Sheila

Katie had the grand eyes and Delia had a way with her,
And Mary had the Saints' face and Maggie's waist was neat,
But Sheila had the merry heart that travelled all the day with her,
That put the laughing on her lips and dancing in her feet.

I've met with martyrs in my time, and Faith! they make the best of it,
But 'tis the uncomplaining ones that wear a sorrow long,
'Twas Sheila had the better way and that's to make a jest of it,
To call her trouble out to dance and step it with a song.

Eh, but Sheila had the laugh the like of drink to weary ones,
(I've never heard the beat of it for all I've wandered wide.)
And out of all the girls I knew the tender ones--the dreary ones,--
'Twas only Sheila of the laugh that broke her heart and died.

Theodosia Garrison

Theodosia Garrison was an American poet known for her lyrical and often melancholic verse. Born on May 26, 1874, her poetry often explored themes of love, loss, and introspection. Throughout her career, Garrison contributed to various literary magazines and became a respected figure in the early 20th-century literary circles. She passed away on August 27, 1944, leaving behind a legacy of poignant and expressive poetry.

Theodosia Garrison

The Inlander

Theodosia Garrison, Simple Poetry

The Return

Theodosia Garrison, Simple Poetry

The Stay-At-Home

Theodosia Garrison, Simple Poetry

The Awakening

Theodosia Garrison, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

The Seer Of Hearts

For mocking on men's faces
He only sees instead
The hidden, hundred traces
Of tears their eyes have shed.

Above their lips denying,
Through all their boasting dares,
He hears the anguished crying
Of old unanswered prayers.

And through the will's reliance
He only sees aright
A frightened child's defiance
Left lonely in the night.

Theodosia Garrison

The Stay-At-Home

Comin' or goin' still they spread the news,
About America how grand it is,
The wonders that are waitin' you to choose
And gold that common that like sand it is.
"And here you stick," says they. "Like some old tree
Stuck in the bog belaboured by all seasons.
What's ailin' ye?" says they. Well, leave them be,
I have me reasons.

There's Cormac's Hugh come back with all his talk,
Spreadin' and spendin' like a king he is.
The people flockin' down the way he'll walk,
Till in the middle of a ring he is.
But where's that one whose face was like a rose
The day he went, betwixt her tears and teasin's?
Married these five years--gone where no man knows,
Faith, I've me reasons.

"A likely lad," they say. "What's ailin' you,
The gold and riches over there it...

Theodosia Garrison

Black Sheep

"Black Sheep, Black Sheep,
Have you any wool?"
"That I have, my Master,
Three bags full."

One is for the mother who prays for me at night--
A gift of broken promises to count by candle-light.

One is for the tried friend who raised me when I fell--
A gift of weakling's tinsel oaths that strew the path to hell.

And one is for the true love--the heaviest of all--
That holds the pieces of a faith a careless hand let fall.

Black Sheep, Black Sheep,
Have you ought to say?
A word to each, my Master,
Ere I go my way.

A word unto my mother to bid her think o' me
Only as a little lad playing at her knee.

A word unto my tried friend to bid him see again
Two laughing lads in S...

Theodosia Garrison

Magdalen

My father took me by the hand
And led me home again;
(He brought me in from sorrow
As you'd bring a child from rain).
The child's place at the hearth-stone,
The child's place at the board,
And the picture at the bed's head
Of wee ones wi' the Lord.

It's just a child come home he sees
To nestle at his arm;
(He brought me in from sorrow
As you'd bring a child from harm).
And of the two of us who sit
By hearth and candle-light,
There's just one hears a woman's heart
Break--breaking in the night.

Theodosia Garrison

Himself

The houseful that we were then, you could count us by the dozens,
The wonder was that sometimes the old walls wouldn't burst:
Herself (the Lord be good to her!), the aunts and rafts of cousins,
The young folks and the children,--but Himself came first.

Master of the House he was, and well for them that knew it:
His cheeks like winter apples and his head like snow;
Eyes as blue as water when the sun of March shines through it.
And steppin' like a soldier with his stick held so.

Faith, but he could tell a tale would serve a man for wages,
Sing a song would put the joy of dancin' in two sticks;
But Saints between themselves and harm that saw him in his rages,
Blazin' and oratin' over chess and politics.

Master of the House he was, and...

Theodosia Garrison

Upon A Dying Lady
I
Her Courtesy

With the old kindness, the old distinguished grace
She lies, her lovely piteous head amid dull red hair
Propped upon pillows, rouge on the pallor of her face.
She would not have us sad because she is lying there,
And when she meets our gaze her eyes are laughter-lit,
Her speech a wicked tale that we may vie with her
Matching our broken-hearted wit against her wit,
Thinking of saints and of Petronius Arbiter.

II
Certain Artists bring her Dolls and Drawings

Bring where our Beauty lies
A new modelled doll, or drawing,
With a friends or an enemys
Features, or maybe showing
Her features when a tress
Of dull red hair was flowing
Over some silken dress
Cut in the Turkish fashion,
Or it may...
William Butler Yeats