Joseph Skipsey Poems

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.
...

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

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.
...

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.
...

LO, a fairy on a day
Came and bore my heart away;
But as she secured her prize,
Sweetest smiles illumed her eyes.
...

I HAD a merry bird
Who sung a merry song,
And take it on my word,
The day it was not long
...

'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.
...

AH! a lovely jewel was Mary of Crofton,
And now she is cold in the clay,
We think of the heart-cheering image as often
As we pass down the old waggon way.
...