Short Poems

The sparrow told it to the robin,
The robin told it to the wren,
Who passed it on, with sweet remark,
To thrush, and bobolink, and lark,
The news that dawn had come again.

Spain drew us proudly from the womb of night,
A lusty man-child of the Western wave, —
Who now, full-grown, smites the old midwife down,
And thrusts her deep in a dishonored grave.

The son of the king of Moy in midsummer
Found a girl in the greenwood.
She gave him black fruit from thornbushes.
She gave an armful of strawberries on rushes.

Sometimes , when Nature falls asleep,
Around her woods and streams
The mists of night serenely creep —
For they are Nature's dreams.

Something more than the lilt of the strain,
Something more than the touch of the lute;
For the voice of the minstrel is vain,
If the heart of the minstrel is mute.

Something happened the other day that never happened before,
A man tried to get me to shovel iron ore.
Says I, "Old man now what will you pay?' Says he, "Two bits a ton.'
Says I, "Old man, go diddle yourself, I'd rather bum.'

Somebody being a nobody,
Thinking to look like a somebody,
Said he thought me a nobody:
Good little somebody-nobody,
Had you not known me a somebody,
Would you have called me a nobody?

Some can gaze and not be sick,
But I could never learn the trick.
There's this to say for blood and breath,
They give a man a taste for death.

Softly, softly, through the darkness
Snow is falling.
Sharply, sharply, in the meadows
Lambs are calling.
Coldly, coldly, all around me
Winds are blowing.
Brightly, brightly, up above me
Stars are glowing.

So different, this man
And this woman:
A stream flowing