A Cross-Road Epitaph

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1. Welcome Cross ‘Tis my happiness below Not to live without the cross, But the Saviour’s power to know, Sanctifying every loss; Trials must and will befall; But with humble faith to see Love inscribed upon them all, This is happiness to me. God in Israel sows the seeds Of affliction, pain, and toil; These spring up and […]...
2. My Cross I wrote a poem to the moon But no one noticed it; Although I hoped that late or soon Someone would praise a bit Its purity and grace forlone, Its beauty tulip-cool… But as my poem died still-born, I felt a fool. I wrote a verse of vulgar trend Spiced with an oath or two; […]...
3. Upon Returning to the Country Road Even the shrewd and bitter, Gnarled by the old world’s greed, Cherished the stranger softly Seeing his utter need. Shelter and patient hearing, These were their gifts to him, To the minstrel, grimly begging As the sunset-fire grew dim. The rich said “You are welcome.” Yea, even the rich were good. How strange that in […]...
4. The Rose and the Cross Out of the seething cauldron of my woes, Where sweets and salt and bitterness I flung; Where charmed music gathered from my tongue, And where I chained strange archipelagoes Of fallen stars; where fiery passion flows A curious bitumen; where among The glowing medley moved the tune unsung Of perfect love: thence grew the Mystic […]...
5. An Epitaph Interr’d beneath this marble stone, Lie saunt’ring Jack and idle Joan. While rolling threescore years and one Did round this globe their courses run; If human things went ill or well; If changing empires rose or fell; The morning passed, the evening came, And found this couple still the same. They walk’d and eat, good […]...
6. Epitaph for Maria Wentworth And here the precious dust is laid; Whose purely-temper’d clay was made So fine that it the guest betray’d. Else the soul grew so fast within, It broke the outward shell of sin, And so was hatch’d a cherubin. In height, it soar’d to God above; In depth, it did to knowledge move, And spread […]...
7. Stanzas Written On The Road Between Florence And Pisa Oh, talk not to me of a name great in story; The days of our youth are the days of our glory; And the myrtle and ivy of sweet two-and-twenty Are worth all your laurels, though ever so plenty. What are garlands and crowns to the brow that is wrinkled? ‘Tis but as a dead […]...
8. Holy-Cross Day ON WHICH THE JEWS WERE FORCED TO ATTEND AN ANNUAL CHRISTIAN SERMON IN ROME. [”Now was come about Holy-Cross Day, And now must my lord preach his first sermon To the Jews: as it was of old cared for in tine Merciful bowels of the Church, that, so to Speak, a crumb at least from […]...
9. Infant Joy I have no name I am but two days old. What shall I call thee? I happy am Joy is my name. Sweet joy befall thee! Pretty joy! Sweet joy but two days old. Sweet joy I call thee; Thou dost smile, I sing the while Sweet joy befall thee....
10. Sonnet 81: Or I shall live your epitaph to make Or I shall live your epitaph to make, Or you survive when I in earth am rotten, From hence your memory death cannot take, Although in me each part will be forgotten. Your name from hence immortal life shall have, Though I, once gone, to all the world must die; The earth can yield me […]...
11. Flag of the Southern Cross Sons of Australia, be loyal and true to her – Fling out the flag of the Southern Cross! Sing a loud song to be joyous and new to her – Fling out the flag of the Southern Cross! Stain’d with the blood of the diggers who died by it, Fling out the flag to the […]...
12. An Epitaph On The Marchioness Of Winchester This rich Marble doth enterr The honour’d Wife of Winchester, A Vicounts daughter, an Earls heir, Besides what her vertues fair Added to her noble birth, More then she could own from Earth. Summers three times eight save one She had told, alas too soon, After so short time of breath, To house with darknes, […]...
13. Beneath Thy Cross Am I a stone, and not a sheep, That I can stand, O Christ, beneath thy cross, To number drop by drop Thy Blood’s slow loss, And yet not weep? Not so those women loved Who with exceeding grief lamented Thee; Not so fallen Peter weeping bitterly; Not so the thief was moved; Not so […]...
