Contentment

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1. Contentment “Man wants but little here below.” LITTLE I ask; my wants are few; I only wish a hut of stone, (A very plain brown stone will do,) That I may call my own; And close at hand is such a one, In yonder street that fronts the sun. Plain food is quite enough for me; […]...
2. Vain Venture To have a business of my own With toil and tears, I wore my fingers to the bone For weary years. With stoic heart, for sordid gold In patient pain My life and liberty I sold For others gain. I scrimped and scraped, as cent by cent My savings grew; I found a faded shop […]...
3. Some Like Poetry Write it. Write. In ordinary ink On ordinary paper: they were given no food, They all died of hunger. “All. How many? It’s a big meadow. How much grass For each one?” Write: I don’t know. History counts its skeletons in round numbers. A thousand and one remains a thousand, As though the one had […]...
4. The Ghost Down the street as I was drifting with the city’s human tide, Came a ghost, and for a moment walked in silence by my side Now my heart was hard and bitter, and a bitter spirit he, So I felt no great aversion to his ghostly company. Said the Shade: ‘At finer feelings let your […]...
5. Ripe Fruit Through eyelet holes I watched the crowd Rain of confetti fling; Their joy is lush, their laughter loud, For Carnival is King. Behind his chariot I pace To ean my petty pay; They laugh to see my monster face: “Ripe Fruit,” I hear them say. I do not laugh: my shoulders sag; No heart have […]...
6. Contentment (Phillipians, iv.11) Fierce passions discompose the mind, As tempests vex the sea, But calm, content and peace we find, When, Lord, we turn to Thee. In vain by reason and by rule We try to bend the will; For none but in the Saviour’s school Can learn the heavenly skill. Since at His feet my […]...
7. Contentment If any line that I ever penned, Or any word I have spoken, Has comforted heart of foe or friend – In any way, why my life, I’ll say, Has reaped the reward of labour, If aught I have said, or written, has made Gladder the heart o’ my neighbour. If any deed that I […]...
8. Brave New World One spoke: “Come, let us gaily go With laughter, love and lust, Since in a century or so We’ll all be boneyard dust. When unborn shadows hold the screen, (Our betters, I’ll allow) ‘Twill be as if we’d never been, A hundred years from now. When we have played life’s lively game Right royally we’ll […]...
9. Expectation is Contentment Expectation is Contentment Gain Satiety But Satiety Conviction Of Necessity Of an Austere trait in Pleasure Good, without alarm Is a too established Fortune Danger deepens Sum...
10. The Lost Master “And when I come to die,” he said, “Ye shall not lay me out in state, Nor leave your laurels at my head, Nor cause your men of speech orate; No monument your gift shall be, No column in the Hall of Fame; But just this line ye grave for me: ‘He played the game.'” […]...
11. A Canvas For A Crust Aye, Montecelli, that’s the name. You may have heard of him perhaps. Yet though he never savoured fame, Of those impressionistic chaps, Monet and Manet and Renoir He was the avatar. He festered in a Marseilles slum, A starving genius, god-inspired. You’d take him for a lousy bum, Tho’ poetry of paint he lyred, In […]...
12. Music I Heard Music I heard with you was more than music, And bread I broke with you was more than bread; Now that I am without you, all is desolate; All that was once so beautiful is dead. Your hands once touched this table and this silver, And I have seen your fingers hold this glass. These […]...
13. Hobo A father’s pride I used to know, A mother’s love was mine; For swinish husks I let them go, And bedded with the swine. Since then I’ve come on evil days And most of life is hell; But even swine have winsome ways When once you know them well. One time I guessed I’d cease […]...
14. My Book Before I drink myself to death, God, let me finish up my Book! At night, I fear, I fight for breath, And wake up whiter than a spook; And crawl off to a bistro near, And drink until my brain is clear. Rare Absinthe! Oh, it gives me strength To write and write; and so […]...
15. Poor Poet ‘A man should write to please himself,’ He proudly said. Well, see his poems on the shelf, Dusty, unread. When he came to my shop each day, So peaked and cold, I’d sneak one of his books away And say ’twas sold. And then by chance he looked below, And saw a stack Of his […]...
16. Cacoethes Scribendi If all the trees in all the woods were men; And each and every blade of grass a pen; If every leaf on every shrub and tree Turned to a sheet of foolscap; every sea Were changed to ink, and all earth’s living tribes Had nothing else to do but act as scribes, And for […]...
17. Nothing Gold Can Stay Nature’s first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf’s a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay....
18. Hymn 158 Few saved; or, The almost Christian, the hypocrite, and apostate. Broad is the road that leads to death, And thousands walk together there; But wisdom shows a narrower path, With here and there a traveller. “Deny thyself, and take thy cross,” Is the Redeemer’s great command; Nature must count her gold but dross, If she […]...
19. The Candle Indoors Some candle clear burns somewhere I come by. I muse at how its being puts blissful back With yellowy moisture mild night’s blear-all black, Or to-fro tender trambeams truckle at the eye. By that window what task what fingers ply, I plod wondering, a-wanting, just for lack Of answer the eagerer a-wanting Jessy or Jack […]...
20. Going to Him! Happy letter! Going to Him! Happy letter! Tell Him Tell Him the page I didn’t write Tell Him I only said the Syntax And left the Verb and the pronoun out Tell Him just how the fingers hurried Then how they waded slow slow And then you wished you had eyes in your pages So you could […]...
21. What Shall I Do For the Land that Bred Me What shall I do for the land that bred me, Her homes and fields that folded and fed me?- Be under her banner and live for her honour: Under her banner I’ll live for her honour. CHORUS. Under her banner live for her honour. Not the pleasure, the pay, the plunder, But country and flag, […]...
