Short Poems

A face Sir Joshua might have painted! Yea:
Sir Joshua painted anything for pay . . .
And after all you're painted every day.

Lo, how they weave - the imperturbable three -
Those threads that are my destiny:
Steadily at the eternal task they're bent
Industrious . . . indifferent . . .
Weave, Fates! And what your spinstry weaves I'll forthwith wear
And if it clothe me for the day or death's no air.

Above the sunset's many-tinted bar,
Where light on light, a smiling iris gnar,
Mellows to mystery of near and far,
Swings passionately pale the Evening Star!
Queen of the twilight–from a conquered sky
She smiles to see the Day grow faint and die.

In a cave born

(Mary said)

In a cave is

My Son buried

The end of spring--
the poet is brooding
about editors.


Translated by Robert Hass

She did not love to love; but hated him
For making her to love, and so her whim
From passion taught misprision to begin;
And all this sin
Was because love to cast out had no skill
Self, which was regent still.
Her own self-will made void her own self's will

A flawless cup: how delicate and fine
The flowing curve of every jewelled line!
Look, turn it up or down, 't is perfect still,--
But holds no drop of life's heart-warming wine.

Looking across the line, the Grecian said:
'This border I will stain a Turkey red.'
The Moslem smiled securely and replied:
'No Greek has ever for his country dyed.'
While thus each patriot guarded his frontier,
The Powers stole all the country in his rear.

Out across the spinifex, out across the sand,
Out across the saltbush to Never Never land
That's the way the drovers go, jogging down the track -
That's the way the drovers go. But how do they come back?
Back across the saltbush from Never Never land.
Back across the spinifex, back across the sand.

With Alfred and St. Louis he doth win
Grander than crowned head's mortuary dome:
His gentle heroic manhood enters in
The ever-flowering common heart for home.