The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations Preface

‘In Partibus’ (1909)
Then ye returned to your trinkets; then ye contented your souls
With the flannelled fools at the wicket or the muddied oafs at the goals.
‘The Islanders’ (1903)
I’ve taken my fun where I’ve found it,
An’ now I must pay for my fun,
For the more you ’ave known o’ the others
The less will you settle to one.
‘The Ladies’ (1896)
When you get to a man in the case,
They’re like as a row of pins—
For the Colonel’s Lady an’ Judy O’Grady
Are sisters under their skins!
‘The Ladies’ (1896)
And Ye take mine honour from me if Ye take away the sea!
‘The Last Chantey’ (1896)
There be triple ways to take, of the eagle or the snake,
Or the way of a man with a maid;
But the sweetest way to me is a ship’s upon the sea
In the heel of the North-East Trade.
‘L’Envoi’ (‘Barrack-Room Ballads’, 1892)
Down to Gehenna or up to the Throne,
He travels the fastest who travels alone.
‘L’Envoi’ (‘The Story of the Gadsbys’, 1890)
If I were hanged on the highest hill,
Mother o’ mine, O mother o’ mine!
I know whose love would follow me still,
Mother o’ mine, O mother o’ mine!
‘The Light That Failed’ (1891) dedication
The Liner she’s a lady, an’ she never looks nor ’eeds—
The Man-o’-War’s ’er ’usband, ’an ’e gives ’er all she needs;
But, oh, the little cargo boats that sail the wet seas roun’,
They’re just the same as you ’an me a-plyin’ up and down!
‘The Liner She’s a Lady’ (1896)
It’s north you may run to the rime-ringed sun,
Or south to the blind Horn’s hate;
Or east all the way into Mississippi Bay,
Or west to the Golden Gate.
‘The Long Trail’ (1918)
By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin’ eastward to the sea,