Little Ballads Of Timely Warning; II: On Malicious Cruelty To Harmless Creatures

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1. Little Ballads Of Timely Warning; III: On Laziness And Its Resultant Ills There was a man in New York City (His name was George Adolphus Knight) So soft of heart he wept with pity To see our language and its plight. He mourned to see it sorely goaded With silent letters left and right; These from his own name he unloaded And wrote it Georg Adolfus Nit. […]...
2. False Notions, Fears, And Other Things Of Wood Repeatedly, that sturdy stump in me Bears up like stone, Beneath some ritual I see: The blinding axe Swings up, holds, That moment of its weightlessness Inscrutable Till I confirm the arm is mine; I will it, grip, Feel moist the swelling handle, The shudder rude, The difference fallen. Toward that chopping block I carry […]...
3. The Warning For love-I would Split open your head and put A candle in Behind the eyes. Love is dead in us If we forget The virtues of an amulet And quick surprise....
4. Cruelty and Love What large, dark hands are those at the window Lifted, grasping in the yellow light Which makes its way through the curtain web At my heart to-night? Ah, only the leaves! So leave me at rest, In the west I see a redness come Over the evening’s burning breast For now the pain is numb. […]...
5. Brown Penny I whispered, ‘I am too young,’ And then, ‘I am old enough’; Wherefore I threw a penny To find out if I might love. ‘Go and love, go and love, young man, If the lady be young and fair.’ Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny, I am looped in the loops of her hair. O […]...
6. THE WARNING Beware! The Israelite of old, who tore The lion in his path, when, poor and blind, He saw the blessed light of heaven no more, Shorn of his noble strength and forced to grind In prison, and at last led forth to be A pander to Philistine revelry, Upon the pillars of the temple laid […]...
7. Warning to Children Children, if you dare to think Of the greatness, rareness, muchness Fewness of this precious only Endless world in which you say You live, you think of things like this: Blocks of slate enclosing dappled Red and green, enclosing tawny Yellow nets, enclosing white And black acres of dominoes, Where a neat brown paper parcel […]...
8. Warning PURE at heart we wander now: Comrade on the quest divine, Turn not from the stars your brow That your eyes may rest on mine. Pure at heart we wander now: We have hopes beyond to-day; And our quest does not allow Rest or dreams along the way. We are, in our distant hope, One […]...
9. This Lady's Cruelty WITH how sad steps, O moon, thou climb’st the skies! How silently, and with how wan a face! What! may it be that even in heavenly place That busy archer his sharp arrows tries? Sure, if that long-with-love-acquainted eyes Can judge of love, thou feel’st a lover’s case: I read it in thy looks; thy […]...
10. Sublime Was the Warning Sublime was the warning that liberty spoke, And grand was the moment when Spaniards awoke Into life and revenge from the conqueror’s chain. Oh, Liberty! let not this spirit have rest, Till it move, like a breeze, o’er the waves of the west Give the light of your look to each sorrowing spot, Nor, oh, […]...
11. Barefoot Loving me with my shows off Means loving my long brown legs, Sweet dears, as good as spoons; And my feet, those two children Let out to play naked. Intricate nubs, My toes. No longer bound. And what’s more, see toenails and All ten stages, root by root. All spirited and wild, this little Piggy […]...
12. Makers And Creatures It is a curious experience And one you”re bound to know, though probably In other realms than that of literature, Though I speak of poems now, assuming That you are interested, otherwise, Of course, you wouldn”t be reading this. It is strange to come across a poem In an old magazine, perhaps, and fail At […]...
13. Cold-Blooded Creatures Man, the egregious egoist (In mystery the twig is bent) Imagines, by some mental twist, That he alone is sentient Of the intolerable load That on all living creatures lies, Nor stoops to pity in the toad The speechless sorrow of his eyes. He asks no questions of the snake, Nor plumbs the phosphorescent gloom […]...
