Canzonet

See, see, mine own sweet jewel,
See what I have here for my darling:
A robin-redbreast and a starling.
These I give both, in hope to move thee—
And yet thou say'st I do not love thee.

I Gaze across the Distant Hills

I gaze across the distant hills,
Thy coming to espy;
Beloved, haste, the day grows late,
The sun sinks down the sky.

All the old loves I followed once
Are now unfaithful found;
But a sweet sickness holds me yet
Of love that has no bound!

Love that the sensual heart ne'er knows,
Such power, such grace it brings,
Which sucks desire and thought away
From all created things.

O make me faithful while I live,
Attuned but to thy praise,
And may no pleasure born of earth

The Women of Australia

The daughters of the nation,
With purpose great and grand,
To dreary isolation
Went out upon the land;
A national oblation,
This patriotic band.

The daughters of the nation
Went out at love's behest,
With firm determination
To settle in the west;
Through bush fire's desolation,
With babies at the breast.

Undaunted by the wild men,
Beyond protection's ken,
To where nor road nor line ran,
Glad went they with their men
To take the seal of sun-tan,
Beside their valiant men.

Her Horoscope

'T IS true, one half of woman's life is hope
And one half resignation. Between there lies
Anguish of broken dreams,—doubt, dire surprise,
And then is born the strength with all to cope.
Unconsciously sublime, life's shadowed slope
She braves; the knowledge in her patient eyes
Of all that love bestows and love denies,
As writ in every woman's horoscope!
She lives, her heart-beats given to others' needs,
Her hands, to lift for others on the way
The burdens which their weariness forsook.
She dies, an uncrowned doer of great deeds.

Christmas-Day

WHEN the Virgin bore a child,
Man to God was reconcil'd:
Righteousness and Love could meet
At an Infant Saviour's feet:
Mercy was Religion's part,
And the Temple was the heart;
Poverty had breath to live,
And Resentments to forgive;
Love to enemies could roam,
Never absent from its home;
And the wounded heart could melt
For the hand whose blow it felt.

Had Redemption told no more,
Well might Kings the Child adore,
And Philosophy disclaim
All its impious Learning's fame.
But above the reach of thought

7. The Last Word

So many a dream and hope that went and came,
So many and sweet, that love thought like to be,
Of hours as bright and soft as those for me
That made our hearts for song's sweet love the same,
Lie now struck dead, that hope seems one with shame.
O Death, thy name is Love: we know it, and see
The witness: yet for very love's sake we
Can hardly bear to mix with thine his name

Philip, how hard it is to bid thee part
Thou knowest, if aught thou knowest where now thou art
Of us that loved and love thee. None may tell

4. Libitina Verticordia

Sister of sleep, healer of life, divine
As rest and strong as very love may be,
To set the soul that love could set not free,
To bid the skies that day could bid not shine,
To give the gift that life withheld was thine.
With all my heart I loved one borne from me:
And all my heart bows down and praises thee,
Death, that hast now made grief not his but mine.

O Changer of men's hearts, we would not bid thee
Turn back our hearts from sorrow: this alone.
We bid, we pray thee, from thy sovereign throne

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