Short Poems

Come in the garden
And play in the snow,
A snowman we'll make,
See how quickly he'll grow!
Give him hat, stick, and pipe,
And make him look gay,
Such a fine game
For a cold winter day!

Cloud-capped peaks fill the eyes
In the spring sunshine.
Their names are written in beautiful characters
And posted in order of merit.
How I hate this silk dress
That conceals a poet.
I lift my head and read their names
In powerless envy.

The clear cool note of the cuckoo which has ousted the legitimate nest-holder,
The whistle of the railway guard dispatching the train to the inevitable collision,
The maiden's monosyllabic reply to a polysyllabic proposal,
The fundamental note of the last trump, which is presumably D natural;
All of these are sounds to rejoice in, yea, to let your very ribs re-echo with:
But better than all of them is the absolutely last chord of the apparently inexhaustible pianoforte player.

Clean birds by sevens,
Unclean by twos,
The dove in the heavens
Is the one I choose.

Chook, chook, chook, chook, chook,
Good morning, Mrs. Hen.
How many chickens have you got?
Madam, I've got ten.
Four of them are yellow,
And four of them are brown,
And two of them are speckled red,
The nicest in the town.

(Sung by the savages as they danced round the Latin grammar master, in a hamper with his head shaved, while two savages floured him, before putting him to the fire to be cooked)
Choo a choo a choo tooth.
Muntch, muntch. Nycey!
Choo a choo a choo tooth.
Muntch, muntch. Nycey!

The careful angler chose his nook
At morning by the lilied brook,
And all the noon his rod he plied
By that romantic riverside.
Soon as the evening hours decline
Tranquilly he'll return to dine,
And, breathing forth a pious wish,
Will cram his belly full of fish.

Chaeronean Plutarch, to thy deathless praise
Does martial Rome this grateful statue raise;
Because both Greece and she thy fame have shared
(Their heroes written, and their lives compared);
But thou thyself couldst never write thy own:
Their lives have parallels, but thine has none.

Chang Liang's face was like a young woman's;
Li Kuang was quite sincere — and ugly.
Yet with one blow Chang nearly killed the Dragon;
with ape-arms Li shot arrows like a god.

Can a sad song take the place of crying?
Can peering in the distance take the place of going home?
I think with longing of the old village,
my spirits downcast, fretful and forlorn
I want to go home but there's no one there,
I want to cross the river but there is no boat —
thoughts in my heart I can find no words for,
like cartwheels going round in my belly!