Panthernet

Mumsie and Dad are raven dark And I am lily blonde. ''Tis strange,' I once heard nurse remark, 'You do not correspond.' And yet they claim me as their own, Born of their flesh and bone. To doubt their parenthood I dread, But now to girlhood grown, The thought is haunting in my head That I am not their own: If so, my radiant bloom of youth Would wither in the truth. 'Twould give me anguish deep to know A fondling babe was I; And that a maid in wedless woe Left me to live or die: I'd rather Mother lied and lied To save my pride. I love them both and they love me; I am their all, they say. Yet though the sweetest home have we, To know I'm theirs I pray. If not, please dear ones, never tell . . . The truth would be of hell.

On the beach at night alone, As the old mother sways her to and fro singing her husky song, As I watch the bright stars shining, I think a thought of the clef of the universes and of the future. A vast similitude interlocks all, All spheres, grown, ungrown, small, large, suns, moons, planets, All distances of place however wide, All distances of time, all inanimate forms, All souls, all living bodies though they be ever so different, or in different worlds, All gaseous, watery, vegetable, mineral processes, the fishes, the brutes, All nations, colors, barbarisms, civilizations, languages, All identities that have existed or may exist on this globe, or any globe, All lives and deaths, all of the past, present, future, This vast similitude spans them, and always has spann'd, And shall forever span them and compactly hold and enclose them.

If the good King only knew, Lindy Lou, What a cherub child are you, It is true, He would step down from his throne, And would claim you for his own, Then whatever would I do, Lindy Lou? As I kiss your tiny feet, Lindy Lou, I just feel I want to eat All of you. What's so heaven-sweet and mild As a happy baby-child? If you died I would die too, Lindy Lou? What's so lovely on this earth, Lindy Lou, As your innocence and mirth Shining through? Let us all do what we may To make little children gay, Heaven-happy, just as you, Lindy Lou.

He clasps the crag with crooked hands; Close to the sun in lonely lands, Ring'd with the azure world, he stands. The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls; He watches from his mountain walls, And like a thunderbolt he falls.

Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean, Tears from the depth of some divine despair Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes, In looking on the happy Autumn-fields, And thinking of the days that are no more. Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail, That brings our friends up from the underworld, Sad as the last which reddens over one That sinks with all we love below the verge; So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more. Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns The earliest pipe of half-awakened birds To dying ears, when unto dying eyes The casement slowly grows a glimmering square; So sad, so strange, the days that are no more. Dear as remembered kisses after death, And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned On lips that are for others; deep as love, Deep as first love, and wild with all regret; O Death in Life, the days that are no more!

The two old, simple problems ever intertwined, Close home, elusive, present, baffled, grappled. By each successive age insoluble, pass'd on, To ours to-day--and we pass on the same.

This is winter, this is night, small love -- A sort of black horsehair, A rough, dumb country stuff Steeled with the sheen Of what green stars can make it to our gate. I hold you on my arm. It is very late. The dull bells tongue the hour. The mirror floats us at one candle power. This is the fluid in which we meet each other, This haloey radiance that seems to breathe And lets our shadows wither Only to blow Them huge again, violent giants on the wall. One match scratch makes you real. At first the candle will not bloom at all -- It snuffs its bud To almost nothing, to a dull blue dud. I hold my breath until you creak to life, Balled hedgehog, Small and cross. The yellow knife Grows tall. You clutch your bars. My singing makes you roar. I rock you like a boat Across the Indian carpet, the cold floor, While the brass man Kneels, back bent, as best he can Hefting his white pillar with the light That keeps the sky at bay, The sack of black! It is everywhere, tight, tight! He is yours, the little brassy Atlas -- Poor heirloom, all you have, At his heels a pile of five brass cannonballs, No child, no wife. Five balls! Five bright brass balls! To juggle with, my love, when the sky falls.