14. Sonnet XVI: Mongst All the Creatures An Allusion to the Phoenix ‘Mongst all the creatures in this spacious round Of the birds’ kind, the Phoenix is alone, Which best by you of living things is known; None like to that, none like to you is found. Your beauty is the hot and splend’rous sun, The precious spices be your chaste desire, […]...
15. You'll know Her by Her Foot You’ll know Her by Her Foot The smallest Gamboge Hand With Fingers where the Toes should be Would more affront the Sand Than this Quaint Creature’s Boot Adjusted by a Stern Without a Button I could vouch Unto a Velvet Limb You’ll know Her by Her Vest Tight fitting Orange Brown Inside a Jacket duller […]...
16. What Soft Cherubic Creatures What Soft Cherubic Creatures These Gentlewomen are One would as soon assault a Plush Or violate a Star Such Dimity Convictions A Horror so refined Of freckled Human Nature Of Deity ashamed It’s such a common Glory A Fisherman’s Degree Redemption Brittle Lady Be so ashamed of Thee...
17. Holy Sonnet XII: Why Are We By All Creatures Waited On? Why are we by all creatures waited on? Why do the prodigal elements supply Life and food to me, being more pure than I, Simple, and further from corruption? Why brook’st thou, ignorant horse, subjection? Why dost thou, bull, and bore so seelily, Dissemble weakness, and by one man’s stroke die, Whose whole kind you […]...
18. My Dog's My Boss Each day when it’s anighing three Old Dick looks at the clock, Then proudly brings my stick to me To mind me of our walk. And in his doggy rapture he Does everything but talk. But since I lack his zip and zest My old bones often tire; And so I ventured to suggest Today […]...
19. The Pobble Who Has No Toes The Pobble who has no toes Had once as many as we; When they said “Some day you may lose them all;” He replied “Fish, fiddle-de-dee!” And his Aunt Jobiska made him drink Lavender water tinged with pink, For she said “The World in general knows There’s nothing so good for a Pobble’s toes!” The […]...
20. Sonnet 1: From fairest creatures we desire increase From fairest creatures we desire increase, That thereby beauty’s rose might never die, But as the riper should by time decease, His tender heir might bear his memory; But thou contracted to thine own bright eyes, Feed’st thy light’s flame with self-substantial fuel, Making a famine where abundance lies, Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet […]...
21. If I weep If I weep, if I come with excuses, my beloved puts cotton wool in his ears. Every cruelty which he commits becomes him, every cruelty which he commits I endure. If he accounts me nonexistent, I account his tyranny generosity. The cure of the ache of my heart is the ache for him; how shall […]...
22. Warning When I am an old woman I shall wear purple With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me. And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves And satin sandles, and say we’ve no money for butter. I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tired And gobble up […]...
23. WARNING WAKEN not Amor from sleep! The beauteous urchin still slumbers; Go, and complete thou the task, that to the day is assign’d! Thus doth the prudent mother with care turn time to her profit, While her babe is asleep, for ’twill awake but too soon. 1785.*...
24. THE WARNING WHEN sounds the trumpet at the Judgment Day, And when forever all things earthly die, We must a full and true account supply Of ev’ry useless word we dropp’d in play. But what effect will all the words convey Wherein with eager zeal and lovingly, That I might win thy favour, labour’d I, If on […]...
25. A Warning To My Readers Do not think me gentle Because I speak in praise Of gentleness, or elegant Because I honor the grace That keeps this world. I am A man crude as any, Gross of speech, intolerant, Stubborn, angry, full Of fits and furies. That I May have spoken well At times, is not natural. A wonder is […]...
26. Fore-Warning I’d rather be the Jester than the Minstrel of the King; I’d rather jangle cap and bells than twang the stately harp; I’d rather make his royal ribs with belly-laughter ring, Than see him sitting in the suds and sulky as a carp. I’d rather be the Court buffoon than its most high-browed sage: So […]...
27. Ninon De Lenclos, On Her Last Birthday So let me have the rouge again, And comb my hair the curly way. The poor young men, the dear young men They’ll all be here by noon today. And I shall wear the blue, I think- They beg to touch its rippled lace; Or do they love me best in pink, So sweetly flattering […]...
