Beautiful spoils! borne off from vanquish’d death!
Upon my heart’s high altar shall ye lie,
Mov’d but by only one adorer’s breath,
Retaining youth, rewarding constancy.

"I have finished another year," said God,
"In grey, green, white, and brown;
I have strewn the leaf upon the sod,
Sealed up the worm within the clod,
And let the last sun down."

"And what's the good of it?" I said.
"What reasons made you call
From formless void this earth we tread,
When nine-and-ninety can be read
Why nought should be at all?

"Yea, Sire; why shaped you us, 'who in
This tabernacle groan' -
If ever a joy be found herein,
Such joy no man had wished to win
If he had never known!"

Then he: "My labours - logicless -
You may explain; not I:
Sense-sealed I have wrought, without a guess
That I evolved a Consciousness
To ask for reasons why.

"Strange that ephemeral creatures who
By my own ordering are,

Would-be prophets tell us
We shall not re-know
Them that walked our fellows
In the ways below!

Smoking, smouldering Tophets
Steaming hopeless plaints!
Dreary, mole-eyed prophets!
Mean, skin-pledging saints!

Knowing not the Father
What their prophecies!
Grapes of such none gather,
Only thorns and lies.

Loving thus the brother,
How the Father tell?
Go without each other
To your heavenly hell!

When you see a man come walking down through George Street loose and free,
Suit of saddle tweed and soft shirt, and a belt and cabbagetree,
With the careless swing and carriage, and the confidence you lack,
There is freedom in Australia! he’s a man that’s clinging back.
Clingin’ back,
Holdin’ back,
To the old things and the bold things clinging back.

When you see a woman riding as I saw one ride to-day
Down the street to Milson’s Ferry on a big, upstanding bay,
With her body gently swaying to the horse-shoes’ click-a-clack,
You might lift your hat (with caution), she’s a girl who’s clinging back.
Clinging back,
Swinging back.
To the old things and the bold things clinging back.

When you see a rich man pulling on the harbour in a boat,
With the motor lau...

    April rain, delicious weeping,
        Washes white bones from the grave,
    Long enough have they been sleeping.
        They are cleansed, and now they crave
    Once more on the earth to gather
    Pleasure from the springtime weather.

    The pine trees and the long dark grass
        Feed on what is placed below.
    Think you not that there doth pass
        In them something we did know?
    This spell, well, friends, I greet ye once again
    With joy, but with a most unuttered pain.

            Thus early with the dead -
    Thou of the young, fair brow, the laughing eye,
            The light and joyous tread, -
Mary, we little thought thou would'st be first to die!

            A little while ago
    We saw thee first in girlhood's early bloom;
            Now thou art lying low,
Thy pale hands crossed in slumber, silent in the tomb!

            Ah me! 'tis hard to speak
    Of thee as of the dead - the pale, still dead! -
            'Tis hard to think the b'eak,
Stern blast of winter sweeps above thy low, cold bed!

            *            *            *            *            *

            Thus early with thy God!
    'Twas a rich boon He sent whose loving voice
            Called thee to His abode,
'Mid the s...

    I

    Oh, how good it is to be
    Foot-loose and heart-free!
    Just my dog and pipe and I, underneath the vast sky;
    Trail to try and goal to win, white road and cool inn;
    Fields to lure a lad afar, clear spring and still star;
    Lilting feet that never tire, green dingle, fagot fire;
    None to hurry, none to hold, heather hill and hushed fold;
    Nature like a picture book, laughing leaf and bright brook;
    Every day a jewel bright, set serenely in the night;
    Every night a holy shrine, radiant for a day divine.

    Weathered cheek and kindly eye, let the wanderer go by.
    Woman-love and wistful heart, let the gipsy one depart.
    For the farness and the road are his glory and his goad.
    Oh, the lilt of youth and Spring! Eyes l...

'Tis night: the busy, ceaseless noise of day
No more is heard; the now-deserted-streets
Lie dark and silent; London's weary swarms
Rest in profound repose. Hark! a loud cry
Frightens the silence; 'tis the cry of fire!
I hear the dissonance of rattling wheels,
The tread of hasty feet, the doleful sigh
Of sympathy, and terror's thrilling shriek:
O mercy heaven!

            Behold the fiery Pest!
See, how the flames climb up the lofty walls,
Involve their prey, and greedily devour:
The crowd exert their efforts to controul
The spreading bane; some labour to supply
The numerous engines; others bear aloft
The pliant tubes, guiding their watery store
Amid the fiercer fire; on ladders some
Ascending, scale the walls, and undeterr'd,
Their dangerous of...

Birds that like vanishing visions go winging,
White, white in the flame of the sunset's burning,
Fly with the wild spray the billows are flinging,
Blend, blend with the nightfall, and fade, unreturning!

Fire of the heaven, whose splendor all-glowing
Soon, soon shall end, and in darkness must perish;
Sea-bird and flame-wreath and foam lightly blowing; -
Soon, soon tho' we lose you, your beauty we cherish.

Visions may vanish, the sweetest, the dearest;
Hush'd, hush'd be the voice of love's echo replying;
Spirits may leave us that clung to us nearest: -
Love, love, only love dwells with us undying!

Tune - "Here's a health to them that's awa."


I.

    Here's a health to them that's awa,
    Here's a health to them that's awa;
    And wha winna wish guid luck to our cause,
    May never guid luck be their fa'!
    It's guid to be merry and wise,
    It's guid to be honest and true,
    It's good to support Caldonia's cause,
    And bide by the buff and the blue.

II.

