Identity

What wonder strikes the curious, while he views
The black ant's city, by a rotten tree,
Or woodland bank! In ignorance we muse:
Pausing, annoyed,--we know not what we see,
Such government and thought there seem to be;
Some looking on, and urging some to toil,
Dragging their loads of bent-stalks slavishly:
And what's more wonderful, when big loads foil
One ant or two to carry, quickly then
A swarm flock round to help their fellow-men.
Surely they speak a language whisperingly,
Too fine for us to hear; and sure their ways
Prove they have kings and laws, and that they be
Deformed remnants of the Fairy-days.

Little Bo Peep has lost her sheep,
And couldn’t tell where to find ’em.
Let ’em alone, and they’ll come home,
And bring their tails behind ’em.

Parvula Bopipias amissos quæritat agnos,
Nec reperire locum quo latuêre potest.
Desine, Bopipias, redeuntes nocte videbis,
Caudasque incolumes post sua crura ferent.

When youth was high, and life was new
And days sped musical and fleet,
She stood amid the morning dew,
And sang her earliest measures sweet, -
Sang as the lark sings, speeding fair
To touch and taste the purer air,
To gain a nearer view of Heaven;
'Twas then she sang "The Songs of Seven."

Now, farther on in womanhood,
With trainèd voice and ripened art,
She gently stands where once she stood,
And sings from out her deeper heart.
Sing on, dear Singer! sing again;
And we will listen to the strain,
Till soaring earth greets bending Heaven,
And seven-fold songs grow seventy-seven.

I.

Fifty times the rose has flower’d and faded,
Fifty times the golden harvest fallen,
Since our Queen assumed the globe, the sceptre.



II.

She beloved for a kindliness
Rare in fable or history,
Queen, and Empress of India,
Crown’d so long with a diadem
Never worn by a worthier,
Now with prosperous auguries
Comes at last to the bounteous
Crowning year of her Jubilee.


III.

Nothing of the lawless, of the despot,
Nothing of the vulgar, or vainglorious,
All is gracious, gentle, great and queenly.



IV.

You then joyfully, all of you,
Set the mountain aflame to-night,
Shoot your stars to the firmament,
Deck your houses, illuminate
All your towns for a festival,
An...

A voice by cedar tree
In the meadow under the Hall!
She is singing an air that is known to me,
A passionate ballad gallant and gay,
A martial song like a trumpet’s call!
Singing of men that in battle array
Ready in heart and ready in hand,
March with banner and bugle and fife
To the death, for their native land.

Maud with her exquisite face,
And wild voice pealing up to the sunny sky,
And feet like sunny gems on an English green,
Maud in the light of her youth and her grace,
Singing of Death, and of Honor that cannot die,
Till I well could weep for a time so sordid and mean,
And myself so languid and base.

Come! look in the shadowy water here,
The stagnant water of Ashly Mere:
Where the stirless depths are dark but clear,
What is the thing that lies there?
A lily-pod half sunk from sight?
Or spawn of the toad all water-white?
Or ashen blur of the moon's wan light?
Or a woman's face and eyes there?

Now lean to the water a listening ear,
The haunted water of Ashly Mere:
What is the sound that you seem to hear
In the ghostly hush of the deeps there?
A withered reed that the ripple lips?
Or a night-bird's wing that the surface whips?
Or the rain in a leaf that drips and drips?
Or a woman's voice that weeps there?

Now look and listen! but draw not near
The lonely water of Ashly Mere!
For so it happens this time each year
As you lean by the ...

What though the Eden morns were sweet with song
Passing all sweetness that our thought can reach;
Crushing its flowers noon's chariot moved along
In brightness far transcending mortal speech;
Yet in the twilight shades did God appear,
Oh welcome shadows so that He draw near.

Prosperity is flushed with Papal ease
And grants indulgences to pride of word,
Robing our soul in pomp and vanities,
Ah! no fit dwelling for our gentle Lord;
Grief rends those draperies of pride and sin,
And so our Lord will deign to enter in.

