Spectres and fears, the nightmare and her foal,Drown in the golden deluge of the morn.But over sea and continent from sightSafe to the Indies has the earth conveyedThe vast and moon-eclipsing cone of night,Her towering foolscap of eternal shade.See, in mid heaven the sun is mounted; hark,The belfries tingle to the noonday chime.‘Tis silent, and…
And wide apart lie we, my love,And seas between the twain.I know not if it rains, my love,In the land where you do lie;And oh, so sound you sleep, my love,You know no more than I.
O fat white woman whom nobody shoots,Why do you walk through the fields in boots,When the grass is soft as the breast of cootsAnd shivering-sweet to the touch?
And go, and luck go with youWhile Ludlow tower shall stand.Oh, come you home of SundayWhen Ludlow streets are stillAnd Ludlow bells are callingTo farm and lane and mill,Or come you home of MondayWhen Ludlow market humsAnd Ludlow chimes are playing‘The conquering hero comes,’Come you home a hero,Or come not home at all,The lads you…
Far I hear the steady drummerDrumming like a noise in dreams.Far and near and low and louderOn the roads of earth go by,Dear to friends and food for powder,Soldiers marching, all to die.East and west on fields forgottenBleach the bones of comrades slain,Lovely lads and dead and rotten;None that go return again.Far the calling bugles…
And miles around the wonder grewHow well did I behave.And now the fancy passes by,And nothing will remain,And miles around they’ll say that IAm quite myself again.
Fare you well, for ill fare I:Live, lads, and I will die.‘Oh, at home had I but stayed‘Prenticed to my father’s trade,Had I stuck to plane and adze,I had not been lost, my lads.‘Then I might have built perhapsGallows-trees for other chaps,Never dangled on my own,Had I left but ill alone.‘Now, you see, they hang…
‘Tis five years since, `An end,’ said I;`I’ll march no further, time to die.All’s lost; no worse has heaven to give.’Worse has it given, and yet I live.I shall not die to-day, no fear:I shall live yet for many a year,And see worse ills and worse again,And die of age and not of pain.When God…
And long I used to stand and lookAt things I could not buy.Now times are altered: if I careTo buy a thing, I can;The pence are here and here’s the fair,But where’s the lost young man?– – To think that two and two are fourAnd neither five nor threeThe heart of man has long been…
Nor even in dreams behold how dark and brightAscends in smoke and fire by day and nightThe hate you died to quench and could but fan,Sleep well and see no morning, son of man.But if, the grave rent and the stone rolled by,At the right hand of majesty on highYou sit, and sitting so remember…
