10 Best Famous Old Friends Poems

Here is a collection of the top 10 all-time best famous Old Friends poems. This is a select list of the best famous Old Friends poetry. Reading, writing, and enjoying famous Old Friends poetry (as well as classical and contemporary poems) is a great past time. These top poems are the best examples of old friends poems.

• All Famous Old Friends Poems

 Your daisies have come
on the day of my divorce:
the courtroom a cement box,
a gas chamber for the infectious Jew in me
and a perhaps land, a possibly promised land
for the Jew in me,
but still a betrayal room for the till-death-do-us—
and yet a death, as in the unlocking of scissors
that makes the now separate parts useless,
even to cut each other up as we did yearly
under the crayoned-in sun.
The courtroom keeps squashing our lives as they break
into two cans ready for recycling,
flattened tin humans
and a tin law,
even for my twenty-five years of hanging on
by my teeth as I once saw at Ringling Brothers.
The gray room:
Judge, lawyer, witness
and me and invisible Skeezix,
and all the other torn
enduring the bewilderments
of their division.

Your daisies have come
on the day of my divorce.
They arrive like round yellow fish,
sucking with love at the coral of our love.
Yet they wait,
in their short time,
like little utero half-borns,
half killed, thin and bone soft.
They breathe the air that stands
for twenty-five illicit days,
the sun crawling inside the sheets,
the moon spinning like a tornado
in the washbowl,
and we orchestrated them both,
calling ourselves TWO CAMP DIRECTORS.
There was a song, our song on your cassette,
that played over and over
and baptised the prodigals.
It spoke the unspeakable,
as the rain will on an attic roof,
letting the animal join its soul
as we kneeled before a miracle--
forgetting its knife.

The daisies confer
in the old-married kitchen
papered with blue and green chefs
who call out pies, cookies, yummy,
at the charcoal and cigarette smoke
they wear like a yellowy salve.
The daisies absorb it all--
the twenty-five-year-old sanctioned love
(If one could call such handfuls of fists
and immobile arms that!)
and on this day my world rips itself up
while the country unfastens along
with its perjuring king and his court.
It unfastens into an abortion of belief,
as in me--
the legal rift--
as on might do with the daisies
but does not
for they stand for a love
undergoihng open heart surgery
that might take
if one prayed tough enough.
And yet I demand,
even in prayer,
that I am not a thief,
a mugger of need,
and that your heart survive
on its own,
belonging only to itself,
whole, entirely whole,
and workable
in its dark cavern under your ribs.

I pray it will know truth,
if truth catches in its cup
and yet I pray, as a child would,
that the surgery take.

I dream it is taking.
Next I dream the love is swallowing itself.
Next I dream the love is made of glass,
glass coming through the telephone
that is breaking slowly,
day by day, into my ear.
Next I dream that I put on the love
like a lifejacket and we float,
jacket and I,
we bounce on that priest-blue.
We are as light as a cat's ear
and it is safe,
safe far too long!
And I awaken quickly and go to the opposite window
and peer down at the moon in the pond
and know that beauty has walked over my head,
into this bedroom and out,
flowing out through the window screen,
dropping deep into the water
to hide.

I will observe the daisies
fade and dry up
wuntil they become flour,
snowing themselves onto the table
beside the drone of the refrigerator,
beside the radio playing Frankie
(as often as FM will allow)
snowing lightly, a tremor sinking from the ceiling--
as twenty-five years split from my side
like a growth that I sliced off like a melanoma.

It is six P.M. as I water these tiny weeds
and their little half-life,
their numbered days
that raged like a secret radio,
recalling love that I picked up innocently,
yet guiltily,
as my five-year-old daughter
picked gum off the sidewalk
and it became suddenly an elastic miracle.

For me it was love found
like a diamond
where carrots grow--
the glint of diamond on a plane wing,
meaning: DANGER! THICK ICE!
but the good crunch of that orange,
the diamond, the carrot,
both with four million years of resurrecting dirt,
and the love,
although Adam did not know the word,
the love of Adam
obeying his sudden gift.

You, who sought me for nine years,
in stories made up in front of your naked mirror
or walking through rooms of fog women,
you trying to forget the mother
who built guilt with the lumber of a locked door
as she sobbed her soured mild and fed you loss
through the keyhole,
you who wrote out your own birth
and built it with your own poems,
your own lumber, your own keyhole,
into the trunk and leaves of your manhood,
you, who fell into my words, years
before you fell into me (the other,
both the Camp Director and the camper),
you who baited your hook with wide-awake dreams,
and calls and letters and once a luncheon,
and twice a reading by me for you.
But I wouldn't!

