Short Poems

How often, when life's summer day
Is waning, and its sun descends,
Wisdom drives laughing wit away,
And lovers shrivel into friends!

A lovely morning, without the glare of the sun,
the sea in great commotion, chafing and foaming.

So from the bosom of darkness our days come roaring and gleaming,
— — Chafe and break into foam, sink into darkness again.
But on the shores of Time each leaves some trace of its passage,
— — Though the succeeding wave washes it out from the sand.

I am within as white as snow,
Without as green as herbs that grow.
I am higher than a house
And yet am lesser than a mouse.
A walnut hanging on a tree

I am the Poet Davies, William,
I sin without a blush or blink:
I am a man that lives to eat;
I am a man that lives to drink.

Any fool can make a rule
And every fool will mind it.

I am provoked
by the delicious boy next door.
His laugh of complicity is not
that of a novice.
He is twelve years old.
Green grapes may be touched, but his ripe
chastity will be guarded.

I am his Highness' dog at Kew;
Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?

I am glad daylong for the gift of song,
For time and change and sorrow;
For the sunset wings and the world-end things
Which hang on the edge of tomorrow.
I am glad for my heart whose gates apart
Are the entrance-place of wonders,
Where dreams come in from the rush and din
Like sheep from the rains and thunders.

For fifty-four years
following the way of heaven;
now leaping beyond,
shattering every barrier,
amazing! To cast off all attachments,
while still alive, plunging into the Yellow Springs.

I always loved to call my lady Rose,
For in her cheeks do roses sweetly glose;
And from her lips she such sweet odours threw,
As roses do 'gainst Phoebus' morning view.
But when I thought to pull 't, hope was bereft me,
My Rose was gone, and nought but prickles left me.