My good and noble health,
Thou matter'st more then wealth.
None know'th thy worth until
...
Come, Heraclitus and Simonides,
Come with your weeping and sad elegies:
Ye griefs and sorrows, come from all the lands
...
If I had ever thought to write in praise
Of little children and their simple ways,
Far rather had I fashioned cradle verse
...
So, thou hast scorned me, my delight and heir;
Thy father's halls, then, were not broad and fair
Enough for thee to dwell here longer, sweet.
...
Thou hast constrained mine eyes, unholy Death,
To watch my dear child breathe her dying breath:
To watch thee shake the fruit unripe and clinging
...
Thou shouldst be purchased, Wisdom, for much gold
If all they say of thee is truly told:
That thou canst root out from the mind the host
...
Just as a little olive offshoot grows
Beneath its orchard elders' shady rows,
No budding leaf as yet, no branching limb,
...
Dear little Slavic Sappho, we had thought,
Hearing thy songs so sweetly, deftly wrought,
That thou shouldst have an heritage one day
...
Sad trinkets of my little daughter, dresses
That touched her like caresses,
Why do you draw my mournful eyes? To borrow
...
Thou hast made all the house an empty thing,
Dear Ursula, by this thy vanishing.
Though we are here, 'tis yet a vacant place,
One little soul had filled so great a space.
...