Joseph Skipsey

The butterfly from flower to flower
The urchin chas’d; and, when at last
He caught it in my lady’s bower,
He cried, “Ha, ha!” and held it fast.
...

Mother wept, and father sigh’d;
With delight a-glow
Cried the lad, “To-morrow,” cried,
“To the pit I go.”
...

AH, be not vain. In yon flower-bell,
As rare a pearl, did I appear,
As ever grew in ocean shell,
To dangle at a Helen’s ear.
...

The Hartley men are noble, and
Ye'll hear a tale of woe;
I'll tell the doom of the Hartley men -
The year of sixty two.
...

Get up!" the caller calls, "Get up!"
And in the dead of night,
To win the bairns their bite and sup,
I rise a weary wight.
...

Misfortune is a darling, ever
Most faithful to the minstrel race;
Let low-bred wretches shun them, never
Yet acted she a part so base.
...

FROM the pipe-end off it glides,
Many hued appearing;
What, if cynic harsh derides,
Sets the boys a-staring.
...

'I HATE outlandish things, and own
I've little liking for the sonnet;
'Tis for a lazy Muse, and one
Who hath a bumler in her bonnet.
...

OUR revels now are ended, so good night, so good night,
And each unto our chamber let us hie,
And there lose ourselves in visions till the broad daylight
Again has bid adieu unto the sky.
...

LAST night at the fair I met light-footed Polly,
And Nanny from Earsdon and bothersome Nell,
And yellow-hair'd Bessy and hazel-eyed Dolly;
But Rosy for sweetness did bear off the bell.
...

ANNIE LEE is fair and sweet—
Fair and sweet to look upon;
But Annie's heart is all deceit,
Therefore Annie Lee, begone.
...

'MY brother Jack the Rover, Sir!'
'Bless me, I thought he was a cousin?'
'Bound on a voyage to Elsinore!'
'Most merry damsels have a dozen!'
...

WHAT is man? The question floweth
From the lips with ease, and yet
He who best could answer knoweth
Answer true were hard to get:
...

'I JEALOUS? Pooh!—Doth not her eyes
Pursue his vessel o'er the billows?
No, jealous, no!—From whence those sighs!'
—'Tis but the wind among the willows!
...

I READ in an old book the myth
Of the Hellenian damsel with
The magic needle, when there fell
On me a power—a mystic spell—
...

HEY Robin, jolly Robin,
Tell me how thy lady doth?
Is she laughing, is she sobbing
Is she gay, or grave, or both?
...

'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.
...

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.—
...

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?
...

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
...