10 Best Famous Safest Poems

Here is a collection of the top 10 all-time best famous Safest poems. This is a select list of the best famous Safest poetry. Reading, writing, and enjoying famous Safest poetry (as well as classical and contemporary poems) is a great past time. These top poems are the best examples of safest poems.

• All Famous Safest Poems

 "Let us now praise famous men"--
 Men of little showing-- 
For their work continueth, 
And their work continueth, 
Broad and deep continues,
 Greater then their knowing!

Western wind and open surge
 Took us from our mothers--
Flung us on a naked shore
(Twelve bleak houses by the shore.
Seven summers by the shore! )
 'Mid two hundred brothers.

There we met with famous men
 Set in office o'er us;
And they beat on us with rods-- 
Faithfully with many rods--
Daily beat us on with rods,
 For the love they bore us!

Out of Egypt unto Troy--
 Over Himalaya--
Far and sure our bands have gone--
Hy-Brazil or Babylon,
Islands of the Southern Run,
 And Cities of Cathaia!

And we all praise famous men--
 Ancients of the College;
For they taught us common sense--
Tried to teach us common sense--
Truth and God's Own Common Sense,
 Which is more than knowledge!

Each degree of Latitude
 Strung about Creation
Seeth one or more of us
(Of one muster each of us),
Diligent in that he does,
 Keen in his vocation.

This we learned from famous men,
 Knowing not its uses,
When they showed, in daily work--
Man must finish off his work--
Right or wrong, his daily work--
 And without excuses.


Servant of the Staff and chain,
 Mine and fuse and grapnel--
Some, before the face of Kings,
Stand before the face of Kings;
Bearing gifts to divers Kings--
 Gifts of case and shrapnel.

This we learned from famous men
 Teaching in our borders,
Who declared it was best,
Safest, easiest, and best--
Expeditious, wise, and best--
 To obey your orders.

Some beneath the further stars
 Bear the greater burden:
Set to serve the lands they rule,
(Save he serve no man may rule ),
Serve and love the lands they rule;
 Seeking praise nor guerdon.

This we learned from famous men,
 Knowing not we learned it.
Only, as the years went by--
Lonely, as the years went by--
Far from help as years went by,
 Plainer we discerned it.

Wherefore praise we famous men
 From whose bays we borrow--
They that put aside To-day--
All the joys of their To-day--
And with toil of their To-day
 Bought for us To-morrow!

Bless and praise we famous men--
 Men of little showing--
For their work continueth,
And their work continueth,
Broad and deep continueth,
 Great beyond their knowing!

 I


Eddie Linden

Dear Eddie we’ve not met

Except upon the written page 

And at your age the wonder 

Is that you write at all

When so many have gone under 

Or been split asunder by narcissistic humours

Blunder following blunder

Barker and Graham, godfathering my verse

Bearing me cloud-handed to Haworth moor

From my chained metropolitan moorings,

O hyaline March morning with Leeds

At its thrusting best, the thirsty beasts

Of night quenched as the furnaces

Of Hunslet where Hudswell Clarke’s locos

Rust in their skeletal sheds, rails skewed

To graveyards platforms and now instead

Skyscrapers circle the city, cranes, aeroplanes,

Electric trains but even they cannot hinder

Branches bursting with semen

Seraphic cloud sanctuaries shunting

Us homeward to the beckoning moors.

II

Brenda Williams

Leeds voices soothe the turbulence

‘Ey’ ‘sithee’ and ‘love’, lastingly lilt

From cradle to grave, from backstreet

On the social, our son, beat his way

To Eton, Balliol, to Calcatta’s Shantiniketan

And all the way back to a locked ward.

While I in the meantime fondly fiddled 

With rhyme and unreason, publishing pamphlets

And Leeds Poetry Weekly while under the bane

Of his tragic illness, poet and mother,

You were driven from pillar to post

By the taunting yobbery of your family

And the crass insensitivity of wild therapy

To the smoking dark of despair,

Locked in your flat in the Abbey Road

With seven cats and poetry.

