Short Poems

Caged in old woods, whose reverend echoes wake
When the hern screams along the distant lake,
Her little heart oft flutters to be free,
Oft sighs to turn the unrelenting key.
In vain! the nurse that rusted relic wears,
Nor moved by gold—nor to be moved by tears;
And terraced walls their black reflection throw
On the green-mantled moat that sleeps below.

By death's favor
Here lies the engraver
And now I think o't
Where lies he not?
If the archangel look but where he lies
He ne'er will get translated to the skies.

By and by
God caught his eye.

Buttercups golden and gay,
Sway in the wind all day.
They tickle the nose of the cow as she goes,
And they call to the bees, " Come away. "

But twelve short years you lived, my son,
Just twelve short years, and then you died:
And now your life's brief course is run,
This grave a father's hopes doth hide.

But they know that my country
has known a thousand conquerors
and they know
that the thousand
have all melted away
like driven snow.

But that from slow dissolving pomps of dawn
No verity of slowly strengthening light
Early or late hath issued; but that the day,
Scarce-shown, relapses rather, self-withdrawn,
Back to the glooms of antenatal night,
For this, O human beings, mourn we may.

Browning makes the verses:
Your servant the critique.
Browning wouldn't sing at all:
I fancy I could speak.
Although the book was clever
(To give the Deil his due)
I wasn't pleased with Browning
Nor he with my review.

Breath of spring bit by bit milder;
rattling the rings on my staff, I head for the east town.
Green green, willows in the gardens;
bobbing bobbing, duckweed on the pond.
Alms bowl smelling sweet with rice from a thousand houses;
heart indifferent to ten-thousand-chariot glory.
Following in tracks of old-time buddhas,
begging for food, I go my way.

Busy in study be thou, child,
And in the hall, meek and mild,
And at the table, merry and glad,
And at bed, soft and sad.