Short Poems

When beggars die there are no comets seen;
The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes. II, ii

Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear;
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.

The time I went to see my Sister
Whom I loved unendurably,
The winter-night's
River-wind was so cold that
The sanderlings were crying.

The deer which lives
On the evergreen mountain
Where there are no autumn-leaves
Can know the coming of autumn
Only by its own cry.

So stupid of me to hope you'll take to books;
a scholar all my life, I want to raise you the same way.
Baby squalls that to other ears are nothing but noise —
sooner or later they'll give way to the student's drone.

No fields, no house, one poor scholar,
but I have a child, and to my delight it's a boy!
A few paintings, a pair of old inkstones:
your father offers them to you — but will you accept them?

Eastern neighbor, western neighbor:
swallows flying.
Tomorrow or the next day,
spring will be gone.
Much sadness, much illness,
saying goodbye:
no wine, no money,
pawning my clothes!

All we have is God's, and yet
Caesar challenges a debt,
Nor hath God a thinner share,
What ever Caesar's payments are;
All is God's; and yet 'tis true
All wee have is Caesar's too;
All is Caesar's; and what ods
So long as Caesar's self is Gods?

Thou spak'st the word (thy word's a Law)
Thou spak'st and streight the blind man saw.

To speake and make the blind man see,
Was never man Lord spake like Thee.

To speake thus, was to speake (say I)
Not to his Eare, but to his Eye.

Christ bids the dumbe tongue speake, it speakes; the sound
Hee charges to be quiet, it runs round:
If in the first he us'd his fingers Touch,
His hands whole strength here, could not be too much.