The Wife-Blessed

I.
In youth he wrought, with eyes ablur,
Lorn-faced and long of hair--
In youth--in youth he painted her
A sister of the air--
Could clasp her not, but felt the stir
Of pinions everywhere.

II.
She lured his gaze, in braver days,
And tranced him sirenwise;
And he did paint her, through a haze
Of sullen paradise,
With scars of kisses on her face
And embers in her eyes.


III.
And now--nor dream nor wild conceit--
Though faltering, as before--
Through tears he paints her, as is meet,
Tracing the dear face o'er
With lilied patience meek and sweet
As Mother Mary wore.

The Treasure Of The Wise Man

O the night was dark and the night was late,
And the robbers came to rob him;
And they picked the locks of his palace-gate,
The robbers that came to rob him--
They picked the locks of his palace-gate,
Seized his jewels and gems of state,
His coffers of gold and his priceless plate,--
The robbers that came to rob him.


But loud laughed he in the morning red!--
For of what had the robbers robbed him?--
Ho! hidden safe, as he slept in bed,
When the robbers came to rob him,--
They robbed him not of a golden shred
Of the childish dreams in his wise old head-'
And they're welcome to all things else,' he said,
When the robbers came to rob him.

The Twins

One 's the pictur' of his Pa,
And the _other_ of her Ma--
Jes the bossest pair o' babies 'at a mortal ever saw!
And we love 'em as the bees
Loves the blossoms of the trees,
A-ridin' and a-rompin' in the breeze!


One's got her Mammy's eyes--
Soft and blue as Apurl-skies--
With the same sort of a smile, like--Yes,
and mouth about her size,--
Dimples, too, in cheek and chin,
'At my lips jes _wallers_ in,
A-goin' to work, er gittin' home agin.


And the _other_--Well, they say
That he's got his Daddy's way
O' bein' ruther soberfied, er ruther extry gay,--
That he either cries his best,
Er he laughs his howlin'est--
Like all he lacked was buttons and a vest!


Look at _her_!--and look at _him_!--
Talk about yer 'Cheru-_bim_!'
Roll 'em up in dreams together, rosy arm and chubby limb!
O we love 'em as the bees
Loves the blossoms of the trees,
A-ridin' and a-rompin' in the breeze!

The Stepmother

First she come to our house,
Tommy run and hid;
And Emily and Bob and me
We cried jus' like we did
When Mother died,--and we all said
'At we all wisht 'at we was dead!


And Nurse she couldn't stop us,
And Pa he tried and tried,--
We sobbed and shook and wouldn't look,
But only cried and cried;
And nen someone--we couldn't jus'
Tell who--was cryin' same as us!


Our Stepmother! Yes, it was her,
Her arms around us all-'
Cause Tom slid down the bannister
And peeked in from the hall.--
And we all love her, too, because
She's purt nigh good as Mother was!

The Town Karnteel

The Town Karnteel--! It's who'll reveal
Its praises jushtifiable?
For who can sing av anything
So lovely and reliable?
Whin Summer, Spring, or Winter lies
From Malin's Head to Tipperary,
There's no such town for interprise
Bechuxt Youghal and Londonderry!


There's not its likes in Ireland--
For twic't the week, be gorries!
They're playing jigs upon the band,
And joomping there in sacks-- and-- and--
And racing, wid wheelborries!


Kanteel-- it's there, like any fair,
The purty gurrls is plinty, sure--!
And man-alive! At forty-five
The leg's av me air twinty, sure!
I lave me cares, and hoein' too,
Behint me, as is sinsible,
And it's Karnteel I'm goin' to,
To cilebrate in principle!


For there's the town av all the land!
And twic't the week, be-gorries!
They're playing jigs upon the band,
And joomping there in sacks-- and-- and--
And racing, wid wheelborries!


And whilst I feel for owld Karnteel
That I've no phrases glorious,
It stands above the need av love
That boasts in voice uproarious--!
Lave that for Cork, and Dublin too,
And Armagh and Killarney thin--,
And Karnteel won't be troublin' you
Wid any jilous blarney, thin!


