Now winter nights enlarge The number of their hours; And clouds their storms discharge Upon the air towers. Let now the chimneys blaze And cups o'erflow with wine, Let well-turned words amaze With harmony divine. Now yellow waxen lights Shall wait on honey love While youthful revels, masques, and courtly sights Sleep's leaden spells remove.
This time doth well dispense With lovers' long discourse; Much speech hath some defense, Though beauty no remorse. All do not all things well; Some measures comely tread, Some knotted riddles tell, Some poems smoothly read. The summer hath his joys, And winter his delights; Though love and all his pleasures are but toys, They shorten tedious nights.
There once was a renowned psychoanalyst Who found childhood events were always the catalyst. A patient who lived happily 'Til a recent tragedy, Learned it all stemmed from thoughts as a neonatalist.
There once was a master of the satiric Who was known for being quite satyric. What a difference "y" makes: Handshakes to heartaches. He was cancelled as his words won panegyrics.
Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths, Enwrought with the golden and silver light, The blue and the dim and the dark cloths Of night and light and the half-light, I would spread the cloths under your feet: But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
NOTE: This poem is also sometimes entitled, “Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven.”
There once was a player of the banjo Who took out his act as a roadshow. A tour by demand, (The demand of his band.) Crowds felt the same and suggested he bongo.
There once was a Taoist from Taipei, Who knew all one could know of the Way. When asked for directions, He'd state his objections, "The way that can be stated is not The Way."
Sometime not too distant, There will come a day When you will return to A frequent state of play.
When that day comes around, You'll have lost all concern For the adults' belief that Frivolity must be spurned.
You'll take to tossing balls And climbing up the walls, Just like you used to do When you were one or two -- Before that human zoo Got its hooks in you.
Slowly, silently, the moon Walks the night in her silver shoon; This way, and that, she peers, and sees Silver fruit upon silver trees; One by one the casements catch Her beams beneath the silvery thatch; Couched in his kennel, like a log, With paws of silver sleeps the dog; From their shadowy cote the white breasts peep Of doves in a silver-feathered sleep; A harvest mouse goes scampering by, With silver claws, and silver eye; And moveless fish in the water gleam, By silver reeds in a silver stream.
At noisy readings an angry old poet Would pick up one of his books and bestow it. When they would snicker He'd wish his book thicker, For it would flutter in air when he'd throw it.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 