There's a happy time coming,
When the boys come home.
There's a glorious day coming,
When the boys come home.
We will end the dreadful story
Of this treason dark and gory
In a sunburst of glory,
When the boys come home.

The day will seem brighter
When the boys come home,
For our hearts will be lighter
When the boys come home.
Wives and sweethearts will press them
In their arms and caress them,
And pray God to bless them,
When the boys come home.

The thinned ranks will be proudest

When Orpheus sweetly did complayne
Upon his lute with heavy strayne
How his Euridice was slayne,
The trees to heare
Obtayn'd an eare,
And after left it off againe.


At every stroake and every stay
The boughs kept time, and nodding lay,
And listened bending all one way:
The aspen tree
As well as hee
Began to shake and learn'd to play.


If wood could speake, a tree might heare,
If wood could sound true greife so neare
A tree might dropp an amber teare:
If wood so well
Could ring a knell

When once the twilight locks no longer
Locked in the long worm of my finger
Nor damned the sea that sped about my fist,
The mouth of time sucked, like a sponge,
The milky acid on each hinge,
And swallowed dry the waters of the breast.

When the galactic sea was sucked
And all the dry seabed unlocked,
I sent my creature scouting on the globe,
That globe itself of hair and bone
That, sewn to me by nerve and brain,
Had stringed my flask of matter to his rib.

My fuses are timed to charge his heart,
He blew like powder to the light

When on a summer's morn I wake,
And open my two eyes,
Out to the clear, born-singing rills
My bird-like spirit flies.

To hear the Blackbird, Cuckoo, Thrush,
Or any bird in song;
And common leaves that hum all day
Without a throat or tongue.

And when Time strikes the hour for sleep,
Back in my room alone,
My heart has many a sweet bird's song --
And one that's all my own.

347

When Night is almost done—
And Sunrise grows so near
That we can touch the Spaces—
It's time to smooth the Hair—

And get the Dimples ready—
And wonder we could care
For that old—faded Midnight—
That frightened—but an Hour—

To the tune of "Telling My Most Intimate Feelings"

When night comes,
I am so flushed with wine,
I undo my hair slowly:
a plum calyx is
stuck on a damaged branch.
I wake dazed when smoke
breaks my spring sleep.
The dream distant,
so very distant;
and it is quiet, so very quiet.
The moon spins and spins.
The kingfisher blinds are drawn;
and yet I rub the injured bud,
and yet I twist in my fingers this fragrance,

There will be a time when it will end.
Be it parting
Be it death
So each passing minute with you
Pendulummed with sadness.
So many times
I looked long into your face.
I could hear the clock ticking.

When I heard the learn'd astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide,
and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with
much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.

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

I’ve had a good bump round; my little horse
Refused the brook first time,
Then jumped it prime;
And ran out at the double,
But of course
There’s always trouble at a double:
And then—I don’t know how
It was—he turned it up
At that big, hairy fence before the plough;
And some young silly pup
(I don’t know which),
Near as a toucher knocked me into the ditch;
But we finished full of running, and quite sound:
And anyhow I’ve had a good bump round.