Brave man and brave woman,
With brave and honest heart,
And with their money will not part,
Will make life a grand success.

I know what it is to labor hard;
And with pluck and ambition
And womanly brain I ventured out
And aspired to learn a trade.

Of laundress and French cleaning
I learned the trade, worked hard,
And strict attention to business paid,
And found it worth while to learn a trade,

If you have no wealth, don't be sad,
Take if for your lot, don't think it bad,
But strive for the front with honest heart,

Brave lads in olden musical centuries
Sang, night by night, adorable choruses,
Sat late by alehouse doors in April
Chaunting in joy as the moon was rising.

Moon-seen and merry, under the trellises,
Flush-faced they play'd with old polysyllables
Spring scents inspired, old wine diluted:
Love and Apollo were there to chorus.

Now these, the songs, remain to eternity,
Those, only those, the bountiful choristers
Gone--those are gone, those unremember'd
Sleep and are silent in earth for ever.

So man himself appears and evanishes,

Brave flowers, that I could gallant it like you
And be as little vain!
You come abroad, and make a harmless show,
And to your beds of earth again;
You are not proud, you know your birth,
For your embroidered garments are from earth.

You do obey your months, and times, but I
Would have it ever spring;
My fate would know no winter, never die,
Nor think of such a thing.
Oh that I could my bed of earth but view,
And smile, and look as cheerfully as you!

Oh teach me to see death, and not to fear,
But rather to take truce;

The brain is wider than the sky,
For, put them side by side,
The one the other will include
With ease, and you beside.

The brain is deeper than the sea,
For, hold them, blue to blue,
The one the other will absorb,
As sponges, buckets do.

The brain is just the weight of God,
For, lift them, pound for pound,
And they will differ, if they do,
As syllable from sound.

Boys' cocks, Diodore,
have three phases,
or so those in the know say.
Leave 'em alone & they babble,
let 'em swell & they wail,
but when a hand yanks 'em,
those pricks talk;

that's all you need to know.

The boys are comin' to town! — Whoop la!
What does the marshal do?
He's gone and hid, that's what he did,
Fer he knows a thing or two.
Fer he knows a thing or two, — Yip, yip!
Fer he knows a thing or two.

The boys are comin' to town! — Ker bang!
What does the dogs all do?
They hits the trail with a canine wail,
Fer they know a thing or two.
Fer they know a thing or two, — Ki yi!

Boys and girls crying with hunger, all over the village,
and the tax collector knocking at every door...
The old man, unable to fall asleep at night,
finds brush and paper, starts work on a painting
of Peach Blossom Spring.

A boy of fifteen,
he wore a jacket, dark shirt, wool tie,
his bright eyes studying earnestly
Androcles and the Lion
in the Shavian alphabet . . .
His friend, a few years older,
blond and bundled in overcoat and scarf,
carried a flute
as they sat at the next table
of a cafe in Toronto.
My friend knew the younger boy
and I asked her who they were.
" He used to be a nice, ordinary kid,"
she said; " Then he met him — Brett.
Brett took him to Montreal,
did things to him . . . I don't know . . .

SIMPLE SIMON

A BOY named Simon sojourned in a dale;
Some said that he was simple, but I 'm sure
That he was nothing less than simon pure;
They thought him so because, forsooth, a whale
He tried to catch in Mother's water-pail.
Ah! little boy, timid, composed, demure, —
He had imagination. Yet endure
Defeat he could, for he of course did fail.
But there are Simons of a larger growth,
Who, too, in shallow waters fish for whales,
And when they fail they are " unfortunate. "

The Boy from his bedroom-window
Look'd over the little town,
And away to the bleak black upland
Under a clouded moon.

The moon came forth from her cavern,
He saw the sudden gleam
Of a tarn in the swarthy moorland;
Or perhaps the whole was a dream.

For I never could find that water
In all my walks and rides:
Far-off, in the Land of Memory,
That midnight pool abides.

Many fine things had I glimpse of,
And said, ‘I shall find them one day.’
Whether within or without me
They were, I cannot say.