Ballad of a Ship

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1. Where Lies The Land To Which The Ship Would Go Where lies the land to which the ship would go? Far, far ahead, is all her seamen know. And where the land she travels from? Away, Far, far behind, is all that they can say. On sunny noons upon the deck’s smooth face, Linked arm in arm, how pleasant here to pace! Or, o’er the […]...
2. The Building of the Ship “Build me straight, O worthy Master! Stanch and strong, a goodly vessel, That shall laugh at all disaster, And with wave and whirlwind wrestle!” The merchant’s word Delighted the Master heard; For his heart was in his work, and the heart Giveth grace unto every Art. A quiet smile played round his lips, As the […]...
3. 254. Caledonia: A Ballad THERE was once a day, but old Time wasythen young, That brave Caledonia, the chief of her line, From some of your northern deities sprung, (Who knows not that brave Caledonia’s divine?) From Tweed to the Orcades was her domain, To hunt, or to pasture, or do what she would: Her heav’nly relations there fixed […]...
4. The Burning of the Ship Kent Good people of high and low degree, I pray ye all to list to me, And I’ll relate a harrowing tale of the sea Concerning the burning of the ship “Kent” in the Bay of Biscay, Which is the most appalling tale of the present century. She carried a crew, including officers, of 148 men, […]...
5. 403. The Soldier's Return: A Ballad WHEN wild war’s deadly blast was blawn, And gentle peace returning, Wi’ mony a sweet babe fatherless, And mony a widow mourning; I left the lines and tented field, Where lang I’d been a lodger, My humble knapsack a’ my wealth, A poor and honest sodger. A leal, light heart was in my breast, My […]...
6. I explain the silvered passing of a ship at night I explain the silvered passing of a ship at night, The sweep of each sad lost wave, The dwindling boom of the steel thing’s striving, The little cry of a man to a man, A shadow falling across the greyer night, And the sinking of the small star; Then the waste, the far waste of […]...
7. Fancy Dress Some Brave, awake in you to-night, Knocked at your heart: an eagle’s flight Stirred in the feather on your head. Your wide-set Indian eyes, alight Above high cheek-bones smeared with red, Unveiled cragg’d centuries, and led You, the snared wraith of bygone things – Wild ancestries of trackless Kings – Out of the past… So […]...
8. The Revenge – A Ballad of the Fleet At Flores in the Azores Sir Richard Grenville lay, And a pinnace, like a fluttered bird, came flying from far away: ‘Spanish ships of war at sea! we have sighted’ Then sware Lord Thomas Howard: ”Fore God I am no coward; But I cannot meet them here, for my ships are out of gear, And […]...
9. The Ballad of the Calliope By the far Samoan shore, Where the league-long rollers pour All the wash of the Pacific on the coral-guarded bay, Riding lightly at their ease, In the calm of tropic seas, The three great nations’ warships at their anchors proudly lay. Riding lightly, head to wind, With the coral reefs behind, Three German and three […]...
10. The Word There are so many things I have forgot, That once were much to me, or that were not, All lost, as is a childless woman’s child And its child’s children, in the undefiled Abyss of what can never be again. I have forgot, too, names of the mighty men That fought and lost or won […]...
11. 26. John Barleycorn: A Ballad THERE was three kings into the east, Three kings both great and high, And they hae sworn a solemn oath John Barleycorn should die. They took a plough and plough’d him down, Put clods upon his head, And they hae sworn a solemn oath John Barleycorn was dead. But the cheerful Spring came kindly on, […]...
12. A Ballad of Death Kneel down, fair Love, and fill thyself with tears, Girdle thyself with sighing for a girth Upon the sides of mirth, Cover thy lips and eyelids, let thine ears Be filled with rumour of people sorrowing; Make thee soft raiment out of woven sighs Upon the flesh to cleave, Set pains therein and many a […]...
13. The Doomed Ship The doomed ship drives on helpless through the sea, All that the mariners may do is done And death is left for men to gaze upon, While side by side two friends sit silently; Friends once, foes once, and now by death made free Of Love and Hate, of all things lost or won; Yet […]...
