John May Poems

What hund'red times I must have heard
Her look to me and say the word
That erstwhile I would daily count,
And boast to all the day's amount.
...

Hide me away, O my soul
Shut me in her sacred cell
Let vesper pray'r these speeches quell
‘Till dawn bid that the silence null
...

WHAT SAD departure must we know
When western sun with ebbing glow
Descends behind that mountain row
And ladens us with missing woe
...

HE EDGED carefully by foot Lethe's deep
Where those who drank were oblivion fraught;
Unaware of the wake and far from sleep,
There inly arose this, his tempted thought:
...

THESE LIFT me through the airy height-
These wings acquired through a night-
Into a foreign world above:
Of light and warmth and truth and love.
...

I left the buildings for the brink-
For Delta's wretched grounds below-
To interface with others jailed,
When to delight a sight did show:
...

So, we're temporal. Must we fear?
Must we repine 'cause Death draws near?
Of death... we ought not think, nor fret-
Nor deem its looming day a threat.
...

In my youth I saw a bird's ravished body
Lying in the silence of a furrow
Its auburn feathers were wilted and shoddy
And ants stripped its flesh and belly thorough
...

I think they're vulgar, those stately spires,
That raise their heads up to the sky-
The boast of bygone, lost empires
That once against the heavens vied.
...

The morning rainfall’s gentle sleeting
Slipped into my gentle dreaming
Her rhythms in my dreams were beating
Gentle tunes that were redeeming
...