The Magyar's New-Year-Eve
By Temèsvar I hear the clarions call:
The year dies. Let it die. It lived in vain.
Gun booms to gun along the looming wall,
Another year advances o'er the plain.
The Despot hails it from his bannered keep:
Ah, Tyrant, is it well to break a bondsman's sleep?
He might have dreamed, and solved the conscious throes
Of Time and Fate in some soft vision blest:
Sighed his thick breath in childhood's happy woes,
Or spent the starry tumult of the breast
On some dear dreamland maid, nor known how high
The blind heart beats to hours like this. 'Tis nigh!
Lo in the air a trouble and a strife;
I feel the future. Mighty days to come
Strain the strong leash a moment into Life:
Shapes beckon: voices clamour and are dumb:
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poem by Sydney Thompson Dobell
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A Health To The Queen
While the thistle bears
Spears,
And the shamrock is green,
And the English rose
Blows,
A health to the Queen!
A health to the Queen, a health to the Queen!
Fill high, boys, drain dry, boys,
A health to the Queen!
The thistle bears spears round its blossom,
Round its blossom the shamrock is green,
The rose grows and glows round the rose in its bosom,
We stand sword in hand round the Queen!
Our glory is green round the Queen!
We close round the rose, round the Queen!
The Queen, boys, the Queen! a health to the Queen!
Fill high, boys, drain dry, boys,
A health to the Queen!
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poem by Sydney Thompson Dobell
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The Widow's Lullaby
She droops like a dew-dropping lily,
'Whisht thee, boy, whisht thee, boy Willie!
Whisht whisht o' thy wailing, whisht thee, boy Willie!'
The sun comes up from the lea,
As he who will never come more
Came up that first day to her door,
When the ship furled her sails by the shore,
And the spring leaves were green on the tree.
But she droops like a dew-dropping lily,
'whisht thee, boy, whisht thee, boy Willie!
Whisht whisht o' thy wailing, whisht thee, boy Willie!'
The sun goes down in the sea,
As he who will never go more
Went down that last day from her door,
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poem by Sydney Thompson Dobell
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Dante, Shakespeare, Milton - From
Doctor. Ah! thou, too,
Sad Alighieri, like a waning moon
Setting in storm behind a grove of bays!
Balder. Yes, the great Florentine, who wove his web
And thrust it into hell, and drew it forth
Immortal, having burn’d all that could burn,
And leaving only what shall still be found
Untouch’d, nor with the small of fire upon it,
Under the final ashes of this world.
Doctor. Shakespeare and Milton!
Balder. Switzerland and home.
I ne’er see Milton, but I see the Alps,
As once, sole standing on a peak supreme,
To the extremest verge summit and gulf
I saw, height after depth, Alp beyond Alp,
O’er which the rising and the sinking soul
Sails into distance, heaving as a ship
O’er a great sea that sets to strands unseen.
And as the mounting and descending bark,
Borne on exulting by the under deep,
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poem by Sydney Thompson Dobell
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The Olive
I have heard a friar say
That the Olive learned to pray
In Gethsemane,-
A holy man was he,
Jacopo by name,-
All upon his bended knees
From Jerusalem
He crossed Kedron brook
And to the garden came
Of Gethsemane,
And the very olive-trees
Are there to this day.
And I would have you know,
For I loved to hear him speak,
Good Friar Jacopo!-
That on an Easter-week,
In the time long ago
Of bloody Pilate 'King of Rome,'
Lord Jesus
To the garden-gate did come
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poem by Sydney Thompson Dobell
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To 1862
(In Prospect Of War With America)
I
Oh worst of years, by what signs shall we know
So dire an advent? Let thy New-Year's-day
Be night. At the east gate let the sun lay
His crown: as thro' a temple hung with woe
Unkinged by mortal sorrow let him go
Down the black noon, whose wan astrology
Peoples the skyey windows with dismay,
To that dark charnel in the west where lo!
The mobled Moon! For so, at the dread van
Of wars like ours, the great humanity
In things not human should be wrought and wrung
Into our sight, and creatures without tongue
By the dumb passion of a visible cry
Confess the coming agony of Man.
II
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poem by Sydney Thompson Dobell
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Mentana
'Mother, I hear a word
In the air!'
Play on, play on, my son,
The word thou hast heard is some bright sweet bird
That singeth, why and where
Who knows?
As who knows why and whither
The little wind blows
That bloweth hither and thither
But hardly stirs thy hair,
Hardly stirs the gossamers
Or a film of thy golden hair.
'Oh Mother, Mother dear,
Bend down, bend down to me!
Ah Mother, what dost thou hear?'
Hush, hush, my son,
I hear a word in the air.
'Ah Mother, why is thy face so white?
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poem by Sydney Thompson Dobell
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Tommy's Dead
YOU may give over plough, boys,
You may take the gear to the stead,
All the sweat o' your brow, boys,
Will never get beer and bread.
The seed's waste, I know, boys,
There's not a blade will grow, boys,
'Tis cropped out, I trow, boys,
And Tommy's dead.
Send the colt to fair, boys,
He's going blind, as I said,
My old eyes can't bear, boys,
To see him in the shed;
The cow's dry and spare, boys,
She's neither here nor there, boys,
I doubt she's badly bread;
Stop the mill to-morn, boys,
There'll be no more corn, boys,
Neither white nor red;
There's no sign of grass, boys,
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poem by Sydney Thompson Dobell
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The Orphan's Song
I had a little bird,
I took it from the nest;
I prest it, and blest it,
And nurst it in my breast.
I set it on the ground,
I danced round and round,
And sang about it so cheerly,
With 'Hey my little bird, and ho my little bird,
And oh but I love thee dearly!'
I make a little feast
Of food soft and sweet,
I hold it in my breast,
And coax it to eat;
I pit, and I pat,
I call it this and that,
And sing about it so cheerly,
With 'Hey my little bird, and ho my little bird,
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poem by Sydney Thompson Dobell
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In War-Time: A Prayer Of The Understanding
Lo, this is night. Hast thou, oh sun, refused
Thy countenance, or is thy golden arm
Shortened, or from thy shining place in heaven
Art thou put down and lost? Neither hast thou
Refused thy constant face, nor is thine arm
Shortened, nor from thy principality
Art thou deposed, oh sun. Ours, ours, the sin,
The sorrow. From thy steadfast noon we turned
Into the eastern shade-and this is night.
Yet so revolves the axle of the world,
And by that brief aversion wheels us round
To morn, and rolls us on the larger paths
Of annual duty. Thou observant moon,
That dancest round the seasonable earth
As David round the ark, but half thy ring
In process, yet, complete, the circular whole
Promotes thee, and expedes thy right advance,
And all thy great desire of summer signs.
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poem by Sydney Thompson Dobell
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