Short Poems

There was an Old Man of the Nile,
Who sharpened his nails with a file;
Till he cut off his thumbs, and said calmly, ‘This comes—
Of sharpening one's nails with a file!’

Hes a Blockhead who wants a proof of what he Cant Percieve
And he's a Fool who [seeks] tries to make such a Blockhead believe

His “Hoosier poems” Riley says he writes
Upon an empty stomach. Heavenly Powers,
Feed him throat-full; for what the wretch indites
Upon his empty stomach empties ours!

Come lads, the day is all before ye,
Jerrold will tell a merry story,
And ere ye go to bed ye may
Regale on Wordsworth's curds and whey.
I can not join you, for I question
If such things suit with my digestion.

Gracie, thou art a man of worth,
O be thou Dean for ever!
May he be damn'd to hell henceforth,
Who fauts thy weight or measure!

The breeze is fresh,
the moonlight bright—
let's dance together
the whole night through,
a lasting memory for my old age.

Hope is like a harebell trembling from its birth,
Love is like a rose the joy of all the earth;
Faith is like a lily lifted high and white,
Love is like a lovely rose the world's delight;
Harebells and sweet lilies show a thornless growth,
But the rose with all its thorns excels them both.

God to this agony brought me—did he plan
In far-off days the mode to bear me through?
Is not one point unknown to him and new,
Though strange to suffering man?
Can he who sees the whole
Bear through the darkness threatening from afar,
Even as a small but unextinguished star,
The vessel of my soul?

They “sealed” the sepulchre and “made it sure,”
“Setting a watch”—but yet …
Can God's light traverse even the ways obscure
Where death's and horror's ice-cold hands have met?
Us the foul horror chills:
O God of sunlight, canst thou pierce the gloom?
The tomb of Jesus was an empty tomb;
My mother's? … Empty also, if God wills.

Samson stark at Dagon's knee
Gropes for column strong as he
When his ringlets grew & curled
Groped for axle of the world