Short Poems

What time the bittern, solitary bird,
Hides now her head amid the whispering fern,
And not a paddock vexes all the shore —
Nor feather ruffles the incumbent air,
Save where the wagtail interrupts the noon.

'Twas not enough, Ben Johnson , to be thought
Of English Poets best, but to have brought
In greater state, to their acquaintance, one
So equal to himself and thee, that none
Might be thy second, while thy Glory is,
To be the Horace of our times and his.

Tuneful Hipponax rests him here.
Let no base rascal venture near.
You who rank high in birth and mind
Sit down--and sleep, if so inclined.

Tuck the earth, fold the sod,
Drop the hollow-sounding clod.
Quiet's come; time for sleeping,
Tired out of mirth and weeping,
Calmed at last of mirth and weeping.
Tuck the earth, fold the sod;
Quiet's here, maybe God.

Shall I make a record of your beauty?
Shall I write words about you?
Shall I make a poem that will live a thousand years and paint you in the poem?

Her dark brown face
Is like a withered flower
On a broken stem.
Those kind come cheap in Harlem

For the portrait of an African boy after the manner of Gauguin
All the tom-toms of the jungles beat in my blood,
And all the wild hot moons of the jungles shine in my soul.
I am afraid of this civilization —
So hard,
So strong,
So cold.

Today like yesterday
Tomorrow like today;
The drip, drip, drip,
Of monotony
Is wearing my life away;
Today like yesterday,
Tomorrow like today.

God slumbers in a back alley
With a gin bottle in His hand.
Come on, God, get up and fight

Written in 1761, and found in one of his pocket-books.

Too poor for a bribe, and too proud to importune,
He had not the method of making a fortune:
Could love, and could hate, so was thought somewhat odd;
No very great wit, he believed in a God:
A place or a pension he did not desire,
But left church and state to Charles Townshend and Squire.