Short Poems

Gather Kittens while you may,
Time brings only Sorrow;
And the Kittens of To-day
Will be Old Cats To-morrow.

Down at the hall at midnight sometimes,
You hear them singing rhymes.
These girls are dancing with boys.
They are too big for toys.

Pale from the watery west, with the pallor of winter a-cold,
Rays of the afternoon sun in a glimmer across the trees;
Glittering moist underfoot, the long alley. The firs, one by one,
Catch and conceal, as I saunter, and flash in a dazzle of gold
Lower and lower the vanishing disc; and the sun alone sees
As I wait for my love in the fir-tree alley alone with the sun.

Deep black against the dying glow
The tall elms stand; the rooks are still;
No windbreath makes the faintest thrill
Amongst the leaves; the fields below
Are vague and dim in twilight shades—
Only the bats wheel in their raids
On the grey flies, and silently
Great dusky moths go flitting by.

In a myriad arched yurts, the men are drunk.
Stars' reflections quiver, about to drop.
My homing dream, sundered by Wolf River,
Is then shaken to bits by the river's roar.
Back to sleep!
Back to sleep!
Well I know that in waking there's no savor.

There was a man of Thessaly,
And he was wondrous wise,
He jumped into a bramble bush
And scratched out both his eyes.
And when he saw his eyes were out,
With all his might and main
He jumped into another bush
And scratched them in again.

There was a young lady of Lynn
Who was so uncommonly thin
That when she essayed
To drink lemonade,
She slipped through the straw and fell in.

This very day, a little while ago, you lived
But now you are neither man nor woman,
Breathless you are, for the Navahos killed you!
Then remember us not, for here and now
We bring you your food. Then take and keep
Your earth-walled place: once! twice!
Three times! four times! Then leave us now!

White clouds encircle the waist of the hills like a belt;
A stony ledge soars into the void, a narrow path into space.
Alone, I lean on my thornwood staff and gaze calmly into the distance,
About to play my flute in reply to the song of this mountain stream.

Bill the Bachelor lived by himself,
He'd little of comfort in cupboard or shelf,
But skill with his needle he ever did show
With Bachelors' Buttons sewed on in a row.