From brief delights that rise to me
Out of unfathomable dole,
I thank whatever gods there be
...
the quiet skies:
And from the west,
Where the sun, his day's work ended,
Lingers as in content,
...
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
...
The big teetotum twirls,
And epochs wax and wane
As chance subsides or swirls;
But of the loss and gain
...
SONS of Shannon, Tamar, Trent,
Men of the Lothians, Men of Kent,
Essex, Wessex, shore and shire,
Mates of the net, the mine, the fire,
...
You are carried in a basket,
Like a carcase from the shambles,
To the theatre, a cockpit
Where they stretch you on a table.
...
If it should come to be,
This proof of you and me,
This type and sign
Of hours that smiled and shone,
...
Like as a flamelet blanketed in smoke,
So through the anaesthetic shows my life;
So flashes and so fades my thought, at strife
...
Kate-a-Whimsies, John-a-Dream
Still debating, still delay,
And the world’s a ghost that gleams –
Wavers – vanishes away!
...
Thin-legged, thin-chested, slight unspeakably,
Neat-footed and weak-fingered: in his face -
...