Short Poems

I shoot the Hippopotamus
With bullets made of platinum,
Because if I use leaden ones
His hide is sure to flatten 'em.

When people call this beast to mind,
They marvel more and more
At such a little tail behind,
So large a trunk before.

The Dromedary is a cheerful bird:
I cannot say the same about the Kurd.

Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine,
There’s always laughter and good red wine.
At least I’ve always found it so.
Benedicamus Domino!

O Love! thou makest all things even
In earth or heaven;
Finding thy way through prison-bars
Up to the stars;
Or, true to the Almighty plan,
That out of dust created man,
Thou lookest in a grave,--to see
Thine immortality!

Phyllis, farewell, I may no longer live;
Yet if I die, fair Phyllis, I forgive.
I live too long; come, gentle death and end
My endless torment, or my grief amend.

Love is the fire that burns me,
The smokes are thoughts confused,
Which dim my soul, my soul,
And hath my sense abused.
Though fire to ashes turn me,
Yet doth the smoke more grieve me,
That dims my mind,
Whose light should still relieve me.

Sound, sound the clarion, fill the fife!
To all the sensual world proclaim,
One crowded hour of glorious life
Is worth an age without a name.

Sound, sound the clarion, fill the fife!
To all the sensual world proclaim,
One crowded hour of glorious life
Is worth an age without a name.

It will not change now
After so many years;
Life has not broken it
With parting or tears;
Death will not alter it,
It will live on
In all my songs for you
When I am gone.