Short Poems

O, thou most eloquent of Roman race!
None like thyself our age at present grace!
None like thee, Tully, ere have challeng'd praise!
Nor shall thy equal live in future days!
Catullus thanks thee, thanks thee o'er again,
Catullus least of all th' inspired train!
Of all th' inspired train as much the least,
As thou of all Rome's advocates art best!

Freely were I allow'd to kiss
Those honied, those delicious eyes;
No numbers would complete my bliss,
Not show'rs of kisses would suffice:
Though richer harvests of each kiss were born
Than shows the richest field of sun-burnt corn.

O, socration, and Porcius of Piso the tools;
Scurvy, half-famish'd knaves, whom the vile Memmius rules!
That mean circumcis'd wretch, who your friendship will prize;
And yet scorn my Verannius, Fabullus despise:
They are forc'd in the streets to look out for their meal,
While betimes ev'ry day you at table regale!

This world and this life are so scattered, they try me,
And so to a German professor I'll hie me.
He can well put all the fragments together
Into a system convenient and terse;
While with his night-cap and dressing-robe tatters
He'll stop up the chink of the wide Universe.

Despair is not for good or wise,
And should not be for love;
We all must bear our destinies,
And bend to those above.
Birds flying o'er the stormy seas
Alight upon their proper trees,
Yet wisest men not always know
Where they should stop or whither go.

Looking at myself in my metal mirror,
I saw, faintly outlined,
The figure of a crane
Engraved upon its back.

When a wax candle burns down, ashes are left behind;
when paper money floats away, it merges with the dust.
I seem to recall that the Buddhists speak about Three Births:
my son's karma was hardly used up—perhaps he will return!

At the dawn of your life, you ate gruel,
and so you grew;
now, full of shame, I face you—my son—
tears streaming down my face.
Today, I pour you a spoonful of gruel as an offering:
can I call you back, to taste it again?

Hark to the love-splash, my prophetic soul:
The peal that echoes from the stricken bowl.
I know she loves me nor shall doubting fear
If she will come this night and be my dear.
For that will prove her true, and I'll resign
My share to revellers of the falling wine.

The two old, simple problems ever intertwined,
Close home, elusive, present, baffled, grappled.
By each successive age insoluble, pass'd on,
To ours to-day—and we pass on the same.