'Twas in the year of 1897, and on the night of Christmas day,
That ten persons' lives were taken sway,
By a destructive fire in London, at No. 9 Dixie Street,
Alas! so great was the fire, the victims couldn't retreat.

In Dixie Street, No. 9, if was occupied by two families,
Who were all quite happy, and sitting at their ease;
One of these was a labourer, David Barber and his wife,
And a dear little child, he loved as his life.

Barber's mother and three sisters were living on the ground floor,

Western Version


Cain and Abel were brothers born.
(Koop-la! Come along, cows!)
One raised cattle and one raised corn.
(Koop-la! Come along! Co-hoe!)

And Cain he farmed by the river-side,
So he did not care how much it dried.

For he banked, and he sluiced, and he ditched and he led
(And the Corn don't care for the Horn)--
A-half Euphrates out of her bed
To water his dam' Corn!

But Abel herded out on the plains
Where you have to go by the dams and rains.

Not though you die to-night, O Sweet, and wail,
A spectre at my door,
Shall mortal Fear make Love immortal fail --
I shall but love you more,
Who, from Death's House returning, give me still
One moment's comfort in my matchless ill.

Butterfly, the wind blows sea-ward,
strong beyond the garden-wall!
Butterfly, why do you settle on my
shoe, and sip the dirt on my shoe,
Lifting your veined wings, lifting them?
big white butterfly!

Already it is October, and the wind
blows strong to the sea
from the hills where snow must have
fallen, the wind is polished with
snow.
Here in the garden, with red
geraniums, it is warm, it is warm
but the wind blows strong to sea-ward,
white butterfly, content on my shoe!

The Locust drones along the drowsy noon,
The brown bee lingers in the yellow foam,
Blossom on blossom searching deep, but soon
Slides heavy-wingèd home.

The vacant air, half visible, complains
All overburdened of its noontide hour;
Sound after sound in heavy silence wanes
At the strong sun’s burning power.

Let the strong sun burn down the barren plain
And scour the empty heaven, and twist the air
To filmiest flickerings, o’er us in vain
His hollow vault doth glare.

To the grave one day from a house they bore

A maiden;
To the window the citizens went to explore;
In splendour they lived, and with wealth as of yore

Their banquets were laden.
Then thought they: "The maid to the tomb is now borne;
We too from our dwellings ere long must be torn,
And he that is left our departure to mourn,

To our riches will be the successor,

For some one must be their possessor.

In desperate hope I go and search for her
in all the corners of my room;
I find her not.

My house is small
and what once has gone from it can never be regained.

But infinite is thy mansion, my lord,
and seeking her I have to come to thy door.

I stand under the golden canopy of thine evening sky
and I lift my eager eyes to thy face.

I have come to the brink of eternity from which nothing can vanish
---no hope, no happiness, no vision of a face seen through tears.

Oh, dip my emptied life into that ocean,

128

Bring me the sunset in a cup,
Reckon the morning's flagons up
And say how many Dew,
Tell me how far the morning leaps—
Tell me what time the weaver sleeps
Who spun the breadth of blue!

Write me how many notes there be
In the new Robin's ecstasy
Among astonished boughs—
How many trips the Tortoise makes—
How many cups the Bee partakes,
The Debauchee of Dews!

Also, who laid the Rainbow's piers,
Also, who leads the docile spheres
By withes of supple blue?
Whose fingers string the stalactite—

Roses, their sharp spines being gone,
Not royal in their smells alone,
   But in their hue;
Maiden pinks, of odour faint,
Daisies smell-less, yet most quaint,
   And sweet thyme true;

Primrose, firstborn child of Ver;
Merry springtime's harbinger,
   With her bells dim;
Oxlips in their cradles growing,
Marigolds on death-beds blowing,
   Larks'-heels trim;

All dear Nature's children sweet
Lie 'fore bride and bridegroom's feet,

I was a Pirate once,
A blustering fellow with scarlet sash,
A ready cutlass and language rash;
From a ship with a rum-filled water-tank
I made the enemy walk the plank;
I marooned a man on an island bare,
And seized his wife by her long, dark hair;
Took treasure, such heaps of it!—wealth untold—
Bright bars of silver and chunks of gold!
Till my ship was choked to the decks with pelf,
And no one dare touch it except myself
And my black flag waved to the tearing breeze,
And I was the terror of all the seas!