The Beggar
He begged and shuffled on;
Sometimes he stopped to throw
A bit and benison
To sparrows in the snow,
And clap a frozen ear
And curse the bitter cold.
God send the good man cheer
And quintal hundredfold.
poem by Ralph Hodgson
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A Song
With Love among the haycocks
We played at hide and seek;
He shut his eyes and counted -
We hid among the hay -
Then he a haycock mounted,
And spied us where we lay;
And O! the merry laughter
Across the hayfield after!
poem by Ralph Hodgson
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The Mystery
He came and took me by the hand
Up to a red rose tree,
He kept His meaning to Himself
But gave a rose to me.
I did not pray Him to lay bare
The mystery to me,
Enough the rose was Heaven to smell,
And His own face to see.
poem by Ralph Hodgson
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The Birdcatcher
When flighting time is on I go
With clap-net and decoy,
A-fowling after goldfinches
And other birds of joy;
I lurk among the thickets of
The Heart where they are bred,
And catch the twittering beauties as
They fly into my Head.
poem by Ralph Hodgson
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Stupidity Street
I saw with open eyes
Singing birds sweet
Sold in the shops
For people to eat,
Sold in the shops of
Stupidity Street.
I saw in vision
The worm in the wheat,
And in the shops nothing
For people to eat;
Nothing for sale in
Stupidity Street.
poem by Ralph Hodgson
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The Swallow
The morning that my baby came
They found a baby swallow dead,
And saw a something, hard to name,
Flit moth-like over baby's bed.
My joy, my flower, my baby dear
Sleeps on my bosom well, but Oh!
If in the Autumn of the year
When swallows gather round and go -
poem by Ralph Hodgson
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Three Poems
I
Babylon where I go dreaming
When I weary of to-day,
Weary of a world grown gray.
II
God loves an idle rainbow,
No less than laboring seas.
III
Reason has moons, but moons not hers
Lie mirrored on her sea,
Confounding her astronomers,
But, oh, delighting me!
poem by Ralph Hodgson
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Reason has Moons
Reason has moons, but moons not hers,
Lie mirror'd on the sea,
Confounding her astronomers,
But O! delighting me.
. . . . .
BABYLON - where I go dreaming
When I weary of to-day,
Weary of a world grown grey.
. . . . .
GOD loves an idle rainbow,
No less than labouring seas.
poem by Ralph Hodgson
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The Bells of Heaven
'Twould ring the bells of Heaven
The wildest peal for years,
If Parson lost his senses
And people came to theirs,
And he and they together
Knelt down with angry prayers
For tamed and shabby tigers
And dancing dogs and bears,
And wretched, blind pit ponies,
And little hunted hares.
poem by Ralph Hodgson
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A Wood Song
Now one and all, you Roses,
Wake up, you lie too long!
This very morning closes
The Nightingale his song;
Each from its olive chamber
His babies every one
This very morning clamber
Into the shining sun.
You Slug-a-beds and Simples,
Why will you so delay!
Dears, doff your olive wimples,
And listen while you may.
poem by Ralph Hodgson
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