Short Poems

NIGHT-BLOWING CEREUS .

O'er a blossom of Thought gay Fancy plays,
And lights, with her smile, its leaves;
Till they gleam with a myriad teinted rays,
As the sun, in a diamond, weaves
His braid of resplendent rainbow bloom,
That changes and glows, like a fairy's plume.

BLUE-BOTTLE CENTAURY

Her love is pure and glad and true,
As yonder heaven of stainless blue.

NETTLE .

More cruel far than murder's self is he,
Who, having kindled once love's Eden-bloom,
With warm Persuasion's spell, in some young heart,
E'er lets Indifference blight it or Neglect; —
For Love — true Love can flower but once in life,
In woman's life — the Aloe of her heart!

If, thus, the Tuneful Bard his Voice can raise,
When England 's Mars , expiring , damps his Lays,
How! could he sing, and in what rapturous Rhimes
Describe the Living V ENUS of our Times?

A Mphora plena! mei Titulo res digna Sepalchri: Hujus ero vivus, mortaus hujus ero.

Thus said Kingstone , When I die,
Write me a Liquid Elegy: Write,
Here lies One, who thought no Harm in
A large, capacious Bellar-min:
But chose it for his Urn, to lie in;
Thirsty Living, Thirsty Dying.

Mingling (my prayer)
With the clang of the bell
Which woke me from my dreams,
Lo, ten times I have recited the Honourable Name.

The flowered woods have dropped their springtime rose festoon,
So soon, so soon
But night-blowing winds and the cold dawn rain were bound to be.
Your tear-stained rouge will keep me
Drinking here beside you
Then — who knows when again?
Out lives are sad like rivers turning always toward the sea.

On whom can it have relied
That they would soon come,
This matsu-mushi whose cry
Shows that it finds a constant difficulty
In getting through the autumn night?

The spring rain
Which hangs to the branches
Of the green willow
Looks like pearls
Threaded on a string.

As for this world,
That way or this way —
It is the same thing;
For both palace and cottage
Come to nothing in the end.