I WILL make you brooches and toys for your delight Of bird-song at morning and star-shine at night. I will make a palace fit for you and me Of green days in forests and blue days at sea. I will make my kitchen, and you shall keep your room, Where white flows the river and […]

(To an Air of Diabelli) BERRIED brake and reedy island, Heaven below, and only heaven above, Through the sky’s inverted azure Softly swam the boat that bore our love. Bright were your eyes as the day; Bright ran the stream, Bright hung the sky above. Days of April, airs of Eden, How the glory died […]

SON of my woman’s body, you go, to the drum and fife, To taste the colour of love and the other side of life – From out of the dainty the rude, the strong from out of the frail, Eternally through the ages from the female comes the male. The ten fingers and toes, and […]

BRIGHT is the ring of words When the right man rings them, Fair the fall of songs When the singer sings them. Still they are carolled and said – On wings they are carried – After the singer is dead And the maker buried. Low as the singer lies In the field of heather, Songs […]

(To the tune of Wandering Willie) HOME no more home to me, whither must I wander? Hunger my driver, I go where I must. Cold blows the winter wind over hill and heather; Thick drives the rain, and my roof is in the dust. Loved of wise men was the shade of my roof-tree. The […]

IN the highlands, in the country places, Where the old plain men have rosy faces, And the young fair maidens Quiet eyes; Where essential silence cheers and blesses, And for ever in the hill-recesses Her more lovely music Broods and dies. O to mount again where erst I haunted; Where the old red hills are […]

IN rigorous hours, when down the iron lane The redbreast looks in vain For hips and haws, Lo, shining flowers upon my window-pane The silver pencil of the winter draws. When all the snowy hill And the bare woods are still; When snipes are silent in the frozen bogs, And all the garden garth is […]

THE stormy evening closes now in vain, Loud wails the wind and beats the driving rain, While here in sheltered house With fire-ypainted walls, I hear the wind abroad, I hark the calling squalls – ‘Blow, blow,’ I cry, ‘you burst your cheeks in vain! Blow, blow,’ I cry, ‘my love is home again!’ Yon […]

(on Receiving a Copy of Verses) IN the beloved hour that ushers day, In the pure dew, under the breaking grey, One bird, ere yet the woodland quires awake, With brief reveille summons all the brake: Chirp, chirp, it goes; nor waits an answer long; And that small signal fills the grove with song. Thus […]

I KNEW thee strong and quiet like the hills; I knew thee apt to pity, brave to endure, In peace or war a Roman full equipt; And just I knew thee, like the fabled kings Who by the loud sea-shore gave judgment forth, From dawn to eve, bearded and few of words. What, what, was […]

THE morning drum-call on my eager ear Thrills unforgotten yet; the morning dew Lies yet undried along my field of noon. But now I pause at whiles in what I do, And count the bell, and tremble lest I hear (My work untrimmed) the sunset gun too soon.

I HAVE trod the upward and the downward slope; I have endured and done in days before; I have longed for all, and bid farewell to hope; And I have lived and loved, and closed the door.

HE hears with gladdened heart the thunder Peal, and loves the falling dew; He knows the earth above and under – Sits and is content to view. He sits beside the dying ember, God for hope and man for friend, Content to see, glad to remember, Expectant of the certain end.

FAREWELL, fair day and fading light! The clay-born here, with westward sight, Marks the huge sun now downward soar. Farewell. We twain shall meet no more. Farewell. I watch with bursting sigh My late contemned occasion die. I linger useless in my tent: Farewell, fair day, so foully spent! Farewell, fair day. If any God […]

GOD, if this were enough, That I see things bare to the buff And up to the buttocks in mire; That I ask nor hope nor hire, Nut in the husk, Nor dawn beyond the dusk, Nor life beyond death: God, if this were faith? Having felt thy wind in my face Spit sorrow and […]

TRUSTY, dusky, vivid, true, With eyes of gold and bramble-dew, Steel-true and blade-straight, The great artificer Made my mate. Honour, anger, valour, fire; A love that life could never tire, Death quench or evil stir, The mighty master Gave to her. Teacher, tender, comrade, wife, A fellow-farer true through life, Heart-whole and soul-free The august […]

RESIGN the rhapsody, the dream, To men of larger reach; Be ours the quest of a plain theme, The piety of speech. As monkish scribes from morning break Toiled till the close of light, Nor thought a day too long to make One line or letter bright: We also with an ardent mind, Time, wealth, […]

SINCE long ago, a child at home, I read and longed to rise and roam, Where’er I went, whate’er I willed, One promised land my fancy filled. Hence the long roads my home I made; Tossed much in ships; have often laid Below the uncurtained sky my head, Rain-deluged and wind-buffeted: And many a thousand […]

(with a Present of a Pearl) THE Silver Ship, my King – that was her name In the bright islands whence your fathers came – The Silver Ship, at rest from winds and tides, Below your palace in your harbour rides: And the seafarers, sitting safe on shore, Like eager merchants count their treasures o’er. […]

[Written in April to Kaiulani in the April of her age; and at Waikiki, within easy walk of Kaiulani’s banyan! When she comes to my land and her father’s, and the rain beats upon the window (as I fear it will), let her look at this page; it will be like a weed gathered and […]