Short Poems

Ah , not the terror of a long-drawn death,
Ah, not the sword!
Only a word, a smile, a laughing breath,
— — And I betrayed Thee, Lord.

I HAVE not loved the gold of the mine.
— I have not loved the image of gold.
But I have loved the gold divine
— That springs in April from the mould;
And I have loved to see thee shine,
— Thou Sun, that makest all things gold!

Even to one I dare not tell
Where lies my Heaven, where lies my Hell;
But to the world will I confide
What's hid from all the world beside.

" THEY served with Nelson, and with Nelson died. "
Well was it said, we may not in our pride
Utter the praise of ancestors like these.
Yet may we speak it humbly, on our knees;
For were we silent all, 'tis past a doubt
The very stones against us would cry out.

All that love hath to give to me is given.
— Alas for the unutterable pain!
To love that showered on me the pearls of heaven
— I have no gift that I can give again, —
Not the least gem of earth, from the rock riven —
— I search my empty treasury in vain.

My lips were dumb and yet
My heart was singing all the while.
My eyes with tears were wet.
If you had looked into mine eyes,
— You had not seen a smile.
— — Cold, cold as snow,
— — Deep down below,
The fount of joy within me lies.

Tired of the daily round,
— And tired of all my being;
My ears are tired with sound,
— And mine eyes with seeing.

Meeting often, we find we cannot meet enough,
and words are counterfeit, silence only golden,
and streets at night are beautiful.
I find the valentines are true, the hearts and arrows —
sighs and misty eyes; and the old poems —
I find them true.

The days are long again, the skies are blue;
the hedges are green again, the trees are green;
only the twigs of the elms are dark.
At night the wind is cold again;
but by day the snow of your absence is melting:
soon May will be here and you the queen of the May.

The dead tree at the corner
from the gray boughs of which the bark has fallen
in places and all the twigs —
be thankful, you other trees,
that, bare and brown, are only leafless
in a winter of your lives.