Short Poems

O fram'd at once to charm the ear and sight,
Thou emblem of all conjugal delight,
See Flora greets thee with her fragrant powers,
A groupe of Virtues claims a wreath of Flowers.

Bank feels no lameness of his knotty gout,
His monies travel for him, in and out:
And though the soundest legs go every day,
He toils to be at hell, as soon as they.

If all you boast of your great art be true;
Sure, willing poverty lives most in you.

I found them blind, I taught them how to see;
And, now, they know me not, nor yet themselves.

Venetian; all thy Colouring is no more
Than Boulsterd Plasters on a Crooked Whore

I always take my judgment from a Fool
Because [I know he always judges] his judgment is so very Cool
Not prejudicd by feelings great or small
[Because we know] Amiable state he cannot feel at all

S[tothard] in Childhood on the Nursery floor
Was extreme Old & most extremely poor
He is grown old & rich & what he will
He is extreme old & extreme poor still

The lady in red, she in the chile con carne red,
Brilliant as the shine of a pepper crimson in the summer sun,
She behind a false-face, the much sought-after dancer, the most sought-after dancer of all in this masquerade,
The lady in red sox and red hat, ankles of willow, crimson arrow amidst the Spanish clashes of music,
I sit in a corner
watching her dance first with one man
and then another.

Dolly sits a-quilting by her mother, stich by stitch,
Gracious, how my pulses throb, how my fingers itch,
While I note her dainty waist and her slender hand,
As she matches this and that, she stitches strand by strand.
And I long to tell her Life's a quilt and I'm a patch;
Love will do the stitching if she'll only be my match.

I Thought of your beauty, and this arrow,
Made out of a wild thought, is in my marrow.
There's no man may look upon her, no man,
As when newly grown to be a woman,
Tall and noble but with face and bosom
Delicate in colour as apple blossom.
This beauty's kinder, yet for a reason
I could weep that the old is out of season.