Prologue to "Rhymes to be Traded for Bread&quot

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1. 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 […]...
2. A Rondeau of College Rhymes Our college rhymes, how light they seem, Like little ghosts of love’s young dream That led our boyish hearts away From lectures and from books, to stray By flowery mead and flowing stream! There’s nothing here, in form or theme, Of thought sublime or art supreme: We would not have the critic weigh Our college […]...
3. He Gives His Beloved Certain Rhymes Fasten your hair with a golden pin, And bind up every wandering tress; I bade my heart build these poor rhymes: It worked at them, day out, day in, Building a sorrowful loveliness Out of the battles of old times. You need but lift a pearl-pale hand, And bind up your long hair and sigh; […]...
4. If By Dull Rhymes Our English Must Be Chain'd If by dull rhymes our English must be chain’d, And, like Andromeda, the Sonnet sweet Fetter’d, in spite of pained loveliness; Let us find out, if we must be constrain’d, Sandals more interwoven and complete To fit the naked foot of poesy; Let us inspect the lyre, and weigh the stress Of every chord, and […]...
5. Author's Prologue This day winding down now At God speeded summer’s end In the torrent salmon sun, In my seashaken house On a breakneck of rocks Tangled with chirrup and fruit, Froth, flute, fin, and quill At a wood’s dancing hoof, By scummed, starfish sands With their fishwife cross Gulls, pipers, cockles, and snails, Out there, crow […]...
6. Rhymes for Gloriana I. THE DOLL UPON THE TOPMOST BOUGH This doll upon the topmost bough, This playmate-gift, in Christmas dress, Was taken down and brought to me One sleety night most comfortless. Her hair was gold, her dolly-sash Was gray brocade, most good to see. The dear toy laughed, and I forgot The ill the new year […]...
7. 157. Prologue, spoken by Mr. Woods at Edinburgh WHEN, by a generous Public’s kind acclaim, That dearest meed is granted-honest fame; Waen here your favour is the actor’s lot, Nor even the man in private life forgot; What breast so dead to heavenly Virtue’s glow, But heaves impassion’d with the grateful throe? Poor is the task to please a barb’rous throng, It needs […]...
8. Prologue All in the golden afternoon Full leisurely we glide; For both our oars, with little skill, By little arms are plied, While little hands make vain pretence Our wanderings to guide. Ah, cruel Three! In such an hour Beneath such dreamy weather, To beg a tale of breath too weak To stir the tiniest feather&xclm. […]...
9. Contentment Bed and bread are all I need In my happy day; Love of Nature is my creed, Unto her I pray; Sun and sky my spirit feed On my happy way. To no man I bow the head, None may master me; I will eat my crust of bread Lauding liberty; And upon my truckle […]...
10. An Autumn Reverie Alas! Beautiful Summer now hath fled, And the face of Nature doth seem dead, And the leaves are withered, and falling off the trees, By the nipping and chilling autumnal breeze. The pleasures of the little birds are all fled, And with the cold many of them will be found dead, Because the leaves of […]...
11. The General Prologue WHEN that Aprilis, with his showers swoot*, *sweet The drought of March hath pierced to the root, And bathed every vein in such licour, Of which virtue engender’d is the flower; When Zephyrus eke with his swoote breath Inspired hath in every holt* and heath *grove, forest The tender croppes* and the younge sun *twigs, […]...
12. Forbearance Hast thou named all the birds without a gun; Loved the wood-rose, and left it on its stalk; At rich men’s tables eaten bread and pulse; Unarmed, faced danger with a heart of trust; And loved so well a high behavior In man or maid, that thou from speech refrained, Nobility more nobly to repay?- […]...
13. Surtax We pitied him because He lived alone; His tiny cottage was His only own. His little garden had A wall around; Yet never was so glad A bit of ground. It seemed to fair rejoice With flowers and fruit; With blooms it found a voice When ours was muts. It smiled without a pause In […]...
