Short Poems

Around the plum-flow'rs make a fence,
To stay the nightingale's return.

If all but yee thou bee,
How dost thou thus mee burne,
Or how at fire which thou dost raise in mee,
Sith yce, thy selfe in streames dost thou not turne,
But rather, plaintfull case!
Of yce art marble made to my disgrace?
O miracle of loue, not heard till now!
Cold yce doth burne, and hard by fire doth grow.

Stillness—
sinking deep into the rocks
cries of the cicada

Though I be now a grey, grey friar,
Yet I was once a hale young knight;
The cry of my dogs was the only choir
In which my spirit did take delight.

For the tender beech and the sapling oak,
That grow by the shadowy rill,
You may cut down both at a single stroke,
You may cut down which you will.
But this you must know, that as long as they grow,
Whatever change may be,
You can never teach either oak or beech
To be aught but a greenwood tree.

The Gordian knot, which Alexander great
Did whilom cut with his all-conquering sword,
Was nothing like thy busk-point, pretty peat,
Nor could so fair an augury afford;
Which if I chance to cut or else untie,
Thy little world I 'll conquer presently.

Yet let us Thank the purblind race,
Who still have thought it good
With lasting stone to mark the place
Where braver men have stood.

In concord, town of quiet name
And quiet fame as well

Yon clouds that roam the deserts of the air,
On wind-swift barbs, o'er many an azure plain,
Scarce pause to lift to Allah one small prayer,
Ere Ishmael's spirit drives them forth again.

Two little beaks went tap! tap! tap!
Two little shells went crack! crack! crack!
Two fluffy chicks peeped out, and oh,
They liked the look of the big world so,
That they left their houses without a fret
And two little shells are not to LET .