Short Poems

What is that smoke that ever still
Comes rolling down that dark brown hill?

I would have touched the heavenly key
That spoke alike of bliss and thee;
I would have woke the entrancing song,*
But its words died upon my tongue;
And then I knew that entheal1 strain*
Could never speak of joy again;*
And then I felt . . .1 Or " hallowed. "

71 Tuesday, 20 November 1750

T╬┐ ¤ü╬┐don ╬▒xm╬▒zei bai╬┐n xr╬┐non. ╬©n d╬À par╬Àlqh,
Zht¤ën e¤àr╬Àseij o¤à ¤ü╬┐don, ╬▒ll╬▒ b╬▒ton.
[Gk Anthol. XI 53]

Soon fades the rose; once past the fragrant hour,
The loiterer finds a bramble for a flow'r.

The Patient Chief, who lab'ring long, arriv'd
On Britains Shore and brought with fav'ring Gods
Arts Arms and Honour to her Ancient Sons:
Daughter of Memory! from elder Time
Recall; and me, with Britains Glory fir'd,
Me, far from meaner Care or meaner Song,
Snatch to thy Holy Hill of Spotless Bay,
My Countrys Poet, to record her Fame.

Peter complains, that God has given
To his poor Babe a Life so short:
Consider Peter , he's in Heaven;
'Tis good to have a Friend at Court.

What God, what Genius did the Pencil move
When K NELLER painted These?
Twas Friendship — warm as Phaebus , kind as Love,
And strong as Hercules .

On a catafalque, draped in black, under bronze cannon, forlorn and white, rigid in death, the corpse of the South is borne to its tomb. With muffled drums, with arms reversed, the veterans gather gaunt and grey, and their close-furled flags, 'neath the sun's pale flash, droop in weary folds to-day.

There is a goddess who walks shrouded by day:
At night she throws her blue veil over the earth.
Men only see her naked glory through the little holes in the veil.

VI

I gazed through the mist:
Was it a goddess I saw?
— The mist silently lifted and showed me — an open tomb.

III

I cry,
Echo answers faintly.
Echo is a poet.