Bob's Lane

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1. The Lane Some day, I think, there will be people enough In Froxfield to pick all the blackberries Out of the hedges of Green Lane, the straight Broad lane where now September hides herself In bracken and blackberry, harebell and dwarf gorse. To-day, where yesterday a hundred sheep Were nibbling, halcyon bells shake to the sway Of […]...
2. A lane of Yellow led the eye A lane of Yellow led the eye Unto a Purple Wood Whose soft inhabitants to be Surpasses solitude If Bird the silence contradict Or flower presume to show In that low summer of the West Impossible to know...
3. A Toast to the Men Here’s to the men! Since Adam’s time They’ve always been the same; Whenever anything goes wrong, The woman is to blame. From early morn to late at night, The men fault-finders are; They blame us if they oversleep, Or if they miss a car. They blame us if, beneath the bed, Their collar buttons roll; […]...
4. Through lane it lay through bramble Through lane it lay through bramble Through clearing and through wood Banditti often passed us Upon the lonely road. The wolf came peering curious The owl looked puzzled down The serpent’s satin figure Glid stealthily along The tempests touched our garments The lightning’s poinards gleamed Fierce from the Crag above us The hungry Vulture screamed […]...
5. In Lovers' Lane I know a place for loitering feet Deep in the valley where the breeze Makes melody in lichened boughs, And murmurs low love-litanies. There slender harebells nod and dream, And pale wild roses offer up The fragrance of their golden hearts, As from some incense-brimméd cup. It holds the sunshine sifted down Softly through many […]...
6. Soiled Dove Let us be honest; the lady was not a harlot until she married a corporation lawyer who picked her from a Ziegfeld chorus. Before then she never took anybody’s money and paid for her silk stockings out of what she earned singing and dancing. She loved one man and he loved six women and the […]...
7. A Cat She had a name among the children; But no one loved though someone owned Her, locked her out of doors at bedtime And had her kittens duly drowned. In Spring, nevertheless, this cat Ate blackbirds, thrushes, nightingales, And birds of bright voice and plume and flight, As well as scraps from neighbours’ pails. I loathed […]...
8. The Moon Thy beauty haunts me heart and soul, Oh, thou fair Moon, so close and bright; Thy beauty makes me like the child That cries aloud to own thy light: The little child that lifts each arm To press thee to her bosom warm. Though there are birds that sing this night With thy white beams […]...
9. Men Loved Wholly Beyond Wisdom Men loved wholly beyond wisdom Have the staff without the banner. Like a fire in a dry thicket Rising within women’s eyes Is the love men must return. Heart, so subtle now, and trembling, What a marvel to be wise., To love never in this manner! To be quiet in the fern Like a thing […]...
10. Aspens All day and night, save winter, every weather, Above the inn, the smithy and the shop, The aspens at the cross-roads talk together Of rain, until their last leaves fall from the top. Out of the blacksmith’s cavern comes the ringing Of hammer, shoe and anvil; out of the inn The clink, the hum, the […]...
11. Cacoethes Scribendi If all the trees in all the woods were men; And each and every blade of grass a pen; If every leaf on every shrub and tree Turned to a sheet of foolscap; every sea Were changed to ink, and all earth’s living tribes Had nothing else to do but act as scribes, And for […]...
12. A GRIEF Rivers, tow paths, caravan parks From Kirkstall to Keighley The track’s ribbon flaps Like Margaret’s whirling and twirling At ten with her pink-tied hair And blue-check patterned frock O my lost beloved Mills fall like doomed fortresses Their domes topple, stopped clocks Chime midnight forever and ever Amen to the lost hegemony of mill girls […]...
13. A Prayer For My Daughter Once more the storm is howling, and half hid Under this cradle-hood and coverlid My child sleeps on. There is no obstacle But Gregory’s wood and one bare hill Whereby the haystack – and roof-levelling wind. Bred on the Atlantic, can be stayed; And for an hour I have walked and prayed Because of the […]...
14. Give Me Women, Wine, and Snuff GIVE me women, wine, and snuff Untill I cry out “hold, enough!” You may do so sans objection Till the day of resurrection: For, bless my beard, they aye shall be My beloved Trinity....
15. The Gardener XIII: I Asked Nothing I asked nothing, only stood at the Edge of the wood behind the tree. Languor was still upon the eyes Of the dawn, and the dew in the air. The lazy smell of the damp grass Hung in the thin mist above the earth. Under the banyan tree you were Milking the cow with your […]...
16. The Hawthorn Tree Not much to me is yonder lane Where I go every day; But when there’s been a shower of rain And hedge-birds whistle gay, I know my lad that’s out in France With fearsome things to see Would give his eyes for just one glance At our white hawthorn tree. . . . . Not […]...
17. Tonight I Can Write Tonight I can write the saddest lines. Write, for example, ‘The night is starry And the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.’ The night wind revolves in the sky and sings. Tonight I can write the saddest lines. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. Through nights like this one I […]...
18. We say we say blame the teachers Don’t we send our young to school To be taught the simple rules For decent public-spirited behaviour Do we pay such crushing rates To have our children turned to louts We’re sick of all this fuss We say blame the teachers Or the preachers They’re all the same to us […]...
19. Saddest Poem I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. Write, for instance: “The night is full of stars, And the stars, blue, shiver in the distance.” The night wind whirls in the sky and sings. I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. On nights […]...
20. The Earth Falls Down If I could blame it all on the weather, The snow like the cadaver’s table, The trees turned into knitting needles, The ground as hard as a frozen haddock, The pond wearing its mustache of frost. If I could blame conditions on that, If I could blame the hearts of strangers Striding muffled down the […]...
