Short Poems

O shame me not, my darling fair —
Unter den Linden , greet me not;
Soon we shall meet at home, and there
All shall be settled and forgot.

Don't ask about the Six Dynasties at the Sui Palace:
Jewel Maiden and Jade Flower have long since vanished like smoke!
Today, there are only the lakeside willows
which still move like dancers in the spring wind.

Night on the prairies,
The supper is over, the fire on the ground burns low,
The wearied emigrants sleep, wrapt in their blankets;
I walk by myself — I stand and look at the stars, which I think now I never realized before.

This man knew out the secret ways of love,
No man could paint such things who did not know.
And now she's gone, who was his Cyprian,
And you are here, who are " The Isles " to me.

And here's the thing that lasts the whole thing out:
The eyes of this dead lady speak to me.

This thing, that hath a code and not a core,
Hath set acquaintance where might be affections,
And nothing now
Disturbeth his reflections.

C UI B ONO ?

What comes
Of all my grief? The Arabian grove
Is cut that costly gums
May float into the nostrils of great Jove.
My heart resembles more a desert land:
Who cuts it cuts but rock, or digs the sapless sand.

S ECUTURUS

Each night when I behold my bed
So fair outspread,
And all so soft and sweet —
O, then above the folded sheet
His little coffin grows upon mine eye,
And I would gladly die.

CI
And when like her, Oh Saki, you shall pass
Among the Guests Star-scattered on the Grass,
And in your joyous errand reach the spot
Where I made One--turn down an empty Glass!

C
Yon rising Moon that looks for us again--
How oft hereafter will she wax and wane;
How oft hereafter rising look for us
Through this same Garden--and for one in vain!

Ah Love! could you and I with Him conspire
To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things Entire,
Would not we shatter it to bits--and then
Re-mold it nearer to the Heart's Desire!