All Poems in English

"You come and see me, boys," he said;
"You'll find a welcome and a bed
And whisky any time you call;
Although our township hasn't got
The name of quite a lively spot --
You see, I live in Booligal...

There was a tracker in the force
Of wondrous sight (the story ran):—
He never failed to track a horse,
He never failed to find his man.
They brought him from a distant town
Once more to gain reward and praise...

AH, often do I wait and watch,
And look up, straining through the Real
With longing eyes, my friend, to catch
Faint glimpses of your white Ideal.
I know she loved to rest her feet
By slumbrous seas and hidden strand...

What needs it, then, we stand so long a-gazing,
And do not our lips mingle,
Since our hearts, so long single,
Have married as if in a dream amazing?
Our lips in such a joy should follow suit,
And on each other feed as on Love's fruit

It wasn't kid stakes. I 'ad no crook lurk
To act deceivin', or to treat 'er mean.
I'm old enough to know them games don't work
Not with Doreen.
Besides, deceit ain't in me bag uv tricks.
I got a few; but there is some that sticks...

I never found them again -- the things so quickly lost....
the poetic eyes, the pale
face.... in the dusk of the street....
I never found them again -- the things acquired quite by chance,
that I gave up so lightly;
and that later in agony I wanted...

Je pressais ton bras qui tremble ;
Nous marchions tous deux ensemble,
Tous deux heureux et vainqueurs.
La nuit était calme et pure ;
Dieu remplissait la nature
L'amour emplissait nos coeurs...

Comme le marinier, que le cruel orage
A longtemps agité dessus la haute mer,
Ayant finalement à force de ramer
Garanti son vaisseau du danger du naufrage,
Regarde sur le port, sans plus craindre la rage
Des vagues ni des vents, les ondes écumer...

ON Petrarch's heart, all other days before,
In flaming letters written, was impress d
GOOD FRIDAY. And on mine, be it confess'd,
Is this year's ADVENT, as it passeth o'er.
I do not now begin,--I still adore
Her whom I early cherish'd in my breast...

When I go from hence
let this be my parting word,
that what I have seen is unsurpassable.
I have tasted of the hidden honey of this lotus
that expands on the ocean of light,
and thus am I blessed...

INFANTRY COLUMNS
We're foot--slog--slog--slog--sloggin' over Africa --
Foot--foot--foot--foot--sloggin' over Africa --
(Boots--boots--boots--boots--movin' up an' down again!)
There's no discharge in the war!
Seven--six--eleven--five--nine-an'-twenty mile to-day...

A parrot, having been imprisoned in a cage with a crow, was vexed by the sight and said: ‘What a loathsome aspect is this! What an odious figure! What cursed object with rude habits! 0 crow of separation, would that the distance of the east from the west were between us.’
Whoever beholds thee when he rises in the morning
The morn of a day of safety becomes evening to him.
An ill-omened one like thyself is fit to keep thee company
But where in the world is one like thee?
More strange still, the crow was similarly distressed by the proximity of the parrot and, having become disgusted, was shouting ‘La haul’, and lamenting the vicissitudes of time. He rubbed the claws of sorrow against each other and said: ‘What ill-luck is this? What base destiny and chameleonlike times? It was befitting my dignity to strut about on a garden-wall in the society of another crow...

'THOUGH logic-choppers rule the town,
And every man and maid and boy
Has marked a distant object down,
An aimless joy is a pure joy,'
Or so did Tom O'Roughley say
That saw the surges running by...

So for the luxury of the flesh, wrap it in fur of fox that it be warm,
In the bear's coat sheltering its nakedness from storm.
Give wine for its hot veins, fame for its throne, and laughter for its lips,
All ends in one eclipse,
Sunshine or snows.
We gain a grave, and afterwards—God knows...

FOND words have oft been spoken to thee, Sleep!
And thou hast had thy store of tenderest names;
The very sweetest, Fancy culls or frames,
When thankfulness of heart is strong and deep!
Dear Bosom-child we call thee, that dost steep
In rich reward all suffering; Balm that tames...

Three witches, casting a spell ...
Round about the cauldron go;
In the poison'd entrails throw.
Toad, that under cold stone
Days and nights hast thirty one
Swelter'd venom sleeping got...

Oh what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.
Oh what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
So haggard and so woe-begone...

Oh roses for the flush of youth,
And laurel for the perfect prime;
But pluck an ivy branch for me
Grown old before my time.
Oh violets for the grave of youth,
And bay for those dead in their prime...

I.
A portal as of shadowy adamant
Stands yawning on the highway of the life
Which we all tread, a cavern huge and gaunt;
Around it rages an unceasing strife
Of shadows, like the restless clouds that haunt...

You ask me, why, tho' ill at ease,
Within this region I subsist,
Whose spirits falter in the mist,
And languish for the purple seas.
It is the land that freemen till,
That sober-suited Freedom chose...

IT'S a good old world we're livin' in
With all its pain an' sorrow;
A world where friends are givin' in
To cheer us till tomorrow.
A world where folks come forward, when
They see our feet are slippin...

He paused on the sill of a door ajar
That screened a lively liquor-bar,
For the name had reached him through the door
Of her he had married the week before.
'We called her the Hack of the Parade;
But she was discreet in the games she played...

My garden hath a slender path
With ivy overgrown,
A secret place where once would pace
A pot all alone;
I see him now with fretted brow,
Plunged deep in thought...

