The Works Alexander Brown Bell

I knew a maiden fair to see, 

Playing about in girlish glee. 

What was she doing with might and main? 

Catching flies on the window-pane. 

I saw that maiden as years went bye,

And crowds of lovers were hovering nigh. 

She was playing the old game over again-- 

Catching flies on the window-pane. 

Collie with the wistful eyes 

Do you ever wonder 

What's above you in the skies, 

Or the earth, what's under? 

When you look up in my face 

Tears seem always trembling, 

As if thoughts too deep to trace 

In you were assembling. 

Collie, have you got a soul? 

I, for one, can't doubt it, 

Though wise men, with ponderous roll, 

Shake their heads and flout it. 

Well I know you've got a heart, 

Well I know you love me, 

Well I know when we're apart 

In your thoughts you glove me. 

Oh! the words you fain would say.

Pathos of your dumbness-- 

They'd be honest &s the day, 

Utter in their plumbness.

Often on my words you've hung, 

Fain to give an answer: 

If an ass can find a tongue 

Surely a dog can, sir. 

One thing you in silence hide: 

Have you lived before, eh? 

Were there means to find out, 

I'd Use them con amore. 

Oft I dream in ages gone 

You, & sage tremendous, 

Lived in meditation lone, 

Filled with thoughts stupendous. 

For old memories seem to fleet 

Through your new existence, 

Telling of things sad and sweet 

With a strange insistence. 

Or were you a lover gay, 

Daring death for posies 

From a loved one far away, 

Safe amid the roses? 

Was your fateful love outbid, 

Barred by a stern father? 

Or was she untrue, or did 

Death your loved one gather? 

Or did some most grievous sin 

Prove your life's undoing; 

Doom you to existence in 

Shape you now are ruing? 

Oh you collie, black and tan, 

Far from fashionable! 

You're as dear to me as can 

Ever be white and sable. 

And, howe'er your joyous soul 

Caught its melancholy; 

On the heights where splendours roll, 

Or in paths of folly; 

Still to me your heart is whole, 

True and faithful collie. 

Judas: Re-incarnation

No longer in the sandalled feet 

And garb of old-time Galilee, 

But clad like us, within a suite 

Of rooms in Kensington sits he 

Who sold his Lord for silver to the accursed tree. 

Through many a changing life he'd passed, 

Wending his way to his own place; 

Each one seemed fairer than the last, 

As if renewing chance of grace; 

And in each one his Lord had met him face to face. 

In each his Lord had called him out, 

Thou each time in a different guise, 

To stand forth from the common rout, 

And be a guide to Paradise; 

But on the money bags he'd sideways turned his eyes. 

And now he was a poet, who 

Had vowed to Art his nights and days, 

And in its footsteps hitherto 

He'd found the themes of beauteous lays 

That early won for him his crown of well-earned bays. 

But now his pen was held in thrall 

By an idea wondrous fair-- 

So glorious, so incomparable, 

It almost made his soul despair 

Of finding words in which to clothe a thing so rare. 

Yet, by God's gift within him, he 

Succeeded; and the poem grew

A thing of love and mystery 

That thrilled his inmost being through. 

And so he knew 'twould thrill an audience fit, though few. 

Then there came one who tempted him 

With weighty bags of golden dross 

To mar't to suit the public's whim, 

And make his gain the poem's loss. 

So once more Judas stood in shadow of the Cross. 

He paused a while in doubt, and then 

His art's bright dream he stooped to blur. 

He sat down, and, with greedy pen, 

Changed its calm strength to vulgar stir. 

He'd sold his Lord for pelf, and to a publisher.

Amid the arid wastes of Hell, 

Where damned souls bellow in their pain, 

Two spirits dwelt who knew right well 

Each cove and creek of the domain. 

One sprite was of the coarser gender. 

(The subject is somewhat complex.) 

The other one was soft and slender-- 

In short, one of the gentler sex. 

They'd toiled and striven many days 

To carry out their Lord's behests, 

And, by the everlasting blaze, 

To make things warmer for his guests. 

One day it chanced when torturing 

Some new arrivals from above, 

The lady had the luck to bring 

To being one small spark of love. 

Her task was greater than her strength, 

Her victim was so gross and fat. 

Her comrade, looking round at length, 

Divined what she would fain be at.

And, moved by a strange force within, 

A force he could not understand, 

He left his chosen child of sin 

To lend to her a helping hand. 

That touched her with a vague surprise 

Which something in't of longing bore: 

Each looked on each with other eyes, 

And each seemed fairer than before. 

To work with one accord they gave 

A respite;; and, beside the lake, 

Their victims, crept from sulphurous wave, 

Felt it relief to merely bake. 

Then day by day they spent the hours 

When they should have been basting souls, 

In finding out Lowe's wondrous powers, 

Regardless of the price of coals. 

