Short Poems

With reeds and bird-lime, from the desert air,
Eumelus gather'd free, though scanty, fare.
No lordly patron's hand he deign'd to kiss,
Nor lux'ry knew, save liberty, nor bliss.
Thrice thirty years he liv'd, and to his heirs
His reeds bequeath'd, his bird-lime, and his snares.

That's how life is—
someone I've never set eyes on,
faceless as the blowing wind,
and yet I love her

Moving from rock to rock,
I clutch at azaleas,
but not to pick them—
on these steep slopes
I count on them for a handhold

Let me ask river tides, waters of the ocean,
how they compare with your love, with my longing for you?
Your love is not as trustworthy as the tides;
my longing—beside it, I know the sea's not deep at all!

In a lonely room I play with a brush as years pass.
One mistake in my life, but why should I dwell on it?
I'm rather happy that in clean chastity I am like
the quiet orchid or lean bamboo drawn desolate.

The dropping wind seemed whispering in affright
As if it felt the presence of midnight
While passing through the dismal deepening woods
Buried in night & awful solitudes

Burr is a smell-feast, and a man alone,
That (where meat is) will be a hanger on.

I saw a fly within a bead
Of amber cleanly burièd:
The urn was little, but the room
More rich than Cleopatra's tomb.

Hanch, since he (lately) did interre his wife,
He weepes and sighs (as weary of his life.)
Say, is't for reall griefe he mourns? not so;
Teares have their springs from joy, as well as woe.

Mony thou ow'st me; Prethee fix a day
For payment promis'd, though thou never pay:
Let it be Doomes-day; nay, take longer scope;
Pay when th'art honest; let me have some hope.