Short Poems

The fisher's clothes, though cheap, withstand
The drenching they receive;
But see! my floods of tears have blurred
The colours of my sleeve,
As for thy love I grieve.

COLUMBUS-LIKE, I sailed into the night,
The sunset gold to find:
Alas! 't was but the phantom of the light!
Life's Indies lay behind!

The rock divides the stream in two,
And both with might and main
Go tumbling down the waterfall;
But well I know the twain
Will soon unite again.

Zeenty, teenty, halligo lum,
Pitchin' tawties doun the lum.
Wha's there? Johnnie Blair.
What d'ye want? A bottle o' beer.
Where's your money? In my purse.
Where's your purse? In my pocket.
Where's your pocket? I forgot it.
Go down the stair, you silly blockhead.

At daybreak,
the great steam horn
sounds from the ship
its echo lingering;
the mountains arrayed.

Charles, would yee quaile your foes, haue better luck;
Send forth some Drakes, and keep at home the ducke.

She 's gone!—the dear companion of my bed,
And with her ev'ry earthly bliss is fled;
An empty world is all I now can boast,
With her my ev'ry wish and joy was lost.

Love is the soothing voice of gods
To which men ever list.
Love is the ease of soul's travail
And sorrow's alchemist.

There stands a tree at our house-end,
It's a' clad owre wi' leather bend:
It'll fetch a bull, it'll fetch a bear,
It'll fetch a thousand men o' wear.

How melancholy! A nun stands alone,
Amid the insects sadly chirruping.