Short Poems

Offended by a sportive observation that women have no souls

Nay, dearest Anna! why so grave?
I said, you had no soul, 'tis true!
For what you are, you cannot have:
'Tis I, that have one since I first had you!
[1811-12]

As when the new or full moon urges
The high, long, large, unbreaking surges
Of the pacific Main.
[1811. From MS]

(Impromptu)

What now, O Man! thou dost, or mean'st to do,
Will help to give thee Peace or make thee rue,
When hovering o'er the Dot this Hand shall tell
The moment that secures thee Heaven or Hell!
[1809. From MS]

'Tis Cypher lies beneath this crust--
Whom Death created into dust.

As late in wreaths gay flowers I bound,
Beneath some roses Love I found,
And by his little frolic pinion
As quick as thought I seiz'd the minion,
Then in my Cup the prisoner threw,
And drank him in its sparkling dew:
And sure I feel my angry Guest
Fluttering his Wings within my breast!

Bring me the livery of no other man.
I am my own to robe me at my pleasure.
Accepted rules to me disclose no treasure:

What is the chief who shall my garments plan?
No garb conventional but I'll attack it.
(Come, why not don my spangled jacket?)

The night is dewy as a maiden's mouth,
The skies are bright as are a maiden's eyes,
Soft as a maiden's breath the wind that flies
Up from the perfumed bosom of the South.
Like sentinels, the pines stand in the park;
And hither hastening, like rakes that roam,
With lamps to light their wayward footsteps home,
The fireflies come stagg'ring down the dark.

I dreamed that I stood in a valley, and amid sighs,
For happy lovers passed two by two where I stood;
And I dreamed my lost love came stealthily out of the wood
With her cloud-pale eyelids falling on dream-dimmed eyes:
I cried in my dream, O women, bid the young men lay
Their heads on your knees, and drown their eyes with your hair,
Or remembering hers they will find no other face fair
Till all the valleys of the world have been withered away.

Thousands of mountains, tens of thousands of mountains,
not a trace to be seen.
The sky above, the earth below: one enormous cloud.
The recluse cannot distinguish the morning from the evening.
He wonders if this is the Unity, before the split
of Yin and Yang.

One sung of thee who left the tale untold,
Like the false dawns which perish in the bursting;
Like empty cups of wrought and daedal gold,
Which mock the lips with air, when they are thirsting.