Oh, it's pleasant sitting here,
Seeing all the people pass;
You beside your bock of beer,
I behind my demi-tasse.
Chatting of no matter what.
You the Mummer, I the Bard;
Oh, it's jolly, is it not? --
Sitting on the Boulevard.

More amusing than a book,
If a chap has eyes to see;
For, no matter where I look,
Stories, stories jump at me.
Moving tales my pen might write;
Poems plain on every face;
Monologues you could recite
With inimitable grace.

(Ah! Imagination's power)
See yon demi-mondaine there,

We're driving across tableland
somewhere in the world;
it is almost bare of trees.

Upland near void of features
always moves me, but not to thought;
it lets me rest from thinking.

I feel no need to interpret it
as if it were art. Too much
of poetry is criticism now.

That hawk, clinging to
the eaves of the wind, beating
its third wing, its tail

isn't mine to sell. And here is
more like the space that needs
to exist aound an image.

This cloud-roof country reminds me
of the character of people

Behold this little volume here inrolde:
'Tis the Almighty's present to the world:
Hearken earth's earth; each sencelesse thing can heare
His Maker's thunder, though it want an eare:
God's word is senior to his works, nay rather
If rightly weigh'd the world may call it father;
God spake, 'twas done; this great foundation
Is the Creator's Exhalation
Breath'd out in speaking. The best work of man
Is better than his word; but if wee scanne
God's word aright, his works far short doe fall;
The word is God, the works are creatures all.

Jesus! where'er Thy people meet,
There they behold Thy mercy seat;
Where'er they seek Thee, Thou art found,
And every place is hallow'd ground.

For Thou, within no walls confined,
Inhabitest the humble mind;
Such ever bring Thee where they come
And going, take Thee to their home.

Dear Shepherd of Thy chosen few!
Thy former mercies here renew;
Her to our waiting hearts proclaim
The sweetness of Thy saving name.

Here may we prove the power of prayer,
To strengthen faith, and sweeten care;

I

Living is no laughing matter:
you must live with great seriousness
like a squirrel, for example--
I mean without looking for something beyond and above living,
I mean living must be your whole occupation.
Living is no laughing matter:
you must take it seriously,
so much so and to such a degree
that, for example, your hands tied behind your back,
your back to the wall,
or else in a laboratory

The silver trumpets rang across the Dome:
The people knelt upon the ground with awe:
And borne upon the necks of men I saw,
Like some great God, the Holy Lord of Rome.
Priest-like, he wore a robe more white than foam,
And, king-like, swathed himself in royal red,
Three crowns of gold rose high upon his head:
In splendor and in light the Pope passed home.
My heart stole back across wide wastes of years
To One who wandered by a lonely sea,
And sought in vain for any place of rest:
"Foxes have holes, and every bird its nest,

To be an ape in little of the mountain-making mother
Like swarthy Cheops, but my own hands
For only slaves, is a far sweeter toil than to cut
Passions in verse for a sick people.
I'd liefer bed one boulder in the house-wall than be the time's
Archilochus: we name not Homer: who now
Can even imagine the fabulous dawn when bay-leaves (to a blind
Beggar) were not bitter in the teeth?


Submitted by Holt

Could any shewe where Plynyes people dwell
Whose head stands in their breast; who cannot tell
A smoothing lye because their open hart
And lippes are joyn'd so neare, I would depart
As quick as thought, and there forgett the wrongs
Which I have suffer'd by deceitfull tongues.
I should depart where soules departed bee,
Who being freed from cloudy flesh, can see
Each other so immediately, so cleare
That none needs tongue to speak, nor ears to hear.
Were tongues intended to express the soule,
And can wee better doe't with none at all?

(Hebrews, iv.2)

Israel in ancient days
Not only had a view
Of Sinai in a blaze,
But learn'd the Gospel too;
The types and figures were a glass,
In which thy saw a Saviour's face.

The paschal sacrifice
And blood-besprinkled door,
Seen with enlighten'd eyes,
And once applied with power,
Would teach the need of other blood,
To reconcile an angry God.

The Lamb, the Dove, set forth
His perfect innocence,
Whose blood of matchless worth
Whould be the soul's defence;

Old Mother Laidinwool had nigh twelve months been dead.
She heard the hops was doing well, an' so popped up her head
For said she: "The lads I've picked with when I was young and fair,
They're bound to be at hopping and I'm bound to meet 'em there!"

Let me up and go
Back to the work I know, Lord!
Back to the work I know, Lord!
For it is dark where I lie down, My Lord!
An' it's dark where I lie down!

Old Mother Laidinwool, she give her bones a shake,
An' trotted down the churchyard-path as fast as she could make.