The Sons of Martha
The Sons of Mary seldom bother, for they have inherited that good part; But the Sons of Martha favour their Mother of the careful soul and the troubled heart. And because she lost her
The Trade
They bear, in place of classic names, Letters and numbers on their skin. They play their grisly blindfold games In little boxes made of tin. Sometimes they stalk the Zeppelin, Sometimes they learn where
Mary, Pity Women!
You call yourself a man, For all you used to swear, An’ Leave me, as you can, My certain shame to bear? I’ear! You do not care You done the worst you know. I
The Song of the Dead
Hear now the Song of the Dead in the North by the torn berg-edges They that look still to the Pole, asleep by their hide-stripped sledges. Song of the Dead in the South in
The Explanation
Love and Death once ceased their strife At the Tavern of Man’s Life. Called for wine, and threw alas! Each his quiver on the grass. When the bout was o’er they found Mingled arrows
A Tale of Two Cities
Where the sober-colored cultivator smiles On his byles; Where the cholera, the cyclone, and the crow Come and go; Where the merchant deals in indigo and tea, Hides and ghi; Where the Babu drops
The Wage-Slaves
Oh, glorious are the guarded heights Where guardian souls abide Self-exiled from our gross delights Above, beyond, outside: An ampler arc their spirit swings Commands a juster view We have their word for all
Song of the Wise Children
1902 When the darkened Fifties dip to the North, And frost and the fog divide the air, And the day is dead at his breaking-forth, Sirs, it is bitter beneath the Bear! Far to
The Widow's Party
“Where have you been this while away, Johnnie, Johnnie?” ‘Long with the rest on a picnic lay, Johnnie, my Johnnie, aha! They called us out of the barrack-yard To Gawd knows where from Gosport
A Song of Kabir
Oh, light was the world that he weighed in his hands! Oh, heavy the tale of his fiefs and his lands! He has gone from the guddee and put on the shroud, And departed
Macdonough's Song
“As easy as A B C” A Diversity of Creatures” Whether the State can loose and bind In Heaven as well as on Earth: If it be wiser to kill mankind Before or after
A Recantation
1917 (To Lyde of the Music Halls) What boots it on the Gods to call? Since, answered or unheard, We perish with the Gods and all Things made except the Word. Ere certain Fate
Chant-Pagan
Me that ‘ave been what I’ve been Me that ‘ave gone where I’ve gone Me that ‘ave seen what I’ve seen ‘Ow can I ever take on With awful old England again, An’ ‘ouses
Banquet Night
“ONCE in so often,” King Solomon said, Watching his quarrymen drill the stone, “We will curb our garlic and wine and bread And banquet together beneath my Throne, And all Brethren shall come to
The Craftsman
Once, after long-drawn revel at The Mermaid, He to the overbearing Boanerges Jonson, uttered (if half of it were liquor, Blessed be the vintage!) Saying how, at an alehouse under Cotswold, He had made