O stop and strop your bladed darkness

On the rock of ages while plangent tollings

Mock your cradled rockings, knock by knock.



III

Debjani Chatterjee

In these doom-laden days

You are steady as a pilot nursing tired ships homeward

Through churning seas

Where grey gulls scream

Forlornly and for ever.

I am the red-neck,

Bear-headed blaster

Shifting sheer rock

To rape the ore of poetry’s plunder

Or bulldozing trees to glean mines of silver

While you sail serenely onward 

Ever the diplomat’s daughter

Toujours de la politesse.

IV

Daisy Abey

Daisy, dearest of all, safest

And kindest, watcher and warner

Of chaotic corners looming

Round poetry’s boomerang bends

I owe you most a letter

While you are here beside me

Patient as a miller waiting on wind

To drive the great sails

Through summer. 

When the muse takes over

I am snatched from order and duty

Blowing routine into a riot of going

And coming, blind, backwards, tip

Over ****, sea waves crashing in suburbia,

Saturnalia in Sutton, headlines of mad poet

Striding naked over moors, roaring

"I am here I am waiting".

V

Jeremy Reed

Niagaras of letters on pink sheets

In sheaths of silver envelopes

Mutually exchanged. I open your missives

Like undressing a girl in my teens

Undoing the flap like a recalcitrant

Bra strap, the letters stiff as nipples

While I stroke the creviced folds

Of amber and mauve and lick

As I stick stamps like the ********

Of a reluctant virgin, urgent for

Defloration and the pulse of ******.

 1
SOMETHING startles me where I thought I was safest; 
I withdraw from the still woods I loved; 
I will not go now on the pastures to walk; 
I will not strip the clothes from my body to meet my lover the sea; 
I will not touch my flesh to the earth, as to other flesh, to renew me.

O how can it be that the ground does not sicken? 
How can you be alive, you growths of spring? 
How can you furnish health, you blood of herbs, roots, orchards, grain? 
Are they not continually putting distemper’d corpses within you? 
Is not every continent work’d over and over with sour dead?

Where have you disposed of their carcasses? 
Those drunkards and gluttons of so many generations; 
Where have you drawn off all the foul liquid and meat? 
I do not see any of it upon you to-day—or perhaps I am deceiv’d; 
I will run a furrow with my plough—I will press my spade through the sod, and turn it
 up
 underneath;
I am sure I shall expose some of the foul meat. 

2
Behold this compost! behold it well! 
Perhaps every mite has once form’d part of a sick person—Yet behold! 
The grass of spring covers the prairies, 
The bean bursts noislessly through the mould in the garden,
The delicate spear of the onion pierces upward, 
The apple-buds cluster together on the apple-branches, 
The resurrection of the wheat appears with pale visage out of its graves, 
The tinge awakes over the willow-tree and the mulberry-tree, 
The he-birds carol mornings and evenings, while the she-birds sit on their nests,
The young of poultry break through the hatch’d eggs, 
The new-born of animals appear—the calf is dropt from the cow, the colt from the
 mare, 
Out of its little hill faithfully rise the potato’s dark green leaves, 
Out of its hill rises the yellow maize-stalk—the lilacs bloom in the door-yards; 
The summer growth is innocent and disdainful above all those strata of sour dead.

What chemistry! 
That the winds are really not infectious, 
That this is no cheat, this transparent green-wash of the sea, which is so amorous after
 me, 
That it is safe to allow it to lick my naked body all over with its tongues, 
That it will not endanger me with the fevers that have deposited themselves in it,
That all is clean forever and forever. 
That the cool drink from the well tastes so good, 
That blackberries are so flavorous and juicy, 
That the fruits of the apple-orchard, and of the orange-orchard—that melons, grapes,
 peaches, plums, will none of them poison me, 
That when I recline on the grass I do not catch any disease,
Though probably every spear of grass rises out of what was once a catching disease. 

