Short Poems

A wilding little stubble flower
The sickle scorned which cut for wheat,
Such was our hope in that dark hour
When nought save uses held the street,
And daily pleasures, daily needs,
With barren vision, looked ahead.
And still the same result of seeds
Gave likeness twixt the live and dead.

The day is going, now 'tis noon,
Greenwood 'gins baying the Gladstone moon,
While temperate Morley with assuaging voice
Bids England in her bigger G. rejoice.

Fresh Spring has come with flower and leaf to warn
All men that they with leaf and flower enfold
Their hearts' desires, and in her fruitless gold
And fruitful rains stand wistful of the corn
That by and by shall greet a golden morn
In waves of wealth. Take courage, hearts a-cold,
For living with the Seasons, you grow old
No more than they, nor ever are forlorn.

I'm now arrived—thanks to the gods!—
Thro' pathways rough and muddy,
A certain sign that makin roads
Is no this people's study:
Altho' I'm not wi' Scripture cram'd,
I'm sure the Bible says
That heedless sinners shall be damn'd,
Unless they mend their ways.

Ask why God made the Gem so small,
And why so huge the granite?
Because God meant, mankind should set
That higher value on it.—

When death's dark stream I ferry o'er,
A time that surely shall come;
In Heaven itself, I'll ask no more,
Than just a Highland welcome.

Long and dark the nights, dim and short the days,
Mounting weary heights on our weary ways,
Thee our God we praise.
Scaling heavenly heights by unearthly ways,
Thee our God we praise all our nights and days,
Thee our God we praise.

The shadow of your sorrow hath destroyed
The shadow of your face. IV, i

Truth is best found out by the time, and eyes;
Falsehood winnes credit by uncertainties.

As in our clothes, so likewise he who lookes,
Shall find much farcing Buckram in our Books.