Short Poems

O mercy, O me miserable man!
Slowly my wisdom, & how slowly comes
My Virtue! and how rapidly pass off
My Joys, my Hopes, my Friendships, & my Love!
[1811. From MS]

As I am a Rhymer
And now at least a merry one,

Mr. Mum's Rudesheimer
And the church of St. Geryon
Are the two things alone
That deserve to be known
In the body-and-soul-stinking town of Cologne.

Leaf after leaf drops off, flower after flower,
Some in the chill, some in the warmer hour:
Alike they flourish and alike they fall,
And Earth who nourisht them receives them all.
Should we, her wiser sons, be less content
To sink into her lap when life is spent?

The dews drop slowly and dreams gather: unknown spears
Suddenly hurtle before my dream-awakened eyes,
And then the clash of fallen horsemen and the cries
Of unknown perishing armies beat about my ears.
We who still labour by the cromlech on the shore,
The grey cairn on the hill, whne day sinks drowned in dew,
Being weary of the world's empires, bow down to you,
Master of the still stars and of the flaming door.

Live fish—someone's New Year's gift to me;
soon, they will be dry fish from the river!
But I can't bear to cut them into a thousand slivers,
and I pity their “cry from the dried-out carriage rut.”
So I toss them into the pond, and they swim back and forth:
now they have water to keep them wet.
In thunder and rain, they will leap to the sky
and turn into dragons, spitting pearls!

A bank of spring clouds, rain swelling the stream:
I wish I could borrow a fisherman's coat
but there's no one else around.
How very kind of the tree in front of the riverside shrine:
it shelters my solitary boat as I sleep through half the day.

O would I were the blushing rose
By your fair hands caressed,
That makes more pale those virgin snows
Soft sheltered on your breast.

Zeus for gold bought Danaë,
Gold I bring your price to be.
I, a mortal, cannot offer
More than Zeus himself did proffer.

Hear the word of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah.
To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the Lord. … Bring no more vain oblations. …
When ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you; yea when ye make many prayers I will not hear; your hands are full of blood.

I hear it is charged against me that I seek to destroy institutions;
But really I am neither for nor against institutions,
(What indeed have I in common with them?—Or what with the destruction of them?)
Only I will establish in the Mannahatta, and in every city of these States, inland and seaboard,
And in the fields and woods, and above every keel little or large, that dents the water,
Without edifices, or rules, or trustees, or any argument,
The institution of the dear love of comrades.