22. Houses Of Dreams You took my empty dreams And filled them every one With tenderness and nobleness, April and the sun. The old empty dreams Where my thoughts would throng Are far too full of happiness To even hold a song. Oh, the empty dreams were dim And the empty dreams were wide, They were sweet and shadowy […]...
23. Galoots GALOOTS, you hairy, hankering, Snousle on the bones you eat, chew at the gristle and lick the last of it. Grab off the bones in the paws of other galoots-hook your claws in their sleazy mouths-snap and run. If long-necks sit on their rumps and sing wild cries to the winter moon, chasing their tails […]...
24. Longevity Said Brown: ‘I can’t afford to die For I have bought annuity, And every day of living I Have money coming in to me: While others toil to make their bread I make mine by not being dead.’ Said Jones: ‘I can’t afford to die, For I have books and books to write. I do […]...
25. Old Trouper I was Mojeska’s leading man And famous parts I used to play, But now I do the best I can To earn my bread from day to day; Here in this Burg of Breaking Hears, Where one wins as a thousand fail, I play a score of scurvy parts Till Time writes Finis to my […]...
26. Hymn 34 part 1 The gospel the power of God to salvation. Rom. 1:16. What shall the dying sinner do That seeks relief for all his woe? Where shall the guilty conscience find Ease for the torment of the mind? How shall we get our crimes forgiv’n? Or form our natures fit for heav’n? Can souls all o’er defiled […]...
27. " I'm A Jazz Singer, " She Replied He dug what she said: Bright jellies, smooth marmalade Spread on warm brown bread. “Jazz” from drowsy lips Orchids lift to honeybees Floating on long sips. “Jazz”: quick fingerpops Pancake on a griddle-top Of memories. Stop. “Jazz”: mysterious As nutmeg, missing fingers, Gold, Less serious. “Jazz”: cool bannister. Don’t need no stair. Ways to climb […]...
28. Kittens A ray of sun strayed softly round, For something to caress, Until a resting place it found Of joy and thankfulness; ‘Twas Minette, our Angora cat, With deep contented purr, Relaxed in rapture on a mat, Three kittens nuzzling her. With tenderness the sunbeam kissed Her fur of silver-grey; Her eyes held an ecstatic mist, […]...
29. Balloon I bought my little grandchild Ann A bright balloon, And I was such a happy man To hear her croon. She laughed and babbled with delight, So gold its glow, As by a thread she held it tight, Then let it go. As if it gloried to be free It climbed the sky; But oh […]...
30. Neighbours My neighbour has a field of wheat And I a rood of vine; And he will give me bread to eat, And I will give him wine. And so we are a jolly pair, Contentedly unwed, Singing with supper as we share Red wine and crusty bread. Now venison is mighty meat And so is […]...
31. Michael “There’s something in your face, Michael, I’ve seen it all the day; There’s something quare that wasn’t there when first ye wint away. . . .” “It’s just the Army life, mother, the drill, the left and right, That puts the stiffinin’ in yer spine and locks yer jaw up tight. . . .” “There’s […]...
32. My Inner Life ‘Tis true my garments threadbare are, And sorry poor I seem; But inly I am richer far Than any poet’s dream. For I’ve a hidden life no one Can ever hope to see; A sacred sanctuary none May share with me. Aloof I stand from out the strife, Within my heart a song; By virtue […]...
33. Golden Days Another day of toil and strife, Another page so white, Within that fateful Log of Life That I and all must write; Another page without a stain To make of as I may, That done, I shall not see again Until the Judgment Day. Ah, could I, could I backward turn The pages of that […]...
34. Cornish Lullaby Out on the mountain over the town, All night long, all night long, The trolls go up and the trolls go down, Bearing their packs and crooning a song; And this is the song the hill-folk croon, As they trudge in the light of the misty moon, This is ever their dolorous tune: “Gold, gold! […]...
35. The Mole Said he: “I’ll dive deep in the Past, And write a book of direful days When summer skies were overcast With smoke of humble hearths ablaze; When War was rampant in the land, And poor folk cowered in the night, While ruin gaped on every hand – Of ravishing and wrath I’ll write.” Ten years […]...
36. Laziness Let laureates sing with rapturous swing Of the wonder and glory of work; Let pulpiteers preach and with passion impeach The indolent wretches who shirk. No doubt they are right: in the stress of the fight It’s the slackers who go to the wall; So though it’s my shame I perversely proclaim It’s fine to […]...
37. Our Daily Bread “Give me my daily bread. It seems so odd, When all is done and said, This plea to God. To pray for cake might be The thing to do; But bread, it seems to me, Is just our due. “Give me my daily toil,” I ought to say – (If from life’s cursed coil I’d […]...
38. The Ballad Of Hank The Finn Now Fireman Flynn met Hank the Finn where lights of Lust-land glow; “Let’s leave,” says he, “the lousy sea, and give the land a show. I’m fed up to the molar mark with wallopin’ the brine; I feel the bloody barnacles a-carkin’ on me spine. Let’s hit the hard-boiled North a crack, where creeks are […]...
39. I Will Not Fight I will not fight: though proud of pith I hold no one worth striving with; And should resentment burn my breast I deem that silence serves me best: So having not a word to say, Contemptuous I turn away. I will not fret: my rest of life Free I will keep from hate and strife; […]...
40. Childhood I The bitterness. the misery, the wretchedness of childhood Put me out of love with God. I can’t believe in God’s goodness; I can believe In many avenging gods. Most of all I believe In gods of bitter dullness, Cruel local gods Who scared my childhood. II I’ve seen people put A chrysalis in a […]...