Skip to main content

In the Streets of Catania

( " The streets of Catania are paved with blocks of the lava of Ætna " )

All that was beautiful and just,
All that was pure and sad
Went in one little, moving plot of dust
The world called bad.

Came like a highwayman, and went,
One who was bold and gay,
Left when his lightly loving mood was spent
Thy heart to pay.

By-word of little street and men,
Narrower theirs the shame,
Tread thou the lava loving leaves, and then
Turn whence it came.

Ætna, all wonderful, whose heart
Glows as thine throbbing glows,

Gethsemane

All that night I walked alone and wept.
I tore a rose and dropped it on the ground.
My heart was lead; all that night I kept
Listening to hear a dreadful sound.

A tree bent down and dew dripped from its hair.
The earth was warm; dawn came solemnly.
I stretched full-length upon the grass and there
I said your name but silence answered me.

O fresch floure, most plesant of prise

To you, dere herte, variant and mutable,
Like to Carybdis which is unstable.
O fresch floure, most plesant of prise,
Fragrant as federfoy to mannes inspeccion,
Me semeth by youre contenaunce ye be wonder nice,
You for to medil with any retorucion;
To me ye have sent a lettre of derusion,
Endighted full freshly with many corious iclause.
Wherfore I thanke you as I finde cause.

The Inglisch of Chaucere was nat in youre mind,
Ne Tullius termes with so gret eloquence,
But ye, as uncurtes and crabbed of kinde,

The White Goddess

All saints revile her, and all sober men
Ruled by the God Apollo's golden mean —
In scorn of which we sailed to find her
In distant regions likeliest to hold her
Whom we desired above all things to know,
Sister of the mirage and echo.

It was a virtue not to stay,
To go our headstrong and heroic way
Seeking her out at the volcano's head,
Among pack ice, or where the track had faded
Beyond the cavern of the seven sleepers:
Whose broad high brow was white as any leper's,
Whose eyes were blue, with rowan-berry lips.

Ellen Taylor

All round the room I waltzed with Ellen Taylor,
All round the room I waltzed till break of day;
And ever since that time I've done nothing but bewail her,
For she's gone to Manchester the summer months to stay.

'Twas at a ball at Islington I first did chance to meet her,
She really looked so nice I could not keep my eyes away;
I thought that all my life I never saw so sweet a creature,
She danced with me three hours, and then she fainted quite away.

For seven long years I'm bound apprentice to the city,

All Quiet Along the Potomac

"All quiet along the Potomac to-night!"
Except here and there a stray picket
Is shot, as he walks on his beat, to and fro,
By a rifleman hid in the thicket.

'Tis nothing! a private or two now and then
Will not count in the news of a battle;
Not an officer lost! only one of the men
Moaning out, all alone, the death-rattle.

All quiet along the Potomac to-night!
Where soldiers lie peacefully dreaming;
And their tents in the rays of the clear autumn moon,
And the light of their camp-fires are gleaming.

Killer Blues

All praise to Thee, my God, this night,
For all the Blessings of the Light;
Keep me, O keep me, King of Kings,
Beneath Thy own Almighty Wings.

Forgive me, Lord, for Thy dear Son,
The ill that I this day have done;
That with the World, myself and Thee,
I, ere I sleep, at peace may be.

Teach me to live, that I may dread
The Grave as little as my Bed;
To die, that this vile Body may
Rise glorious at the Awful Day.

O! may my Soul on Thee repose,
And may sweet sleep my Eyelids close;
Sleep that may me more vigorous make,

The Rapid

ST. LAWRENCE .

All peacefully gliding,
The waters dividing,
The indolent batteau moved slowly along,
The rowers, light-hearted,
From sorrow long parted,
Beguiled the dull moments with laughter and song:
" Hurrah for the Rapid! that merrily, merrily
Gambols and leaps on its tortuous way;
Soon we will enter it, cheerily, cheerily,