When Aurelia first I courted,
She had youth and beauty too,
Killing pleasures when she sported,
And her charms were ever new;
Conquering time doth now deceive her,
Which her glories did uphold,
All her arts can ne'er retrieve her,
Poor Aurelia's growing old.

The airy spirits which invited,
Are retir'd, and move no more,
And those eyes are now benighted,
Which were comets heretofore.
Want of these abate her merits,
Yet I've passion for her name,
Only kind and am'rous spirits

Since I am sick of Wheels
That jar my day,
Unto the hush that heals
I steal away.
Unto the core of Peace
Nature reveals,
I go to win release
From Wheels.

Let me beneath the moon
Take desert trail;
Or on some lost lagoon
Serenely sail;
Win to some peak the grey
Storm cloud conceals . . .
Life, let me get away
From Wheels!

Why was I born so late?
A skin-clad man
I should have shared the fate

What shall I do for the land that bred me,
Her homes and fields that folded and fed me?—
Be under her banner and live for her honour:
Under her banner I’ll live for her honour.
CHORUS. Under her banner live for her honour.

Not the pleasure, the pay, the plunder,
But country and flag, the flag I am under—
There is the shilling that finds me willing
To follow a banner and fight for honour.
CH. We follow her banner, we fight for her honour.

Call me England’s fame’s fond lover,
Her fame to keep, her fame to recover.

What curious dresses all men wear!
The walker you met in a brown study,
The President smug in rotogravure,
The mannequin, the bathing beauty.

The bubble-dancer, the deep-sea diver,
The bureaucrat, the adulterer,
Hide private parts which I disclose
To those who know what a poem knows.

Last night on the sports channel
I watched the rodeo.
Those cowboys have it right;
the best and the beauty of it.
You cannot win, so you ride
for as long as you can and enjoy it.
When you dismount,
whether it be on your own or not,
it won't look pretty. You'll limp off.
But you'll feel good; your heart
will be pounding like it never has,
and walking away, one crazy step
after another, your ears will ring
with the loud approval
of those who never felt so good.


Anonymous submission.

DANCINDA.

"NO, fair DANCINDA, no; you strive in vain
"To calm my care and mitigate my pain ;
"If all my sighs, my cares, can fail to move,
"Ah! sooth me not with fruitless vows of love."

Thus STREPHON spoke. DANCINDA thus reply'd :
`What must I do to gratify your pride?
`Too well you know (ungrateful as thou art)
`How much you triumph in this tender heart;
`What proof of love remains for me to grant?
Yet still you teize me with some new complaint.
Oh ! would to heav'n ! -- but the fond wish is vain --

Weary not of us, for we are very beautiful; it is out of very jealousy and proper pride that we entered the veil.
On the day when we cast of the body’s veil from the soul, you will see that we are the envy of despair of man and the Polestars.
Wash your face and become clean for beholding us, else remain afar, for we are beloveds of ourselves.
We are not that beauty who tomorrow will become a crone; till eternity we are young and heart-comforting and fair of stature.

Though better men may fear that trumpet's warning,
I meet you, lady, on the Judgment morning,
With golden hope my spirit still adorning.


Our God who made you all so fair and sweet
Is three times gentle, and before his feet
Rejoicing I shall say:—"The girl you gave
Was my first Heaven, an angel bent to save.
Oh, God, her maker, if my ingrate breath
Is worth this rescue from the Second Death,
Perhaps her dear proud eyes grow gentler too
That scorned my graceless years and trophies few.

We may roam through this world, like a child at a feast,
Who but sips of a sweet, and then flies to the rest;
And, when pleasure begins to grow dull in the east,
We may order our wings and be off to the west:
But if hearts that feel, and eyes that smile,
Are the dearest gifts that heaven supplies,
We never need leave our own green isle,
For sensitive hearts, and for sun-bright eyes.
Then, remember, wherever your goblet is crown'd,
Through this world, whether eastward or westward you roam,

WHERE the voice of the wind calls our wandering feet,
Through echoing forest and echoing street,
With lutes in our hands ever-singing we roam,
All men are our kindred, the world is our home.
Our lays are of cities whose lustre is shed,
The laughter and beauty of women long dead;
The sword of old battles, the crown of old kings,
And happy and simple and sorrowful things.
What hope shall we gather, what dreams shall we sow?
Where the wind calls our wandering footsteps we go.
No love bids us tarry, no joy bids us wait: