Works

I sing the birth was born tonight,
The Author both of life and light;
The angels so did sound it,
And like the ravished shepherds said,
Who saw the light, and were afraid,...

Honour to you who sit
Near to the well of wit,
And drink your fill of it!

Glory and worship be
To you, sweet Maids, thrice three,
Who still inspire me;

And teach me how to sing...

O you the virgins nine!
That do our souls incline
To noble discipline!
Nod to this vow of mine.
Come, then, and now inspire
My viol and my lyre
With your eternal fire,
And make me one entire...

Lie in my arms, Ailsie, my bairn,--
Lie in my arms and dinna greit;
Long time been past syn I kenned you last,
But my harte been allwais the same, my swete.

Ailsie, I colde not say you ill,...

It worries me to beat the band
To hear folks say our lives is grand;
Wish they'd try some one-night stand.
Ain't it awful, Mabel?

Nothin' ever seems to suit,
The manager's an awful brute;...

Oh, it's dreadful to think in a country like this
With its chances for work, and enjoyment
That a man like McGuinness was certain to miss
Whenever he tried for employment.
...

A just man's like a rock that turns the wrath
Of all the raging waves into a froth.

(P McD)


We waited for him, and the anxious days
Melted to years and floated slowly by
We spoke of him kind words of lofty praise,
Of yearning love and tender sympathy.
...

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,...

Translated from the Spanish


Francesca.

Crush'd and throng'd are all the places
In our amphitheatre,
'Midst a sea of swarming faces
I can yet distinguish her;...

In the days that are gone, by this sweet-flowing water,
Two lovers reclined in the shade of a tree;
She was the mountain-king's rosy-lipped daughter,
The brave warrior-chief of the valley was he....

But yesterday the earth drank like a child
With eager thirst the autumn rain.
Or like a wistful bride who waits the hour
Of love's mysterious bliss and pain.
And now the Spring is here with yearning eyes;...

My noble, lovely, little Peggy,
Let this my First Epistle beg ye,
At dawn of morn, and close of even,
To lift your heart and hands to Heaven.
In double duty say your prayer:...

Since hired for life, thy servile Muse must sing
Successive conquests and a glorious King;
Must of a man immortal vainly boast,
And bring him laurels whatsoe'er they cost,...

Occasioned by the Death of the Right Hon. Joseph Addison, Esq., 1719.


--Tu nunc eris alter ab illo.

VIRG.


O long with me in Oxford groves confin'd,...

AN ODE, IN HONOUR OF ST CECILIA'S DAY.


'Twas at the royal feast, for Persia won
By Philip's warlike son:
Aloft in awful state
The godlike hero sate
On his imperial throne:...

Why was I not devoured by self-contempt,
And rotted down by indifference
And impotent revolt like Indignation Jones?
Why, with all of my errant steps
Did I miss the fate of Willard Fluke?...

Brook, of the listening grass,
Brook of the sun-fleckt wings,
Brook of the same wild way and flickering spell!
Must you begone? Will you forever pass,
After so many years and dear to tell?--...

White in the moonlight,
Wet with dew,
We have known the languor
Of being two.

We have been weary
As children are,
When over them, radiant,
A stooping star,
...

'Tis a yarn I heard of a new-chum 'trap'
On the edge of the Never-Never,
Where the dead men lie and the black men lie,
And the bushman lies for ever.
'Twas the custom still with the local blacks...