I lay aside my lagging pen
And get to thinking on my neighbors;
For, oh, around my garret den
There’s woe and poverty a-plenty,
And life’s so interesting when
A lad is only two-and-twenty.
Now, there’s that artist gaunt and wan,
A little card his door adorning;
It reads: ‘Je ne suis pour personne’,
A very frank and fitting warning.
I fear he’s in a sorry plight;
He starves, I think, too proud to borrow,
I hear him moaning every night:
Maybe they’ll find him dead to-morrow.
How much worse on homeward wayMy old cough is!Barney’s Bar is gaily lit,Let me stop there;Just to buck me up a bitHave a drop there.As I stand beside the screenHesitating,I have thought of how NoreenWill be waiting;Baby Patsy in her lapGay and laughing,While at Barney’s foaming tapI am quaffing.Barney’s Bar is mighty bright,Looks so cheery.Wonder…
As I was saying, our Colonel leaped up like a youngster of ten:‘Come on, lads!’ he shouts, ‘and we’ll show ’em,’ and he sprang to the head of the men.Then some bally thing seemed to trip him, and he fell on his face with a slam. . . .Oh, he died like a true British…
I bade her sit in the model’s seatAnd I painted her sitting there.I hid all trace of her heart unclean;I painted a babe at her breast;I painted her as she might have beenIf the Worst had been the Best.She laughed at my picture and went away.Then came, with a knowing nod,A connoisseur, and I heard…
I cloister it from care and strifeAnd keep it sane and sweet.With eager eyes I greet the morn,Exultant as a boy,Knowing that I am newly bornTo wonder and to joy.And when the sunset splendours waneAnd ripe for rest am I,Knowing that I will live again,Exultantly I die.O that all Life were but a DaySunny and…
It’s easy to cheer when victory’s near,And wallow in fields that are gory.It’s a different song when everything’s wrong,When you’re feeling infernally mortal;When it’s ten against one, and hope there is none,Buck up, little soldier, and chortle:Carry on! Carry on!There isn’t much punch in your blow.You’re glaring and staring and hitting out blind;You’re muddy and…
One: you may deem me Pacifist,For I’ve no sympathy with strife.Like hell I hate the iron fist,And shun the battle-ground of life.The hope of peace is dear to me,And I to Christian faith belong,Holding that breath should sacred be,And War is always wrong.Two: Universalist am IAnd dream a world that’s frontier free,With common tongue and…
