Joseph Skipsey Poems

WHAT is Man? The question floweth
From the lips with ease, and yet
He who best can answer knoweth,
Answer true were hard to get.
...

WHEN I would laugh a little at
The follies that in Life aboundeth,
What ails the saint I worship, that
She with a frown my spirit woundeth?
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DON'T spur us so: you'll ever find,
When you will ride at giddy paces
There's always something in the wind,
At which ere long you'll twist your faces.
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THEE glory of her charms I felt,
And thro' my frame electric ran
What made my stubborn heart to melt,
And feel as hearts of passion can;
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THE stars are twinkling in the sky,
As to the pit I go;
I think not of the sheen on high,
But of the gloom below.
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WHAT can he ail? I hear them ask
And what can make his cheek so pale?
Ah, that to answer were a task
For which no effort could avail,
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'LOVE'S a pleasure, love's a treasure,
Why the joys of love withstand?'
Alf so pleadeth, Effie heedeth
And—What ails the lily-wand?
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I HAD a vision of the dear departed,
The while stone-dead to outer thing I lay;
And 'Go,' she said—'and tell the broken-hearted,
What now my will shall to thy mind convey.
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PERFIDIOUS damsel, with thy dazzling eyes,
Those skill'd enchanters of a sunnier clime,
Thou, thou hast charmed the dragon Reason, couched
Before my soul's Hesperides, and filched
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LAST night at the Fair did I lose thee, my honey—
I hunted thee south and I hunted thee north;
I'd rather than lost thee have lost all the money
That all the great lords in the kingdom are worth.
...