Short Poems

If you stick a stock of liquor in your locker,
It is slick to stick a lock upon your stock,
Or some joker who is slicker's going to trick you of your liquor;
Though you snicker you'll feel sicker from the shock.
Be a piker though your clubmates mock and bicker,
For like brokers round a ticker they will flock
To your locker full of liquor, and your stock will vanish quicker
If you fail to lock your liquor with a lock.

The silent great heart of the earth from the dream of deep death is awaking;
Her budding breast yields to the love of the life-giving spirit, undying,
Who bends to enfold her fair beauty, from slumber's white robes warmly breaking;
Her eyelids unclose, and her tresses are stirred by the breath of her sighing.

Some birches from the winter snow unbend,
And some lie prone the happy summer long:
Is grief but weakness? May it be, blithe friend,
The heavier burden stays but on the strong?

Bless'd soul! when thou wast vigorous and strong,
How oft' I faintly drag'd my shell along;
Thinking the heavenly regions to explore
Long before thou shouldst touch the blissful shore.
But thou hast got the start: thy heavenly mind
Could bear no longer to be here confin'd.

What figure, drawn in chalk, strides with his pole
Across the Downs, as naked as a soul?
Odin or Balder? Time will solve the doubt
And mail-clad robots look on a Boy Scout.

Humble, humble,
I've been trying to live humble, humble;
Ever since my soul's been converted,
I've been trying to live humble, humble.

My sister, humble up and humble down,
My brother, humble through and humble 'round;
Humble, humble.

To chase a never-reached mirage
Across the hot, white sand,
And choke and die, while gazing on
Its green and watered strand.

Ah me! my youth! alas, for eld's dark day!
This comes apace, while that fleets fast away.

Protection's loss the plunder'd gain,
In quantity and price:
Protection's gain is public loss,

In truth I feel my sun in those fair eyes,
So strongly strike they, like that powerful ray,
Which falls with all the violence of day
On Lybia's sands—and oft, as there, arise
Hot wasting vapours from the source where lies
My secret pain; yet, haply, those may say,
Who talk Love's language, these are only sighs,
That the soft ardors of the soul betray.