Works

And can this be my own world?
'Tis all gold and snow,
Save where scarlet waves are hurled
Down yon gulf below.
'Tis thy world, 'tis my world,
City, mead, and shore,
For he that hath his own world...

We went by ways of bygone days,
Up mountain heights of story,
Where lost in vague, historic haze,
Tradition, crowned with battle-bays,
Sat 'mid her ruins hoary.

Where wing to wing the eagles cling...

Out of the noise of tired people working,
Harried with thoughts of war and lists of dead,
His beauty met me like a fresh wind blowing,
Clean boyish beauty and high-held head....

"Gabble-gabble,... brethren,... gabble-gabble!"
My window frames forest and heather.
I hardly hear the tuneful babble,
Not knowing nor much caring whether
The text is praise or exhortation,...

These are our regulations,
There's just one law for the Scout
And the first and the last, and the present and the past,
And the future and the perfect is "Look out!"
I, thou and he, look out!...

Ah me! in ages far away,
The good, the heavenly land,
Though unbeheld, quite near them lay,
And men could understand.

The dead yet find it, who, when here,
Did love it more than this;...

It's out and away at break of day,
To frolic and run in the sun-sweet hay:
It's up and out with a laugh and shout
Let the old world know that a boy's about.
...

Dear mother, dry those flowing tears,
They grieve me much to see;
And calm, oh! calm thine anxious fears -
What dost thou dread for me?
'Tis true that tempests wild oft ride
Above the stormy main,...

'Tis fine to play
In the fragrant hay,
And romp on the golden load;
To ride old Jack
To the barn and back,
Or tramp by a shady road.
To pause and drink,
At a mossy brink;...

When I was but a little lad
One thing I could not bear,
It was to stand at mother's knee
And have her comb my hair.

They didn't keep boys' hair as short
As it's kept now-a-days,...

Dust on the page, from these forgetful years!
I brush it off, to see the fading date
Written in boyish hand; to find through tears
The lad's dear name, inscribed with all the state...

In the old days (a custom laid aside
With breeches and cocked hats) the people sent
Their wisest men to make the public laws.
And so, from a brown homestead, where the Sound...

No martyr-blood hath ever flowed in vain! -
No patriot bled, that proved not freedom's gain!
Those tones, which despots heard with fear and dread
From living lips, ring sterner from the dead;...

To-day, from each and all, a breath of prayer, a pulse of thought,
To memory of Him, to birth of Him.

(In Springfield, Illinois)



It is portentous, and a thing of state
That here at midnight, in our little town
A mourning figure walks, and will not rest,...

The noontide sun streamed brightly down
Moriah's mountain crest,
The golden blaze of his vivid rays
Tinged sacred Jordan's breast;
While towering palms and flowerets sweet,...

'Midst the men and things which will
Haunt an old man's memory still,
Drollest, quaintest of them all,
With a boy's laugh I recall
Good old Abram Morrison.

When the Grist and Rolling Mill...

When snow is here, and the trees look weird,
And the knuckled twigs are gloved with frost;
When the breath congeals in the drover's beard,
And the old pathway to the barn is lost;...

As aw passed Wit'orth chapel 'twor just five o'clock,
Aw'd mi can full o' teah, an a bundle o' jock;
An aw thowt th' bit o' bacca aw puffed on mi way
Wor sweeter nor ivver aw'd known it that day....

Come, essay a sprightly measure,
Tuned to some light song of pleasure.
Maidens, let your brows be crowned
As we foot this merry round.

From the ground a voice is singing,...