Reading Aloud
ONCE we read Tennyson aloud
In our great fireside chair;
Between the lines my lips could touch
Her April-scented hair.
How very fond I was, to think
The printed poems fair,
When close within my arms I held
A living lyric there!
poem by Christopher Morley
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Inscription For A Grammar
There were two cheerful pronouns
And nought did them disturb:
Until they met, out walking.
A conjugative verb.
The pronouns, child, were You and I,
We might as well confess;
But, ah, the mischief-making verb
I leave to you to guess!
poem by Christopher Morley
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Caught in the Undertow
COLIN, worshipping some frail,
By self-deception sways her:
Calls himself unworthy male,
Hardly even fit to praise her.
But this tactic insincere
In the upshot greatly grieves him
When he finds the lovely dear
Quite implicitly believes him.
poem by Christopher Morley
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Dedication for a Fireplace
THIS hearth was built for thy delight,
For thee the logs were sawn,
For thee the largest chair, at night,
Is to the chimney drawn.
For thee, dear lass, the match was lit
To yield the ruddy blaze-
May Jack Frost give us joy of it
For many, many days.
poem by Christopher Morley
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Tit for Tat
I OFTEN pass a gracious tree
Whose name I can't identify,
But still I bow, in courtesy
It waves a bough, in kind reply.
I do not know your name, O tree
(Are you a hemlock or a pine?)
But why should that embarrass me?
Quite probably you don't know mine.
poem by Christopher Morley
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At the Mermaid Caffeteria
TRUTH is enough for prose:
Calmly it goes
To tell just what it knows.
For verse, skill will suffice-
Delicate, nice
Casting of verbal dice.
Poetry, men attain
By subtler pain
More flagrant in the brain-
An honesty unfeigned,
A heart unchained,
A madness well restrained.
poem by Christopher Morley
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Six Weeks Old
HE is so small he does not know
The summer sun, the winter snow;
The spring that ebbs and comes again,
All this is far beyond his ken.
A little world he feels and sees:
His mother's arms, his mother's knees;
He hides his face against her breast,
And does not care to learn the rest.
poem by Christopher Morley
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To a Post Office Inkwell
How many humble hearts have dipped
In you, and scrawled their manuscript!
Have shared their secrets, told their cares,
Their curious and quaint affairs!
Your pool of ink, your scratchy pen,
Have moved the lives of unborn men,
And watched young people, breathing hard,
Put Heaven on a postal card.
poem by Christopher Morley
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The Secret
IT was the House of Quietness
To which I came at dusk;
The garth was lit with roses
And heavy with their musk.
The tremulous tall poplar trees
Stood whispering around,
The gentle flicker of their plumes
More quiet than no sound.
And as I wondered at the door
What magic might be there,
The Lady of Sweet Silences
Came softly down the stair.
poem by Christopher Morley
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Burning Leaves, November
THESE are the folios of April,
All the library of spring,
Missals gilt and rubricated
With the frost's illumining.
Ruthless, we destroy these treasures,
Set the torch with hand profane-
Gone, like Alexandrian vellums,
Like the books of burnt Louvain!
Yet these classics are immortal:
O collectors, have no fear,
For the publisher will issue
New editions every year.
poem by Christopher Morley
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