14. In the Mile End Road How like her! But ’tis she herself, Comes up the crowded street, How little did I think, the morn, My only love to meet! Whose else that motion and that mien? Whose else that airy tread? For one strange moment I forgot My only love was dead....
15. A Year's Burden 1870 Fire and wild light of hope and doubt and fear, Wind of swift change, and clouds and hours that veer As the storm shifts of the tempestuous year; Cry wellaway, but well befall the right. Hope sits yet hiding her war-wearied eyes, Doubt sets her forehead earthward and denies, But fear brought hand to hand […]...
16. I cross till I am weary I cross till I am weary A Mountain in my mind More Mountains then a Sea More Seas And then A Desert find And My Horizon blocks With steady drifting Grains Of unconjectured quantity As Asiatic Rains Nor this defeat my Pace It hinder from the West But as an Enemy’s Salute One hurrying to […]...
17. Epitaph On the Lady Mary Villiers THE Lady Mary Villiers lies Under this stone; with weeping eyes The parents that first gave her birth, And their sad friends, laid her in earth. If any of them, Reader, were Known unto thee, shed a tear; Or if thyself possess a gem As dear to thee, as this to them, Though a stranger […]...
18. Epitaph Stop, Christian passer-by : Stop, child of God, And read, with gentle breast. Beneath this sod A poet lies, or that which once seem’d he O, lift one thought in prayer for S. T. C. That he who many a year with toil of breath Found death in life, may here find life in death […]...
19. Epitaph on a Hare Here lies, whom hound did ne’er pursue, Nor swiftewd greyhound follow, Whose foot ne’er tainted morning dew, Nor ear heard huntsman’s hallo’, Old Tiney, surliest of his kind, Who, nurs’d with tender care, And to domestic bounds confin’d, Was still a wild Jack-hare. Though duly from my hand he took His pittance ev’ry night, He […]...
20. Her Epitaph Happy Grave, thou dost enshrine That which makes thee a rich mine: Remember yet, ’tis but a loane; And wee must have it back, Her owne, The very same; Marke mee, the same: Thou canst not cheat us with a lame Deformed Carcase; Shee was fayre, Fresh as Morning, sweete as Ayre: Purer than other […]...
21. The Lady's Third Song When you and my true lover meet And he plays tunes between your feet. Speak no evil of the soul, Nor think that body is the whole, For I that am his daylight lady Know worse evil of the body; But in honour split his love Till either neither have enough, That I may hear […]...
22. A Tombless Epitaph ‘Tis true, Idoloclastes Satyrane! (So call him, for so mingling blame with praise, And smiles with anxious looks, his earliest friends, Masking his birth-name, wont to character His wild-wood fancy and impetuous zeal,) ‘Tis true that, passionate for ancient truths, And honouring with religious love the Great Of elder times, he hated to excess, With […]...
23. No Road Since we agreed to let the road between us Fall to disuse, And bricked our gates up, planted trees to screen us, And turned all time’s eroding agents loose, Silence, and space, and strangers – our neglect Has not had much effect. Leaves drift unswept, perhaps; grass creeps unmown; No other change. So clear it […]...
24. THE ROAD TO HAWORTH MOOR for Brenda Williams The dawn cracked with ice, with fire grumbling in the grate, With ire in the homes we had left, but still somehow We made a nook in the crooked corner of Hall Ings, A Wordsworthian dream with sheep nibbling by every crumbling Dry-stone wall, smoke inching from the chimney pot beside the […]...
25. White in the Moon the Long Road Lies White in the moon the long road lies, The moon stands blank above; White in the moon the long road lies That leads me from my love. Still hangs the hedge without a gust, Still, still the shadows stay: My feet upon the moonlit dust Pursue the ceaseless way. The world is round, so travellers […]...
