Short Poems

There went most passionately to Life, Impellance,
And thrilled it with the high perception of divines;
And through a blight of gloom its request fought for
Heaven, its hospice, light, investure ante-natal,
And hope, impact of fathom, lucid suavity.

Sing jigmijole the pudding-bowl,
The table and the frame,
My master he did cudgel me
For kissing of my dame.

Round about in a fair ring-a,
Thus we dance and thus we sing-a;
Trip and go, to and fro,
Over this green-a;
All about, in and out,
Over this green-a.

When Alysandyr our King was dede
That Scotland led in luve and le,
Away was sons of ale and brede,
Of wine and wax, of gamyn and gle;
Our gold was changyd into lede.
Christ born into Virginitie
Succour Scotland and remede
That stad is in perplexytie.

Peter White will ne'er go right;
Would you know the reason why?
He follows his nose wherever he goes,
And that stands all awry.

Need from excess—excess from folly growing,
Keeps Christie's hammer daily, going, going!
Ill-omened prelude! whose dire knell brings on
Profusion's last sad dying speech—‘Gone! gone!’

Maternal lady with the virgin grace,
Heaven-born thy Jesus seemeth shure,
And of a virgin pure.
Lady most perfect, when thy sinless face
Men look upon, they wish to be
A Catholic, Madonna fair, to worship thee.

Thank God we do not live by bread alone
But by all loveliness that we have known,
By each fair color and by each soft tone.

Far to the west the golden wheat fields spread,
And from this beauty soul and sense are fed;
For so God gives us twice our daily bread.

I washed my face in water
That neither rained nor run.
I dried my face on a towel
That was neither wove nor spun.

Ibring you the scent of the earth on my body,
The smell of the leaves in my hair;
I come with the wind and the water upon me,
And never a care!