I often wonder how
Life clicks because
They don't make women now
Like Mammy was.
When broods of two or three
Content most men,
How wonderful was she
With children ten!

Though sixty years have gone,
As I look back,
I see her rise at dawn,
Our boots to black;
Pull us from drowsy bed,
Wet sponge to pass,
And speed us porridge fed
To morning class.

Our duds to make and mend,
Far into night,
O'er needle she would spend
By bleary light.

When clear October suns unfold
mallee tips of red and gold

children on their way to school
discover tadpoles in a pool,

iceplants sheathed in beaded glass
spider orchids and shivery grass,

webs with globes of dew alight
budgerigars on their first flight,

tottery lambs and a stilty foal
a papers slough that a snake shed whole,

and a bronzewing's nest of twigs so few
that both the sky and the eggs show through.

A shell surprised our post one day
And killed a comrade at my side.
My heart was sick to see the way
He suffered as he died.

I dug about the place he fell,
And found, no bigger than my thumb,
A fragment of the splintered shell
In warm aluminum.

I melted it, and made a mould,
And poured it in the opening,
And worked it, when the cast was cold,
Into a shapely ring.

And when my ring was smooth and bright,
Holding it on a rounded stick,
For seal, I bade a Turco write
Maktoob in Arabic.

Three maids there were in meadow bright,
The eldest less then seven;
Their eyes were dancing with delight,
And innocent as Heaven.

Wild flowers they wound with tender glee,
Their cheeks with rapture rosy;
All radiant they smiled at me,
When I besought a posy.

She gave me a columbine,
And one a poppy brought me;
The tiniest, with eyes ashine,
A simple daisy sought me.

And as I went my sober way,
I heard their careless laughter;
Their hearts too happy with to-day
To care for what comes after.

See the rock-born stream!
Like the gleam
Of a star so bright
Kindly spirits
High above the clouds
Nourished him while youthful
In the copse between the cliffs.

Young and fresh.
From the clouds he danceth
Down upon the marble rocks;
Then tow'rd heaven
Leaps exulting.

Through the mountain-passes
Chaseth he the colour'd pebbles,
And, advancing like a chief,
Tears his brother streamlets with him
In his course.

In the valley down below
'Neath his footsteps spring the flowers,
And the meadow
In his breath finds life.

Tell me, was Altgeld elected Governor?
For when the returns began to come in
And Cleveland was sweeping the East,
It was too much for you, poor old heart,
Who had striven for democracy
In the long, long years of defeat.
And like a watch that is worn
I felt you growing slower until you stopped.
Tell me, was Altgeld elected,
And what did he do?
Did they bring his head on a platter to a dancer,
Or did he triumph for the people?
For when I saw him
And took his hand,
The child-like blueness of his eyes
Moved me to tears,

Neither clown nor child nor black
nor white but verticle
and a questioning innocence
dressed in night and snow:
The mother smiles at the sailor,
the fisherman at the astronaunt,
but the child child does not smile
when he looks at the bird child,
and from the disorderly ocean
the immaculate passenger
emerges in snowy mourning.

I was without doubt the child bird
there in the cold archipelagoes
when it looked at me with its eyes,
with its ancient ocean eyes:
it had neither arms nor wings
but hard little oars

(To Miss May Forshall.)


He shouts amain, he shouts again,
(Her brother, fierce, as bluff King Hal),
"I tell you flat, I shall do that!"
She softly whispers " 'May' for 'shall'!"
He wistful sighed one eventide
(Her friend, that made this Madrigal),
"And shall I kiss you, pretty Miss!"
Smiling she answered " 'May' for 'shall'!"

With eager eyes my reader cries,
"Your friend must be indeed a val-
-uable child, so sweet, so mild!
What do you call her?" "May For shall."

I worked for a woman,
She wasn't mean--
But she had a twelve-room
House to clean.

Had to get breakfast,
Dinner, and supper, too--
Then take care of her children
When I got through.

Wash, iron, and scrub,
Walk the dog around--
It was too much,
Nearly broke me down.

I said, Madam,
Can it be
You trying to make a
Pack-horse out of me?

She opened her mouth.
She cried, Oh, no!
You know, Alberta,
I love you so!

I said, Madam,
That may be true--
But I'll be dogged

Beaten like an old hound
Whimpering by the stove,
I complicate the pain
That smarts with promised love.
The oilstove falls, the rain,
Forecast, licks at my wound;
Ice forms, clips the green shoot,
And strikes the wren house mute.

May commoner and king,
The barren bride and nun
Begrudge the season's dues.
May children curse the sun,
Sweet briar and grass refuse
To compromise the spring,
And both sower and seed
Choke on the summer's weed.

Those promises we heard
We heard in ignorance;