Then carefully we curb each thought of wrong,
We walk more softly, with more reverent feet -
As in His presence chamber, hush our tongue,
And in the holy quiet, solemn, sweet,
We feel His smile, we hear His voice so low,
So we can bl...

Three women stood by the river's flood
In the gas-lamp's murky light,
A devil watched them on the left,
And an angel on the right.

The clouds of lead flowed overhead;
The leaden stream below;
They marvelled much, that outcast three,
Why Fate should use them so.

Said one: "I have a mother dear,
Who lieth ill abed,
And by my sin the wage I win
From which she hath her bread."

Said one: "I am an outcast's child,
And such I came on earth.
If me ye blame, for this my shame,
Whom blame ye for my birth?"

The third she sank a sin-blotched face,
And prayed that she might rest,
In the weary flow of the stream below,
As on her mother's breast.

Now past there came a godly man,
Of goodly stock and blood,
And as he ...

Non domus et fundus, non aeris acervus et auri. - HOR.
Epist., I, ii, 47.

It was, my lord, the dexterous shift
Of t'other Jonathan, viz. Swift,
But now St. Patrick's saucy dean,
With silver verge, and surplice clean,
Of Oxford, or of Ormond's grace,
In looser rhyme to beg a place.
A place he got, yclept a stall,
And eke a thousand pounds withal;
And were he less a witty writer,
He might as well have got a mitre.
    Thus I, the Jonathan of Clogher,
In humble lays my thanks to offer,
Approach your grace with grateful heart,
My thanks and verse both void of art,
Content with what your bounty gave,
No larger income do I crave:
Rejoicing that, in better times,
Grafton requires my loyal lines.
Proud! while my patron is polite,
...

Good evening, Sir Priest, and so late as you ride,
With your mule so fair, and your mantle so wide;
But ride you through valley, or ride you o'er hill.
There is one that has warrant to wait on you still.
Back, back,
The volume black!
I have a warrant to carry it back.

What, ho! Sub-Prior, and came you but here
To conjure a book from a dead woman's bier?
Sain you, and save you, be wary and wise,
Ride back with the book, or you'll pay for your prize.
Back, back.
There's death in the track!
In the name of my master I bid thee bear back.

"In the name of My Master," said the astonished monk, "that name before which all things created tremble, I conjure thee to say what thou art that hauntest me thus?"
The same voice replied,

That which is neither ...

A soldier and a sailor,
A tinker and a tailor,
Had once a doubtful strife, sir,
To make a maid a wife, sir,
    Whose name was Buxom Joan.
For now the time was ended,
When she no more intended
To lick her lips at men, sir,
And gnaw the sheets in vain, sir,
    And lie o' nights alone.

The soldier swore like thunder,
He loved her more than plunder;
And showed her many a scar, sir,
That he had brought from far, sir,
    With fighting for her sake.
The tailor thought to please her,
With offering her his measure.
The tinker too with mettle,
Said he could mend her kettle,
    And stop up every leak.

But while these three were prating,
The sailor slily waiting,
Thought if it came about, sir,
That they should all fall ou...

Far are the shades of Arabia,
Where the Princes ride at noon,
'Mid the verdurous vales and thickets,
Under the ghost of the moon;
And so dark is that vaulted purple
Flowers in the forest rise
And toss into blossom 'gainst the phantom stars
Pale in the noonday skies.

Sweet is the music of Arabia
In my heart, when out of dreams
I still in the thin clear mirk of dawn
Descry her gliding streams;
Hear her strange lutes on the green banks
Ring loud with the grief and delight
Of the dim-silked, dark-haired Musicians
In the brooding silence of night.

They haunt me - her lutes and her forests;
No beauty on earth I see
But shadowed with that dream recalls
Her loveliness to me:
Still eyes look coldly upon me,
Cold voices whisper and s...