Yet this year,
yanking off all past years,
I took the bait
and was pulled upward, upward,
into the sky and was held by the sun--
the quick wonder of its yellow lap--
and became a woman who learned her own shin
and dug into her soul and found it full,
and you became a man who learned his won skin
and dug into his manhood, his humanhood
and found you were as real as a baker
or a seer
and we became a home,
up into the elbows of each other's soul,
without knowing--
an invisible purchase--
that inhabits our house forever.

We were
blessed by the House-Die
by the altar of the color T.V.
and somehow managed to make a tiny marriage,
a tiny marriage
called belief,
as in the child's belief in the tooth fairy,
so close to absolute,
so daft within a year or two.
The daisies have come
for the last time.
And I who have,
each year of my life,
spoken to the tooth fairy,
believing in her,
even when I was her,
am helpless to stop your daisies from dying,
although your voice cries into the telephone:
Marry me! Marry me!
and my voice speaks onto these keys tonight:
The love is in dark trouble!
The love is starting to die,
right now--
we are in the process of it.
The empty process of it.

I see two deaths,
and the two men plod toward the mortuary of my heart,
and though I willed one away in court today
and I whisper dreams and birthdays into the other,
they both die like waves breaking over me
and I am drowning a little,
but always swimming
among the pillows and stones of the breakwater.
And though your daisies are an unwanted death,
I wade through the smell of their cancer
and recognize the prognosis,
its cartful of loss--

I say now,
you gave what you could.
It was quite a ferris wheel to spin on!
and the dead city of my marriage
seems less important
than the fact that the daisies came weekly,
over and over,
likes kisses that can't stop themselves.

There sit two deaths on November 5th, 1973.
Let one be forgotten--
Bury it! Wall it up!
But let me not forget the man
of my child-like flowers
though he sinks into the fog of Lake Superior,
he remains, his fingers the marvel
of fourth of July sparklers,
his furious ice cream cones of licking,
remains to cool my forehead with a washcloth
when I sweat into the bathtub of his being.

For the rest that is left:
name it gentle,
as gentle as radishes inhabiting
their short life in the earth,
name it gentle,
gentle as old friends waving so long at the window,
or in the drive,
name it gentle as maple wings singing
themselves upon the pond outside,
as sensuous as the mother-yellow in the pond,
that night that it was ours,
when our bodies floated and bumped
in moon water and the cicadas
called out like tongues.

Let such as this
be resurrected in all men
whenever they mold their days and nights
as when for twenty-five days and nights you molded mine
and planted the seed that dives into my God
and will do so forever
no matter how often I sweep the floor.

