Joseph Skipsey Poems

I SAW but once that lovely one,
Nor need I see her twice to love;
She broke upon me like the dawn,
And o'er my soul her magic wove—
...

ELEVEN long winters departed
Since you and he sailed o'er the main?
Dear, dear—I've been thrice broken-hearted,
And thrice—but, ah, let me refrain.—
...

THRICE 'Iö Pæan!' let me cry,
And bless the hour that I was born
And born thro' love in vain to sigh—
To cheer my longing heart a morn
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OH, what is Life? A magic night
In which we still to phantoms yield;
And what is Death, if not the light
By which the real truth's reveal'd?
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'NOT now shall I sing of my sports in Spring,
But the golden hours and gay,'
Sang the Breeze, 'when I, a wild lover, hie
With the Summer flowers to play.
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ALAS! the woe the high of heart,
Seem pre-ordained to undergo,
While proud ambition hides the smart,
And smiles delude the world below.
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AS I came down from Earsdon Town,
A-lilting of a lay,
Whom did I meet but she, the sweet,
The blue-eyed Lotty Hay.
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AT Backworth sung till echo rung,
A bard whose feelings were,
In what to young and old he sung
Of little Dolly Dare.
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IF Ellerton Willy be slighted by Lilly!
Yet others as bonny will hark to his lay;
Then why like a silly bit daffodowndilly,
Should I droop my head, droop, and cry, well-a-way?
...

AWAY to the pic-nic at Ryton, away
Went off in the sunrise our younkers pell-mell—
And many were bonny and many were gay,
But sweetest of any was Barbara Bell.
...