Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts Poems

(A Modernity)
Twelve good friends
Passed under her hat,
And devil a one of them
...

O Child of Nations, giant-limbed,
Who stand'st among the nations now
Unheeded, unadored, unhymned,
With unanointed brow, --
...

With April here,
And first thin green on the awakening bough,
What wonderful things and dear,
My tired heart to cheer,
...

One night came Winter noiselessly, and leaned
Against my window-pane.
In the deep stillness of his heart convened
The ghosts of all his slain.
...

I see the harsh, wind-ridden, eastward hill,
By the red cattle pastured, blanched with dew;
The small, mossed hillocks where the clay gets through;
The grey webs woven on milkweed tops at will.
...

All night the lone cicada
Kept shrilling through the rain–
A voice of joy undaunted
By unforgotten pain.
...

O thou who hast beneath Thy hand
The dark foundations of the land,--
The motion of whose ordered thought
An instant universe hath wrought,--
...

When the lights come out in the cottages
Along the shores at eve,
And across the darkening water
The last pale colours leave;
...

O thou who lovest not alone
The swift success, the instant goal,
But hast a lenient eye to mark
The failures of th' inconstant soul,
...

It is so long ago; and men well-nigh
Forget what gladness was, and how the earth
Gave corn in plenty, and the rivers fish,
And the woods meat, before he went away.
...