Short Poems

A Bulb

Misshapen , black, unlovely to the sight,
O mute companion of the murky mole,
You must feel overjoyed to have a white,
Imperious, dainty lily for a soul.

Mingling my prayer

Mingling my prayer
With the clang of the bell
Which woke me from my dreams,
Lo, ten times I have recited the Honorable Name.

How Long This Night Is

Merry it is, while the summer last,
With birds in song.
But now it's on us, the wintry blast
And weather strong.
Oh! how the night is long!
And I, being done so great a wrong,
Sorrow and mourn and fast.

Mercy

Mercy is hendest where sinne is mest,
Mercy is lattere there sinne is lest;
Mercy abideth and loketh al day
When man fro sinne wille turnen away;
Mercy saveth that lawe wolde spille:
Mercy asketh but Godes wille.

Matthew, Mark, Luke and John

Matthew, Mark, Luke and John,
Bless the bed that I lay on;
Four corners to my bed,
Four angels round my head,
One to watch and one to pray,
And two to bear my soul away.

Qiyuge

Man — pitiful insect,
out the gate with fears of death in his breast,
a corpse fallen in narrow valleys,
white bones that no one gathers up.

On Queen Anne's Death

March with his wind hath struck a cedar tall,
And weeping April mourns the cedar's fall;
And May intends no flowers her month shall bring,
Since she must lose the flower of all the spring:
Thus March's wind hath causid April showers,
And yet sad May must lose her flower of flowers.

A Man went a-hunting at Reigate

A man went a-hunting at Reigate;
He wished to jump over a high gate.
Said the owner, " Go round,
With your gun and your hound,
For you never shall jump over my gate. "

Lord, I Owe Thee a Death

Man pays that debt with new munificence,
Not piecemeal now, not slowly, by the old:
Not grudgingly, by the effaced thin pence,
But greatly and in gold.

Old Woman's Lamentations, An

The man I had a love for--a great rascal would kick me in the gutter--is dead thirty years and over it, and it is I am left behind, grey and aged. When I do be minding the good days I had, minding what I was one time, and what it is I'm come to, and when I do look on my own self, poor and dry, and pinched together, it wouldn't be much would set me raging in the streets.