city

Sinai and Zion.

Heb. 12:18ff

Not to the terrors of the Lord,
The tempest, fire, and smoke;
Not to the thunder of that word
Which God on Sinai spoke;

But we are come to Zion's hill,
The city of our God,
Where milder words declare his will,
And spread his love abroad.

Behold th' innumerable host
Of angels clothed in light!
Behold the spirits of the just,
Whose faith is turned to sight!

Behold the blest assembly there
Whose names are writ in heav'n!

Faith of things unseen.

Heb. 11

Faith is the brightest evidence
Of things beyond our sight,
Breaks through the clouds of flesh and sense,
And dwells in heav'nly light.

It sets times past in present view,
Brings distant prospects home,
Of things a thousand years ago,
Or thousand years to come.

By faith we know the worlds were made
By God's almighty word;
Abram, to unknown countries led,
By faith obeyed the Lord.

He sought a city fair and high,

Air -- "Rally 'Round the Flag, Boys"

I
We will rally in the city,
We will gather from the farms,
Shouting equalization,
Greenbacks a legal tender,
Then the poor will get along,
The poor that dwell throughout our nation.
II
CHORUS:

Three cheers for Cooper and Cary,
Hurrah, boys, hurrah;
Three cheers for our nation,
In peace and in war;
If it were not for our laboring men,
What would our nation do --
Take this in consideration.
III
It is now one hundred years,

June 22, 1611

THE SHALLOP ON HUDSON BAY

One sail in sight upon the lonely sea
And only one, God knows! For never ship
But mine broke through the icy gates that guard
These waters, greater grown than any since
We left the shores of England. We were first,
My men, to battle in between the bergs
And floes to these wide waves. This gulf is mine;
I name it! and that flying sail is mine!
And there, hull-down below that flying sail,
The ship that staggers home is mine, mine, mine!
My ship Discoverie!

Do I know Polly Brown? Do I know her? Why,
damme,
You might as well ask if I know my own name?
It's a wonder you never heard tell of old Sammy,
Her father, my mate in the Crackenback claim.



He asks if I know little Poll! Why, I nursed her
As often, I reckon as old Mother Brown
When they lived at the “Flats,” and old Sam
went a burster
In Chinaman's Gully, and dropped every crown.



My golden-haired mate, ever brimful of folly

They stood on the bridge at midnight,
In a park not far from town;
They stood on the bridge at midnight
Because they didn't sit down.
The moon rose o'er the city
Behind the dark church spire;
The moon rose o'er the city
And kept on rising higher.
How often, oh! how often
They whispered words so soft;
How often, oh! how often,
How often, oh! how oft.

A mason came forth and said, "Speak to us of Houses."

And he answered and said:

Build of your imaginings a bower in the wilderness ere you build a house within the city walls.

For even as you have home-comings in your twilight, so has the wanderer in you, the ever distant and alone.

Your house is your larger body.

It grows in the sun and sleeps in the stillness of the night; and it is not dreamless.

Does not your house dream? And dreaming, leave the city for grove or hilltop?

A Lay Made About the Year Of The City CCCLX

I

Lars Porsena of Closium
By the Nine Gods he swore
That the great house of Tarquin
Should suffer wrong no more.
By the Nine Gods he swore it,
And named a trysting day,
And bade his messengers ride forth,
East and west and south and north,
To summon his array.

II

East and west and south and north
The messengers ride fast,
And tower and town and cottage
Have heard the trumpet's blast.
Shame on the false Etruscan

Oh something just now must be happening there!
That suddenly and quiveringly here,
Amid the city's noises, I must think
Of mangoes leaning o'er the river's brink,
And dexterous Davie climbing high above,
The gold fruits ebon-speckled to remove,
And toss them quickly in the tangled mass
Of wis-wis twisted round the guinea grass;
And Cyril coming through the bramble-track
A prize bunch of bananas on his back;
And Georgie--none could ever dive like him--
Throwing his scanty clothes off for a swim;

Spring

The year's first poem done,
with smug self confidence
a haikai poet.

Longer has become the daytime;
a pheasant is fluttering
down onto the bridge.

Yearning for the Bygones

Lengthening days,
accumulating, and recalling
the days of distant past.

Slowly passing days,
with an echo heard here in a
corner of Kyoto.

The white elbow
of a priest, dozing,
in the dusk of spring.

Into a nobleman,
a fox has changed himself