American Wits: An Anthology of Light Verse

edited by john hollander

Introduction

AMBROSE BIERCE (1842-1914?)

from The Devil's Dictionary

Corporal

Elegy

EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON (1869-1935)

Two Men

A Mighty Runner

Miniver Cheevy

CAROLYN WELLS (1869-1942)

Famous Baths and Bathers

ARTHUR GUITERMAN (1871-1943)

Elegy

from The Lyric Baedeker

Philadelphia

Seattle

Everything In Its Place

On the Vanity of Earthly Greatness

GUY WETMORE CARRYL (1873-1904)

The Embarrassing Episode of Little Miss Muffet

The Harmonious Heedlessness of Little Boy Blue

ROBERT FROST (1874-1963)

The Wrights' Biplane

In Divýs' Dive

In a Poem

DON MARQUIS (1878-1937)

the song of mehitabel

archy at the zoo

from mehitabel's extensive past

ballade of the under side

VACHEL LINDSAY (1879-1931)

Factory Windows Are Always Broken

A Colloquial Reply: To Any Newsboy

Niagara

Kalamazoo

FRANKLIN P. ADAMS (1881-1960)

Us Potes

Ballade of Schopenhauer's Philosophy

The Rich Man

To a Thesaurus

"Lines Where Beauty Lingers"

EZRA POUND (1885-1972)

An Immorality

Ancient Music

T. S. ELIOT (1888-1965)

The Naming of Cats

Macavity: The Mystery Cat

NEWMAN LEVY (1888-1966)

Tannhauser

Carmen

Rigoletto

Pelleas and Melisande

JOHN CROWE RANSOM (1888-1974)

Survey of Literature

SAMUEL HOFFENSTEIN (1890-1947)

from Love-songs, at Once Tender and Affirmative-

An Unusual Combination in Verses of This Character

from The Notebook of a Schnook

from Poems in Praise of Practically Nothing

from Songs About Life and Brighter Things Yet;

A Survey of the Entire Earthly Panorama, Animal, Vegetable and Mineral, with Appropriate Comment by the Author, of a Philosophic, Whimsical, Humorous, or Poetic Nature-a Truly Remarkable Undertaking

from Couplets, Rare, Medium and Well-Done: The Sexes

CHRISTOPHER MORLEY (1890-1957)

Elegy Written in a Country Coal-Bin

"A Pre-Raphaelite"

MAXWELL BODENHEIM (1892-1954)

Upper Family

EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY (1892-1950)

First Fig

Second Fig

Thursday

Grown-Up

MORRIS BISHOP (1893-1973)

Ozymandias Revisited

Eschatology

We Have Been Here Before

"A joker who haunts Monticello"

Flowers of Rhetoric

Ah, To Be In ...

DOROTHY PARKER (1893-1967)

Portrait of the Artist

Chant for Dark Hours

Unfortunate Coincidence

Comment

Words of Comfort to be Scratched on a Mirror

News Item

Song of One of the Girls

Fighting Words

Inscription for the Ceiling of a Bedroom

Experience

Neither Bloody Nor Bowed

Bohemia

Story

Frustration

Rýsumý

One Perfect Rose

Ballade at Thirty-Five

Healed

Pour Prendre Congý

Coda

The Danger of Writing Defiant Verse

The Actress

E. E. CUMMINGS (1894-1962)

"the way to hump a cow"

F. SCOTT FITZGERALD (1896-1940)

Obit on Parnassus

DAVID MCCORD (1897-1997)

Sportif

History of Education

Convalescence

JOHN WHEELWRIGHT (1897-1940)

Week End Bid I

Week End Bid II

Lion

E. B. WHITE (1899-1985)

Marble-Top

I Paint What I See

Village Revisited

KENNETH FEARING (1902-1961)

Old Story

Aphrodite Metropolis III

Ballad of the Salvation Army

Death and Transfiguration of Fourteenth Street

Cultural Notes

Dirge

OGDEN NASH (1902-1971)

Spring Comes to Murray Hill

Watchman, What of the First First Lady?

Please Pass the Biscuit

The Termite

The Panther

A Beginner's Guide to the Ocean

Kind of an Ode to Duty

No Wonder Our Fathers Died

A Necessary Dirge

The Private Dining Room

What's in a Name? Some Letter I Always Forget

Arthur

The Song of Songs

PHYLLIS MCGINLEY (1905-1978)

View from a Suburban Window

Trinity Place

Why, Some of My Best Friends Are Women

Evening Musicale

Blues for a Melodeon

New England Pilgrimage

The Day After Sunday

HELEN BEVINGTON (1906-2001)

Mr. Rockefeller's Hat

To Helen

The Princess and the Pea

Ballade of Poetic Material

W. H. AUDEN (1907-1973)

Under Which Lyre

from Academic Graffiti:

"My first name, Wystan"

John Milton

Oscar Wilde

Parable

WILLIAM COLE (1919-2000)

from Uncoupled Couplets

ANTHONY HECHT (b. 1923)

The Dover Bitch

Handicap

It Never Rains ...

Firmness

From the Grove Press

Down There on a Visit

EDWARD GOREY (1925-2000)

"From the bathing machine came a din"

"The Proctor buys a pupil ices"

KENNETH KOCH (1925-2002)

Variations on a Theme by William Carlos Williams

La Ville de Nice

JAMES MERRILL (1926-1995)

Above All That?

Neo-Classic

Tomorrows

X. J. KENNEDY (b. 1929)

Japanese Beetles

GEORGE STARBUCK (b. 1931)

Said ("J Alfred Prufrock to")

Said ("Agatha Christie to")

Said ("Dame Edith Evans to")

Said ("J. Edgar Hoover to")

High Renaissance

Working Habits

Boston

On the Antiquity of Warfare

Note on the Texts

Notes

Index of Titles and First Lines