Identity

Tune - "John Anderson, my jo."


I.

    How cruel are the parents
        Who riches only prize,
    And, to the wealthy booby,
        Poor woman sacrifice!
    Meanwhile the hapless daughter
        Has but a choice of strife;
    To shun a tyrant father's hate,
        Become a wretched wife.

II.

    The ravening hawk pursuing,
        The trembling dove thus flies,
    To shun impelling ruin
        Awhile her pinions tries:
    Till of escape despairing,
        No shelter or retreat,
    She trusts the ruthless falconer,
        And drops beneath his feet!

The witch that came (the withered hag)
To wash the steps with pail and rag,
Was once the beauty Abishag,

The picture pride of Hollywood.
Too many fall from great and good
For you to doubt the likelihood.

Die early and avoid the fate.
Or if predestined to die late,
Make up your mind to die in state.

Make the whole stock exchange your own!
If need be occupy a throne,
Where nobody can call you crone.

Some have relied on what they knew;
Others on simply being true.
What worked for them might work for you.

No memory of having starred
Atones for later disregard,
Or keeps the end from being hard.

Better to go down dignified
With boughten friendship at your side
Than none at all. Provide, provide!

Here’s a meadow full of sunshine
Ripe grasses lush and high;
There’s a reaper on the roadway,
And a lark hangs in the sky.

There’s a nest of love enclosing
Three little beaks that cry;
The reapers in the meadow
And a lark hangs in the sky.

Here’s a mead all full of summer,
And tragedy goes by
With a knife amongst the grasses,
And a song up in the sky.

"See, here's the workbox, little wife,
    That I made of polished oak."
He was a joiner, of village life;
    She came of borough folk.

He holds the present up to her
As with a smile she nears
And answers to the profferer,
"'Twill last all my sewing years!"

"I warrant it will. And longer too.
'Tis a scantling that I got
Off poor John Wayward's coffin, who
Died of they knew not what.

"The shingled pattern that seems to cease
Against your box's rim
Continues right on in the piece
That's underground with him.

"And while I worked it made me think
Of timber's varied doom;
One inch where people eat and drink,
The next inch in a tomb.

"But why do you look so white, my dear,
And turn aside your face?
You kne...

"He holds a pistol to my head,
Swearing that he will shoot me dead,
If he have not my purse instead,
            The robber!"

"He, with the lash of wealth and power,
Flogs out my heart and flings the dower,
The plundered pittance of his hour,
            The robber!"

"He shakes his serpent tongue that lies,
Wins trust for poisoned sophistries
And stabs me in the dark, and flies,
            The assassin!"

"He pits me in the dreadful fight
Against my fellow. Then he quite
Strips both his victims in the night,
            The assassin!"

    O Thou unknown, Almighty Cause
        Of all my hope and fear?
    In whose dread presence, ere an hour
        Perhaps I must appear!

    If I have wander'd in those paths
        Of life I ought to shun;
    As something, loudly, in my breast,
        Remonstrates I have done;

    Thou know'st that Thou hast formed me,
        With passions wild and strong;
    And list'ning to their witching voice
        Has often led me wrong.

    Where human weakness has come short,
        Or frailty stept aside,
    Do Thou, All-Good! for such thou art,
        In shades of darkness hide.

    Where with intention I have err'd,
        No other plea I have,
    But, Thou art good; and goodness still
        Delighteth to forgi...

Spurn not the nobly born
With love affected,
Nor treat with virtuous scorn
The well connected.
High rank involves no shame -
We boast an equal claim
With him of humble name
To be respected!
Blue blood!    Blue blood!
When virtuous love is sought,
Thy power is naught,
Though dating from the Flood,
Blue blood!

Spare us the bitter pain
Of stern denials,
Nor with low-born disdain
Augment our trials.
Hearts just as pure and fair
May beat in Belgrave Square
As in the lowly air
Of Seven Dials!
Blue blood!    Blue blood!
Of what avail art thou
To serve me now?
Though dating from the Flood,
Blue blood!

A tramp was trampin’ on the road,
The afternoon was warm an’ muggy,
And by-and-by he chanced to meet
A parsin ridin’ in a buggy.
Said he: “As follerers ov the Loard,
To do good offices we oughter!”
An’ from a water-bag he poured,
An’ guv the tramp, a drink er water.

The parsin he went rattlin’ ’ome
To ware his fam-i-lee was thrivin’,
The tramp went on until he met
A bullick-driver, bullick drivin’,
“It’s bilin’ ’ot,” the driver sed
As soon’s the dirty tramp drawed nearer,
And from a little keg he poured,
And giv the tramp a pint of beer, “ah!”

(P.S., The “ah” is meant to stand for the tramp a-drinking ov it.)

I ain’t agin the temperance cause,
Nor yet no advocate ov drinkin’,
I only tells the yarn because,
Well, at the tim...

The fire burns bright
And the hearth is clean swept,
As she likes it kept,
And the lamp is alight.
She is coming to-night.

The wind's east of late.
When she comes, she'll be cold,
So the big chair is rolled
Close up to the grate,
And I listen and wait.

The shutters are fast,
And the red curtains hide
Every hint of outside.
But hark, how the blast
Whistled then as it passed!

Or was it the train?
How long shall I stand,
With my watch in my hand,
And listen in vain
For the wheels in the lane?

Hark!    A rumble I hear
(Will the wind not be still?),
And it comes down the hill,
And it grows on the ear,
And now it is near.

