Though clock,
To tell how night draws hence, I've none,
A cock
I have to sing how day draws on:
I have
A maid, my Prue, by good luck sent,
To save
That little, Fates me gave or lent.
A hen
I keep, which, creeking day by day,
Tells when
She goes her long white egg to lay:
A goose
I have, which, with a jealous ear,
Lets loose
Her tongue, to tell what danger's near.
A lamb
I keep, tame, with my morsels fed,
Whose dam
An orphan left him, lately dead:
A cat
I keep, that plays about my house,
Grown fat
With eating many a miching mouse:
To these
A Trasy I do keep, whereby
I please
The more my rural privacy:
Which are
But toys, to give my heart some ease:
Where care
None is, slight things do li...

No man is tempted so but may o'ercome,
If that he has a will to masterdom.

She came from the East a fair, young bride,
    With a light and a bounding heart,
To find in the distant West a home
    With her husband to make a start.

He builded his cabin far away,
    Where the prairie flower bloomed wild;
Her love made lighter all his toil,
    And joy and hope around him smiled.

She plied her hands to life's homely tasks,
    And helped to build his fortunes up;
While joy and grief, like bitter and sweet,
    Were mingled and mixed in her cup.

He sowed in his fields of golden grain,
    All the strength of his manly prime;
Nor music of birds, nor brooks, nor bees,
    Was as sweet as the dollar's chime.

She toiled and waited through weary years
    For the fortune that came at length;
But toil and car...

In Vanity Fair, as we bow and smile,
    As we talk of the opera after the weather,
As we chat of fashion and fad and style,
    We know we are playing a part together.
You know that the mirth she wears, she borrows;
She knows you laugh but to hide your sorrows;
We know that under the silks and laces,
And back of beautiful, beaming faces,
Lie secret trouble and grim despair,
        In Vanity Fair.

In Vanity Fair, on dress parade,
    Our colours look bright and our swords are gleaming;
But many a uniform's worn and frayed,
    And most of the weapons, despite their seeming,
Are dull and blunted and badly battered,
And close inspection will show how tattered
And stained are the banners that float above us.
Our comrades hate, while they swear to love...

Morning, evening, noon and night,
“Praise God!; sang Theocrite.

Then to his poor trade he turned,
Whereby the daily meal was earned.

Hard he laboured, long and well;
O’er his work the boy’s curls fell:

But ever, at each period,
He stopped and sang, “Praise God!”

Then back again his curls he threw,
And cheerful turned to work anew.

Said Blaise, the listening monk, “Well done;
“I doubt not thou art heard, my son:

“As well as if thy voice to-day
“Were praising God, the Pope’s great way.

“This Easter Day, the Pope at Rome
“Praises God from Peter’s dome.”

Said Theocrite, “Would God that I
“Might praise him, that great way, and die!”

Night passed, day shone,
And Theocrite was gone.

With ...

    Poets, like disputants, when reasons fail,
    Have one sure refuge left--and that's to rail.
    Fop, coxcomb, fool, are thunder'd through the pit;
    And this is all their equipage of wit.
    We wonder how the devil this difference grows,
    Betwixt our fools in verse, and yours in prose:
    For, 'faith, the quarrel rightly understood,
    'Tis civil war with their own flesh and blood.
    The threadbare author hates the gaudy coat;
    And swears at the gilt coach, but swears afoot:
    For 'tis observed of every scribbling man,
    He grows a fop as fast as e'er he can;
    Prunes up, and asks his oracle, the glass,
    If pink and purple best become his face.
    For our poor wretch, he neither rails nor prays;
    Nor likes your wit, just as you like ...

So spake Esaias: so, in words of flame,
Tekoa's prophet-herdsman smote with blame
The traffickers in men, and put to shame,
All earth and heaven before,
The sacerdotal robbers of the poor.

All the dread Scripture lives for thee again,
To smite like lightning on the hands profane
Lifted to bless the slave-whip and the chain.
Once more the old Hebrew tongue
Bends with the shafts of God a bow new-strung!

Take up the mantle which the prophets wore;
Warn with their warnings, show the Christ once more
Bound, scourged, and crucified in His blameless poor;
And shake above our land
The unquenched bolts that blazed in Hosea's hand!

Not vainly shalt thou cast upon our years
The solemn burdens of the Orient seers,
And smite with truth a guilty natio...

And shall the Patriot who maintain'd your cause,
From future ages only meet applause?
Shall he, who timely rose t'his country's aid,
By her own sons, her guardians, be betray'd?
Did heathen virtues in your hearts reside,
These wretches had been damn'd for parricide.
    Should you behold, whilst dreadful armies threat
The sure destruction of an injured state,
Some hero, with superior virtue bless'd,
Avert their rage, and succour the distress'd;
Inspired with love of glorious liberty,
Do wonders to preserve his country free;
He like the guardian shepherd stands, and they
Like lions spoil'd of their expected prey,
Each urging in his rage the deadly dart,
Resolved to pierce the generous hero's heart;
Struck with the sight, your souls would swell with grief,
...

