Short Poems

It is dawn. The castle is surrounded
By the quacking of wild ducks.

Here lieth in sooth
Honest John Tooth;
Whom Death on a day
From us drew away.

Here everything is cool
Which comes within my sight.

So careful is Isa, and anxious to last
So afraid of himself is he grown,
He swears thro' two nostrils the breath goes too fast,
And he's trying to breathe thro' but one!

But true love is a durable fire,
In the mind ever burning,
Never sick, never old, never dead,
From itself never turning.

If you think that my works are too puft up with levity,
Yet at least approbation is due to my brevity,
The praises of which shou'd be now more egregious,
As our bards at this time are confoundedly tedious.

An old saw saith: “Unknown, unkissed”
Where's little love is little trist:
Now e'er beware of “Had I wist”.

And note this saw for it is new
“Men drink” it saith “e'en as they brew”.

Sure sorrows are to human-kind ally'd:
They reign where Fortune pours her golden tide;
Besiege the son of glory's splendid door,
Grow gray and old together with the poor.

“T RUST in God, and trust in Me.”
How should a sinner turn to Thee,
Maker of a world of glory,
Brother of a race forlorn,
If questions, fancy-bred and earthly-born,
Rise and obscure the sacred story?
Thee must we own God-Man, even as Thy Sire
Sole fount of Godhead, ere we turn to Thee entire.

The rose and the lily, the moon and the dove,
Once loved I them all with a perfect love.
I love them no longer, I love alone
The Lovely, the Graceful, the Pure, the One
Who twines in one wreath all their beauty and love,
And rose is, and lily, and moon and dove.