28. Before I got my eye put out Before I got my eye put out I liked as well to see As other Creatures, that have Eyes And know no other way But were it told to me Today That I might have the sky For mine I tell you that my Heart Would split, for size of me The Meadows mine The […]...
29. The Gardener The gardener does not love to talk, He makes me keep the gravel walk; And when he puts his tools away, He locks the door and takes the key. Away behind the currant row Where no one else but cook may go, Far in the plots, I see him dig Old and serious, brown and […]...
30. Exchanges All that I had I brought, Little enough I know; A poor rhyme roughly wrought, A rose to match thy snow: All that I had I brought. Little enough I sought: But a word compassionate, A passing glance, or thought, For me outside the gate: Little enough I sought. Little enough I found: All that […]...
31. 16. A Prayer under the Pressure of Violent Anguish O THOU Great Being! what Thou art, Surpasses me to know; Yet sure I am, that known to Thee Are all Thy works below. Thy creature here before Thee stands, All wretched and distrest; Yet sure those ills that wring my soul Obey Thy high behest. Sure, Thou, Almighty, canst not act From cruelty or […]...
32. 545. Song-Mally's meek, Mally's sweet Chorus-Mally’s meek, Mally’s sweet, Mally’s modest and discreet; Mally’s rare, Mally’s fair, Mally’s every way complete. AS I was walking up the street, A barefit maid I chanc’d to meet; But O the road was very hard For that fair maiden’s tender feet. Mally’s meek, &c. It were mair meet that those fine feet Were […]...
33. Poem (The spirit likes to dress up…) The spirit likes to dress up like this: ten fingers, ten toes, Shoulders, and all the rest at night in the black branches, in the morning In the blue branches of the world. It could float, of course, but would rather Plumb rough matter. Airy and shapeless thing, it needs the metaphor of the body, […]...
34. Speak Roughly to Your Little Boy And with that she Began nursing her child again, singing a sort of Lullaby to it as she did so, and giving it a vio­ Lent shake at the end of every line: “Speak roughly to your little boy, And beat him when he sneezes; He only does it to annoy, Because he knows it […]...
35. Two Tramps In Mud Time Out of the mud two strangers came And caught me splitting wood in the yard, And one of them put me off my aim By hailing cheerily “Hit them hard!” I knew pretty well why he had dropped behind And let the other go on a way. I knew pretty well what he had in […]...
36. The Division Of The Earth “Take the world!” Zeus exclaimed from his throne in the skies To the children of man “take the world I now give; It shall ever remain as your heirloom and prize, So divide it as brothers, and happily live.” Then all who had hands sought their share to obtain, The young and the aged made […]...
37. Fiddle-Dee-Dee There once was a bird that lived up in a tree, And all he could whistle was “Fiddle-dee-dee” – A very provoking, unmusical song For one to be whistling the summer day long! Yet always contented and busy was he With that vocal recurrence of “Fiddle-dee-dee.” Hard by lived a brave little soldier of four, […]...
38. The Ballad Of Moll Magee Come round me, little childer; There, don’t fling stones at me Because I mutter as I go; But pity Moll Magee. My man was a poor fisher With shore lines in the say; My work was saltin’ herrings The whole of the long day. And sometimes from the Saltin’ shed I scarce could drag my […]...
39. 39. Ballad on the American War WHEN Guilford good our pilot stood An’ did our hellim thraw, man, Ae night, at tea, began a plea, Within America, man: Then up they gat the maskin-pat, And in the sea did jaw, man; An’ did nae less, in full congress, Than quite refuse our law, man. Then thro’ the lakes Montgomery takes, I […]...
40. Autumn Valentine In May my heart was breaking- Oh, wide the wound, and deep! And bitter it beat at waking, And sore it split in sleep. And when it came November, I sought my heart, and sighed, “Poor thing, do you remember?” “What heart was that?” it cried....