Thus, by degrees, their love outgrew 

Its infancy; and, ‘mid Hell's din, 

Their hearts brimmed o'er with pity new 

For those who sufferred for earth's sin. 

Full soon they gave up torturing 

The souls committed to their charge, 

And took instead to lessening 

The sufferings by the blue lake's marge. 

Which, when the Devil knew, he stared, 

That such things should be done in Hell: 

No sprite before his rule had dared; 

And this, he swore, was damnable. 

Because, when spirits love, the Prince 

Of Darkness has no power o'er then, 

Their bold rebellion made him wince, 

And roused in him unwonted phlegm. 

They fled his wrath beyond Hell's gate 

Into the outer wards of night; 

And as they flew disconsolate, 

They crossed our planet in their flight. 

They lighted. "For on Earth,“they said, 

"We'll find a love that's kin to ours." 

They found Earth's love too soon was shed; 

Its bloom but as the bloom of flowers. 

They saw a widow by a bier, 

Bewildered by a loss so new. 

They whispered each in other's ear: 

"We do not love as mortals do." 

They flew to where the glimmering dawn,

Of Heaven's great wonder slants the deep, 

And with light wings pressed on and on 

To where St. Peter ward doth keep. 

With timid knock upon Heaven's door 

They brought him out to ask their quest. 

He paced in doubt the golden floor 

What time their history was confessed. 

“Abide ye here in my lodge room 

Till I seek out some precedent", 

Quoth Peter; and, to seal their doom, 

To search Heaven's archives straight he went. 

But, from his chamber by the gate, 

The spirits viewed the Heavenly plains, 

And saw the angels move elate, 

Soul-linked by Love's perfect chains. 

They turned, and sighing, said: “There is

No place in Heaven for us two. 

We've seen the angels, and, we wis, 

We do not love as angels do.

So then they sought a lone low star, 

That burned in hopeless solitude, 

And gave it greeting from afar, 

Finding it fit their lowly mood. 

And there they lived long helpful days, 

He all to her and she to him,

Till God, to swell their love and praise, 

Sent them two blue-eyed cherubim.

Old-fashioned flowers, the old folk say, 

Are sweetest in perfume. 

You stand among them, brave and gay:

 Ah! nave you ought but bloom? 

And, though your face is fair to see, 

And your attire is smart, 

As you look round disdainfully, 

Say--have you got a heart?

She was weary and ready to slumber, 

Our England, great Queen of the Sea,

For the great things that great ones encumber,

Had burdened none greater than she. 

They had trammelled her limbs with their trappings, 

They had worn down her will with their weight; 

And sloth sat all-silently sapping 

The strength of her State. 

Ere the dream of the dawn of her daytime, 

Ere the Word brooded over the world, 

Ere the morning stars sang in their May-time, 

And the great scroll of Heaven was unfurled, 

Our God in His purpose had set her 

As the sword of His puissant right-arn, 

To slay, and to free, and to fetter, 

To guard, and to harm. 

In the might of her wrath she had risen 

And bade the wrong-doer to cease; 

She had led out the captives from prison, 

And for war she had given them peace. 

She had taught the world justice and honour, 

She had been a strong worker for right,

When the call of our God was upon her,

To heal, or to ‘smite. 

But now she is weary, and longing 

For the rest that should come with the years; 

To be free from the cares that are thronging, 

The burden, the strife, and the fears. 

She is old, and so deeply she's drunken 

Of the strong wine of life that it’palls; 

The fire in her eye it has shrunken;

And rest-time, it calls. 

Yet the foes whom of old she had smitten 

And driven as dust by the wind, 

Their black hearts with envy are bitten; 

They nurse dreams of revenge in their mind. 

And round her they creep as she's resting, 

Making ready her treasures to seize-- 

Now this is the time of thy testing, 

Thou Queen of the Seas. 

Wilt thou wrap thee in sloth and in slumber, 

Caring naught for the days that are past, 

While thy foes grow in strength and in number, 

And boast thou art toothless at last? 

Wilt thou sit with thy trophies around thee, 

And sigh for the passing of day, 

While the gladness and greatness that crowned thee 

Are dying away? 

Shall the dreams that in olden days nerved thee 

To fight for the free and the fair 

Fail now, and cause those that have served thee 

To doubt, or to die, or despair? 

Must we grieve o'er thy greatness degraded, 

And the might of thy majesty marred, 

By thy foemen beslaved and beshaded, 

And scattered and scarred? 

O England, thou grave of our fathers,

Thou cradle and nurse of our sons,

Fear naught, though the foe round thee gathers; 

Care naught for the gleam of his guns. 

Away with the fancies that flatter 

Of the rest that remaineth in store. 

Arise, and thine enemies scatter 

Like chaff on the floor. 

