Short Poems

Whence the sudden stir that roars through my vitals? Why is my breast, unused to the experience of Apollo's inspiration, by breathless excitement agitated, and amid Parnassus' long silent shade do the mob raise anew the Paean in their secret caves? But lately, I remember, the laurels were untended, drooping, dumb the tortoise-shell, glum Apollo, and the lyre's inventor an Arcadian. . . .

When they ran over her,
the mulberry tree said:
" Do what you wish,
but remember
my right to bear fruit
will never die. "

When Narcissus died the pool of his pleasure changed from a cup of sweet waters into a cup of salt tears, and the Oreads came weeping through the woodland that they might sing to the pool and give it comfort.
And when they saw that the pool had changed from a cup of sweet waters into a cup of salt tears, they loosened the green tresses of their hair and cried to the pool and said, "We do not wonder that you should mourn in this manner for Narcissus, so beautiful was he.'
"But was Narcissus beautiful?' said the pool.

When Mary goes walking
The autumn winds blow,
The poplars they curtsey,
The larches bend low;
The oaks and the beeches
Their gold they fling down,
To make her a carpet,
To make her a crown.

When late I attempted your pity to move,
What made you so deaf to my prayers?
Perhaps it was right to dissemble your love,
But--why did you kick me down stairs?

Here lies — the world
There rises one.

When God gave you to me
I felt that He had loaded
everything my way
and unsaid all His sacred books.

When first we met we did not guess
That Love would prove so hard a master;
Of more than common friendliness
When first we met we did not guess.
Who could foretell this sore distress,
This irretrievable disaster
When first we met — We did not guess
That Love would prove so hard a master.

Men who ride strange wild horses
Down dangerous glens and glades,
Men who draw keen sharp swords,
Toledo or Damascus blades,
Men who swear and laugh and love
And live and sing like troubadours, —
Wrinkled old beldams somewhere
Are dreaming of old amours.

What is a modern Poet's fate?
To write his thoughts upon a slate:--

The Critic spits on what is done,--
Gives it a wipe,--and all is gone.