Short Poems

“Naught is so fleeting as the cherry-flower,”
You say … yet I remember well the hour
When life's bloom withered at one spoken word—
And not a breath of wind had stirred.

a pheasant's cry—
resounding in the mountain
the voice of silence

My Lord, my Saviour, and my God,
I bow to thy correcting rod;
Nor will I murmur or complain,
Tho' every limb be fill'd with pain;
Tho' my weak tongue its aid denies;
And daylight wounds my wretched eyes.

May He whose Nod the Hurricanes & Storms
And blustering Waves in all their dreadful Forms
With calm adoring Reverence obey;
May He with friendly Vigilance preside
O'er the outragious Winds & boisterous Tide,
And safe thro' Crowds of Deaths conduct your dang'rous Way!

‘Twas in the month of August, or the middle of July,
One evening I went walking, a fair maiden I did spy;
She was mournin' for her true love, who was in Amerikee,
Agh, divil a word I said to her, and she said the same to me!

Ye that pasen by the weiye,
Abidet a little stounde.
Beholdet, all my felawes,
Yef any me lik is founde.
To the Tre with nailes thre
Wol fast I hange bounde;
With a spere all thoru my side
To mine herte is mad a wounde.

The Lily lifts to mine her nunlike face,
But my wild heart is beating for the Rose:
How can I pause to heed the Lily's grace?—
Shall I repent me by and by? Who knows?

My sense of sight is very keen,
My sense of hearing weak.
One time I saw a mountain pass,
But could not hear its peak.

Loves thy Muse to proclaim how God showed pity to mortals,
But why blazon abroad that they so pitiful are?

Was the dream real, that I was cut down?
Nay, but I saw a flea-bite on me.