Poetry Books

A FROG HE WOULDA-WOOING GO         A Frog he would a-wooing go,            Heigho, says Rowley!Whether his Mother would let him or no.        With a rowley-powley, gammon and spinach,            Heigho, says Anthony Rowley! So off he set with his opera-hat,            Heigho, says Rowley!And on his way he met with a Rat.        With a rowley-powley, gammon and spinach, ... more...

NOTE The motif of the story embodied in the following poem was crudely outlined in a brief sketch printed in an early collection of the authors verse, and subsequently cancelled for a purpose not until now accomplished. Wyndham Towers is not to be confused with this discarded sketch, the text of which has furnished only a phrase, or an indirect suggestion, here and there. That the writer's method,... more...

There are few issues attended with greater uncertainty than the fate of a poet, and of the three represented herein it may be said that they survive but tardily in public interest. Such a state of things, in spite of all pleading, is quite beyond reason; hence the purport of this small Anthology is at once obvious. A group of poets graced with rarest charm and linked together by several and varied... more...

PETER PATTER told them to me,All the little rimes,Whispered them among the bushesHalf a hundred times. Peter lives upon a mountainPretty near the sun,Knows the bears and birds and rabbitsNearly every one;Has a home among the alders,Bed of cedar bark,Walks alone beneath the pine treesEven when it’s dark. Squirrels tell him everythingThat happens in the trees,Cricket in the gander-grassSings of all he... more...

THE RED FLOWER June 1914 In the pleasant time of Pentecost,  By the little river Kyll,I followed the angler's winding path  Or waded the stream at will.And the friendly fertile German land  Lay round me green and still. But all day long on the eastern bank  Of the river cool and clear,Where the curving track of the double rails  Was hardly seen though near,The endless trains of German... more...

CHAPTER I. Before I commence mi short history o’ Haworth Railway, it might be as weel to say a word or two abaat Haworth itseln.  It’s a city at’s little nawn, if onny, in th’ history o’ Ingland, tho thare’s no daat but it’s as oud as Methuslam, if net ouder, yet wi’ being built so far aat o’ th’ latitude o’ civilised nashuns, nobody’s scarcely nawn owt abaat it wal lately. ... more...

THE THINGS THAT MATTER.   NOW that I've nearly done my days,  And grown too stiff to sweep or sew,  I sit and think, till I'm amaze,  About what lots of things I know:  Things as I've found out one by one—  And when I'm fast down in the clay,  My knowing things and how they're done  Will all be lost and thrown away.   There's things, I know, as... more...

PREFACE In homely phrase, this is a sort of "second helping" of a dish that has pleased the taste of thousands. Our first collection of Poems Teachers Ask For was the response to a demand for such a book, and this present volume is the response to a demand for "more." In Book One it was impracticable to use all of the many poems entitled to inclusion on the basis of their being desired.... more...

The Maid of Tamalpais. This she told me in the firelightAs I sat beside her campfire,In a grove of giant redwoods,On the slope of Tamalpais. Old she was, and bent and wrinkled,Lone survivor of the Tamals,Ancient tribe of Indian people,Who have left their name and legendOn the mountain they held sacred.On the ground she sat and brooded,With a blanket wrapped around her—Sat and gazed into the... more...

As theEmperor Mothsat one evening in May,Fanned by numberless wings in the moon’s silver ray,[p6]While around him the zephyrs breathed sweetest perfume,Thus he spoke to his dwarf with theRagged white plume:“That vain Butterfly’s Ball, I hear, was most splendid,And, as the world says, very fully attended,Though she never asked us, but assigned as a cause,We were all much too heavy to gallope and... more...