Little Joke
Stripping an almond tree in flower
The wise apothecary’s skill
A single drop of lethal power
From perfect sweetness can distill
From bitterness in efflorescence,
With murderous poisons packed therein;
The poet draws pellucid essence
Pure as a drop of metheglin.





Related poetry:
- One Perfect Rose A single flow’r he sent me, since we met. All tenderly his messenger he chose; Deep-hearted, pure, with scented dew […]...
- THE GIFT We were three weeks Into term, Sheila, When you came Through the classroom door; Forty-four children Bent over books, Copying […]...
- Drink of This Cup Drink of this cup; you’ll find there’s a spell in Its every drop ‘gainst the ills of mortality; Talk of […]...
- The Poet And The Bird Said a people to a poet -” Go out from among us straightway! While we are thinking earthly things, thou […]...
- Lotus On the day when the lotus bloomed, alas, my mind was straying, And I knew it not. My basket was […]...
- Hymn 115 Conviction of sin by the law. Rom. 7:8,9,14,24. Lord, how secure my conscience was, And felt no inward dread! I […]...
- The Power of the Dog There is sorrow enough in the natural way From men and women to fill our day; And when we are […]...
- Camping in a kitchen To say we’ve done it all before is not to bend The truth and though we’ve lost our youth The […]...
- Dr. Sigmund Freud Discovers the Sea Shell Science, that simple saint, cannot be bothered Figuring what anything is for: Enough for her devotions that things are And […]...
- Notice This evening, the sturdy Levi’s I wore every day for over a year & which seemed to the end In […]...
- Only a Curl I. FRIENDS of faces unknown and a land Unvisited over the sea, Who tell me how lonely you stand With […]...
- To the dead poet of obscurity (In honor of the dead unpublished poet) Well done! You have won! You should not feel sorry. Your unpublished poems […]...
- Sonnet to Evening [Written under a tree in the woods of St. Amand, in Flanders.] SWEET BALMY HOUR! dear to the pensive mind, […]...
- The Happiest Day, The Happiest Hour The happiest day – the happiest hour My sear’d and blighted heart hath known, The highest hope of pride and […]...
- Camomile Tea Outside the sky is light with stars; There’s a hollow roaring from the sea. And, alas! for the little almond […]...
- Blood Oranges In 1936, a child In Hitler’s Germany, What did I know about the war in Spain? Andalusia was a tango […]...
- Bloom upon the Mountain stated Bloom upon the Mountain stated Blameless of a Name Efflorescence of a Sunset Reproduced the same Seed, had I, my […]...
- Fancies Surely the flowers of a hundred springs Are simply the souls of beautiful things! The poppies aflame with gold and […]...
- Sonnet 22 – When our two souls stand up erect and strong When our two souls stand up erect and strong, Face to face, silent, drawing nigh and nigher, Until the lengthening […]...
- The Mantra-Yoga I How should I seek to make a song for thee When all my music is to moan thy name? […]...