 Lancaster bore him--such a little town, 
Such a great man. It doesn't see him often 
Of late years, though he keeps the old homestead 
And sends the children down there with their mother 
To run wild in the summer--a little wild. 
Sometimes he joins them for a day or two 
And sees old friends he somehow can't get near. 
They meet him in the general store at night, 
Pre-occupied with formidable mail, 
Rifling a printed letter as he talks. 
They seem afraid. He wouldn't have it so: 
Though a great scholar, he's a democrat, 
If not at heart, at least on principle. 
Lately when coming up to Lancaster 
His train being late he missed another train 
And had four hours to wait at Woodsville Junction 
After eleven o'clock at night. Too tired 
To think of sitting such an ordeal out, 
He turned to the hotel to find a bed. 
"No room," the night clerk said. "Unless----" 
Woodsville's a place of shrieks and wandering lamps 
And cars that shook and rattle--and one hotel. 
"You say 'unless.'" 
"Unless you wouldn't mind 
Sharing a room with someone else." 
"Who is it?" 
"A man." 
"So I should hope. What kind of man?" 
"I know him: he's all right. A man's a man. 
Separate beds of course you understand." 
The night clerk blinked his eyes and dared him on. 
"Who's that man sleeping in the office chair? 
Has he had the refusal of my chance?" 
"He was afraid of being robbed or murdered. 
What do you say?" 
"I'll have to have a bed." 
The night clerk led him up three flights of stairs 
And down a narrow passage full of doors, 
At the last one of which he knocked and entered. 
"Lafe, here's a fellow wants to share your room." 
"Show him this way. I'm not afraid of him. 
I'm not so drunk I can't take care of myself." 
The night clerk clapped a bedstead on the foot. 
"This will be yours. Good-night," he said, and went. 
"Lafe was the name, I think?" 
"Yes, Layfayette. 
You got it the first time. And yours?" 
"Magoon. 
Doctor Magoon." 
"A Doctor?" 
"Well, a teacher." 
"Professor Square-the-circle-till-you're-tired? 
Hold on, there's something I don't think of now 
That I had on my mind to ask the first 
Man that knew anything I happened in with. 
I'll ask you later--don't let me forget it." 
The Doctor looked at Lafe and looked away. 
A man? A brute. Naked above the waist, 
He sat there creased and shining in the light, 
Fumbling the buttons in a well-starched shirt. 
"I'm moving into a size-larger shirt. 
I've felt mean lately; mean's no name for it. 
I just found what the matter was to-night: 
I've been a-choking like a nursery tree 
When it outgrows the wire band of its name tag. 
I blamed it on the hot spell we've been having. 
'Twas nothing but my foolish hanging back, 
Not liking to own up I'd grown a size. 
Number eighteen this is. What size do you wear?" 
The Doctor caught his throat convulsively. 
"Oh--ah--fourteen--fourteen." 
"Fourteen! You say so! 
I can remember when I wore fourteen. 
And come to think I must have back at home 
More than a hundred collars, size fourteen. 
Too bad to waste them all. You ought to have them. 
They're yours and welcome; let me send them to you. 
What makes you stand there on one leg like that? 
You're not much furtherer than where Kike left you. 
You act as if you wished you hadn't come. 
Sit down or lie down, friend; you make me nervous." 
The Doctor made a subdued dash for it, 
And propped himself at bay against a pillow. 
"Not that way, with your shoes on Kike's white bed. 
You can't rest that way. Let me pull your shoes off." 
"Don't touch me, please--I say, don't touch me, please. 
I'll not be put to bed by you, my man." 
"Just as you say. Have it your own way then. 
'My man' is it? You talk like a professor. 
Speaking of who's afraid of who, however, 
I'm thinking I have more to lose than you 
If anything should happen to be wrong. 
Who wants to cut your number fourteen throat! 
Let's have a show down as an evidence 
Of good faith. There is ninety dollars. 
Come, if you're not afraid." 
"I'm not afraid. 
There's five: that's all I carry." 
"I can search you? 
Where are you moving over to? Stay still. 
You'd better tuck your money under you 
And sleep on it the way I always do 
When I'm with people I don't trust at night." 
"Will you believe me if I put it there 
Right on the counterpane--that I do trust you?" 
"You'd say so, Mister Man.--I'm a collector. 
My ninety isn't mine--you won't think that. 
I pick it up a dollar at a time 
All round the country for the Weekly News, 
Published in Bow. You know the Weekly News?" 
"Known it since I was young." 
"Then you know me. 
Now we are getting on together--talking. 
I'm sort of Something for it at the front. 
My business is to find what people want: 
They pay for it, and so they ought to have it. 
Fairbanks, he says to me--he's editor-- 
Feel out the public sentiment--he says. 
A good deal comes on me when all is said. 
The only trouble is we disagree 
In politics: I'm Vermont Democrat-- 
You know what that is, sort of double-dyed; 
The News has always been Republican. 
Fairbanks, he says to me, 'Help us this year,' 
Meaning by us their ticket. 'No,' I says, 
'I can't and won't. You've been in long enough: 
It's time you turned around and boosted us. 
You'll have to pay me more than ten a week 
If I'm expected to elect Bill Taft. 
I doubt if I could do it anyway.'" 
"You seem to shape the paper's policy." 
"You see I'm in with everybody, know 'em all. 
I almost know their farms as well as they do." 
"You drive around? It must be pleasant work." 
"It's business, but I can't say it's not fun. 
What I like best's the lay of different farms, 
Coming out on them from a stretch of woods, 
Or over a hill or round a sudden corner. 
I like to find folks getting out in spring, 
Raking the dooryard, working near the house. 
Later they get out further in the fields. 
Everything's shut sometimes except the barn; 
The family's all away in some back meadow. 
There's a hay load a-coming--when it comes. 
And later still they all get driven in: 
The fields are stripped to lawn, the garden patches 
Stripped to bare ground, the apple trees 
To whips and poles. There's nobody about. 
The chimney, though, keeps up a good brisk smoking. 
And I lie back and ride. I take the reins 
Only when someone's coming, and the mare 
Stops when she likes: I tell her when to go. 
I've spoiled Jemima in more ways than one. 
She's got so she turns in at every house 
As if she had some sort of curvature, 
No matter if I have no errand there. 
She thinks I'm sociable. I maybe am. 
It's seldom I get down except for meals, though. 
Folks entertain me from the kitchen doorstep, 
All in a family row down to the youngest." 
"One would suppose they might not be as glad 
To see you as you are to see them." 
"Oh, 
Because I want their dollar. I don't want 
Anything they've not got. I never dun. 
I'm there, and they can pay me if they like. 
I go nowhere on purpose: I happen by. 
Sorry there is no cup to give you a drink. 
I drink out of the bottle--not your style. 
Mayn't I offer you----?" 
"No, no, no, thank you." 
"Just as you say. Here's looking at you then.-- 
And now I'm leaving you a little while. 
You'll rest easier when I'm gone, perhaps-- 
Lie down--let yourself go and get some sleep. 
But first--let's see--what was I going to ask you? 
Those collars--who shall I address them to, 
Suppose you aren't awake when I come back?" 
"Really, friend, I can't let you. You--may need them." 
"Not till I shrink, when they'll be out of style." 
"But really I--I have so many collars." 
"I don't know who I rather would have have them. 
They're only turning yellow where they are. 
But you're the doctor as the saying is. 
I'll put the light out. Don't you wait for me: 
I've just begun the night. You get some sleep. 
I'll knock so-fashion and peep round the door 
When I come back so you'll know who it is. 
There's nothing I'm afraid of like scared people. 
I don't want you should shoot me in the head. 
What am I doing carrying off this bottle? 
There now, you get some sleep." 
He shut the door. 
The Doctor slid a little down the pillow.