For there's the town av all the land
Where twic't the week, be-gorries!
They're playing jigs upon the band,
And joomping there in sacks-- and-- and--
And racing, wid wheelborries!

The Sphinx

I know all about the Sphinx--
I know even what she thinks,
Staring with her stony eyes
Up forever at the skies.


For last night I dreamed that she
Told me all the mystery--
Why for aeons mute she sat--:
She was just cut out for that!

The South Wind And The Sun

O The South Wind and the Sun!
How each loved the other one
Full of fancy--- full folly--
Full of jollity and fun!
How they romped and ran about,
Like two boys when school is out,
With glowing face, and lisping lip,
Low laugh, and lifted shout!


And the South Wind-- he was dressed
With a ribbon round his breast
That floated, flapped and fluttered
In a riotous unrest,
And a drapery of mist
From the shoulder and the wrist
Flowing backward with the motion
Of the waving hand he kissed.


And the Sun had on a crown
Wrought of gilded thistle-down,
And a scarf of velvet vapor,
And a ravelled-rainbow gown;
And his tinsel-tangled hair,
Tossed and lost upon the air,
Was glossier and flossier
Than any anywhere.


And the South Wind's eyes were two
Little dancing drops of dew,
As he puffed his cheeks, and pursed his lips,
And blew and blew and blew!
And the Sun's-- like diamond-stone,
Brighter yet than ever known,
As he knit his brows and held his breath,
And shone and shone and shone!


And this pair of merry fays
Wandered through the summer days;
Arm-in-arm they went together
Over heights of morning haze--
Over slanting slopes of lawn
They went on and on and on,
Where the daisies looked like star-tracks
Trailing up and down the dawn.


And where'er they found the top
Of a wheat-stalk droop and lop
They chucked it underneath the chin
And praised the lavish crop,
Till it lifted with the pride
Of the heads it grew beside,
And then the South Wind and the Sun



Went onward satisfied.


Over meadow-lands they tripped,
Where the dandelions dipped
In crimson foam of clover-bloom,
And dripped and dripped and dripped;
And they clinched the bumble-stings,
Gauming honey on their wings,
And bundling them in lily-bells,
With maudlin murmurings.


And the humming-bird that hung
Like a jewel up among
The tilted honeysuckle-horns,
They mesmerized, and swung
In the palpitating air,
Drowsed with odors strange and rare,
And with whispered laughter, slipped away,
And left him hanging there.


And they braided blades of grass
Where the truant had to pass;
And they wriggled through the rushes
And the reeds of the morass,
Where they danced, in rapture sweet,
O'er the leaves that laid a street
Of undulant mosaic for
The touches of their feet.


By the brook with mossy brink
Where the cattle came to drink.
They trilled and piped and whistled
With the thrush and bobolink,
Till the kine in listless pause,
Switched their tails in mute applause,
With lifted heads and dreamy eyes,
And bubble-dripping jaws.


And where the melons grew,
Streaked with yellow, green and blue
These jolly sprites went wandering
Through spangled paths of dew;
And the melons, here and there,
They made love to, everywhere
Turning their pink souls to crimson
With caresses fond and fair.


Over orchard walls they went,
Where the fruited boughs were bent
Till they brushed the sward beneath them
Where the shine and shadow blent;
And the great green pear they shook



Till the sallow hue forsook
Its features, and the gleam of gold
Laughed out in every look.


And they stroked the downy cheek
Of the peach, and smoothed it sleek,
And flushed it into splendor;
And with many an elfish freak,
Gave the russet's rust a wipe--
Prankt the rambo with a stripe,
And the wine-sap blushed its reddest
As they spanked the pippins ripe.


Through the woven ambuscade
That the twining vines had made,
They found the grapes, in clusters,
Drinking up the shine and shade--
Plumpt like tiny skins of wine,
With a vintage so divine
That the tongue of fancy tingled
With the tang of muscadine.


And the golden-banded bees,
Droning o'er the flowery leas,
They bridled, reigned, and rode away
Across the fragrant breeze,
Till in hollow oak and elm
They had groomed and stabled them
In waxen stalls oozed with dews
Of rose and lily-stem.


