Short Poems

I blame him not, who having one wife had,
Another seeks; the last was good or bad;
If good, he hopes there are of such good store;
If bad, he hopes he shall have such no more.

Sir,
You have giv'n us Poets entertainment,
Good chear and wine; we give you Poets payment,
Good words and rythme; but you out-do us here,
You match our Rythme; but we can't match your chear.
And here's the reason, which our Muses grieves,
Sheriffs are made Poets, but nere Poets Sheriffs.

There was a young man went to college
Inflamed with a thirst after knowledge
But was hazed so severely
That he saw very clearly
That he'd better have not come to College.

When all your days are dark with doubt,
And dying hope is at its worst;
When all life's balls are scattered wide,
With not a shot in sight, to left or right,
Don't give it up;
Advance your cue and shut your eyes,
And take the cushion first.

How long must we two hide the burning gaze,
And look by stealth in one another's eyes?
Let us proclaim our love; and whoso stays
The sweet embrace that lulls all miseries—
The sword's our doctor: best that you and I
Should live together, or together die.

Within my soul, like flames of living fire,
I feel the burning heat of strong desire
And, speeding like full many an arrow's dart,
Thought after thought swift courses through my heart,
I seize my pen with eager fond delight,
Breathe on, sweet Muse of song, that I may write.

How shall we mourn you who are killed and wasted,
sure that you would not die with your work unended,
as if the iron scythe in the grass stops for a flower?

I am tired of work; I am tired of building up somebody else's civilization.
Let us take a rest, M'Lissy Jane.
I will go down to the Last Chance Saloon, drink a gallon or two of gin, shoot a game or two of dice and sleep the rest of the night on one of Mike's barrels.
You will let the old shanty go to rot, the white people's clothes turn to dust, and the Calvary Baptist Church sink to the bottomless pit.
You will spend your days forgetting you married me and your nights hunting the warm gin Mike serves the ladies in the rear of the Last Chance Saloon.

O CURST with wide desires and spacious dreams,
Too cunningly do ye accumulate
Appliances and means of Happiness
E'er to be happy! Lavish hosts, ye make
Elaborate preparation to receive
A shy and simple guest, who, warned of all
The ceremony and circumstance with which
Ye mean to entertain her, will not come.

If I, by wondrous fate, possessed
The all-transmuting Alkahest,
Famed to resolve the World's Contents
Into their mother elements,
I then might change thee by its powers
Back to the ingredients of the flowers!
But ah, what sovereign sorcery could
Witch them again to Womanhood?