Walter Learned

  • When i was seventeen I heard
      From each censorious tongue,
    “I ’d not do that if I were you;
      You see you ’re rather young.”

    Now that I number forty years,
      I ’m quite as often told
    Of this or that I should n’t do
      Because I ’m quite...

  • Her lips were so near
        That—what else could I do?
    You ’ll be angry, I fear,
        But her lips were so near—
    Well, I can’t make it clear,
        Or explain it to you,
    But—her lips were so near
        That—what else could I do?

  • To you, whose temperate pulses flow
    With measured beat, serene and slow,
    The even tenor of whose way
    Is undisturbed by passion’s sway,
    This tale of wayward love may seem
    The record of a fevered dream.
    And yet, we two have that within
    To...

  • Sullen and dull, in the September day,
    On the bank of the river,
    They waited the boat that should bear them away
    From their poor homes forever.

    For progress strides on, and the order had gone
    To these wards of the nation:
    “Give us land and more...

  • The promise of these fragrant flowers,
      The fruit that ’neath these blossoms lies
    Once hung, they say, in Eden’s bowers,
      And tempted Eve in Paradise.

    O fairest daughter of Eve’s blood,
      Lest her misprision thine should be,
    I ’ve nipped...