Works

The moon went under a ragged cloud,
The owl cried out of the ruined wall,
Slow and solemn, distinct and loud,
His melancholy call:
Tu-whit, tu-whit, tu-whoo!
Like a creature in a shroud.
...

By the well, where the bullocks go
Silent and blind and slow,
By the field where the young corn dies
In the face of the sultry skies,
They have heard, as the dull Earth hears...

Winds of the summer time what are you saying,
What are ye seeking, and what do you miss?
Locks like the thistledown floating and straying,
Cheeks like the budding rose, tinted to kiss.
...

(Moon Poems for the Children/Fairy-tales for the Children)

The moon's a little prairie-dog.
He shivers through the night.
He sits upon his hill and cries
For fear that I will bite.
...

The dim-winged spirits of the night
Do fear and serve me well.
They creep from out the hedges of
The garden where I dwell.

I wave my arms across the walk.
The troops obey the sign,...

A little girl and a big ugly man
Went down the road. The girl was crying
And asking to go home, but when she ran
He hit her on the head and sent her flying,
And called her a young imp, and said he'd break...

The Moon's a snowball. See the drifts
Of white that cross the sphere.
The Moon's a snowball, melted down
A dozen times a year.

Yet rolled again in hot July
When all my days are done...

O thou whose face hath felt the Winter's wind,
Whose eye has seen the snow-clouds hung in mist
And the black elm tops 'mong the freezing stars,
To thee the spring will be a harvest-time....

The shadows grow and deepen round me,
I feel the deffall in the air;
The muezzin of the darkening thicket,
I hear the night-thrush call to prayer.

The evening wind is sad with farewells,...

I.

Once when the park
Was very dark
I slipped out and went walking;
And heard the trees
To the summer breeze,
And to each other talking.

II.

And I heard them say,...

Maddened by Earth's wrong and evil,
"Lord!" I cried in sudden ire,
"From Thy right hand, clothed with thunder,
Shake the bolted fire!

"Love is lost, and Faith is dying;...

'I muse to-day, in a listless way,
In the gleam of a summer land;
I close my eyes as a lover may
At the touch of his sweetheart's hand,
And I hear these things in the whisperings...

Wondering maiden, so puzzled and fair,
Why dost thou murmur and ponder and stare?
'Why are my eyelids so open and wild?'
Only the better to see with, my child!
Only the better and clearer to view...

Sad man, Sad man, tell me, pray,
What did you see to-day?

I saw the unloved and unhappy old, waiting for slow delinquent death to come;...

They say 'at its a waste o' brass - a nasty habit too, -
A thing 'at noa reight-minded chap wod ivver think to do;
Maybe they're reight;
They say it puts one's brains to sleep, an maks a felly daft, -...

What think you I take my pen in hand to record?
The battle-ship, perfect-model'd, majestic, that I saw pass the offing to-day under full sail?...

What though my voice cease like a moan o' the wind?
Not the less shall I
Cast on this life a kindly eye,
Glad if through its mystery
Faint gleams of love and truth glance o'er my mind.
...

At the golden gates of the visions
I knelt me adown one day;
But sudden my prayer was a silence,
For I heard from the "Far away"
The murmur of many voices
And a silvery censer's sway.
...

That age was older once than now,
In spite of locks untimely shed,
Or silvered on the youthful brow;
That babes make love and children wed.

That sunshine had a heavenly glow,...

Across the sea, along the shore,
In numbers more and ever more,
From lonely hut and busy town,
The valley through, the mountain down,
What was it ye went out to see,
Ye silly folk of Galilee?...