Short Poems

Moon-season roses have opened along the low fence.
I look intently at a pistil wrapped in a subtle scent.
Trying to break off a lower twig, I step back and call a maid,
my soft fingers instinctively fearful of being pricked.

There was a small boy of Quebec,
Who was buried in snow to his neck;
—When they said, “Are you friz?”
—He replied, “Yes, I is—
But we don't call this cold in Quebec.”

“Where art thou wandering, little child?”
I said to one I met to-day—
She push'd her bonnet up and smil'd,
“I'm going upon the green to play:
Folks tell me that the May's in flower,
That Cowslip-peeps are fit to pull,
And I've got leave to spend an hour
To get this little basket full.”

Kissing and bussing differ both in this;
We busse our Wantons, but our Wives we kisse.

A word is dead
When it is said,
Some say.
I say it just
Begins to live

Gayer than forest horn
As Fame's approaching trumpet sweetly blows
In young Ambition's ear; so when its breath
Pines to an echo, far from grievous Age,
(Like Revelry deserting ruined towers)
To our forsakenness as sad it seems
As to the dying wretch his burial knell
Rung ere its time; the sounds fleet with his soul.

I KISS you once for luck,
That you may feel no care.
I kiss you thrice for love
That you must spend and share.
Go now, and wheresoe'er
A heart shall take you in,
It is your very kin:
Make music there.

God , in thy mercy, keep us with thy hand!
Dark are the thoughts that strive within the heart,
When evil passions rise like sudden storms,
Fearful and fierce! Let us not act those thoughts;
Leave not our course to our unguided will.
Left to ourselves, all crime is possible,
And those who seemed the most removed from guilt
Have sunk the deepest!

If ever angels walked on weary earth
In human likeness, thou wert one of them.
Thy native heaven was with thee, but subdued
By suffering life's inevitable lot;
But the sweet spirit did assert its home
By faith and hope, and only owned its yoke
In the strong love that bound it to its kind.

The river Po,
A ghostly serpent-line,
Rested on the brown plains of Lombardy.