Works

When I go up through the mowing field,
The headless aftermath,
Smooth-laid like thatch with the heavy dew,
Half closes the garden path.

And when I come to the garden ground,...

The brook that down the valley
So musically drips,
Flowed never half so brightly
As the light laugh from her lips.

Her face was like the lily,
Her heart was like the rose,...

One morning of the first sad Fall,
Poor Adam and his bride
Sat in the shade of Eden's wall,
But on the outer side.

She, blushing in her fig-leaf suit
For the chaste garb of old;...

"Some are born with a wooden spoon in their mouths,
and some with a golden ladle." GOLDSMITH.

"Some are born with tin rings in their noses, and
with silver ones." SILVERSMITH.
...

'Non multo post, Gengulphus, in domo sua dormiens, occisus est a quodam clerico qui cum uxore sua adulterare solebat. Cujus corpus dum in fereto in sepulturam portaretur, multi infirmi de tactu sanati sunt.'

...

'Statim sacerdoti apparuit diabolus in specie puell pulchritudinis mir, et ecce Divus, fide catholica et cruce et aqua benedicta armatus, venit, et aspersit aquam in nomine Sanct et Individu Trinitatis, quam, quasi ardentem, di...

It's up and away from our work to-day,
For the breeze sweeps over the down;
And it's hey for a game where the gorse blossoms flame,
And the bracken is bronzing to brown....

The trees bend down along the stream,
Where anchored swings my tiny boat.
The day is one to drowse and dream
And list the thrush's throttling note.
When music from his bosom bleeds...

One day, little Albert Ramsbottom
To see 'ow much money 'e'd got
Stuck a knife in 'is money-box slot 'ole
And fiddled and fished out the lot.

It amounted to fifteen and fourpence...

On young Albert Ramsbottom's birthday
His parents asked what he'd like most;
He said to see t' Tower of London
And gaze upon Anne Boleyn's ghost.

They thowt this request were unusual...

Albert were what you'd call "thwarted".
He had long had an ambition, which...
Were to save up and go to Australia,
The saving up that were the hitch.

He'd a red money box on the pot shelf,...

Jonas Keene thought his lot a hard one
Because his children were all failures.
But I know of a fate more trying than that:
It is to be a failure while your children are successes....

You've 'eard 'ow young Albert Ramsbottom
At the zoo up at Blackpool one year
With a stick with an 'orse's 'ead 'andle
Gave a lion a poke in the ear?

The name of the lion was Wallace,...

When Eve had led her lord away,
And Cain had killed his brother,
The stars and flowers, the poets say,
Agreed with one another.

To cheat the cunning tempter's art,
And teach the race its duty,...

So spake the voice: and as with a single life
Instinct, the whole mass, fierce, irretainable,
Down on that unsuspecting host swept;
Down, with the fury of winds, that all night...

White ibis/blue crane,
the arch of wings
in full sail over leafy barques
a wise stork scanning water
like the Disney character,
conductor on his train
with eye-glasses
& stop watch.
...

Not long the living weep above their dead,
And you will grieve, Admetus, but not long.
The winter's silence in these desolate halls
Will break with April's laughter on your lips;...

I lift my heart as spring lifts up
A yellow daisy to the rain;
My heart will be a lovely cup
Altho' it holds but pain.

For I shall learn from flower and leaf
That color every drop they hold,...

One's ardour, Nature, makes you bright,
One finds within you mourning, grief!
What speaks to one of tombs and death
Says to the other, Splendour! Life!

Mystical Hermes, help to me,...

FROM ALCIPHRON AT ALEXANDRIA TO CLEON AT ATHENS.


Well may you wonder at my flight
From those fair Gardens in whose bowers
Lingers whate'er of wise and bright,
Of Beauty's smile or Wisdom's light,...