21. Confessions What is he buzzing in my ears? “Now that I come to die, Do I view the world as a vale of tears?” Ah, reverend sir, not I! What I viewed there once, what I view again Where the physic bottles stand On the table’s edge,-is a suburb lane, With a wall to my bedside […]...
22. The First Chantey 1896 Mine was the woman to me, darkling I found her: Haling her dumb from the camp, held her and bound her. Hot rose her tribe on our track ere I had proved her; Hearing her laugh in the gloom, greatly I loved her. Swift through the forest we ran, none stood to guard us, […]...
23. Bianca Among The Nightingales The cypress stood up like a church That night we felt our love would hold, And saintly moonlight seemed to search And wash the whole world clean as gold; The olives crystallized the vales’ Broad slopes until the hills grew strong: The fireflies and the nightingales Throbbed each to either, flame and song. The nightingales, […]...
24. Grumpy Grandpa Grand-daughter of the Painted Nails, As if they had been dipped in gore, I’d like to set you lugging pails And make you scrub the kitchen floor. I’m old and crotchety of course, And on this point my patience fails; I’d sue my old girl for divorce If she showed up with painted nails. Grand-daughter […]...
25. How dare the robins sing How dare the robins sing, When men and women hear Who since they went to their account Have settled with the year! Paid all that life had earned In one consummate bill, And now, what life or death can do Is immaterial. Insulting is the sun To him whose mortal light Beguiled of immortality Bequeaths […]...
26. Substitution WHEN some beloved voice that was to you Both sound and sweetness, faileth suddenly, And silence, against which you dare not cry, Aches round you like a strong disease and new What hope? what help? what music will undo That silence to your sense? Not friendship’s sigh, Not reason’s subtle count; not melody Of viols, […]...
27. Bridge-Guard in the Karroo 1901 “. . . and will supply details to guard the Blood River Bridge.” District Orders-Lines of Communication, South African War. Sudden the desert changes, The raw glare softens and clings, Till the aching Oudtshoorn ranges Stand up like the thrones of Kings Ramparts of slaughter and peril Blazing, amazing, aglow ‘Twixt the sky-line’s belting […]...
28. "I Love You Sweatheart&quot A man risked his life to write the words. A man hung upside down (an idiot friend Holding his legs?) with spray paint To write the words on a girder fifty feet above A highway. And his beloved, The next morning driving to work…? His words are not (meant to be) so unique. Does she […]...
29. 'Twas the old road through pain ‘Twas the old road through pain That unfrequented one With many a turn and thorn That stops at Heaven This was the Town she passed There where she rested last Then stepped more fast The little tracks close prest Then not so swift Slow slow as feet did weary grow Then stopped no other track! […]...
30. 'Tis true They shut me in the Cold ‘Tis true They shut me in the Cold But then Themselves were warm And could not know the feeling ’twas Forget it Lord of Them Let not my Witness hinder Them In Heavenly esteem No Paradise could be Conferred Through Their beloved Blame The Harm They did was short And since Myself who bore it […]...
31. Chamfort THERE’S Chamfort. He’s a sample. Locked himself in his library with a gun, Shot off his nose and shot out his right eye. And this Chamfort knew how to write And thousands read his books on how to live, But he himself didn’t know How to die by force of his own hand see? They […]...
32. In My Craft Or Sullen Art In my craft or sullen art Exercised in the still night When only the moon rages And the lovers lie abed With all their griefs in their arms I labour by singing light Not for ambition or bread Or the strut and trade of charms On the ivory stages But for the common wages Of […]...
33. Since Then I met Jack Ellis in town to-day Jack Ellis my old mate, Jack Ten years ago, from the Castlereagh, We carried our swags together away To the Never-Again, Out Back. But times have altered since those old days, And the times have changed the men. Ah, well! there’s little to blame or praise Jack Ellis […]...
34. Out Back The old year went, and the new returned, in the withering weeks of drought, The cheque was spent that the shearer earned, And the sheds were all cut out; The publican’s words were short and few, And the publican’s looks were black And the time had come, as the shearer knew, to carry his swag […]...
35. To Jośe Marίa Palacio Palacio, good friend, Is spring there Showing itself on branches of black poplars By the roads and river? On the steeps Of the high Duero, spring is late, But so soft and lovely when it comes! Are there a few new leaves On the old elms? The acacias must still be bare, And the mountain […]...
36. Unlyric Love Song It is time to give that-of-myself which I could not at first: To offer you now at last my least and my worst: Minor, absurd preserves, The shell’s end-curves, A document kept at the back of a drawer, A tin hidden under the floor, Recalcitrant prides and hesitations: To pile them carefully in a desparate […]...
37. I Loved I loved illustrious cities and the crowds That eddy through their incandescent nights. I loved remote horizons with far clouds Girdled, and fringed about with snowy heights. I loved fair women, their sweet, conscious ways Of wearing among hands that covet and plead The rose ablossom at the rainbow’s base That bounds the world’s desire […]...
38. The Damned My days are haunted by the thought Of men in coils of Justice caught With stone and steel, in chain and cell, Of men condemned to living hell, Yet blame them not. In my sun-joy their dark I see: For what they are and had to be Blame Nature, red in tooth and claw, Blame […]...
39. Nimium Fortunatus I have lain in the sun I have toil’d as I might, I have thought as I would, And now it is night. My bed full of sleep, My heart full of content For friends that I met The way that I went. I welcome fatigue While frenzy and care Like thin summer clouds Go […]...
40. Thekla – A Spirit Voice Whither was it that my spirit wended When from thee my fleeting shadow moved? Is not now each earthly conflict ended? Say, have I not lived, have I not loved? Art thou for the nightingales inquiring Who entranced thee in the early year With their melody so joy-inspiring? Only whilst they loved they lingered here. […]...