Out of the night that covers me,

From camp and church, the fireside and the street,She beckons forth – and strife and song have been.A summer night descending cool and greenAnd dark on daytime’s dust and stress and heat,The ways of death are soothing and serene,And all the words of Death are grave and sweet.O, glad and sorrowful, with triumphant mienAnd radiant…

Essex, Wessex, shore and shire,Mates of the net, the mine, the fire,Lads of the wheel and desk and loom,Noble and trader, squire and groom,Come where the bugles of England play,‘Over the hills and far away!’Southern Cross and Polar Star —Here are the Britons bred afar;Serry, O serry them, fierce and keen,Under the flag of the…

Teeming with summer, is glad.Vistas of change and adventure,Thro’ the green landThe grey roads go beckoning and winding,Peopled with wains, and melodiousWith harness-bells jangling:Jangling and twangling rough rhythmsTo the slow march of the stately, great horsesWhistled and shouted along.White fleets of cloud,Argosies heavy with fruitfulness,Sail the blue peacefully. Green flame the hedgerows.Blackbirds are bugling, and…

As chance subsides or swirls;But of the loss and gainThe sum is always plain.Read on the mighty pall,The weed of funeralThat covers praise and blame,The -isms and the -anities,Magnificence and shame:–‘O Vanity of Vanities!’The Fates are subtle girls!They give us chaff for grain.And Time, the Thunderer, hurls,Like bolted death, disdainAt all that heart and brainConceive,…

Ghastly brown against the pillow,And his throat-so strangely bandaged!Lack of work and lack of victuals,A debauch of smuggled whisky,And his children in the workhouseMade the world so black a riddleThat he plunged for a solution;And, although his knife was edgeless,He was sinking fast towards one,When they came, and found, and saved him.Stupid now with shame…

The voice of the Sword from the heart of the SwordClanging imperiousForth from Time’s battlementsHis ancient and triumphing Song.In the beginning,Ere God inspired HimselfInto the clay thingThumbed to His image,The vacant, the naked shellSoon to be Man:Thoughtful He pondered it,Prone there and impotent,Fragile, invitingAttack and discomfiture;Then, with a smile –As He heard in the ThunderThat…

Pomp of harmony, rapture of rhyme –Youth is the sign of them, one and all.Winter sunsets and leaves that fall,An empty flagon, a folded page,A tumble-down wheel, a tattered ball –These are a type of the world of Age.Bells that clash in a gaudy chime,Swords that clatter in onsets tall,The words that ring and the…

In the year that’s coming on, though many a troth be broken,We at least will not forget aught that love hath spoken.In the year that’s come and gone, dear, we wove a tetherAll of gracious words and thoughts, binding two together.In the year that’s coming on with its wealth of rosesWe shall weave it stronger,…

Are sets of pipes pandeanFor every wind that blows;And the smoke that whirls and eddiesIn a thousand times and keysIs really a visible musicSet to my reveries.O monstrous pipes, melodiousWith fitful tune and dream,The clouds are your only audience,Her thought is your only theme!

But whither had flown the ancient wrong;And was it really I and you?O, since the end of life’s to liveAnd pay in pence the common debt,What should it cost us to forgiveWhose daily task is to forget?You babbled in the well-known voice –Not new, not new the words you said.You touched me off that famous…

Scatters through a penny-whistleTickled with artistic fingers!Kate the scrubber (forty summers,Stout but sportive) treads a measure,Grinning, in herself a ballet,Fixed as fate upon her audience.Stumps are shaking, crutch-supported;Splinted fingers tap the rhythm;And a head all helmed with plastersWags a measured approbation.Of their mattress-life oblivious,All the patients, brisk and cheerful,Are encouraging the dancer,And applauding the musician.Dim…

And the world’s a ghost that gleams –Wavers – vanishes away!We must live while live we can;We should love while love we may.Dread in women, doubt in men…So the Infinite runs away.

Where the sun, his day’s work ended,Lingers as in content,There falls on the old, gray cityAn influence luminous and serene,A shining peace.The smoke ascendsIn a rosy-and-golden haze. The spiresShine and are changed. In the valleyShadows rise. The lark sings on. The sun,Closing his benediction,Sinks, and the darkening airThrills with a sense of the triumphing night–Night…

And out in the bay a bugleIs lilting a gallant song.The clouds go racing eastward,The blithe wind cannot rest,And a shard on the shingle flashesLike the shining soul of a jest;While children romp in the surges,And sweethearts wander free,And the Firth as with laughter dimples . . .I would it were deep over me!

Moustache and whisker trooper-like in trim;Frank-faced, frank-eyed, frank-hearted; always brightAnd always punctual-morning, noon, and night;Bland as a Jesuit, sober as a hymn;Humorous, and yet without a touch of whim;Gentle and amiable, yet full of fight.His piety, though fresh and true in strain,Has not yet whitewashed up his common moodTo the dead blank of his particular…

I have worked and dreamed, and I’ve talked at will.Of art and drink I have had my fill.I’ve comforted here, and I succoured there.I’ve faced my foes, and I backed my friends.I’ve blundered, and sometimes made amends.I’ve prayed for light, and I’ve known despair.Now I look before, as I look behind,Come storm, come shine, whatever…

The shining, sensitive silver of the seaTouched with the strange-hued blazonings of dawn;And all so solemnly still I seem to hearThe breathing of Life and Death,The secular Accomplices,Renewing the visible miracle of the world.The wistful starsShine like good memories. The young morning windBlows full of unforgotten hoursAs over a region of roses. Life and DeathSound…

But ‘Liza deems herself a perfect lady,And proves it in her feathers and her fringe.For ‘Liza has a bloke her heart to cheer,With pearlies and a barrer and a jack,So all the vegetables of the yearAre duly represented on her back.Her boots are sacrifices to her hats,Which knock you speechless-like a load of bricks!Her summer…