THE NAUGHTY PREPOSITION

I lately lost a preposition:
It is, I thought, beneath my chair.
And angrily I cried: 'Perdition!
Up from out of in under there!'

Correctness is my vade mecum,
And straggling phrases I abhor;
And yet I wondered: 'What should he come
Up from out of in under for?'

Morris Bishop



PLAYS

Alas, how soon the hours are over,
Counted us out to play the lover!--
And how much narrower is the stage,
Alotted us to play the sage!
But when we play the fool, how wide
The theatre expands! beside,
How long the audience sits before us!
How many prompters! what a chorus!

Walter Savage Landor



INSOMNIA THE GEM
OF THE OCEAN

When I lay me down to sleep
My waterbed says, "Gurgle gleep,"
And when I readjustment crave
It answers me with a tidal wave
That lifts me like a bark canoe
Adrift in breakers off Peru.

Neap to my spring, ebb to my flow,
It turns my pulse to undertow,
It turns my thoughts to bubbles, it
Still undulates when I would quit;
Two bags of water, it and I
In restless sympathy here lie.

John Updike



[WHAT FRENZY HAS OF LATE
POSSESS'D THE BRAIN!]

What frenzy has of late possess'd the brain!
Though few can write, yet fewer can refrain.

Samuel Garth



CRITIC (from DEFINITIONS)

The critic leaves at curtain fall
To find, in starting to review it,
He scarcely saw the play at all
For watching his reaction to it.

E.B. White



ELECTION REFLECTION

Each day into the upper air
Ascends the politician's prayer --
"Grant me the gift of swift retort
And keep the public memory short."

M. Keel Jones

Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
Bu if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Robert Frost





OF TREASON

Treason doth never prosper; what's the reason?
Why, when it prospers, none dare call it treason.




ENDING

The love we thought would never stop
now cools like a congealing chop.
The kisses that were hot as curry
are bird-pecks taken in a hurry.
The hands that held electric charges
now lie inert as four moored barges.
The feet that ran to meet a date
are running slow and running late.
Te eyes that shone and seldom shut
are victims of a power cut.
The parts that then transmitted joy
are now reserved and cold and coy.
Romance, expected once to stay,
has left a note saying GONE AWAY.

Gavin Ewart



FABLE

Franklin sailed a key-hung kite
And watched the storm-stung flight of it.
Everone seemed much impressed--
But Edison made light of it.

James Facos



PIPPA PASSES,
BUT I CAN'T GET AROUND THIS
TRUCK

Morning's at seven,
The plane's at the airport
God's in Heaven,
But I'm still in Fairport.

Margaret Blaker



ON THE SETTING UP OF
MR. BUTLER'S MONUMENT
IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY

While Butler, needy wretch! was yet alive,
No generous patron would a dinner give:
See him, when starv'd to death and turn'd to dust,
Presented with a monumental bust!
Te poet's fate is here in emblem shown,
He ask'd for bread, and he received a stone!

Samuel Wesley, The Younger



I

(FROM SONGS ABOUT LIFE & BRIGHTER THINGS YET)

Nothing from a straight line swerves
So sharply as a woman's curves,
And, having swerved, no might or main
Can ever put her straight again.

by Samuel Hoffenstein



INTIMATES

Don't you care for my love? she said bitterly.

I handed her the mirror, and said:
Please address these questions to the proper person!
Please make all requests to head-quarters!
In all matters of emotional importance
please approach the supreme authority direct! --
So I handed her the mirror.
And she would have broken it over my head,
but she caught sight of her own reflection
and that held her spell bound for two seconds
while I fled.

D.H.Lawrence



AN ADAGE

The gardener's rule applies to youth and age:
When young 'sow wild oats'; but when old, grow sage.

H.J. Byron



SANCTUARY

My land is bare of chattering folk;
The clouds are low along the ridges,
And sweet's the air with curly smoke
From all my burning bridges.

Dorothy Parker



THE OBJECTION to BEING
STEPPED ON

At the end of the row
I stepped on the toe
Of an unemployed hoe.
It rose in offense
And struck me a blow
In the seat of my sense.
It wasn't to blame
But I called it a name.
Amd I must say it dealt
Me a blow that I felt
Like malice prepense.
You may call me a fool
What was there a rule
The weapon should be
Turned into a tool?
And what do we see?
The first tool I step on
Turned into a weapon.

Robert Frost



Here, richly, with ridiculous display,
The Politician's corpse was laid away.
While all of his acquaintance sneered and slanged,
I wept: for I had longed to see him hanged.



ODE TO THE END OF SUMMER

Summer, adieu
Adieu gregarious season.
Goodbye, 'revoir, farewell.
Now day comes late; now chillier blows the breeze on
Forsaken beach and boarded-up hotel.
Now wild geese fly together in thin lines
And Tourist Homes take down their lettered signs.

