Loneliness

O Thou Eternal One, look down
Upon an erring child of earth;
Thy handiwork with knowledge crown,
Or life will seem of little worth;
By Thine own light illume my way,
And turn this darkness into day.

I hear a whisper in my heart--
"Than knowledge, better far is love;
Thy knowledge here is but in part,
The perfect waits for Thee above:
Walk now by faith, and leave to me
The things now wrap'd in mystery."

Weighed down with mysteries profound
I lean upon Thy loving breast;
The great unknown still girts me round,
But Thou art mine, and here I rest;
Unsolved the mysteries remain;
But they no longer give me pain.

My finite mind may never grasp
The thought of Thy immensity;
But I Thy hand more firmly clasp--
To feel Thee near...

Weigh me the fire; or canst thou find
A way to measure out the wind;
Distinguish all those floods that are
Mix'd in that watery theatre;
And taste thou them as saltless there
As in their channel first they were.
Tell me the people that do keep
Within the kingdoms of the deep;
Or fetch me back that cloud again
Beshiver'd into seeds of rain;
Tell me the motes, dust, sands, and spears
Of corn, when summer shakes his ears;
Show me that world of stars, and whence
They noiseless spill their influence:
This if thou canst, then show me Him
That rides the glorious cherubim.

        I had a little moppet,
        I put it in my pocket,
    And fed it with corn and hay;
        Then came a proud beggar,
        And swore he would have her,
    And stole little moppet away.

Love bade me ask a gift,
And I no more did move
But this, that I might shift
Still with my clothes my love:
That favour granted was;
Since which, though I love many,
Yet so it comes to pass
That long I love not any.

    My job is done; my rhymes are ranked and ready,
    My word-battalions marching verse by verse;
    Here stanza-companies are none too steady;
    There print-platoons are weak, but might be worse.
    And as in marshalled order I review them,
    My type-brigades, unfearful of the fray,
    My eyes that seek their faults are seeing through them
    Immortal visions of an epic day.

    It seems I'm in a giant bowling-alley;
    The hidden heavies round me crash and thud;
    A spire snaps like a pipe-stem in the valley;
    The rising sun is like a ball of blood.
    Along the road the "fantassins" are pouring,
    And some are gay as fire, and some steel-stern. . . .
    Then back again I see the red tide pouring,
    Along the reeking road from Hebutern...

A for the APPLE
or Alphabet pie,
Which all get a slice of.
Come taste it & try.

B is the BABY
who gave Mr Bunting
Full many a long day's
rabbit skin hunting.

C for the CAT
that played on the fiddle,
When cows jumped higher than
'Heigh Diddle Diddle!'

D for the DAME
with her pig at the stile,
'Tis said they got over,
but not yet a while.


E for the Englishman,
ready to make fast
The giant who wanted to
have him for breakfast.

F for the Frog in the story
you know,
Begun with a wooing but
ending in woe.

G for Goosey Gander
who wandered upstairs,
And met the old man
who objected to prayers.


H for poor Humpty who
after his fall,
Felt oblige...

The world is tired, the year is old,
The fading leaves are glad to die,
The wind goes shivering with cold
Where the brown reeds are dry.

Our love is dying like the grass,
And we who kissed grow coldly kind,
Half glad to see our old love pass
Like leaves along the wind.

All that thou art, I thrillingly
    And sensibly do feel;
For my eye doth see, and my ear doth hear,
    And my heart is not of steel;
I meet thee in the festal hall -
    I turn thee in the dance -
And I wait, as would a worshipper,
    The giving of thy glance.

Thy beauty is as undenied
    As the beauty of a star;
And thy heart beats just as equally,
    Whate'er thy praises are;
And so long without a parallel
    Thy loveliness hath shone,
That, follow'd like the tided moon,
    Thou mov'st as calmly on.

Thy worth I, for myself, have seen -
    I know that thou art leal;
Leal to a woman's gentleness,
    And thine own spirit's weal;
Thy thoughts are deeper than a dream,
    And holier than gay;
And thy mind is a h...

Methinks in Him there dwells alway
A sea of laughter very deep,
Where the leviathans leap,
And little children play,
Their white feet twinkling on its crisped edge;
But in the outer bay
The strong man drives the wedge
Of polished limbs,
And swims.
Yet there is one will say:
'It is but shallow, neither is it broad'
And so he frowns; but is he nearer God?

