Short Poems

In a maiden-time professed,
Then we say that life is best;
Tasting once the married life,
Then we only praise the wife;
There's but one state more to try
Which makes women laugh or cry--
Widow, widow. Of these three
The middle's best, and that give me.

Flap, flap, you curtain in front of our bed!
I hung you there to screen us from the light of day.
I brought you with me when I left my father's house;
Now I am taking you back with me again.
I will fold you up and lay you flat in your box.
Curtain—shall I ever take you out again?

A yet ignobler band is guarded round
With dogs of war—the spurning bull their prize;
And now he bellows, humbled to the ground,
And now they sprawl in howlings to the skies.

Oh , which were best, to roam or rest?
The land's lap or the water's breast?
To sleep on yellow millet sheaves,
Or swim in lucid shallows just
Eluding water-lily leaves,
An inch from death's black fingers, thrust
To lock you whom release he must;
Which life were best on summer eves?

Sweeter far than lyric rune
Is my baby's cooing tune;
Brighter than the butterflies
Are the gleams within her eyes;
Firmer than an iron band
Serves the zephyr of her hand;
Deeper than the ocean's roll
Sounds her heart-beat in my soul.

It is not the earth that I worship
but what is behind it
my feathers speak Chippewa
our invisible tongues of silence

Dumb to the commonplace host, who ply deaf-hearted inquiries,
Speaks his spirit to thee, as to an intimate friend.

In sin's flood caught, God's praise they scorn.
The nách girl's brought, be it night be it morn.
The drums beat out—“Come doom, Come doom.”
The cymbals shout, “On Whom, On Whom.”
The girl's arms raised to those that view.
“On you, on you, on you, on you.”

Turne, citezens, to God; repent, repent,
And praye your bedlam frenzies may relent:
Thinke not rebellion a trifling thing,
This plague doth fight for Marie and the King.

falling leaves
falling leaves falling leaves

falling on my bed too