English

Rather than let you know how near you were
To that last devastation of restraint
When you had stripped the plaster from the saint,
Threatened the idol with the idolater—
He damned himself and left you to infer
That he was victim of some tragic taint,
Toying with rouge and brilliantine and paint,
Hating himself to make you tenderer.

It was a trick fantastical enough,
Worthy an expert in aesthetic sham;
If he had only said, “The coarser stuff
Is in me and I am just what I am”—
You would at least have loved a man who had

WHEN , by a sudden act of guilt,
The hands of men their blood have spilt,
We pierce with stakes the murder'd frame,
And cover it with marks of shame;
But overlook the Suicide
Of a miscalculated pride,
Which courts the mist that clouds the day,
And throws the light of joy away;
Nor deem the character impair'd,
Of lingering death-beds ill-prepar'd;
Nor brand the dissipated mind,
Which is to all reflection blind;
And, as if piqued at life's delay,
Kills with impertinence the day!

There lived an old man in the Kingdom of Tess,
Who invented a purely original dress;
And when it was perfectly made and complete,
He opened the door, and walked into the street.

By way of a hat, he'd a loaf of Brown Bread,
In the middle of which he inserted his head;--
His Shirt was made up of no end of dead Mice,
The warmth of whose skins was quite fluffy and nice;--
His Drawers were of Rabbit-skins;--so were his Shoes;--
His Stockings were skins,--but it is not known whose;--
His Waistcoat and Trowsers were made of Pork Chops;--

Cold are the crabs that crawl on yonder hill,
Colder the cucumbers that grow beneath
And colder still the brazen chops that wreath
The tedious gloom of philosophic pills!
For when the tardy film of nectar fills
The ample bowls of demons and of men,
There lurks the feeble mouse, the homely hen,
And there the Porcupine with all her quills.
Yet much remains;—to weave a solemn strain
That lingering sadly—slowly dies away,
Daily departing with departing day
A pea-green gamut on a distant plain.
Where wily walruses in congress meet—

He tore the curtains yesterday,
And scratched the paper on the wall;
Ma's rubbers, too, have gone astray—
She says she left them in the hall;
He tugged the table cloth and broke
A fancy saucer and a cup;
Though Bud and I think it a joke
Ma scolds a lot about the pup.

The sofa pillows are a sight,
The rugs are looking somewhat frayed,
And there is ruin, left and right,
That little Boston bull has made.
He slept on Buddy's counterpane—
Ma found him there when she woke up.
I think it needless to explain

A fairy and a robin met
Beside a bed of mignonette.
The robin bowed and raised his hat,
And smiled a smile as wide as—that—
Then said: “Miss Fairy, I declare,
I'd kiss you, only I don't dare.”

The fairy curtsied low and said:
“Your breast is such a lovely red,
And you are such a handsome thing,
And, oh, such pretty songs you sing—
I'd gladly kiss you now, but I
May only kiss a butterfly.”

The robin spoke a silly word:
“I'm sorry I was born a bird!
Were I a fairy-man instead,

Quack! Quack! Quack!
With a toorooloo whack;
Hack away, merry men, hack away.
Who would not die brave,
His ear smote by a stave?
Thwack away, merry men, thwack away!
'Tis glory that calls,
To each hero that falls,
Hack away, merry men, hack away!
Quack! Quack! Quack!

Armies he's seen—the herds of war,
But never such swarms of men
As now in the Nineveh of the North—
How mad the Rebellion then!

And yet but dimly he divines
The depth of that deceit,
And superstitution of vast pride
Humbled to such defeat.

Seductive shone the Chiefs in arms—
His steel the nearest magnet drew;
Wreathed with its kind, the Gulf-weed drives—
'Tis Nature's wrong they rue.

His face is hidden in his beard,
But his heart peers out at eye—
And such a heart! like a mountain-pool

That neither fame, nor love might wanting be
To greatness, Cary, I sing that, and thee.
Whose house, if it no other honour had,
In only thee, might be both great, and glad.
Who, to upbraid the sloth of this our time,
Durst valour make, almost, but not a crime.
Which deed I know not, whether were more high,
Or thou more happy, it to justify
Against thy fortune: when no foe, that day,
Could conquer thee, but chance, who did betray.
Love thy great loss, which a renown hath won,
To live when Broeck not stands, nor Ruhr doth run.

Blush, folly, blush: here's none that fears
The wagging of an ass's ears,
Although a wolvish case he wears.
Detraction is but baseness' varlet;
And apes are apes, though clothed in scarlet.
(from Poetaster)