Joseph Skipsey Poems

WAS ever wretch in such a plight?
I scramble on I know not whither!
The witches are abroad to-night;
Some wicked one has led me hither!
...

IN the coal-pit, or the factory,
I toil by night or day,
And still to the music of labour
I lilt my heart-felt lay;
...

FLY not away, wee birdie, pray!
No weasels we, no evil-bringers,
Would make thee bear the pangs that tear
Too oft the hearts of sweetest singers.
...

BEWILDERED by Life's Gordian Knot, long o'er me
Despair had flung her adamantine chain,
When thro' the abyss of my spirit 'Glory!'
A deep voice cried, and 'Glory!' then this strain:—
...

THE baleful era of King Gold has vanished,
And men disgusted with the part they played,
From out the temple of their hearts are banished
The idols that debased the souls they swayed.
...

I THANK my God I ever lived to see the blessèd day,
When the spirit's immortality to me is rendered clear
Not by a logic might be made some other tune to play,
But by a flash of inner light too keen for doubt to bear.
...

'I HAVE oped my inner vision,'
(Spake the Spirit to the Seer,)
'Now I'll show to thee the mission
Which whatever betides—whate'er—
...

A PHANTOM to me thou appearest
But, spite of this seeming, I know,
The magical image thou wearest
Is real as the lilies in blow—
...

A THOUGHT TOILER, faint and o'ercome by his labours,
And the manifold troubles by which he was girt,
Combined with the titters and sneers of his neighbours,
Lost heart, and thus vented the pangs of his heart:—
...

I'm the spirit Enimalina, thy guardian angel, and
Drawn hither by a subtle law but few can understand—
The golden cord of sympathy, I leave the summer-land,
Thy aching brows with lilies to entwine.
...