"Sixpence a week," says the girl to her lover, "Aunt used to bring me, for she could confide In me alone, she vowed. 'Twas to cover The cost of her headstone when she died. And that was a year ago last June;...
"Would it had been the man of our wish!" Sighs her mother. To whom with vehemence she In the wedding-dress the wife to be - "Then why were you so mollyish As not to insist on him for me!"...
"I'll tell being past all praying for - Then promptly die . . . He was out at the war, And got some scent of the intimacy That was under way between her and me;...
We are always saying "Good-bye, good-bye!" In work, in playing, In gloom, in gaying: At many a stage Of pilgrimage From youth to age We say, "Good-bye, Good-bye!" ...
So there sat they, The estranged two, Thrust in one pew By chance that day; Placed so, breath-nigh, Each comer unwitting Who was to be sitting In touch close by.
Sitting on the bridge Past the barracks, town and ridge, At once the spirit seized us To sing a song that pleased us - As "The Fifth" were much in rumour; It was "Whilst I'm in the humour,...
I think of the slope where the rabbits fed, Of the periwinks' rockwork lair, Of the fuchsias ringing their bells of red - And the something else seen there. ...
Sing, Ballad-singer, raise a hearty tune; Make me forget that there was ever a one I walked with in the meek light of the moon When the day's work was done.
They crush together - a rustling heap of flesh - Of more than flesh, a heap of souls; and then They part, enmesh, And crush together again, Like the pink petals of a too sanguine rose...
So zestfully canst thou sing? And all this indignity, With God's consent, on thee! Blinded ere yet a-wing By the red-hot needle thou, I stand and wonder how So zestfully thou canst sing! ...
"Awake! I'm off to cities far away," I said; and rose, on peradventures bent. The chimes played "Life's a Bumper!" on that day To the measure of my walking as I went:...
He often would ask us That, when he died, After playing so many To their last rest, If out of us any Should here abide, And it would not task us, We would with our lutes Play over him...
The church flings forth a battled shade Over the moon-blanched sward; The church; my gift; whereto I paid My all in hand and hoard: Lavished my gains With stintless pains...