Where the dusty highway leads,
High above the wayside weeds
They sowed the air with butterflies
Like blooming flower-seeds,
Till the dull grasshopper sprung
Half a man's height up, and hung
Tranced in the heat, with whirring wings,
And sung and sung and sung!


And they loitered, hand in hand,
Where the snipe along the sand
Of the river ran to meet them
As the ripple meets the land,
Till the dragon-fly, in light
Gauzy armor, burnished bright,
Came tilting down the waters
In a wild, bewildered flight.


And they heard the killdee's call,
And afar, the waterfall,
But the rustle of a falling leaf



They heard above it all;
And the trailing willow crept
Deeper in the tide that swept
The leafy shallop to the shore,
And wept and wept and wept!


And the fairy vessel veered
From its moorings-- tacked and steered
For the centre of the current
Sailed away and disappeared:
And the burthen that it bore
From the long-enchanted shore-'
Alas! The South Wind and the Sun!'
I murmur evermore.


For the South Wind and the Sun,
Each so loves the other one,
For all his jolly folly
And frivolity and fun,
That our love for them they weigh
As their fickle fancies may,
And when at last we love them most,
They laugh and sail away.

The Singer

While with Ambition's hectic flame
He wastes the midnight oil,
And dreams, high-throned on heights of fame,
To rest him from his toil,-


Death's Angel, like a vast eclipse,
Above him spreads her wings,
And fans the embers of his lips
To ashes as he sings.

The Shower

The landscape, like the awed face of a child,
Grew curiously blurred; a hush of death
Fell on the fields, and in the darkened wild
The zephyr held its breath.


No wavering glamour-work of light and shade
Dappled the shivering surface of the brook;
The frightened ripples in their ambuscade
Of willows thrilled and shook.


The sullen day grew darker, and anon
Dim flashes of pent anger lit the sky;
With rumbling wheels of wrath came rolling on
The storm's artillery.


The cloud above put on its blackest frown,
And then, as with a vengeful cry of pain,
The lightning snatched it, ripped and flung it down
In ravelled shreds of rain:


While I, transfigured by some wondrous art,
Bowed with the thirsty lilies to the sod,
My empty soul brimmed over, and my heart
Drenched with the love of God.

The Sermon Of The Rose

Wilful we are in our infirmity
Of childish questioning and discontent.
Whate'er befalls us is divinely meant--
Thou Truth the clearer for thy mystery!
Make us to meet what is or is to be
With fervid welcome, knowing it is sent
To serve us in some way full excellent,
Though we discern it all belatedly.
The rose buds, and the rose blooms and the rose
Bows in the dews, and in its fulness, lo,
Is in the lover's hand,--then on the breast
Of her he loves,--and there dies.--And who knows
Which fate of all a rose may undergo
Is fairest, dearest, sweetest, loveliest?

Nay, we are children: we will not mature.
A blessed gift must seem a theft; and tears
Must storm our eyes when but a joy appears
In drear disguise of sorrow; and how poor
We seem when we are richest,--most secure
Against all poverty the lifelong years
We yet must waste in childish doubts and fears
That, in despite of reason, still endure!
Alas! the sermon of the rose we will
Not wisely ponder; nor the sobs of grief
Lulled into sighs of rapture; nor the cry
Of fierce defiance that again is still.
Be patient--patient with our frail belief,
And stay it yet a little ere we die.

O opulent life of ours, though dispossessed
Of treasure after treasure! Youth most fair
Went first, but left its priceless coil of hair--
Moaned over sleepless nights, kissed and caressed
Through drip and blur of tears the tenderest.
And next went Love--the ripe rose glowing there
Her very sister!... It is here; but where
Is she, of all the world the first and best?
And yet how sweet the sweet earth after rain--
How sweet the sunlight on the garden wall
Across the roses--and how sweetly flows
The limpid yodel of the brook again!
And yet--and yet how sweeter after all,
The smouldering sweetness of a dead red rose!