Short Poems

Camilla calls me heartless: hence you see
Logic in love has little part.
How can I otherwise than heartless be
Seeing Camilla has my heart?

CAMILLA calls me heartless: hence you see
Logic in love has little part.
How can I otherwise than heartless be
Seeing Camilla has my heart?

Calligraphy of geese
against the sky--
the moon seals it.


Translated by Robert Hass

O'er the rugged mountain's brow
Clara threw the twins she nursed,
And remarked, 'I wonder now
Which will reach the bottom first?'

i wanted one life
you wanted another
we couldn't have our cake
so we ate eachother.

Bow, wow, wow,
Whose dog art thou?
Little Tom Tinker's dog,
Bow, wow, wow.

We have scarcely time to tell thee
Of the strange and gifted Shelley,
Kind hearted man, but ill-fated,
So youthful drowned and cremated.

By the highway I came,
But by the highway I return not.
And so I find me still on the embarkment,
not having gone even half the way,
And the day is done, the light has failed.
I search my pockets but not a cowrie find:
What shall I pay for the ferry fee ?

Don't smoke your hams till you 've killed the pig ;

Do n't buy the carpet till the roof is thatched ;
Do n't measure the milk till the calf is there ;

Do n't count the chickens till the eggs are hatched.

Here Great Erasmus resteth all of thine
That Death can touch or Monument confine
Thy Hope and Virtue soard ye lofty sky
Round ye wide world thy Fame & Knowledge fly
Those meet rewards above and these below.
Thus seek Erasmus. What has Death to show?