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Somehow or other

Death rode a pinto pony
Along the Rio Grande,
Beside the trail his shadow
Was riding on the sand.

The look upon his youthful face
Was sinister and dark,
And the pistol in his scabbard
Had never missed its mark.

The moonlight on the river
Was bright as molten ore,
The ripples broke in whispers
Along the sandy shore.

The breath of prairie flowers
Had made the night-wind sweet,
And a mocking bird made merry
In a lacy-leafed mesquite.

Death looked toward the river,
He looked toward the land,
He took his broad sombrero off

The Talented Man

Dear Alice! you'll laugh when you know it,--
Last week, at the Duchess's ball,
I danced with the clever new poet,--
You've heard of him,--Tully St. Paul.
Miss Jonquil was perfectly frantic;
I wish you had seen Lady Anne!
It really was very romantic,
He is such a talented man!

He came up from Brazenose College,
Just caught, as they call it, this spring;
And his head, love, is stuffed full of knowledge
Of every conceivable thing.
Of science and logic he chatters,
As fine and as fast as he can;
Though I am no judge of such matters,

On Poet Ninny

Crushed by that just contempt his follies bring
On his crazed head, the vermin fain would sting.
But never satire did so softly bite,
Or gentle George himself more gently write.
Born to no other but thy own disgrace,
Thou art a thing so wretched and so base,
Thou canst not e'en offend but with thy face,
And dost at once a sad example prove
Of harmless malice and of hopeless love,
All pride and ugliness—O how we loathe
A nauseous creature so composed of both!
How oft have we thy cap'ring person seen
With dismal look and melancholy mien,

Mother's Recall

Come back to me, O ye, my children;
Come back to the home as of yore;
As my longing eye peers through the vista of years,
Comes the heart-throbbing more and more.
I sit by the casement and listen
To the fall of the soft, sobbing rain,
E'en the winds gently sigh as if loth to reply—
In vain, fond mother, in vain.

Are ye gone for aye? Shall I no more hear
The ring and the din of glee?
Have my nestlings flown and left me alone?
Shall their faces, I no more see?
I sit, and I wait while the days go by,
And the months merge slow into years;

Christ in Alabama

Christ is a nigger,
Beaten and black:
Oh, bare your back!

Mary is His mother:
Mammy of the South,
Silence your mouth.

God is His father:
White Master above
Grant Him your love.

Most holy bastard
Of the bleeding mouth,
Nigger Christ
On the cross
Of the South.
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