money

Men of the High North, the wild sky is blazing;
Islands of opal float on silver seas;
Swift splendors kindle, barbaric, amazing;
Pale ports of amber, golden argosies.
Ringed all around us the proud peaks are glowing;
Fierce chiefs in council, their wigwam the sky;
Far, far below us the big Yukon flowing,
Like threaded quicksilver, gleams to the eye.

Men of the High North, you who have known it;
You in whose hearts its splendors have abode;
Can you renounce it, can you disown it?

It's mighty quiet in the house
Since Mary Ellen quit me cold;
I've swept the hearth and fed the mouse
That's getting fat and overbold.
I've bought a pig's foot for the pot
And soon I'll set the fire alight;
Then I may eat or I may not,
Depends upon my appetite.

Since Mary Ellen left me lone
I haven't earned a bloody bob.
I sit and sigh, and mope and moan,
And bellyache I quit my job.
My money's mostly gone,--I think
I ought to save it up for food . . .

[Brazil. A friend of the writer is speaking.]


Half squatter, half tenant (no rent)—
a sort of inheritance; white,
in your thirties now, and supposed
to supply me with vegetables,
but you don't; or you won't; or you can't
get the idea through your brain—
the world's worst gardener since Cain.
Titled above me, your gardens
ravish my eyes. You edge
the beds of silver cabbages
with red carnations, and lettuces
mix with alyssum. And then
umbrella ants arrive,

If you come to Mojacar
and peel open an orange full of worms,
count how many there are because
those are the days it will take for your body
to decompose after you are buried.

If you come to Mojacar
and find a small green snake with its back
broken, don't step on it or you'll cause
an earthquake that will catch up to you
while you sleep in a continent far, far away.

If you come to Mojacar
and two brown long-legged spiders crawl
on your face and shoulders, keep a sharp eye

3-foot blue cannisters of nitro
along a conveyor belt, slow fish
speaking the language of silence.
On the roof, I in my respirator
patching the asbestos gas lines
as big around as the thick waist
of an oak tree. "These here are
the veins of the place, stuff
inside's the blood." We work in rain,
heat, snow, sleet. First warm
spring winds up from Ohio, I
pause at the top of the ladder
to take in the wide world reaching
downriver and beyond. Sunlight
dumped on standing and moving

I'll tell of the Magna Charter
As were signed at the Barons' command
On Runningmead Island in t' middle of t' Thames
By King John, as were known as "Lack Land."

Some say it were wrong of the Barons
Their will on the King so to thrust,
But you'll see if you look at both sides of the case
That they had to do something, or bust.

For John, from the moment they crowned him,
Started acting so cunning and sly,
Being King, of course, he couldn't do wrong,
But, by gum, he'd a proper good try.

Mr. Blake was a regular out-and-out hardened sinner,
Who was quite out of the pale of Christianity, so to speak,
He was in the habit of smoking a long pipe and drinking a glass of
grog on a Sunday after dinner,
And seldom thought of going to church more than twice or - if Good
Friday or Christmas Day happened to come in it - three times a
week.

He was quite indifferent as to the particular kinds of dresses
That the clergyman wore at church where he used to go to pray,

DALILAH DE DARDY adored
The very correctest of cards,
LORENZO DE LARDY, a lord -
He was one of Her Majesty's Guards.

DALILAH DE DARDY was fat,
DALILAH DE DARDY was old -
(No doubt in the world about that)
But DALILAH DE DARDY had gold.

LORENZO DE LARDY was tall,
The flower of maidenly pets,
Young ladies would love at his call,
But LORENZO DE LARDY had debts.

His money-position was queer,
And one of his favourite freaks
Was to hide himself three times a year,

In a humble room in London sat a pretty little boy,
By the bedside of his sick mother her only joy,
Who was called Little Pierre, and who's father was dead;
There he sat poor boy, hungry and crying for bread.

There he sat humming a little song, which was his own,
But to the world it was entirely unknown,
And as he sang the song he felt heartsick,
But he resolved to get Madame Malibran to sing his song in public

Then he paused for a moment and clasped his hands,
And running to the looking-glass before it he stands,

Un giorno che arrestai propio a la fetta,
Senz'avé manco l'arma d'un quadrino,
Senti che cosa fo: curro ar camino
E roppo in quattro pezzi la paletta.

Poi me l'invorto sott'a la giacchetta,
E vado a spasso pe Campovaccino
A aspettà quarche ingrese milordino
Da daje una corcata co l'accetta.

De fatti, ecco che viè quer c'aspettavo.
"Siggnore, guardi un po' quest'anticaja
C'avemo trovo jeri in de lo scavo?"

Lui se ficca l'occhiali, la scannaja,