Lanty was in love, you see,
    With lovely, lively Rosie Carey;
But her father can't agree
    To give the girl to Lanty Leary.
Up to fun, "Away we'll run,"
    Says she, "my father's so contrary.
Won't you follow me? Won't you follow me?"
    "Faith, I will!" says Lanty Leary.

But her father died one day
    (I hear 'twas not by dhrinkin' wather);
House and land and cash, they say,
    He left, by will, to Rose, his daughter;
House and land and cash to seize,
    Away she cut so light and airy.
"Won't you follow me? Won't you follow me?"
    "Faith, I will!" says Lanty Leary.

Rose, herself, was taken bad;
    The fayver worse each day was growin';
"Lanty, dear," says she, "'tis sad,
    To th' other world I'm surely goin'.
You...

Your hands, your hands,
Fall upon mine as waves upon the sands.
O, soft as moonlight on the evening rose,
That but to moonlight will its sweet unclose,
Your hands, your hands,
Fall upon mine, and my hands open as
That evening primrose opens when the hot hours pass.

Your hands, your hands,
They are like towers that in far southern lands
Look at pale dawn over gloom-valley'd miles,
White temple towers that gleam through mist at whiles.
Your hands, your hands,
With the south wind fall kissing on my brow,
And all past joy and future is summed in this great "Now!"

This lovely lily, so pure and white,
Seems covered o'er with celestial light;
As if it grew on the "Tree of Life,"
And not down here, in this world of strife;
Too pure for earth it now seems to be;
My queenly wife, it was meant for thee.

Its wax-like petals with graceful bend,
Drink in the sunbeams as they descend;
And lade with fragrance the heated air
As it floats around us everywhere;
And the world grows better by its advent,
This lovely lily, so kindly sent.

It rested once on its crystal bed;
Neither wind, nor wave, occasioned dread;
Admired by all as they passed it by,
Though the contrast oft produced a sigh;
In purer soil than affords this earth
This lovely lily must have had its birth.

Dive down in search, where the root is f...

A Hart by the hunters pursued,
Safely hid in a Vine, till he chewed
The sweet tender green,
And, through shaking leaves seen,
He was slain by his ingratitude.

Spare Your Benefactors

The nuns sing, "ora pro nobis,"
The lancets glitter above;
And the beautiful Virgin whose robe is
Woven of infinite love,
Infinite love and sorrow,
Prays for them there on high;
Who has most need of her prayers, to-morrow
Shall tell them, they or I?

Up in the hills together
We loved, where the world seemed true;
Our world of the whin and heather,
Our skies of a nearer blue,
A blue from which one borrows
A faith that helps one die
O Mother, sweet Mother of Sorrows,
None needs such more than I!

We lived, we loved unwedded
Love's sin and its shame that slays!
No ill of the year we dreaded,
No day of its coming days;
Its coming days, their many
Trials by morn and night,
And I know no land, not any,
Where love's...

To the Fountain of my long Dream,
To the Chalice of all my Sorrow,
To the Lamp held up, and the Stream
Of Light that beacons the Morrow;

To the Bow, the Quiver and Dart,
To the Bridle-rein, to the Yoke
Proudly upborne, to the Heart
On Fire, to the Mercy-stroke;

To Apollo herding his Cattle,
To Proserpina grave in Dis;
To the high Head in the Battle,
And the Crown--I consecrate this.

1911.

I know a maiden, scarce thirteen,
    A sweet and gentle maid,
With dignified and graceful mien,
    And manner calm and staid.
            But I've seen her, when none but her parents are nigh,
            When her spirits are flowing exuberantly,
            With her feet tossing high, while her arms in accordance,
            Are wildly upraised in the Fling or the Sword-dance.

I know a maid whose hazel eye
    Outshines the light gazelle's,
And hid beneath its brilliancy,
    A pensive shadow dwells.
            But I've seen it illumed with a mischievous light,
            Which the sparkles displayed in the meteor's flight
            Cannot meet, as her laughter reverberates round,
            And merrily echo responds to the sound.

I know a...

If I might see another Spring
    I'd not plant summer flowers and wait:
I'd have my crocuses at once,
My leafless pink mezereons,
    My chill-veined snowdrops, choicer yet
    My white or azure violet,
Leaf-nested primrose; anything
    To blow at once, not late.

If I might see another Spring
    I'd listen to the daylight birds
That build their nests and pair and sing,
Nor wait for mateless nightingale;
    I'd listen to the lusty herds,
    The ewes with lambs as white as snow,
I'd find out music in the hail
    And all the winds that blow.

If I might see another Spring--
    Oh stinging comment on my past
That all my past results in 'if'--
    If I might see another Spring
I'd laugh to-day, to-day is brief;
I would not...

MICHAEL, ARCHANGEL.

High on Imaus' solitary van,
Which overlooked the kingdoms of the world,
With stature more majestic, his stern brow
In the clear light, the thunder at his feet;
In his right hand the flaming sword that waved
O'er Eden's gate; and in his left the trump,
That on the day of doom shall sound and wake
Earth's myriads, starting from the wormy grave,
The great archangel stood: and, hark, his voice!

AIR.

It comes, it comes, o'er cities, temples, towers;
O'er mountain heights I see the deluge sweep;
Heard ye from earth the cry at that last hour?
Heard ye the tossing of the desert deep?
How dismal is its roar!
I heard the sound of multitudes no more.
Great Lord of heaven and earth, thy voice is fate;
Thou canst destroy, as...

The Sphinx is drowsy,
Her wings are furled:
Her ear is heavy,
She broods on the world.
"Who'll tell me my secret,
The ages have kept?--
I awaited the seer
While they slumbered and slept:--

"The fate of the man-child,
The meaning of man;
Known fruit of the unknown;
Daedalian plan;
Out of sleeping a waking,
Out of waking a sleep;
Life death overtaking;
Deep underneath deep?

