Johnny had a golden head
Like a golden mop in blow,
Right and left his curls would spread
In a glory and a glow,
And they framed his honest face
Like stray sunbeams out of place.

Long and thick, they half could hide
How threadbare his patched jacket hung;
They used to be his Mother's pride;
She praised them with a tender tongue,
And stroked them with a loving finger
That smoothed and stroked and loved to linger.

On a doorstep Johnny sat,
Up and down the street looked he;
Johnny did not own a hat,
Hot or cold tho' days might be;

Whose lives are bound
By sleep and custom and tranquillity
Have never found
That peace which is a riven mystery
Who only share
The calm that doth this stream, these orchards bless,
Breathe but the air
Of unimpassioned pagan quietness….
Initiate,
Pain burns about your head, an aureole,
Who hold in state
The utter joy which wounds and heals the soul.
You kiss the Rod
With dumb, glad lips, and bear to worlds apart
The peace of God
Which passeth all understanding in your heart.

I cannot divine what it meaneth,
This haunting nameless pain:
A tale of the bygone ages
Keeps brooding through my brain:

The faint air cools in the gloaming,
And peaceful flows the Rhine,
The thirsty summits are drinking
The sunset's flooding wine;

The loveliest maiden is sitting
High-throned in yon blue air,
Her golden jewels are shining
She combs her golden hair;

She combs with a comb that is golden,
And sings a weird refrain
That steeps in a deadly enchantment
The list'ner's ravished brain:

Not Baal, but Christus-Jingo! Heir
Of Him who once was crucified!
The red stigmata still are there,
The crimson spear-wounds in the side;
But raised aloft as God and Lord,
He holds the Money-bag and Sword.

See, underneath the Crown of Thorn,
The eyeballs fierce, the features grim!
And merrily from night to morn
We chaunt his praise and worship him,
Great Christus-Jingo, at whose feet
Christian and Jew and Atheist meet!

A wondrous god! most fit for those
Who cheat on 'Change, then creep to prayer;
Blood on his heavenly altar flows,

Athwart the fields the drops are falling,
Softly, gently, on the plains;
And through the drops a grief is calling,—
It rains.

Alone amid my sick-ward spacious
Where I my bed of weakness keep,
There's naught to fight my grief voracious,
But sleep.

But mists are gathering around me
With choking hold upon my veins;
I wake from out the sleep that bound me—
It rains.

Then, as if in my final anguish,
Before the landscape's mighty brink,
Amid the mists that fall and languish,

She sitteth there a mourner,
With her dead before her eyes;
Flushed with the hues of life is he
And quick are his replies.
Often his warm hand touches hers;
Brightly his glances fall;
And yet, in this wide world, is she
The loneliest of all.

Some mourners feel their dead return
In dreams, or thoughts at even;
Ah, well for them their best-beloved
Are faithful still in heaven!
But woe to her whose best-beloved,
Though dead, still lingers near;
So far away when by her side,
He cannot see nor hear.

Our country insulted
Demands quick redress.
To arms, Voltigeurs!
To the struggle we press.
From vict'ry to vict'ry,
Brave, righteous, and just,
Ours the mem'ries that cling to
Our forefathers' dust.

Defend we our farm-lands,
Our half-crumbled walls!
Defend we our sweethearts,
Our hearths and our halls!
Our dear native tongue,
Our faith keep we free!
Defend we our life,
For a people are we!

No rulers know we, save
Our time-honoured laws!
And woe to the nation
That sneers at our cause.
Our fields and our furrows,

Comrade of the whirling planets,
Mother of the leaves and rain,
Make me joyous as thy birds are,
Let me be thy child again.

Show me all the troops of heaven
Tethered in a sphere of dew,—
All the dear familiar marvels
Old, child-hearted singers knew.

Let me laugh with children's laughter,
Breathe with herb and blade and tree,
Learn again forgotten lessons
Of thy grave simplicity.

Take me back to dream and vision
From the prison-house of pain,
Back to fellowship with wonder—
Mother, take me home again!

Thro ' my uncertain heart a moody tide
Of mere emotion evermore doth steal,
Fleckt with shining passions that appeal
For solace that is evermore denied.
But as the waters that elusive glide
Thro' lonely forests doubtful yet reveal
Some Ocean faith—so unafraid I feel
To test with Death this heart unsatisfied.

And from that tide thro' late haphazard years
I've gathered crystall'd words sometimes—like these:
Things marvell'd out from many memories:—
Uncanny songs, wherein withal one hears
Some undertone of happier melodies,

In Virgil's sacred verse we find,
That passion can depress or raise
The heavenly as the human mind:
Who dare deny what Virgil says?

But if they should, what our great master
Has thus laid down, my tale shall prove.
Fair Venus wept the sad disaster
Of having lost her favourite Dove.

In complaisance poor Cupid mourn'd;
His grief reliev'd his mother's pain;
He vow'd he'd leave no stone unturn'd,
But she should have her Dove again.

Though none, said he, shall yet be nam'd,
I know the felon well enough: