Short Poems

I like them pale, fair or honey-skinned.
I like dark hair and hazel eyes,
But when a glance is sparkling black
It drives me wild.

I know
how fascinated we are with clarity
the clarity of a country dawn
the clarity of the pangs of death.
But what I care about is what the trees think,
and what makes a madman laugh.

Daughter of heaven, fair art thou! the silence of thy face is pleasant! Thou comest forth in loveliness. The stars attend thy blue course in the east. The clouds rejoice in thy presence, O moon: They brighten with dark-brown sides. Who is like thee in heaven, light of the silver night? The stars are ashamed in thy presence. They turn away their sparkling eyes. Whither dost thou retire from thy course, when the darkness of the countenance grows? Hast thou thy hall, like Ossian? Dwellest thou in the shadow of grief? Have thy sisters fallen from heaven?

I HOPE there is a resurrection day
For bodies, as the ancient prophets say,
When Helen's naked limbs again will gleam
Regathered from the dust of death's long dream, —
When those who thrilled the ages, being fair,
Will take the singing angels unaware
And make God's perfect meadows doubly sweet
With rosy vagrancy of little feet.

I heard an ancient sound: a cock that crew
In graying light as I lay warm in bed.
A long metallic cry of dung and dew
And the unearthly dead.

I HAVE not been as Joshua when he fought
The hosts of Amalek in the valley found.
My voice hath never, like a trumpet sound,
Victory for the falling victors wrought.
But I, with Aaron, faint yet unafraid,
Held up the hands of Moses while he prayed.

I have labored sore and suffered deth,
And now I rest and draw my breth;
But I shall come and call right sone
Heven and erth and hell to dome;
And then shall know both devil and man
What I was and what I am.

I have a little sister, they call her Peep, Peep,
She wades the water so deep, deep, deep;
She climbs the mountains, high, high, high;
Poor little creature, she has but one eye.
A star

I have a littly pussy
And her coat is silver-grey;
She lives in a great wide meadow
And she never runs away.
She'll always be a pussy,
She'll never be a cat,
Because — she's a pussy willow!
Now what do you think of that?

I had a little nut-tree, nothing would it bear
But a golden nutmeg and a silver pear;
The King of Spain's daughter came to visit me,
And all for the sake of my little nut-tree.
I skipp'd over water, I danced over sea,
And all the birds in the air couldn't catch me.