 There's a whisper down the field where the year has shot her yield,
 And the ricks stand grey to the sun,
Singing: "Over then, come over, for the bee has quit the dover,
 "And your English summer's done."
 You have heard the beat of the off-shore wind,
 And the thresh of the deep-sea rain;
 You have heard the song -- how long? how long?
 Pull out on the trail again!
Ha' done with the Tents of Shem, dear lass,
We've seen the seasons through,
And it's time to turn the old trail, our own trail, the out trail,
Pull out, pull out, on the Long Trail-the trail that is always new!

It's North you may run to the rime-ringed sun
 Or South to the blind Hom's hate;
Or East all the way into Mississippi Bay,
 Or West to the Golden Gate --
 Where the blindest bluffs hold good, dear lass,
 And the wildest tales are true,
 And the men bulk big on the old trail, our own trail, the out trail,
 And life runs large on the Long Trail -- the trail that is always new.

The days are sick and cold, and the skies are grey and old
 And the twice-breathed airs blow damp;
And I'd sell my tired soul for the bucking beam-sea roll
 Of a black Bilbao tramp,
 With her load-line over her hatch, dear lass,
 And a drunken Dago crew,
 And her nose held down on the old trail, our own trail, the out trail
 From Cadiz south on the Long Trail-the trail that is always new.

There be triple ways to take, of the eagle or the snake,
 Or the way of a man with a maid;
But the sweetest way to me is a ship's upon the sea
 In the heel of the North-East Trade.
 Can you hear the crash on her brows, dear lass.
 And the drum of the racing screw,
 As she ships it green on the old trail, our own trail, the out trail,
 As she lifts and 'scends on the Long Trail -- the trail that is always new?

See the shaking funnels roar, with the Peter at the fore,
 And the fenders grind and heave,
And the derricks clack and grate, as the tackle hooks the crate,
 And the fall-rope whines through the sheave;
 It's "Gang-plank up and in," dear lass,
 It's "Hawsers warp her through!"
 And it's "All clear aft" on the old trail, our own trail, the out trail,
 We're backing down on the Long Trail -- the trail that is always new.

O the mutter overside, when the port-fog holds us tied,
 And the sirens hoot their dread,
When foot by foot we creep o'er the hueless, viewless deep
 To the sob of the questing lead!
 It's down by the Lower Hope, dear lass,
 With the Grinfleet Sands in view,
 Till the Mouse swings green on the old trail, our own trail, the out trail,
 And the Gull Light lifts on the Long Trail -- the trail that is always new.

