Short Poems

Awake, mine eyes! see Phoebus bright arising,
And lesser lights to shades obscure descending.
Glad Philomel sits, tunes of joy devising,
Whilst in sweet notes
From warbling throats
The sylvan choir
With like desire
To her are echoes sending.

Authority is a disease, and cure,
Which men can neither want, nor well endure.

At Perigord near to the wall,
Aye, within a mace throw of it,
I will come armed upon Baiart, and if I find there that fat-bellied Poitevin,
He shall see how my steel cuts.

For upon the field I will make a bran-mash of his brains, mixed with the maille of his armor.

At first awhile sits he,
With calm, unruffled brow;
His features then I see,
Distorted hideously, —
An owl's they might be now.
What is it, askest thou?
Is't love, or is't ennui?
'Tis both at once, I vow.

As I went up the garden
I found a little farthing;
I gave it to my mother,
To buy a little brother;
My brother was a sailor,
He sailed across the sea,
And all the fish that he could catch
Were one, two, three.

As I went over the water,
The water went over me.
I saw two little blackbirds
Sitting on a tree;
One called me a rascal,
And one called me a thief,
I took up my little black stick
And knocked out all their teeth.

As I was going o'er Tipple Tine,
I met a flock of bonny swine;
Some yellow necked,
Some yellow backed,
They were the very bonniest swine
That ever went over Tipple Tine.

As I was going along, long, long,
A-singing a comical song, song, song,
The lane that I went was so long, long, long,
And the song that I sung was as long, long, long,
And so I went singing along.

As black as ink and isn't ink,
As white as milk and isn't milk,
As soft as silk and isn't silk,
And hops about like a filly-foal.

Out of the hills the trees bulge;
the sky hangs in lumps of cloud.