Vain and Careless by Robert Graves

Vain and Careless

BY ROBERT GRAVES

Lady, lovely lady,

   Careless and gay!

Once when a beggar called

   She gave her child away.

 

The beggar took the baby,

   Wrapped it in a shawl,

“Bring her back,” the lady said,

   “Next time you call.”

 

Hard by lived a vain man,

   So vain and so proud,

He walked on stilts

   To be seen by the crowd.

 

Up above the chimney pots,

   Tall as a mast,

And all the people ran about

   Shouting till he passed.

 

“A splendid match surely,”

   Neighbours saw it plain,

“Although she is so careless,

   Although he is so vain.”

 

But the lady played bobcherry,

   Did not see or care,

As the vain man went by her

   Aloft in the air.

 

This gentle-born couple

   Lived and died apart.

Water will not mix with oil,

   Nor vain with careless heart.

Great poetry especially the ending. A link to read more is here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Graves

My Shadow by Robert Louis Stevenson

My Shadow

BY ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,

And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.

He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head;

And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed.

The funniest thing about him is the way he likes to grow—

Not at all like proper children, which is always very slow;

For he sometimes shoots up taller like an india-rubber ball,

And he sometimes gets so little that there's none of him at all.

He hasn't got a notion of how children ought to play,

And can only make a fool of me in every sort of way.

He stays so close beside me, he's a coward you can see;

I'd think shame to stick to nursie as that shadow sticks to me!

One morning, very early, before the sun was up,

I rose and found the shining dew on every buttercup;

But my lazy little shadow, like an errant sleepy-head,

Had stayed at home behind me and was fast asleep in bed.

I like how he took something common and transformed it with humor. I have included a link to read more. http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/robert-louis-stevenson