Short Poems

The Wind against the bolted door
Cried out " I will — I will! "

*****

And sobbed. — And then lay still.

Forbear the Public to abuse,
With Treatise after Treatise;
Remember how poor Blackmore 's Muse
Dy'd of a Diabetes.

SHE COPIED SOME VERSES BY THE AUTHOR

One Angel on the sin he did record
Dropt a sweet tear and blotted out the word:
'Twere well the tears another shed this day
Had washed the sins she registered away!

From the Old French.

I'm getting old in your big house, and you've never stretched your hand with a bit of gold to me, or a day's wages itself. By my faith in Mary, it's not that way I'll serve you always, living on my pocket, with a few coppers only, and a small weight in my bag. You've had me to this day, singing on your stairs before you, but I'm getting a good mind to be going off, when I see my purse flattened out, and my wife does be making a fool of me from the edge of the door.

FROM THE GREEK OF ALCMAN

The mountain summits sleep: glens, cliffs, and caves
Are silent — all the black earth's reptile brood,
The bees, the wild beasts of the mountain wood:
In depths beneath the dark red ocean's waves
Its monsters rest, whilst, wrapt in bower and spray,
Each bird is hushed that stretched its pinions to the day.

No movies filmed inside of shattered ruins. No ruins. No vast stretches, no oak allees. Nary a strand of Spanish moss. No Mississippi. No rice, no cotton, no coffee table book. No climate controlled tour: gift shop, belle dolls, ceramic slaves. Magnolia scented soap. There are tarantulas the size of dinner plates. Log house with a door on leather hinges rotting through the war. I thought, If it's not wealth, then I don't have to worry. If it's not picturesque. Farm, farm, not plantation — Tintype, daguerreotype: Four-fingered man. His bride of the crooked mouth.

Written Extempore, at the desire of a Gentleman who was rather ill-favoured, but who had a beautiful Family of Children.

S C — TT and his children emblems are
Of real good and evil;
His children are like cherubims,
But Sc — tt is like the devil.

Young , loving, and beloved — these are brief words;
And yet they touch on all the finer chords,
Whose music is our happiness; the tone
May die away, and be no longer known,
In the sad changes brought by darker years,
When the heart has to treasure up its tears,
And life looks mournful on an altered scene —
Still it is much to think that it has been.

It is an armory of light
Let constant use but keep it bright,
You'l find it yeilds
To holy hands and humble hearts

Die Rose, die Lilje, die Taube, die Sonne

The rose and the lily, the dove and the sun,
I loved them all once — before Love had begun.
I love them no more. I worship now solely
The one and the only most holy and lowly.
She herself is the spirit of all these in one;
Being Rose and the Lily, the Dove and the Sun.