I strove with none, for none was worth my strife:
Nature I loved, and, next to Nature, Art:
I warm'd both hands before the fire of Life;
It sinks; and I am ready to depart.
I count each day a little life,
With birth and death complete;
I cloister it from care and strife
And keep it sane and sweet.
II
With eager eyes I greet the morn,
Exultant as a boy,
Knowing that I am newly born
To wonder and to joy.
III
And when the sunset splendours wane
And ripe for rest am I,
Knowing that I will live again,
Exultantly I die.
IV
O that all Life were but a Day
Sunny and sweet and sane!
And is it not a gesture grand
To drink oneself to death?
Oh sure 'tis I can understand,
Being of sober breath.
And so I do not sing success,
But dirge the damned who fall,
And who contempt for life express
Through alcohol.
II
Of Stephen Foster and of Poe,
Of Burns and Wilde I think;
And weary men who dared to go
The wanton way of drink.
Strange mortals blind to bitter blame,
And deaf to loud delight,
Who from the shades of sin and shame
Come to me in the silence of the night;
Come in the speaking silence of a dream;
Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright
As sunlight on a stream;
Come back in tears,
O memory, hope, love of finished years.
O dream how sweet, too sweet, too bitter sweet,
Whose wakening should have been in Paradise,
Where souls brimfull of love abide and meet;
Where thirsting longing eyes
Watch the slow door
That opening, letting in, lets out no more.
Yet come to me in dreams, that I may live
Day passeth day in sunshine or shadow,
Night unto night each cycle is told;
Sun, moon and stars in whirling and glamour,
All unto all the creation unfold.
What of the strivings, what of the gropings,
Out from the darkness into the light?
What of the weepings, what of the grievings
Now from the day to the passionate night?
Stars of the stars, heavens of the heavens,
Rising or falling or pausing a span,
Each to the great "I am" replying
E'en as the crystal, e'en as man.
Why dois your brand sae drap wi' bluid,
Edward, Edward?
Why dois your brand sae drap wi' bluid?
And why sae sad gang ye, O?
O, I hae killed my hauke sae guid,
Mither, mither,
O, I hae killed my hauke sae guid,
And I had nae mair bot hee, O.
Your haukis bluid was nevir sae reid,
Edward, Edward,
Your haukis bluid was nevir sae reid,
My deir son I tell thee, O.
O, I hae killed my reid-roan steid,
Mither, mither,
O, I hae killed my reid-roan steid,
That erst was sae fair and frie, O.
THERE grows a white, white flower
By the wild Alps of romance;
And who would reach its dainty leaves
Takes life and death in chance.
There is a dark, dark cavern
Where a woman goes alone,
Takes hope and peril in her hand
And fights Death on his throne.
To our heart’s breathless calling
She comes from the cavern wild,
Holding in her exhausted arms
A small, white, blossoming child.
Of the dark past
A child is born;
With joy and grief
My heart is torn.
Calm in his cradle
The living lies.
May love and mercy
Unclose his eyes!
Young life is breathed
On the glass;
The world that was not
Comes to pass.
A child is sleeping:
An old man gone.
O, father forsaken,
Forgive your son!
A frightening stillness will mark that day
And the shadow of streetlights and fire-alarms will exhaust the light
All things, the quietest and the loudest, will be silent
The suckling brats will die
The tugboats the locomotives the wind will glide by in silence
We will hear the great voice which coming from far away will pass over the city
We will wait a long time for it
Then at the rich man's time of day
When the dust the stones the missing tears
form the sun's robe on the huge deserted squares
I am a veggie table
A table made of veg,
There’s so much fruit upon me
All living on the edge,
Life is hard
But so are plates
And tea can be quite hot,
And vegetarian poets
Make me nervous quite a lot.
