Short Poems

Beauty is that Medusa's head
Which men go armed to seek and sever:
It is most deadly when most dead,
And dead will stare and sting forever—
Beauty is that Medusa's head.

Look at his skin—at four-score years
—How fresh it gleams and fair:
He never tasted ill-dressed food,
—Or breathed in tainted air.
The noble blood glows through his veins
—Still, with a healthful pink;
His brow scarce wrinkled!—Brows keep so
—That have not got to think.

A busy brain, a quiet heart,
A share in human hopes and fears,
A faith that only friends impart—
And one to cherish through the years.

The robbers cam' to our house
When we were a' in;
The house lap out at the windows,
And we were a' ta'en

sewing in the lamplight
I teach spelling to my child—

Why fear? The light wind whitens all the brine,
And throws fresh foam upon the marble shores,
Or it may be that strong and strenuous oars
Must force the shallop o'er the hyaline:
But welcome utter calm or bitter blast—
The voyage will be done, the island reached at last.

Death is the ocean of immortal rest:
And what is sleep? A bath our Angel brings
Of the same lymph, fed by the self-same springs:
Dip in it, and freshen the despondent breast,
And taste the salt breath of the great wide sea,
Where shines 'mid laughing waves a far-off isle for me.

And yet, Earine, do violets white
In thy sweet season kiss the wooing south;
Still hath the cyclamen its ruddy mouth,
And five fine petals made of liquid light:
Still at the early dawn's delicious burst
A myriad tawny throats their music have dispersed.

But we have mortal form, material tissue;
And as the heavy centuries come and go,
Closer the clay clings, wearier human woe,
Fewer the lips wherefrom true song may issue.
More sluggishly the poet's pulses stir
Than when the gay Greek wore the golden grasshopper.

Anacreon's tettix, singing in the trees,
Unworn by age, and like the gods therein—
Or the amorous thrush, that does at dawn begin,
Nor ceases till there's sunset on the seas:
These are the lords of melody, for whom
Earth has no touch of sadness, death no dream of doom.