======================================== SAMPLE 1 ======================================== Nec tell me what the Maid is?" But she who knew, asked me not a Word. All-sweet and tall, and frail of limb, Lay there in raiment new begun; Her moveless-rest were never seen, She ever so much as bent her knee. Thither came I, Pilot of thy boat, And, turning, saw this silent Girl Who, like to pray, with lifted face Besought the mist-ringed air to sing Her Vespers far away off, And by her hair and veiled head Her wistful eye she caused to stare. It seemed to twinkle between the branches high, And on her shoulder lean by piece and piece Of glimmering spangles that lightly floated down. I saw, or fancied I did, Her lovely head recline Upon her humble robe's narrow shaggy hood, That, like the light of day, Was moon-fringe dark and dim; Her pale mouth, that evermore Spread smiles in damp and drizzle; Her gleaming teeth, whose polished white Seemed mouldering honey of the midnight blep Of the dry, dusty pass! And in one hand, all rippled with A silken flute of gold, She played a hushing pipe, Dora's toy, to play or sing. Deep through the wintry sky there sped Through golden vapours as of shape A dawn that never had a dawn, A sudden dawn, with breath Of mist and with a smile to kill. 'Look!' the wind whispered, 'here's Our Lady of the Skies, from her bright throne, Like to the smiling of a summer sea To-night in the lost wind's dark retreat, Hailed with the deep, seething, dour, wild Midnight: who have wept for her The heaving of the waiting years, Who have wept for her In wild harangues of the foggy fen And hollow monotone of the fen. She shines and smiles to see the tears Of all the rain-stricken towns and ships And all the rainy days and nights On all the hard, the ragged places That wind had beaten hard, and night Nigh ready to close, to close, to close Against the brain of all the face Of all the over-ill-gotten men, She shines and laughs to feel the cold Of all the tears of all the brave men killed And mad as they. "Now, under heaven's dome, where no man might Torn by the jagged cliffs alone, But many a high beautiful river, many a glade Of dearest woodland, dearest sun, through blood Of golden-fleshed the sun to flame: Under night to his last slumbering place We gave him water from the river, And, as he slept, we gave to him the green Of beds of skrunk crops and sunk noose Of stray horn-beetles over jack-boots; And, when he waked, he grinned for joy to know He was a man; but now we are not so sure That man shall be, in a little while, again. He holds a branch of asphodel like This which he is touching with his poise And breath, a vision half dream, yet sweet: 'Are not my limbs the limbs of those I knew Who went to great heights in their sleep?' 'What was it that made you weep to see The open grave? when my rest is open, too, That sleep which was my death is indeed my death.' 'Perchance,' I said, 'you think your cheer To be the same as ours.' 'I will not think it,' she said, 'nor your dream, Because a woman dreameth not.' She placed her hand to her mouth and pursed Her brow: and then her eyes Tinged as a splash of pale musk at first, Toured like a grayer shade of blue. 'Ah, woman, forget you were ever child Ere you were shapely as this lovely thing; We come into our great lives the next But when we bend us down to feel the hollow Of the hollow to find what force life is, The woman's dream is like a different shape From what she saw in her dream. I will tuck My head between my arms and murmur, In my dream a lady from the world gone by, Missing her child, for these are we, the next. Not so I, I ween. I knew her smile, I knew the peculiar ======================================== SAMPLE 2 ======================================== Democrats who received eight quarter-cent. per week for bill-paying, Republican contributors who received one-quarter cent. for demurely voicing an opinion, other contributors who paid nothing at all for their objections--yet inspired themselves with meritorious indignation--contributors who paid for themselves eight and one-half cents on every dollar they had in their pocket--and all of them, Republican and Democratic, whose names are listed, then and now, in the pages of the Solidarity, cause quite satisfactory results. And why should the Democrats suppose that they could get their popular division and jurisdiction--still more, that they could win control of the Solidarity? My reasons for believing this are cognate: they have interpenetrated myself and this unions-first republicanism of this Government. Democrats, for instance, paid the Civic League eight and one-half cents per each man-dollar for political propaganda. Such paysoule is simply murdered $100,000,000.00 to the Democrats this fall. The Solidarity has a letter which is sent to each named member of the House and Senate, addressed And I've subscribed to a Fraternal Labor Party; My first one in Solidarity was my 'humanitarian' subscription, because, I did not see the slightest chance of me ever becoming a member of any organization, whether reform, or reformer, or radical. The Dohs are a great family to this country. As a patron of labor, myself, I had always believed the subsidies of Democracy to be enormously small, and kept positively off from the bosom of the soil, in principal because of my convictions of divine importance, and indispensably so, on the human side. However, recently I've become at last convinced that all elected are as God to the eyes of God, both here and on this planet. I've studied all I can, and have as by divine RIGHT. I've told the Democrats this, for I want them to know that I fully expect them to do something with my information. I'm practically begging them, in the hope they will do something about it. They'll find it a lot to do, for I'm the R----GY of Democracy. Now the Duke has placed himself at the head of a group of Reform rabbis which he proposes to lead, calling himself 'The Duke's Answerer,' because of his office and position and peerless place in American jurisprudence he is to use the Great Name. I read that this Duke thinks it an exceedingly good thingment; the only human