Hannington Mumo Poems

Soar higher and higher, you child of heavenly bliss!
Forsake one level for the loftier with a yodeled hiss,
Slice the crisp obliging air like a laser-driven drone
For your speckled wings have no mediocrity known.
...

He breathed his monotonous homely air
And felt it was not his time to be there,
And departed for world-famed distant shores
Where he believed happiness brimless flows.
...

The soundless rhythm of my hidden thoughts
Punctuates my strides on the unfeeling ground,
The chorus of my countless unwritten poems
Have a place in my private recesses found.
...

Tasteless pelt whiffs of mundane air
Against my nostrils numb with dread;
Scarcely fathom I what spectacle fair
Beyond this umbra curtain latent lies.
...

I’m the mother of the sprawling expansive earth,
From the greenest eastern hills to the western shores.
I own all those verdant plantations and their owners;
All the high quarters and the glittering executive doors.
...

Aspirations and labor will tire your sinew
And when all the wearying drudgery is through
Some slovenly fool will give you a careless burial
And take charge of your estate – proud and imperial.
...

Everything that was of an animal born
Must slowly yield to tear and be worn,
Your deceptive charm debates with time
Soliciting some seconds more of show,
...

Now that all the world-honored bloom you have,
How do you plan to run the affairs of this estate?
Whatever your thrifty or careless arrangement,
Remember that Nature gives in order to confiscate.
...

Oh, why are you so radiant, merciful sun,
And why are the birds so gay?
Do you know our romantic rounds are done,
And I now must go away?
...