O the blazing tropic night, when the wake's a welt of light
 That holds the hot sky tame,
And the steady fore-foot snores through the planet-powdered floors
 Where the scared whale flukes in flame!
 Her plates are flaked by the sun, dear lass
 And her ropes are taut with the dew,
 For we're booming down on the old trail, our own trail, the out trail,
 We're sagging south on the Long Trail -- the trail that is always new.

Then home, get her home, where the drunken rollers comb,
 And the shouting seas drive by,
And the engines stamp and ring, and the wet bows reel and swing,
 And the Southern Cross rides high!
 Yes, the old lost stars wheel back, dear lass,
 That blaze in the velvet blue.
 They're all old friends on the old trail, our own trail, the out trail,
 They're God's own guides on the Long Trail -- the trail that is always new.

Fly forward, O my heart, from the Foreland to the Start
 We're steaming all too slow,
And it's twenty thousand mile to our little lazy isle
 Where the trumpet-orchids blow!
 You have heard the call of the off-shore wind
 And the voice of the deep-sea rain;
 You have heard the song-how long? how long?
 Pull out on the trail again!

The Lord knows what we may find, dear lass,
And The Deuce knows we may do
But we're back once more on the old trail, our own trail, the out trail,
We're down, hull-down, on the Long Trail -- the trail that is always new!

 Releas'd from the noise of the butcher and baker 
Who, my old friends be thanked, did seldom forsake her, 
And from the soft duns of my landlord the Quaker, 

From chiding the footmen and watching the lasses, 
From Nell that burn'd milk, and Tom that broke glasses 
(Sad mischiefs thro' which a good housekeeper passes!) 

From some real care but more fancied vexation, 
From a life parti-colour'd half reason half passion, 
Here lies after all the best wench in the nation. 

From the Rhine to the Po, from the Thames to the Rhone, 
Joanna or Janneton, Jinny or Joan, 
'Twas all one to her by what name she was known. 

For the idiom of words very little she heeded, 
Provided the matter she drove at succeeded, 
She took and gave languages just as she needed. 

So for kitchen and market, for bargain and sale, 
She paid English or Dutch or French down on the nail, 
But in telling a story she sometimes did fail; 

Then begging excuse as she happen'd to stammer, 
With respect to her betters but none to her grammar, 
Her blush helped her out and her jargon became her. 

Her habit and mien she endeavor'd to frame 
To the different gout of the place where she came; 
Her outside still chang'd, but her inside the same: 

At the Hague in her slippers and hair as the mode is, 
At Paris all falbalow'd fine as a goddess, 
And at censuring London in smock sleeves and bodice. 

She order'd affairs that few people could tell 
In what part about her that mixture did dwell 
Of Frow, or Mistress, or Mademoiselle. 

For her surname and race let the herald's e'en answer; 
Her own proper worth was enough to advance her, 
And he who liked her, little value her grandsire. 

But from what house so ever her lineage may come 
I wish my own Jinny but out of her tomb, 
Tho' all her relations were there in her room. 

Of such terrible beauty she never could boast 
As with absolute sway o'er all hearts rules the roast 
When J___ bawls out to the chair for a toast; 

But of good household features her person was made, 
Nor by faction cried up nor of censure afraid, 
And her beauty was rather for use than parade. 

Her blood so well mix't and flesh so well pasted 
That, tho' her youth faded, her comeliness lasted; 
The blue was wore off, but the plum was well tasted. 

Less smooth than her skin and less white than her breast 
Was this polished stone beneath which she lies pressed: 
Stop, reader, and sigh while thou thinkst on the rest. 

With a just trim of virtue her soul was endued, 
Not affectedly pious nor secretly lewd 
She cut even between the coquette and the prude. 

Her will with her duty so equally stood 
That, seldom oppos'd, she was commonly good, 
And did pretty well, doing just what she would. 

Declining all power she found means to persuade, 
Was then most regarded when most she obey'd, 
The mistress in truth when she seem'd but the maid. 

Such care of her own proper actions she took 
That on other folk's lives she had not time to look, 
So censure and praise were struck out of her book. 

Her thought still confin'd to its own little sphere, 
She minded not who did excel or did err 
But just as the matter related to her. 

Then too when her private tribunal was rear'd 
Her mercy so mix'd with her judgment appear'd 
That her foes were condemn'd and her friends always clear'd. 

