Short Poems

Two leaps the water from its race
Made to the brook below,
The first leap it was curving glass,
The second bounding snow.

'Twixt handkerchief and nose
A difference arose;
And a tradition goes
That they settled it by blows.

The eastern mail comes lumbering in
With outmost waves of Europe's din;
The western sighs adown the slope,
Or mid the rustling leaves doth grope,
Laden with news from Californ',
Whateer transpired hath since morn,
How wags The world by brier and brake,
From hence to Athabasca lake.

Twin stars through my purpling pane,
The shriveling husk
Of a yellowing moon on the wane,—

In the busy streets, domains of trade,
Man is a surly porter, or a vain and hectoring bully,
Who can claim no nearer kindredship with me
Than brotherhood by law.

" 'Twas not so in my time," surly Grumio exclaims,
When our fancies, and fashions, and follies he blames:
But your times, and our times, and all times, old Bluff!
Can show fancies, and fashions, and follies enough!
Your taste was the formal, as ours is the flimsy:
You made wisdom grimace; we make elegance whimsy.
'Tis all the same foppery, dressed different ways!
Yours was yesterday's nonsense; and ours is today's!

I send this at nine
To know will you dine
On a beefsteak of mine.
As I'm a divine
I'll give you good wine,
Old, gen'rous and fine.
Till death I am thine,
Thomas Sheridine.

'Twas Fancy , first, made Caelia Fair:
'Twas Fancy gave her Shape and Air.
It robb'd the Sun, stripp'd every Star
Of Beauties, to bestow on Her.
And, when it had the Goddess made,
Down it Fell, and Worshipped.
Creator , first, and then a Creature!
Narcissus! and a Pail of Water!

Turn, turn, unhappy souls, return,
Accept eternal peace; Why will you at the
Saviour spurn, Who of fers you his grace?

Triumphant Demons stand, and Angels start,
To see the abysses of the human heart.