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From the play "Mother Courage"

You saw sagacious Solomon
You know what came of him,
To him complexities seemed plain.
He cursed the hour that gave birth to him
And saw that everything was vain....

There's never a stone at the sleeper's head,
There's never a fence beside,
And the wandering stock on the grave may tread
Unnoticed and undenied;
But the smallest child on the Watershed...

("Il est nuit. La cabane est pauvre.")

[Bk. LII. iii.]

'Tis night - within the close stout cabin door,
The room is wrapped in shade save where there fall...

How great my grief, my joys how few,
Since first it was my fate to know thee!
- Have the slow years not brought to view
How great my grief, my joys how few,
Nor memory shaped old times anew,...

How happy, once, tho' winged with sighs,
My moments flew along,
While looking on those smiling eyes,
And listening to thy magic song!
But vanished now, like summer dreams,
Those moments smile no more;...

Once in a blue eternity they gave us dabs of rum
To close the seams 'n' keep the flume in liquor-tight condition;
But, soft 'n' sentimental, when the long, cold evenin's come,...

Fill me my wine in crystal; thus, and thus
I see't in's puris naturalibus:
Unmix'd. I love to have it smirk and shine;
'Tis sin I know, 'tis sin to throttle wine.
What madman's he, that when it sparkles so,...

My soul would one day go and seek
For roses, and in Julia's cheek
A richess of those sweets she found,
As in another Rosamond;
But gathering roses as she was,
Not knowing what would come to pass,...

A worthy couple, man and wife,
Dragged on a discontented life:
The reason, I should state,
That it was destitute of joys,
Was that they had a dozen boys
To feed and educate,...

How in all wonder Columbus got over,
That is a marvel to me, I protest,
Cabot, and Raleigh too, that well-read rover,
Frobisher, Dampier, Drake and the rest.
Bad enough all the same,...

You who are loudly crying out for peace,
You who are wanting love to vanquish hate,
How is it in the four walls of your home
The while you wait?
...

How is it that I am now so softly awakened,
My leaves shaken down with music?
Darling, I love you.
It is not your mouth, for I have known mouths before,
Though your mouth is more alive than roses,...

So we settled it all when the storm was done
As comfy as comfy could be;
And I was to wait in the barn, my dears,
Because I was only three.
And Teddy would run to the rainbow's foot...

My Lady's rest was calm and deep:
She had been gazing at the moon;
And thus it chanced she fell asleep
One balmy night in June.

Freebooter winds stole richest smells...

I got to thinkin' of her - both her parents dead and gone -
And all her sisters married off, and none but her and John
A-livin' all alone there in that lonesome sort o' way,...

I pray you, pardon me, Elsie,
And smile that frown away
That dims the light of your lovely face
As a thunder-cloud the day.
I really could not help it, -
Before I thought, 'twas done, -...

Bold-faced ranger
(Perfect stranger)
Meets two well-behaved young ladies
He's attractive,
Young and active -
Each a little bit afraid is.
Youth advances,
At his glances...

I only knew one poet in my life:
And this, or something like it, was his way.

You saw go up and down Valladolid,
A man of mark, to know next time you saw.
His very serviceable suit of black...

Oh, once I walked in Heaven, all alone
Upon the sacred cliffs above the sky.
God and the angels, and the gleaming saints
Had journeyed out into the stars to die.
...

Without the slightest basis
For hypochondriasis
A widow had forebodings which a cloud around her flung,
And with expression cynical
For half the day a clinical
Thermometer she held beneath her tongue....