What the Ghost of the Gambler Said

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1. The Ghost of Miltiades The Ghost of Miltiades came at night, And he stood by the bed of the Benthamite, And he said, in a voice, that thrill’d the frame, “If ever the sound of Marathon’s name Hath fir’d they blood or flush’d thy brow, Lover of Liberty, rise thee now!” The Benthamite, yawning, left his bed Away to […]...
2. Mazie's Ghost In London City I evade For charming Burlington Arcade – For thee in youth I met a maid By name of Mazie, Who lost no time in telling me The Ritz put up a topping tea, But having only shillings three My smile was hazy. :Instead,” said I, “it might be sport To take a […]...
3. Possession That which we had we still possess, Though leaves may drop and stars may fall; No circumstance can make it less Or take it from us, all in all. That which is lost we did not own; We only held it for a day A leaf by careless breezes blown: No fate could take our […]...
4. Sackcloth I made sackcloth also my garment; and I became a proverb to them. They that sit in the gate speak against me; and I was the song of drunkards. Psalm 102 I made sackcloth my garment once, by cutting Arm and neck holes into a burlap bag. A croker sack they called it. Sackdragger They […]...
5. The Little Ghost I knew her for a little ghost That in my garden walked; The wall is high-higher than most- And the green gate was locked. And yet I did not think of that Till after she was gone- I knew her by the broad white hat, All ruffled, she had on. By the dear ruffles round […]...
6. THE GHOST SOFTLY as brown-eyed Angels rove I will return to thy alcove, And glide upon the night to thee, Treading the shadows silently. And I will give to thee, my own, Kisses as icy as the moon, And the caresses of a snake Cold gliding in the thorny brake. And when returns the livid morn Thou […]...
7. A Florida Ghost Down mildest shores of milk-white sand, By cape and fair Floridian bay, Twixt billowy pines a surf asleep on land And the great Gulf at play, Past far-off palms that filmed to nought, Or in and out the cunning keys That laced the land like fragile patterns wrought To edge old broideries, The sail sighed […]...
8. Room Ghost Though elegance I ill afford, My living-room is green and gold; The former tenant was a lord Who died of drinking, I am told. I fancy he was rather bored; I don’t think he was over old. And where on books I dully browse, And gaze in rapture at the sea, My predecessor world carouse […]...
9. The Spider and the Ghost of the Fly Once I loved a spider When I was born a fly, A velvet-footed spider With a gown of rainbow-dye. She ate my wings and gloated. She bound me with a hair. She drove me to her parlor Above her winding stair. To educate young spiders She took me all apart. My ghost came back to […]...
10. What A Writer what i liked about e. e. cummings Was that he cut away from The holiness of the Word And with charm And gamble Gave us lines That sliced through the Dung. How it was needed! How we were withering Away In the old Tired Manner. Of course, then came all The e. e. cummings Copyists. […]...
11. Ended, ere it begun Ended, ere it begun The Title was scarcely told When the Preface perished from Consciousness The Story, unrevealed Had it been mine, to print! Had it been yours, to read! That it was not Our privilege The interdict of God...
12. At Midnight Now at last I have come to see what life is, Nothing is ever ended, everything only begun, And the brave victories that seem so splendid Are never really won. Even love that I built my spirit’s house for, Comes like a brooding and a baffled guest, And music and men’s praise and even laughter […]...
13. Femina Contra Mundum The sun was black with judgment, and the moon Blood: but between I saw a man stand, saying: ‘To me at least The grass is green. ‘There was no star that I forgot to fear With love and wonder. The birds have loved me’; but no answer came Only the thunder. Once more the man […]...
14. The only Ghost I ever saw The only Ghost I ever saw Was dressed in Mechlin so He wore no sandal on his foot And stepped like flakes of snow His Gait was soundless, like the Bird But rapid like the Roe His fashions, quaint, Mosaic Or haply, Mistletoe His conversation seldom His laughter, like the Breeze That dies away in […]...
15. The Ghost I went back to the clanging city, I went back where my old loves stayed, But my heart was full of my new love’s glory, My eyes were laughing and unafraid. I met one who had loved me madly And told his love for all to hear But we talked of a thousand things together, […]...
16. Ghost There is a jaggle of masonry here, on a small hill Above the gray-mouthed Pacific, cottages and a thick-walled tower, all made of rough sea rock And Portland cement. I imagine, fifty years from now, A mist-gray figure moping about this place in mad moonlight, examining the mortar-joints, pawing the Parasite ivy: “Does the place […]...
17. The Ghost Peace in thy hands, Peace in thine eyes, Peace on thy brow; Flower of a moment in the eternal hour, Peace with me now. Not a wave breaks, Not a bird calls, My heart, like a sea, Silent after a storm that hath died, Sleeps within me. All the night’s dews, All the world’s leaves, […]...
18. Falstaff's Lament Over Prince Hal Become Henry V One that I cherished, Yea, loved as a son – Up early, up late with, My promising one: No use in good nurture, None, lads, none! Here on this settle He wore the true crown, King of good fellows, And Fat Jack was one – Now, Beadle of England In formal array – Best fellow […]...
19. 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 […]...
20. The Ghost Of The Past We two kept house, the Past and I, The Past and I; I tended while it hovered nigh, Leaving me never alone. It was a spectral housekeeping Where fell no jarring tone, As strange, as still a housekeeping As ever has been known. As daily I went up the stair, And down the stair, I […]...
21. The Ghost of the Murderer's Hut My horse had been lamed in the foot In the rocks at the back of the run, So I camped at the Murderer’s Hut, At the place where the murder was done. The walls were all spattered with gore, A terrible symbol of guilt; And the bloodstains were fresh on the floor Where the blood […]...
