Robert Kirkland Kernighan Poems

He never swears, he never smokes,
He looks not on the wine ;
He never laughs, he never jokes,
He goes to bed at nine ;
...

The bushes and the trees
Spread the old brown blanket;
Snugly round their knees
Is the old brown blanket;
...

To home and Country shouts we raise I
For Home and Land to Heaven we cry !
In Home and Country let us live
For Home and Land we stand to die !
...

The owner of millions, he smiling stood
And gazed through the window in laughing mood ;
And a lad came in with a frightened face,
And stood at his feet with a boyish grace ;
...

I thing I'm dying, Tom, old boy; I'm all broke up
to-night ; I feel so sick at heart I wish I 'd never see the light ;
For I 've done wrong, yes, very wrong ; I 've thrown
myself aw r ay Oh ! if the old folks heard it, Tom, I wonder what they 'd say !
...

' Mammy, mammy !' the wee girl cried ;
The mother dropped a plate
And hurried o'er the farmyard wide,
...

There is silence in the parlor, and the pretty girl sits
still,
And her coolness fills our hero with an awful kind of
pain ;
But his spirit quite collapses when she says in tones
that kill,
' My mother does 'nt like you, and you must n't come
again.'
...

Methinks that I can hear them churning
Outside the kitchen cellar way ;
Methinks I see the old yard turning
A perfumed green this splendid day.
...

She bears a basket on her arm,
Athrough the crowded street ;
The sidewalk feels a soft caress
Beneath her busy feet.
...

I never saw my love ; but I
Can fancy that she 's wond'rous fair :
With splendid eyes, that flash and shine
Beneath her wealth of lustrous hair.
...