    Here's a health to them that's awa,
    Here's a health to them that's awa,
    Here's a health to Charlie the chief of the clan,
    Altho' that his band be sma'.
    May liberty meet wi' success!
    May prudence protect her frae evil!
    May tyrants and tyranny tine in the mist,
    And wander their way to the devil!

III.

O, low shone the sun on the fair lake of Toro,
And weak were the whispers that waved the dark wood,
All as a fair maiden, bewilder'd in sorrow,
Sorely sigh'd to the breezes, and wept to the flood.
"O, saints! from the mansions of bliss lowly bending;
Now grant my petition, in anguish ascending,
My Henry restore, or let Eleanor die!"

All distant and faint were the sounds of the battle,
With the breezes they rise, with the breezes they fail,
Till the shout, and the groan, and the conflict's dread rattle,
And the chase's wild clamour, came loading the gale.
Breathless she gazed on the woodlands so dreary;
Slowly approaching a warrior was seen;
Life's ebbing tide mark'd his footsteps so weary,
Cleft was his helmet, and woe was his mien.

"O, save thee, fair ...

Since first the White Horse Banner blew free,
By Hengist's horde unfurled,
Nothing has changed on land or sea
Of the things that steer the world.
(As it was when the long-ships scudded through the gale
So it is where the Liners go.)
Time and Tide, they are both in a tale
"Woe to the weaker, woe! "

No charm can bridle the hard-mouthed wind
Or smooth the fretting swell.
No gift can alter the grey Sea's mind,
But she serves the strong man well.
(As it is when her uttermost deeps are stirred
So it is where the quicksands show,)
All the waters have but one word
"Woe to the weaker, woe! "

The feast is ended, the tales are told,
The dawn is overdue,
And we meet on the quay in the whistling cold
Where the galley waits her crew.
Out with...

Send us back the olden knights, tell no law to track 'em,
Give to boy and maid the storytellers as of yore,
Millionaires in legend-wealth, though no bank would back 'em,
But old Benny Havens by the West Point Shore.
Off with lazy vagabonds, social ghosts that shiver,
Give to worthy road-men the great green way,
And we'll hear a song again up the Hudson river,
Ringing from a drifting raft, set in silver spray.

With a bridegroom's joyous bearing,

Mounts Sir Curt his noble beast,
To his mistress' home repairing,

There to hold his wedding feast;
When a threatening foe advances

From a desert, rocky spot;
For the fray they couch their lances,

Not delaying, speaking not.

Long the doubtful fight continues,

Victory then for Curt declares;
Conqueror, though with wearied sinews,

Forward on his road he fares.
When he sees, though strange it may be,

Something 'midst the foliage move;
'Tis a mother, with her baby,

Stealing softly through the grove!

And upon the spot she beckons

"Wherefore, love, this speed so wild?
Of the wealth thy storehouse reckons,

Hast thou nought to give thy child!"

I would not feign a single sigh
Nor weep a single tear for thee:
The soul within these orbs burns dry;
A desert spreads where love should be.
I would not be a worm to crawl
A writhing suppliant in thy way;
For love is life, is heaven, and all
The beams of an immortal day.

For sighs are idle things and vain,
And tears for idiots vainly fall.
I would not kiss thy face again
Nor round thy shining slippers crawl.
Love is the honey, not the bee,
Nor would I turn its sweets to gall
For all the beauty found in thee,
Thy lily neck, rose cheek, and all.

I would not feign a single tale
Thy kindness or thy love to seek;
Nor sigh for Jenny of the Vale,
Her ruby smile or rosy cheek.
I would not have a pain to own
For those dark curls an...

Am I a stone and not a sheep
    That I can stand, O Christ, beneath Thy Cross,
    To number drop by drop Thy Blood's slow loss,
And yet not weep?

Not so those women loved
    Who with exceeding grief lamented Thee;
    Not so fallen Peter weeping bitterly;
Not so the thief was moved;

Not so the Sun and Moon
    Which hid their faces in a starless sky,
    A horror of great darkness at broad noon -
I, only I.

Yet give not o'er,
    But seek Thy sheep, true Shepherd of the flock;
    Greater than Moses, turn and look once more
And smite a rock.

    I'm scared of it all, God's truth! so I am;
    It's too big and brutal for me.
    My nerve's on the raw and I don't give a damn
    For all the "hoorah" that I see.
    I'm pinned between subway and overhead train,
    Where automobillies swoop down:
    Oh, I want to go back to the timber again -
    I'm scared of the terrible town.

    I want to go back to my lean, ashen plains;
    My rivers that flash into foam;
    My ultimate valleys where solitude reigns;
    My trail from Fort Churchill to Nome.
    My forests packed full of mysterious gloom,
    My ice-fields agrind and aglare:
    The city is deadfalled with danger and doom -
    I know that I'm safer up there.

    I watch the wan faces that flash in the street;
    All kinds a...

As roam'd a pilgrim o'er the mountain drear,
    On whose lone verge the foaming billows roar;
The wail of hopeless sorrow pierc'd his ear,
    And swell'd at distance on the sounding shore.

The mourner breath'd her deep complaint to night,
    Her moan she mingled with the rapid blast;
That bar'd her bosom in its wasting flight,
    And o'er the earth her scatter'd tresses cast!

"Ye winds, she cried, still heave the lab'ring deep,
    "The mountain shake, the howling forest rend;
"Still dash the shiv'ring fragment from the steep,
    "Nor for a wretch like me the storm suspend.

"Ah, wherefore wish the rising storm to spare?
    "Ah, why implore the raging winds to save?
"What refuge can the breast where lives despair
    "Desire but death? what s...