Shorts

Oddly – deplorably? somethingly? – my recently acquired anthology of 101 very short poems, Short and Sweet, doesn't include anything by Walter de la Mare. This is a pity, as some of his shortest poems are among his best. I posted a couple a while back: this extraordinary portrait of grandiose paranoia – 

Napoleon

'What is the world, O soldiers?
       It is I:
I, this incessant snow,
   This northern sky;
Soldiers, this solitude
   Through which we go
       Is I.'

– and this (characteristically) eerie little number –

'Ann, Ann!
        Come! Quick as you can!
    There's a fish that talks
        In the frying-pan.
    Out of the fat,
        As clear as glass,
    He put up his mouth
        And moaned 'Alas!'
    Oh, most mournful,
        'Alas, alack!'
    Then turned to his sizzling,
        And sank him back.'

Here is something even shorter, but packing a quiet little punch (what made that grass so 'paradisal green'?) –

The Field

Yes, there was once a battle here: 
There, where the grass takes on a shade
Of paradisal green, sun-clear –
     There the last stand was made.

And there's this little beauty –

The Dead Jay

A witless, pert, bedizened fop,
Man scoffs, resembles you:
Fate levels all – voice harsh or sweet –
Ringing the woodlands through: 
But O, poor hapless bird, that broken death-stilled wing,
            That miracle of blue!

And finally this one – short but by no means sweet –

'Slim cunning hands at rest, and cozening eyes—
Under this stone one loved too wildly lies;
How false she was, no granite could declare;
Nor all earth's flowers, how fair.'