Short Poems

I HAVE kept all, not one is thrown away, not one given to the ragman, not one thrust in a corner with a “P-f-f.”
The red ones and the blue, the long ones in stripes, and each of the little black and white checkered ones.
Keep them: I tell my heart: keep them another year, another ten years: they will be wanted again.
They came once, they came easy, they came like a first white flurry of snow in late October,
Like any sudden, presumptuous, beautiful thing, and they were cheap at the price, cheap like snow.
Here a red one and there a long one in yellow stripes,

Early May, after cold rain the sun baffling cold wind.
Irish setter pup finds a corner near the cellar door,
all sun and no wind,
Cuddling there he crosses forepaws and lays his skull
Sideways on this pillow, dozing in a half-sleep,
Browns of hazel nut, mahogany, rosewood, played off
against each other on his paws

Colossal leagues of powers
Went to make one daisy.
And colossal choirs of angels
Could not give thanks for it.

Between my husband & my people, Samson,
The choice was on me like a knife's sharp edge;
And I a woman. Think of it. Either way
For me the black abyss. O, think of it! see
What narrow ridge I footed: thou, my husband;
They my own people fearing thee for life.

For sixty years my brush
has painted you, bamboo, thousands of times.
Before my window, growth of green,
every day I look at you like an old friend.

Soul rudderless, unbraced,
The Body's friend and guest,
Whither away today?
Unsuppled, pale, discased,
Dumb to thy wonted jest.

Suffer thy legs, but not thy tongue to walk:
God, the most Wise, is sparing of His talk.

The mellow moon hangs golden in the sky,
The vintage song is over, far and nigh
A richer beauty Nature weareth now,
And silently, in reverence we bow
Before the forest altars, off'ring praise
To Him who sweetness gives to all our days.

Better Love's bond should snap with the rending of soul and spirit
Than it should fritter away and part we never knew when.

Go tell the lying world that Indolence
Is not a siren sitting on white bones,
But the sweet nurse of fancy and romance,
Mother of song and every starry art,—
Go tell the world that we have found her so—
We, who weave wonder for the ears of men,
And, through all ages, beauty for men's eyes.