For this is thy season of sifting, 

And near is the day will decide: 

Be slack,and thy fame will go drifting 

Like a weed carried off by the tide; 

Be strong, and thy fame, great, abiding, 

A monument lasting will be, 

Set high o'er the clamour and chiding, 

As rocks o'er the sea. 

O rise, and thy foemen will tremble, 

As thou mad'st them to tremble of yore, 

And their impotent rage will resemble T

he waves' idle fret on the shore. 

To the nations be light and lawgiver, 

As thou wast in the years that are gone, 

When thou madest them to quail and to quiver, 

And rulest them--alone. 

Marching on to Wipers, 

To Wipers in the wet, . 

I passed a maid with eyes of blue; 

They seemed to look me through and through, 

And spoke of all that's straight and true, 

Near Wipers in the wet. 

Marching on to Wipers, 

The dreary road to Wipers, 

The weary road to Wipers, 

To Wipers in the wet. 

Marching round by Wipers,

By Wipers in the wet, 

The sweetest maid in all the land-- 

I blew a kiss from off my hand; 

I knew that she would understand, 

Near Wipers in the wet. 

Marching back from Wipers, 

From Wipers in the wet, 

I did not see my Rose of May; 

What could have made her stay away? 

Fear gripped me by the heart that day 

Near Wipers in the wet. 

But when the war is over

I mean to find her yet. 

I know a house just made for two, 

And there I'll bring those eyes so blue, 

Sweet eyes that looked me through and through, 

Near Wipers in the wet. 

Marching on to Wipers, 

The dreary road to Wipers, 

The weary road to Wipers 

To Wipers in the wet.

(November 11th, 1920.) 

O Flanders poppies, blood red, blood real 

Why thus remind us of our dead, 

Of a blood-red dawn and a blood-red field, 

And sickening hours of suspense and dread? 

From poppies men draw oblivion, 

Release from pain ,and an end to moan"; 

But ye have made them remembrance yield 

Of things that will not bear thinking on. 

(November 11th, 1924.) 

The sun shines fair on Flander' fields; 

The earth that with our blood was red 

Once more a patient harvest yields, 

And poppies blow above the dead. 

They sleep not only where they fell: 

Within our hearts they're coffined 

We say. Ah! if the truth we tell 

The poppies grow above our dead!

And all the things for which they died 

Sunk in oblivion are sped. 

Forgetfulness, and sloth, and pride 

Have drugged us till we, too, are dead. 

But not for aye. Our dead speak low; 

Yet will their voice, in joy or dread 

Heard clear once more, make England glow, 

Though poppies now wave o'er her dead. 

(The skipper of a Grimsby trawler is reported to have found half a sovereign inside a cod-- Daily paper.) 

Earth's mighty ones have fallen low, 

Their thrones have passed away, 

They mingle with their fellow men 

As off the self-same clay. 

The golden coins we used to know 

Have vanished from our ken. 

They may be found in bankers' vaults 

But are not seen of men. 

Yet, down in ocean's dreary depths 

The fishes find them out, 

And some day you may hook up one 

With a sovereign in its snout. 

A cod with half a quid inside 

Outdoes the Scripture tale; 

And, doubtless, some will say that cod 

Was "very like a whale," 

But what of that? as Europe stands 

There's more than gold gone down; 

And some half sovereigns would be glad 

To light on half a crown. 

 She was a gentle lady from the far-off Sunny South, 

A sun-glint in her golden hair, and kisses in her mouth. 

She had beg gone to visit Scotland; for she'd heard its praises sung, 

And yearned to see its Bens and Lochs, and hear its Doric tongue. 

She had found its braes were bonnie, and its rifted mountains grand; 

But its people spoke a language that she could not understand. 

And one night, in her slumbers, she dreamt a dream of dool 

Whose horrors seemed to last right on from Lammas-tide to Yule. 

She saw an awful sporran, with a laverock by its side, 

Come threatening to engulf her in an ocean deep and wide, 

When a gowpen on her shoulder cried aloud: "Auld Nicky Ben!" 

And she saw the sough of soutars sewing up a dowie den. 

She tholed some dodderin' blethers, and on waly nieves she sat, 

While a philabeg drew near her, and a mavis scratched and spat; 

Till at last there came an eldrich cry that shuddered through the hoose;

“Get up, get up! ye manna bide; the haggis has broke Loose!" 

And then the awful monster, waving tentacles and horns, 

With every one of its twelve feet, all covered thick with corns, 

Approached her to devour her with a muckle tawpit tup; 

And she tried to flee, and could not, when she suddenly--woke up.

(After the French of the Comtesse de Chambrun.) 

Let him sleep on, O brothers o' mine,

Too soon will he know 

The world and its woe; 

Let him sleep on. 

Let him dream on, O brothers o' mine,

Dreams soon fade away 

In the hard light of day; 

Let him dream on.

Let him smile on, O brothers o' mine,

There are plenty of tears 

In the after years; 

Let him smile on.