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...

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.
...

See how it flashes,
This grape-blood fine!
Our beards it splashes,
O comrade mine!
Life dust and ashes
Were, wanting wine.

Amontillado
Fires heart and eyes;
Champagne the shadow...

What! Don't you our M'cenas know
The man who started, years ago,
Our Wild Australian Author show?

You don't? Your ignorance sublime
Exceeds - to use a Boston rhyme
The taciturnity of time.
...

There is a saying of renown,
"God made the country, man the town."
Well, everybody to his trade!
But man likes best the thing he made.
The town has little space to spare;...

The wan light of a stormy dawn
Gleamed on a tossing ship:
It was the In Memoriam
Upon a mourning trip.

Wild waves were on the windward bow,
And breakers on the lee;...

All silent is the room,
There is no stir of breath,
Save mine, as in the gloom
I sit alone with Death.

Short life it had, the sweet,
Small babe here lying dead,
With tapers at its feet...

Care is a Poet fine:
He works in shade or shine,
And leaves, you know his sign!
No day without its line.

He writes with iron pen
Upon the brows of men;
Faint lines at first, and then...

They leave us - artists, singers, all
When London calls aloud,
Commanding to her Festival
The gifted crowd.

She sits beside the ship-choked Thames,
Sad, weary, cruel, grand;...