22. Ghost House I DWELL in a lonely house I know That vanished many a summer ago, And left no trace but the cellar walls, And a cellar in which the daylight falls, And the purple-stemmed wild raspberries grow. O’er ruined fences the grape-vines shield The woods come back to the mowing field; The orchard tree has grown […]...
23. The Recall The night was dark when she went away, and the slept. The night is dark now, and I call for her, “Come back, my Darling; the world is asleep; and no one would know, if you came For a moment while stars are gazing at stars.” She went away when the trees were in bud […]...
24. Testimony Regarding a Ghost THE ROSES slanted crimson sobs On the night sky hair of the women, And the long light-fingered men Spoke to the dark-haired women, “Nothing lovelier, nothing lovelier.” How could he sit there among us all Guzzling blood into his guts, Goblets, mugs, buckets- Leaning, toppling, laughing With a slobber on his mouth, A smear of […]...
25. Socrates Ghost Must Haunt Me Now Socrates ghost must haunt me now, Notorious death has let him go, He comes to me with a clumsy bow, Saying in his disused voice, That I do not know I do not know, The mechanical whims of appetite Are all that I have of conscious choice, The butterfly caged in eclectic light Is my […]...
26. Community Garden I watch the man bend over his patch, A fat gunny sack at his feet. He combs the earth with his fingers, picks up pebbles around Tiny heads of sorrel. Clouds bruise in, clog the sky, the first fat drops pock-mark the dust. The man wipes his hands on his chest, opens the sack, pulls […]...
27. The Ghost Of Roger Casement O what has made that sudden noise? What on the threshold stands? It never crossed the sea because John Bull and the sea are friends; But this is not the old sea Nor this the old seashore. What gave that roar of mockery, That roar in the sea’s roar? The ghost of Roger Casement Is […]...
28. A Christmas Ghost Story South of the Line, inland from far Durban, A mouldering soldier lies your countryman. Awry and doubled up are his gray bones, And on the breeze his puzzled phantom moans Nightly to clear Canopus: “I would know By whom and when the All-Earth-gladdening Law Of Peace, brought in by that Man Crucified, Was ruled to […]...
29. Shakespeare's Ghost – A Parody I, too, at length discerned great Hercules’ energy mighty, Saw his shade. He himself was not, alas, to be seen. Round him were heard, like the screaming of birds, The screams of tragedians, And, with the baying of dogs, barked dramaturgists around. There stood the giant in all his terrors; his bow was extended, And […]...
30. Spartan Mother My mother loved her horses and Her hounds of pedigree; She did not kiss the baby hand I held to her in glee. Of course I had a sweet nou-nou Who tended me with care, And mother reined her nag to view Me with a critic air. So I went to a famous school, But […]...
31. The Gamblers Life’s a jail where men have common lot. Gaunt the one who has, and who has not. All our treasures neither less nor more, Bread alone comes thro’ the guarded door. Cards are foolish in this jail, I think, Yet they play for shoes, for drabs and drink. She, my lawless, sharp-tongued gypsy maid Will […]...
32. My Lute Awake My lute awake! perform the last Labour that thou and I shall waste, And end that I have now begun; For when this song is sung and past, My lute be still, for I have done. As to be heard where ear is none, As lead to grave in marble stone, My song may pierce […]...
33. The Frost of Death was on the Pane The Frost of Death was on the Pane “Secure your Flower” said he. Like Sailors fighting with a Leak We fought Mortality. Our passive Flower we held to Sea To Mountain To the Sun Yet even on his Scarlet shelf To crawl the Frost begun We pried him back Ourselves we wedged Himself and her […]...
34. Any Other Time ALL of us play our very best game – Any other time. Golf or billiards, it’s all the same – Any other time. Lose a match and you always say, “Just my luck! I was ‘off’ to-day! I could have beaten him quite half-way – Any other time!” After a fiver you ought to go […]...
35. Nursing You On the first night Of the full moon, The primeval sack of ocean Broke, & I gave birth to you Little woman, Little carrot top, Little turned-up nose, Pushing you out of myself As my mother Pushed Me out of herself, As her mother did, & her mother’s mother before her, All of us born […]...
36. Overhead The Tree-Tops Meet Overhead the tree-tops meet, Flowers and grass spring ‘neath one’s feet; There was nought above me, and nought below, My childhood had not learned to know: For what are the voices of birds -Ay, and of beasts,-but words-our words, Only so much more sweet? The knowledge of that with my life begun! But I had […]...
37. That is solemn we have ended That is solemn we have ended Be it but a Play Or a Glee among the Garret Or a Holiday Or a leaving Home, or later, Parting with a World We have understood for better Still to be explained....
38. While Gazing on the Moon's Light While gazing on the moon’s light, A moment from her smile I turn’d, To look at orbs that, more bright, In lone and distant glory burn’d. But too far Each proud star, For me to feel its warming flame; Much more dear That mild sphere, Which near our planet smiling came; Thus, Mary, be but […]...
39. Athor and Asar [Dedicated to Frank Harris, editor of Vanity Fair] On the black night, beneath the winter moon, I clothed me in the limbs of Codia, Swooning my soul out into her red throat, So that the glimmer of our skins, the tune Og our ripe rythm, seemed the hideous play Of death-worms crawling on a corpse, […]...
40. The Ape And God Son put a poser up to me That made me scratch my head: “God made the whole wide world,” quoth he; “That’s right, my boy,” I said. Said son: “He mad the mountains soar, And all the plains lie flat; But Dad, what did he do before He did all that? Said I: “Creation was […]...