Short Poems

Sweet nymph, come to thy lover.
Lo here, alone, our loves we may discover,
Where the sweet nightingale with wanton gloses,
Hark, her love too discloses.

Sweet, let me go! Sweet, let me go!
What do you mean to vex me so?
Cease, cease, cease your pleading force!
Do you think thus to extort remorse?
Now, now! no more! alas, you overbear me;
And I would cry, but some would hear, I fear me.

Sweet Benedict, whilst thou art young,
And know'st not yet the use of tongue,
Keep it in thrall whilst thou art free:
Imprison it or it will thee.

Swan swam over the sea,
Swim, swan, swim.
Swan swam back again:
Well swam, swan.

The moon is white on pear blossoms,
and the Milky Way tells the third watch.
A cuckoo would not know
the intent of a branch of spring.
Too much awareness is a sickness,
it keeps me awake all night.

Stuffed owls drum in my heart
when I am afraid
meet me when loons cry
we shall share our courage

Stir not the sand too much, for there lies Stuyvesant,
Who erst commander was of all New Netherland.
Freely or no, unto the foe, the land did he give over.
If grief and sorrow any hearts do smite, his heart
Did die a thousand deaths and undergo a smart
Insuff'rable. At first, too rich; at last, too pauvre .

Still glowing from the red-lipped kiss of noon,
Your perfumed hands caress the night and dare
To deck your breast with stars . . . to steal a moon
And set it rose-like in your tawny hair.

The steed bit his master;
How came this to pass?
He heard the good pastor
Cry, "All flesh is grass.'

State Street is lonely today. Aunt Jane Allen has driven her chariot to Heaven.
I remember how she hobbled along, a little woman, parched of skin, brown as the leather of a
satchel and with eyes that had scanned eighty years of life.
Have those who bore her dust to the last resting place buried with her the basket of aprons she
went up and down State Street trying to sell?
Have those who bore her dust to the last resting place buried with her the gentle worn Son that she
gave to each of the seed of Ethiopia?