3
Now I am terrified at the Earth! it is that calm and patient, 
It grows such sweet things out of such corruptions, 
It turns harmless and stainless on its axis, with such endless successions of
 diseas’d
 corpses, 
It distils such exquisite winds out of such infused fetor,
It renews with such unwitting looks, its prodigal, annual, sumptuous crops, 
It gives such divine materials to men, and accepts such leavings from them at last.

 'The man who brought the railway through -- our friend the engineer.' 
They cheer his pluck and enterprise and engineering skill! 
'Twas my old husband found the pass behind that big red hill. 
Before the engineer was born we'd settled with our stock 
Behind that great big mountain chain, a line of range and rock -- 
A line that kept us starving there in weary weeks of drought, 
With ne'er a track across the range to let the cattle out. 

"'Twas then, with horses starved and weak and scarcely fit to crawl, 
My husband went to find a way across the rocky wall. 
He vanished in the wilderness -- God knows where he was gone -- 
He hunted till his food gave out, but still he battled on. 
His horses strayed ('twas well they did), they made towards the grass, 
And down behind that big red hill they found an easy pass. 

"He followed up and blazed the trees, to show the safest track, 
Then drew his belt another hole and turned and started back. 
His horses died -- just one pulled through with nothing much to spare; 
God bless the beast that brought him home, the old white Arab mare! 
We drove the cattle through the hills, along the new-found way, 
And this was our first camping-ground -- just where I live today. 

"Then others came across the range and built the township here, 
And then there came the railway line and this young engineer; 
He drove about with tents and traps, a cook to cook his meals, 
A bath to wash himself at night, a chain-man at his heels. 
And that was all the pluck and skill for which he's cheered and praised, 
For after all he took the track, the same my husband blazed! 

"My poor old husband, dead and gone with never a feast nor cheer; 
He's buried by the railway line! -- I wonder can he hear 
When by the very track he marked, and close to where he's laid, 
The cattle trains go roaring down the one-in-thirty grade. 
I wonder does he hear them pass, and can he see the sight 
When, whistling shrill, the fast express goes flaming by at night. 

"I think 'twould comfort him to know there's someone left to care; 
I'll take some things this very night and hold a banquet there -- 
The hard old fare we've often shared together, him and me, 
Some damper and a bite of beef, a pannikin of tea: 
We'll do without the bands and flags, the speeches and the fuss, 
We know who ought to get the cheers -- and that's enough for us. 

"What's that? They wish that I'd come down -- the oldest settler here! 
Present me to the Governor and that young engineer! 
Well, just you tell his Excellence, and put the thing polite, 
I'm sorry, but I can't come down -- I'm dining out tonight!"

 Si credere dignum est.--Virgil, Georgics, III, 390


Oh, worthy of belief I hold it was, 
Virgil, your legend in those strange three lines! 
No question, that adventure came to pass 
One black night in Arcadia: yes, the pines, 
Mountains and valleys mingling made one mass 
Of black with void black heaven: the earth's confines, 
The sky's embrace,--below, above, around, 
All hardened into black without a bound. 

Fill up a swart stone chalice to the brim 
With fresh-squeezed yet fast-thickening poppy-juice: 
See how the sluggish jelly, late a-swim, 
Turns marble to the touch of who would loose 
The solid smooth, grown jet from rim to rim, 
By turning round the bowl! So night can fuse 
Earth with her all-comprising sky. No less, 
Light, the least spark, shows air and emptiness. 

And thus it proved when--diving into space, 
Stript of all vapor, from each web of mist, 
Utterly film-free--entered on her race 
The naked Moon, full-orbed antagonist 
Of night and dark, night's dowry: peak to base, 
Upstarted mountains, and each valley, kissed 
To sudden life, lay silver-bright: in air 
Flew she revealed, Maid-Moon with limbs all bare. 

Still as she fled, each depth,--where refuge seemed-- 
Opening a lone pale chamber, left distinct 
Those limbs: mid still-retreating blue, she teemed 
Herself with whiteness,--virginal, uncinct 
By any halo save what finely gleamed 
To outline not disguise her: heavenwas linked 
In one accord with earth to quaff the joy, 
Drain beauty to the dregs without alloy. 

