son

"Son," said my mother,
When I was knee-high,
"you've need of clothes to cover you,
and not a rag have I.

"There's nothing in the house
To make a boy breeches,
Nor shears to cut a cloth with,
Nor thread to take stitches.

"There's nothing in the house
But a loaf-end of rye,
And a harp with a woman's head
Nobody will buy,"
And she began to cry.

That was in the early fall.
When came the late fall,
"Son," she said, "the sight of you
Makes your mother's blood crawl,—

Men my brothers who after us live,
have your hearts against us not hardened.
For—if of poor us you take pity,
God of you sooner will show mercy.
You see us here, attached.
As for the flesh we too well have fed,
long since it's been devoured or has rotted.
And we the bones are becoming ash and dust.

Of our pain let nobody laugh,
but pray God
would us all absolve.

If you my brothers I call, do not
scoff at us in disdain, though killed
we were by justice. Yet ss you know

Have you heard of one Humpty Dumpty
How he fell with a roll and a rumble
And curled up like Lord Olofa Crumple
By the butt of the Magazine Wall,
  (Chorus) Of the Magazine Wall,
           Hump, helmet and all?

He was one time our King of the Castle
Now he's kicked about like a rotten old parsnip.
And from Green street he'll be sent by order of His Worship
To the penal jail of Mountjoy
  (Chorus) To the jail of Mountjoy!
           Jail him and joy.

He was fafafather of all schemes for to bother us

Weary at heart and extremely ill
Was PALEY VOLLAIRE of Bromptonville,
In a dirty lodging, with fever down,
Close to the Polygon, Somers Town.

PALEY VOLLAIRE was an only son
(For why? His mother had had but one),
And PALEY inherited gold and grounds
Worth several hundred thousand pounds.

But he, like many a rich young man,
Through this magnificent fortune ran,
And nothing was left for his daily needs
But duplicate copies of mortgage-deeds.

Shabby and sorry and sorely sick,

By far Euphrates’ stream we state,
A weary band of herded slaves,
And over Judah’s fallen estate
We wept into the passing waves.

On willow-boughs that o’er us bent
Our once glad-sounding harps were hung,
That but the wild wind, as it went,
Might grieve their wailful chords among.

But they who spoiled us—even they
Who wasted us with daily wrongs,
To make them mirth did asking say:
“Come sing us one of Zion’s songs!”

How can with us the will remain

THEY all were looking for a king
   To slay their foes and lift them high:
Thou cam'st, a little baby thing
   That made a woman cry.

O Son of Man, to right my lot
   Naught but Thy presence can avail;
Yet on the road Thy wheels are not,
   Nor on the sea Thy sail!

My how or when Thou wilt not heed,
   But come down Thine own secret stair,
That Thou mayst answer all my need--
   Yea, every bygone prayer.

What are you doing here, Tom Thorne, on the white top-knot o' the world,
Where the wind has the cut of a naked knife and the stars are rapier keen?
Hugging a smudgy willow fire, deep in a lynx robe curled,
You that's a lord's own son, Tom Thorne -- what does your madness mean?

Go home, go home to your clubs, Tom Thorne! home to your evening dress!
Home to your place of power and pride, and the feast that waits for you!
Why do you linger all alone in the splendid emptiness,

Son put a poser up to me
That made me scratch my head:
"God made the whole wide world," quoth he;
"That's right, my boy," I said.
Said son: "He mad the mountains soar,
And all the plains lie flat;
But Dad, what did he do before
He did all that?

Said I: "Creation was his biz;
He set the stars to shine;
The sun and moon and all that is
Were His unique design.
The Cosmos is his concrete thought,
The Universe his chore..."
Said Son: "I understand, but what

How gracefully, O man, with thy palm-bough,
Upon the waning century standest thou,
In proud and noble manhood's prime,
With unlocked senses, with a spirit freed,
Of firmness mild,--though silent, rich in deed,
The ripest son of Time,
Through meekness great, through precepts strong,
Through treasures rich, that time had long
Hid in thy bosom, and through reason free,--
Master of Nature, who thy fetters loves,
And who thy strength in thousand conflicts proves,
And from the desert soared in pride with thee!

Oh the airman's game is a showman's game, for we all of us watch him go
With his roaring soaring aeroplane and his bombs for the blokes below,
Over the railways and over the dumps, over the Hun and the Turk,
You'll hear him mutter, "What ho, she bumps," when the Archies get to work.
But not of him is the song I sing, though he follow the eagle's flight,
And with shrapnel holes in his splintered wing comes home to his roost at night.
He may silver his wings on the shining stars, he may look from the throne on high,