Short Poems

864

The Robin for the Crumb
Returns no syllable
But long records the Lady's name
In Silver Chronicle.

One asked me where the roses grew:
I bade him not go seek,
But forwith bade my Julia show
A bud in either cheek.

We dance round in a ring and suppose,
But the Secret sits in the middle and knows.

The sea took pity: it interposed with doom:
‘I have tall daughters dear that heed my hand:
Let Winter wed one, sow them in her womb,
And she shall child them on the New-world strand.’
. . . . . . . .

O'er the Eastern hills of light
While the dim world slept
Dawn the sculptor stepped,
And the shapeless block of Night
Chiselled into form
Morning-lit and warm.

The Scorpion is as black as soot,
He dearly loves to bite;
He is a most unpleasant brute
To find in bed at night.

The sailor
hears the voice of the Lorelei
he looks at his watch
and jumps in the water

Happy are ye who can put by the stress
Of so much of the trouble worldlings know;
Ye who seem almost creatures of the woods,
Now animal and now bird-like amid
The quiet pleasance of your leafy lives;
Though sorrow may be yours, and Death will come
Even like a pilgrim o'er the hills to you.

If thou wouldst live unruffled by care,
Let not the past torment thee e'er;
As little as possible be thou annoy'd,
And let the present be ever enjoy'd;
Ne'er let thy breast with hate be supplied,
And to God the future confide.

And in that rosy rosy hour,
When bird sang out and scented flower,
Came words to me from heaven above:
'Awake, young heart, awake and love!'