Written by
Ellis Parker Butler |
In our dainty little kitchen,
Where my aproned wife is queen
Over all the tin-pan people,
In a realm exceeding clean,
Oft I like to loiter, watching
While she mixes things for tea;
And she tasks me, slyly smiling,
“Now just guess what this will be!”
Hidden in a big blue apron,
Her dimpled arms laid bare,
And the love-smiles coyly mingling
With a housewife’s frown of care—
See her beat a golden batter,
Pausing but to ask of me,
As she adds a bit of butter,
“Now just guess what this will be!”
Then I bravely do my duty,
Guess it, “pudding,” “cake” or “pie,”
“Dumplings,” “waffles,” “bread” or “muffins;”
But no matter what I try,
This provoking witch just answers:
“Never mind, just wait and see!
But I think you should be able,
Dear, to guess what this will be.
”
Little fraud! she never tells me
Until ’tis baked and browned—
And I think I know the reason
For her secrecy profound—
She herself with all her fine airs
And her books on cookery,
Could not answer, should I ask her,
“Dearest, what will that mess be?”
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Written by
Algernon Charles Swinburne |
Orpheus, the night is full of tears and cries,
And hardly for the storm and ruin shed
Can even thine eyes be certain of her head
Who never passed out of thy spirit's eyes,
But stood and shone before them in such wise
As when with love her lips and hands were fed,
And with mute mouth out of the dusty dead
Strove to make answer when thou bad'st her rise.
Yet viper-stricken must her lifeblood feel
The fang that stung her sleeping, the foul germ
Even when she wakes of hell's most poisonous worm,
Though now it writhe beneath her wounded heel.
Turn yet, she will not fade nor fly from thee;
Wait, and see hell yield up Eurydice.
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Written by
John Berryman |
I heard, could be, a Hey there from the wing,
and I went on: Miss Bessie soundin good
that one, that night of all,
I feelin fari myself, taxes & things
seem to be back in line, like everybody should
and nobody in the snow on call
so, as I say, the house is given hell
to Yellow Dog, I blowin like it too
and Bessie always do
when she make a very big sound—after, well,
no sound—I see she totterin—I cross which stage
even at Henry's age
in 2-3 seconds: then we wait and see.
I hear strange horns, Pinetop he hit some chords,
Charlie start Empty Bed,
they all come hangin Christmas on some tree
after trees thrown out—sick-house's white birds',
black to the birds instead.
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