Forest Song
All around I heard the whispering larches
Swinging to the low-lipped wind;
God, they piped, is lilting in our arches,
For He loveth leafen kind.
Ferns I heard, unfolding from their slumber,
Say confiding to the reed:
God well knoweth us, Who loves to number
Us and all our fairy seed.
Voices hummed as of a multitude
Crowding from their lowly sod;
'Twas the stricken daisies where I stood,
Crying to the daisies' God.
The Bee
Away, the old monks said,
Sweet honey-fly,
From lilting overhead
The lullaby
You heard some mother croon
Beneath the harvest moon.
Go, hum it in the hive,
The old monks said,
For we were once alive
Who now are dead.
Outside the Carlton
The death of the grey withered grass
Of man's is a sign,
And his life is as wine
That is spilt from a half-shivered glass.
At a quarter to nine
Went Dives to dine ...
(Man, it is said, is as grass.)
Riches and plunder had met
To furnish his feast—
Both succulent beast
And fish from the fisherman's net;
While he tasteth of dishes
And all his soul wishes—
Nor knoweth his hour hath been set.
The death of the pale-sodden hay
'Neath the feet of the kine
Is to man for a sign;
At the striking of ten he was grey,
And they carried him out
Stiff-strangled with gout.
(Man, it is said, is as hay.)
The Pater of the Cannon
Father of the thunder,
Flinger of the flame,
Searing stars asunder,
Hallowed be Thy Name!
By the sweet-sung quiring
Sister bullets hum,
By our fiercest firing,
May Thy Kingdom come!
By Thy strong apostle
Of the Maxim gun,
By his pentecostal
Flame, Thy Will be done!
Give us, Lord, good feeding
To Thy battles sped—Flesh,
white grained and bleeding,
Give for daily bread!
Fleet Street
I never see the newsboys run
Amid the whirling street,
With swift untiring feet,
To cry the latest venture done,
But I expect one day to hear
Them cry the crack of doom
And risings from the tomb,
With great Archangel Michael near;
And see them running from the Fleet
As messengers of God,
With Heaven's tidings shod
About their brave unwearied feet.