Short Poems

Who would speak with the maiden,
So fierce is she!
Yonder on the hills
She is tending her sheep:
She is fair as the flowers,
And fierce as the sea.
Who would speak with the maiden,
So fierce is she!

Erick Satie benignly.
Come to Sylvia do.
Sylvia Sybil and Sarah
A bird is for more cookcoo.
And then what spreads thinner, and a letter. It is early for all.

Confusion, desuetude and gloom,
The travailing of sound,
Fell desolation in my soul.
And agony profound;
The gods are falling heavily
And for all time to be,
And never more my heart shall know
A shrine to Deity!

‘S OUTH A FRICA arise,
And break the bonds of Hate,’
Whisper the winds from the veld,
Sings the rain-gladdened spruit.

The man who ruleth
Still should keep within his heart
A standard holy,
Set to guide the humbler folk,
Prone to follow not obey.

Though small his dwelling,
Within that simple, bending dome,
The snail, contented,
Finds an ample space for home,
Scorning not his station.

How swiftly floweth
From its height, the mountain stream!
The very sand-grains
Of its bed in motion seem
Swiftly flowing, flowing free.

O evening, why is thy light so sad?
Why is the sun's last ray so cold?
Hush; our smile is as ever glad,
But thy heart is growing old.
Manuscript D5 is a single leaf, with Nos. 48 to 54 on one side, and on the reverse Nos. 55 to 57.

—L ITTLE Polly Flinders,
—Sat among the cinders,
Warming her pretty little toes;
—Her mother came and caught her,
—And whipped her little daughter
For spoiling her nice new clothes.

With you, my heart is quiet here,
And all my thoughts are cool as rain.
I sit and let the shifting year
Go by before the window-pane,
And reach my hand to yours, my dear . . .
I wonder what it's like in Spain.