Short Poems

A time comes when
leaves yellow in the blustering wind,
pile up before you know it
like heaps of gloomy words —
is it that time now?

Why did all manly gifts in Webster fail?
He wrote on Nature's grandest brow,For Sale .

The Window has Four little Panes:
—But One have I:
The Window-Panes are in its Sash,—
—I wonder why!

The wind it blew up the railroad track,
It blew, it blew,
The wind it blew up the railroad track,
It blew, it blew;
The wind it blew up the railroad track,
It blew way up and half way back,
And the wind it blew,
Holy Jiminy! how it blew!

Why do you lie with your legs ungainly huddled,
And one arm bent across your sullen, cold,
Exhausted face? It hurts my heart to watch you,
Deep-shadow'd from the candle's guttering gold;
And you wonder why I shake you by the shoulder;
Drowsy, you mumble and sigh and turn your head . . .
You are too young to fall asleep for ever;
And when you sleep you remind me of the dead

Who's that a-knocking,
A-knocking at the door —
One knock! — two knocks!
Three knocks! — four!
He's come to the window,
He's taking a peep
To find out whether
Baby's asleep.

" WHOM the gods love die young; " — if gods ye be,
Then generously might ye have spared to us
One from your vast unnumbered overplus,
One youth we loved as tenderly as ye.

" WHOM I shall kiss, " I heard a Sunbeam say,
" Take him and lead away! "
Then, with the Traitor's salutation, " Hail! "
He kissed the Dawn-Star pale.

Who'll buy my laces? I've laces to sell!
Long laces, strong laces, short laces as well.
Laces of cotton, of silk and mohair,
Laces of leather, a penny a pair;
A lace for your body, a lace for your shoe;
Black laces, white laces, scarlet and blue,
Here is leather for schoolboys, and silk for a girl;
But a queen must have silver with taggles of pearl.

Who hath herd of suche crueltye before?
That when my plaint remembred her my woo
That caused it, she cruell more and more
Wisshed eche stitche, as she did sit and soo,
Had prykt myn hert, for to encrese my sore.
And, as I thinck, she thought it had ben so:
For as she thought this is his hert in dede,
She pricked herd and made her self to blede.