14. Ballad of Dead Friends As we the withered ferns By the roadway lying, Time, the jester, spurns All our prayers and prying All our tears and sighing, Sorrow, change, and woe All our where-and-whying For friends that come and go. Life awakes and burns, Age and death defying, Till at last it learns All but Love is dying; Love’s […]...
15. As Slow Our Ship As slow our ship her foamy track Against the wind was cleaving, Her trembling pennant still look’d back To that dear isle ’twas leaving. So loath we part from all we love, From all the links that bind us; So turn our hearts as on we rove, To those we’ve left behind us. When, round […]...
16. 424. Song-Phillis the Fair WHILE larks, with little wing, Fann’d the pure air, Tasting the breathing Spring, Forth I did fare: Gay the sun’s golden eye Peep’d o’er the mountains high; Such thy morn! did I cry, Phillis the fair. In each bird’s careless song, Glad I did share; While yon wild-flowers among, Chance led me there! Sweet to […]...
17. The Ballad Of Touch-The-Button Nell Beyond the Rocking Bridge it lies, the burg of evil fame, The huts where hive and swarm and thrive the sisterhood of shame. Through all the night each cabin light goes out and then goes in, A blood-red heliograph of lust, a semaphore of sin. From Dawson Town, soft skulking down, each lewdster seeks his […]...
18. A Ballad of Dreamland I hid my heart in a nest of roses, Out of the sun’s way, hidden apart; In a softer bed then the soft white snow’s is, Under the roses I hid my heart. Why would it sleep not? why should it start, When never a leaf of the rose-tree stirred? What made sleep flutter his […]...
19. The Ballad Of Reading Gaol (In memoriam C. T. W. Sometime trooper of the Royal Horse Guards Obiit H. M. prison, Reading, Berkshire July 7, 1896) I He did not wear his scarlet coat, For blood and wine are red, And blood and wine were on his hands When they found him with the dead, The poor dead woman whom […]...
20. Ballad of the Army Carts The carts squeak and trundle, the horses whinny, the conscripts go by, each With a bow and arrows at his waist. Their fathers, mothers, wives, and children Run along beside them to see them off. The Hsien-yang Bridge cannot be seen for Dust. They pluck at the men’s clothes, stamp their feet, or stand in […]...
21. Ballad of Another Ophelia Oh the green glimmer of apples in the orchard, Lamps in a wash of rain! Oh the wet walk of my brown hen through the stackyard, Oh tears on the window pane! Nothing now will ripen the bright green apples, Full of disappointment and of rain, Brackish they will taste, of tears, when the yellow […]...
22. The Chestnut Casts His Flambeaux The chestnut casts his flambeaux, and the flowers Stream from the hawthorn on the wind away, The doors clap to, the pane is blind with showers. Pass me the can, lad; there’s an end of May. There’s one spoilt spring to scant our mortal lot, One season ruined of your little store. May will be […]...
23. The Ship of Death I Now it is autumn and the falling fruit And the long journey towards oblivion. The apples falling like great drops of dew To bruise themselves an exit from themselves. And it is time to go, to bid farewell To one’s own self, and find an exit From the fallen self. II Have you built […]...
24. The Ballad Of The Black Fox Skin I There was Claw-fingered Kitty and Windy Ike living the life of shame, When unto them in the Long, Long Night came the man-who-had-no-name; Bearing his prize of a black fox pelt, out of the Wild he came. His cheeks were blanched as the flume-head foam when the brown spring freshets flow; Deep in their […]...
25. Captivity The lion remembers the forest, The lion in chains; To the bird that is captive a vision Of woodland remains. One strains with his strength at the fetter, In impotent rage; One flutters in flights of a moment, And beats at the cage. If the lion were loosed from the fetter, To wander again; He […]...
26. Donica – A Ballad Author Note: In Finland there is a Castle which is called the New Rock, moated about with a river of unfounded depth, the water black and the fish therein Very distateful to the palate. In this are spectres often seen, which Foreshew either the death of the Governor, or some prime officer Belonging to the […]...
