Seraphs and saints with one great voice
Welcomed that soul that knew not fear.
Amazed to find it could rejoice,
Hell raised a hoarse, half-human cheer.

(John Davidson (1857-1909), Scottish poet. A Ballad of Hell (l. 93-96). MoBrPo. Modern British Poetry. Louis Untermeyer, ed. (7th rev. ed., 1962) Harcourt, Brace and Company.)

But the difficultest go to understand,
And the difficultest job a man can do,
Is to come it brave and meek with thirty bob a week,
And feel that that's the proper thing for you.

(John Davidson (1857-1909), Scottish poet. Thirty Bob a Week (l. 87-90). OAEL-2. Oxford Anthology of English Literature, The, Vols. I-II. Frank Kermode and John Hollander, general eds. (1973) Oxford University Press (Also published as six paperback vols.: Medieval English Literature, J. B. Trapp, ed.; The Literature of Renaissance England, John Hollander and Frank Kermode, eds.; The Restoration and the Eighteenth Century, Martin Price, ed.; Romantic Poetry and Prose, Harold Bloom and Lionel Trilling, eds.; Victorian Prose and Poetry, Lionel Trilling and Harold Bloom, eds.; Modern British Literature, Frank Kermode and John Hollander, eds.).)

For like a mole I journey in the dark,
A-travelling along the underground

(John Davidson (1857-1909), Scottish poet. Thirty Bob a Week (l. 13-14). OAEL-2. Oxford Anthology of English Literature, The, Vols. I-II. Frank Kermode and John Hollander, general eds. (1973) Oxford University Press (Also published as six paperback vols.: Medieval English Literature, J. B. Trapp, ed.; The Literature of Renaissance England, John Hollander and Frank Kermode, eds.; The Restoration and the Eighteenth Century, Martin Price, ed.; Romantic Poetry and Prose, Harold Bloom and Lionel Trilling, eds.; Victorian Prose and Poetry, Lionel Trilling and Harold Bloom, eds.; Modern British Literature, Frank Kermode and John Hollander, eds.).)

How long she stayed I cannot tell;
But when she felt this perfidy,
She marched across the floor of hell;
And all the damned stood up to see.

(John Davidson (1857-1909), Scottish poet. A Ballad of Hell (l. 77-80). MoBrPo. Modern British Poetry. Louis Untermeyer, ed. (7th rev. ed., 1962) Harcourt, Brace and Company.)

A stag of warrant, a stag, a stag,
A runnable stag, a kingly crop,
Brow, bay and tray and three on top,
A stag, a runnable stag.

(John Davidson (1857-1909), Scottish poet. A Runnable Stag (l. 6-9). OxBTC. Oxford Book of Twentieth-Century English Verse, The. Philip Larkin, ed. (1973) Oxford University Press.)

Masts in the offing wagged their tops;
The swinging waves pealed on the shore;
The saffron beach, all diamond drops
And beads of surge, prolonged the roar.

(John Davidson (1857-1909), Scottish poet. In Romney Marsh (l. 13-16). OxBTC. Oxford Book of Twentieth-Century English Verse, The. Philip Larkin, ed. (1973) Oxford University Press.)

Night sank: like flakes of silver fire
The stars in one great shower came down;

(John Davidson (1857-1909), Scottish poet. In Romney Marsh (l. 21-22). OxBTC. Oxford Book of Twentieth-Century English Verse, The. Philip Larkin, ed. (1973) Oxford University Press.)