Short Poems

Gems and jewels let them heap--
Wax sumptuous as the Sophi:
For me, to grapple from Art's deep
One dripping trophy!

All dripping in tangles green,
Cast up by a lonely sea,
If purer for that, O Weed,
Bitterer, too, are ye?

Cob, thou nor soldier, thief, nor fencer art,
Yet by thy weapon liv'st! Th'hast one good part.

Fortune favours the Brave old Proverbs say
But not with Money. that is not the way
Turn back turn back you travel all in vain
Turn thro the iron gate down Sneaking lane

Having heard the instruction:
" Be thou no swine, "
He belabored himself and wrote:
" Beware of the semblance
of lard at thy flanks. "

Gold of a ripe oat straw, gold of a southwest moon,
Canada thistle blue and flimmering larkspur blue,
Tomatoes shining in the October sun with red hearts,
Shining five and six in a row on a wooden fence,
Why do you keep wishes on your faces all day long,
Wishes like women with half-forgotten lovers going to new cities?
What is there for you in the birds, the birds, the birds, crying down on the north wind in September, acres of birds spotting the air going south?
Is there something finished? And some new beginning on the way?

Arithmetic is where numbers fly like pigeons in and out of your head.
Arithmetic tells you how many you lose or win if you know how many you had before you lost or won.
Arithmetic is seven eleven all good children go to heaven — or five six bundle of sticks.
Arithmetic is numbers you squeeze from your head to your hand to your pencil to your paper till you get the answer.

I am Elizabeth Umpstead, dead at seventy-five years of age, and they are taking me in a polished and silver-plated box today, and an undertaker, assured of cash for-his work, will supply straps to let the box down the lean dirt walls, while a quartet of singers — assured of cash for their work, sing " Nearer My God to Thee, " and a clergyman, also assured of cash for his services — will pronounce the words: " Dust to dust and ashes to ashes. "

Great folks are of a finer mould;
Lord! how politely they can scold.
While a coarse English tongue will itch
For whore and rogue; and dog and bitch.

Be you to others kind and true,
As you'd have others be to you;
And neither do nor say to men
Whate'er you would not take again.