Short Poems

In agony of death throughout the night
The frenzied monarch tossed upon his bed
Whence rose at dawn, mysterious and white,
A ghost,—the spectre of the mighty dead.

You passed as quick and unknown
As the shadow of wings
On sun-closed lids

Many in shades like these find loneliness
A kind of terror: I am ne'er alone,
With Nature smiling in her summer dress,
And with one lady of such gentle tone
As Maddalena's whose companionship,
Casual or constant, is enough to make
The world seem richer for what things I skip
Who skip so much of life for study's sake.

Who holds himselfe most deare, and hath his wante,
Although he would, he may not store his friend:
But he that seekes his secrets there to plante,
Where wealth is free, shall finde a quyet ende.
Giue me the poorest man to triumph on,
Or welthiest friend, or let me liue alone.

More love, more love; The heavens are blessing, The
angels are calling, O Zion, more love.
If ye love not each other In daily communion, How
can ye love God, Whom ye have not seen?

Time was when once upon a time, such toys
As balls or pet birds won a boy, or dice.
Now it's best china, or cash. Lovers of boys,
Try something else next time. Toys cut no ice.

So late, and yet a nightingale?
Long since have dropp'd the blossoms pale,
The summer fields are ripening,
And yet a sound of spring?
O tell me didst thou come to hear
Sweet Spring, that I should die this year;
And call'st across from the far shore
To me one greeting more?

Oh! Kwannon, Patron of this hill,
The maid, for whom I pine,
Is obstinate and wayward, like
The gusts around thy shrine.
What of those prayers of mine?

The jeweled entrails of pomegranates bled on the marble floor.
The jewel-heart of a virgin broke at the golden door.
The laughter of a drunken lord hid the sob of a silken whore.

Mene,
Wrote a strange hand,
Mene Tekel Upharsin,—
And Death stood at the door.

Two Devills at one blow thou hast laid flat,
??A speaking Divell this, a dumbe one that.
Was't thy full victories fairer increase,
??That th' one spake, or that th' other held his peace?