Whereof she grew aware. What help? When, lo, 
A succorable cloud with sleep lay dense: 
Some pinetree-top had caught it sailing slow, 
And tethered for a prize: in evidence 
Captive lay fleece on fleece of piled-up snow 
Drowsily patient: flake-heaped how or whence, 
The structure of that succorable cloud, 
What matter? Shamed she plunged into its shroud. 

Orbed--so the woman-figure poets call 
Because of rounds on rounds--that apple-shaped 
Head which its hair binds close into a ball 
Each side the curving ears--that pure undraped 
Pout of the sister paps--that . . . once for all, 
Say--her consummate circle thus escaped 
With its innumerous circlets, sank absorbed, 
Safe in the cloud--O naked Moon full-orbed! 

But what means this? The downy swathes combine, 
Conglobe, the smothery coy-caressing stuff 
Curdles about her! Vain each twist and twine 
Those lithe limbs try, encroached on by a fluff 
Fitting as close as fits the dented spine 
Its flexible ivory outside-flesh: enough! 
The plumy drifts contract, condense, constringe, 
Till she is swallowed by the feathery springe. 

As when a pearl slips lost in the thin foam 
Churned on a sea-shore, and, o'er-frothed, conceits 
Herself safe-housed in Amphitrite's dome,-- 
If, through the bladdery wave-worked yeast, she meets 
What most she loathes and leaps from,--elf from gnome 
No gladlier,--finds that safest of retreats 
Bubble about a treacherous hand wide ope 
To grasp her--(divers who pick pearls so grope)-- 

So lay this Maid-Moon clasped around and caught 
By rough red Pan, the god of all that tract: 
He it was schemed the snare thus subtly wrought 
With simulated earth-breath,--wool-tufts packed 
Into a billowy wrappage. Sheep far-sought 
For spotless shearings yield such: take the fact 
As learned Virgil gives it,--how the breed 
Whitens itself forever: yes, indeed! 

If one forefather ram, though pure as chalk 
From tinge on fleece, should still display a tongue 
Black 'neath the beast's moist palate, prompt men balk 
The propagating plague: he gets no young: 
They rather slay him,--sell his hide to calk 
Ships with, first steeped with pitch,--nor hands are wrung 
In sorrow for his fate: protected thus, 
The purity we loved is gained for us. So did girl-Moon, by just her attribute 
Of unmatched modesty betrayed, lie trapped, 
Bruised to the breast of Pan, half god half brute, 
Raked by his bristly boar-sward while he lapped 
--Never say, kissed her! that were to pollute 
Love's language--which moreover proves unapt 
To tell how she recoiled--as who finds thorns 
Where she sought flowers--when, feeling, she touched--horns! 

Then--does the legend say?--first moon-eclipse 
Happened, first swooning-fit which puzzled sore 
The early sages? Is that why she dips 
Into the dark, a minute and no more, 
Only so long as serves her while she rips 
The cloud's womb through and, faultless as before, 
Pursues her way? No lesson for a maid 
Left she, a maid herself thus trapped, betrayed? 

Ha, Virgil? Tell the rest, you! "To the deep 
Of his domain the wildwood, Pan forthwith 
Called her, and so she followed"--in her sleep, 
Surely?--"by no means spurning him." The myth 
Explain who may! Let all else go, I keep 
--As of a ruin just a monolith-- 
Thus much, one verse of five words, each a boon: 
Arcadia, night, a cloud, Pan, and the moon.

 CHORUS: O suitably-attired-in-leather-boots
Head of a traveller, wherefore seeking whom
Whence by what way how purposed art thou come
To this well-nightingaled vicinity?
My object in inquiring is to know.
But if you happen to be deaf and dumb
And do not understand a word I say,
Then wave your hand, to signify as much.

