home

Let the proud White Man boast his flocks,
And fields of foodful grain;
My home is 'mid the mountain rocks,
The Desert my domain.
I plant no herbs nor pleasant fruits,
I toil not for my cheer;
The Desert yields me juicy roots,
And herds of bounding deer.

The countless springboks are my flock,
Spread o'er the unbounded plain;
The buffalo bendeth to my yoke,
The wild-horse to my rein;
My yoke is the quivering assagai,
My rein the tough bow-string;
My bridle curb is a slender barb --

Proserpine may pull her flowers,
Wet with dew or wet with tears,
Red with anger, pale with fears;
Is it any fault of ours,
If Pluto be an amorous king
And come home nightly, laden
Under his broad bat-wing
With a gentle earthly maiden?
Is it so, Wind, is it so?
All that I and you do know
Is that we saw fly and fix
'Mongst the flowers and reeds of Styx,
Yesterday,
Where the Furies made their hay
For a bed of tiger cubs,
A great fly of Beelzebub's,

IN dark wild woods, where the lone owl broods
And the dingoes nightly yell—
Where the curlew’s cry goes floating by,
We splitters of shingles dwell.
And all day through, from the time of the dew
To the hour when the mopoke calls,
Our mallets ring where the woodbirds sing
Sweet hymns by the waterfalls.
And all night long we are lulled by the song
Of gales in the grand old trees;
And in the breaks we can hear the lakes
And the moan of the distant seas.

HERE’S to the home that was never, never ours!
Toast it full and fairly when the winter lowers.
Speak ye low, my merry men, sitting at your ease;
Harken to the homeless Drift in the roaring seas!

Here’s to the life we shall never live on earth!
Cut for us awry, awry ages ere the birth.
Set the teeth and meet it well, wind upon the shore;
Like a lion, in the face look the Nevermore!

Here’s to the love we were never let to win!
What of that? a many shells have a pearl within;

Here in my heart I am Helen;
I'm Aspasia and Hero, at least.
I'm Judith, and Jael, and Madame de Stael;
I'm Salome, moon of the East.

Here in my soul I am Sappho;
Lady Hamilton am I, as well.
In me Recamier vies with Kitty O'Shea,
With Dido, and Eve, and poor Nell.

I'm of the glamorous ladies
At whose beckoning history shook.
But you are a man, and see only my pan,
So I stay at home with a book.

Lift up your eyes desponding freemen!
Fling to the winds your needless fears!
He who unfurl'd your beauteous banner,
Says it shall wave a thousand years!

"A thousand years!" my own Columbia!
'Tis the glad day so long foretold!
'Tis the glad morn whose early twilight
Washington saw in times of old.

What if the clouds, one little moment,
Hide the blue sky where morn appears --
When the bright sun, that tints them crimson,
Rises to shine a thousand years?

Tell the great world those bless-ed tidings!

Love is enough: ho ye who seek saving,
Go no further; come hither; there have been who have found it,
And these know the House of Fulfilment of Craving;
These know the Cup with the roses around it;
These know the World's Wound and the balm that hath bound it:
Cry out, the World heedeth not, 'Love, lead us home!'

He leadeth, He hearkeneth, He cometh to you-ward;
Set your faces as steel to the fears that assemble
Round his goad for the faint, and his scourge for the froward,

Why flatter thyself, Tyrant,
In ways great in evil?
The Lord's goodness ceases not
Keeping watch on the pious.

Keener yet than the keenest
Blade, thy tongue watches
To generate wild untruth
And plot slander' gainst the good.

Evil's thy love, not sacred virtues;
A lier's thy love, not a truthsayer;
Thine own accursed eye in joy
Gazes at treason most infectious.

For this the Lord God shall fling
Thee from the midst of His people;
Grinding thee to dust, aye, thy home

A hundred years and more ago
A little child was born --
To-day, with pomp of martial show,
We hail his natal morn.

Who guessed as that poor infant wept
Upon a woman's knee,
A nation from the centuries stept
As weak and frail as he?

Who saw the future on his brow
Upon that happy morn?
We are a mighty nation now
Because that child was born.

To him, and to his spirit's scope,
Besides a glorious home,
We owe that what we have and hope
Are more than Greece and Rome.

Let your song be delicate.
The skies declare
No war — the eyes of lovers
Wake everywhere.

Let your voice be delicate.
How faint a thing
Is Love, little Love crying
Under the Spring.

Let your song be delicate.
The flowers can hear:
Too well they know the tremble,
Of the hollow year.

Let your voice be delicate.
The bees are home:
All their day's love is sunken
Safe in the comb.

Let your song be delicate.
Sing no loud hymn: