Short Poems

You think it horrible that lust and rage
Should dance attention upon my old age;
They were not such a plague when I was young;
What else have I to spur me into song?

Hurrah for revolution and more cannon-shot!
A beggar upon horseback lashes a beggar on foot.
Hurrah for revolution and cannon come again!
The beggars have changed places, but the lash goes on.

Though the great song return no more
There's keen delight in what we have:
The rattle of pebbles on the shore
Under the receding wave.

Whence did all that fury come?
From empty tomb or Virgin womb?
Saint Joseph thought the world would melt
But liked the way his finger smelt.

"Those Platonists are a curse,' he said,
"God's fire upon the wane,
A diagram hung there instead,
More women born than men.'

We that have done and thought,
That have thought and done,
Must ramble, and thin out
Like milk spilt on a stone.

Parnell came down the road, he said to a cheering man:
"Ireland shall get her freedom and you still break stone.

Where, where but here have pride and Truth,
That long to give themselves for wage,
To shake their wicked sides at youth
Restraining reckless middle-age?

What they undertook to do
They brought to pass;
All things hang like a drop of dew
Upon a blade of grass.

Though leaves are many, the root is one;
Through all the lying days of my youth
I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun;
Now I may wither into the truth.