One saith that God is in the note of bird,
And piping wind, and brook,
And all the joyful things that speak no word:
Then if from sunny nook
Or shade a fair child's laugh
Is heard,
Is not God half?
And if a strong man gird
His loins for laughter, stirred
By trick of ape or calf,
Is he no better than a cawing rook?

Nay 'tis a Godlike function; laugh thy fill!
M...

All that a man may pray,
Have I not prayed to thee?
What were praise left to say,
Has not been said by me
O, ma mie?

Yet thine eyes and thine heart,
Always were dumb to me:
Only to be my part,
Sorrow has come from thee,
O, ma mie?

Where shall I seek and hide
My grief away with me?
Lest my bitter tears should chide,
Bring brief dismay to thee,
O, ma mie?

More than a man may pray,
Have I not prayed to thee?
What were praise left to say,
Has not been said by me,
O, ma mie?

When I a verse shall make,
Know I have pray'd thee,
For old religion's sake,
Saint Ben to aid me.

Make the way smooth for me,
When I, thy Herrick,
Honouring thee, on my knee
Offer my lyric.

Candles I'll give to thee,
And a new altar,
And thou, Saint Ben, shalt be
Writ in my psalter.

There was an old person of Dover,
Who rushed through a field of blue Clover;
But some very large bees,
Stung his nose and his knees,
So he very soon went back to Dover.

"Who gives and hides the giving hand,
Nor counts on favor, fame, or praise,
Shall find his smallest gift outweighs
The burden of the sea and land.

Who gives to whom hath naught been given,
His gift in need, though small indeed
As is the grass-blade's wind-blown seed,
Is large as earth and rich as heaven.

Forget it not, O man, to whom
A gift shall fall, while yet on earth;
Yea, even to thy seven-fold birth
Recall it in the lives to come.

Who broods above a wrong in thought
Sins much; but greater sin is his
Who, fed and clothed with kindnesses,
Shall count the holy alms as nought.

Who dares to curse the hands that bless
Shall know of sin the deadliest cost;
The patience of the heavens is lost
Beholding man's unthankfulness....

Oh! gather whencesoe'er ye safely may
The help which slackening Pity requires;
Nor deem that he perforce must go astray
Who treads upon the footmarks of his sires.



When in the antique age of bow and spear
And feudal rapine clothed with iron mail,
Came ministers of peace, intent to rear
The Mother Church in yon sequestered vale;

Then, to her Patron Saint a previous rite
Resounded with deep swell and solemn close,
Through unremitting vigils of the night,
Till from his couch the wished-for Sun uprose.

He rose, and straight, as by divine command,
They, who had waited for that sign to trace
Their work's foundation, gave with careful hand
To the high altar its determined place;

Mindful of Him who in the Orient born
There live...

Goosey, Goosey Gander.


                Goosey, Goosey Gander,
                Where shall I wander?



                Upstairs, downstairs,
                And in my lady's chamber.



                There I met an old man
                    That would not say his prayers:
                I took him by the left leg,
                    And threw him downstairs.

The Man that hath great griefs I pity not;
’Tis something to be great
In any wise, and hint the larger state,
Though but in shadow of a shade, God wot!

Moreover, while we wait the possible,
This man has touched the fact,
And probed till he has felt the core, where, packed
In pulpy folds, resides the ironic ill.

And while we others sip the obvious sweet,
Lip-licking after-taste
Of glutinous rind, lo! this man hath made haste,
And pressed the sting that holds the central seat.

For thus it is God stings us into life,
Provoking actual souls
From bodily systems, giving us the poles
That are His own, not merely balanced strife.

Nay, the great passions are His veriest thought,
Which whoso can absorb,
Nor, querulous halting, violate t...

For thirty years Tubbs has been proud and poor;
'Tis now his habit, which he can't give o'er.

The very tongue, whose keen reproof before
Had wounded me, that either cheek was stain'd,
Now minister'd my cure. So have I heard,
Achilles and his father's javelin caus'd
Pain first, and then the boon of health restor'd.

Turning our back upon the vale of woe,
W cross'd th' encircled mound in silence. There
Was twilight dim, that far long the gloom
Mine eye advanc'd not: but I heard a horn
Sounded aloud. The peal it blew had made
The thunder feeble. Following its course
The adverse way, my strained eyes were bent
On that one spot. So terrible a blast
Orlando blew not, when that dismal rout
O'erthrew the host of Charlemagne, and quench'd
His saintly warfare. Thitherward not long
My head was rais'd, when many lofty towers
Methought I spied. "Master," ...