Works

I sat at dinner in my prime,
And glimpsed my face in the sideboard-glass,
And started as if I had seen a crime,
And prayed the ghastly show might pass.

Wrenched wrinkled features met my sight,...

They loiter round the Dock that holds yon Ship
Shuddering at the dark pool's defiled lip
From springing bows to foam-deriding stern;
They have left her, and await her call "Return!"...

I thought myself indeed secure,
So fast the door, so firm the lock;
But, lo! he toddling comes to lure
My parent ear with timorous knock.

My heart were stone could it withstand...

There is no escape by the river,
There is no flight left by the fen;
We are compassed about by the shiver
Of the night of their marching men.
Give a cheer!
For our hearts shall not give way....

This is the truth as I see it, my dear,
Out in the wind and the rain:
They who have nothing have little to fear,
Nothing to lose or to gain.

Here by the road at the end o' the year,...

I (OLD STYLE)

Our songs went up and out the chimney,
And roused the home-gone husbandmen;
Our allemands, our heys, poussettings,
Our hands-across and back again,...

The lark shall never come to say
To a gombeen-man, "Good day,"
And the lark shall never cry
To a kindly man, "Good-bye."

See the greedy gombeen-man
Taking everything he can...

One bright star in the firmament,
One wild rose in the dew,
And a girl, like the sparkling two,
Following the cows that went
Through roses wet with dew,
Roses, two by two.
...

On such a day the shrunken stream
Spends its last water and runs dry;
Clouds like far turrets in a dream
Stand baseless in the burning sky.
On such a day at every rod
The toilers in the hay-field halt,...

Oh, dim and wan came in the dawn,
And gloomy closed the day;
The killdee whistled among the weeds,
The heron flapped in the river reeds,
And the snipe piped far away.
...

Who loves the white-thorn tree,
And the river running free?
There a maiden stood with me
In Summer weather.
Near a cottage far from town,
While the sun went brightly down...

Scarco d' un' importuna.


Freed from a burden sore and grievous band,
Dear Lord, and from this wearying world untied,
Like a frail bark I turn me to Thy side,...

I.

A death-like dew was falling
On the herbs and the grassy ground;
The stars to their bournes prest forward,
Night cloaked the hills around.

He thought of a night long past, -...

The parting of King David and Barzillai the Gileadite after the revolt of Absolam.

A little way farther to guide thee I go
Where the footing is firm and the waters are low;...

[One of the Bearers soliloquizes:]

. . . Room in your heart for him, O Mother Earth,
Who loved each flower and leaf that made you fair,
And sang your praise in verses manifold...

"For behold, the kingdom of God is within you."


Thy kingdom here?
Lord, can it be?
Searching and seeking everywhere
For many a year,
"Thy kingdom come" has been my prayer....

Tug at the net,
Haul at the net,
Strip off the quivering fish;
Hid in the mist
The winds whist,
Is like my heart's wish.

What is your wish,
Your heart's wish?...

Before the golden gate she stands,
With drooping head, with idle hands
Loose-clasped, and bent beneath the weight
Of unseen woe. Too late, too late!
Those carved and fretted,
Starred, resetted...

There paused to shut the door
A fellow called the Wind.
With mystery before,
And reticence behind,

A portal waits me too
In the glad house of spring,
One day I shall pass through...

A transient day,
A troubled night,
The swift decay,
The certain blight,
And death and dust; -

And are these all? -
Nay: those are past;
And she who sleeps
Shall wake at last...