Short Poems

I am olde whan age doth apele,
Having a yong thing that litel setteth me by.
One such in a schire is too many, and fele
Other than trew be; beholde a cause why:
I may not as I might on my partye.
Therefor I am forsake! age, age, wo thou be!
Youth is a traitoure, her experiens at eye;
Oftentimes and many the blinde eteth many a flye!

What, why didest thou wink whan thou a wyf toke?
Thou haddest never more need brodde to loke!
A man that wedeth a wife whan he winketh,
But he stare afterward, wonder me thinketh!

And now in turn see Swinburne bent
Above his favourite instrument —
He strikes the trembling wire.
Let horn and flute at once be mute
Before the new lascivious lute,
Little man and great lyre —
I had him there! l-i-a-r!

To Belinda

I N Church the Prayer-Book, and the Fan display'd,
And solemn Curt'sies, shew the wily Maid;
At Plays the leering Looks and wanton Airs,
And Nods and Smiles, are fondly meant for Snares.
Alas! vain Charmer, you no Lovers get;
There you seem Hypocrite, and here Coquet.

Cast up a wreck by Fortune's tide,
The ebbing wave in this lone bay
Has left me by the ocean's side
Mouldering in sure and slow decay;
Love, Hope, Fame, Power, have past away
And with them Joy and Grief and Pride
I live but in my thoughts, and they
Are of the things that long have died!

Beneath this stone a poet's bones lie cold:
Innumerable odes he made — and sold —
Think, reader think, how many lies he told!

A GAINST a Woman's Wit, 'tis full as low,
Your Malice, as your Bravery to Show.

Some nights my mother would read to me from A Child's Garden of Verses , a strange world where children talked like grownups and had nannies and counterpanes and there were a lot of other things I'd never heard of. But I was learning to read, too, from the Dick and Jane books at school, another place that sometimes bewildered me — where everyone always smiled and was unbelievably polite, where there never seemed to be any kind of trouble at all.

The ancient columns are so fine
Of Trajan and of Antonine ,
As travellers do swear and vow,
(And travellers speak always true)
That when it is compar'd with these,
Our MONUMENT , that stately piece;
Although so comely, tall, and proper,
Is only a tobacco stopper .

Mars , Hermes, Phaebus, and chaste Thetis son,
All met, proclaim'd, this Phenix H ARRINGTON .