27. The Ballad Of Father Gilligan The old priest Peter Gilligan Was weary night and day; For half his flock were in their beds, Or under green sods lay. Once, while he nodded on a chair, At the moth-hour of eve, Another poor man sent for him, And he began to grieve. ‘I have no rest, nor joy, nor peace, For […]...
28. On The Loss Of The Royal George Written when the news arrived. Toll for the brave! The brave that are no more! All sunk beneath the wave Fast by their native shore. Eight hundred of the brave, Whose courage well was tried, Had made the vessel heel, And laid her on her side. A land-breeze shook the shrouds, And she was overset; […]...
29. 419. Bonie Jean: A Ballad THERE was a lass, and she was fair, At kirk or market to be seen; When a’ our fairest maids were met, The fairest maid was bonie Jean. And aye she wrought her mammie’s wark, And aye she sang sae merrilie; The blythest bird upon the bush Had ne’er a lighter heart than she. But […]...
30. The Church-Bell As I was lying in my bed I heard the church-bell ring; Before one solemn word was said A bird began to sing. I heard a dog begin to bark And a bold crowing cock; The bell, between the cold and dark, Tolled. It was five o’clock. The church-bell tolled, and the bird sang, A […]...
31. The Ballad of the King's Jest When spring-time flushes the desert grass, Our kafilas wind through the Khyber Pass. Lean are the camels but fat the frails, Light are the purses but heavy the bales, As the snowbound trade of the North comes down To the market-square of Peshawur town. In a turquoise twilight, crisp and chill, A kafila camped at […]...
32. Owen Aherne And His Dancers I A strange thing surely that my Heart, when love had come unsought Upon the Norman upland or in that poplar shade, Should find no burden but itself and yet should be worn out. It could not bear that burden and therefore it went mad. The south wind brought it longing, and the east wind […]...
33. Tom O'Roughley ‘Though logic-choppers rule the town, And every man and maid and boy Has marked a distant object down, An aimless joy is a pure joy,’ Or so did Tom O’Roughley say That saw the surges running by. ‘And wisdom is a butterfly And not a gloomy bird of prey. ‘If little planned is little sinned […]...
34. The Ballad of East and West Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet, Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat; But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth, When two strong men stand face to face, tho’ they come from the ends of the earth! Kamal […]...
35. The Ballad Of A Bachelor Listen, ladies, while I sing The ballad of John Henry King. John Henry was a bachelor, His age was thirty-three or four. Two maids for his affection vied, And each desired to be his bride, And bravely did they strive to bring Unto their feet John Henry King. John Henry liked them both so well, […]...
36. My Ship and I O it’s I that am the captain of a tidy little ship, Of a ship that goes a sailing on the pond; And my ship it keeps a-turning all around and all about; But when I’m a little older, I shall find the secret out How to send my vessel sailing on beyond. For I […]...
37. A Ballad of Hell ‘A letter from my love to-day! Oh, unexpected, dear appeal!’ She struck a happy tear away, And broke the crimson seal. ‘My love, there is no help on earth, No help in heaven; the dead-man’s bell Must toll our wedding; our first hearth Must be the well-paved floor of hell.’ The colour died from out […]...
38. The Ballad Of The Northern Lights One of the Down and Out that’s me. Stare at me well, ay, stare! Stare and shrink say! you wouldn’t think that I was a millionaire. Look at my face, it’s crimped and gouged one of them death-mask things; Don’t seem the sort of man, do I, as might be the pal of kings? Slouching […]...
39. After the Sea-Ship AFTER the Sea-Ship-after the whistling winds; After the white-gray sails, taut to their spars and ropes, Below, a myriad, myriad waves, hastening, lifting up their necks, Tending in ceaseless flow toward the track of the ship: Waves of the ocean, bubbling and gurgling, blithely prying, Waves, undulating waves-liquid, uneven, emulous waves, Toward that whirling current, […]...
40. The Ballad Of Blasphemous Bill I took a contract to bury the body of blasphemous Bill MacKie, Whenever, wherever or whatsoever the manner of death he die Whether he die in the light o’ day or under the peak-faced moon; In cabin or dance-hall, camp or dive, mucklucks or patent shoon; On velvet tundra or virgin peak, by glacier, drift […]...