Short Poems

" Art's function is to please. "
" But whom? "
" The Few. "
" The Few won't fill the Theatre, my good man!
That by a different function earns its due. "
" And what may be its law? "
" Please Caliban. "

Thy beauty is bugle and banner — bugle, and banner, and prize!
I march to the beat of thy heart, and the oriflamme of thine eyes.
My falchion flashes thy smile, as I fight to the far-off goal —
The star of love that burns on the battlement of thy soul.
O Queen! the bugle is blowing, the banners flutter and stream;
Thy heart is beating such music, I fight as one in a dream.
I am blind; in my blood there is thunder; there is lightning around and above;
I have cloven a cohort asunder, I swoon on the ramparts of love.

Mounting the hill I found it long
Until I met a merry Song
That kissed mine eyes to blind me;
It mocked at me and turned and fled
But played on, fluttering overhead,
Till I forgot I went footsore
And the dusty road that rose before
Was the blue hill far behind me!

Than to sink among men,
It is better to sink in the deep.
He who sinks in the deep
May betake himself to swimming
For him who sinks among men
There is no salvation.

Clods, return to your place;
Water, flow back to your ditches;
Ye insects, appear not;
Grass and trees, grow only in your marshes.

Years the master strives, his object seldom achieving;
To a receptive race all were explained in a dream.
What they yesterday learned to-day they would urge upon others;
Ah, these gentlemen have little compassion indeed.

" Give me a scrap of soil outside the bounds of the planet, "
Said the godlike man, " so can I lever the earth. "
But for an instant take mine own identity from me,
And in the flash of an eye I will appropriate yours.

Soon as the Muse beheld these lines, She said,
The Members are preserv'd: But ah, the Head !

Poor Lads! the Storm has whirl'd your Brains around;
And all the Sense is ship-wrack'd in the SOUND.

When your faire hand receaves this Little Book,
You must not there for Prose or Verses look.
Those empty regions which within you see,
May by your self planted and peopled bee.
And though wee scarce allow your Sex to prove
Writers (unlesse the argument be Love)
Yet without crime or envy You have roome
Here both the Scribe and Authour to become.

Thy CHRIST is now my Life: I fly
To CHRIST with an Enliven'd Faith .
And now 'twill be my Gain to Dy ,
To CHRIST fetch'd by a Stingless Death .