Works

Good fellows are laughing and drinking
(To-night no heart should grieve),
But I am of old days thinking,
Alone, on Christmas Eve.
Old memories fast are springing
To life again; old rhymes...

Ghosts walk the Earth, that rise not from the grave.
The Dead Past hath its living dead. We see
All suddenly, at times, and shudder then,
Their faces pale, and sad accusing eyes.
...

O the Queen may keep her golden
Crown and sceptre of command!
I would give them both twice over
To be King of Babyland.

Sure, it is a wondrous country
Where the beanstalks grow apace,...

Once a poet, long ago,
Wrote a song as void of art
As the songs that children know,
And as pure as a child's heart.

With a sigh he threw it down,
Saying, 'This will never shed...

We bought a volume of Anacreon,
Defaced, mishandled, little to admire,
And yet its rusty clasps kept guard upon
The sweetest songs, the songs of young desire
Like that great song once sung by Solomon.
...

The pale discrowned stacks of maize,
Like spectres in the sun,
Stand shivering nigh Avonaise,
Where all is dead and gone.

The sere leaves make a music vain,
With melancholy chords;...

On a golden dawn in the dawn sublime
Of years ere the stars had ceased to sing,
Beautiful out of the sea-deeps cold
Aphrodite arose, the Flower of Time,
That, dear till the day of her blossoming,...

The sun burns fiercely down the skies;
The sea is full of flashing eyes;
The waves glide shoreward serpentwise

And fawn with foamy tongues on stark
Gray rocks, each sharp-toothed as a shark,...

When the sap runs up the tree.
And the vine runs o'er the wall,
When the blossom draws the bee,
From the forest comes a call,
Wild, and clear, and sweet, and strange,
Many-tongued and murmuring...

Spellbound by a sweet fantasy
At evenglow I stand
Beside an opaline strange sea
That rings a sunset land.

The rich lights fade out one by one,
And, like a peony...

The curtain rose, the play began,
The limelight on the gay garbs shone;
Yet carelessly I gazed upon
The painted players, maid and man,
As one with idle eyes who sees
The marble figures on a frieze....

A horseman on a hilltop green
Drew rein, and wound his horn;
So bright he looked he might have been
The Herald of the Morn.

His steed was of the sovran strain
In Fancy's meadows bred,...

Half waking and half dreaming,
While starry lamps hung low
I saw a vision splendid
Upon the darkness glow.

The Capital Australian,
With waving banners plumed
A shining flower of marble...

I pity him who has not swung
The Thyrsus in the air,
And followed Bacchus, blithe and young,
"With vine-leaves in his hair;
And heard the Maenads sing,
And the mad cymbals ring.
...

Bouquet said: 'My floral ring
The homage of a heart encloses,
Whose thoughts to you go worshipping
In perfume from my blushing roses.'

Bracelet said: 'My rubies red,...

When trees in Spring
Are blossoming
My lady wakes
From dreams whose light
Made dark days bright,
For their sweet sakes.

Yet in her eyes
A shadow lies
Of bygone mirth;...

Camilla calls me heartless: hence you see
Logic in love has little part.
How can I otherwise than heartless be
Seeing Camilla has my heart?

Having certain cares to drown,
To the sea I took them down:

And I threw them in the wave,
That engulfed them like a grave.

Swiftly then I plied the oar
With a light heart to the shore.
...

O day, the crown and crest of all the year!
Thou comest not to us amid the snows,
But midmost of the reign of the red rose;
Our hearts have not yet lost the ancient cheer...

By his side, whose days are past,
Lay bow and quiver!
And his eyes that stare aghast
Close, with a shiver.
God nor man from Death, at last,
Love may deliver.
...