Short Poems

It once happened
that a child was spared punishment
through earnest solicitation.


Translated by Robert Hass

It is with awe
That I beheld
Fresh leaves, green leaves,
Bright in the sun.

In Mrs. Potter's latest play
The costuming is fine;
Her waist is made decollete--
Her skirt is new design.

Behold! a white Hawk tangled in a twisted net of dreams
Struggles no more, but lines the cords with feathers from her breast
Seeing herself within the mystic circle of my voice,
Whereat forthwith its music turns to blades and tongues of fire
Rending the bonds and weaving round the Hawk a skein of light
Raising the work and the Toiler to the never-ending Day.

It is easy to read and to recite;
It is hard to practice what one reads,
And, reading seek out the Self within.
By constant practice, not by books,
Conviction grew in my heart
Of God, Who is Consciousness-Bliss.

All who have toiled for Art, who've won or lost,
Sat equal priests at her high Pentecost;
Only the chrism and sacrament of flame,
Anointing all, inspired not all the same.

The Eagle, stooping from yon snow-blown peaks,
For the wild hunter and the Bison seeks,
In the changed world below; and finds alone
Their graven semblance in the eternal stone.

Reader! behold a monument
That asks no sigh or tear,
Though it perpetuate the event
Of a great burial here.

Here, free from riot's hated noise,
Be mine, ye calmer, purer joys,
A book or friend bestows;
Far from the storms that shake the great,
Contentment's gale shall fan my seat,
And sweeten my repose.

This cabin, Mary, in my sight appears,
Built as it has been in our waning years,
A rest afforded to our weary feet,
Preliminary to--the last retreat.