Works

The great man came to the country place,
To preach to farmers sturdy;
He said: "I'm in my happiest vein,
I'll be eloquent and wordy."

"Not often a great man like myself...

Though long, long leagues of land and sea
Stretch out between Braemar and me,
I'll win home late or soon,
Will take the old familiar way
Past Isla Glen, up bold Glenshee,...

The harvest sun lay hot and strong
On waving grain and grain in sheaf,
On dusty highway stretched along,
On hill and vale, on stalk and leaf.

The wind which stirred the tasseled corn...

When we were children, long ago,
And crept to bed at close of day,
With backward glance and footstep slow,
Though all aweary with our play,
Do you remember how the room -...

J. Thomas Gordon left home one day,
Left home for good and all -
A boy has a right to have his own way
When he's nearly six foot tall;
At least, this is what J. Thomas thought,
And in his own young eyes...

O the hills of purple heather,
And the skies so warm and gray!
O the shimmer of the sea-mist
In the sea-wind far away!
O the calling of the torrent,
Sweeping down Ben Vorlich's side,...

If but one spark of honest zeal
Flashes to life within his breast -
A feeble, flick'ring spark at best;
If for a moment he doth feel
A dim desire to throw aside
The bonds that idleness has wrought,...

Did you send your song to the gates of gold
In the days of long ago?
A song of sweetness and gladness untold,
Till fain was my lady to have and to hold -
Ah! my lady did not know.
...

TO E. S. R.


The new year coming to us with swift feet
Is the King's gift,
And all that in it lies
Will make our lives more rounded and complete.
It may be laughter,...

He would go, they could not keep him, for he came of fighting stock;
Though his widowed mother pleaded, he was firm as any rock.
Well he loved the patient woman who had nursed him on her breast,...

'Tis noon, the meadow stretches in the sun,
And every little spear of grass uplifts its slimness to the glow
To let the heavy-laden bees pass out.

A stream comes at a snail's pace through the gloom...

It's the lonesomest house you ever saw,
This big gray house where I stay.
I don't call it living at all, at all,
Since my mother's gone away.

Only four weeks now - it seems a year -...

O life has its seasons joyous and drear,
Its summer sun and its winter snow,
But the fairest of all, I tell you, dear,
Was the sweet old spring of the long ago -
The ever and ever so long ago -
...

My Marjorie doth hold in her white hands
A spray of lilies plucked below the brook
Where the old ruin of a chapel stands -
A ruin tenanted by many a nook,
And all the grayness of it hid from sight...

As "Peace on earth!" the glad world sings one glorious Christmas morn,
"Peace, peace on earth! Good-will to men! Peace, peace! the Christ is born!"
As through the courts, the wondrous courts, of heaven hosannas ring,...

Down in the mullein meadow
The lusty thistle springs,
The butterflies go criss-cross,
The lonesome catbird sings,

The alderbush is flaunting
Her blossoms white as snow -...

There's a thing we love to think of when the summer days are long,
And the summer winds are blowing, and the summer sun is strong,
When the orchards and the meadows throw their fragrance on the air,...

Joe lives on the farm, and Sam lives in the city,
I haven't a daughter at all - more's the pity,
For girls, to my mind, are much nicer and neater;
Not such workers as boys, but cuter and sweeter....

There's no garden like an orchard,
Nature shows no fairer thing
Than the apple trees in blossom
In these late days o' the spring.

Here the robin redbreast's nesting,...

One summer's morning I heard a lark
Singing to heaven, a sweet-throated bird;
One winter's night I was glad in the dark
Because of the wondrous song I had heard.

The joy of life, I have heard you say,...