Works

'If wishes were horses'--I've heard when a girl--
'If wishes were horses, the beggars would ride'--
If wishes were pheasants, I'd wish with a skirl
Till cooked ones came flying and sat by my side.
...

"Now Merdle--now Colonel--I know you are waiting.
And thinking my talking to eating's a bar,
Still hoping, by tasting, my appetite sating,
Will give you the license to smoke a cigar.
...

I was the milliner
Talked about, lied about,
Mother of Dora,
Whose strange disappearance
Was charged to her rearing.
My eye quick to beauty
Saw much beside ribbons
And buckles and feathers...

They called him Mr. What's-his-name:
From where he was, or why he came,
Or when, or what he found to do,
Nobody in the city knew.

He lived, it seemed, shut up alone
In a low hovel of his own;...

From a town that consists of a church and a steeple,
With three or four houses, and as many people,
There went an Address in great form and good order,
Composed, as 'tis said, by Will Crowe, their Recorder.[1]...

(Died October 8, 1904)



For him, who in a hundred battles stood
Scorning the cannon's mouth,
Grimy with flame and red with foeman's blood,
For thy sweet sake, O South;
...

My child wafts peace.
When I lean over him,
It is not just the smell of soap.

All the people were children wafting peace.
(And in the whole land, not even one...

My country need not change her gown,
Her triple suit as sweet
As when't was cut at Lexington,
And first pronounced "a fit."

Great Britain disapproves "the stars;"
Disparagement discreet, --...

Tune - "The Weaver and his Shuttle, O."


I.

My father was a farmer
Upon the Carrick border, O,
And carefully he bred me,
In decency and order, O;
He bade me act a manly part,...

Tune - "Highland's Lament."


I.

My Harry was a gallant gay,
Fu' stately strode he on the plain:
But now he's banish'd far away,
I'll never see him back again,
O for him back again!...

My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;...

Tune - "To the weavers gin ye go."


I.

My heart was ance as blythe and free
As simmer days were lang,
But a bonnie, westlin weaver lad
Has gart me change my sang....

My lady in her white silk shawl
Is like a lily dim,
Within the twilight of the room
Enthroned and kind and prim.

My lady! Pale gold is her hair.
Until she smiles her face...

Suggested by a popular German melody.




My lady waits!--'Tis now the hour
When morn unbars her gates!--
My vessel glides beneath the tower
Where now my lady waits....

I.

My life is full of weary days,
But good things have not kept aloof,
Nor wander'd into other ways:
I have not lack'd thy mild reproof,
Nor golden largess of thy praise.
...

I

When the sea has devoured the ships,
And the spires and the towers
Have gone back to the hills.
And all the cities
Are one with the plains again.
And the beauty of bronze,...

"Mylo Jones's wife" was all
I heerd, mighty near, last Fall -
Visitun relations down
T'other side of Morgantown!
Mylo Jones's wife she does
This and that, and "those" and "thus"! -...

My paramour was loneliness
And lying by the sea,
Soft songs of sorrow and distress
He did beget in me.

Later another lover came
More meet for my desire,
"Radiant Beauty" was his name;...

My spirit will not haunt the mound
Above my breast,
But travel, memory-possessed,
To where my tremulous being found
Life largest, best.

My phantom-footed shape will go
When nightfall grays...

As purely white as is the drifted snow,
More dazzling fair than summer roses are,
Petalled with rays like a clear rounded star,
When winds pipe chilly, and red sunsets glow,
Your blossoms blow.
...