Mary Eliza Fullerton Poems

The quick compunction cannot serve;
She saw the flash,
Ere he had bent with busy hand
And drooping lash.
...

Ardent in love and cold in charity,
Loud in the market, timid in debate:
Scornful of foe unbuckled in the dust
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To be unloved brings sweet relief:
The strong adoring eyes
Play the eternal thief
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Parasite lichen
Lies grey on the years;
Lily buries herself
When winter appears.
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My annals have it so:
A thing my mother saw,
Nigh eighty years ago,
With happiness and awe.
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At an old water-hole,
Bones lay in the hide
And teeth gibbered up
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Nina’s cross: her alphabet
Flung upon the floor.
Hoity toity! in a pet,
Wanting something more.
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If I let go my strength
To hold your twisted strand,
It could but sear at length,
And hurt my coward hand.
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I have seen a gum-tree,
Scarred by the blaze
Of the pioneer axe,
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Shall they not praise the cogs,
Praise the pistons and wheels,
And still be poets
To whom appeals
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