With Spring-time in the woodlands will my pulses stir and thrill;
I'll run below the wet young moon where myriad frogs pipe shrill;
I'll forget the world of strife,
Where fame is more than life;
And I'll mate with youth and beauty when the sun is on the hill.
The Homesteader
Mother England, I am coming, cease your calling for a season,
For the plains of wheat need reaping, and the thrasher's at the door.
All these long years I have loved you, but you cannot call it treason
If I loved my shack of shingles and my little baby more.
Now my family have departed—for the good Lord took them early—
And I turn to thee, O England, as a son that seeks his home.
Now younger folk may plough and plant the plains I love so dearly,
Whose acres stretch too wide for feet that can no longer roam.
If the western skies are bluer and the western snows are whiter,
And the flowers of the prairie-lands are bright and honey-sweet,
'Tis the scent of English primrose makes my weary heart beat lighter
As I count the days that part me from your little cobble street.
For the last time come the reapers (you can hear the knives ring cheery
As they pitch the bearded barley in a thousand tents of gold);
For I see the cliffs of Devon bulking dark beyond the prairie,
And hear the skylarks calling to a heart that's growing old.
When the chaff-piles cease their burning and the frost is closing over
All the barren leagues of stubble that my lonely feet have passed,
I shall spike the door and journey towards the Channel lights of Dover—
That England may receive my dreams and bury them at last!
Husbands Over Seas
Each morning they sit down to their little bites of bread,
To six warm bowls of porridge and a broken mug or two.
And each simple soul is happy and each hungry mouth is fed—
Then why should she be smiling as the weary-hearted do?
All day the house has echoed to their tiny, treble laughter
(Six little rose-faced cherubs who trip shouting through the day),
Till the candle lights the cradle and runs dark along the rafter—
Then why should she be watching while the long night wastes away?