Ash on de Alapama biz,
Deep sinnin long I sat,
I dinks von ding for dinkin
Py afery Diplomat;
Und dat ist: dat voll many a ding
Vot ist de facto done,
May pe de jure unbossible,
Und officiél unknown,

Von dimes in San Franciscus,
Im Californian land,
Among de Californaments
Dere woned a Deutscher band;
Und shief among dese heroes
Dere shone Herr Fritzerl Schnall,
Who nefer vouldt pelief in nichts
Dat vas not logicál.

Vell den: von tay as Fritzerl
Vas valk Dolores Shtreet,
Mein Gott! how he vas over-rush
Ein gut oldt friendt to meet;
Hans Liederschnitz aus Augsburg,
Vot professed in Bayrisch bier
“Gottskreuz! du alter Schlingel!”
Cried Fritz: “Was mochst du hier?”

Now in des dimes I scribe of,
Dree w...

Death and a dirge at midnight;
    Yet never a soul in the house
Heard anything more than the throb and beat
    Of a beautiful waltz of Strauss.

Dead, dead, dead, and staring,
    With a ghastly smile on its face;
But the world saw only laughing eyes
    And roses, and billows of lace.

Floating and whirling together,
    Into the beautiful night,
How little you dreamed of the ghastly thing
    I was hiding away from your sight.

Meeting your dark eyes' splendour,
    Feeling your warm, sweet breath,
How could you know that my passionate heart
    Had died a horrible death?

Died in its fever and fervour,
    Died in its beautiful bloom;
And that waltz of Strauss was a funeral dirge,
    Leading the way to the tomb.

Often when warring for he wist not what,
An enemy-soldier, passing by one weak,
Has tendered water, wiped the burning cheek,
And cooled the lips so black and clammed and hot;

Then gone his way, and maybe quite forgot
The deed of grace amid the roar and reek;
Yet larger vision than loud arms bespeak
He there has reached, although he has known it not.

For natural mindsight, triumphing in the act
Over the throes of artificial rage,
Has thuswise muffled victory's peal of pride,
Rended to ribands policy's specious page
That deals but with evasion, code, and pact,
And war's apology wholly stultified.

1915.

My heart was slain, and none but you and I;
Who should I think the murder should commit?
Since but yourself there was no creature by
But only I, guiltless of murdering it.
    It slew itself; the verdict on the view
Do quit the dead, and me not accessary.
Well, well, I fear it will be proved by you,
The evidence so great a proof doth carry.
    But O see, see, we need inquire no further!
Upon your lips the scarlet drops are found,
And in your eye the boy that did the murder,
Your cheeks yet pale since first he gave the wound!
    By this I see, however things be past,
    Yet heaven will still have murder out at last.

Come back, come back, behold with straining mast
And swelling sail, behold her steaming fast;
With one new sun to see her voyage o’er,
With morning light to touch her native shore.
        Come back, come back.

Come back, come back, while westward labouring by,
With sailless yards, a bare black hulk we fly.
See how the gale we fight with sweeps her back,
To our lost home, on our forsaken track.
        Come back, come back.

Come back, come back, across the flying foam,
We hear faint far-off voices call us home,
Come back, ye seem to say; ye seek in vain;
We went, we sought, and homeward turned again.
        Come back, come back.

Come back, come back; and whither back or why?
To fan quenched hopes, forsaken schemes to try;
Walk the old f...

Australia listened! Through the brawling game
    Of played-out rascals gambling for her gold,
    The rotten-hearted traitors who had sold
For flimsy English gauds her righteous fame -
Through the foul hubbub, it did seem, there came
    The still small voice of nobler things untold.
    But now, but now with wonder manifold
She hears a voice that calls her by her name!

Australia listens, as the mother wilt
    To hear her first-born cry. "Say, is it death,
Or life and all life's hope made audible
    That thrills my heart and gives my spirit faith?"
From out the gathering war-hosts leaps forth shrill
    The double cry, "Australia, M'Ilwraith!"

The dawn is breaking northward! Rise, O Sun,
    Australian Liberty, and give us light!
 ...