Short Poems

“Get a lovely spray of cherry blossoms when you come to me.
Get one to decorate my bedroom when you come to me.”
“What will you do with blossoms? My sword is your bedroom decoration!”
“For my bedroom decoration, blossoms from that hill!”

Youth hath its joys love what are they
Charms are not ever young
Spring is as fair but what is May
Tis but a cuckoos song
A nightingales the summer is
Altho so gay & proud
& when the swallow flies away
She leaves her in her shroud

I am Misanthropos, and hate mankind.
For thy part, I do wish thou wert a dog,
That I might love thee something.

Here lie I, Timon; who, alive, all living men did hate:
Pass by, and curse thy fill; but pass and stay not here thy gait.

I abhor the slimy kiss,
Which to me most loathsome is.
Those lips please me which are placed
Close, but not too strictly laced;
Yielding I would have them, yet
Not a wimbling tongue admit.
What should poking-sticks make there,
When the ruff is set elsewhere?

To him, who longs unto his Christ to go,
Celerity even it self is slow.

God has a Right Hand, but is quite bereft
Of that, which we do nominate the Left.

Come sit we by the fireside,
And roundly drink we here;
Till that we see our cheeks ale-dyed
And noses tann'd with beer.

On Primrose Hill in the early spring
The soft winds blow and sweet birds sing
And the little brown thrush is king—is king.

On Primrose Hill in the sunny weather
The children dance on the grass together
And the larch's bough has a bright green feather.

Strange news! a city full? will none give way
To lodge a guest that comes not every day?
No inn, nor tavern void? yet I descry
One empty place alone, where we may lie:
In too much fullness is some want: but where?
Men's empty hearts: let's ask for lodging there.
But if they not admit us, then we'll say
Their hearts, as well as inns, are made of clay.