Works

Long vast shapes... cooled and flushed through with darkness....
Lidless windows
Glazed with a flashy luster
From some little pert cafe chirping up like a sparrow.
And down among iron guts
Piled silver...

Bright was the summer sky, the Mornings gay,
And Jane was young and chearful as the Day.
Not yet to Love but Mirth she paid her vows;
And Echo mock'd her as she call'd her Cows....

Wandering at morn,
Emerging from the night, from gloomy thoughts, thee in my thoughts,
Yearning for thee, harmonious Union! thee, Singing Bird divine!...

Wansfell! this Household has a favoured lot,
Living with liberty on thee to gaze,
To watch while Morn first crowns thee with her rays,
Or when along thy breast serenely float...

Who's there? who's there? who was it tried
To force the entrance I've denied?
An 'twere a friend, I'd gladly borne it,
But no--'twas Want! I could have sworn it.
I heard thy voice, old witch, I know thee!...

Where have they gone to - the little girls
With natural manners and natural curls;
Who love their dollies and like their toys,
And talk of something besides the boys?

Little old women in plenty I find,...

"War against Babylon!" shout we around,
Be our banners through earth unfurled;
Rise up, ye nations, ye kings, at the sound--
"War against Babylon!" shout thro' the world!...

Though poor and in trouble I wander alone,
With rebel cockade in my hat,
Though friends may desert me, and kindred disown,
My country will never do that!
You may sing of the Shamrock, the Thistle, the rose,...

Through the sunshine, and through the rain
Of these changing days of mist and splendour,
I see the face of a year-old pain
Looking at me with a smile half tender.
...

Blood, hatred, appetite and apathy,
The sodden many and the struggling strong,
Who care not now though for another wrong
Another myriad innocents should die.
At candid savagery or oily lie...

Was, Is, and Yet-to-Be
Were chatting over a cup of tea.

In tarnished finery smelling of must,
Was talked of people long turned to dust;

Of titles and honours and high estate,...

I heard their young hearts crying
Loveward above the glancing oar
And heard the prairie grasses sighing:
No more, return no more!

O hearts, O sighing grasses,...

Mark how the feathered tenants of the flood,
With grace of motion that might scarcely seem
Inferior to angelical, prolong
Their curious pastime! shaping in mid air...

Gold of the tangled wilderness of wattle,
Break in the lone green hollows of the hills,
Flame on the iron headlands of the ocean,
Gleam on the margin of the hurrying rills.
...

Once on a Lord Mayor's Day, in Cheapside, when
Skulls could not well pass through that scum of men,
For quick despatch Skulls made no longer stay
Than but to breathe, and everyone gave way;...

Oh, what's the way to Arcady,
To Arcady, to Arcady;
Oh, what's the way to Arcady,
Where all the leaves are merry?

Oh, what's the way to Arcady?
The spring is rustling in the tree,...

Father and Mother, and Me,
Sister and Auntie say
All the people like us are We,
And every one else is They.
And They live over the sea,
While We live over the way,...

We are accused of terrorism
If we dare to write about the remains of a homeland
That is scattered in pieces and in decay
In decadence and disarray
About a homeland that is searching for a place...

We are not always glad when we smile:
Though we wear a fair face and are gay,
And the world we deceive
May not ever believe
We could laugh in a happier way. -
Yet, down in the deeps of the soul,...

A simple child,
That lightly draws its breath,
And feels its life in every limb,
What should it know of death?

I met a little cottage girl:
She was eight years old, she said;...