Why shrink from death, the parent of repose,
The cure of sickness and all human woes?
As through the tribes of men he speeds his way,
Once, and but once, his visit he will pay;
Whilst pale diseases, harbingers of pain,
Close on each other crowd, an endless train.
Why should I be bitter
About someone who was
A complete stranger
Until a certain moment
In a day that has passed.
Why not, I say, should you not try and know
About that which a fettered heart easily cannot?
What is separation, what does it mean? Why ask me now?
Try spending a day in wait for the one you love.
Why does she put me to many indignities,
Shifts to prevent myself thinking upon her,
My golden Katie, who loveth not kisses?
I wear my new dresses and put on silk stockings,
All to prevent myself thinking upon her,
Who is more lovely than fair river-lilies.
Why do you grope thus like the blind ?
Pray, doubt not what I say to you:
If you are wise, enter within
And see the Lord Himself is there.
You need not search Him here and there.
Why do you dote upon someone, my Soul,
who is not your true love?
Why have you taken the false for the true?
Why can't you understand, why can't you know?
It is ignorance that binds you to the false,
To the ever-recurring wheel of birth and death,
this coming and going.
Why do ye call the poet lonely,
Because he dreams in lonely places?
He is not desolate, but only
Sees, where ye cannot, hidden faces.
I used to think nurses
Were women,
I used to think police
Were men,
I used to think poets
Were boring,
Until I became one of them.
Depends on if the judge is fair,
Depends how high the heels you wear,
Depends on if they count the hair,
Depends if they allow the chair.
Who slays the highway robbers three,
Greed, Lust and Pride,
And yet, in utter humility, serves
his fellow-men-
He truly seeks out the Lord,
disregarding as worthless ashes
all other things.
