A stiff line of ships
Stands in the harbor:
Neither rise nor dip -
Just anchored torpor.
Is a storm coming?
Will ships be unbound?
Will waves be drumming,
Or lost be all sound?
If a ship snaps loose,
Will it reach the sea
To become a recluse,
A ghost ship riding free?
Scorn not the Sonnet; Critic, you have frowned,
Mindless of its just honours; with this key
Shakespeare unlocked his heart; the melody
Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch's wound;
A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound;
With it Camöens soothed an exile's grief;
The Sonnet glittered a gay myrtle leaf
Amid the cypress with which Dante crowned
His visionary brow: a glow-worm lamp,
It cheered mild Spenser, called from Faery-land
To struggle through dark ways, and, when a damp
Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand
The thing became a trumpet; whence he blew
Soul-animating strains -- alas, too few!
distant hills
are now green & rain clouds
have fragmented.
Adrift on West Lake in a wine-laden, colorful skiff:
As flutes play fast and lutes, deftly
And a jade cup circuits swiftly,
The boat's calm rocking lulls the drunk into sleep.
Thin clouds seem to float right under the rudderless boat.
The water's blue matches the sky's,
As lake to sky and back move eyes,
"Do the clouds above match those that in the water float?"
You know where you despise
(Tother day) my little Eyes,
Little Legs, and little Thighs,
And some things, of little Size,
You know where.
You, tis true, have fine black eyes,
Taper legs, and tempting Thighs,
Yet what more than all we prize
Is a Thing of little Size,
You know where.
The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree
Has given my heart
A change in mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.
a jutting rock chunk
imitates the mountains
across the valley.
The fountains mingle with the river
And the rivers with the ocean,
The winds of heaven mix forever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;
All things by a law divine
In one spirit meet and mingle.
Why not I with thine? --
See the mountains kiss high heaven
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister-flower would be forgiven
If it disdained its brother;
And the sunlight clasps the earth
And the moonbeams kiss the sea:
What is all this sweet work worth
If thou kiss not me?
Tiger Riding for Beginners 