Short Poems

Howl, howl, howl! O, you are men of stones!
Had I your tongues and eyes, I'd use them so
That heaven's vault should crack. She's gone forever.
I know when one is dead and when one lives;
She's dead as earth. V, iii
If that her breath will mist or stain the stone,
Why, then she lives.

O you mighty gods!
This world I do renounce, and in your sights
Shake patiently my great affliction off.
If I could bear it longer, and not fall
To quarrel with your great opposeless wills,
My snuff and loathèd part of nature should
Burn itself out. IV, vi
Now, fellow, fare thee well.

And worse I may be yet. The worst is not
So long as we can say, "This is the worst." IV, i

God is all-present to what e're we do,
And as all-present, so all-filling too.

Three fatall Sisters wait upon each sin;
First, Fear and Shame without, then Guilt within.

Whole field of
rice seedlings planted—I part
from the willow.

When the lights blur out for thee and me,
And the black comes in with a sweep,
I wonder—will it mean life again,

Of all the dogs around me, spotted, black, and hairy,
that yellow bitch is certainly the most frustrating by far.
In sheer delight she runs to welcome those whom I despise, while
those I like she barks at, rooting them outside.
The next dog-monger
who passes by my gate will get that bitch trussed tightly, abandoned
to her fate.

I' LL take Life's hazards, rue not hours well wasted,
Hide my heart's wounds, ask no miraculous balm;
And ere I die, perhaps I shall have tasted
At last a little calm.

The days of Spring are here! the eglantine,
The rose, the tulip from the dust have risen—
And thou, why liest thou beneath the dust?
Like the full clouds of Spring, these eyes of mine
Shall scatter tears upon the grave thy prison,
Till thou too from the earth thine head shalt thrust.