Short Poems

In great cities, in vistas of stone we blossom like jasmine, we green like May. On evening walks we rustle like forests, and blossoms fall from us like snow .
In nights, tense like wounds, we glow like glow-worms in the field. And by all our roots we are connected with the farthest and deepest wells of the world .

Father Pan, old Silenus, two-horned fauns, and you, white band of the Goddess of the Pharetra — my reed-pipe has gladdened you with its music and I have brought you offerings each year.
Spare now, I beseech, the purple grape-berries and do not pluck the golden plums with greedy fingers.

BEFORE D EATH

If I should come no more,
Plum-tree beside my door,
Forget not thou the spring,
Faithfully blossoming.

The whole life is lost in the love of ill desires.
Thus three stages of life have passed: the hairs of the head are grown grey.

The breath is choked: it comes no more to the mouth: but is as the Moon in the grip of Ketu.
As he who forsaking Ganga drinks water from his well, are they who forsake Hari and worship demons.

Living in sloth they have forgotten Gobind, and are drowned with all the rest.
O Sur Das, without money without price thou mayest take the name of Rama.

Flowers are shadowed, the palace darkens,
Birds twitter by for a place to perch;
Heaven's ten thousand windows are twinkling,
And nine cloud-terraces are gleaming in the moonlight.
... While I wait for the golden lock to turn,
I hear jade pendants tinkling in the wind. ...
I have a petition to present in the morning,
All night I ask what time it is.

Sith my desyre is prest to please,
Though not with glosing showe:
And eke my deeds if proofe were made,
Should tell what fayth I owe.
Whereto shall I impute my hap,
To Fate or wante of skill:
When nought I finde but tickle trust,
Where most I meane good will.

These are the tools of Leontikhos, the carpenter: toothed files; swift augers; carpenter's lines; red powder; double-headed hammers; rulers, spotted with red powder; drills; a chisel; a heavy, well-adjusted axe, the queen of all tools; easily turned gimlets; a sharp wimble; four bolt-cutters; and a smoothing-axe.
He dedicated all these to Athene, the graceful artisan, having abandoned his trade.

These Kretan women, Autonoma, Meliteia, and Boiskion, daughters of Philolades and Nika, each placed offerings in this temple to Athene, the Spinner: one gave the whirling spindle that reeled off her thread; another, her basket of grey wool; and the third, the active loom-rod that made the web of her cloth so fine, famed as the guardian of Penelope's virgin couch.
Thus they made an end of their laours for Athene.

Oft have I heard, with clam'rous note,
A yelping Cur exalt his throat
At Cynthia 's silver rays;
So, with the blaze of Learning's light,
When You, O King , offend his sight,
The Spaniel Blaco bays.

More than his Name were less . — 'Twou'd seem, to fear,
He, who increas'd H EAV'N'S fame, could want it here .
Yet, when the S UNS , he lighted up , shall fade,
And all the W ORLDS , he found , are first decay'd;
Then, void , and waste , E TERNITY shall lie,
And T IME , and N EWTON'S Name , together die.