Winter

The wind keens on the bare hill;
The ford is froar, and the lake
Is hoar-crusted. A man's ilk
Might stand on a single stalk.

Comber after comber comes
To cover the shore. The gale
Hovers over the hill: owls
Crying. One cannot stand tall.

The bed of the fish is cold
In the ice where they shelter.
Reeds are bearded; the stag, starved.
Trees bow in the early dusk.

Snow falls, and the earth is pale.
Warriors sit near their fires.
The lake is a dim defile:
no warmth in its color.

Snow falls; the hoarfrost is white;
The shield is idle upon
The old man's shoulder. The wind
Freezes the grass with its whine.

Snow falls on top of the ice.
Wind sweeps the crest of the trees
Standing close. On his shoulder
The brave fighter's fine shield shines.

Anonymous Welsh translated by Lewis Turco

The Book of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics by Lewis Turco 3rd edition (London, 2000)
Image: http://images.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/42700000/jpg/_42700293_stag.jpg&imgrefurl=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/in_pictures/6466593.stm&h=300&w=416&sz=32&hl=en&start=7&um=1&tbnid=iAFEsTqWwfk23M:&tbnh=90&tbnw=125&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dstags%2Bsnow%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DG

Memento Mori

You wretched ghost, with clay bedight,
Think on me here in this plight!
I was a man, with a man's fear --
You shall be such as I am here.

An anonymous middle English epigram taken from The Book of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics by Lewis Turco London, 2000. p.147

Image is a neanderthal skull:
http://images.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://www.dorlingkindersley-uk.co.uk/static/clipart/uk/dk/history/image_history001.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.dorlingkindersley-uk.co.uk/nf/ClipArt/Image/0,,239041_1583268_,00.html&h=298&w=464&sz=39&hl=en&start=109&um=1&tbnid=2Xmg14rfL87dvM:&tbnh=82&tbnw=128&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dskull%2Bclipart%26start%3D108%26ndsp%3D18%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26hs%3DYZh%26sa%3DN

Lines to a Garden Hose

Sprinkle, sprinkle, little hose
(You can't help it, I suppose)
The unsodded, fruitful dirt
Sodden with thy sudden squirt!

Squirt and sprinkle, gentle hose,
Drowning less torrential woes;
Giving merry worms their drink,
Softly squirtle, sweetly sprink!

As in other, larger floods
Rainbows glint thy fertile muds,
So, assured of final calm,
Through thy nozzle pour thy balm!

Make the sidewalk and the street
Moist for parched and weary feet;
Keep thy rivulets a-flow;
Tripping each fantastic toe;

Seek thy brethren on the limb,
Fetching them into the swim;
Till , as each doth pass the fence
Scattering his eloquence,

Uttereth each a single note,
Like thee, from his liquid throat,
And the idlest, as she goes,
Darns the customary hose!

Then, thy simple duty done,
Quit, as erstwhile quits the sun,
With the other hoes to bed,
Coiling in thy shadowy shed!

Gardeners proclaim thy praise,
Children love thy childlike ways:
May we, like them, learn from thee
Irresponsibility!

Anonymous
The Humbler Poets (second series): A Collection of Newspaper and Periodical Verse 1885-1910 by Wallace and Frances Rice (1910, NY reprinted 1972)