Short Poems

Thrice happie Roses, so much grac't, to have
Within the Bosome of my Love your grave.
Die when ye will, your sepulchre is knowne,
Your Grave her Bosome is, the Lawne the Stone.

The body's salt, the soule is; which when gon,
The flesh soone sucks in putrifaction.

Among the heaps of brick and plaster lies
a girder, still itself among the rubbish.

Would that I might this lovely scene
Enjoy for evermore;—
The fishing-boats with busy crews
Who tow upon the shore
Or labour at the oar.

When the old junk man Death
Comes to gather up our bodies
And toss them into the sack of oblivion,
I wonder if he will find
The corpse of a white multi-millionaire
Worth more pennies of eternity,
Than the black torso of
A Negro cotton-picker?

I read on the porch of a palace bold
In a purple tablet letters cast,—
“A house, though a million winters old,
A house of earth comes down at last;
Then quarry thy stones from the crystal All,
And build the dome that shall not fall.”

What boat is this comes o'er the sea
From islands of eternity?

A little boat, a cradle boat,
The signals at the most denote;

And in the boat a little life:
Happy husband, happy wife!

And while my visitor prattled
I courteously nodded;
My eye was fast upon him,
My face bright with attention;
But inwardly I was saying:
“The excellent fellow, why does he tell me all this?
What has this to do with me?
O Buddha, when will he depart?”

What trifling coil do we poor mortals keep;
Wake, eat, and drink, evacuate, and sleep.

South of the bridge—
a horse-and-carriage road.
North of the bridge—
the precincts of the temple.
On the bridge—
a monk, walking,
his shadow startling the fish below.