Franklin Pierce Adams Poems

When you came you were like red wine and honey,
And the taste of you burnt my mouth with its sweetness.
Now you are like morning bread--
Smooth and pleasant,
...

The songs of Sherwood Forest
Are lilac-sweet and clear;
The virile rhymes of merrier times
Sound fair upon mine ear.
...

"Nam nihil est, quod non mortalibus afferat usum."

--PETRONIUS
...

Whenever the penner of this pome
Regards a lovely country home,
He sighs, in words not insincere,
"I think I'd like to live out here."
...

("Humourists have amused themselves by translating famous sonnets into free verse. A result no less ridiculous would have been obtained if somebody had re-written a passage from 'Paradise Lost' as a rondeau." --George Soule in the New Republic)

"PARADISE LOST"
...

Horace: Book III, Ode 9

"Donec eram gratus tibi--"
...

Horace: Book III, Ode 3

"Carminis interea nostri redæmus in orbem---"
...

Sporting with Amaryllis in the shade,
(I credit Milton in parenthesis),
Among the speculations that she made
Was this:
...

Horace: Book III, Ode 30

"Exegi monumentum aere perennius---"
...

"Oh bard," I said, "your verse is free;
The shackles that encumber me,
The fetters that are my obsession,
Are never gyves to your expression.
...