Short Poems

So long (it seem'd) as Maries Faith was small,
Christ did her Woman, not her Mary call:
But no more Woman, being strong in Faith;
But Mary cal'd then (as S. Ambrose saith.)

Here she lies (in bed of spice)
Fair as Eve in Paradise:
For her beauty it was such
Poets could not praise too much.
Virgins come, and in a ring
Her supremest requiem sing;
When depart, but see ye tread
Lightly, lightly o'er the dead.

Fat be my Hinde; unlearned be my wife;
Peacefull my night; my day devoid of strife:
To these a comely off-spring I desire,
Singing about my everlasting fire.

Rapine has yet tooke nought from me;
But if it please my God, I be
Brought at the last to th'utmost bit,
God make me thankfull still for it.
I have been gratefull for my store:
Let me say grace when there's no more.

Had I been eighty-five,
he would have stopped
to compare notes,
but what was there
to talk about
with a man only sixty-five?

To bright-hair'd Ceres, and the lovely maid
Proserpina, my votive verse be paid.
List to my song, and with propitious powers
From every hostile inroad guard these towers.

Friendship comes from the earth up and from heaven down, where the two poles meet in the heart of man,
Friendship prevails where you stop and where I begin and where I stop and you begin—where we meet and fade away into another presence:
Yet all that friendship promises must be in default until the friend appears.

on some days
not even a cuckoo calls
to this lone traveler

The cup will pass,
How bitter may it be;
Though thou mayst drain
Its deepest dreg and lee,
A sweeter wine
Some day will brim the glass,
The draught be thine;
The bitter cup will pass.

When the wind is in the east,
'Tis neither good for man nor beast;
When the wind is in the north,
The skilful fisher goes not forth;
When the wind is in the south,
It blows the bait in the fishes' mouth;
When the wind is in the west,
Then 'tis at the very best.