Oh you who are shy of the popular eye, (Though most of us seek to survive it) Just think of the goldfish who wanted to die Because she could never be private. There are

Gazing to gold seraph wing, With wistful wonder in my eyes, A blue-behinded ape, I swing Upon the palms of Paradise. A parakeet of gaudy hue Upon a flame tree smugly rocks; Oh, we’re

There’s a four-pronged buck a-swinging in the shadow of my cabin, And it roamed the velvet valley till to-day; But I tracked it by the river, and I trailed it in the cover, And

Her little head just topped the window-sill; She even mounted on a stool, maybe; She pressed against the pane, as children will, And watched us playing, oh so wistfully! And then I missed her

My mother loved her horses and Her hounds of pedigree; She did not kiss the baby hand I held to her in glee. Of course I had a sweet nou-nou Who tended me with

When I am dead I will not care Forever more, If sky be radiantly fair Or tempest roar. If my life-hoard in sin be spent, My wife re-wed, I’ll be so damned indifferent When

The sheep are in the silver wood, The cows are in the broom; The goats are in the wild mountain And won’t be home by noon. My mother sang that olden tune Most every

When I was brash and gallant-gay Just fifty years ago, I hit the ties and beat my way From Maine to Mexico; For though to Glasgow gutter bred A hobo heart had I, And

He was my one and only love; My world was mirror for his face. We were as close as hand and glove, Until he came with smiling grace To say: ‘We must be wise,

From wrath-red dawn to wrath-red dawn, The guns have brayed without abate; And now the sick sun looks upon The bleared, blood-boltered fields of hate As if it loathed to rise again. How strange

When you come home I’ll not be round To welcome you. They’ll take you to a grassy mound So neat and new; Where I’ll be sleeping O so sound! The ages through. I’ll not

I’m just an ordinary chap Who comes home to his tea, And mostly I don’t care a rap What people think of me; I do my job and take my pay, And love of

Great Grandfather was ninety-nine And so it was our one dread, That though his health was superfine He’d fail to make the hundred. Though he was not a rolling stone No moss he seemed

One said: Thy life is thine to make or mar, To flicker feebly, or to soar, a star; It lies with thee the choice is thine, is thine, To hit the ties or drive

I think I’ll buy a little field, Though scant am I of pelf, And hold the hope that it may yield A living for myself; For I have toiled ten thousand days With ledger

The leaves are falling one and one, Each like a life to me, As over-soonly in the sun They spiral goldenly: So airily and warily They falter free. The leaves are falling two and

A bunch of the boys were whooping it up in the Malamute saloon; The kid that handles the music-box was hitting a jag-time tune; Back of the bar, in a solo game, sat Dangerous

Here is my Garret up five flights of stairs; Here’s where I deal in dreams and ply in fancies, Here is the wonder-shop of all my wares, My sounding sonnets and my red romances.

This is the pay-day up at the mines, when the bearded brutes come down; There’s money to burn in the streets to-night, so I’ve sent my klooch to town, With a haggard face and

I sought Him on the purple seas, I sought Him on the peaks aflame; Amid the gloom of giant trees And canyons lone I called His name; The wasted ways of earth I trod:

When they shall close my careless eyes And look their last upon my face, I fear that some will say: “her lies A man of deep disgrace; His thoughts were bare, his words were

Alphonso Rex who died in Rome Was quite a fistful as a kid; For when I visited his home, That gorgeous palace in Madrid, The grinning guide-chap showed me where He rode his bronco

Pedlar’s coming down the street, Housewives beat a swift retreat. Don’t you answer to the bell; Heedless what she has to sell. Just discreetly go inside. We must hang a board, I fear: PEDLARS

To be a bony feed Sourdough You must, by Yukon Law, Have killed a moose, And robbed a sluice, AND BUNKED UP WITH A SQUAW. . . . Alas! Sourdough I’ll never be. Oh,

Behold! the Spanish flag they’re raising Before the Palace courtyard gate; To watch its progress bold and blazing Two hundred patient people wait. Though bandsmen play the anthem bravely The silken emblem seems to

