Short Poems

A SPARROW was thy emblem, O Catullus!
A dove was thine, tender and true Tibullus!
No truer and no tenderer was the dove
Whom Noe chose all other birds above
To be the parent inmate of his ark,
When earth was water and the sun was dark.

We may repair and fix again
A shatter'd or a broken pane,
Not friendship so: it lies beyond
Man's wit to piece a diamond.

Flies have alighted on the shanks of Pan,
And some have settled upon Homer's head;
We whisk them off with jewel-studded fan
Till few escape and many more lie dead.

Strike with Thor's hammer, strike agen
The skulking heads of half-form'd men,
And every northern God shall smile
Upon thy well-aim'd blow, Carlyle!

Wearers of rings and chains!
Pray do not take the pains
To set me right.
In vain my faults ye quote;
I write as others wrote
On Sunium's hight.

A CROSS , up, down, our fortunes go,
Like particles of feathery snow,
Never so certain or so sound
As when they're fallen to the ground.

The reign of justice is return'd again:
Cain murder'd Abel, and Reade murders Cain.

Yesterday, and then today
the snow just keeps on falling.

In pools, in rapids,
the waters have frozen over—
making not a sound.

When guests from Miyako
take their leave,
then even more
than before
they came
will my home in the mountains
be a place
of loneliness.

Late into the night
I wait for one
who doesn't come,
when in the moonlight
comes the sound
of a deer calling—
also longing