The strange and wonderful are too much with us. The protea of the antipodes—a great, globed, blazing honeybee of a bloom— for sale in the supermarket! We are in our decadence, we are not entitled. What have we done to deserve all the produce of the tropics— this fiery trove, the largesse of it heaped [...]

Millions of babies watching the skies Bellies swollen, with big round eyes On Jessore Road–long bamboo huts Noplace to shit but sand channel ruts Millions of fathers in rain Millions of mothers in pain Millions of brothers in woe Millions of sisters nowhere to go One Million aunts are dying for bread One Million uncles [...]

Oh, a wonderful horse is the Fly-Away Horse – Perhaps you have seen him before; Perhaps, while you slept, his shadow has swept Through the moonlight that floats on the floor. For it’s only at night, when the stars twinkle bright, That the Fly-Away Horse, with a neigh And a pull at his rein and [...]

Praise the good-tempered summer and the red cardinal that jumps like a hot coal off the track. Praise the heavy leaves, heroines of green, frosted with silver. Praise the litter of torn paper, mulch and sticks, the spiny holly, its scarlet land mines. Praise the black snake that whips and shudders its way across my [...]

I. And Willy, my eldest-born, is gone, you say, little Anne? Ruddy and white, and strong on his legs, he looks like a man. And Willy’s wife has written: she never was over-wise, Never the wife for Willy: he would n’t take my advice. II. For, Annie, you see, her father was not the man [...]

“The quay recedes. Hurrah! Ahead we go! . . . It’s true I’ve been accustomed now to home, And joints get rusty, and one’s limbs may grow More fit to rest than roam. “But I can stand as yet fair stress and strain; There’s not a little steel beneath the rust; My years mount somewhat, [...]

Your children grow from you apart, Afar and still afar; And yet it should rejoice your heart To see how glad they are; In school and sport, in work and play, And last, in wedded bliss How others claim with joy to-day The lips you used to kiss. Your children distant will become, And wide [...]

either peace or happiness, let it enfold you when i was a young man I felt these things were dumb,unsophisticated. I had bad blood,a twisted mind, a pecarious upbringing. I was hard as granite,I leered at the sun. I trusted no man and especially no woman. I was living a hell in small rooms, I [...]

Brooding on the eightieth letter of Fors Clavigera, I speak this in memory of my grandmother, whose childhood and prime womanhood were spent in the nailer’s darg. The nailshop stood back of the cottage, by the fold. It reeked stale mineral sweat. Sparks had furred its low roof. In dawn-light the troughed water floated a [...]

I There was Claw-fingered Kitty and Windy Ike living the life of shame, When unto them in the Long, Long Night came the man-who-had-no-name; Bearing his prize of a black fox pelt, out of the Wild he came. His cheeks were blanched as the flume-head foam when the brown spring freshets flow; Deep in their [...]