A horse can't pull while kicking.
This fact I merely mention.
And he can't kick while pulling,
Which is my chief contention.

Let's imitate the good old horse
And lead a life that's fitting;
Just pull an honest load, and then
There'll be no time for kicking.

The home fire's a lazy fire
And wood it should be,
And the thoughts said about it
Begin with we.

The home fire's a cold fire
Time may come, and dead;
Then there's the road to go
And the stranger's bed.

He'd become completely degraded. His erotic tendencies,
condemned and strictly forbidden
(but innate for all that) were the cause of it:
society was totally narrow-minded.
He'd gradually lost what little money he had,
then his social standing, then his reputation.
Nearly thirty, he'd never worked a full year—
at least not at a legitimate job.
Sometimes he earned enough to get by
acting the go-between in deals considered shameful.
He ended up the type likely to compromise you thoroughly
if you were seen around with him too often.

He who plants a tree
Plants a hope.
Rootlets up through fibres blindly grope;
Leaves unfold into horizons free.
So man's life must climb
From the clods of time
Unto heavens sublime.
Canst thou prophesy, thou little tree,
What the glory of thy boughs shall be?

He who plants a tree
Plants a joy;
Plants a comfort that will never cloy;
Every day a fresh reality,
Beautiful and strong,
To whose shelter throng
Creatures blithe wih song.
If thou couldst but know, thou happy tree,
Of the bliss that shall inhabit thee!

Green rustlings, more-than-regal charities
Drift coolly from that tower of whispered light.
Amid the noontide's blazed asperities
I watched the sun's most gracious anchorite

Climb up as by communings, year on year
Uneaten of the earth or aught earth holds,
And the gray trunk, that's elephantine, rear
Its frondings sighing in aethereal folds.

Forever fruitless, and beyond that yield
Of sweat the jungle presses with hot love
And tendril till our deathward breath is sealed—
It grazes the horizons, launched above

Give me something to eat,
Good people, I pray;
I have really not had
One mouthful today!

I am hungry and cold,
And last night I dreamed
A scarecrow had caught me—
Good land, how I screamed!

Of one little children
And six ailing wives
(No, one wife and six children),
Not one of them thrives.

So pity my case,
Dear people, I pray;
I'm honest, and really
I've come a long way.

For God's sake hold your tongue, and let me love,
Or chide my palsy, or my gout,
My five grey hairs, or ruined fortune flout;
With wealth your state, your mind with arts improve,
Take you a course, get you a place,
Observe his Honor, or his Grace;
Or the king's real, or his stamped face
Contemplate; what you will, approve,
So you will let me love.

Alas, alas, who's injured by my love?
What merchant's ships have my sighs drowned?
Who says my tears have overflowed his ground?
When did my colds a forward spring remove?

Folk need a lot of loving in the morning;
The day is all before, with cares beset—
The cares we know, and they that give no warning;
For love is God's own antidote for fret.

Folk need a heap of loving at the noontime—
In the battle lull, the moment snatched from strife—
Halfway between the waking and the croontime,
While bickering and worriment are rife.

Folk hunger so for loving at the nighttime,
When wearily they take them home to rest—
At slumber song and turning-out-the-light time—
Of all the times for loving, that's the best.

Farewell fair saint, may not the seas and wind
Swell like the heart and eyes you leave behind,
But calme and gentle (like the looks they bear)
Smile on your face and whisper in your eare:
Let no foule billow offer to arise
That it may nearer look upon your eyes,
Lest wind and waves enamoured with such form
Should throng and crowd themselves into a storm;
But if it be your fate (vast Seas) to love,
Of my becalmed heart learn how to move:
Move then, but in a gentle lovers pace,
No wrinkles nor no furrows in your face;

I have this vision of madness:
dear gay brothers,
please get out of the trucks,
the sun is rising,
before it is too late.
Make lines, hold hands
and form a procession out to the sea;
when the sun rises
turn around and face each other
ask where the day goes
and
what have you done with the time?
Some of you will answer,
“but what about astrology,
where is the moon, now
that the sun has risen?”
“And what about my hair. Is it too long?
Should I have it cut?”
“What about my clothes,
are they the right style,