26. An Epitaph On Mr. Fishborne The Great London Benefactor, And His Executor What are thy gaines, O death, if one man ly Stretch’d in a bed of clay, whose charity Doth hereby get occasion to redeeme Thousands out of the grave: though cold hee seeme He keepes those warme that else would sue to thee, Even thee, to ease them of theyr penury. Sorrow I would, but […]...
27. An Epitaph upon Husband and Wife TO these whom death again did wed This grave ‘s the second marriage-bed. For though the hand of Fate could force ‘Twixt soul and body a divorce, It could not sever man and wife, Because they both lived but one life. Peace, good reader, do not weep; Peace, the lovers are asleep. They, sweet turtles, […]...
28. O, Were I Loved As I Desire To Be! O, were I loved as I desire to be! What is there in the great sphere of the earth, Or range of evil between death and birth, That I should fear, – if I were loved by thee! All the inner, all the outer world of pain, Clear love would pierce and cleave, if thou […]...
29. If I may have it, when it's dead If I may have it, when it’s dead, I’ll be contented so If just as soon as Breath is out It shall belong to me Until they lock it in the Grave, ‘Tis Bliss I cannot weigh For tho’ they lock Thee in the Grave, Myself can own the key Think of it Lover! I […]...
30. Epitaph Even such is time, which takes in trust Our youth, our joys, and all we have, And pays us but with age and dust, Who in the dark and silent grave When we have wandered all our ways Shuts up the story of our days, And from which earth, and grave, and dust The Lord […]...
31. The Exeter Road Panels of claret and blue which shine Under the moon like lees of wine. A coronet done in a golden scroll, And wheels which blunder and creak as they roll Through the muddy ruts of a moorland track. They daren’t look back! They are whipping and cursing the horses. Lord! What brutes men are when […]...
32. The Road to Roundabout Some say that Guy of Warwick The man that killed the Cow, And brake the mighty Boar alive Beyond the bridge at Slough; Went up against a Loathly Worm That wasted all the Downs, And so the roads they twist and squirm (If a may be allowed the term) From the writhing of the stricken […]...
33. Epitaph On Elizabeth Wouldst thou hear what man can say In a little? Reader, stay. Underneath this stone doth lie As much beauty as could die; Which in life did harbor give To more virture than doth live. If at all she had a fault, Leave it buried in this vault. One name was Elizabeth, Th’ other let […]...
34. Swift's Epitaph Swift has sailed into his rest; Savage indignation there Cannot lacerate his breast. Imitate him if you dare, World-besotted traveller; he Served human liberty....
35. 456. Epitaph on Captain Lascelles WHEN Lascelles thought fit from this world to depart, Some friends warmly thought of embalming his heart; A bystander whispers-“Pray don’t make so much o’t, The subject is poison, no reptile will touch it.”...
36. The Cross of Snow In the long, sleepless watches of the night, A gentle face the face of one long dead Looks at me from the wall, where round its head The night-lamp casts a halo of pale light. Here in this room she died; and soul more white Never through martyrdom of fire was led To its repose; […]...
37. The Old Stone Cross A statesman is an easy man, He tells his lies by rote; A journalist makes up his lies And takes you by the throat; So stay at home’ and drink your beer And let the neighbours’ vote, Said the man in the golden breastplate Under the old stone Cross. Because this age and the next […]...
38. Epitaph On The World Here lies the body of this world, Whose soul alas to hell is hurled. This golden youth long since was past, Its silver manhood went as fast, An iron age drew on at last; ‘Tis vain its character to tell, The several fates which it befell, What year it died, when ’twill arise, We only […]...
39. The Cross-Roads A bullet through his heart at dawn. On The table a letter signed With a woman’s name. A wind that goes howling round the House, And weeping as in shame. Cold November dawn peeping through The windows, Cold dawn creeping over the floor, creeping up his cold legs, Creeping over his cold body, creeping across […]...
40. The Wood Road If I were to walk this way Hand in hand with Grief, I should mark that maple-spray Coming into leaf. I should note how the old burrs Rot upon the ground. Yes, though Grief should know me hers While the world goes round, It could not if truth be said This was lost on me: […]...