ALCMAEON: I journeyed hither a Boetian road.
CHORUS: Sailing on horseback, or with feet for oars?
ALCMAEON: Plying with speed my partnership of legs.
CHORUS: Beneath a shining or a rainy Zeus?
ALCMAEON: Mud's sister, not himself, adorns my shoes.
CHORUS: To learn your name would not displease me much.
ALCMAEON: Not all that men desire do they obtain.
CHORUS: Might I then hear at what thy presence shoots.
ALCMAEON: A shepherd's questioned mouth informed me that--
CHORUS: What? for I know not yet what you will say.
ALCMAEON: Nor will you ever, if you interrupt.
CHORUS: Proceed, and I will hold my speechless tongue.
ALCMAEON: This house was Eriphyle's, no one else's.
CHORUS: Nor did he shame his throat with shameful lies.
ALCMAEON: May I then enter, passing through the door?
CHORUS: Go chase into the house a lucky foot.
And, O my son, be, on the one hand, good,
And do not, on the other hand, be bad;
For that is much the safest plan.
ALCMAEON: I go into the house with heels and speed.

CHORUS

Strophe

In speculation
I would not willingly acquire a name
For ill-digested thought;
But after pondering much
To this conclusion I at last have come:
LIFE IS UNCERTAIN.
This truth I have written deep
In my reflective midriff
On tablets not of wax,
Nor with a pen did I inscribe it there,
For many reasons: LIFE, I say, IS NOT
A STRANGER TO UNCERTAINTY.
Not from the flight of omen-yelling fowls
This fact did I discover,
Nor did the Delphine tripod bark it out,
Nor yet Dodona.
Its native ingunuity sufficed
My self-taught diaphragm.

Antistrophe

Why should I mention
The Inachean daughter, loved of Zeus?
Her whom of old the gods,
More provident than kind,
Provided with four hoofs, two horns, one tail,
A gift not asked for,
And sent her forth to learn
The unfamiliar science
Of how to chew the cud.
She therefore, all about the Argive fields,
Went cropping pale green grass and nettle-tops,
Nor did they disagree with her.
But yet, howe'er nutritious, such repasts
I do not hanker after:
Never may Cypris for her seat select
My dappled liver!
Why should I mention Io? Why indeed?
I have no notion why.

Epode

But now does my boding heart,
Unhired, unaccompanied, sing
A strain not meet for the dance.
Yes even the palace appears
To my yoke of circular eyes
(The right, nor omit I the left)
Like a slaughterhouse, so to speak,
Garnished with woolly deaths
And many sphipwrecks of cows.
I therefore in a Cissian strain lament:
And to the rapid
Loud, linen-tattering thumps upon my chest
Resounds in concert
The battering of my unlucky head.

ERIPHYLE (within): O, I am smitten with a hatchet's jaw;
And that in deed and not in word alone.
CHORUS: I thought I heard a sound within the house
Unlike the voice of one that jumps for joy.
ERIPHYLE: He splits my skull, not in a friendly way,
Once more: he purposes to kill me dead.
CHORUS: I would not be reputed rash, but yet
I doubt if all be gay within the house.
ERIPHYLE: O! O! another stroke! that makes the third.
He stabs me to the heart against my wish.
CHORUS: If that be so, thy state of health is poor;
But thine arithmetic is quite correct.

 Jack Honest was only eight years of age when his father died,
And by the death of his father, Mrs Honest was sorely tried;
And Jack was his father's only joy and pride,
And for honesty Jack couldn't be equalled in the country-side. 

So a short time before Jack's father died,
'Twas loud and bitterly for Jack he cried,
And bade him sit down by his bedside,
And then told him to be honest whatever did betide. 

John, he said, looking him earnestly in the face,
Never let your actions your name disgrace,
Remember, my dear boy, and do what's right,
And God will bless you by day and night. 

Then Mr Honest bade his son farewell, and breathed his last,
While the hot tears from Jack's eyes fell thick and fast;
And the poor child did loudly sob and moan,
When he knew his father had left him and his mother alone. 

So, as time wore on, Jack grew to be a fine boy,
And was to his mother a help and joy;
And, one evening, she said, Jack, you are my only prop,
I must tell you, dear, I'm thinking about opening a shop. 

