Short Poems

Spring am I, too soft of heart
Much to speak ere I depart:
Ask the Summer-tide to prove
The abundance of my love.

The trouble with comparing a poet with a radio is that radios don’t develop scar-tissue. The tubes burn out, or with a transistor, which most souls are, the battery or diagram burns out replaceable or not replaceable, but not like that punchdrunk fighter in the bar. The poet
Takes too many messages. The right to the ear that floored him in New Jersey. The right to say that he stood six rounds with a champion.

This Present from a lovely Dame,
Fair and unsully'd, as her Fame,
Shall to Hibernia be convey'd,
Where once, rever'd, her Father sway'd;
And taught the drooping Arts to smile,
And with his Virtues bless'd our Isle.

Quand le ciel bas et lourd pèse comme un couvercle
Sur l'esprit gémissant en proie aux longs ennuis,
Et que de l'horizon embrassant tout le cercle
Il nous verse un jour noir plus triste que les nuits;

Within time's stress, amid the facts of life,
Not in monastic solitudes, we find
A way to that is higher than ourselves.

Spires of Grace Church,
For you the workers of the world
Travailed with the mountains…
Aborting their own dreams
Till the dream of you arose -
Beautiful, swaddled in stone -
Scorning their hands.

Sparrow singing--
its tiny mouth
open.


Translated by Robert Hass

You are the Rose of me,
In you have I lost myself utterly,
Your fragrance, as a breath from Paradise,
About me ever lies;
I crush you to my heart with subtlest ecstasy
And on your lips I live, and in your passionate eyes.

souls' festival
today also there is smoke
from the crematory

Soul receives from soul that knowledge,
therefore not by book nor from tongue.

If knowledge of mysteries come after
emptiness of mind, that is illumination of heart.