He paid a Swede twelve bits an hour Just to invent a fancy style To spread the celebration paint So it would show at least a mile. Some things they did I will not tell. They’re not quite proper for a rhyme. But I WILL say Yim Yonson Swede Did sure invent a sunflower time. […]

Sometimes I dip my pen and find the bottle full of fire, The salamanders flying forth I cannot but admire. It’s Etna, or Vesuvius, if those big things were small, And then ’tis but itself again, and does not smoke at all. And so my blood grows cold. I say, “The bottle held but ink, […]

For a Very Little Girl, Not a Year Old. Catharine Frazee Wakefield. The sun gives not directly The coal, the diamond crown; Not in a special basket Are these from Heaven let down. The sun gives not directly The plough, man’s iron friend; Not by a path or stairway Do tools from Heaven descend. Yet […]

(On hearing she was leaving the moving-pictures for the stage.) Mary Pickford, doll divine, Year by year, and every day At the moving-picture play, You have been my valentine. Once a free-limbed page in hose, Baby-Rosalind in flower, Cloakless, shrinking, in that hour How our reverent passion rose, How our fine desire you won. Kitchen-wench […]

Factory windows are always broken. Somebody’s always throwing bricks, Somebody’s always heaving cinders, Playing ugly Yahoo tricks. Factory windows are always broken. Other windows are let alone. No one throws through the chapel-window The bitter, snarling, derisive stone. Factory windows are always broken. Something or other is going wrong. Something is rotten–I think, in Denmark. […]

(After seeing the reel called “Oil and Water”.) Beauty has a throne-room In our humorous town, Spoiling its hob-goblins, Laughing shadows down. Rank musicians torture Ragtime ballads vile, But we walk serenely Down the odorous aisle. We forgive the squalor And the boom and squeal For the Great Queen flashes From the moving reel. Just […]

(What the Little Girl Said) The Moon’s the North Wind’s cooky. He bites it, day by day, Until there’s but a rim of scraps That crumble all away. The South Wind is a baker. He kneads clouds in his den, And bakes a crisp new moon that… greedy North… Wind… eats… again!

The moon’s a little prairie-dog. He shivers through the night. He sits upon his hill and cries For fear that I will bite. The sun’s a broncho. He’s afraid Like every other thing, And trembles, morning, noon and night, Lest I should spring, and sting.

(What Uncle William told the Children) Twelve snails went walking after night. They’d creep an inch or so, Then stop and bug their eyes And blow. Some folks… are… deadly… slow. Twelve snails went walking yestereve, Led by their fat old king. They were so dull their princeling had No sceptre, robe or ring– Only […]

Old Euclid drew a circle On a sand-beach long ago. He bounded and enclosed it With angles thus and so. His set of solemn greybeards Nodded and argued much Of arc and of circumference, Diameter and such. A silent child stood by them From morning until noon Because they drew such charming Round pictures of […]

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 bring you prairie skies to-night To feebly praise your golden eyes And red-bird song, and throat so white.

The gleaming head of one fine friend Is bent above my little song, So through the treasure-pits of Heaven In fancy’s shoes, I march along. I wander, seek and peer and ponder In Splendor’s last ensnaring lair– ‘Mid burnished harps and burnished crowns Where noble chariots gleam and flare: Amid the spirit-coins and gems, The […]

Your pen needs but a ruffle To be Pavlova whirling. It surely is a scalawag A-scamping down the page. A pretty little May-wind The 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 Solomon Would show a […]

Oh, saucy gold circle of fairyland silk– Impudent, intimate, delicate treasure: A noose for my heart and a ring for my finger:– Here in my study you sing me a measure. Whimsy and song in my little gray study! Words out of wonderland, praising her fineness, Touched with her pulsating, delicate laughter, Saying, “The girl […]

He coveted her portrait. He toiled as she grew gay. She loved to see him labor In that devoted way. And in the end it pleased her, But bowed him more with care. Her rose-smile showed so plainly, Her soul-smile was not there. That night he groped without a lamp To find a cloak, a […]

Hungry for music with a desperate hunger I prowled abroad, I threaded through the town; The evening crowd was clamoring and drinking, Vulgar and pitiful–my heart bowed down– Till I remembered duller hours made noble By strangers clad in some surprising grace. Wait, wait, my soul, your music comes ere midnight Appearing in some unexpected […]

Oh, once I walked a garden In dreams. ‘Twas yellow grass. And many orange-trees grew there In sand as white as glass. The curving, wide wall-border Was marble, like the snow. I walked that wall a fairy-prince And, pacing quaint and slow, Beside me were my pages, Two giant, friendly birds. Half-swan they were, half […]

(What Grandpa told the Children) The moon? It is a griffin’s egg, Hatching to-morrow night. And how the little boys will watch With shouting and delight To see him break the shell and stretch And creep across the sky. The boys will laugh. The little girls, I fear, may hide and cry. Yet gentle will […]

The moon’s a gong, hung in the wild, Whose song the fays hold dear. Of course you do not hear it, child. It takes a FAIRY ear. The full moon is a splendid gong That beats as night grows still. It sounds above the evening song Of dove or whippoorwill.

No man should stand before the moon To make sweet song thereon, With dandified importance, His sense of humor gone. Nay, let us don the motley cap, The jester’s chastened mien, If we would woo that looking-glass And see what should be seen. O mirror on fair Heaven’s wall, We find there what we bring. […]