Short Poems

WRITTEN IN A LADY'S ALBUM .

Muse's gifts are sweet — but doubly sweet
When to adorn the brow of Truth they're given;
To scatter flow'rs round lovely woman's feet,
And deok the path that leads her up to heaven.

I LOVE those spirits
That men stand off and point at,
Or shudder and hood up their souls —
Those ruined ones,
Where Liberty has lodged an hour
And passed like flame,
Bursting asunder the too small house.

There's a magpie gaily swinging
On its branches fair and free,
And its upward glance when singing
Is hope's benison to me.

White and all waxen a fair maiden lay,
White as the snowdrift her beautiful clay.
White raiment clothed her, and over her bier
White lilies faded, sweet emblems they were.
White was her record, and where she is gone
White is the stone that her new name is on.

On English ground I calculated once
How many block-heads — taking dunce by dunce —
There are four hundred (if I don't forget) —
The Readers of the Literary Gazette .

Chaos! that coincides with this militant purpose.
Chaos! the heart of this earnest malignancy.
Chaos! that helps, chaos that gives to shatter
Mind-wrought, mind-unimagining energies
For topless ill, of dynamite and iron.
Soulless logic, inventive enginery.
Now you have got the peace-faring Lusitania ,
Germany's gift — all earth they would give thee, Chaos.

Acrostic

Sarah, — your other name I know not,
And fine encomiums I bestow not,
Regard me as an utter stranger,
A hair-brain'd, hasty, album-ranger,
Heaven shield you, Girl, from every danger!

On Emma's honest brow we read display'd
The constant virtues of the Nut Brown Maid;
Mellifluous sounds on Clara's tongue we hear,
Notes that once lured a Seraph from his sphere;
Cecilia's eyes such winning beauties crown
As without song might draw her Angel down.

Z ULEIKAH ! The young Agas in the bazaar are slim-waisted and wear yellow slippers. I am old and hideous. One of my eyes is out, and the hairs of my beard are mostly grey. Praise be to Allah! I am a merry bard.
There is a bird upon the terrace of the Emir's chief wife. Praise be to Allah! He has emeralds on his neck, and a ruby tail. I am a merry bard. He deafens me with his diabolical screaming.
There is a little brown bird in the basket-maker's cage Praise be to Allah! He ravishes my soul in the moonlight. I am a merry bard.

My friend spoke with insinuating tongue:
" Drink wine, and thy flesh shall be made whole. Look how it hisses in the leathern bottle like a captured serpent. "
Oh fool! can the sun be forged into a cask stopped with earthly bungs. I know not that the power of wine has ever overmastered my sorrows; for these mighty giants I have found as yet no resting-place.