The Light o' the Moon
[How different people and different animals look upon the moon: showing that each creature finds in it his own mood and disposition] The Old Horse in the City The moon’s a peck of corn.
The Soul of the City Receives the Gift of the Holy Spirit
A BROADSIDE DISTRIBUTED IN SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS Censers are swinging, Over the town; Censers are swinging, Look overhead! Censers are swinging, Heaven comes down. City, dead city, Awake from the dead! Censers, tremendous, Gleam overhead.
In Memory of a Child
I The angels guide him now, And watch his curly head, And lead him in their games, The little boy we led. II He cannot come to harm, He knows more than we know,
The Raft
The whole world on a raft! A King is here, The record of his grandeur but a smear. Is it his deacon-beard, or old bald pate That makes the band upon his whims to
The Chinese Nightingale
A Song in Chinese Tapestries “How, how,” he said. “Friend Chang,” I said, “San Francisco sleeps as the dead- Ended license, lust and play: Why do you iron the night away? Your big clock
St. Francis of Assisi
Would I might wake St. Francis in you all, Brother of birds and trees, God’s Troubadour, Blinded with weeping for the sad and poor; Our wealth undone, all strict Franciscan men, Come, let us
The Prarie Battlements
(To Edgar Lee Masters, with great respect) HERE upon the prarie Is our ancestral hall. Agate is the dome, Cornelian the wall. Ghouls are in the cellar, But fays upon the stairs. And here
An Argument
I. THE VOICE OF THE MAN IMPATIENT WITH VISIONS AND UTOPIAS We find your soft Utopias as white As new-cut bread, and dull as life in cells, O, scribes who dare forget how wild
Mae Marsh, Motion Picture Actress
I The arts are old, old as the stones From which man carved the sphinx austere. Deep are the days the old arts bring: Ten thousand years of yesteryear. II She is madonna in
The Trap
She was taught desire in the street, Not at the angels’ feet. By the good no word was said Of the worth of the bridal bed. The secret was learned from the vile, Not
A Dirge for a Righteous Kitten
To be intoned, all but the two italicized lines, which are to be spoken in a snappy, matter-of-fact way. Ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong. Here lies a kitten good, who kept A kitten’s proper place. He
Genesis
I was but a half-grown boy, You were a girl-child slight. Ah, how weary you were! You had led in the bullock-fight… We slew the bullock at length With knives and maces of stone.
To Gloriana
GIRL with the burning golden eyes, And red-bird song, and snowy throat: I bring you gold and silver moons, And diamond stars, and mists that float. I bring you moons and snowy clouds, I
The City That Will Not Repent
Climbing the heights of Berkeley Nightly I watch the West. There lies new San Francisco, Sea-maid in purple dressed, Wearing a dancer’s girdle All to inflame desire: Scorning her days of sackcloth, Scorning her
The Santa-Fe Trail (A Humoresque)
I asked the old Negro, “What is that bird that sings so well?” He answered: “That is the Rachel-Jane.” “Hasn’t it another name, lark, or thrush, or the like?” “No. Jus’ Rachel-Jane.” I. IN