Guy Wetmore Carryl Poems

The fog slunk down from Labrador, stealthy, sure, and slow,
Southwardly shifting, far inshore, so never a man might know
How the sea it trod with feet soft-shod, watching the distance dim,
Where the fishing-fleet to the eastward beat, white dots on the ocean's rim.
...

A bulrush stood on a river's rim,
And an oak that grew near by
Looked down with cold
hauteur
...

Miss Guinevere Platt
Was so beautiful that
She couldn't remember the day
When one of her swains...
...

The vainest girls in forty states
Were Gwendolyn and Gladys Gates;
They warbled slightly off the air,
Romantic German songs,
...

Without the slightest basis
For hypochondriasis
A widow had forebodings
which a cloud around her flung,
...

There was an ant, a spinster ant,
Whose virtues were so many
That she became intolerant
Of those who hadn't any:
...

To eastward ringing, to westward winging, o'er mapless miles of sea,
On winds and tides the gospel rides that the furthermost isles are free;
...

Hear us, Phoebus Apollo, who are shorn of contempt and pride,
Humbled and crushed in a world gone wrong since the smoke on thine altars died;
Hear us, Lord of the morning, King of the Eastern Flame,
Dawn on our doubts and darkness and the night of our later shame!
...

LITTLE Miss Muffet discovered a tuffet,
(Which never occurred to the rest of us)
And, as 'twas a June day, and just about noonday,
She wanted to eat- like the rest of us:
...

A metropolitan rat invited
His country cousin in town to dine:
The country cousin replied, 'Delighted.'
And signed himself, 'Sincerely thine.'
...