Oh! that's a capital thought, mother, cried Jack,
And to take care of the shop I won't be slack;
Then his mother said, Jackey, we will try this plan,
And look to God for his blessing, and do all we can. 

So the widow opened the shop and succeeded very well,
But in a few months fresh troubles her befell--
Alas! poor Mrs Honest was of fever taken ill,
But Jack attended his mother with a kindly will. 

But, for fear of catching the fever, her customers kept away,
And once more there wasn't enough money the rent to pay;
And in her difficulties Mrs Honest could form no plan to get out,
But God would help her, she had no doubt. 

So, one afternoon, Mrs Honest sent Jack away
To a person that owed her some money, and told him not to stay,
But when he got there the person had fled,
And to return home without the money he was in dread. 

So he saw a gentleman in a carriage driving along at a rapid rate,
And Jack ran forward to his mansion and opened the lodge-gate,
Then the gentleman opened his purse and gave him, as he thought, a shilling
For opening the lodge-gate so cleverly and so willing. 

Then Jack stooped to lift up the coin, when lo and behold!
He found to his surprise it was a piece of gold!
And Jack cried oh! joyful, this will make up for my mother's loss,
Then he ran home speedily, knowing his mother wouldn't be cross. 

And when he got home he told his mother of his ill success,
And his adventure with the gentleman, then she felt deep distress;
And when Jack showed her the sovereign, the gentleman gave him,
She cried, We mustn't keep that money, it would be a sin. 

Dear mother, I thought so, there must be some mistake,
But in the morning, to Squire Brooksby, the sovereign I'll take;
So, when morning came, he went to Squire Brooksby's Hall,
And at the front door for the Squire he loudly did call. 

Then the hall door was opened by a footman, dressed in rich livery,
And Jack told him he wished Mr Brooksby to see;
Then to deliver Jack's message the footman withdrew,
And when the footman returned he said, Master will see you. 

Then Jack was conducted into a rich furnished room,
And to Mr Brooksby he told his errand very soon,
While his honest heart, with fear, didn't quake,
Saying, Mr Brooksby, you gave me a sovereign yesterday in a mistake. 

Why, surely I have seen you before, said Mr Brooksby;
Yes, Sir, replied Jack Honest, bowing very politely;
Then what is your name, my honest lad? Asked Mr Brooksby;
John Honest, sir, replied Jack, right fearlessly. 

The, my brave lad, you are Honest by name, and honest by nature,
Which, really, you appear to be in every feature,
But, I am afraid, such boys as you are very few,
But, I dare say, your mother has taught you. 

Then Jack laid the sovereign down on the table before Mr Brooksby;
But Mr Brooksby said, No! my lad, I freely give it to thee;
Then Jack said, Oh, sir, I'm obliged to you I'm sure,
Because, sir, this money will help my mother, for she is poor. 

Mrs Brooksby came to see Mrs Honest in a few days,
And for Jack's honesty she was loud in praise;
And she took Jack into her service, and paid him liberally,
And she gave Mrs Honest a house, for life, rent free. 

Now, I must leave Jack Honest and his mother in fresh found glory,
Hoping my readers will feel interested in this story,
And try always to imitate the hero-- Jack Honest--
And I'm sure they will find it the safest and the best!

 This is the story the stockman told 
On the cattle-camp, when the stars were bright; 
The moon rose up like a globe of gold 
And flooded the plain with her mellow light. 
We watched the cattle till dawn of day 
And he told me the story of Mongrel Grey. 
He was a knock-about station hack, 
Spurred and walloped, and banged and beat; 
Ridden all day with a sore on his back, 
Left all night with nothing to eat. 
That was a matter of everyday 
Normal occurrence with Mongrel Grey. 

We might have sold him, but someone heard 
He was bred out back on a flooded run, 
Where he learnt to swim like a waterbird; 
Midnight or midday were all as one -- 
In the flooded ground he would find his way; 
Nothing could puzzle old Mongrel Grey. 

