Short Poems

Behold, my Glaucus! how the deep
Heaves, while the sweeping billows howl,
And round the promontory steep
The big black clouds portentous scowl,
With thunder fraught and lightning's glare
While Terror rules and wild Despair.

Lord, give me at thy feet a dwelling: my mind is fickle, uncontrolled.
A double dealer am I always, of feeble courage, breathless with fear.
Knowing Bhikha's sins forgive him; else the world will laugh in scorn.

faces with no mask
turn into masked faces
around the fire

Rude Labour, toiling on through hopeless night,
Naked and starved, scorn heaped upon his head,
Now rises in his strength with sword to smite,
And asks the nations for his daily bread.

Little Nancy Etticoat,
With a white petticoat,
And a red nose;
She has no feet or hands,
The longer she stands
The shorter she grows.

If thou seekest immensity here to find, ' tis an error;
Mine immensity serves but to ennoble thyself.

And all night long that upward light
Lit up the sea-cow's bed below:
The far sea-cows still calling so
It seemed as they must call all night.
All night! there was no night. Nay, nay,
There was no night. The night that lay
Between that awful eve and day,—
That nameless night was burned away.

Product of reason and of faith combin'd,
The life, the health, the beauty of the mind;
God's image on an human soul imprest,
The source of joy, and glory of the blest;
That makes 'em lovely, and that makes 'em love,
Brings heaven to earth, and forms their heaven above:
O how I do thy god-like charms admire!
O how I to thy god-like joys aspire!

With twilight passing her silken window,
She weeps alone in her chamber of gold;
For spring is departing from a desolate garden,
And a drift of pear-petals is closing a door.

Which was the true philosopher?—the sage
Who to the sorrows and the crimes of life
Gave tears—or he who laugh'd at all he saw?
Such mockery is bitter, and yet just:
And Heaven well knows the cause there is to weep.
Methinks that life is what the actor is—
Outside there is the quaint and gibing mask;
Beneath, the pale and careworn countenance.