Short Poems

I found a strawberry blossom in a rock.
The little slender flower had more courage
Than the green leaves,
For they t half expanded, and half grown,
But the blossom was spread full out.

Walked about the squire's grounds:
The dell romantic and beautiful
Though everywhere planted
With unnaturalized trees.

Happily,
We cannot shape out the huge hills
Or carve out the valleys.

A winter prospect
Shows
Every cottage
Every farm
And the forms of distant trees.

Gathered sticks in the wood;
A perfect stillness.
The redbreasts sang
Upon the leafless boughs.

At ease reclin'd beneath the verdant shade,
No more shall I behold my happy flock
Aloft, hang browzing on the tufted rock.

Poets would profit, or delight mankind,
And with the amusing show the instructive join'd

Mag da draussen Schnee sich türmen

Snows and storms may whirl in torrents;
And I watch, without abhorrence,
Hail at all my windows storming;
For they never seem alarming
While my heart can hold this grace:
Spring, — and one dear, Spring-like face.

Ich trat in jene Hallen

I stood as in a spell
Where she swore faith undying;
And where her tears once fell
Serpents were hissing and lying.

Die Mitternacht war kalt und stumm

'Twas midnight, still and very cold;
Through the dark woods I sang and strolled.
I shook the trees with my doleful ditty —
They only nodded their heads, in pity.

What am I then? A consciousness that cries
Good morning and good night;
A brevity whose eyes look once on light:
One thought in all the unmindful mind of nature;
One face in multitudes a moment seen;
Eternity's quick creature, born of what has been.