'Tis a trick, no doubt, that some horses learn; 
When the floods are out they will splash along 
In girth-deep water, and twist and turn 
From hidden channel and billabong, 
Never mistaking the road to go; 
for a man may guess -- but the horses know. 

I was camping out with my youngest son -- 
Bit of a nipper, just learnt to speak -- 
In an empty hut on the lower run, 
Shooting and fishing in Conroy's Creek. 
The youngster toddled about all day 
And there with our horses was Mongrel Grey. 

All of a sudden a flood came down, 
At first a freshet of mountain rain, 
Roaring and eddying, rank and brown, 
Over the flats and across the plain. 
Rising and rising -- at fall of night 
Nothing but water appeared in sight! 

'Tis a nasty place when the floods are out, 
Even in daylight; for all around 
Channels and billabongs twist about, 
Stretching for miles in the flooded ground. 
And to move seemed a hopeless thing to try 
In the dark with the storm-water racing by. 

I had to risk it. I heard a roar 
As the wind swept down and the driving rain; 
And the water rose till it reached the floor 
Of our highest room; and 'twas very plain -- 
The way the torrent was sweeping down -- 
We must make for the highlands at once, or drown. 

Off to the stable I splashed, and found 
The horses shaking with cold and fright; 
I led them down to the lower ground, 
But never a yard would they swim that night! 
They reared and snorted and turned away, 
And none would face it but Mongrel Grey. 

I bound the child on the horse's back, 
And we started off, with a prayer to heaven, 
Through the rain and the wind and the pitchy black 
For I knew that the instinct God has given 
To prompt His creatures by night and day 
Would guide the footsteps of Mongrel Grey. 

He struck deep water at once and swam -- 
I swam beside him and held his mane -- 
Till we touched the bank of the broken dam 
In shallow water; then off again, 
Swimming in darkness across the flood, 
Rank with the smell of the drifting mud. 

He turned and twisted across and back, 
Choosing the places to wade or swim, 
Picking the safest and shortest track -- 
The blackest darkness was clear to him. 
Did he strike the crossing by sight or smell? 
The Lord that held him alone could tell! 

He dodged the timber whene'er he could, 
But timber brought us to grief at last; 
I was partly stunned by a log of wood 
That struck my head as it drifted past; 
Then lost my grip of the brave old grey, 
And in half a second he swept away. 

I reached a tree, where I had to stay, 
And did a perish for two days' hard; 
And lived on water -- but Mongrel Grey, 
He walked right into the homestead yard 
At dawn next morning, and grazed around, 
With the child strapped on to him safe and sound. 

We keep him now for the wife to ride, 
Nothing too good for him now, of course; 
Never a whip on his fat old hide, 
For she owes the child to that brave grey horse. 
And not Old Tyson himself could pay 
The purchase money of Mongrel Grey.

 'The man who brought the railway through -- our friend the engineer.' 
They cheer his pluck and enterprise and engineering skill! 
'Twas my old husband found the pass behind that big red hill. 
Before the engineer was born we'd settled with our stock 
Behind that great big mountain chain, a line of range and rock -- 
A line that kept us starving there in weary weeks of drought, 
With ne'er a track across the range to let the cattle out. 

"'Twas then, with horses starved and weak and scarcely fit to crawl, 
My husband went to find a way across the rocky wall. 
He vanished in the wilderness -- God knows where he was gone -- 
He hunted till his food gave out, but still he battled on. 
His horses strayed ('twas well they did), they made towards the grass, 
And down behind that big red hill they found an easy pass. 

"He followed up and blazed the trees, to show the safest track, 
Then drew his belt another hole and turned and started back. 
His horses died -- just one pulled through with nothing much to spare; 
God bless the beast that brought him home, the old white Arab mare! 
We drove the cattle through the hills, along the new-found way, 
And this was our first camping-ground -- just where I live today. 

"Then others came across the range and built the township here, 
And then there came the railway line and this young engineer; 
He drove about with tents and traps, a cook to cook his meals, 
A bath to wash himself at night, a chain-man at his heels. 
And that was all the pluck and skill for which he's cheered and praised, 
For after all he took the track, the same my husband blazed! 

