Short Poems

There lived an old woman at Lynn,
Whose nose very near touched her chin,
You may easy suppose
She had plenty of beaux;
This charming old woman of Lynn.

There is nothing I can do
nothing you can do
what can the wound do
with the knife on the way to it?

There is a quiet kingdom's strand,
Like to no other earthly land,
The clouds and winds divide us —
Ah me, and who shall guide us?

It will be found, I say to thee,
By one who yearneth deep as we.

There is a grey thing that lives in the tree-tops
None know the horror of its sight
Save those who meet death in the wilderness
But one is enabled to see
To see branches move at its passing
To hear at times the wail of black laughter
And to come often upon mystic places
Places where the thing has just been.

" Three trees there are, and good are they,
The holly, the ivy, the yew;
They put forth leaves for ever and aye,
And Trystan shall have me his whole life through."

And in this fashion March lost Esyllt for ever.

Their noonday never knows
What names immortal are:
'Tis night alone that shows
How star surpasseth star.

That sovereign thought obscured? That vision clear
Dimmed in the shadow of the sable wing,
And fainter grown the fine interpreting
Which as an oracle was ours to hear!
Nay, but the Gods reclaim not from the seer
Their gift, — although he ceases here to sing,
And, like the antique sage, a covering
Draws round his head, knowing what change is near.

Though I am like Laila, yet my heart loves like Majnun. I wish to keep my head towards the desert, but modesty chains my feet down.
The nightingale came to sit in the company of the flower in the garden, because she was my pupil. I am an expert in love matters: — even the moth is our pupil.

I raised my voice for Fovar-gormo, when they laid the chief on earth. The aged Crothar was there, but his sigh was not
heard. He searched for the wound of his son, and found it in his breast. Joy rose in the face of the aged. He came and spoke to Ossian. " King of spears!" he said, " my son has not fallen without his fame. The young warrior did not fly; but met death, as he
went forward in his strength Happy are they who die in youth, when their renown is heard! The feeble will not behold them

Sweet pity, wake, and tell my cruel sweet
That if my death her honour might increase,
I would lay down my life at her proud feet,
And willing die and, dying, hold my peace;
And only live and, living, mercy cry,
Because her glory in my death will die.