Short Poems

The decent docent doesn't doze:
He teaches standing on his toes.
His student dassn't doze — and does,
And that's what teaching is and was.

Death may be very gentle after all:
He turns his face away from arrogant knights
Who fling themselves against him in their fights;
But to the loveliest he loves to call.
And he has with him those whose ways were mild
And beautiful; and many a little child.

Dear to me were the three sides
Which I hope not to visit again:
The side of Tara, the side of Teltown
And the side of Aed son of Ainmire.

Dear things! we would not have you learn too much —
Your Ignorance is so charming! We've a notion
That greater knowledge might not lend you such
Sure aid to blind obedience and devotion.

The dear old ladies whose cheeks are pink
In spite of the years of Winter's chill,
Are like the Autumn leaves I think,
A little crumpled, but lovely still.

Dear Mr. Noman, does it ever strike you,
The more we see of you, the less we like you?

The [weal] countless gold of a merry heart
The rubies & pearls of a loving eye
The [idle man] indolent never can bring to the mart
Nor the [cunning] secret hoard up in his treasury

Dank , limber verses, stuft with lakeside sedges,
And propt with rotten stakes from broken hedges.

Dawn breaks, snow patches lie on the slopes:
far away, they seem like flocks of sheep
or maybe geese.
Remember — plodding through spring mud
to see the budding willows,
in camel-hair robe and sable hat
crossing the icy river.

Darkness marks the distance where river meets ocean;
I long for my friend — may he arrive with spring!
Vast, vast the moonlight scatters on the ripples;
in the sighing of the wind, fishermen's fires appear.