Quick, a fresh log to burn!
Run and open the door,
Hold a lam...

"To the winds give our banner!
Bear homeward again!"
Cried the Lord of Acadia,
Cried Charles of Estienne;
From the prow of his shallop
He gazed, as the sun,
From its bed in the ocean,
Streamed up the St. John.

O'er the blue western waters
That shallop had passed,
Where the mists of Penobscot
Clung damp on her mast.
St. Saviour had looked
On the heretic sail,
As the songs of the Huguenot
Rose on the gale.

The pale, ghostly fathers
Remembered her well,
And had cursed her while passing,
With taper and bell;
But the men of Monhegan,
Of Papists abhorred,
Had welcomed and feasted
The heretic Lord.

They had loaded his shallop
With dun-fish and ball,
With stores for his larder,
And steel for his ...

“Where are you going with your horse and bike,
And the townsfolk still at rest?
Where are you going, with your swag and pack,
And the night still in the West?
Your clothes are worn, and your cheques are gone,
But your eyes are free from care?”
“We’re bushmen down for a spree in town,
And we’re bound for the Lord-knows-where,
Old chap, we’re bound for the Lord-knows-where.”

(There are great dark scrubs in the Lord-knows-where,
Where they fight it out alone,
There are wide wide plains in the Lord-knows-where,
Where a man’s soul is his own.
There is healthy work, there is healthy rest,
There is peace from self-torture there,
And the glorious freedom from paltriness!
And they’re bound for the Lord-knows-where.)

“Now, where are you going in your Su...

Which among the philosophies will be enduring? I know not,
But that philosophy's self ever may last is my hope.

    Popping out of the dark
    reddish "Merry Christmas" haze
    twinking blinking land of Nod (or
    rather it's Ned, the hefty trucker);
    eyes, steel-belted radials,
    in a rig big like Santa Claus;
    a Stegosaurus
    swinging sabre-toothed tail
    & flexing padded paws
    to gobble night.

    Loads so dreary-weary their chrome-plated
    swamps are debris after a tank battle
    for troglodyte trilobites &
    chocolate coloured ooze
    belching brown down funnel flaps
    to carve deep bellows inside earth.

    Such energetic slaves
    to cough & sound their
    wheezing sandy blasts make for
    breaks in a clearing
    for I see our trucker,
    eons from now,
    wedded to sentiment an...

The night-wind's shriek is pitiless and hollow,
The boding bat flits by on sullen wing,
And I sit desolate, like that "one swallow"
Who found (with horror) that he'd not brought spring:
Lonely as he who erst with venturous thumb
Drew from its pie-y lair the solitary plum.

And to my gaze the phantoms of the Past,
The cherished fictions of my boyhood, rise:
I see Red Ridinghood observe, aghast,
The fixed expression of her grandam's eyes;
I hear the fiendish chattering and chuckling
Which those misguided fowls raised at the Ugly Duckling.

The House that Jack built - and the Malt that lay
Within the House - the Rat that ate the Malt -
The Cat, that in that sanguinary way
Punished the poor thing for its venial fault -
The Worrier-Dog - the Cow with Crum...

April is in the world again,
And all the world is filled with flowers -
Flowers for others, not for me!
For my one flower I cannot see,
Lost in the April showers.

I cannot wake her, though I sing,
And all the birds, for her dear sake,
Fill with their songs the wintry brake;
Ah! could they make her rise again,
What resurrection would be mine!
Is she too tired to help the sun
And all the little stars to shine?

All you who turn the sturdy soil,
Or ply the loom with daily toil,
And lowly on through life turmoil
For scanty fare,
Attend, and gather richest spoil
To soothe your care.

I write with tender, feeling heart,
Then kindly read what I impart;
'Tis freely penned, devoid of art,
In homely style,
'Tis meant to ward off Satan's dart,
And show his guile.

I write to ope your sin-closed eyes,
And make you great, and rich, and wise,
And give you peace when trials rise,
And sorrows gloom;
I write to fit you for the skies
On Day of Doom.

What, though you dwell in lowly cot,
And share through life a humble lot?
Some thousands wealth and fame have got,
Yet know no rest:
They build, pull down, and scheme and plot,
And die u...

O God! if this indeed be all
That Life can show to me;
If on my aching brow may fall
No freshening dew from Thee,

If with no brighter light than this
The lamp of hope may glow,
And I may only dream of bliss,
And wake to weary woe;

If friendship's solace must decay,
When other joys are gone,
And love must keep so far away,
While I go wandering on,

Wandering and toiling without gain,
The slave of others' will,
With constant care, and frequent pain,
Despised, forgotten still;

Grieving to look on vice and sin,
Yet powerless to quell
The silent current from within,
The outward torrent's swell:

While all the good I would impart,
The feelings I would share,
Are driven backward to my heart,
And turned to...

Say, Delia, why, in muslin shade,
Ah! say, dost thou conceal those eyes?
Such little stars were never made,
I'm sure, to shine thro' misty skies.

Say, are they wrapt in so much shade,
That they may more successful rise,
Starting from such soft ambuscade,
To catch and kill us by surprise?

Or, of their various pow'rs afraid,
Is it in mercy to our sighs,
Lest love, o'er many a heart betray'd,
Should sob "a faithful vot'ry dies"?

Then, oh! remove the envious shade;
Let others wear, who want, disguise:
We all had sooner die, sweet maid,
To see, than live without, those eyes.