Short Poems

“Tu-whitt, Tu-whitt, Tu-whoo, Tu-whoo,
Good night to me, good night to you.”
'Tis the old white owl in the ivy tree,
But I can't see him, and he can't see me!

There was an Old Person of Prague,
Who was suddenly seized with the plague;
But they gave him some butter, which caused him to mutter,
And cured that Old Person of Prague.

There was an Old Person of Basing,
Whose presence of mind was amazing;
He purchased a steed, which he rode at full speed,
And escaped from the people of Basing.

There was an old man in a boat,
Who complained of a pain in his throat;
When they said, ‘Can you screech?’ he replied, ‘I beseech
You won't make any noise in my boat!’

There was an Old Person of Bromley,
Whose ways were not cheerful or comely;
He sat in the dust, eating spiders and crust,
That unpleasing Old Person of Bromley.

NANCY Hanks dreams by the fire;
Dreams, and the logs sputter,
And the yellow tongues climb.
Red lines lick their way in flickers.
Oh, sputter, logs.
Oh, dream, Nancy.
Time now for a beautiful child.
Time now for a tall man to come.

Pray steal me not, I'm Mrs Dingley's
Whose Heart in this Four-footed Thing lies.

There are two miseries in human life;
To live without a friend, and with a wife.

No charm can stay, no medicine can assuage,
The sad incurable disease of age;
Only the hand in youth more warmly prest
Makes soft the couch and calms the final rest.

Sleep , my sweet girl! and all the sleep
You take away from others, keep:
A night, no distant one, will come
When those you took their slumbers from,
Generous, ungenerous, will confess
Their joy that you have slumber'd less,
And envy more than they condemn
The rival who avenges them.