time

[After Longfellow.]


I drove a golf-ball into the air;
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.

I lent five shillings to some men,
They spent it all, I know not when,
For who is quick enough to know
The time in which a crown may go?

Long, long afterward, in a whin
I found the golf-ball, black as sin;
But the five shillings are missing still!
They haven't turned up, and I doubt if they will.

A STURGEON, once, a glutton famed was led
To have for supper--all, except the head.
With wond'rous glee he feasted on the fish;
And quickly swallowed down the royal dish.
O'ercharged, howe'er, his stomach soon gave way;
And doctors were required without delay.

THE danger imminent, his friends desired
He'd settle ev'ry thing affairs required.
Said he, in that respect I'm quite prepared;
And, since my time so little is declared,
With diligence, I earnestly request,

I want to give you something, my child, for we are drifting in the
stream of the world.
Our lives will be carried apart, and our love forgotten.
But I am not so foolish as to hope that I could buy your heart
with my gifts.
Young is your life, your path long, and you drink the love we
bring you at one draught and turn and run away from us.
You have your play and your playmates. What harm is there if
you have no time or thought for us!
We, indeed, have leisure enough in old age to count the days

the German hotel was very strange and expensive and had
double doors to the rooms, very thick doors, and it over-
looked the park and the vasser tern and in the mornings
it was usually too late for breakfast and the maids
would be everywhere changing sheets and bringing in
towels, but you never saw any hotel guests, only the
maids and the desk man and the day desk man was all
right because we were sober during the day but we had
trouble with the night man who was some sort of snob

When I put her out, once, by the garbage pail,
She looked so limp and bedraggled,
So foolish and trusting, like a sick poodle,
Or a wizened aster in late September,
I brought her back in again
For a new routine--
Vitamins, water, and whatever
Sustenance seemed sensible
At the time: she'd lived
So long on gin, bobbie pins, half-smoked cigars, dead beer,
Her shriveled petals falling
On the faded carpet, the stale
Steak grease stuck to her fuzzy leaves.
(Dried-out, she creaked like a tulip.)

The dawn is smiling on the dew that covers
The tearful roses; lo, the little lovers
That kiss the buds, and all the flutterings
In jasmine bloom, and privet, of white wings,
That go and come, and fly, and peep and hide,
With muffled music, murmured far and wide.
Ah, the Spring time, when we think of all the lays
That dreamy lovers send to dreamy mays,
Of the fond hearts within a billet bound,
Of all the soft silk paper that pens wound,
The messages of love that mortals write

My love, once upon a time your poet
launched a great epic in his mind.
Alas, I was not careful, and it struck
your ringing anklets and came to
grief.
It broke up into scraps of songs and
lay scattered at your feet.
All my cargo of the stories of old
wars was tossed by the laughing waves
and soaked in tears and sank.
You must make this loss good to me,
my love.
If my claims to immortal fame after
death are scattered, make me immortal
while I live.

Why did he choose to come to my
door, the wandering youth, when the
day dawned?
As I come in and out I pass by him
every time, and my eyes are caught by
his face.
I know not if I should speak to him
or keep silent. Why did he choose to
come to my door?
The cloudy nights in July are dark;
the sky is soft blue in the autumn; the
spring days are restless with the south
wind.
He weaves his songs with fresh
tunes every time.
I turn from my work and my eyes

You left me and went on your way.
I thought I should mourn for you
and set your solitary image in my
heart wrought in a golden song.
But ah, my evil fortune, time is
short.
Youth wanes year after year; the
spring days are fugitive; the frail
flowers die for nothing, and the wise
man warns me that life is but a
dewdrop on the lotus leaf.
Should I neglect all this to gaze after
one who has turned her back on me?
That would be rude and foolish,
for time is short.

To the guests that must go bid
God's speed and brush away all traces
of their steps.
Take to your bosom with a smile
what is easy and simple and near.
To-day is the festival of phantoms
that know not when they die.
Let your laughter be but a meaning-
less mirth like twinkles of light on
the ripples.
Let your life lightly dance on the
edges of Time like dew on the tip of
a leaf.
Strike in chords from your harp
fitful momentary rhythms.