14. Money When I had money, money, O! I knew no joy till I went poor; For many a false man as a friend Came knocking all day at my door. Then felt I like a child that holds A trumpet that he must not blow Because a man is dead; I dared Not speak to let […]...
15. 300. Scots Prologue for Mr. Sutherland WHAT needs this din about the town o’ Lon’on, How this new play an’ that new sang is comin? Why is outlandish stuff sae meikle courted? Does nonsense mend, like brandy, when imported? Is there nae poet, burning keen for fame, Will try to gie us sangs and plays at hame? For Comedy abroad he […]...
16. Lines Written In The Belief That The Ancient Roman Festival Of The Dead Was Called Ambarvalia Swings the way still by hollow and hill, And all the world’s a song; “She’s far,” it sings me, “but fair,” it rings me, “Quiet,” it laughs, “and strong!” Oh! spite of the miles and years between us, Spite of your chosen part, I do remember; and I go With laughter in my heart. So […]...
17. The Princess (prologue) Sir Walter Vivian all a summer’s day Gave his broad lawns until the set of sun Up to the people: thither flocked at noon His tenants, wife and child, and thither half The neighbouring borough with their Institute Of which he was the patron. I was there From college, visiting the son, the son A […]...
18. The Tunnel Toil’s a tunnel, there’s no way out For fellows, the like o’ me; A beggar wi’ only a crust an’ a clout At the worst o’ the worst is free; But I work to eat, an’ I eat to work; It’s always the same old round, And I dassent fail for the day I shirk […]...
19. A Man Young And Old: IX. The Secrets Of The Old I have old women’s secrets now That had those of the young; Madge tells me what I dared not think When my blood was strong, And what had drowned a lover once Sounds like an old song. Though Margery is stricken dumb If thrown in Madge’s way, We three make up a solitude; For none […]...
20. The Death of the Old Mendicant There was a rich old gentleman Lived on a lonely moor in Switzerland, And he was very hard to the wandering poor, ‘Tis said he never lodged nor served them at his door. ‘Twas on a stormy night, and Boreas blew a bitter blast, And the snowflakes they fell thick and fast, When a poor […]...
21. Prologue 1 To sing of Wars, of Captains, and of Kings, 2 Of Cities founded, Common-wealths begun, 3 For my mean Pen are too superior things; 4 Or how they all, or each their dates have run, 5 Let Poets and Historians set these forth. 6 My obscure lines shall not so dim their worth. 7 […]...
22. Prologue 1/ The taste of a poem Is in the relishing Sweet, sour or bitter Cold, lukewarm or hot The test of a poem Is in the nourishing Undying, fleeting or naught Its effect in the heart 2/ Here are the lines That got stuck in the jam On their way to your heart Possibly the […]...
23. Love and Black Magic To the woods, to the woods is the wizard gone; In his grotto the maiden sits alone. She gazes up with a weary smile At the rafter-hanging crocodile, The slowly swinging crocodile. Scorn has she of her master’s gear, Cauldron, alembic, crystal sphere, Phial, philtre-“Fiddlededee For all such trumpery trash!” quo’ she. “A soldier is […]...
24. Hymn 106 Dead to sin by the cross of Christ. Rom. 6:1,2,6. Shall we go on to sin Because thy grace abounds; Or crucify the Lord again, And open all his wounds? Forbid it, mighty God! Nor let it e’er be said, That we whose sins are crucified Should raise them from the dead. We will be […]...
25. Prologue to a Saga Maidens, gather not the yew, Leave the glossy myrtle sleeping; Any lad was born untrue, Never a one is fit your weeping. Pretty dears, your tumult cease; Love’s a fardel, burthening double. Clear your hearts, and have you peace- Gangway, girls: I’ll show you trouble....
26. I never told the buried gold I never told the buried gold Upon the hill that lies I saw the sun his plunder done Crouch low to guard his prize. He stood as near As stood you here A pace had been between Did but a snake bisect the brake My life had forfeit been. That was a wondrous booty I […]...
