Short Poems

Take , if you will, a ‘father's right’ for seven,
You who've no father nor yet mother even.

Off with these chaliced bowls from Nile's warm land
And give me, boy, the mug with careless hand
Which once my sires from close-cropped pages took,
That so my board may have its ancient look.
Sardanapallus, drink from jewelled cup,
You who for women's pots broke Mentor up!

Forbidding Cato with your rigid frown,
And old Fabricius daughters, get you gone;
And masked Conceit, and stiff Propriety
And all that in the darkness we put by.
Ho for the Saturnalia, my boys!
Ours under Nerva are permitted joys.
Read crabbed Santra, if you so incline;
But let me be; this little book is mine.

I seize in a central knot,
I grasp in a spark of fire,
The circle of a thought,
The round of a desire.

North of my lodge, south of my lodge, spring rivers all;
day by day I see only flocks of gulls convening
Flower paths till now have never been swept for a guest;
my thatch gate opening for you, opens for the first time
For food—the market's far—no wealth of flavors;
for wine—my house is poor—only old muddy brew
If you don't mind drinking with the old man next door
I'll call across the hedge and we can finish off what's left.

Floating together, diving together, in gentle green waves,
they do not understand separation in the human world.
For fun I pick up a lotus pip and throw it in the pond.
They fly up, separate—hope they'll miss each other if awhile.

We be the Gods of the East—
Older than all—
Masters of Mourning and Feast—
How shall we fall?

Seemed to me—never maid
Wore the poor weeds of hapless womanhood
With such a brave sustained purity.
She felt no shame that she was mortal

Thanks to those who go & come
Bringing Hellas, Thebes, & Rome,
As near to me as is my home:
Careful husbands of the mind
Who keep decaying history good,
And do not suffer Tyre or Troy
To know decrepitude.

Every time seemes short to be,
That's measur'd by felicity:
But one halfe houre, that's made up here
With griefe; seemes longer then a yeare.