Works

The Danann children laugh, in cradles of wrought gold,
And clap their hands together, and half close their eyes,
For they will ride the North when the ger-eagle flies,...

Sleep, sleep, beauty bright,
Dreaming in the joys of night;
Sleep, sleep; in thy sleep
Little sorrows sit and weep.

Sweet babe, in thy face
Soft desires I can trace,...

That crazed girl improvising her music.
Her poetry, dancing upon the shore,

Her soul in division from itself
Climbing, falling She knew not where,
Hiding amid the cargo of a steamship,...

I hold that when a person dies
His soul returns again to earth;
Arrayed in some new flesh-disguise
Another mother gives him birth.
With sturdier limbs and brighter brain...

That I should live and look with open eyes
I count as half my claim to Paradise.
I have not crept beneath cathedral arches,
But bathed in streams beneath the silver larches;
...

How often have the critics, trained
To look upon the sky
Through telescopes securely chained,
Forgot the naked eye.

Within the compass of their glass
Each smallest star they knew,...

We read of kings and gods that kindly took
A pitcher fill'd with water from the brook ;
But I have daily tender'd without thanks
Rivers of tears that overflow their banks....

An hour ago when the wind blew high
At my lady's window a red leaf beat.
Then dropped at her door, where, passing by,
She carelessly trod it under her feet.

I have taken it out of the dust and dirt,...

Lord, hear my discontent: all blank I stand,
A mirror polished by thy hand;
Thy sun's beams flash and flame from me--
I cannot help it: here I stand, there he!
To one of them I cannot say,...

Oh, there are eyes that he can see,
And hands to make his hands rejoice,
But to my lover I must be
Only a voice.

Oh, there are breasts to bear his head,
And lips whereon his lips can lie,...

My forest brave, my Red-skin love, farewell;
We may not meet to-morrow; who can tell
What mighty ills befall our little band,
Or what you'll suffer from the white man's hand?...

In our dainty little kitchen,
Where my aproned wife is queen
Over all the tin-pan people,
In a realm exceeding clean,
Oft I like to loiter, watching
While she mixes things for tea;...

I have sipped, with drooping lashes,
Dreamy draughts of Verzenay;
I have flourished brandy-smashes
In the wildest sort of way;
I have joked with "Tom and Jerry"
Till wee hours ayont the twal' -...

Where are they all departed,
The loved ones of my youth,
Those emblems white of purity,
Sweet innocence and truth?
When day-light drives the darkness,
When evening melts to night,...

I knew a little boy, not very long ago,
Who was as bright and happy as any boy you know.
He had an only fault, and you will all agree
That from a fault like this a boy himself might free.
...

The present Lord Kenyon (the Peer who writes letters,
For which the waste-paper folks much are his debtors)
Hath one little oddity well worth reciting,
Which puzzleth observers even more than his writing....

I heard such a curious story
Of Santa Claus: once, so they say,
He set out to see what people were kind,
Before he took presents their way.
'This year I will give but to givers,...

Prologue

I heard an angel speak last night,
And he said "Write!
Write a Nation's curse for me,
And send it over the Western Sea."

I faltered, taking up the word:
"Not so, my lord!...

A curse upon each king who leads his state,
No matter what his plea, to this foul game,
And may it end his wicked dynasty,
And may he die in exile and black shame.
...

The Text.--The earliest complete text, here given, was printed by William Copland between 1548 and 1568: there are extant two printed fragments, one printed by John Byddell in 1536, and the other in a type older than Copland's....