Hark hark the dogs do bark
The beggars are coming to town
Some in rags and some in jags
And one in a velvet gown

The lion and the unicorn
Were fighting for the crown

The lion beat the unicorn
All 'round the town

Some gave them white bread
Some gave them brown

Some gave them plum-cake
And drummed them out of town

-- L.C.

Hickory dickory dock
The mouse ran up the clock
The clock struck one
And down he run
Hickory dickory dock

how doth the little crocodiLe
improve his shining tail,
and pour the waters of the nile
on every gOlden scale
how cheerfUlly he seems to grin,
how neatly spreaDs his claws,
and welcomes little fishes in,
with gentlY smiling jaws

The piers are pummelled by the waves;
In a lonely field the rain
Lashes an abandoned train;
Outlaws fill the mountain caves

Fantastic grow the evening gowns;
Agents of the Fisc pursue
Absconding tax-defaulters through
The sewers of provincial towns

Private rites of magic send
The temple prostitutes to sleep;
All the literati keep
An imaginary friend

Cerebrotonic Cato may
Extol the Ancient Disciplines
But the muscle-bound Marines
Mutiny for food and pay

Caesar's double-bed is warm
As an unimportatnt clerk
Writes "I DO NOT LIKE MY WORK"
On a pink official form

Unendowed with wealth or pity
Little birds with scarlet legs
Sitting on their speckled eggs
Eye each flu-infected city

Altogether elsewhere, vast
Herds of reindeer move across
Miles and miles of golden moss
Silently and very fast

-W.H. Auden

You are the town and we are the clock
We are the guardians of the gate in the rock
The Two
On your left and on your right
In the day and in the night,
We are watching you

Wiser not to ask just what has occurred
To them who disobeyed our word;
To those
We were the whirlpool, we were the reef, We were the formal nightmare, grief
And the unlucky rose

Climb up the crane, learn the sailor's words
When the ships from the islands laden with birds
Come in
Tell your stories of fishing and other men's wives:
The expansive moments of constricted lives
In the lighted inn

But do not imagine we do not know
Nor that what you hide with such care won't show
At a glance
Nothing is done, nothing is said,
But don't make the mistake of believing us dead:
I shouldn't dance

We're afraid in that case you'll have a fall
We've been watching you over the garden wall
For hours
The sky is darkening like a stain,
Something is going to fall like rain
And it won't be flowers

When the green field comes off like a lid
Revealing what was much better hid:
Unpleasant
And look, behind you without a sound
The woods have come up and are standing 'round
In deadly crescent

The bolt is sliding in its groove,
Outside the window is the black removers' van
And now with sudden swift emergence
Come the woman in dark glasses and humpbacked surgeons
And the scissors man

This might happen any day
So be careful what you say
Or do
Be clean, be tidy, oil the lock,
Trim the garden, wind the clock,
Remember the Two


-W.H. Auden