Works

To the God of all sure mercies let my blessing rise today,
From the scoffer and the cruel He hath plucked the spoil away;
Yes, he who cooled the furnace around the faithful three,...

Here lies a bloke who's just gone West,
A Number One Australian;
He took his gun and did his best
To mitigate the alien.
So long as he could get to work
He needed no sagacity;...

I.

Now bank an' brae are claith'd in green,
An' scattered cowslips sweetly spring;
By Girvan's fairy-haunted stream,
The birdies flit on wanton wing.
To Cassillis' banks when e'ening fa's,...

Two college sophs of Cambridge growth,
Both special wits and lovers both,
Conferring, as they used to meet,
On love, and books, in rapture sweet;
(Muse, find me names to fit my metre,...

They have chiseled on my stone the words:
"His life was gentle, and the elements so mixed in him
That nature might stand up and say to all the world,
This was a man."
Those who knew me smile...

Merely on edge,
the wharf in bad light
clinging to water's ledge -
a loon from afar
the Woods
closing with each sound.

Casting rocks toward moon's glare
lapidations laughing back,...

In youth we spent a pleasant day
Round Castle Gordon on the Spey,
There is no Clan can gird the sword on,
Can compare with the Clan Gordon,
In India, China and Soudan,
They manfully have led the van.

How much of my young heart, O Spain,
Went out to thee in days of yore!
What dreams romantic filled my brain,
And summoned back to life again
The Paladins of Charlemagne
The Cid Campeador!
...

Good things, that come of course, far less do please
Than those which come by sweet contingencies.

"How does the water
Come down at Lodore?"
My little boy asked me
Thus, once on a time;
And moreover he tasked me
To tell him in rhyme.
Anon at the word,
There first came one daughter,...

This song of mine
Is a Song of the Vine,
To be sung by the glowing embers
Of wayside inns,
When the rain begins
To darken the drear Novembers.

It is not a song
Of the Scuppernong,...

In early days, when streams ran pure,
Untainted from their spring,
Unchok'd by sawmill dust, or logs,
Or any other thing,

Each river, creek and rill ran on,
So pure, and free, and bright,...

Catching the sunbeams, oh, wee dimpled child,
Gleefully laughing because they are bright;
Knowing, ah! never, my beautiful pet,
Ne'er can our fingers imprison the light.
...

Of caterpillars Fabre tells how day after day
Around the rim of a vast earth pot they crawled,
Tricked thither as they filed shuffling out one morn
Head to tail when the common hunger called.
...

She came'she is gone'we have met'
And meet perhaps never again;
The sun of that moment is set,
And seems to have risen in vain.
Catharina has fled like a dream
(So vanishes pleasure, alas!)'...

Believe it or not, as you choose,
The doctrine is certainly true,
That the future is known to the muse,
And poets are oracles too.
I did but express a desire
To see Catharina at home,...

Tune - "Ca' the ewes to the knowes."


Chorus

Ca' the ewes to the knowes,
Ca' them whare the heather grows,
Ca' them whare the burnie rowes,
My bonnie dearie!

I.
...

I.

Ca' the yowes to the knowes,
Ca' them whare the heather growes,
Ca' them whare the burnie rowes -
My bonnie dearie!
Hark the mavis' evening sang
Sounding Cluden's woods amang!...

I.

Misty are the far-off hills
And misty are the near;
Purple hazes dimly lie
Veiling hill and field and sky,
Marshes where the hylas cry,
Like a myriad bills
Piping, "Spring is here!"...

While he is mark'd by vision clear

Who fathoms Nature's treasures,
The man may follow, void of fear,

Who her proportions measures.

Though for one mortal, it is true,
...