Her religion so well with her learning did suit 
That in practice sincere, and in controverse mute, 
She showed she knew better to live than dispute. 

Some parts of the Bible by heart she recited, 
And much in historical chapters delighted, 
But in points about Faith she was something short sighted; 

So notions and modes she refer'd to the schools, 
And in matters of conscience adher'd to two rules, 
To advise with no bigots, and jest with no fools. 

And scrupling but little, enough she believ'd, 
By charity ample small sins she retriev'd, 
And when she had new clothes she always receiv'd. 

Thus still whilst her morning unseen fled away 
In ord'ring the linen and making the tea 
That scarce could have time for the psalms of the day; 

And while after dinner the night came so soon 
That half she propos'd very seldom was done; 
With twenty God bless me's, how this day is gone! -- 

While she read and accounted and paid and abated, 
Eat and drank, play'd and work'd, laugh'd and cried, lov'd and hated, 
As answer'd the end of her being created: 

In the midst of her age came a cruel disease 
Which neither her juleps nor receipts could appease; 
So down dropp'd her clay -- may her Soul be at peace! 

Retire from this sepulchre all the profane, 
You that love for debauch, or that marry for gain, 
Retire lest ye trouble the Manes of J___. 

But thou that know'st love above int'rest or lust, 
Strew the myrle and rose on this once belov'd dust, 
And shed one pious tear upon Jinny the Just. 

Tread soft on her grave, and do right to her honor, 
Let neither rude hand nor ill tongue light upon her, 
Do all the small favors that now can be done her. 

And when what thou lik'd shall return to her clay, 
For so I'm persuaded she must do one day 
-- Whatever fantastic John Asgill may say -- 

When as I have done now, thou shalt set up a stone 
For something however distinguished or known, 
May some pious friend the misfortune bemoan, 
And make thy concern by reflexion his own.

 Pitch here the tent, while the old horse grazes:
By the old hedge-side we'll halt a stage.
It's nigh my last above the daisies:
My next leaf'll be man's blank page.
Yes, my old girl! and it's no use crying:
Juggler, constable, king, must bow.
One that outjuggles all's been spying
Long to have me, and he has me now.

We've travelled times to this old common:
Often we've hung our pots in the gorse.
We've had a stirring life, old woman!
You, and I, and the old grey horse.
Races, and fairs, and royal occasions,
Found us coming to their call:
Now they'll miss us at our stations:
There's a Juggler outjuggles all!

Up goes the lark, as if all were jolly!
Over the duck-pond the willow shakes.
Easy to think that grieving's folly,
When the hand's firm as driven stakes!
Ay, when we're strong, and braced, and manful,
Life's a sweet fiddle: but we're a batch
Born to become the Great Juggler's han'ful:
Balls he shies up, and is safe to catch.

Here's where the lads of the village cricket:
I was a lad not wide from here:
Couldn't I whip off the bale from the wicket?
Like an old world those days appear!
Donkey, sheep, geese, and thatch'd ale-house--I know them!
They are old friends of my halts, and seem,
Somehow, as if kind thanks I owe them:
Juggling don't hinder the heart's esteem.

Juggling's no sin, for we must have victual:
Nature allows us to bait for the fool.
Holding one's own makes us juggle no little;
But, to increase it, hard juggling's the rule.
You that are sneering at my profession,
Haven't you juggled a vast amount?
There's the Prime Minister, in one Session,
Juggles more games than my sins'll count.

I've murdered insects with mock thunder:
Conscience, for that, in men don't quail.
I've made bread from the bump of wonder:
That's my business, and there's my tale.
Fashion and rank all praised the professor:
Ay! and I've had my smile from the Queen:
Bravo, Jerry! she meant: God bless her!
Ain't this a sermon on that scene?

I've studied men from my topsy-turvy
Close, and, I reckon, rather true.
Some are fine fellows: some, right scurvy:
Most, a dash between the two.
But it's a woman, old girl, that makes me
Think more kindly of the race:
And it's a woman, old girl, that shakes me
When the Great Juggler I must face.

We two were married, due and legal:
Honest we've lived since we've been one.
Lord! I could then jump like an eagle:
You danced bright as a bit o' the sun.
Birds in a May-bush we were! right merry!
All night we kiss'd, we juggled all day.
Joy was the heart of Juggling Jerry!
Now from his old girl he's juggled away.

