Poetry Archives

Sometimes I dip my pen and find the bottle full of fire,
The salamanders flying forth I cannot but admire.
It’s Etna, or Vesuvius, if those big things were small,
And then ’tis but itself again, and does not smoke at all.
And so my blood grows cold.  I say, “The bottle held but ink,
And, if you thought it otherwise, the worser for your think.”
And then, just as I throw my scribbled paper on the floor,
The bottle says, “Fe, fi, fo, fum,” and steams and shouts some more.
O sad deceiving ink, as bad as liquor in its way—
All demons of a bottle size have pranced from you to-day,
And seized my pen for hobby-horse as witches ride a broom,
And left a trail of brimstone words and blots and gobs of gloom.
And yet when I am extra good and say my prayers at night,
And mind my ma, and do the chores, and speak to folks polite,
My bottle spreads a rainbow-mist, and from the vapor fine
Ten thousand troops from fairyland come riding in a line.
I’ve seen them on their chargers race around my study chair,
They opened wide the window and rode forth upon the air.
The army widened as it went, and into myriads grew,
O how the lances shimmered, how the silvery trumpets blew!