Short Poems

We had been long in mountain snow,
In valleys bleak, and broad, and bare,
Where only moss and willows grow,
And no bird wings the silent air.
And so, when on our downward way
Wild roses met us, we were glad:
They were so girlish fair, so gay,
It seemed the sun had made them mad.

1. Way ah, we'll pay Paddy Doyle for his boots!

2 Who stole poor Paddy Doyle's boots?

3 We'll bowse her up and be done!

Jokes, repartees, and laugh, and pun polite
Are the true test to prove a man is right.

In Adams fall
We sinned all.
In the new Adam's rise
We shall all reach the skies.

I wish your reverence were here to hear the trumpets;
Mistake me not, for I mean not the strumpets.

And once again
When I went a-maying —
& once or twice more I had seen thee before.
For there grow the May flower
(Epigaea repens)
& the mt cranberry
& the screech owl strepens

The years
Fall like dry leaves
From the top-less tree
Of eternity.
Does it matter
That another leaf has fallen?

Singing black boatmen
An August morning
In the thick white fog at Sekondi
Coming out to take cargo
From anchored alien ships,
You do not know the fog
We strange so-civilized ones
Sail in always.

Here lies an honest man
Rear Admiral Van.
Faith, then ye have
Two in one grave,
For by your favor
Here too lies the engraver.

Upon her soothing breast
She lulled her little child;
A winter sunset in the west,
Dreary glory smiled, A