It's past parsons to console us:
No, nor no doctor fetch for me:
I can die without my bolus;
Two of a trade, lass, never agree!
Parson and Doctor!--don't they love rarely
Fighting the devil in other men's fields!
Stand up yourself and match him fairly:
Then see how the rascal yields!

I, lass, have lived no gipsy, flaunting
Finery while his poor helpmate grubs:
Coin I've stored, and you won't be wanting:
You shan't beg from the troughs and tubs.
Nobly you've stuck to me, though in his kitchen
Many a Marquis would hail you Cook!
Palaces you could have ruled and grown rich in,
But your old Jerry you never forsook.

Hand up the chirper! ripe ale winks in it;
Let's have comfort and be at peace.
Once a stout draught made me light as a linnet.
Cheer up! the Lord must have his lease.
May be--for none see in that black hollow--
It's just a place where we're held in pawn,
And, when the Great Juggler makes as to swallow,
It's just the sword-trick--I ain't quite gone!

Yonder came smells of the gorse, so nutty,
Gold-like and warm: it's the prime of May.
Better than mortar, brick and putty
Is God's house on a blowing day.
Lean me more up the mound; now I feel it:
All the old heath-smells! Ain't it strange?
There's the world laughing, as if to conceal it,
But He's by us, juggling the change.

I mind it well, by the sea-beach lying,
Once--it's long gone--when two gulls we beheld,
Which, as the moon got up, were flying
Down a big wave that sparked and swell'd.
Crack, went a gun: one fell: the second
Wheeled round him twice, and was off for new luck:
There in the dark her white wing beckon'd:--
Drop me a kiss--I'm the bird dead-struck!

 THE leaves are falling; so am I; 
The few late flowers have moisture in the eye; 
 So have I too. 
Scarcely on any bough is heard 
Joyous, or even unjoyous, bird 
 The whole wood through. 

Winter may come: he brings but nigher 
His circle (yearly narrowing) to the fire 
 Where old friends meet. 
Let him; now heaven is overcast, 
And spring and summer both are past, 
 And all things sweet.

 And thus the people every year 
in the valley of humid July 
did sacrifice themselves 
to the long green phallic god 
and eat and eat and eat. 
They're coming, they're on us, 
the long striped gourds, the silky 
babies, the hairy adolescents, 
the lumpy vast adults 
like the trunks of green elephants. 
Recite fifty zucchini recipes! 

Zucchini tempura; creamed soup; 
sauté with olive oil and cumin, 
tomatoes, onion; frittata; 
casserole of lamb; baked 
topped with cheese; marinated; 
stuffed; stewed; driven 
through the heart like a stake. 

Get rid of old friends: they too 
have gardens and full trunks. 
Look for newcomers: befriend 
them in the post office, unload 
on them and run. Stop tourists 
in the street. Take truckloads 
to Boston. Give to your Red Cross. 
Beg on the highway: please 
take my zucchini, I have a crippled 
mother at home with heartburn. 

Sneak out before dawn to drop 
them in other people's gardens, 
in baby buggies at churchdoors. 
Shot, smuggling zucchini into 
mailboxes, a federal offense. 

With a suave reptilian glitter 
you bask among your raspy 
fronds sudden and huge as
alligators. You give and give 
too much, like summer days 
limp with heat, thunderstorms 
bursting their bags on our heads, 
as we salt and freeze and pickle 
for the too little to come.

 Come, brothers, share the fellowship
We celebrate to-night;
There's grace of song on every lip
And every heart is light!
But first, before our mentor chimes
The hour of jubilee,
Let's drink a health to good old times,
And good times yet to be!
Clink, clink, clink!
Merrily let us drink!
There's store of wealth
And more of health
In every glass, we think.
Clink, clink, clink!
To fellowship we drink!
And from the bowl
No genial soul
In such an hour can shrink.

And you, oh, friends from west and east
And other foreign parts,
Come share the rapture of our feast,
The love of loyal hearts;
And in the wassail that suspends
All matters burthensome,
We 'll drink a health to good old friends
And good friends yet to come.
Clink, clink, clink!
To fellowship we drink!
And from the bowl
No genial soul
In such an hour will shrink.
Clink, clink, clink!
Merrily let us drink!
There's fellowship
In every sip
Of friendship's brew, we think.

 "You must choose between me and your cigar."
 -- BREACH OF PROMISE CASE, CIRCA 1885.


Open the old cigar-box, get me a Cuba stout,
For things are running crossways, and Maggie and I are out.

