'Tis noon of night; the sable clouds,
Hang weeping in the sky;
Alone I sit, where fancies flit
Like spectral shadows by.
Me thinks I see familiar forms,
And on before them all--
So fair, so calm, so wondrous like, wondrous like
The picture on the wall.

Among the brave and loyal,
How many lov'd ones fall!
Whose friends bereft,
Have only left, only left
A picture on the wall.

I hear the press of eager feet,
Upon my parlor floor;
A moment, and my willing arms
Enclasp my boy once more.

SOLICITED I've been to give a tale,
In which (though true, decorum must prevail),
The subject from a picture shall arise,
That by a curtain's kept from vulgar eyes.
My brain must furnish various features new:
What's delicate and smart produce to view;
By this expressed, and not by t'other said:
And all so clear, most easy to be read,
By ev'ry fool, without the aid of notes,
That idiot's bad indeed who never quotes.

CATULLUS tells us, ev'ry matron sage
Will peep most willingly (whate'er her age),

A Female Friend advis'd a Swain
(Whose Heart she wish'd at ease)
Make Love thy Pleasure, not thy Pain,
Nor let it deeply seize.

Beauty, where Vanities abound,
No serious Passion claims;
Then, 'till a Phoenix can be found,
Do not admit the Flames.

But griev'd She finds, that his Replies
(Since prepossess'd when Young)
Take all their Hints from Silvia's Eyes,
None from ARDELIA's Tongue.

Thus, Cupid, of our Aim we miss,
Who wou'd unbend thy Bow;
And each slight Nymph a Phoenix is,

She was a Philistine spick and span,
He was a bold Bohemian.
She had the mode, and the last at that;
He had a cape and a brigand hat.
She was so riant and chic and trim;
He was so shaggy, unkempt and grim.
On the rue de la Paix she was wont to shine;
The rue de la Gaîté was more his line.
She doted on Barclay and Dell and Caine;
He quoted Mallarmé and Paul Verlaine.
She was a triumph at Tango teas;
At Vorticist's suppers he sought to please.
She thought that Franz Lehar was utterly great;
Of Strauss and Stravinsky he'd piously prate.

There is a fork in a branch
of an ancient, enormous maple,
one of a grove of such trees,
where I climb sometimes and sit and look out
over miles of valleys and low hills.
Today on skis I took a friend
to show her the trees. We set out
down the road, turned in at
the lane which a few weeks ago,
when the trees were almost empty
and the November snows had not yet come,
lay thickly covered in bright red
and yellow leaves, crossed the swamp,
passed the cellar hole holding
the remains of the 1850s farmhouse

I mourn with thee and yet rejoice
That thou shouldst sorrow so;
With Angel choirs I join my voice
To bless the sinner's woe.
Though friends and kindred turn away
And laugh thy grief to scorn,
I hear the great Redeemer say
'Blessed are ye that mourn'.

Hold on thy course nor deem it strange
That earthly cords are riven.
Man may lament the wondrous change
But 'There is joy in Heaven'!

The Kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man,
seeking goodly pearls; who, when he had found one,
sold all that he had and bought it.—Matthew 13.45


I know the ways of Learning; both the head
And pipes that feed the press, and make it run;
What reason hath from nature borrowed,
Or of itself, like a good huswife, spun
In laws and policy; what the stars conspire,
What willing nature speaks, what forced by fire;
Both th' old discoveries, and the new-found seas,
The stock and surplus, cause and history:

1903


The Word came down to Dives in Torment where he lay:
"Our World is full of wickedness, My Children maim and slay,
"And the Saint and Seer and Prophet
"Can make no better of it
"Than to sanctify and prophesy and pray.

"Rise up, rise up, thou Dives, and take again thy gold,
"And thy women and thy housen as they were to thee of old.
"It may be grace hath found thee
"In the furnace where We bound thee,
"And that thou shalt bring the peace My Son foretold."

Then merrily rose Dives and leaped from out his fire,

AN OLD STORY.

I.

It was roses, roses, all the way,
With myrtle mixed in my path like mad:
The house-roofs seemed to heave and sway,
The church-spires flamed, such flags they had,
A year ago on this very day.

II.

The air broke into a mist with bells,
The old walls rocked with the crowd and cries.
Had I said, ``Good folk, mere noise repels---
But give me your sun from yonder skies!''
They had answered, ``And afterward, what else?''

III.

Alack, it was I who leaped at the sun

"I'll introduce a friend!" he said,
"And if you've got a vacant pen
You'd better take him in the shed
And start him shearing straight ahead;
He's one of these here quiet men.
"He never strikes -- that ain't his game;
No matter what the others try
He goes on shearing just the same.
I never rightly knew his name --
We always call him 'Gundagai!'"

Our flashest shearer then had gone
To train a racehorse for a race;
And, while his sporting fit was on
He couldn't be relied upon,
So Gundagai shore in his place.