Short Poems

Persist to bee & doe good; So shall I
Still date your Prayses stylo veteri.
Delude; & at yow Liuing I will laugh
Out, in new stile, some Vengeful Epitaph.

Our hearts, disdainful in these days, repent
That poor ambition and unwise content,
Which, in the midst of veil and semblance, left
The soul of true realities bereft
And those prerogatives of human mind
Whereby the soul at last leaves veils behind.

The sober-golden fields lie soaked in light,
Like a great rug with patterns interplight
Of tint and tone; God's ancient place, the sky,
Turns paler blue above such tapestry.

Autumn days no solace bring—
Harvest time is vain—
Come again, O joy of spring—
Come Youth's April pain.

LIKE Mecca's tomb hangs this, 'twixt good and evil,
Heav'n holds the left-side, and the right the Devil.

A PART, of death and silence we,
The fittest emblems found,
Together, mad with minstrelsy,
Leap into life and sound.

Where limpid waters lie between,
There only heaven to heaven is seen:
Where flows the tide of mutual tears
There only heart to heart appears.

Of tribes that in the desert fell
The wandering souls are we—
Wind-scattered seed of Ishmael
Upon the sterile sea.

Not in mine own, but in my neighbor's face,
Must I Thine image trace:
Nor he in his, but in the light of mine,
Behold thy Face Divine.

Far in the distance looms a ship's dark hull,
Aimlessly tossing on an angry sea;
And, circling round, one solitary gull,—
White ponderer of this black mystery!