Short Poems

Stomach-ache can be a curse;
heart-ache may be even worse;
so thank Heaven on your knees
if you've got but one of these.

A wooden bow and rush grass for an arrow:
A carpenter unskilled and a palace to build:
A shop unlocked in a busy bazaar:
A body uncleansed by waters holy-
Oh dear! who knows what hath befallen me?

I'm Sure every Word that you say is Absurd;
I Say it's All Gummidge and Twaddle;
You may Argue away till the 19th of May,
But I don't like the Sound of the Moddle!

I may not clasp thy hand while I
Thus with with all my heart
That good will keep thee constantly
From sin and pain apart.

lost in the fog ~
an old man in the street
chanting 'Ram, Ram'.

It is very nice to think
The world is full of meat and drink,
With little children saying grace
In every Christian kind of place.

Cried Age to Youth: 'Abate your speed!
The distance hither's brief indeed.'
But Youth pressed on without delay
The shout had reached but half the way

BLYTHE bell, that calls to bridal halls,
Tolls deep a darker day;
The very shower that feeds the flower
Weeps also its decay.

A toadstool comes up in a night, -
Learn the lesson, little folk: -
An oak grows on a hundred years,
But then it is an oak.

I'm bin a-visitun 'bout a week
To my little Cousin's at Nameless Creek,
An' I'm got the hives an' a new straw hat,
An' I'm come back home where my beau lives at.