Short Poems

The babe, with a cry brief and dismal,
Fell into the water baptismal;
Ere they'd gathered its plight,
It had sunk out of sight,
For the depth of the font was abysmal.

Aye, the good man, kind father, best of friends--
These are the words that grow like grass and nettles
Out of dead men, and speckled hatreds hide
Like toads among them.

The Autumn day its course has run--the Autumn evening falls
Already risen the Autumn moon gleams quiet on these walls
And Twilight to my lonely house a silent guest is come
In mask of gloom through every room she passes dusk and dumb
Her veil is spread, her shadow shed o'er stair and chamber void
And now I feel her presence steal even to my lone fireside
Sit silent Nun--sit there and be
Comrade and Confidant to me.

Autumn, cloud blades on the horizon.
The west wind blows from ten thousand miles
Dawn, in the clear morning air,
Farmers busy after long rain
The desert trees shed their few green leaves
The mountain pears are tiny but ripe.
A Tartar flute plays by the city gate.
A single wild goose climbs into the void.

At the siege of Belle Isle,
I was there all the while--
All the while,
All the while,
At the siege of Belle Isle.

At Brill on the hill
The wind blows shrill,
The cook no meat can dress;
At Stow-on-the-Wold
The wind blows cold,
I know no more than this.

Around the house the flakes fly faster,
And all the berries now are gone
From holly and cotoneaster
Around the house. The flakes fly!--faster
Shutting indoors that crumb-outcaster
We used to see upon the lawn
Around the house. The flakes fly faster,
And all the berries now are gone!

As shews the Aire, when with a Rain-bow grac'd;
So smiles that Riband 'bout my Julia's waste:
Or like — — Nay 'tis that Zonulet of love,
Wherein all pleasures of the world are wove.

An ass will with his long ears fray
The flies, that tickle him, away;
But Man delights to have his ears
Blown maggots in by flatterers.

Loveliest of what I leave behind is the sunlight,
and loveliest after that the shining stars, and the moon's face,
but also cucumbers that are ripe, and pears, and apples.