Short Poems

Three wise men of Gotham
Went to sea in a bowl;
If the bowl had been stronger,
My story would have been longer.

Tie one end of a rope fast over a beam,
And make a slip-noose at the other extreme;
Then just underneath let a cricket be set,
On which let the lover most manfully get;
Then over his head let the snecket be got,
And under one ear be well settled the knot.
The cricket kicked down, let him take a fair swing;
And leave all the rest of the work to the string.

Devine philosopher to thee tis given
To reconcile to reasons mental sight
The dark inexplicable ways of heaven
By faith in revelations sacred light.—

This house is haunted, this house is haunted,
It fairly makes my blood run co-o-old;
This house is haunted, this house is haunted,
It fairly makes my blood run co-o-old.

This bears the seal of immortality,
For every soul that reads it feels the search
Of answering thought, and thousands there may be
Saying at once, “How straight that looks at me!”
Nor child nor fool it leaveth in the lurch;
But, like the eyes that mark great Guido's fame,
It follows every one, as if by name.

There was an old man who liv'd in Middle Row,
He had five hens, and a name for them, oh!
Bill and Ned and Battock,
Cut-her-foot and Pattock.
Chuck, my lady Pattock,
Go to thy nest and lay.

Such Tophet was; so looked the grinning fiend
While frighted prelates bowed and called him friend;
I saw them bow, and while they wished him dead
With servile simper nod the mitred head.
Our Mother Church with half-averted sight
Blushed as she blessed her grisly proselyte:
Hosannahs rung through Hell's tremendous borders,
And Satan's self had thoughts of taking orders.

A robin and a robin's son
Once went to town to buy a bun.
They couldn't decide on plum or plain,
And so they went back home again.

The sea hath tempered it; the mighty sun
Polished the blade,
And from the limpid sheath the sword leaps forth,
Man hath not made
A better in Damascus—though for slaughter
Hath steel somewhat advantage over water.

The praying mantis doesn't pray:
He simply likes to pose that way.
The sect which he's an insect in
Leads with its left and not the chin.