XLIII
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's...

Droop, droop no more, or hang the head,
Ye roses almost withered;
Now strength, and newer purple get,
Each here declining violet.
O primroses! let this day be
A resurrection unto ye...

Christ's intercession.
Lift up your eyes to th' heav'nly seats
Where your Redeemer stays;
Kind Intercessor, there he sits,
And loves, and pleads, and prays.
'Twas well, my soul, he died for thee...

I.
As the Liberty lads o'er the sea
Bought their freedom, and cheaply, with blood,
So we, boys, we
Will die fighting, or live free,
And down with all kings but King Ludd...

ALL the bells of heaven may ring,
All the birds of heaven may sing,
All the wells on earth may spring,
All the winds on earth may bring
All sweet sounds together---
Sweeter far than all things heard...

NOW veiled in the inviolable past
Love lies asleep, who never more will wake;
Nor would you wake him, even for my sake
Who for your sake pray he sleep sound at last.
What good thing had we of him--we who bore
So long his yoke? what pleasant thing had we...

O! I do love thee, meek Simplicity!
For of thy lays the lulling simpleness
Goes to my heart, and soothes each small distress--
Distress tho' small, yet haply great to me!
'Tis true, on Lady Fortune's gentlest pad
I amble on; yet tho' I know not why...

``One more embrace! Then, o'er the main,
And nobly play the soldier's part!''
Thus sounds, amid the martial strain,
The Spartan Mother's patriot heart.
She hides her woe,
She bids him go...

Fall'n was the House of Giafar; and its name,
The high romantic name of Barmecide,
A sound forbidden on its own bright shores,
By the swift Tygris' wave. Stern Haroun's wrath,
Sweeping the mighty with their fame away,
Had so pass'd sentence: but man's chainless heart...

ENTER Skald, moored in a punt,
And jacks and tenches exeunt

I thought that I had wavy hair
Until I shaved. Instead,
I find that I have straight hair
And a very wavy head

THIS dust was once the Man,
Gentle, plain, just and resolute--under whose cautious hand,
Against the foulest crime in history known in any land or age,
Was saved the Union of These States

There was a time when I was very small,
When my whole frame was but an ell in height;
Sweetly, as I recall it, tears do fall,
And therefore I recall it with delight.
I sported in my tender mother's arms,
And rode a-horseback on best father's knee...

342
It will be Summer—eventually.
Ladies—with parasols—
Sauntering Gentlemen—with Canes—
And little Girls—with Dolls—
Will tint the pallid landscape...

As in some dim baronial hall restrained,
A prisoner sits, engirt by secret doors
And waving tapestries that argue forth
Strange passages into the outer air;
So in this dimmer room which we call life,
Thus sits the soul and marks with eye intent...

STRONG rocks hold up the riksdag bridge ... always strong river waters shoving their shoulders against them ...
In the riksdag to-night three hundred men are talking to each other about more potatoes and bread for the Swedish people to eat this winter.
In a boat among calm waters next to the running waters a fisherman sits in the dark and I, leaning at a parapet, see him lift a net and let it down ... he waits ... the waters run ... the riksdag talks ... he lifts the net and lets it down ...
Stars lost in the sky ten days of drizzle spread over the sky saying yes-yes.

Every afternoon at four o'clock fifteen apple women who have sold their apples in Christiania meet at a coffee house and gab...

WE will never walk again
As we used to walk at night,
Watching our shadows lengthen
Under the gold street-light
When the snow was new and white.
We will never walk again...

Although I work, and seldom cease,
At Dumas pere and Dumas fils,
Alas, I cannot make me care
For Dumas fils and Dumas pere

Do you want to peep into Bedlam Town?
Then come with me, when the day swings down,
Into the cradle, whose rockers rim,
Some people call the horizon dim.
All the mischief of all the fates
Seems to center in four little pates...

FROM CHARLES D'ORLEANS
God! that mad'st her well regard her,
How she is so fair and bonny;
For the great charms that are upon her
Ready are all folks to reward her.
Who could part him from her borders...

'Mylo Jones's wife' was all
I heerd, mighty near, last Fall--
Visitun relations down
T'other side of Morgantown!
Mylo Jones's wife she does
This and that, and 'those' and 'thus...

Maurice, weep not, I am not here under this pine tree.
The balmy air of spring whispers through the sweet grass,
The stars sparkle, the whippoorwill calls,
But thou grievest, while my soul lies rapturous
In the blest Nirvana of eternal light!
Go to the good heart that is my husband...

It is very aggravating
To hear the solemn prating
Of the fossils who are stating
That old Horace was a prude;
When we know that with the ladies
He was always raising Hades...

WILDLY round our woodland quarters
Sad-voiced Autumn grieves;
Thickly down these swelling waters
Float his fallen leaves.
Through the tall and naked timber,
Column-like and old...

Cold, wet leaves
Floatingon moss-coloured water,
And the croaking of frogs-
Cracked bell-notes in the twilight

Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow
I am the diamond glint of snow
I am the sunlight on ripened grain
I am the gentle autumn rain...

FOR HIS 'JUBILAEUM' AT BERLIN, NOVEMBER 5, 1868
THOU who hast taught the teachers of mankind
How from the least of things the mightiest grow,
What marvel jealous Nature made thee blind,
Lest man should learn what angels long to know?
Thou in the flinty rock, the river's flow...