Short Poems

The mountain of Hsien looks down on the Han River;
The water is blue and its sand shines like snow.
There on the mountain top stands the Monument of Tears,
Long weathered and covered up with green mosses.

A MAN with households twain
Ne'er finds attention meet;
A house wherein two women reign
Is ne'er kept clean and neat.

L OVE'S torments sought a place of rest,
Where all might drear and lonely be;
They found ere long my desert breast,
And nestled in its vacancy.

If the country I'm to show,
Thou must on the housetop go.

If one would make a bid for love.
Let him renounce his heart's desire and offer his head a sacrifice.
Let him desert the way of actions, and seek to know his self's true state.
Ever before him is Love's cup, joyfully he tastes' its sweetness.
The soul in Hari, He in the soul. He it is who speaks this word.
He is in all, we all in Him: but few are they who understand it.
That Jiva's state, who is wholly true, who can know?
Gulal declares them united with the Name: this let none forget.

How vast is mine inheritance, how glorious and sublime!
For time mine own possession is, the land I till is time!

Sun's a settin',
This is what I'm gonna sing.
Sun's a settin',
This is what I'm gonna sing:
I feels de blues a comin',
Wonder what de blues'll bring?

This sacred truth print deeply on thy mind;
Fortune, and Fortune's votaries are blind.

If it were not for the hillocks
You'd think little of the hills;
The rivers would seem tiny
If it were not for the rills.
If you never saw the brushwood
You would under-rate the trees;
And so you see the purpose
Of such little rhymes as these.

The flood of passion storms with fruitless strife
'Gainst the unvanquish'd solid land.—
It throws poetic pearls upon the strand,
And thus is gain'd the prize of life.