Works

Our Lord Who did the Ox command
To kneel to Judah's King,
He binds His frost upon the land
To ripen it for Spring,
To ripen it for Spring, good sirs,
According to His Word....

Take of English earth as much
As either hand may rightly clutch.
In the taking of it breathe
Prayer for all who lie beneath.
Not the great nor well-bespoke,
But the mere uncounted folk...

R. L. Stevenson - The Muse Among the Motors (1900-1930)


Now there is nothing wrong with me
Except, I think it's called T.B.
And that is why I have to lay
Out in the garden all the day.
...

Lest you should think this story true
I merely mention I
Evolved it lately. 'Tis a most
Unmitigated misstatement.

Now Jones had left his new-wed bride to keep his house in order,...

What is the song the children sing,
When doorway lilacs bloom in Spring,
And the Schools are loosed, and the games are played
That were deadly earnest when Earth was made?...

The first time that Peter denied his Lord
He shrank from the cudgel, the scourge and the cord,
But followed far off to see what they would do,
Till the cock crew,till the cock crew,...

As I left the Halls at Lumley, rose the vision of a comely
Maid last season worshiped dumbly, watched with fervor from afar;
And I wondered idly, blindly, if the maid would greet me kindly....

Where the sober-colored cultivator smiles
On his byles;
Where the cholera, the cyclone, and the crow
Come and go;
Where the merchant deals in indigo and tea,
Hides and ghi;...

"Uncovenanted Mercies" - From "Limits and Renewals" [1930]


Lo! The Wild Cow of the Desert, her yeanling estrayed from her,
Lost in the wind-plaited sand-dunes, athirst in the maze of them....

Cain and Abel were brothers born.
(Koop-la! Come along, cows!)
One raised cattle and one raised corn.
(Koop-la! Come along! Co-hoe!)

And Cain he farmed by the river-side,...

Dellius, that car which, night and day,
Lightnings and thunders arm and scourge,
Tumultuous down the Appian Way,
Be slow to urge.

Though reckless Lydia bid thee fly,
And Telephus o'ertaking jeer,...

I've a head like a concertina: I've a tongue like a button-stick,
I've a mouth like an old potato, and I'm more than a little sick,
But I've had my fun o' the Corp'ral's Guard: I've made the cinders fly,...

I.
If It be pleasant to look on, stalled in the packed serai,
Does not the Young Man try Its temper and pace ere he buy?
If She be pleasant to look on, what does the Young Man say?...

Me that 'ave been what I've been,
Me that 'ave gone where I've gone,
Me that 'ave seen what I've seen,
'Ow can I ever take on
With awful old England again,
An' 'ouses both sides of the street,...

Plain Tales From the Hills

Look, you have cast out Love! What Gods are these
You bid me please?
The Three in One, the One in Three? Not so!
To my own Gods I go....

When the cabin port-holes are dark and green
Because of the seas outside;
When the ship'goes wop (with a wiggle between)
And the steward falls into the soup-tureen,
And the trunks begin to slide;...

Unto whose use the pregnant suns are poised,
With idiot moons and stars retracting stars?
Creep thou between, thy coming's all unnoised.
Heaven hath her high, as Earth her baser, wars...

The doors were wide, the story saith,
Out of the night came the patient wraith.
He might not speak, and he could not stir
A hair of the Baron's minniver.
Speechless and strengthless, a shadow thin,...

'Less you want your toes trod off you'd better get back at once,
For the bullocks are walking two by two,
The byles are walking two by two,
And the elephants bring the guns.
Ho! Yuss!...

So we settled it all when the storm was done
As comfy as comfy could be;
And I was to wait in the barn, my dears,
Because I was only three;
And Teddy would run to the rainbow's foot...