Short Poems

There was an Old Person of Minety,
Who purchased five hundred and ninety
Large apples and pears, which he threw unawares,
At the heads of the people of Minety.

The policeman buys shoes slow and careful; the teamster buys gloves slow and careful; they take care of their feet and hands; they live on their feet and hands.

The milkman never argues; he works alone and no one speaks to him; the city is asleep when he is on the job; he puts a bottle on six hundred porches and calls it a day's work; he climbs two hundred wooden stairways; two horses are company for him; he never argues.

Sea-ward, white-gleaming thro' the busy Scud
With arching Wings the Sea-mew o'er my head
Posts on, as bent on speed; now passaging
Edges the stiffer Breeze, now yielding drifts,
Now floats upon the Air, and sends from far
A wildly-wailing Note.

The poet in his lone yet genial hour
Gives to his eyes a magnifying power:
Or rather he emancipates his eyes
From the black shapeless accidents of size--
In unctuous cones of kindling coal,
Or smoke upwreathing from the pipe's trim bowl,
His gifted ken can see
Phantoms of sublimity.

Poet ! I like not mealy fruit; give me
Freshness and crispness and solidity;
Apples are none the better overripe,
And prime buck-venison I prefer to tripe.

" our couch shall be roses all spangled with dew "

I t would give me rheumatics, and so it would you.

Neither in idleness consume thy days,
Nor bend thy back to mow the weeds of praise.

She might, so noble from head
To great shapely knees
The long flowing line,
Have walked to the altar
Through the holy images
At Pallas Athena's side,
Or been fit spoil for a centaur
Drunk with the unmixed wine.

O sweet everlasting voices be still;
Go to the guards of the heavenly fold
And bid them wander obeying your will
Flame under flame, till Time be no more;
Have you not heard that our hearts are old,
That you call in birds, in wind on the hill,
In shaken boughs, in tide on the shore?
O sweet everlasting Voices be still.

Red-head swallows swoop and clip the waves in pairs,
so light!
Petals fly from riverbanks, rippling wavelets rise.
Heading south or north, boats pass,
no time to yell, " Hello! "
Windswept sails swiftly slice their way
across the Yangtze River.