Short Poems

In vain, Clarinda! night and day
For pity to the gods you pray:
What arrogance on Heav'n to call
For that which you deny to all!

The Negro sits and pines all day:
His opportunities slip away;
Get up and work your mind my lord,
And grasp the good the days afford.—

In Burma, once, while Bishop Prout
Was preaching on Predestination,
There came a sudden waterspout
And drowned the congregation.
“O Heav'n!” cried he, “why can't you wait
Until they've handed round the plate!”

If I were you, I would
Search myself
To find out if there is any

Wind, wind—heather gipsy,
Whistling in my tree!
All the heart of me is tipsy
On the sound of thee!
Sweet with scent of clover,
Salt with breath of sea.
Wind, wind—wayman lover,
Whistling in my tree!

Each star to rise and shine and fade—
Each bird that sings its song and sleeps—
Each spark of spirit fire that leaps
Within me—of One Flame are made!

Where is the love that might have been
Flung to the four far ends of Earth?
In my body stamping around,
In my body like a hound
Leashed and restless—

The sunlight speaks and its voice is a bird:
It glimmers half-guessed, half-seen, half-heard,
Above the flowerbed, over the lawn
A flashing dip, and it is gone,
And all it lends to the eye is this—
A sunbeam giving the air a kiss.

C ONFORME thine head and heart vnto thine hand,
Then staidly they thine actions will command;
Thy hand I taught and partly storde thy head
With numbers, such as stand in cyphers stead
To make but others mount with praise vndue,
For nought but nought, which is a cypher true.
But if thou wilt be measurde by thy gaines,
Number not words, but number pounds with paines.

Thou say'st my lines are hard;
And I the truth will tell;
They are both hard, and marr'd,
If thou not read'st them well.