Short Poems

What is a Communist? One who has yearnings
For equal division of unequal earnings;
Idler or bungler, or both, he is willing
To fork out his penny and pocket your shilling.

What can Tommy Onslow do?
Drive a phaeton and two.
Can Tommy Onslow do no more?
Yes; drive a phaeton and four.

We're all dry with drinking on't,
We're all dry with drinking on't,
The piper kissed the fiddler's wife,
And I can't sleep for thinking on't.

With gypsies and sailors,
Wanderers of the hills and seas,
I go to seek my fortune.
With pious folk and fair
I must have a parting.
But you will not miss me, —
You who live between the hills
And have never seen the seas.

They stood — rain pelting at window, shrouded sea —
Tenderly hand in hand, too happy to talk;
And there, its amorous eye intent on me,
Plautus impennis , the extinct Great Auk.

That mute small face, but twelve hours here,
Maps secrets stranger than the sea's,
In hieroglyphics more austere,
And wiser far than Rameses'.

There was an Old Person of Tring,
Who embellished his nose with a ring;
He gazed at the moon, every evening in June,
That ecstatic Old Person of Tring.

There was an Old Person of Putney,
Whose food was roast spiders and chutney,
Which he took with his tea, within sight of the sea,
That romantic Old Person of Putney.

There was an Old Person of Philae,
Whose conduct was scroobious and wily;
He rushed up a Palm, when the weather was calm,
And observed all the ruins of Philae.

There was an Old Person of Leeds,
Whose head was infested with beads;
She sat on a stool, and ate gooseberry fool,
Which agreed with that person of Leeds.