Works

I sleep and rest, my heart makes moan
Before I am well awake;
"Let me bleed! O let me alone,
Since I must not break!"

For children wake, though fathers sleep
With a stone at foot and at head:...

Seven Watchmen sitting in a tower,
Watching what had come upon mankind,
Showed the Man the Glory and the Power,
And bade him shape the Kingdom to his mind.
"All things on Earth your will shall win you."...

The track that led to Carmody's is choked and overgrown,
The suckers of the stringybark have made the place their own;
The mountain rains have cut the track that once we used to know...

She dwelt among the untrodden ways
Beside the springs of Dove,
Maid whom there were none to praise
And very few to love:

A violet by a mossy stone
Half hidden from the eye!...

Why are the sheoaks forever sighing?
(Sheoaks that sigh when the wind is still),
Why are the dead hopes forever dying?
(Dead hopes that died and are with us still.)
As you make it and what you will.
...

A hungry wolf had thinned the fold,
Safely he refuged on the wold;
And, as in den secure he lay,
The thefts of night regaled his day.
The shepherd's dog, who searched the glen,...

She said as well to me: "Why are you ashamed?
That little bit of your chest that shows between
the gap of your shirt, why cover it up?
Why shouldn't your legs and your good strong thighs...

She sweeps with many-colored brooms,
And leaves the shreds behind;
Oh, housewife in the evening west,
Come back, and dust the pond!

You dropped a purple ravelling in,
You dropped an amber thread;...

She was a Phantom of delight
When first she gleamed upon my sight;
A lovely Apparition, sent
To be a moment's ornament;
Her eyes as stars of Twilight fair;
Like Twilight's, too, her dusky hair;...

Rain on Rahoon falls softly, softly falling,
Where my dark lover lies.
Sad is his voice that calls me, sadly calling,
At grey moonrise.

Love, hear thou
How soft, how sad his voice is ever calling,...

She went as quiet as the dew
From a familiar flower.
Not like the dew did she return
At the accustomed hour!

She dropt as softly as a star
From out my summer's eve;...

"Did you see something within the house
That made me call you before the red sunsetting?
Something that all this common scene endows
With a richened impress there can be no forgetting?"
...

Show me the way that leads to the true life.
I do not care what tempests may assail me,
I shall be given courage for the strife;
I know my strength will not desert or fail me;...

(For the Braille Magazine)


When the outer eye grows dim,
Turns the inner eye to Him,
Who makes darkness light.
Fairer visions you may see,
Live in nobler company,
And in larger liberty,...

The cat runs races with her tail. The dog
Leaps oer the orchard hedge and knarls the grass.
The swine run round and grunt and play with straw,
Snatching out hasty mouthfuls from the stack....

[NOTE. - The following lines were written by request, to be read at a Meeting of the "Girls' Friendly Society."]


What should a maiden be? Pure as the rill,
Ere it has left its first home in the hill;...

Since first Thy Word awaked my heart,
Like new life dawning o'er me,
Where'er I turn mine eyes, Thou art,
All light and love before me.
Naught else I feel, or hear or see--
All bonds of earth I sever--...

I heard - 'twas on a morning, but when it was and where,
Except that well I heard it, I neither know nor care -
I heard, and, oh, the sunlight was shining in the blue,
A little water singing as little waters do....

Sing me a song, O, Wind,
Of musical cadence sweet,
Which in the wood around
Shall often and oft repeat;
Soft as an angel's song
That never can give annoy,
Which in the balmy notes...

Sing--sing--Music was given,
To brighten the gay, and kindle the loving;
Souls here, like planets in Heaven,
By harmony's laws alone are kept moving.
Beauty may boast of her eyes and her cheeks,...