Short Poems

Chip away

at a wall

until it becomes

a stepping stone.

O! fair, sweet Phyllis and sweet, fair May,
Which of you carried my heart away?
Who has my heart? I would like to know
Which was the guilty one of the two,
But I only know it was filched one day
By fair, sweet Phyllis, or sweet, fair May.

Thou water turn'st to wine, fair friend of life,
Thy foe, to cross the sweet arts of thy reign,
Distills from thence the tears of wrath and strife,
And so turns wine to water back again.

THOU liest dead, and there will be no memory left behind
Of thee or thine in all the earth, for never didst thou bind
The roses of Pierian streams upon thy brow; thy doom
Is now to flit with unknown ghosts in cold and nameless gloom.

Since thou wouldst needs,
Bewitched with some ill charms,
Be buried in those monumental arms,
All we can wish is, may that earth lie light
Upon thy tender limbs, and so goodnight.

An Epigram
You cry, She's bred in the Old Way;
Then into Laughter fall:
Were she as just to you, she'd say,
You are not bred at all.

That is the only true secret, which in the presence of all men
Lies, and surrounds thee for ay, but which is witnessed by none.

Visiting the nun Rise-In-Air,
You must be near her place in those blue hills.
The river’s force helps pound the mica,
The wind washes rose bay tree flowers.
If you find you can’t leave that refuge,
Invite me there to see the sunset’s fire.

My hands the Hook thunder hangs its hat on,
My breast the Arroyo storms fill with water,
My brow the Horizon sunrise fills,
My heart the Dawn weaving blue threads of day,
My soul the Song of all life...

This Book by Any yet vnread,
I leaue for yov when I am dead,
That, being gone, here yov may find
What was your liueing mother's mind.
Make vse of what I leaue in Loue
And God shall blesse yov from above.