Arthur Guiterman Poems

The Antiseptic Baby and the Prophylactic Pup
Were playing in the garden when the Bunny gamboled up;
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The hippopotamus is strong
And huge of head and broad of bustle;
The limbs on which he rolls along
Are big with hippopotomuscle.
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Learn this now before you are older:
Don’t go through life with a chip on your shoulder,
Always aggrieved and ever offended,
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The tusks which clashed in mighty brawls
Of mastodons, are billiard balls.
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Amœbas at the start
Were not complex;
They tore themselves apart
And started Sex.

And Sex has ruled the earth
From then till this,
Producing ...
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Because on the branch that is tapping my pane
   A sun-wakened leaf-bud, uncurled,
Is bursting its rusty brown sheathing in twain,
   I know there is Spring in the world.
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The planets are bells on his motley,
He fleers at the stars in their state,
He banters the suns burning hotly-
The Jester whose nickname is Fate.
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The Deer don't dine
When a Wolf's about,
And the Porcupine
Sticks his quill-points out.
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I never loved your plains!--
Your gentle valleys,
Your drowsy country lanes
And pleachéd alleys.
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Great god whom I shall carve from this gray stone
   Wherein thou liest, hid to all but me,
Grant thou that when my art hath made thee known
   And others bow, I shall not worship thee.
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