Sing a little, play a little, Laugh a little; for Life is so extremely brittle, Who would think of more? Every long-laid project shatters,

I might have been a worker, but I… I tell my idle stories in a philos… In a fuzzy, spiny mantle of remote… I lie and watch with half-shut eye… And they bustle and they rustle wi…

Hist! Zop! The world is all awry. Think that you can mend it? Take a turn and try. Virtue gets a fall or two,

Who cares, Though age oppress, And griefs distress, And the long, long day Rolls slow away

I like to read confessions As lengthy as Rousseau’s, With all their slow processions Of innumerable woes. I revel in Cellini,

Just to utter a word, That is all I desire; That may still be heard, When I expire; That still may glow,

The huge old earth shook and quive… When it heard my passionate cry. Why, even the little stars shivere… And almost went out in the sky. But the earth and the stars knew b…

The ghost of night’s long hours de… In congregation dreary, And leave my sorrow-trampled heart Intolerably weary. But Chirpings bright in dewy wood…

O Robert Lee, you paladin, I wonder how my words would strike… I know the portrait might have bee… In many, many ways more like you. But you would not have had me plan

Silly little bird, Singing of its love, Sang and never heard Winds of wrath above. Winds of wrath came down,

I’m sick to death of money, of the… And of practising perpetually smal… Of paring off a penny here, anothe… Of the planning and the worrying,… The savages went naked and no doub…

Nerves are most extraordinary, Full of useful information, At a moment’s notice merry With abounding cacchination, Then with subtle transformation,

I think about God. Yet I talk of small matters. Now isn’t it odd How my idle tongue chatters! Of quarrelsome neighbors,

Oh, my youth was hot and eager, And my heart was burning, burning, And the present joy seemed meagre, Dwarfed by that perpetual yearning… I was always madly asking

I had visited her often, Long had sought, with vain endeavo… Her obdurate heart to soften; But she answered, ‘never, never.’ Then it softened and ran widely,