Short Poems

Those Honours come too late,
That on our Ashes waite.

My little wandring sportful Soule,
Ghest, and companion of my body

Quintia is beautiful, many will tell you: to me
She is white, she is straight, she is tall: to all this I agree,
But does this make her beautiful? though she be found without fault,
Can you find in the whole of her body the least pinch of salt?
But Lesbia is beautiful: hers is the secret alone
To steal from all beauty its beauty, and make it her own.

Winter uncovers distances, I find;
And so the cold and so the wintry mind
Takes leaves away, till there is left behind
A wide cold world. And so the heart grows blind
To the earth's green motions lying warm below
Field upon field, field upon field, of snow.

To give me its bright plumes, they shot a jay:
On the fresh jewels, blood! Oh, sharp remorse!
The glittering symbols of the little corse
I buried where the wood was noisome, blind,
Praying that I might nevermore betray
The universe, so whole within my mind.

The lake was covered all over
With bright silver waves
That were each
The twinkling of an eye.

Amid the medley of ironic things
We break our hearts upon from age to age
Glimmers a question, — Had the bird no wings
Who would have taken thought to build a cage?

" Did I step on your train?" —
" Nay, dearest, no matter!"
" My pet brown again —
Did I step on the train?"
" You wanted, 'tis plain,
An excuse, sir, to flatter!"
" Did I step on your train?"
" Nay, my dearest! what matter?"

Health in his rags, Content upon his face,
He goes th' enslaver of a feathered race:
And cunning snares, warm hearts, like warblers, take;
The one to sing for sport, the other, break.

" I know I have lost my train, "
Said a man named Joshua Lane;
" But I'll run on the rails
With my coat-tails for sails
And maybe I'll catch it again. "