dou go mit me?
Feinsllieb, make no delay;...

'Were diu werlt alle min,
Von deme mere unze an den Rin.
Des wolt ih mih darben,
Daz diu dame von Engellant
Lege an minen armen.'
- Carmina Burana.


Am Rhein! Acain am Rheine!...

A murmur in the trees to note,
Not loud enough for wind;
A star not far enough to seek,
Nor near enough to find;

A long, long yellow on the lawn,
A hubbub as of feet;...

Like some sad spirit from an unknown shore
Thou comest with two children in thine arms:
Flushed, poppied Sleep, whom mortals aye adore,
Her flowing raiment sculptured to her charms....

"Here is a lantern, my little boy,"
Said a father to his child,
"And yonder's a wood, a lonely wood,
Tangled, and rough, and wild;
And now, this night, - this very hour,
Though gloomy and dark it be,...

The name the Gallic exile bore,
St. Malo! from thy ancient mart,
Became upon our Western shore
Greenleaf for Feuillevert.

A name to hear in soft accord
Of leaves by light winds overrun,...

This sentence have I left behind:
An aching body, and a mind
Not wholly clear, nor wholly blind,
Too keen to rest, too weak to find,
That travails sore, and brings forth wind,...

"A soldier of the Union mustered out,"
Is the inscription on an unknown grave
At Newport News, beside the salt-sea wave,
Nameless and dateless; sentinel or scout
Shot down in skirmish, or disastrous rout...

A narrow girdle of rough stones and crags,
A rude and natural causeway, interposed
Between the water and a winding slope
Of copse and thicket, leaves the eastern shore
Of Grasmere safe in its own privacy:...

From our Dominion never
Take Thy protecting hand,
United, Lord, for ever
Keep Thou our fathers' land!
From where Atlantic terrors
Our hardy seamen train,
To where the salt sea mirrors...

Dark over the face of Nature sublime!
Reign'd tyranny, warfare, and every crime;
The world a desert'no oasis green
A man-loving soul on its surface had seen;
Then mercy above a mandate sent forth...

I.

When boyhood's fire was in my blood
I read of ancient freemen
For Greece and Rome who bravely stood,
THREE HUNDRED MEN AND THREE MEN.[1]
And then I prayed I yet might see...