Short Poems

Delicious thus to enter Morning Land:
The world is wondrous, for the world is new;
Dim drosera is all o'erdrenched with dew.
Ah, well might Merlin wake in Broceliande,
And see the daybreak through the oaks that wave
Where ivy and violet grow on his melodious grave.

Earine has sucked the breath of Spring—
And I have touched thy lips, Earine,
What time the Dawn came from the purple sea,
And forests fluttered to the waving wing
Of the unwearying Angel who doth sweep
Back upon heavy hinge the porphyry gates of sleep.

Photographed—
prisoners of war shout commands
to prisoners of war

The moon, soft-moving o'er the heaven,
My darling, seems like thee;
And other folk are but the clouds
That hide thy face from me.

Day closes,
time to feast and rest.
Bring the boat ashore, bring the boat ashore!
Let's tread the path where snow
is strewn with pink petals.
Chigukch'ong chigukch'ong osawa.
Lean from the pine window and gaze
as the snow moon crosses the western peak.

People have praised my way of life
in the land of the hermits.
Drop anchor, drop anchor!
Tell me who wore
the sheepskin cloth at Seven-League Shallows?
Chigukch'ong chigukch'ong osawa.
And for three thousand six hundred days
let's count the time on our fingers.

By the river a lone pine,
how mighty, how towering.
Moor the boat, moor the boat!
Don't scorn the rough clouds—
they screen the world from us.
Chigukch'ong chigukch'ong osawa.
Don't deplore the roaring waves—
they drown out the clamor of this world.

A snow settles over the night—
what new scenes before my eyes!
Row away, row away!
In front lie glassy acres,
jade hills piled behind.
Chigukch'ong chigukch'ong osawa.
Is it a fairy land, or Buddha's realm?
It can't be the world of man.

Fishes in the shallows
are gone to distant swamps.
Raise sail, raise sail!
The sun shines for a moment;
so let's go out to the fishing place.
Chigukch'ong chigukch'ong osawa.
If the bait is good,
fat fishes will bite, they say.

Zanzummines they obeye the king doe sweare,
And yet against King Charles in armes appeare.
What king doe yee obeye, Zamzummines, tell,
The king of Beane, or the black prince of Walles? [of hell?]