1. Anonymous
Too Great a Sacrifice

The Maid, as by the papers doth appear,
Whom fifty thousand dollars made so dear,
To test Lothario’s passion, simply said:
“Forego the weed before we go to wed.
For smoke take flame; I ’ll be that flame’s bright fanner:
To have your Anna, give up your...

Poet: Anonymous
A Saddened Tramp

“now unto yonder wood-pile go,
  Where toil till I return;
And feel how proud a thing it is
  A livelihood to earn.”
A saddened look came o’er the tramp;
  He seemed like one bereft.
He stowed away the victuals cold,
  He—saw the wood, and...

Poet: Anonymous
The Modern House That Jack Built

Behold the mansion reared by dædal Jack.

See the malt, stored in many a plethoric sack,
In the proud cirque of Ivan’s bivouac.

Mark how the rat’s felonious fangs invade
The golden stores in John’s pavilion laid.

Anon, with velvet foot and Tarquin...

Poet: Anonymous
The Modern Hiawatha

He killed the noble Mudjokivis.
Of the skin he made him mittens,
Made them with the fur side inside,
Made them with the skin side outside.
He, to get the warm side inside,
Put the inside skin side outside;
He, to get the cold side outside,
...

Poet: Anonymous
Belagcholly Days

Chilly Dovebber with its boadigg blast
  Dow cubs add strips the beddow add the lawd,
Eved October’s suddy days are past—
            Add Subber ’s gawd!

I kdow dot what it is to which I cligg
  That stirs to sogg add sorrow, yet I trust
That...

Poet: Anonymous
Siege of Belgrade

An Austrian army, awfully arrayed,
Boldly by battery besieged Belgrade.
Cossack commanders cannonading come,
Dealing destruction’s devastating doom.
Every endeavor engineers essay,
For fame, for fortune fighting,—furious fray!
Generals ’gainst...

Poet: Anonymous
My Love

I Only knew she came and went  Lowell.
  Like troutlets in a pool;  Hood.
She was a phantom of delight,  Wordsworth.
  And I was like a fool.  Eastman.

One kiss, dear maid, I said, and sighed,  Coleridge.
  Out of those lips unshorn:  Longfellow....

Poet: Anonymous
The Collegian to His Bride

From Punch
Being a Mathematical Madrigal in the Simplest Form

CHARMER, on a given straight line,
And which we will call B C,
Meeting at a common point A,
Draw the lines A C, A B.
But, my sweetest, so arrange it
That they ’re equal, all the...

Poet: Anonymous
The Cosmic Egg

Upon a rock yet uncreate,
Amid a chaos inchoate,
An uncreated being sate;
Beneath him, rock,
Above him, cloud.
And the cloud was rock,
And the rock was cloud.
The rock then growing soft and warm,
The cloud began to take a form,...

Poet: Anonymous
Lines to Miss Florence Huntington

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...

Poet: Anonymous