It surely is a scalawagA-scamping down the page.A pretty little May-windThe morning buds uncurling.And then the white sweet Russian,The dancer of the age.Your pen’s the Queen of Sheba,Such serious questions bringing,That merry rascal SolomonWould show a sober face:—And then again PavlovaTo set our spirits singing,The snowy-swan bacchanteAll glamour, glee and grace.
In an abandoned cañon,A Gambler’s Ghost arose.He muttered there, ‘The moon’s a sackOf dust.’ His voice rose thin:‘I wish I knew the miner-man.I’d play, and play to win.In every game in Cripple-creekOf old, when stakes were high,I held my own. Now I would playFor that sack in the sky.The sport would not be ended there.‘Twould…
And Night and Day revealed, whose arm aloneCould draw the face of God, the titan highWhose genius smote like lightning from the sky —And shall he mold like dead leaves in the grave?Nay he is in us! Let us dare and dare.God help us to be brave.
There he toils for the Kingdom of Heaven’s sake.Ah, he is taller than clouds of the little earth.Only the congress of planets is over him,And the arching path where new sweet stars have birth.Wearing his peasant dress, his head bent low,Tolstoi, that angel of Peace, is plowing yet;Forward, across the field, his horses go.
Creeping into their cages.Here’s to the fairy mice that biteThe elephants fat and wise:Hidden in the hay-pile while the elephant thunder rages.Here’s to the scurrying, timid miceThrough whom the proud cause dies.Here’s to the seeming accidentWhen all is planned and working,All the flywheels turning,Not a vassal shirking.Here’s to the hidden tunneling thingThat brings the mountain’s…
You blunder, but are not undone,Your spirit-task is fixed and strange.‘When here you walk, a bloodless shade,A singer all men else forget.Your chants of hammer, forge and spadeWill move the prarie-village yet.‘That young, stiff-necked, reviling townBeholds your fancies on her walls,And paints them out or tears them down,Or bars them from her feasting halls.‘Yet shall…
My soul is gray and faint,My faith is dying.Look you, I’ll go pray —‘Sweet Mary, make me clean,Thou rainstorm of the soul,Thou wine from worlds unseen.’
Any sky-bird sings,Ring, ring!Any church-chime rings,Dong ding!Any cannon says,Boom bang!Any whirlwind says,Whing whang!The bell-buoy hums and roars,Ding dong!And way down deep,Where fishes throng,By Davy Jones’ big deep?sea door,Shaking the ocean’s flowery floor,His door-bell boomsDong dong,Dong dong,Deep, deep down,Clang boom,Boom dong.
Under her arm till evening,Then sallies forth to war.She pours the owls upon us.They hoot with horrid noiseAnd eat the naughty mousie-girlsAnd wicked mousie-boys.So climb the moonvine every nightAnd to the owl-queen pray:Leave good green cheese by moonlit treesFor her to take away.And never squeak, my children,Nor gnaw the smoke-house door:The owl-queen then will love…
And if no Hindu he can get,The lion-family is upset.He cuffs his wife and bites her earsTill she is nearly moved to tears.Then some explorer finds the denAnd all is family peace again.