We quarrelled about Havanas -- we fought o'er a good cheroot,
And I knew she is exacting, and she says I am a brute.

Open the old cigar-box -- let me consider a space;
In the soft blue veil of the vapour musing on Maggie's face.

Maggie is pretty to look at -- Maggie's a loving lass,
But the prettiest cheeks must wrinkle, the truest of loves must pass.

There's peace in a Larranaga, there's calm in a Henry Clay;
But the best cigar in an hour is finished and thrown away --

Thrown away for another as perfect and ripe and brown --
But I could not throw away Maggie for fear o' the talk o' the town!

Maggie, my wife at fifty -- grey and dour and old --
With never another Maggie to purchase for love or gold!

And the light of Days that have Been the dark of the Days that Are,
And Love's torch stinking and stale, like the butt of a dead cigar --

The butt of a dead cigar you are bound to keep in your pocket --
With never a new one to light tho' it's charred and black to the socket!

Open the old cigar-box -- let me consider a while.
Here is a mild Manila -- there is a wifely smile.

Which is the better portion -- bondage bought with a ring,
Or a harem of dusky beauties, fifty tied in a string?

Counsellors cunning and silent -- comforters true and tried,
And never a one of the fifty to sneer at a rival bride?

Thought in the early morning, solace in time of woes,
Peace in the hush of the twilight, balm ere my eyelids close,

This will the fifty give me, asking nought in return,
With only a Suttee's passion -- to do their duty and burn.

This will the fifty give me. When they are spent and dead,
Five times other fifties shall be my servants instead.

The furrows of far-off Java, the isles of the Spanish Main,
When they hear my harem is empty will send me my brides again.

I will take no heed to their raiment, nor food for their mouths withal,
So long as the gulls are nesting, so long as the showers fall.

I will scent 'em with best vanilla, with tea will I temper their hides,
And the Moor and the Mormon shall envy who read of the tale of my brides.

For Maggie has written a letter to give me my choice between
The wee little whimpering Love and the great god Nick o' Teen.

And I have been servant of Love for barely a twelvemonth clear,
But I have been Priest of Cabanas a matter of seven year;

And the gloom of my bachelor days is flecked with the cheery light
Of stums that I burned to Friendship and Pleasure and Work and Fight.

And I turn my eyes to the future that Maggie and I must prove,
But the only light on the marshes is the Will-o'-the-Wisp of Love.

Will it see me safe through my journey or leave me bogged in the mire?
Since a puff of tobacco can cloud it, shall I follow the fitful fire?

Open the old cigar-box -- let me consider anew --
Old friends, and who is Maggie that I should abandon you?

A million surplus Maggies are willing to bear the yoke;
And a woman is only a woman, but a good Cigar is a Smoke.

Light me another Cuba -- I hold to my first-sworn vows.
If Maggie will have no rival, I'll have no Maggie for Spouse!

 TIS a dull sight
 To see the year dying,
When winter winds
 Set the yellow wood sighing:
 Sighing, O sighing!

When such a time cometh
 I do retire
Into an old room
 Beside a bright fire:
 O, pile a bright fire!

And there I sit
 Reading old things,
Of knights and lorn damsels,
 While the wind sings--
 O, drearily sings!

I never look out
 Nor attend to the blast;
For all to be seen
 Is the leaves falling fast:
 Falling, falling!

But close at the hearth,
 Like a cricket, sit I,
Reading of summer
 And chivalry--
 Gallant chivalry!

Then with an old friend
 I talk of our youth--
How 'twas gladsome, but often
 Foolish, forsooth:
 But gladsome, gladsome!

Or, to get merry,
 We sing some old rhyme
That made the wood ring again
 In summer time--
 Sweet summer time!

Then go we smoking,
 Silent and snug:
Naught passes between us,
 Save a brown jug--
 Sometimes!

And sometimes a tear
 Will rise in each eye,
Seeing the two old friends
 So merrily--
 So merrily!

And ere to bed
 Go we, go we,
Down on the ashes
 We kneel on the knee,
 Praying together!

Thus, then, live I
 Till, 'mid all the gloom,
By Heaven! the bold sun
 Is with me in the room
 Shining, shining!

Then the clouds part,
 Swallows soaring between;
The spring is alive,
 And the meadows are green!

I jump up like mad,
 Break the old pipe in twain,
And away to the meadows,
 The meadows again!