27. The Joy Of Being Poor I Let others sing of gold and gear, the joy of being rich; But oh, the days when I was poor, a vagrant in a ditch! When every dawn was like a gem, so radiant and rare, And I had but a single coat, and not a single care; When I would feast right royally […]...
28. Sonnet CXVI: Let me not to the marriage of true minds Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove: O no! it is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wandering bark, Whose worth’s unknown, although […]...
29. Prologue to Rodin in Rime To Kathleen- Nor I can give, nor you can take; endures The simple truth of me that is yours. Is not the music mingled with the form When all the heavens break in blind black storm? Are we not veiled as Gods, and cruel as they, Smiting our brilliance on the shuddering clay? Silence and […]...
30. The Widow at Windsor ‘Ave you ‘eard o’ the Widow at Windsor With a hairy gold crown on ‘er ‘ead? She ‘as ships on the foam she ‘as millions at ‘ome, An’ she pays us poor beggars in red. (Ow, poor beggars in red!) There’s ‘er nick on the cavalry ‘orses, There’s ‘er mark on the medical stores An’ […]...
31. Dedication To Providence I loved to toy with tuneful rhyme, My fancies into verse to weave; For as I walked my words would chime So bell-like I could scarce believe; My rhymes rippled like a brook, My stanzas bloomed like blossoms gay: And that is why I dream this book A verseman’s holiday. The palm-blades brindle in the […]...
32. Sonnets xviii LET me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove: O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark, That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wand’ring bark, Whose worth ‘s unknown, […]...
33. Sonnet 116: Let me not to the marriage of true minds Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove. O no, it is an ever-fixèd mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wand’ring bark, Whose worth’s unknown, although […]...
34. 298. Prologue spoken at the Theatre of Dumfries NO song nor dance I bring from yon great city, That queens it o’er our taste-the more’s the pity: Tho’ by the bye, abroad why will you roam? Good sense and taste are natives here at home: But not for panegyric I appear, I come to wish you all a good New Year! Old Father […]...
35. The Blind And The Dead She lay like a saint on her copper couch; Like an angel asleep she lay, In the stare of the ghoulish folks that slouch Past the Dead and sneak away. Then came old Jules of the sightless gaze, Who begged in the streets for bread. Each day he had come for a year of days, […]...
36. Night And Day The innocent, sweet Day is dead. Dark Night hath slain her in her bed. O, Moors are as fierce to kill as to wed! Put out the light, said he. A sweeter light than ever rayed From star of heaven or eye of maid Has vanished in the unknown Shade. She’s dead, she’s dead, said […]...
37. Come Gather Round Me, Parnellites Come gather round me, Parnellites, And praise our chosen man; Stand upright on your legs awhile, Stand upright while you can, For soon we lie where he is laid, And he is underground; Come fill up all those glasses And pass the bottle round. And here’s a cogent reason, And I have many more, He […]...
38. Opposition Of fret, of dark, of thorn, of chill, Complain no more; for these, O heart, Direct the random of the will As rhymes direct the rage of art. The lute’s fixt fret, that runs athwart The strain and purpose of the string, For governance and nice consort Doth bar his wilful wavering. The dark hath […]...
39. The Death of Fred Marsden, the American Playwright A pathetic tragedy I will relate, Concerning poor Fred. Marsden’s fate, Who suffocated himself by the fumes of gas, On the 18th of May, and in the year of 1888, alas! Fred. Marsden was a playwright, the theatrical world knows, And was highly esteemed by the people, and had very few foes; And in New […]...
40. In Memoriam POOR little child, my pretty boy, Why did the hunter mark thee out? Wert thou betrayed by thine own joy? Singled through childhood’s merry shout? And who on such a gentle thing Let slip the Hound that none may bar, That shall o’ertake the swiftest wing And tear the heavens down star by star? And […]...