"My poor old husband, dead and gone with never a feast nor cheer; 
He's buried by the railway line! -- I wonder can he hear 
When by the very track he marked, and close to where he's laid, 
The cattle trains go roaring down the one-in-thirty grade. 
I wonder does he hear them pass, and can he see the sight 
When, whistling shrill, the fast express goes flaming by at night. 

"I think 'twould comfort him to know there's someone left to care; 
I'll take some things this very night and hold a banquet there -- 
The hard old fare we've often shared together, him and me, 
Some damper and a bite of beef, a pannikin of tea: 
We'll do without the bands and flags, the speeches and the fuss, 
We know who ought to get the cheers -- and that's enough for us. 

"What's that? They wish that I'd come down -- the oldest settler here! 
Present me to the Governor and that young engineer! 
Well, just you tell his Excellence, and put the thing polite, 
I'm sorry, but I can't come down -- I'm dining out tonight!"

 The summer and autumn had been so wet,
That in winter the corn was growing yet,
'Twas a piteous sight to see all around
The grain lie rotting on the ground.

Every day the starving poor
Crowded around Bishop Hatto's door,
For he had a plentiful last-year's store,
And all the neighbourhood could tell
His granaries were furnish'd well.

At last Bishop Hatto appointed a day
To quiet the poor without delay;
He bade them to his great Barn repair,
And they should have food for the winter there.

Rejoiced such tidings good to hear,
The poor folk flock'd from far and near;
The great barn was full as it could hold
Of women and children, and young and old.

Then when he saw it could hold no more,
Bishop Hatto he made fast the door;
And while for mercy on Christ they call,
He set fire to the Barn and burnt them all.

"I'faith 'tis an excellent bonfire!" quoth he,
"And the country is greatly obliged to me,
For ridding it in these times forlorn
Of Rats that only consume the corn."

So then to his palace returned he,
And he sat down to supper merrily,
And he slept that night like an innocent man;
But Bishop Hatto never slept again.

In the morning as he enter'd the hall
Where his picture hung against the wall,
A sweat like death all over him came,
For the Rats had eaten it out of the frame.

As he look'd there came a man from his farm--
He had a countenance white with alarm;
"My Lord, I open'd your granaries this morn,
And the Rats had eaten all your corn."

Another came running presently,
And he was pale as pale could be,
"Fly! my Lord Bishop, fly," quoth he,
"Ten thousand Rats are coming this way,...
The Lord forgive you for yesterday!"

"I'll go to my tower on the Rhine," replied he,
"'Tis the safest place in Germany;
The walls are high and the shores are steep,
And the stream is strong and the water deep."

Bishop Hatto fearfully hasten'd away,
And he crost the Rhine without delay,
And reach'd his tower, and barr'd with care
All the windows, doors, and loop-holes there.

He laid him down and closed his eyes;...
But soon a scream made him arise,
He started and saw two eyes of flame
On his pillow from whence the screaming came.

He listen'd and look'd;... it was only the Cat;
And the Bishop he grew more fearful for that,
For she sat screaming, mad with fear
At the Army of Rats that were drawing near.

For they have swum over the river so deep,
And they have climb'd the shores so steep,
And up the Tower their way is bent,
To do the work for which they were sent.

They are not to be told by the dozen or score,
By thousands they come, and by myriads and more,
Such numbers had never been heard of before,
Such a judgment had never been witness'd of yore.

Down on his knees the Bishop fell,
And faster and faster his beads did he tell,
As louder and louder drawing near
The gnawing of their teeth he could hear.

And in at the windows and in at the door,
And through the walls helter-skelter they pour,
And down from the ceiling and up through the floor,
From the right and the left, from behind and before,
From within and without, from above and below,
And all at once to the Bishop they go.

They have whetted their teeth against the stones,
And now they pick the Bishop's bones:
They gnaw'd the flesh from every limb,
For they were sent to do judgment on him!