Short Poems

What? Mars his sword? faire Cytherea say,
 Why art thou arm'd so desperately to day?
Mars thou hast beaten naked, and o then
 What need'st thou put on armes aginst poore men?

I have a hat, but not to wear;
I wear a sword, but not to slay,
And ever in my bag I bear
A pack of cards, but not to play.

No more, no more, no more!
Such language holds the solemn sea,
The sands upon the shore shall bloom
The thunder-blasted tree
Or the stricken eagle soar
—No more, old man, no more.

If Brother Francis pardoned Brother Flea,
There still seems need of such strange charity,
Seeing he is, for all his gay goodwill,
Bitten by funny little creatures still.

Workers fly back and forth like piston-rods
And clerks like clocks strike eight or nine or ten:
Say, you who know when men will be like gods,
In what wild future men will be like men.

What is an epigram? a dwarfish whole,
Its body brevity, and wit its soul.

What fun to work the mountain paddies!
A monkey rubs the sasara , a badger beats a drum!
Good sound on the badger's drum, what fun this is!
From the old days the monkey's been good at the sasara!
How long will the scarecrow be in the mountain paddies?

TAWDERY! — faddery! Feathers and fuss!
Mummery! — flummery! Wusser and wuss!
All o' Humanity — Vanity Fair! —
Heaven for nothin', and — nobody there!

The Trestle and the Buck-Saw
Went out a-walking once,
And stayed away and stayed away
For days and weeks and months:
And when they got back home again,
Of all that had occurred,
The neighbors said the gossips said
They never said a word.

O WHAT did the little boy do
'At nobody wanted him to?
Didn't do nothin' but romp an' run,
An' whoop an' holler an' bang his gun
An' bu'st fire-crackers, an' ist have fun —
An' 'at's all the little boy done!