Works

Why was Cupid a boy,
And why a boy was he?
He should have been a girl,
For aught that I can see.

For he shoots with his bow,
And the girl shoots with her eye,...

Wide lies Australia! The seas that surround her
Flow for her unity, all states in one.
Never has Custom nor Tyranny bound her,
Never was conquest so peacefully won....

Lord Erskine, at women presuming to rail,
Calls a wife "a tin canister tied to one's tail";
And fair Lady Anne, while the subject he carries on,
Seems hurt at his Lordship's degrading comparison....

In the spring I asked the daisies
If his words were true,
And the clever, clear-eyed daisies
Always knew.

Now the fields are brown and barren,
Bitter autumn blows,...

A sheep lay tethered, and her life
Fast ebbing on the butcher's knife;
The silly flock looked on with dread.
A wild boar, passing them, then said:
"O cowards! cowards! will nought make...

From the regions of the north
Where the waters now are frozen,
Towards the south they issue forth
A flock of wild geese of four dozen.

But when they flew o'er the river Thames...

(Another version of "A Terre".)

To Siegfried Sassoon



My arms have mutinied against me--brutes!
My fingers fidget like ten idle brats,
My back's been stiff for hours, damned hours....

Our Mr. Jiggs was certainly an estimable youth,
A pillar of propriety, a champion of truth;
He had a good position in a warehouse in the town;
A staunch church-worker, he became a layman of renown.
...

There is something about
Death Like love itself!
If with some one with whom you have known passion
And the glow of youthful love,
You also, after years of life
Together, feel the sinking of the fire...

I.
From heavy dreams fair Helen rose,
And eyed the dawning red:
"Alas, my love, thou tarriest long!
O art thou false or dead?"

II.
With gallant Fred'rick's princely power...

WILLIAM.
When I meet Peggy in my morning walk,
She first salutes the morn, then stays to talk:
The biggest secret she will not refuse,
But freely tells me all the village-news;...

Chains may subdue the feeble spirit, but thee,
Tell, of the iron heart! they could not tame!
For thou wert of the mountains; they proclaim
The everlasting creed of liberty....

To Coroner Merival, greetings, but a voice
Dissentient from much that goes the rounds,
Concerning Elenor Murray. Here's my word:
Give men and women freedom, save the land...

Willy said to his sister,
"Please may I go with you?"
She said, "You must behave
Very nicely if you do."

"Please will you take me then
To look at the mill?"
"Yes," she said, "because you are...

O harass not a driven leaf,
Nor stubble dry in wrath pursue;
A life so brief load not with grief,
Nor with thine arrow pierce me through.

The fragile leaf, by tempest tost,...

The rain came down on Boston Town,
And the people said, "Oh, dear!
It's early yet for our annual wet, -
'Twas dry this time last year."

In heavy suits and rubber boots...

Lovers, forget your love,
And list to the love of these,
She a window flower,
And he a winter breeze.
When the frosty window veil
Was melted down at noon,
And the caged yellow bird...

From The Young Astronomer's Poem

I.

AMBITION

Another clouded night; the stars are hid,
The orb that waits my search is hid with them.
Patience! Why grudge an hour, a month, a year,...

Cows suffered in the days of old
For want of water and from cold,
Now of good water they have fill
For it is pumped by the windmill.

No matter how well cows were fed...

Wind rising in the alleys
My spirit lifts in you like a banner streaming free of hot walls.
You are full of unspent dreams....
You are laden with beginnings.......