This crowded life of God's good giving No man has relished more than I; I've been so goldarned busy living I've never had the time to die. So busy fishing, hunting, roving, Up on my toes and fighting fit; So busy singing, laughing, loving, I've never had the time to quit. I've never been one for thinking I've always been the action guy; I've done my share of feasting, drinking, And lots of wenching on the sly. What all the blasted cosmic show meant, I've never tried to understand; I've always lived just for the moment, And done the thing that came to hand. And now I'll toddle to the garden And light a good old Henry Clay. I'm ninety odd, so Lord, please pardon My frequent lapses by the way. I'm getting tired; the sunset lingers; The evening star serenes the sky; The damn cigar burns to my fingers . . . I guess . . . I'll take . . . time off . . . to die.

If I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange And be all to me? Shall I never miss Home-talk and blessing and the common kiss That comes to each in turn, nor count it strange, When I look up, to drop on a new range Of walls and floors, another home than this? Nay, wilt thou fill that place by me which is Filled by dead eyes too tender to know change That's hardest. If to conquer love, has tried, To conquer grief, tries more, as all things prove, For grief indeed is love and grief beside. Alas, I have grieved so I am hard to love. Yet love me--wilt thou? Open thy heart wide, And fold within, the wet wings of thy dove.

ALTHOUGH you hide in the ebb and flow Of the pale tide when the moon has set, The people of coming days will know About the casting out of my net, And how you have leaped times out of mind Over the little silver cords, And think that you were hard and unkind, And blame you with many bitter words.

Oh, it is good to drink and sup, And then beside the kindly fire To smoke and heap the faggots up, And rest and dream to heart's desire. Oh, it is good to ride and run, To roam the greenwood wild and free; To hunt, to idle in the sun, To leap into the laughing sea. Oh, it is good with hand and brain To gladly till the chosen soil, And after honest sweat and strain To see the harvest of one's toil. Oh, it is good afar to roam, And seek adventure in strange lands; Yet oh, so good the coming home, The velvet love of little hands. So much is good. . . . We thank Thee, God, For all the tokens Thou hast given, That here on earth our feet have trod Thy little shining trails of Heaven.

BID a strong ghost stand at the head That my Michael may sleep sound, Nor cry, nor turn in the bed Till his morning meal come round; And may departing twilight keep All dread afar till morning's back. That his mother may not lack Her fill of sleep. Bid the ghost have sword in fist: Some there are, for I avow Such devilish things exist, Who have planned his murder, for they know Of some most haughty deed or thought That waits upon his future days, And would through hatred of the bays Bring that to nought. Though You can fashion everything From nothing every day, and teach The morning stats to sing, You have lacked articulate speech To tell Your simplest want, and known, Wailing upon a woman's knee, All of that worst ignominy Of flesh and bone; And when through all the town there ran The servants of Your enemy, A woman and a man, Unless the Holy Writings lie, Hurried through the smooth and rough And through the fertile and waste, protecting, till the danger past, With human love.

How grand the human race would be If every man would wear a kilt, A flirt of Tartan finery, Instead of trousers, custom built! Nay, do not think I speak to joke: (You know I'm not that kind of man), I am convinced that all men folk. Should wear the costume of a Clan. Imagine how it's braw and clean As in the wind it flutters free; And so conducive to hygiene In its sublime simplicity. No fool fly-buttons to adjust,-- Wi' shanks and maybe buttocks bare; Oh chiels, just take my word on trust, A bonny kilt's the only wear. 'Twill save a lot of siller too, (And here a canny Scotsman speaks), For one good kilt will wear you through A half-a-dozen pairs of breeks. And how it's healthy in the breeze! And how it swings with saucy tilt! How lassies love athletic knees Below the waggle of a kilt! True, I just wear one in my mind, Since sent to school by Celtic aunts, When girls would flip it up behind, Until I begged for lowland pants. But now none dare do that to me, And so I sing with lyric lilt,-- How happier the world would be If every male would wear a kilt!

I thought of Thee, my partner and my guide, As being past away.--Vain sympathies! For, backward, Duddon! as I cast my eyes, I see what was, and is, and will abide; Still glides the Stream, and shall for ever glide; The Form remains, the Function never dies; While we, the brave, the mighty, and the wise, We Men, who in our morn of youth defied The elements, must vanish;--be it so! Enough, if something from our hands have power To live, and act, and serve the future hour; And if, as toward the silent tomb we go, Through love, through hope, and faith's transcendent dower, We feel that we are greater than we know.