"Erect as a sunbeam,
Upspringeth the palm;
The elephant browses,
Undaunted and calm;
In beautiful motion
The thrush plies his wings;
Kind leaves of his covert,
Your silence he sings.

"The waves, unashamèd,
In difference sweet,
Play glad with the breezes,
Old playfellows meet;
The journeying atoms,
Primordial wh...

Two pretty rills do meet, and meeting make
Within one valley a large silver lake:
About whose banks the fertile mountains stood
In ages passèd bravely crowned with wood,
Which lending cold-sweet shadows gave it grace
To be accounted Cynthia's bathing-place;
And from her father Neptune's brackish court,
Fair Thetis thither often would resort,
Attended by the fishes of the sea,
Which in those sweeter waters came to plea.
There would the daughter of the Sea God dive,
And thither came the Land Nymphs every eve
To wait upon her: bringing for her brows
Rich garlands of sweet flowers and beechy boughs.
For pleasant was that pool, and near it then
Was neither rotten marsh nor boggy fen,
It was nor overgrown with boisterous sedge,
Nor grew there rudely then along ...

Along the narrow Moorish street
    A blue-eyed soldier strode.
    (Ah, well-a-day)
Veiled from her lashes to her feet
    She stepped from her abode,
    (Ah, lack-a-day).

Now love may guard a favoured wife
    Who leaves the harem door;
    (Ah, well-a-day)
But hungry hearted is her life
    When she is one of four.
    (Ah, lack-a-day.)

If black eyes glow with sudden fire
    And meet warm eyes of blue -
    (Ah, well-a-day).
The old, old story of desire
    Repeats itself anew.
    (Ah, lack-a-day.)

When bugles blow the soldier flies -
    Though bitter tears may fall
    (Ah, lack-a-day).
A MOORISH CHILD WITH BLUE, BLUE EYES
    PLAYS IN THE HAREM HALL.
    (Ah, well-a-day.)

Snowdrift of the mountains,
Spindrift of the sea,
We who down the border
Rove from gloom to glee,--

Snowdrift of the mountains,
Spindrift of the sea,
There be no such gypsies
Over earth as we.

Snowdrift of the mountains,
Spindrift of the sea,
Let us part the treasure
Of the world in three.

Snowdrift of the mountains,
Spindrift of the sea,
You shall keep your kingdoms;
Joscelyn for me!

O lovers' eyes are sharp to see,
And lovers' ears in hearing;
And love in life's extremity
Can lend an hour of cheering.
Disease had been in Mary's bower,
And slow decay from mourning,
Though now she sits on Neidpath's tower
To watch her love's returning.

All sunk and dim her eyes so bright,
Her form decay'd by pining,
Till through her wasted hand, at night,
You saw the taper shining;
By fits, a sultry hectic hue
Across her cheek was flying,
By fits, so ashy pale she grew,
Her maidens thought her dying.

Yet keenest powers to see and hear
Seem'd in her frame residing;
Before the watch-dog bunny'd his ear,
She heard her lover's riding;
Ere scarce a distant form was kenn'd,
She knew, and waved to greet him;
And o'er the b...

Where's the Poet? show him! show him,
Muses nine! that I may know him.
'Tis the man who with a man
Is an equal, be he King,
Or poorest of the beggar-clan
Or any other wonderous thing
A man may be 'twixt ape and Plato;
'Tis the man who with a bird,
Wren or Eagle, finds his way to
All its instincts; he hath heard
The Lion's roaring, and can tell
What his horny throat expresseth,
And to him the Tiger's yell
Come articulate and presseth
Or his ear like mother-tongue.

"O I am weary!" she sighed, as her billowy
Hair she unloosed in a torrent of gold
That rippled and fell o'er a figure as willowy,
Graceful and fair as a goddess of old:
Over her jewels she flung herself drearily,
Crumpled the laces that snowed on her breast,
Crushed with her fingers the lily that wearily
Clung in her hair like a dove in its nest.
And naught but her shadowy form in the mirror
To kneel in dumb agony down and weep near her!

"Weary?" Of what? Could we fathom the mystery?
Lift up the lashes weighed down by her tears
And wash with their dews one white face from her history,
Set like a gem in the red rust of years?
Nothing will rest her - unless he who died of her
Strayed from his grave, and in place of the groom,
Tipping her face, kneeling the...

There’s a nice little hatpeg that hangs on the wall
That long from its owner has parted,
And though he is wandering far beyond call
Like him it is always true hearted.

Many seasons have passed since his limp Cabbage Tree
Has dangled upon the old rack
But that one single peg, always vacant must be,
For its owner will surely come back.

And though in far countries, he sadly doth roam
While hunger had forced him to beg
Till fortune grows kindly, and sends him back home,
There’s an Angel who watches that peg.

One afternoon, after a long weary tramp,
And hard grafting, to which he’s no stranger,
He found, that a letter, had come to the camp,
To warn him, his peg was in danger;

The words that he used, are best shown by a dash
As he swore ...

There are two Loves, the poet sings,
    Both born of Beauty at a birth:
The one, akin to heaven, hath wings,
    The other, earthly, walks on earth.
With this thro' bowers below we play,
    With that thro' clouds above we soar;
With both, perchance, may lose our way:--
        Then, tell me which,
    Tell me which shall we adore?

The one, when tempted down from air,
    At Pleasure's fount to lave his lip,
Nor lingers long, nor oft will dare
    His wing within the wave to dip.
While plunging deep and long beneath,
    The other bathes him o'er and o'er
In that sweet current, even to death:--
        Then, tell me which,
    Tell me which shall we adore?

The boy of heaven, even while he lies
    In Beauty's lap, reca...