Ralph Hodgson Poems

'Come, try your skill, kind gentlemen,
A penny for three tries!'
Some threw and lost, some threw and won
A ten-a-penny prize.
...

'Twould ring the bells of Heaven
The wildest peal for years,
If Parson lost his senses
And people came to theirs,
...

See an old unhappy bull,
Sick in soul and body both,
Slouching in the undergrowth
Of the forest beautiful,
Banished from the herd he led,
...

The world's gone forward to its latest fair
And dropt an old man done with by the way,
To sit alone among the bats and stare
...

I saw with open eyes
Singing birds sweet
Sold in the shops
For people to eat,
...

Now one and all, you Roses,
Wake up, you lie too long!
This very morning closes
The Nightingale his song;
...

Eve, with her basket, was
Deep in the bells and grass,
Wading in bells and grass
Up to her knees,
...

"How fared you when you mortal were?
What did you see on my peopled star?"
"Oh well enough," I answered her,
"It went for me where mortals are!
...

I climbed a hill as light fell short,
And rooks came home in scramble sort,
And filled the trees and flapped and fought
...

Sour fiend, go home and tell the Pit
For once you met your master, -
A man who carried in his soul
Three charms against disaster,
...