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.”
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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FROM the pipe-end off it glides,
Many hued appearing;
What, if cynic harsh derides,
Sets the boys a-staring.
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'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.
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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.
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ANNIE LEE is fair and sweet—
Fair and sweet to look upon;
But Annie's heart is all deceit,
Therefore Annie Lee, begone.
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'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!'
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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:
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'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!
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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—
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HEY Robin, jolly Robin,
Tell me how thy lady doth?
Is she laughing, is she sobbing
Is she gay, or grave, or both?
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MY mother bade me go. I went:
But beat my heart, ere I returned,
A rat-tat-tan, and what it meant
Too soon I to my sorrow learned.
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THRO' the dark and dreary night,
Golden slumbers kiss thine eyes;
Sleep, and in the early light
With a golden smile arise!
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MY lad he is a Collier Lad,
And ere the lark awakes,
He's up and away to spend the day
Where daylight never breaks;
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'Twos on a night, with sleet and snow,
From out the north a tempest blew,
When Thistle gathered nerve to go
The little Nettle's self to woo.
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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—
...