Short Poems

Is Memory most of miseries miserable,
Or the one flower of ease in bitterest hell?

Mercedes hacen los reyes,
Mercedes sueña el amor,
Mas Mercedes como t ú . . .
¡Sólo puede hacerlas Dios!

Det var for os hvert Øieblik
Som om en Engel kom, og gik.

Men say they know many things;
But lo! they have taken wings, —
The arts and sciences,
And a thousand appliances;
The wind that blows
Is all that any body knows.

Men of superior mind busy themselves first getting at the root of things; when
they succeed, the right course is open to them.

Men fra Erindringen, det Svundne
Sit største Tryllerie hun henter,
Som Konstens marmorblege Skjønhed
Paa melankolske Monumenter.

Men at forty
Learn to close softly
The doors to rooms they will not be
Coming back to

Some worry about going bald,
others go bald from worrying.

You say love is this, love is that:
Poplar tassels, willow tendrils
the wind and the rain comb,
tinkle and drip, tinkle and drip--
branches drifting apart. Hagh!
Love has not even visited this country.

(Vassar College, 1918)

O, loveliest throat of all sweet throats,
Where now no more the music is,
With hands that wrote you little notes
I write you little elegies!