Seals

I deliver a lecture
And pour out my soul,
Its full architecture,
All rounded and whole.

But with those I love best
I stammer and mutter,
And gossip and jest
Are all I can utter:

Quip, quirk, and derision;
And what my heart feels,
My soul's purest vision,
Are under the seals.

poem by Gamaliel Bradford
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Heinelet I

The huge old earth shook and quivered,
When it heard my passionate cry.
Why, even the little stars shivered
And almost went out in the sky.

But the earth and the stars knew better,
Whispering below and above,
'If the fool will be faithless, let her.'—
So nothing went out but my love.

poem by Gamaliel Bradford
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Fleas

My thoughts are like fleas,
Eternally skipping.
I try as I please
To prevent their slipping,
To probe them for more meant
Than my wit can utter;
But out of the torment
They quiver and flutter,
Dance, sparkle, and vanish
With insolent ease.
To hold or to banish
My thoughts are like fleas.

poem by Gamaliel Bradford
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Heinelet II

They met, as it were, in a mist,
Pale, curious, eager, uncertain.
When each clasped the other and kissed,
The mist rolled aside like a curtain.

There were fields of delight to explore,
Where it seemed that their lips could not sever.
Now their lips are as lone as before
And the cold mist is thicker than ever.

poem by Gamaliel Bradford
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Anacreon's Apology

An eye where love with laughter twinkles,
And songs on kisses still insistent,
Blended with graying hair and wrinkles,
To you, my child, seem inconsistent?

In fact, you think such conduct shocking?
The old should mind their souls and purses?
Ah, youthful blood, refrain from mocking
Till you can only kiss in verses.

poem by Gamaliel Bradford
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Perhaps

'He who knows What life and death is, is above all law.'
Chapman.

He who knows what life and death is
Walks superior to fate.
Every word that Fortune saith is
Just accordant to his state.

Unto him indifferent breath is
Nature's bitter use and wont.
He who knows what life and death is!—
Ah, perhaps you do, I don't.

poem by Gamaliel Bradford
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Brown Leaves

The passage of dead leaves in spring
Is like the aged vanishing.
Amid the bustle and delight
Of beauty thronging sound and sight,
Their lengthened course we hardly know
Nor mark their exit when they go.
Yet through the burst of budding green
And blossoms rich with varied sheen
A brown leaf sometimes flutters by
And breeds a sombre revery.

poem by Gamaliel Bradford
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Comedy

I'm writing comedy again,
The daintiest pleasure known to men;
Unless a daintier might be
To watch your acted comedy:
The airy ladies gaily dressed,
And much adored, and much caressed,
The men who swagger like game cocks,
Or undermine, like cunning fox,
And over all these shaken free
The spangled gleam of repartee—
No keener joy awaits us here.
And yet each day I write with fear.

poem by Gamaliel Bradford
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My Youth

Oh, my youth was hot and eager,
And my heart was burning, burning,
And the present joy seemed meagre,
Dwarfed by that perpetual yearning.

I was always madly asking
Ampler beauty, keener pleasure,
Had not wit enough for basking
In the sunshine, rich with leisure.

Now with ripeness of October
I have reasoned and reflected.
And I feed my soul, grown sober,
With the crumbs that I rejected.

poem by Gamaliel Bradford
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The Tickle

I like to read confessions
As lengthy as Rousseau's,
With all their slow processions
Of innumerable woes.

I revel in Cellini,
Augustine, Amiel
Dumas's Memoirs so sheeny,
Lies no one else could tell.

I love each peccadillo
Of honest Mr. Pepys,
Confided to his pillow
Before his conscience sleeps.

But I prefer in verses
To hand my life to time:
You may forgive what worse is
For tickle of the rhyme.

poem by Gamaliel Bradford
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