Short Poems

When I resign this world so briary,
To have across the Styx my ferrying,
O, may I die without a DIARY !
And be interred without a Bury -ing!

T HE poor dear dead have been laid out in vain,
Turned into cash, they are laid out again!

To Sir CHARLES SEDLEY.

But stay 'tis Sedley — and it were a crime
For me to grasp a Subject so sublime:
Since nothing but his own Coelestial lays
Are fit the Authour of such flights to praise,
Nor dare my thoughts make the unequal choice
My Infant-muse has yet, but try'd her tender voice.

Hail, fat king Ned!
Hail, fighting Ted,
Grand William,
Grim Oom Paul!
But I'd rather twist
Carnegie's wrist,
That open hand in this
Than shake hands with ye all.

TO BE SUNG BETWEEN THE LITANY AND COMMUNION SERVICE .

O H most merciful!
Oh most bountiful!
God the Father Almighty!
By the Redeemer's
Sweet intercession
Hear us, help us when we cry!

Montara, Naples of my West!
Montara, Italy to me!
Montara, newest, truest, best
Of all brave cities by this sea!
I'd rather one wee bungalow
Where I mid-March may sit me down
And watch thy warm waves come and go,
Than two whole blocks of Boston town.

The lips of the Christ-child are like to twin leaves;
They let roses fall when he smiles tenderly.
The tears of the Christ-child are pearls when he grieves;
The eyes of the Christ-child are deep as the sea.
Like pomegranate grains are the dimples he hath,
And clustering lilies spring up in his path.

AT THE CROWN AND ANCHOR .

I'll not sell Uncle Noll, Charles Surface cries; —
I'll not sell Charley Fox, John Bull replies:
Sell him, indeed! who'll find me such another; —
Fox is above all price; so hold your bother.

Women are books, and men the readers be,
In whom oft times they great Errata see;
Here sometimes we a blot there we espy
A leaf misplac'd, at least a line awry;
If they are books, I wish that my wife were
An almanack, to change her every year.

Bury me with clenched hands
And eyes open wide,
For in storm and struggle I lived,
And in struggle and storm I died

" TIME is! Time was! " Thy clangor triumphs o'er
My baffled will. Even so thy summons rude
Shall spell thy doom with " Time shall be no more! "
When I have passed where Time did ne'er intrude.