swimming

Modern Machinery
We were taken from the ore-bed and the mine,
We were melted in the furnace and the pit--
We were cast and wrought and hammered to design,
We were cut and filed and tooled and gauged to fit.
Some water, coal, and oil is all we ask,
And a thousandth of an inch to give us play:
And now, if you will set us to our task,
We will serve you four and twenty hours a day!

We can pull and haul and push and lift and drive,
We can print and plough and weave and heat and light,

Modern Machinery
We were taken from the ore-bed and the mine,
We were melted in the furnace and the pit--
We were cast and wrought and hammered to design,
We were cut and filed and tooled and gauged to fit.
Some water, coal, and oil is all we ask,
And a thousandth of an inch to give us play:
And now, if you will set us to our task,
We will serve you four and twenty hours a day!

We can pull and haul and push and lift and drive,
We can print and plough and weave and heat and light,

A quay with vessels moored


Thomas
To India! Yea, here I may take ship;
From here the courses go over the seas,
Along which the intent prows wonderfully
Nose like lean hounds, and tack their journeys out,
Making for harbours as some sleuth was laid
For them to follow on their shifting road.
Again I front my appointed ministry. --
But why the Indian lot to me? Why mine

Upon his battlements he stood,
And downward gazed in joyous mood,
On Samos' Isle, that owned his sway,
"All this is subject to my yoke;"
To Egypt's monarch thus he spoke,--
"That I am truly blest, then, say!"

"The immortals' favor thou hast known!
Thy sceptre's might has overthrown
All those who once were like to thee.
Yet to avenge them one lives still;
I cannot call thee blest, until
That dreaded foe has ceased to be."

While to these words the king gave vent,

High o’er the clouds a Sunbeam shone,
And far down under him,
With a subtle grace that was all her own,
The Mist gleamed, fair and dim.

He looked at her with burning eyes
And longed to fall at her feet;
Of all sweet things there under the skies,
He thought her the thing most sweet.

He had wooed oft, as a Sunbeam may,
Wave, and blossom, and flower;
But never before had he felt the sway
Of a great love’s mighty power.

Tall cloud-mountains and vast space-seas,

MARIE HAMILTON 's to the kirk gane,
   Wi' ribbons in her hair;
The King thought mair o' Marie Hamilton
   Than ony that were there.

Marie Hamilton 's to the kirk gane
   Wi' ribbons on her breast;
The King thought mair o' Marie Hamilton
   Than he listen'd to the priest.

Marie Hamilton 's to the kirk gane,
   Wi' gloves upon her hands;
The King thought mair o' Marie Hamilton
   Than the Queen and a' her lands.

She hadna been about the King's court
   A month, but barely one,

The Pobble who has no toes
Had once as many as we;
When they said "Some day you may lose them all;"
He replied "Fish, fiddle-de-dee!"
And his Aunt Jobiska made him drink
Lavender water tinged with pink,
For she said "The World in general knows
There's nothing so good for a Pobble's toes!"

The Pobble who has no toes
Swam across the Bristol Channel;
But before he set out he wrapped his nose
In a piece of scarlet flannel.
For his Aunt Jobiska said "No harm
Can come to his toes if his nose is warm;

Oh, what a wretched, loathsome, thing am I,
Too horrible for earth, or the pure heaven,
Or the bright stars, or the blue smiling sky,--
To look upon again.
Wrap me, oh wrap me, midnight, in your shades;
Shroud me, ye darkness, in your thickest folds;
Oh bury me, ye forests, in your glades,
Which mortal ne'er beholds.
For I am lost, utterly lost,
Cast like the scum upon the wave,
To be for ever wildly tossed,
Till mercy sends a grave.
Hark! now I hear the brutal savage cry--

Night covers the pond with its wing.
Under the ringed moon I can make out
your face swimming among minnows and the small
echoing stars. In the night air
the surface of the pond is metal.

Within, your eyes are open. They contain
a memory I recognize, as though
we had been children together. Our ponies
grazed on the hill, they were gray
with white markings. Now they graze
with the dead who wait
like children under their granite breastplates,
lucid and helpless:

The hills are far away. They rise up

(Foot-Service to the Hills)


In the name of the Empress of India, make way,
O Lords of the Jungle, wherever you roam.
The woods are astir at the close of the day --
We exiles are waiting for letters from Home.
Let the robber retreat -- let the tiger turn tail --
In the Name of the Empress, the Overland Mail!

With a jingle of bells as the dusk gathers in,
He turns to the foot-path that heads up the hill --
The bags on his back and a cloth round his chin,