Short Poems

I WOULD compare to the land this anvil, its lord to the hammer,
And to the people the plate, which in the middle is bent.
Sad is the poor tin-plate's lot, when the blows are but given at random:
Ne'er will the kettle be made, while they uncertainly fall.

Even this heavenly pair were unequally match'd when united:
Psyche grew older and wise, Amor remain'd still a child.

When Diogenes quietly sunn'd himself in his barrel,
When Calanus with joy leapt in the flame-breathing grave,
Oh, what noble lessons were those for the rash son of Philip,
Were not the lord of the world e'en for instruction too great!

It matters not, I ween,
Where worms our friends consume,
Beneath the turf so green,
Or 'neath a marble tomb.
Remember, ye who live,
Though frowns the fleeting day,
That to your friends ye give
What never will decay.

God gave to mortals birth,
In His own image too;
Then came Himself to earth,
A mortal kind and true.

A BREACH is every day,
By many a mortal storm'd;
Let them fall in the gaps as they may,
Yet a heap of dead is ne'er form'd.

I KILL'D a thousand flies overnight,
Yet was waken'd by one, as soon as 'twas light.

What God would outwardly alone control,
And on his finger whirl the mighty Whole?
He loves the inner world to move, to view
Nature in Him, Himself in Nature too,
So that what in Him works, and is, and lives,
The measure of His strength, His spirit gives.

If thou to be a slave shouldst will,
Thou'lt get no pity, but fare ill;
And if a master thou wouldst be,
The world will view it angrily;
And if in statu quo thou stay,
That thou art but a fool, they'll say.

This nosegay, — 'twas I dress'd it, —
Greets thee a thousand times!
Oft stoop''d I, and caress'd it,
Ah! full a thousand times,
And 'gainst my bosom press'd it
A hundred thousand times!