hat ragweed all round my grave.

HYMN TO THE DAIRYMAIDS ON BEACON STREET

Sweetly solemn see them stand,
Spinning churns on either hand,
Neatly capped and aproned white--
Airy fairy dairy sight!
Jersey priestesses they seem
Miracleing milk to cream.

Cream solidifies to cheese
By Pasteural mysteries,
And they give, within their shrine,
Their communion in kine.

Incantations pure they mutter
O'er the golden minted butter
And (no layman hand can pen it)
See them gloat above their rennet!

By that hillside window pane
Rugged teamsters draw the rein,
Doff the battered hat and bow
To these acolytes of cow.

Genuflect, ye passersby!
Muse upon their ritual high--
Milk to cream, yea, cream to cheese
White lacteal mysteries!
Let adorers sing the word
Of the smoothly flowing curd.
Yea, we sing with bells and fife
This is the Whey, this is the Life!

ON FIRST LOOKING INTO A SUBWAY EXCAVATION

Much have I travelled, a commuter bold,
And many goodly excavations seen;
Round many miles of planking have I been
Which wops in fealty to contractors hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
Where dynamite had swept the traffic clean,
And every passer-by must duck his bean
Or flying rocks would lay him stiff and cold.
As I was crossing Broadway, with surprise
I held my breath and improvised a prayer:
I saw the solid street before me rise
And men and trolleys leap into the air.
I gazed into the pit with doubtful eyes,
Silent upon a peak in Herald Square.

BALLAD OF NEW AMSTERDAM

There are no bowls on Bowling Green,
No maids in Maiden lane;
The river path to Greenwich
No longer doth remain.
No longer in the Bouwerie
Stands Peter Stuyvesant his tree!

And yet the Dutchmen built their dorp
With sturdy wit and will;
In Nassau street their spectral feet
Are heard to echo still.
In many places sure I am
New York is still Nieuw Amsterdam.

Sometimes at night in Bowling Green
There comes a rumbling sound,
Which literal minds are wont to think
The Subway. But I found
That still the Dutchmen ease their souls
By playing ghostly games of bowls!

CASUALTY

A well-sharp'd pencil leads one on to write:
When guns are co