His arms were round a chest of oaken wood,

Something that was in my mindYesterday—Something that I did not knowCould be found out by the wind,I had buried it so lowIn my mind.

He took himself to that which was his own— He took him to his verse — for other all he had not,And (tho’ man will crave and seek)Another all than this he did not needSo, pen in hand he tried to tell the whole tale of his woeIn rhyming; lodge the full weight of his…

Is dinned with flying noises, and the treeGoes — whisper, whisper, whisper silentlyTill all its whispers spread into the soundOf a dull roar. Lie closer to the ground,The shade is deep and He may pass us by.We are so very small, and His great eye,Customed to starry majesties, may gazeToo wide to spy us hiding…

The eagle-winged helper,The speedy forsaker!The lance and the lyre,The water, the fire,The tooth of oppression,The lip of desire!The snare and the wing,They honey, the sting!When you seek for me–lookFor a different thing!I, careless and gay,Never mean what I say,For my thoughts and my eyesLook the opposite way!

And asking to go home, but when she ranHe hit her on the head and sent her flying,And called her a young imp, and said he’d breakHer neck unless she went with him, and thenHe smacked her on the cheek.—I was a snakeAt that time crawling through a robber’s den,And diamonds were sticking to my…

May the devil grip the whey-faced slut by the hairAnd beat bad manners out of her skin for a year.That parboiled imp, with the hardest jaw you will ever seeOn virtue’s path, and a voice that would rasp the dead,Came roaring and raging the minute she looked at me,And threw me out of the house…