Short Poems

The furious Frenchman comes with his clarions and his drums,
His tactics of Sadowa and his maxims of Jean-Paul,
He is bursting on our flanks, grasp your pikes and close your ranks,
For Belloc never comes but to conquer or to fall.

Wavelets like rippling trees,
trees that look like mist;
truly an atmosphere of spring clouds drizzling rain.
Where did he catch those fish? Where did he drink wine?
— Beneath cabin-roof of bamboo sheaths he sleeps,
raincoat tossed aside.

Written when ill:
In the end
that's the road I'll travel —
I've known that all along —
but I didn't think I'd have to start
this very day

Water, water I desire,
Here's a house of flesh on fire:
Ope the fountains and the springs,
And come all to bucketings;
What ye cannot quench, pull down;
Spoil a house, to save a town.
Better 'tis that one should fall,
Than by one to hazard all.

Wash your hands, or else the fire
Will not tend to your desire;
Unwashed hands, ye maidens, know,
Dead the fire, though we blow.

A WORD of Godspeed and good cheer
To all on earth, or far or near,
Or friend or foe, or thine or mine—
In echo of the voice divine,
Heard when the Star bloomed forth and lit
The world's face, with God's smile on it.

LAS' time 'at Uncle Sidney come,
He bringed a watermelon home —
An' half the boys in town

Come taggin' after him. — An' he
Says, when we et it, — " Gracious me!
'S the boy-house fell down? "

We never know we go, — when we are going
We jest and shut the door;
Fate following behind us bolts it,
And we accost no more.

We'll heave him up from down below, Hooray,
oh, Susiana! We'll heave him up and away
we'll go, Away right over the mountain!

Welcome, precious stone of the night,
Delight of the skies, precious stone of the night,
Mother of stars, precious stone of the night,
Excellency of stars, precious stone of the night.