Short Poems

SMALL CAPE MARYGOLD .

Your lips are like the prophet-flower; —
When thus they, quivering, close, my love;
We're sure to have a summer-shower,
From the blue eyes that beam above.

APPLE-BLOSSOM .

The idol I have set apart to worship —
Watched over — cherished — mused upon in absence,
Until my full heart ached with tenderness!

In Yoshiwara
the women are showing their wares
this evening —
blossoms glowing in the echoes
of the vesper bells.

I

From his far isle the gentle stranger came
Who taught our lips to love his liquid name,
Found a new home beneath our western sky
Won all our hearts and left us but to die.

My name declares my date to be
The morning of a Christian year,
Though motherless, as all agree,
I am a mother, it is clear,
A father too, without dispute,
And when my son comes, — he's a fruit .
And not to puzzle you too much,
'T was I gave Holland to the Dutch.

The Avon to the Severn runs,
The Severn to the sea;
And Wycliffe's dust shall spread abroad,
Wide as the waters be.

To Thee my Wayes have all been known;
Known all my Words have been to Thee:
Thou know'st my Thoughts; My Faults I own;
May all, thro' Christ, now pardon'd bee.

Blest bee the Great JEHOVAH who
Doth mee with Daily Blessings Load
Thou, with a Saviour, dost Bestow
Salvations on mee, O my God!

How admirable — the fine gentleman,
In spare moments so often trying his hand at poetry!
His old-style verse is modeled on Han and Wei works;
For modern style, he makes the Tang his teacher;
With what elegance he shapes his compositions,
Adding touches that are striking and new
But since he never writes of things in the heart,
However many he may turn out, what's the point?

Who says my poems are poems?
My poems are not poems at all
Only when you understand that my poems are not poems,
Can we begin to talk about poems.