Short Poems

When Chub brings in his harvest, still he cries,
Aha my boyes! heres wheat for Christmas Pies!
Soone after, he for beere so scores his wheat,
That at the tide, he has not bread to eate.

Arowle of Parchment Clunn about him beares,
Charg'd with the Armes of all his Ancestors:
And seems halfe ravisht, when he looks upon
That Bar, this Bend; that Fess, this Cheveron;
This Manch, that Moone; this Martlet, and that Mound;
This counterchange of Perle and Diamond.
What joy can Clun have in that Coat, or this,
When as his owne still out at elboes is?

A Long-Lifes-Day I've taken paines
For very little, or no gaines:
The Ev'ning's come; here now Ile stop,
And work no more; but shut up Shop.

When Thou wast taken, Lord, I oft have read,
All Thy Disciples Thee forsook, and fled.
Let their example not a pattern be
For me to flie, but now to follow Thee.

God strikes His Church, but 'tis to this intent,
To make, not marre her, by this punishment:
So where He gives the bitter Pills, be sure,
'Tis not to poyson, but to make thee pure.

What Gopal wills, will be.
They who trust in their own human strength, are liars beyond all men.
Devotions charms and rites and strivings: these will all be washed away.
That which Gopala has once written, no one can efface.
Sadness, gladness, gain and loss, be not dissolved in tears for these.
O Sur Das, plenteous in mercy is the Lord: on Rama's feet stay Thy mind.

I HEARD the breakers moaning for the dead,
Those bold descendants of the Island strain
Who died to prove a lie the Sea-Hun's boast;
But mingled with the monothrob of woe,
I caught the swelling of a deeper note,
And seemed to hear, brave as a smile through tears,
“Yet, all is safe, Britannia rules the sea!”

Such heat that, when the child I bear
Upon my back plays with my hair,……

I am not he, in the battle
Of whom they shall see the back:
Look for me where the blood
Runs red, and the dust rolls black;
Leaders that fly from the field
With the lives of their men wage war,
Stake your souls on the fight,
Ye, who the chieftains are!

Tell, what name beseems
These vain and wandering days!
Like the bark of dreams
That from souls at daybreak strays
They are lost on trackless ways.