New Poems | Page 9

hae jingled cap an' bells,
Been a braw fule in silks an'
pells,
In ane o' the auld worl's canty hells
Paris or Sodom.
I
wadnae had him naething else
But Johnie Adam.
He suffered - as have a' that wan
Eternal memory frae man,
Since
e'er the weary worl' began -
Mister or Madam,
Keats or Scots Burns,
the Spanish Don
Or Johnie Adam.
We leuch, an' Johnie deid. An' fegs!
Hoo he had keept his stoiterin'
legs
Sae lang's he did's a fact that begs
An explanation.
He
stachers fifty years - syne plegs
To's destination.
I WHO ALL THE WINTER THROUGH
I WHO all the winter through
Cherished other loves than you,
And
kept hands with hoary policy in marriage-bed and pew;
Now I know
the false and true,
For the earnest sun looks through,
And my old
love comes to meet me in the dawning and the dew.
Now the hedged meads renew
Rustic odour, smiling hue,
And the
clean air shines and tinkles as the world goes wheeling through; And
my heart springs up anew,
Bright and confident and true,
And my
old love comes to meet me in the dawning and the dew.
LOVE, WHAT IS LOVE?
LOVE - what is love? A great and aching heart;
Wrung hands; and
silence; and a long despair.
Life - what is life? Upon a moorland bare

To see love coming and see love depart.
SOON OUR FRIENDS PERISH

SOON our friends perish,
Soon all we cherish
Fades as days darken
- goes as flowers go.
Soon in December
Over an ember,
Lonely
we hearken, as loud winds blow.
AS ONE WHO HAVING WANDERED ALL NIGHT LONG
AS one who having wandered all night long
In a perplexed forest,
comes at length
In the first hours, about the matin song,
And when
the sun uprises in his strength,
To the fringed margin of the wood,
and sees,
Gazing afar before him, many a mile
Of falling country,
many fields and trees,
And cities and bright streams and far-off
Ocean's smile:
I, O Melampus, halting, stand at gaze:
I, liberated, look abroad on life,

Love, and distress, and dusty travelling ways,
The steersman's
helm, the surgeon's helpful knife,
On the lone ploughman's
earth-upturning share,
The revelry of cities and the sound
Of seas,
and mountain-tops aloof in air,
And of the circling earth the
unsupported round:
I, looking, wonder: I, intent, adore;
And, O Melampus, reaching forth
my hands
In adoration, cry aloud and soar
In spirit, high above the
supine lands
And the low caves of mortal things, and flee
To the
last fields of the universe untrod,
Where is no man, nor any earth, nor
sea,
And the contented soul is all alone with God.
STRANGE ARE THE WAYS OF MEN
STRANGE are the ways of men,
And strange the ways of God!
We
tread the mazy paths
That all our fathers trod.
We tread them undismayed,
And undismayed behold
The portents
of the sky,
The things that were of old.
The fiery stars pursue
Their course in heav'n on high;
And round

the 'leaguered town,
Crest-tossing heroes cry.
Crest-tossing heroes cry;
And martial fifes declare
How small, to
mortal minds,
Is merely mortal care.
And to the clang of steel
And cry of piercing flute
Upon the azure
peaks
A God shall plant his foot:
A God in arms shall stand,
And seeing wide and far
The green and
golden earth,
The killing tide of war,
He, with uplifted arm,
Shall to the skies proclaim
The gleeful fate
of man,
The noble road to fame!
THE WIND BLEW SHRILL AND SMART
THE wind blew shrill and smart,
And the wind awoke my heart

Again to go a-sailing o'er the sea,
To hear the cordage moan
And
the straining timbers groan,
And to see the flying pennon lie a-lee.
O sailor of the fleet,
It is time to stir the feet!
It's time to man the
dingy and to row!
It's lay your hand in mine
And it's empty down
the wine,
And it's drain a health to death before we go!
To death, my lads, we sail;
And it's death that blows the gale
And
death that holds the tiller as we ride.
For he's the king of all
In the
tempest and the squall,
And the ruler of the Ocean wild and wide!
MAN SAILS THE DEEP AWHILE
MAN sails the deep awhile;
Loud runs the roaring tide;
The seas
are wild and wide;
O'er many a salt, o'er many a desert mile,
The
unchained breakers ride,
The quivering stars beguile.
Hope bears the sole command;
Hope, with unshaken eyes,
Sees
flaw and storm arise;
Hope, the good steersman, with unwearying

hand,
Steers, under changing skies,
Unchanged toward the land.
O wind that bravely blows!
O hope that sails with all
Where stars
and voices call!
O ship undaunted that forever goes
Where God, her
admiral,
His battle signal shows!
What though the seas and wind
Far on the deep should whelm

Colours and sails and helm?
There, too, you touch that port that you
designed -
There, in the mid-seas' realm,
Shall you that haven find.
Well hast thou sailed: now die,
To die is not to sleep.
Still your true
course you keep,
O sailor soul, still sailing for the sky;
And fifty
fathom deep
Your colours still shall fly.
THE COCK'S CLEAR VOICE INTO THE CLEARER AIR
THE cock's clear voice into the clearer air
Where westward far I