the zen photographer
travelled the world's four seasons
without his camera
when he returned home
he drew these nine pictures
we see here
he never left his village again

Picnics is fun 'at's purty hard to beat.
I purt'-nigh ruther go to them than eat.
I purt'-nigh ruther go to them than go
With our Charlotty to the Trick-Dog Show.

They burnt a corpse upon the sand--
The light shone out afar;
It guided home the plunging dhows
That beat from Zanzibar.
Spirit of Fire, where'er Thy altars rise,
Thou art the Light of Guidance to our eyes!

The dearest child in all the world,
Should have the dearest songs,
And that is why this little book
To David-Boy belongs.

In grayish doubt and black despair,
I drafted hymns to the earth and the air,
pretending to joy, although I lacked it.
The age had made lament redundant.

So here's the question -- who can answer it --
Was he a brave man or a hypocrite?

The sentencing goes blithely on its way
And takes the playfully objected rhyme
As surely as it takes the stroke and time
In having its undeviable say.

In a mountain village
at autumn’s end—
that’s where you learn
what sadness means
in the blast of the wintry wind.

This field of stones, he said,
May well call forth a sigh;
Beneath them lie the dead,
On them the living lie.

Remembrance for a great man is this.
The newsies are pitching pennies.
And on the copper disk is the man’s face.
Dead lover of boys, what do you ask for now?

En Børneflok paa Fødselsdagen bad,
Og Barnets Ønske groer som Rosens Blad;
Hvert snoer sig her om Glasset, som vi tømme;
En Hustru lægger Perlen paa dets Bund.
Hun kysse Livets Lykke paa din Mund!
Til Virkelighed blive Hjertets Drømme! -