What shall we talk of? Li Po? Hokusai?
You narrow your long dark eyes to fascinate me;
You smile a little. . . .Outside, the night goes by.
I walk alone in a forest of ghostly trees . . .
Your pale hands rest palm downwards on your knees.

‘These lines, converging, they suggest such distance!
The soul is drawn away, beyond horizons.
Lured out to what? One dares not think.
Sometimes, I glimpse these infinite perspectives
In intimate talk (with such as you) and shrink . . .

‘One feels so petty! One feels such, emptiness!’
You mimic horror, let fall your lifted hand,
And smile at me; with brooding tenderness . . .
Alone on darkened waters I fall and rise;
Slow waves above me break, faint waves of cries.

‘And then these colors . . . but who would dare ...

Among these latter busts we count by scores,
Half-emperors and quarter-emperors,
Each with his bay-leaf fillet, loose-thonged vest,
Loric and low-browed Gorgon on the breast,
One loves a baby face, with violets there,
Violets instead of laurel in the hair,
As those were all the little locks could bear.

Now read here. “Protus ends a period
Of empery beginning with a god:
Born in the porphyry chamber at Byzant,
Queens by his cradle, proud and ministrant:
And if he quickened breath there, ’twould like fire
Pantingly through the dim vast realm transpire.
A fame that he was missing spread afar
The world from its four corners, rose in war,
Till he was borne out on a balcony
To pacify the world when it should see.
The captains ranged before him, one, his h...

“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...

Over there, above the jetty, stands the mansion of the Vardens,
With a tennis ground and terrace, and a flagstaff in the gardens:
They are gentlemen and ladies, they’ve been ‘toffs’ for generations,
But old Varden’s been unlucky, lost a lot in speculations.

Troubles gathered fast upon him when the mining bubble ‘busted,’
Then the bank suspended payment, where his little all he trusted;
And the butcher and the baker sent their bills in when they read it,
Even John, the Chow that served him, has refused to give him ‘cledit.’

And the daughters of the Vardens, they are beautiful as Graces,
But the balcony’s deserted, and they rarely show their faces;
And the swells of their acquaintance never seem to venture near them,
And the bailiff says they seldom have a cup of tea to chee...

There was a man in New York City
(His name was George Adolphus Knight)
So soft of heart he wept with pity
To see our language and its plight.

He mourned to see it sorely goaded
With silent letters left and right;
These from his own name he unloaded
And wrote it Georg Adolfus Nit.

Six other men in that same city
Who longed to see a Spelling Heaven
Formed of themselves a strong committee
And asked Georg Nit to make it seven.

He joined the other six with pleasure,
Proud such important men to know,
Agreeing that their first great measure
Should be to shorten the word though.

But G. Adolfus Nit was lazy;
He dilly-dallied every day;
His life was dreamy, slow and hazy,
And indolent in every way.

On Monday morn at nine...

        Little Mary Ester,
        Sat upon a tester,
    Eating of curds and whey;
        There came a little spider,
        And sat him down beside her,
    And frightened Mary Ester away.

There grew a fragrant rose-tree where the brook flows,
With two little tender buds, and one full rose;
When the sun went down to his bed in the west,
The little buds leaned on the rose-mother's breast,
While the bright eyed stars their long watch kept,
And the flowers of the valley in their green cradles slept;
Then silently in odors they communed with each other,
The two little buds on the bosom of their mother.
"O sister," said the little one, as she gazed at the sky,
"I wish that the Dew Elves, as they wander lightly by,
Would bring me a star; for they never grow dim,
And the Father does not need them to burn round him.
The shining drops of dew the Elves bring each day
And place in my bosom, so soon pass away;
But a star would glitter brightly through the long summer...

What are we set on earth for? Say, to toil;
Nor seek to leave thy tending of the vines
For all the heat o' the day, till it declines,
And Death's mild curfew shall from work assoil.
God did anoint thee with his odorous oil,
To wrestle, not to reign; and He assigns
All thy tears over, like pure crystallines,
For younger fellow-workers of the soil
To wear for amulets. So others shall
Take patience, labor, to their heart and hand
From thy hand and thy heart and thy brave cheer,
And God's grace fructify through thee to
The least flower with a brimming cup may stand,
And share its dew-drop with another near.

I have met them at close of day
Coming with vivid faces
From counter or desk among grey
Eighteenth-century houses.
I have passed with a nod of the head
Or polite meaningless words,
Or have lingered awhile and said
Polite meaningless words,
And thought before I had done
Of a mocking tale or a gibe
To please a companion
Around the fire at the club,
Being certain that they and I
But lived where motley is worn:
All changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

That woman's days were spent
In ignorant good-will,
Her nights in argument
Until her voice grew shrill.
What voice more sweet than hers
When, young and beautiful,
She rode to harriers?
This man had kept a school
And rode our winged horse;
This other h...

Though you are in your shining days,
Voices among the crowd
And new friends busy with your praise,
Be not unkind or proud,
But think about old friends the most:
Time’s bitter flood will rise,
Your beauty perish and be lost
For all eyes but these eyes.