Short Poems

True kindness is a pure divine affinity,
Not founded upon human consanguinity.
It is a spirit, not a blood relation,
Superior to family and station.

Underneath the water-weeds
Small and black, I wriggle,
And life is most surprising!
Wiggle! waggle! wiggle!
There's every now and then a most
Exciting change in me,
I wonder, wiggle! waggle!
What I shall turn out to be!

Upon the lofty elm tree sprays
The vireo rings the changes sweet,
During the trivial summer days,
Striving to lift our thoughts above the street.

A scribbler from the Northern bear,
This month to Dublin shall repair,
And there shall write, and write, and write,
And vent his gall, and spleen, and spite;
But none alive shall feel the smart;
Then home he'll go and break his heart.

No generous action can delay
Or thwart our higher, steadier aims,
But if sincere and true are they,
It will arouse our sight and nerve our frames.

Who hears the parson
Will not hear the bell,
But if he deafly pass on
He will hear of hell.
I' faith the people go to church
To leave the devil in the lurch,
But since they've carpeted the pews
To squat with hymn book he doth use.

I've heard my neighbor's pump at night,
Long after Lyra sunk her light,
As if it were a natural sound,
And proper utterance of the ground —
Perchance some bittern in a fen —
Or else the squeak of a meadow hen.

Two things there are with Memory will abide,
Whatever else befall, while life flows by:
That soft cold hand-touch at the altar side;
The thrill that shook you at your child's first cry.

The moon is fat and old tonight,
Yellow and gross with pain.
The moon is fat and old tonight,
But she'll be young again.
Whereas my love, who's fair and sweet,
My love, who's sweet and fair,
Will wither like the autumn rose
In winter air.

A slash of the wrist,
A swallow of scalding acid,
The crash of a bullet through the brain —
And Death comes like a mother
To hold you in her arms.