Short Poems

There was a young Fir-tree of Bosnia
Which daily got ros'nier and ros'nier.
At last it caught fire
And flamed higher and higher
And the Angels said, "My! But that was near!'

The beetle soars, the beetle spins,
The beetle is up in the air, Tuck;
'Twill crack Robin's crown as a stamp for his sins,
Or make him defy old care, Tuck.

In time the day will come when dust whirls up from ocean floors;
and the mountaintop—will it not crumble to stones?
And who is it says a man in time will leave his woman too,
his boat sailing away, never to come again?

Flower, but not a flower,
mist, and yet not mist,
she comes in the night,
with daybreak departs,
comes like a spring dream, lasting how long?
Departs like dawn clouds, nowhere to be found.

A world I did not wish to enter
Took me and poised me on my centre,
Made me grimace, and foot, and prance,
As cats on hot bricks have to dance
Strange jigs to keep them from the floor,
Till they sink down and feel no more.

Minnie bakes oaten cakes,
Minnie brews ale,
All because her Johnny's coming
Home from sea.
And she glows like a rose,
Who was so pale,
And “Are you sure the church clock goes?”

Intelligence and courtesy not always are combined;
Often in a wooden house a golden room we find.

Mudge every morning to the Postern comes,
(His teeth all out) to rince and wash his gummes.

God (as the learned Damascen doth write)
A Sea of Substance is, Indefinite.

The only comfort of my life
Is, that I never yet had wife;
Nor will hereafter; since I know
Who Weds, ore-buyes his weal with woe.