Wreath the Bowl

Wreath the bowl
With flowers of soul,
The brightest Wit can find us,
We'll take a flight
Towards heaven to-night,
And leave dull earth behind us.
Should Love amid
The wreaths be hid
That Joy, the enchanter, brings us,
No danger fear,
While wine is near --
We'll drown him if he stings us.
Then, wreath the bowl
With flowers of soul,
The brightest Wit can find us.
We'll take a flight
Towards heaven to-night,
And leave dull earth behind us.

'Twas nectar fed


Wreck of the Schooner Samuel Crawford

'Twas in the year of 1886, and on the 29th of November,
Which the surviving crew of the "Samuel Crawford" will long remember,
She was bound to Baltimore with a cargo of pine lumber;
But, alas! the crew suffered greatly from cold and hunger.

'Twas on December 3rd when about ten miles south-west
Of Currituck light, and scudding at her best;
That a heavy gale struck her a merciless blow,
Which filled the hearts of the crew with fear and woe.

Then the merciless snow came down, hiding everything from view,


Worked-Out Mine

On summer nights when moonbeams flow
And glisten o’er the high, white tips,
And winds make lamentation low,
As through the ribs of shattered ships,
And steal about the broken brace
Where pendant timbers swing and moan,
And flitting bats give aimless chase,
Who dares to seek the mine alone?

The shrinking bush with sable rims
A skeleton forlorn and bowed,
With pipe-clay white about its limbs
And at its feet a tattered shroud;
And ghostly figures lurk and groan,


Words For A Trumpet Chorale Celebrating The Autumn

"The trumpet is a brilliant instrument." - Dietrich Buxtehude


Come and come forth and come up from the cup of
Your dumbness, stunned and numb, come with
The statues and believed in,
Thinking this is nothing, deceived.

Come to the summer and sun,
Come see upon that height, and that sum
In the seedtime of the winter's absolute,
How yearly the phoenix inhabits the fruit.
Behold, above all, how the tall ball
Called the body is but a drum, but a bell


Women's Suffrage

Fellow men! why should the lords try to despise
And prohibit women from having the benefit of the parliamentary Franchise?
When they pay the same taxes as you and me,
I consider they ought to have the same liberty.

And I consider if they are not allowed the same liberty,
From taxation every one of them should be set free;
And if they are not, it is really very unfair,
And an act of injustice I most solemnly declare.

Women, farmers, have no protection as the law now stands;


Woman's Trifling Needs

AN inventory clear of all she needs Lamira offers here; Nor does she fear a rigid Cato's frown When she lays by the rich embroidered gown, And modestly compounds for just enough- Perhaps, some dozens of more flighty stuff; With lawns and lustrings, blond, and Mechlin laces, Fringes and jewels, fans and tweezer-cases; memory Gay cloaks, and hats of every shape and size, Scarfs, cardinals, and ribbons of all dyes; With ruffles stamped, and aprons of tambour, Tippets and handkerchiefs, at least three score; With finest muslins that fair India boasts, And the choice herbage from Chinesan coasts


Woman's Constancy

Now thou hast loved me one whole day,
Tomorrow when thou leav'st, what wilt thou say?
Wilt thou then antedate some new-made vow?
    Or say that now
We are not just those persons which we were?
Or, that oaths made in reverential fear
Of love, and his wrath, any may forswear?
Or, as true deaths, true marriages untie,
So lovers' contracts, images of those,
Bind but till sleep, death's image, them unloose?
    Or your own end to justify,
For having purposed change, and falsehood, you


Wolf Knife

In the mid August, in the second year
of my First Polar Expedition, the snow and ice of winter
almost upon us, Kantiuk and I
attempted to dash the sledge
along Crispin Bay, searching again for relics
of the Frankline Expedition. Now a storm blew,
and we turned back, and we struggled slowly
in snow, lest we depart land and venture onto ice
from which a sudden fog and thaw
would abandon us to the Providence
of the sea.

Near nightfall I thought I heard snarling behind us.


Without Disguise

If I have erred in showing all my heart,
And lost your favour by a lack of pride;
If standing like a beggar at your side
With naked feet, I have forgot the art
Of those who bargain well in passion's mart,
And win the thing they want by what they hide;
Be mine the fault as mine the hope denied,
Be mine the lover's and the loser's part.

The sin, if sin it was, I do repent,
And take the penance on myself alone;
Yet after I have borne the punishment,
I shall not fear to stand before the throne


With The Face

With the face goes a mirror
As with the mind a world.
Likeness tells the doubting eye
That strangeness is not strange.
At an early hour and knowledge
Identity not yet familiar
Looks back upon itself from later,
And seems itself.

To-day seems now.
With reality-to-be goes time.
With the mind goes a world.
Wit the heart goes a weather.
With the face goes a mirror
As with the body a fear.
Young self goes staring to the wall
Where dumb futurity speaks calm,
And between then and then


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