Works

In powdered wig and buckled shoe,
Knee-breeches, coat and waistcoat gay,
The wealthy squire rode forth to woo
Upon a first of April day.

He would forget his lofty birth,...

A prayer of love, O Father!
A fair and flowery way
Life stretches out before these
On this their marriage day.
O pour Thy choicest blessing,
Withhold no gift of Thine,...

"Poet by the grace of God."


You sing of winter gray and chill,
Of silent stream and frozen lake,
Of naked woods, and winds that wake
To shriek and sob o'er vale and hill.
...

The Allans o' Airlie they set muckle store
On ancestry, acres, and siller,
Nor cared to remember the good days of yore,
Nor grandfather Allan, the miller -
The honest old miller.
...

'Tis woman rules the whole world still,
Though faults the critics say she has;
She smiles her smile and works her will -
'Tis just a little way she has.

From the little bald head to the two little feet,
You are winsome, and bonnie, and tender, and sweet,
But not for this do I love you.

You're wilful, cajoling, not fond of restraint,...

"Life's day is too brief," he said at dawn,
"I would it were ten times longer,
For great tasks wait for me further on."
At noonday the wish was stronger.

His place was in the thick of the strife,...

What is the greatest work of all?
The work that comes every day;
The work that waits us on ev'ry hand
Is work that, for us, is truly grand,
And the love of work is our pay.
...

O freshness, living freshness of a day
In June! Spring scarce has gotten out of sight,
And not a stain of wear shows on the grass
Beneath our feet, and not a dead leaf calls,...

One lesson let us bear in mind -
Be very gentle with our own,
Be to their faults a little blind,
Nor wound them by a look or tone.

Put self behind! turn tender eyes;...

"And behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster box of ointment and stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with ...

Your presence is a psalm of praise,
And as its measure grandly rings
God's finger finds my heart and plays
A te deum upon its strings.
I never see you but I feel
That I in gratitude must kneel.
...

I heard you singing in the grove,
My Lady Nightingale;
The thirsty leaves were drinking dew,
And all the sky was pale.

A silence - clear as bells of peace
Your song thrilled on the air,...

O Radiance of life's morning! O gold without alloy!
O love that lives through all the years! O full, O perfect joy!

The hills of earth touch heaven, the heaven of blue and gold,...

Though long, long leagues of land and sea
Stretch out between Braemar and me,
I'll win home late or soon,
Will take the old familiar way
Past Isla Glen, up bold Glenshee,...

J. Thomas Gordon left home one day,
Left home for good and all -
A boy has a right to have his own way
When he's nearly six foot tall;
At least, this is what J. Thomas thought,
And in his own young eyes...

Did you send your song to the gates of gold
In the days of long ago?
A song of sweetness and gladness untold,
Till fain was my lady to have and to hold -
Ah! my lady did not know.
...

He would go, they could not keep him, for he came of fighting stock;
Though his widowed mother pleaded, he was firm as any rock.
Well he loved the patient woman who had nursed him on her breast,...

'Tis noon, the meadow stretches in the sun,
And every little spear of grass uplifts its slimness to the glow
To let the heavy-laden bees pass out.

A stream comes at a snail's pace through the gloom...

It's the lonesomest house you ever saw,
This big gray house where I stay.
I don't call it living at all, at all,
Since my mother's gone away.

Only four weeks now - it seems a year -...