Short Poems

There is for me no sweeter holiday
Than in this radiant season of the year
When by the Wey sits Lady BytheWey,
And League becomes pacific Gondolier.

'Twas yesterday such a black-dye-day
as never will be or has been!
For she vowed to come hither on Friday;
she vowed, she deceived us, our Queen!
and I who had called the day my day,
embraced an intangible Jean.
For her Duke 'twas a sweet apple-pie-day.
Her Poet he fed on a bean!

The Bumble Bee — the Bumble Bee,
He had to get home to his early tea.

Lives there a man with such base mettle
To let a lady lift a boiling kettle?

Imperial by the People's will,
And swaying with such sovereign skill
Power that is a gorgeous pyre
To Sceptre's slaves of Ire —
Thou &c &c

Give me the avowed, erect and manly foe;
Firm I can meet, perhaps return the blow;
But of all plagues, good Heaven, thy wrath can send,
Save me, oh, save me, from the candid friend.
Quoted by Robert Peel in a parliamentary debate, 1845, Canning's words were turned against him in a triumphant rebuttal by Disraeli (Robert Blake, Disraeli [New York: St. Martin's, 1967], p. 185).

The Candid Friend who strikes because he loves,
Should curb his muscles when he plies the gloves.

A breath of the mountains, fresh born in the regions majestic,
That look with their eye-daring summits deep into the sky.
The voice of great Nature; sublime with her lofty conceptions,
Yet earnest and simple as any sweet child of the green lowly vale.

Simple, spontaneous, curious, two souls interchanging,
With the original testimony for us continued to the last.

In dreams I was a ship, and sail'd the boundless seas,
Sailing and ever sailing — all seas and into every port, or out upon the offing,
Saluting, cheerily hailing each mate, met or pass'd, little or big,
" Ship ahoy!" thro' trumpet or by voice — if nothing more, some friendly merry word at least,
For companionship and good will for ever to all and each.

Add to your show, before you close it, France,
With all the rest, visible, concrete, temples, towers, goods, machines and ores,
Our sentiment wafted from many million heart-throbs, ethereal but solid,
(We grand-sons and great-grand-sons do not forget your grand-sires,)
From fifty Nations and nebulous Nations, compacted, sent oversea to-day,
America's applause, love, memories and good-will.