Francis William Lauderdale Adams Poems

To Mary Robinson
'WHAT, are you lost, you pretty little lady?
This is no place for such sweet things as you.
...

FROM the dusty jaded sunlight of the careless Cairo streets,
Through the open bedroom window where the pale blue held the
palms,
...

HE asked me of my friend — 'a clever man;
Such various talent, business, journalism;
A pen that might some day have sent out ‘leaders’
...

SHRIEKS out of smoke, a flame of dung-straw fire
That is not quenched but hath for only fruit
What writhes and dies not in its rotten root:
...

O CITY lapped in sun and Sabbath rest,
With happy face of plenteous ease possessed,
...

COME then, let us at least know what's the truth.
Let us not blink our eyes and say
We did not understand; old age or youth
...

'MY Sweet, my Child, through all this night
Of dark and wind and rain,
Where thunder crashes, and the light
...

'WE sow the fertile seed and then we reap it;
We thresh the golden grain; we knead the bread.
Others that eat are glad. In store they keep it,
...

IN the dark waveless sea,
Deep blue under deep blue,
The fisher drifts by on the tide
...

O WORDS as clear as are the dawn sky-rifts
Between the still cloud-layers, and eke as sweet
As violets are, looking through crystal dew,
...