Short Poems

Lang man legless,
Gaed to the door staffless;
Goodwife, put up your deuks and hens;
For dogs and cats I carena.

Mou'd like the mill-door, luggit like the cat;
Though ye guess a' day, ye'll no guess that.

The brown bull o' Baverton,
Gaed owre the hill o' Haverton;
He dashed his head atween twa stanes
And was brought milk-white hame.

“Sleep now, and take your rest,” the sad words mark:
But one holds commerce open-eyed with dark,
Whose bartered kiss the Master's worn lips take,
And Peter scarce awake.

No longer on the western field contend
The rearguard of the sun, while massed and gray
The shadows like a silent rain descend
Upon the smouldering ruins of the day.

Cherry blossoms—
lights
of years past.

When lately Pym descended into hell,
E're he the cups of Lethe did carouse,
What place that was, he called loud to tell;
To whom, a devil, This is the lower-house.

Here lies who lov'd his glass, and sung, and play'd:
The Muse with Love and Fancy he caress'd;
Was in the lap of Joy and Beauty laid,
By Wit enliven'd, and with feelings blest:
Adversity, with cheerful spirit brav'd—
Nor felt a moment's pain unless to find,
That many an hour his arm no friend had sav'd,
His love no mistress in its chains could bind.

They say: to make the world more kind
There is need of the international mind;
Put perhaps the need, as the better part,
Is more of the international heart.

Of old, or knight or king,
Each feared that Time would bring
Unto the block his head.
Rest peacefully, ye dead:
Yours was a gentle crime.
Now to the block by Time
(Praise the collector's art!)
Is brought one's heart.