Poetry Books

I Here's where I've planted my garden and here I shall care for love's blossoms— As I am taught by my muse, carefully sort them in plots: Fertile branches, whose product is golden fruit of my lifetime, Set here in happier years, tended with pleasure today. You, stand here at my side, good Priapus—albeit from thieves I've Nothing to fear. Freely pluck, whosoever would eat.... more...

THE FOX AND THE GEESE. There was once a Goose at the point of death, So she called her three daughters near, And desired them all, with her latest breath, Her last dying words to hear. “There’s a Mr. Fox,” said she, “that I know, Who lives in a covert hard by; To our race he has proved a deadly foe, So beware of his treachery. “Build houses, ere long, of stone or of bricks, And get tiles for... more...

Foreword I've tinkered at my bits of rhymesIn weary, woeful, waiting times;In doleful hours of battle-din,Ere yet they brought the wounded in;Through vigils of the fateful night,In lousy barns by candle-light;In dug-outs, sagging and aflood,On stretchers stiff and bleared with blood;By ragged grove, by ruined road,By hearths accurst where Love abode;By broken altars, blackened shrinesI've... more...

THE BROTHER AVENGED I stood before my master’s board,   The skinker’s office plying;The herald-men brought tidings then   That my brother was murdered lying. I followed my lord unto his bed,   By his dearest down he laid him;Then my courser out of the stall I led,   And with saddle and bit arrayed him. I sprang upon my courser’s back,   With the spur began to goad him;And ere I drew his... more...

THE SHADOW SHOWTrains with wheels and clouds of smoke,Funny crowds of dodging folk,Trams that run along with sparks,Sofa games and pillow larks,Grubs and ponies, worms and tigers,Sparrows on the tree,Oh!What a lot of lots of thingsFor little boys to see!Aeroplanes and paper darts,Woodmen driving broken carts,Minahs on the chimney tops,Swallows dodging near the shops,Barking pups that make the... more...

A SUMMER NIGHTHer mist of primroses within her breastTwilight hath folded up, and o'er the west,Seeking remoter valleys long hath gone,Not yet hath come her sister of the dawn.Silence and coolness now the earth enfold:Jewels of glittering green, long mists of gold,Hazes of nebulous silver veil the height,And shake in tremors through the shadowy night.Heard through the stillness, as in whispered... more...

BOOK I. INSCRIPTIONS One's-self I sing, a simple separate person,Yet utter the word Democratic, the word En-Masse. Of physiology from top to toe I sing,Not physiognomy alone nor brain alone is worthy for the Muse, I saythe Form complete is worthier far,The Female equally with the Male I sing. Of Life immense in passion, pulse, and power,Cheerful, for freest action form'd under the laws... more...

APPLES so round, and bright, and red—O, how I love to see;They look so tempting as they hangUpon the green old tree. A naughty boy once tried to stealFrom off his neighbor's bough;But sad to hear, adown he fell,And is a cripple now.   BOYS oftentimes are rough and rude,And join in wicked play;But hoop and top, and bat and ball,Are better any day. "Hark! hark! I hear a tinkling bell;It... more...

I. PRELUDE Daughter of Psyche, pledge of that last nightWhen, pierced with pain and bitter-sweet delight,She knew her Love and saw her Lord depart,Then breathed her wonder and her woe forlornInto a single cry, and thou wast born?Thou flower of rapture and thou fruit of grief;Invisible enchantress of the heart;Mistress of charms that bring reliefTo sorrow, and to joy impartA heavenly tone that keeps it... more...

ES, she has grown old, And has caught a bad cold, Only bread and milk she touches, Except a little gruel, but she burns a greatdeal of fuel, and you may count,One, Two, Three, a great many times,while she hobbles across the room on hercrutches.   NOW many Lives has the Cat got? NONE! Is it true then, as they said, That poor old Puss is dead, So many lives as she’d got?   ES, the song has all been... more...