To me at night the stars are vocal. They say: ‘Your planet’s oh so local! A speck of dust in heaven’s ceiling; Your faith divine a foolish feeling. What odds if you are chaos

For five and twenty years I’ve run A famous train; But now my spell of speed is done, No more I’ll strain My sight along the treadless tracks, The gleamy rails: My hand upon

They say she speeded wanton wild When she was warm with wine; And so she killed a little child, (Could have been yours or mine). The Judge’s verdict was not mild, And heavy was

There’s a race of men that don’t fit in, A race that can’t stay still; So they break the hearts of kith and kin, And they roam the world at will. They range the

While I am emulating Keats My brother fabrics toilet seats, The which, they say, are works of art, Aesthetic features of the mart; So exquisitely are they made With plastic of a pastel shade,

My boy’s come back; he’s here at last; He came home on a special train. My longing and my ache are past, My only son is back again. He’s home with music, flags and

I The Moon is like a ping-pong ball; I lean against the orchard wall, And see it soar into the void, A silky sphere of celluloid. Then fairy fire enkindles it, Like gossamer by

Clorinda met me on the way As I came from the train; Her face was anything but gay, In fact, suggested pain. “Oh hubby, hubby dear!” she cried, “I’ve awful news to tell. .

He gives me such a bold and curious look, That young American across the way, As if he’d like to put me in a book (Fancies himself a poet, so they say.) Ah well!

So often in the mid of night I wake me in my bed With utter panic of affright To find my feet are dead; And pace the floor to easy my pain And make

To visit the Escurial We took a motor bus, And there a guide mercurial Took charge of us. He showed us through room after room, And talked hour after hour, Of place, crypt and

The poppies gleamed like bloody pools through cotton-woolly mist; The Captain kept a-lookin’ at the watch upon his wrist; And there we smoked and squatted, as we watched the shrapnel flame; ‘Twas wonnerful, I’m

Your children grow from you apart, Afar and still afar; And yet it should rejoice your heart To see how glad they are; In school and sport, in work and play, And last, in

Ever in the ebb and flow Of my dreams that come and go, Reader, I have you in mind, Humbly hoping you will find In my verse a gleam that’s true To the dreams

I Flat as a drum-head stretch the haggard snows; The mighty skies are palisades of light; The stars are blurred; the silence grows and grows; Vaster and vaster vaults the icy night. Here in

We was in a crump-‘ole, ‘im and me; Fightin’ wiv our bayonets was we; Fightin’ ‘ard as ‘ell we was, Fightin’ fierce as fire because It was ‘im or me as must be downed;

I was in Warsaw when the first bomb fell; I was in Warsaw when the Terror came – Havoc and horror, famine, fear and flame, Blasting from loveliness a living hell. Barring the station

Blind Peter Piper used to play All up and down the city; I’d often meet him on my way, And throw a coin for pity. But all amid his sparkling tones His ear was

It was foretold by sybils three That in an air crash he would die. “I’ll fool their prophesy,” said he; “You won’t get me to go on high. Howe’re the need for haste and

Said Hongray de la Glaciere unto his proud Papa: “I want to take a wife mon Père,” The Marquis laughed: “Ha! Ha! And whose, my son?” he slyly said; but Hongray with a frown

From off my calendar today A leaf I tear; So swiftly passes smiling May Without a care. And now the gentleness of June Will fleetly fly And I will greet the glamour moon Of

“Hullo, young Jones! with your tie so gay And your pen behind your ear; Will you mark my cheque in the usual way? For I’m overdrawn, I fear.” Then you look at me in

Why should I be the first to fall Of all the leaves on this old tree? Though sadly soon I know that all Will lose their hold and follow me. While my birth-brothers bravely

Though Virtue hurt you Vice is nice; Aye, Parson says it’s wrong, Yet for my pleasing I’ll suffice With Women, Wine and Song. But though it be with jocund glee My tavern voice is

My worldly wealth I hoard in albums three, My life collection of rare postage stamps; My room is cold and bare as you can see, My coat is old and shabby as a tramp’s;