Short Poems

In halls fine silken women
On mats singers and girl dancers
Wait for my waves of splashing light
To shine glancingly for you.

White chrysanthemums—
not a speck of dust
to catch the eye.

A cuckoo—
the voice lies stretched
over the water.

On the shallot the dew—
How easily it dries!
The dew dried at bright dawn once more will drop
Man dies—once he's gone when will he come back?

Where are you in peril?
In giving way to anger
Where do you lose the way?
In indulging your lusts.
Where do you forget your friends?
Amid riches and honors.

Knowledge to one appeals as a Goddess indeed; to another
Knowledge is only a cow milkable every day.

Which amid you is the singer of Troy?—His appetite knowing,
Heyne kindly sends 'Varsity sausage for him.
“Here! It was I who sang of the warlike fury of princes—
Pass the sausages here:—Ida I sang of as well!”
Steady! I say!—I have not got sausage enough for you all here,
For the donor sent sausages only for one.

Thy lawful wife fair Lælia needs must be,
For she was forced by law to marry thee.

When he should laugh the wise man knows full well:
For he knows what is truly laughable.
But wiser is the man who laughs also,
Or holds his laughter, when the foolish do.

Fools and caricatures we have indeed by the dozen;
But unluckily these comedy do not abet.

Nothing imports a man so much as to have a vocation;
For twelve groschen in cash, friend, you may purchase one here.