General Books

MY DOG TRAY.Twice every week a poor, thin man,Holding his little daughter’s hand,Walked feebly to a hospital,Close by the busy London Strand.He hoped the clever doctors thereIn time would make him strong and well,That he might go to work again,And live to care for little Nell.Beside wee Nell, her faithful friend,Good old dog Tray was always seen,Never a day apart the pairSince Nelly’s babyhood had... more...

Part One Home Our life was an accident, the flames were conjured by an indifferent couple. So much time has passed, their union dissipated with the dumb carcass of our home. This house has been all of our housesÐ our parents colluded with emptiness to conceal this fact. We live from cairn to cairn, burning refugee hearts, each mistake receding in the rear-view mirror, each incipient disaster breaking... more...

GREEN FIELDS AND RUNNING BROOKS   Ho! green fields and running brooks!  Knotted strings and fishing-hooks  Of the truant, stealing down  Weedy backways of the town.   Where the sunshine overlooks,  By green fields and running brooks,  All intruding guests of chance  With a golden tolerance,   Cooing doves, or pensive pair  Of picnickers, straying there—  By green fields and... more...

POETRY FOR POETRY'S SAKE One who, after twenty years, is restored to the University where he was taught and first tried to teach, and who has received at the hands of his Alma Mater an honour of which he never dreamed, is tempted to speak both of himself and of her. But I remember that you have come to listen to my thoughts about a great subject, and not to my feelings about myself; and, of... more...

The Inn of Dreams           Sweet Laughter! Sweet Delight!My heart is like a lighted Inn that waitsYour swift approach . . . and at the open gatesWhite Beauty stands and listens like a flower.She has been dreaming of you in the night,O fairy Princes; and her eyes are bright.Spur your fleet horses, this is Beauty's hour!Even as when a golden flame up-curledQuivers and flickers out in a... more...

THREE HEAVY HUSBANDS I He had a high nose. He looked at one over the collar, so to speak. His regard was very assured, and his speech was that short bundle of monosyllables which the subaltern throws at the orderly. He had never been questioned, and, the precedent being absent, he had never questioned himself. Why should he? We live by question and answer, but we do not know the reply to anything until... more...

embellished with designs.Young Master Pig you here may seeUpon his tender Mother’s kneeNo longer he with patience sucksFor See, he’s cutting both his tusks.Behold him now in Go Cart safely tiedHis pretty feet go trotting side by sideOld Granny smiles and grunting seems to say“Ce petit prodige c’est moi qui l’ai fait.”To Master Goat next Pig is sentWhose learning is most excellentBut all his... more...

Recent inquiries into the life of Henry Vaughan have added but little to the information already contained in the memoirs of Mr. Lyte and Dr. Grosart. I have, however, been enabled to put together a few notes on this somewhat obscure subject, which may be taken as supplementary to Mr. Beeching's Introduction in Vol. I. It will be well to preface them by reprinting the account of Anthony à Wood,... more...

PREFACE To the readers of this poem an apology is needed for affixing thereto a praem. Some friends of mine have been plaguing me beyond the restrictive line of Patience for the true cause of conceiving the accompanying collection of words, balderdash or what you will, some even asseverating with the eruditeness of an Aristole that it was a nebulous idea, an embryonic form of thought hibernating within... more...

DEDICATION Bob Southey! You're a poet, poet laureate,And representative of all the race.Although 'tis true that you turned out a Tory atLast, yours has lately been a common case.And now my epic renegade, what are ye atWith all the lakers, in and out of place?A nest of tuneful persons, to my eyeLike four and twenty blackbirds in a pye, Which pye being opened they began to sing'(This old... more...