Joseph Skipsey Poems

The butterfly from flower to flower
The urchin chas’d; and, when at last
He caught it in my lady’s bower,
He cried, “Ha, ha!” and held it fast.
...

Mother wept, and father sigh’d;
With delight a-glow
Cried the lad, “To-morrow,” cried,
“To the pit I go.”
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AH, be not vain. In yon flower-bell,
As rare a pearl, did I appear,
As ever grew in ocean shell,
To dangle at a Helen’s ear.
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The Hartley men are noble, and
Ye'll hear a tale of woe;
I'll tell the doom of the Hartley men -
The year of sixty two.
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Get up!" the caller calls, "Get up!"
And in the dead of night,
To win the bairns their bite and sup,
I rise a weary wight.
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Misfortune is a darling, ever
Most faithful to the minstrel race;
Let low-bred wretches shun them, never
Yet acted she a part so base.
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FROM the pipe-end off it glides,
Many hued appearing;
What, if cynic harsh derides,
Sets the boys a-staring.
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'I HATE outlandish things, and own
I've little liking for the sonnet;
'Tis for a lazy Muse, and one
Who hath a bumler in her bonnet.
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LAST night at the fair I met light-footed Polly,
And Nanny from Earsdon and bothersome Nell,
And yellow-hair'd Bessy and hazel-eyed Dolly;
But Rosy for sweetness did bear off the bell.
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ANNIE LEE is fair and sweet—
Fair and sweet to look upon;
But Annie's heart is all deceit,
Therefore Annie Lee, begone.
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