Joseph Skipsey Poems

'MY brother Jack the Rover, Sir!'
'Bless me, I thought he was a cousin?'
'Bound on a voyage to Elsinore!'
'Most merry damsels have a dozen!'
...

WHAT is man? The question floweth
From the lips with ease, and yet
He who best could answer knoweth
Answer true were hard to get:
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'I JEALOUS? Pooh!—Doth not her eyes
Pursue his vessel o'er the billows?
No, jealous, no!—From whence those sighs!'
—'Tis but the wind among the willows!
...

I READ in an old book the myth
Of the Hellenian damsel with
The magic needle, when there fell
On me a power—a mystic spell—
...

HEY Robin, jolly Robin,
Tell me how thy lady doth?
Is she laughing, is she sobbing
Is she gay, or grave, or both?
...

MY mother bade me go. I went:
But beat my heart, ere I returned,
A rat-tat-tan, and what it meant
Too soon I to my sorrow learned.
...

THRO' the dark and dreary night,
Golden slumbers kiss thine eyes;
Sleep, and in the early light
With a golden smile arise!
...

MY lad he is a Collier Lad,
And ere the lark awakes,
He's up and away to spend the day
Where daylight never breaks;
...

'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.
...

I SAW but once that lovely one,
Nor need I see her twice to love;
She broke upon me like the dawn,
And o'er my soul her magic wove—
...