Loneliness —
an autumn beach judged
superior to Suma's

The night too quickly passes
And we are growing old,
So let us fill our glasses
And toast the Days of Gold;
When finds of wondrous treasure
Set all the South ablaze,
And you and I were faithful mates
All through the roaring days!

Then stately ships came sailing
From every harbour's mouth,
And sought the land of promise
That beaconed in the South;
Then southward streamed their streamers
And swelled their canvas full
To speed the wildest dreamers
E'er borne in vessel's hull.

Their shining Eldorado,

Here, where the futile parties wrangle with strength of lung,
Or rant of their " new ideas " that were old when the world was young —
Here, where anxious Australia watches a dark'ning sea,
In the days of her triumph and danger the land shall be ruled by Three.

When first I left Blighty they gave me a bay'nit
And told me it ad to be smothered wiv gore;
But blimey! I 'aven't been able to stain it,
So far as I've gone wiv the vintage of war.
For ain't it a fraud! when a Boche and yours truly
Gits into a mix in the grit and the grime,
'E jerks up 'is ands wiv a yell and 'e's duly
Part of me outfit every time.

Left, right, Hans and Fritz!
Goose step, keep up yer mits!
Oh my, ain't it a shyme!

When a girl's sixteen, and as poor as she's pretty,
And she hasn't a friend and she hasn't a home,
Heigh-ho! She's as safe in Paris city
As a lamb night-strayed where the wild wolves roam;
And that was I; oh, it's seven years now
(Some water's run down the Seine since then),
And I've almost forgotten the pangs and the tears now,
And I've almost taken the measure of men.

Oh, I found me a lover who loved me only,
Artist and poet, and almost a boy.
And my heart was bruised, and my life was lonely,
And him I adored with a wonderful joy.

Under the same roof
women of pleasure also sleep —
bush clover and moon

I — Joy

Joy wings his way,
— (O bells of heaven!)
Joy wings his irresistible way,
— (O winds, O sun!)
Joy wings his irresistible, his radiant, his ineluctable way,
— (Morning! morning of the winds,
Morning strong with song!)
Joy wings, wings, wings his way
And now the wild great song of dawn
Mounts heaven on beams of light
Scattering the dew in the path of the veering bee,
And from the house the girl and boy bare-headed
Come fresh from sleep
And lift young voices toward blue skies ...

Now listen, ye leaders of women whose lives and whose motives are pure;
And who seek as yet blindly and wildly for the evils of this land a cure,
There is work that you know not before you must be done by the voice and the pen:
Look you well to the ranks of your sisters, ere you speak of the vileness of men!

(And mind, I'm no hater of women — as I would be judged justly above;
Even I might have died in the gutter were it not for a good woman's love.
Spite of some things that make the heart bitter, and of wrongs a man might not forget,

Oh, ye whose hearts are resonant, and ring to War's romance,
Hear ye the story of a boy, a peasant boy of France;
A lad uncouth and warped with toil, yet who, when trial came,
Could feel within his soul upleap and soar the sacred flame;
Could stand upright, and scorn and smite, as only heroes may:
Oh, hearken! Let me try to tell the tale of Jean Desprez.

With fire and sword the Teuton horde was ravaging the land,
And there was darkness and despair, grim death on every hand;
Red fields of slaughter sloping down to ruin's black abyss;

Fires —
Fires out of the dark —
(Coal-barges swing on the Ohio)
Fires, fires of Steel —
(Ore floats the ripple of the slow Monongahela)
Fires, fires of Pittsburgh —
Lo, lightnings lifting her sky of smoke, and dropping it,
Lo, the young American city,
On her heights, in the fork of her rivers,
And ringed with mills
Guarding her tracks and tonnage
Laboring day and night.

She is the womb of the Modern,
Strong young mother of cities and ships. . . .