There ’s a joy without canker or cark,
There ’s a pleasure eternally new,
’T is to gloat on the glaze and the mark
Of china that ’s ancient and blue;
Unchipped, all the centuries through
It has passed, since the chime of it rang,
And they fashioned it, figure and hue,
In the reign of the Emperor Hwang.
These dragons (their tails...
The Letter “H”
’T WAS 1 in heaven pronounced, and ’t was muttered in hell,
And echo caught faintly the sound as it fell;
On the confines of earth ’t was permitted to rest,
And the depths of the ocean its presence confessed;
’T will be found in the sphere when ’t is riven asunder,
Be seen in the lightning and heard in the thunder.
’T was...
“The Ahkoond of Swat is dead.”—London Papers.
WHAT, what, what,
What ’s the news from Swat?
Sad news,
Bad news,
Comes by the cable led
Through the Indian Ocean’s bed,
Through the Persian Gulf, the Red
Sea and the Med-
Iterranean—he ’s dead;
The Ahkoond is dead!
For the Ahkoond I mourn....
Sweet maiden of Passamaquoddy,
Shall we seek for communion of souls
Where the deep Mississippi meanders,
Or the distant Saskatchewan rolls?
Ah no,—for in Maine I will find thee
A sweetly sequestrated nook
Where the far winding Skoodoowabskooksis
Conjoiins with the Skoodoowabskook.
There wander two beautiful rivers,...
GOOD reader, if you e’er have seen,
When Phœbus hastens to his pillow,
The mermaids with their tresses green
Dancing upon the western billow;
If you have seen at twilight dim,
When the lone spirit’s vesper hymn
Floats wild along the winding shore,
The fairy train their ringlets weave
Glancing along the...
I Never saw a Purple Cow,
I never hope to see one;
But I can tell you, anyhow,
I rather see than be one.
[Supposed to be translated from the Old Parsee]
TWINE then the rays
Round her soft Theban tissues!
All will be as She says,
When that dead past reissues.
Matters not what nor where,
Hark, to the moon’s dim cluster!
How was her heavy hair
Lithe as a feather duster!
Matters not when nor whence;
...
From “The Hunting of the Snark”
THEY roused him with muffins—they roused him with ice—
They roused him with mustard and cress—
They roused him with jam and judicious advice—
They set him conundrums to guess.
When at length he sat up and was able to speak,
His sad story he offered to tell;
And the Bellman cried “Silence! Not even a...
’t Was brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”
He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time...
After Kipling
HE sits in a sea-green grotto with a bucket of lurid paint,
And draws the Thing as it isn’t for the God of things as they ain’t.
