Short Poems

The invisible particles of the air
quiver and ignite around me;
the sky dissolves into rays of gold;
the earth shudders with joy;
I hear the murmur of kisses and the beating of wings
floating on waves of harmony;
my eyelids close ... What can it be?
— It is love passing by!

Forbear, fond heart (say I), torment no more
That Celimena whom thou dost adore;
For since so many of her Chains are proud,
How canst thou be distinguish'd in the crowd?
But say, bold trifler, what dost thou pretend?
Wouldst thou depose thy Saint into thy Friend?
Equality in friendship is requir'd,
Which here were criminal to be desir'd.

Here what remaines of him does ly,
Who was the world's epitomy:
Religion's darling, merchants glory,
Men's delight, and vertue's story
Who, though a Prisoner to the Grave,
A glorious freedome once shall have:
Till when no monument is fit,
But what's beyond our Love or Wit.

Give over now thy teares, thou vain
And double murtherer;
For every minuite of thy paine
Wounds both thy self and her
Quit, quit this dullness; for 'tis our beleif,
Thy Queen must cure, or not deserve, thy grief.

When you walk,
I can think only of a white dryad
Slipping out of a brown tree
And skipping . . . .

Tricolour blossom,
The stars set in the sea, the sacred fire
Of Poetry is quenched within my bosom.

A Spartan Lady bravely slew her son,
Because she saw him from the battail run;
Thou canst not be (quoth she) a Spartan known,
Unless thy valiant mind declare thee one

TUGEND DES WEIBES

Tugenden brauchet der Mann, er stürzet sich wagend ins Leben,
Tritt mit dem stärkeren Glück in den bedenklichen Kampf
Eine Tugend genüget dem Weib, sie ist da, sie erscheinet,
Lieblich dem Herzen, dem Aug' lieblich erscheine sie stets.

JUGEND

Einer Charis erfreuet sich jeder im Leben, doch flüchtig,
Hält nicht die Himmlische sie, eilet die Irdische fort.

So , when the Sun, with his Meridian Light,
Too fiercely darts upon our feeble Sight;
We thank th'officious Cloud, by whose kind Aid
We view his Glory, lessen'd in a Shade.