Skip to main content

My Love She's Bonny

My love she's bonny hale and young
But O' she's got a saucey tongue
She'll frown and jeer for a the year
And winna listen to a song.

My love she's hale and bonny too
Wi' gay straw hat and ribbons blue
Wi' gown O' green and saucey e'en
And lips that part as saucey too.

My love is scarcely in her teens
She's five years wanting sweet sixteen
A lovely girl wi' teeth O' pearl
But no' so kind she might ha' been.

She wants three month O' seventeen
The maiden in her gown O' green
And yet her size wears womans eyes

Love's Garden

In a Roses' bower
Sweet Philomel sat, singing
All her night-long passion to those lovely hearts:

Only the Moon looked on them,
Heard what she sang; and the Roses
Answered, breathing their perfumes back from echoing depths.

The Trees

The trees they lean'd in their love unto trees,
That lock'd in their loves, and were so made strong,
Stronger than armies; ay, stronger than seas
That rush from their caves in a storm of song.

Sunday

Sky scanned the mind and found behind
Holes in the mind, more mind behind,
Clouds to provide appearances of thought.

‘Dear Sister!’ it cried,
‘One kiss!’
The bland outrage
Spread over both as one,
Whispering ‘This is heaven.’

‘Oh, no,’ said the populations
Getting out of bed into slippers,
‘What lovely weather!
To-day is Sunday!’

Love Lies Bleeding

Love that is dead and buried, yesterday
Out of his grave rose up before my face;
No recognition in his look, no trace
Of memory in his eyes dust-dimmed and grey.
While I, remembering, found no word to say,
But felt my quickened heart leap in its place;
Caught afterglow, thrown back from long-set days,
Caught echoes of all music passed away.
Was this indeed to meet?—I mind me yet
In youth we met when hope and love were quick,
We parted with hope dead, but love alive:
I mind me how we parted then heart-sick,

Gipsy Love-Making

My mother's gone a-wandering
Away to yonder town;
My father in the alehouse
Is safely settled down;
There's not a girl to gossip;
There's not a lad at home:
I'm all alone and waiting—
So come, my darling, come!
Tell me what I'm doing
By the fire-light here,
All for you, love, all for true love,
All for luck, my dear.

I told a lady's fortune
In that big house hard by
No Gipsy could have done it
More cleverly than I;
I promised that she'd marry
A lord with heaps of gold;
She filled my hand with silver,

Art and Love

Bid me not sing: think of the gifts I gave
To love and thee; require me not to sing!
They who crown poets now must pass me by:
I have no claim to wear the bays they bring.
To please thy mood one day I broke my lute,
And now forever is my music mute.

Bid me not sing: since when thy mouth met mine,
“Love, love,” the only words my lips can say.
Lost is the cunning of my worshipped art;
Among my peers I must walk dumb alway.
For thee I counted song a worthless thing.
My heart will break if now thou bidst me sing!

The Escudeiro's Song

From my love me they would part,
From my love so fair.
A fair lady did I love,
Loved with all my mind and heart,
But fortune and the fates above
Keep me still from her apart,
From my love so fair.

And since her from me they keep,
Will I go to distant lands,
My ill fortune there to weep
And my love so fair.

Now must I from her depart,
But if thus my eyes that grieve
And my life my love must leave,
Here, O here remains my heart
With my love so fair.

Do Ye Like the Health Lassie

Do ye like the heath lassie
There to hear the wild bee
The Ring fingers brassey
The Blue skipper free
Up and down dancing
Out oer the lea
In the sun glancing
Then wander with me

Take up your bonnet love
On with your shawl love
The walk depend on it love
Is pleasant for all love
Do ye like the hills maiden
Oer laden with thyme
With rock roses braiden
Shining bright and divine

Do ye like the furze prickly
Yellow over with flower
And crimpt brake looking sickly
In the sunsetting hour
The heather heath maiden

Robert G. Shaw

When War's red banners trailed along the sky,
And many a manly heart grew all aflame
With patriotic love and purest aim,
There rose a noble soul who dared to die,
If only Right could win. He heard the cry
Of struggling bondmen and he quickly came,
Leaving the haunts where Learning tenders fame
Unto her honored sons; for it was ay
A loftier cause that lured him on to death.
Brave men who saw their brothers held in chains,
Beneath his standard battled ardently.
O friend! O hero! thou who yielded breath
That others might share Freedom's priceless gains,