An “actors’ cemetery”! SureThe devil never tiresOf planning places to procureThe sticks to feed his fires.

Another Irish landlord gone to grass,Slain by the bullets of the tenant class!Pray, good agrarians, what wrong requiresSuch foul redress? Between you and the squiresAll Ireland’s parted with an even hand–For you have all the ire, they all the land.

Grief for an absent lover, husband, friend,Is barely felt before it comes to end:A score of early consolations serveTo modify its mouth’s dejected curve.But woes of creditors when debtors fleeForever swell the separating sea.When standing on an alien shore you markThe steady course of some intrepid bark,How sweet to think a tear for you abides,Not […]

When at your window radiant you’ve stoodI’ve sometimes thought–forgive me if I’ve erred–That some slight thought of me perhaps has stirredYour heart to beat less gently than it should.I know you beautiful; that you are goodI hope–or fear–I cannot choose the word,Nor rightly suit it to the thought. I’ve heardReason at love’s dictation never could.Blindly […]

A is defrauded of his land by B,Who’s driven from the premises by C.D buys the place with coin of plundered E.“That A’s an Anarchist!” says F to G.

She stood at the ticket-seller’sSerenely removing her glove,While hundreds of strugglers and yellers,And some that were good at a shove,Were clustered behind her like bats ina cave and unwilling to speak their love. At night she still stood at that windowEndeavoring her money to reach;The crowds right and left, how they sinned–O,How dreadfully sinned in […]

TOM JONESMITH (loquitur): I’ve slept right throughThe night–a rather clever thing to do.How soundly women sleep (looks at his wife.)They’re all alike. The sweetest thing in lifeIs woman when she lies with folded tongue,Its toil completed and its day-song sung.(Thump) That’s the morning paper. What a boreThat it should be delivered at the door.There ought […]

The Seraphs came to Christ, and said: “Behold!The man, presumptuous and overbold,Who boasted that his mercy could excelThine own, is dead and on his way to Hell.” Gravely the Saviour asked: “What did he doTo make his impious assertion true?” “He was a Governor, releasing allThe vilest felons ever held in thrall.No other mortal, since […]

When, long ago, the young world circling flewThrough wider reaches of a richer blue,New-eyed, the men and maids saw, manifest,The thoughts untold in one another’s breast:Each wish displayed, and every passion learned–A look revealed them as a look discerned.But sating Time with clouds o’ercast their eyes;Desire was hidden, and the lips framed lies.A goddess then, […]

Not as two errant spheres together grindWith monstrous ruin in the vast of space,Destruction born of that malign embrace,Their hapless peoples all to death consigned–Not so when our intangible worlds of mind,Even mine and yours, each with its spirit raceOf beings shadowy in form and face,Shall drift together on some blessed wind.No, in that marriage […]

The sullen church-bell’s intermittent moan,The dirge’s melancholy monotone,The measured march, the drooping flags, attestA great man’s progress to his place of rest.Along broad avenues himself decreedTo serve his fellow men’s disputed need–Past parks he raped away from robbers’ thriftAnd gave to poverty, wherein to liftIts voice to curse the giver and the gift–Past noble structures […]

“I’ve found the secret of your charm,” I said,Expounding with complacency my guess.Alas! the charm, even as I named it, fled,For all its secret was unconsciousness.

O very remarkable mortal,What food is engaging your jawsAnd staining with amber their portal?“It’s ‘baccy I chaws.” And why do you sway in your walking,To right and left many degrees,And hitch up your trousers when talking?“I follers the seas.” Great indolent shark in the rollers,Is “‘baccy,” too, one of your faults?–You, too, display maculate molars.“I […]

When Liberverm resigned the chairOf This or That in college, whereFor two decades he’d gorged his brainWith more than it could well contain,In order to relieve the stressHe took to writing for the press.Then Pondronummus said, “I’ll helpThis mine of talent to devel’p;”And straightway bought with coin and creditThe Thundergust for him to edit. The […]

Once on a time, so ancient poets sing,There reigned in Godknowswhere a certain king.So great a monarch ne’er before was seen:He was a hero, even to his queen,In whose respect he held so high a placeThat none was higher,–nay, not even the ace.He was so just his Parliament declaredThose subjects happy whom his laws had […]

“You acted unwisely,” I cried, “as you seeBy the outcome.” He calmly eyed me:“When choosing the course of my action,” said he,“I had not the outcome to guide me.”

Upon this quarter-eagle’s leveled face,The Lord’s Prayer, legibly inscribed, I trace.“Our Father which”–the pronoun there is funny,And shows the scribe to have addressed the money–“Which art in Heaven”–an error this, no doubt:The preposition should be stricken out.Needless to quote; I only have designedTo praise the frankness of the pious mindWhich thought it natural and right […]

Two bodies are lying in Phoenix Park,Grim and bloody and stiff and stark,And a Land League man with averted eyeCrosses himself as he hurries by.And he says to his conscience under his breath:“I have had no hand in this deed of death!” A Fenian, making a circuit wideAnd passing them by on the other side,Shudders […]

Enoch Arden was an ableSeaman; hear of his mishap–Not in wild mendacious fable,As ‘t was told by t’ other chap; For I hold it is a youthfulIndiscretion to tell lies,And the writer that is truthfulHas the reader that is wise. Enoch Arden, able seaman,On an isle was cast away,And before he was a freemanTime had […]

“The world is dull,” I cried in my despair:“Its myths and fables are no longer fair. “Roll back thy centuries, O Father Time.To Greece transport me in her golden prime. “Give back the beautiful old Gods again–The sportive Nymphs, the Dryad’s jocund train, “Pan piping on his reeds, the Naiades,The Sirens singing by the sleepy […]