Works

Just as the dawn of Love was breaking
Across the weary world of grey,
Just as my life once more was waking
As roses waken late in May,
Fate, blindly cruel and havoc-making,...

He never made a fortune, or a noise
In the world where men are seeking after fame;
But he had a healthy brood of girls and boys
Who loved the very ground on which he trod....

(Song of the American Sons of Labour.)


THE SONG.


"O we knew so well, dear Father,
When we answered to your call,
And the Southern Moloch stricken
Shook and tottered to his fall -...

She hears me strike the board and say
That she is under ban
Of all good men and women,
Being mentioned with a man
That has the worst of all bad names;
And thereupon replies...

My grand-dame, vigorous at eighty-one,
Delights in talking of her only son,
My gallant father, long since dead and gone.
'Ah, but he was the lad!'
She says, and sighs, and looks at me askance....

The King call'd forth his first-born, and took him by the hand,
"Come! boy, and see the people you must soon command:

A bold and stalwart nation, dauntless in the fight,...

Smoking lately in my "Funny," as I'm wont, beneath the bank,
Listening to Cam's rippling murmurs thro' the weeds and willows dank,
As I chewed the Cud of fancy, from the water there appeared...

Why didst thou carve thy speech laboriously,
And match and blend thy words with curious art?
For Song, one saith, is but a human heart
Speaking aloud, undisciplined and free....

Father, I bring thee not myself, --
That were the little load;
I bring thee the imperial heart
I had not strength to hold.

The heart I cherished in my own
Till mine too heavy grew,...

THE REAPERS.

So many reapers, Father John,
So many reapers and no little son,
To meet you when the day is done,
With little stiff legs to waddle and run?
Pray you beg, borrow, or steal one son....

You are over there, Father Malloy,
Where holy ground is, and the cross marks every grave,
Not here with us on the hill -
Us of wavering faith, and clouded vision
And drifting hope, and unforgiven sins....

Father of Universal Man,
Where'er in this wide world he roam,
Not known to thee by kith or clan,
Nor height, nor breadth of mental dome,
Nor babbling tongue, nor sounding creed,...

This is our earliest cheese ode. The Ingersoll factory has been removed to Thamesford.

When Father Ranney left the States,
In Canada to try the fates,
He settled down in Dereham,...

'Twas the horse thief, Andy Regan, that was hunted like a dog
By the troopers of the upper Murray side,
They had searched in every gully, they had looked in every log,
But never sight or track of him they spied,...

I.

In Southern sunny clime there is a hallowed tomb,
Where rest the ashes of a minstrel priest;
And soft winds that are laden with a sweet perfume
Their requiems for him have never ceased.

...

IT'S Father's boat we're watching,
Away out on the sea,
She's named the Pretty Polly,
One hundred and ninety three,
Father called her the Polly,
After Mother and me.
...

Looking like Raphael's Perugino, eyes
So slightly, subtly aquiline, as brown
As a buck-eye, amorous, flamed, but lightly dimmed
Through thought of self while sitting for the artist;...

A NEW VERSION BY LEE O. HARRIS AND JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY

"You are old, Father William, and though one would think
All the veins in your body were dry,
Yet the end of your nose is red as a pink;...

"You are old, Father William," the young man said,
"And your hair has become very white;
And yet you incessantly stand on your head,
Do you think, at your age, it is right?"
...

"Yu ban old, Fader Olaf," a young geezer
say, "yure hair it ban whiter sum snow;
Ay lak yu to tal me how yu keep so young.
By Yudas! Ay ant hardly know."

"Ven ay ban a young kid," Fader Olaf he...