Short Poems

How I envy maple leafage
Which turns beautiful and then falls!

The ocean of bliss lies all before thee: O man, go not thirsty away.
Even now, O fool, take thought and understand: cast off this fear of death.
Pure water wells up before thee: drink deep at every breath.
O fool, renounce the mirage: learn to long for the water of life.
Thereof drank Gopi Chand and Bharthari: both filled their cup to the brim.
Thereof drank Dhruva, Prahlada and Vibhisan: and thereof drank Rai Das.
With this draught are the Sants ever inebriate: in one Name is their hope.

God is no botcher, but when God wrought you two,
God wrought as like a botcher, as God might do.

Shiftless and shy, gentle and kind and frail,
Poor wanderer, bewildered into vice,
You are freed at last from seas you could not sail,
A wreck upon the shores of Paradise.

I used to build me castles of moisty sand and shells,
And dream they were for princesses who wove me magic spells;
But yesterday along the beach my fairy princess came—
And she's too big for castles—now isn't that a shame!

The lightning and thunder
They go and they come;
But the stars and the stillness
Are always at home.

There was an Old Lady of Prague,
Whose language was horribly vague;
When they said, ‘Are these caps?’ she answered, ‘Perhaps!’
That oracular Lady of Prague.

Hell cried “My name is Legion”; and heaven then
Sent us a legion of Michaels for our men.

I hear that the peonies are magnificent
in the famous gardens now
and that rich families will be enjoying them
until spring is almost gone.
What a shame! I too am a man who loves to look at flowers
but I am much too busy, watering my vegetable patch!

Even those beyond feeling
are not without friends.

In mountain streams
water flows over the shadows
of rocks and trees.