It fades--this green this lavish interval
This time of flowers and fruits,
Of melon ripe along the orchard wall,
Of sun and sails and wrinkled linen suits;
Time when the world seems rather plus than minus
And pollen tickles the allergic sinus.

Now fugitives to farm and shore and highland
Cancel their brief escape.
The Ferris wheel is quiet at Coney Island
And quaintness trades no longer on the Cape;
While meek-eyed parents hasten down the ramps
To greet their offspring, terrible from camps.

Turn up the steam. The year is growing older.
The maple boughs are red.
Summer, farewell. Farewell the sunburnt shoulder
Farewell the peasant kerchief on the head.
Farewell the thunderstorm, complete with lightning,
And the white shoe that ever needeth whitening.

Farewell, vacation friendships, sweet but tenuous
Ditto to slacks and shorts,
Farewell, O strange compulsion to be strenuous
Which sends us forth to death on tennis courts.
Farewel, Mosquito, horror of our nights;
Clambakes, iced tea, and transatlantic flights.

The zinnia withers, mortal as the tulip.
Now from the dripping glass
I'll sip no more the amateur mint julep
Nor dine al fresco on the alien grass;
Nor scale the height nor breast the truculent billow
Nor lay my head on any weekend pillow.

Unstintingly I yield myself to Autumn
And Equinoctial sloth.
I hide my swim suit in the bureau's bottom
Nor fear the fury of the after-moth
Forswearing porch and pool and beetled garden,
My heart shall rest, my arteries shall harden.

Welcome, kind Fall, and every month with "r" in
Whereto my mind is bent.
Come, sedentary season that I star in,
O fire-lit Winter of my deep content!
Amid the snow, the sleet, the blizzard's raw gust
I shall be cozier than I was in August.

Safe from the picnic sleeps the unlittered dell.
The last Good Humor sounds its final bell
And all is silence.
Summer, farewell, farewell.

Phyllis McGinley





REFLECTIONS at DAWN

I wish I owned a Dior dress
Made to my order out of satin.
I wish I weighed a little less
And could read Latin.
Had perfect pitch or matching pearls,
A better head for street directions,
And seven daughters, all with curls
And fair complexions.
I wish I'd tan instead of burn.
But most, on all the stars that glisten,
I wish at parties I could learn
to sit and listen.

I wish I didn't talk so much at parties.
It isn't that I want to hear
My voice assaulting every ear,
Uprising loud and firm and clear
Above the cocktail clatter.
It's simply, once a doorbells' rung,
(I've been like this since I was young)
Some madness overtake my tongue
And I begin to chatter.

Buffet, ball, banquet, quilting bee,
Wherever conversation's flowing,
Why must I feel it falls on me
To keep things going?
Though ladies cleverer than I
Can loll in silence, soft and idle,
Whatever topic gallops by,
I seize its bridle,
Hold forth on art, dissect the stage,
Or babble like a kindergart'ner
Of politics till I enrage
My dinner partner.

I wish I did'nt talk so much at parties.
When hotly boil the arguments,
Ah? would I had the common sense
To sit demurely on a fence
And let who will be vocal,
Instead of plunging in the fray
With my opinions on display
Till all the gentlemen edge away
To catch an early local

Oh! there is many a likely boon
That fate might flip me from her griddle.
I wish that I could sleep till noon
And play the fiddle,
Or dance a tour jete' so light
It would not shake a single straw down.
But when I ponder how last night
I laid the law down.
More than to have the Midas touch
Or critics' praise, however hearty,
I wish I didn't talk so much,
I wish I didn't talk so much,
I wish I didn't talk so much,
When I am at a party.

Phyllis McGinley



THE DIGNITY OF LABOR

Labor raises honest sweat;
Leisure put you into debt.

Labor gives you rye and wheat;
Leisure gives you naught to eat.

Labor makes your riches last;
Leisure gets you nowhere fast.

Labor makes you bed at eight;
Leisure lets you stay up late.

Labor makes you swell with pride;
Leisure makes you shrink inside.

Labor keeps you fit and prime,
But give me leisure every time.

Robert Bersohn



THE PURPLE COW

I never saw a Purple Cow,
I never hope to see one;
But I can tell you, anhow,
I'd rather see than be one.

Gelett Burgees



CONFESSION

Ah, yes! I wrote the "Purple cow:--
I'm Sorry, now, I Wrote it,
But I can Tell you Anyhow,
I'll Kill you if you Quote it.

Gelett Burgees



XIII

(FROM LOVE-SONGS, AT ONCE TENDER & INFORMATIVE)

Your little hands,
Your little feet,
Your little mouth--
Oh, God, how sweet!

Your little nose,
Your little ears,
Your eyes, that shed
Such little tears!

Your little voice,
So soft and kind;
Your little soul,
Your little mind.






INDEX OF POETS & POEMS

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