Classic and Contemporary PoetryRhyming Dictionary Search
AN URBAN ECLOGUE, by PATRICK REGINALD CHALMERS First Line: How favoured are we, phyllis Last Line: A million years ago! Subject(s): Cities; Urban Life | ||||||||
STREPHON: HOW favoured are we, Phyllis, That ours is not the age When rustic Amaryllis Enjoyed a rustic rage; Her freckles and her frolics, Her stupid swains we know I've read their old bucolics (I had to years ago!). PHYLLIS: I haven't (thanks to heaven, And Fraülein's easy yoke); But still I fancy, Strephon, I know your tiresome folk: Their complimentsbecowslipped, Their idyllsof the sheep, Their wreathsthat o'er the brows slipped In unbecoming sleep! STREPHON: I picture you reclining With cricked and aching spine, To catch the pan-pipes whining Beneath some draughty pine; You, Phyllis, with your brooches And Paris frocks to-day Supreme among the coaches, Resplendent at the play! PHYLLIS: I simply can't imagine You on the classic lawns, With no Enclosure badge on, Amid the festive fauns: Or lounging, say, astride of A log on summer nights, You, Strephon, you the pride of The window-seat at White's! STREPHON: They knew not bands and cities, Nor streets in bunting bound; Their bunting chirped his ditties When Pan came barging round; For in their futile, far land, The only crownings were When someone dumped a garland On someone else's hair! PHYLLIS: Yet sometimes, when the dawning Comes o'er the chimneys tall, I find I'm almost yawning Half through some ripping ball; It's odd, but all one knows is Just then that such things please As hedges and wild-roses And buttercups and bees! STREPHON: Why not then? I'll have fancies; I, too, would botanize And pickI think they're pansies The blue things like your eyes: Or down the Henley reaches The crank canoe impel, To lunch 'neath Shiplake beeches If you were there as well! PHYLLIS: This much then for conclusion, I'd say small difference is 'Twixt tommy-rot effusion And old absurdities The sort your shepherd-sillies Fired off in fatuous flow For rustic Amaryllis, A million years ago! | Other Poems of Interest...THINGS (FOR AN INDIAN) TO DO IN NEW YORK (CITY) by SHERMAN ALEXIE THE CITY REVISITED by STEPHEN VINCENT BENET PRAISE PSALM OF THE CITY-DWELLER by APRIL BERNARD TEN OXHERDING PICTURES: ENTERING THE CITY WITH BLISS-BESTOWING HANDS by LUCILLE CLIFTON THE CITY OF THE OLESHA FRUIT by NORMAN DUBIE DISCOVERING THE PHOTOGRAPH OF LLOYD, EARL, AND PRISCILLA by LYNN EMANUEL |
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