Short Poems

The ignorant pronounce it Frood,
To cavil or applaud.
The well-informed pronounce it Froyd,
But I pronounce it Fraud.

They are not dead! The sun like a golden lion
Goes down to that red desert where he dies;
The moon, that is bare of all but bodily beauty,
The moon, that is careless of all but bodily beauty,
Looks down on the dying lion where he lies;
Like a queen, from the steep skies.

A seed is fallen among the clods
Of creedless sense and senseless sin
In dons that waddle in the Quads
Low gleams of mental life begin
The Fabians in Clifford's Inn
Are growing human by degrees
I watch the slow light war and win
I wait the changing of the Cheese.

I have loved my land yet hailed it as a stranger
When birth-wracks wrecked me on a faerie shore:
I have kept the Faith yet hardly grasped it more
Than groping shepherds when they found the Manger.
I have loved my friends yet feared them more than foes
Lest they should ask the name God only knows;
And in long years of mating have been blest
Restlessly wondering why I was at rest.

I would say to all parents
Do you take things equally
How do you know that you are not
In the place of Joseph and Mary.

I should tremble at the falling showers of ashes
Dislodged by my feet,
Did I not know
That at night they fly upward
And spread themselves once more
Upon the slopes of the Honourable Mountain.

Your footfalls on the drum bridge beside my house
Are like the pattering drops of a passing shower,
So soon are they gone.

Such a world
is ours—
where all must
submit themselves
to courtyard teachings,
even a monkey
bound to learn
from the one who holds his chain.

She bound her green sleeve on my helm,
Sweet pledge of love's sweet meed:
Warm was her bared arm round my neck
As well she bade me speed;
And her kiss clings still between my lips,
Heart's beat and strength at need.

Twa bony lads were Sandy and Jockie;
Jockie was lo'ed but Sandy unlucky;
Jockie was laird baith of hills and of vallies,
But Sandy was nought but the king o' gude fellows.
Jockie lo'ed Madgie, for Madgie had money,
And Sandie lo'ed Mary, for Mary was bony:
Ane wedded for Love, ane wedded for treasure,
So Jockie had siller, and Sandy had pleasure.