right. It's quite something favorable; for his doctrine of Answertfulness has no expectation of a hearing; the worst case it gives the electoral vote of citizenship. Well, now, I've a right to complain. I've made a ridiculous application to them-- I'm one of the least eligible bachelors in the country--they have turned their club 'round me, and don't give a damn whether I get a hall whoopin or not. If I don't keep off in a class with the rich wretched folks who have tickets to the marriage robot there, the Democratic party will certainly lose a lot of public support; and I'll receive the contempt of the human being and disgust of the intelligencia. There is one relative and one only and she is constantly coming to my room, and there's not one to attend to my ferucity, and who can seem to be so intolerable as that Flying dirk of the Republic which once made Hitler notorious. I can't give a constant service, I have to go. At least I hope I can give a bringsupp-- deplorable. The North Atlantic Naval Federations have recommended that we make the naval engine themselves our work, for it can be engineered so that the Germans can't use their capital and they can't capture us. It is long past the time of our great re-formation, and I would lie awake each night for the reform of the divine speech; for I'm certain that if the Reformation takes place it will have something to do with machines; and the tremendous matter-a-mole consumption of the German Empire, by means of the Great Deformation, makes the Republic a thing of the pale past; and I'm afraid that the wet smoke-stream from the German Central Stations and depots, together with the great well-nigh lethal racket of their discs, jacks, flappers, track-wing craft, and C ======================================== SAMPLE 3 ======================================== on his shoulders, were stymied.The conversation was bitter in thereafter.Yet Fischer’s plight showed that even in those blessed times, when the hostility of his countrymen no longer mattered, the avarice of great men did not prevent the great chess from becoming great. Carlsen wins, but just as if by magic, Boris Nikolic scores!The Frenchman with rook and pieces gone wild scores now in the middle of the game! <|endoftext|> "by way of  a migratory fish in the[f] Swimmula of  the Rat (Private Dossier)", by James Galvin [Living, Marriage & Companionship, Relationships, Men & Women] The first thing that did it was the astral Motion of her feet to come and lightly Bend twice the neck and privilege of sex. The tide is apt to do that, The Water's moods and goings, driven by breath. The next thing that did it was the astral Motion of her hands to give him lips. Threatening as the sheep do when they see danger Of wolves wetting snow. The pendulum does that, its swinging. That came to do, if not to do, With care, when the heart’s red warning went  head. In fact he knew a girl. Her name was Anne. And when they were enough, she sent The chance of her coming back to him Bid he get past the point of courtesy. “What did she do?” he says to himself. “The  rails of the train” and looks at his watch. The clocks go off by the hour, the lights go green. That is till what for her she saw the worst. “Listen,” she said, the smaller reason  for his staying, “This is Anne of Denmark and she does for you.” He asked “How was your watch?” and she  explained, “The hour that stands to quadruple Its length if you put off meeting up. Not taking her up. Not taking it To Denmark. Now tell me.” She told him. “We broke up. I’m sorry,” he said,  like he did. They bid the friends a glad farewell With modest whispers and then left together. Fruit of their knowledge came to Denmark, A girl on eyes long moist and blood Made for a kiss on the lips, the side Of her mouth we’ll not say. Denmark had milk And one could drink it standing. But Denmark offered just the milk, Not the other, which is the worst Bidding, if you ask what they mean By giving. So they have milk and did not Share, were always no mess, had no house And no corners for a bed. Nor did they go to the races, the father kept Hours earlier than the mother. <|endoftext|> "A Knowledge of the Dead", by Mary Wiencki [Living, Death, Life Choices, The Mind, Time & Brevity, Religion, The Spiritual, Social Commentaries, Crime & Punishment, Popular Culture] I see you there, Stu, striding half a mile down the road, arms raised up over your head, head bent slightly. I imagine you hold both those in your inmost heart, and that you must learn, along with anything else, how to turn off a brain that has somehow learned to hold whatever memory is stored in it. For the mind, like any organ, is where the trouble is; an organ can fail with its stored knowledge, or if the memory be great, so great that it will bring the brain to its knees. And then the knee is a joint only partly conscious; if the heart should stop pumping, we are thrown off balance as if it had been only the legs that moved you. So I ask you, were you looking at your watch when you left for that solitary walk? Or waiting for the medicine you wanted to take with you before starting on your way? A look of mild impatience conveys a point as surely as humor, though somewhat dead. It is painful, this wait, I am sure. You have worked long and hard for your knowledge of time and of this place. And now you have it. And time, and all the woe it took to give that power. You have so much of this world left to discover, paths to retrace. You find your way into a park, its benches occupied and visible and free of talk of the day’s events, at its center a girl of ======================================== SAMPLE 4 ======================================== All must be blotted out. No other ox she sees, Dirt for my shroud, bear away: Dear friend, I pray you, sit In your gloomy tomb. My hounds! my hounds, do you know What hunters are, and what they have to do? I am a hunter myself, I would seem If I played the hunter I should know well What it is to stand for days in brave men's fields; They lie all day in the forest deep; Tally their points, and when the hunt's done, When the killing done, and he that goes the way Has no more points to tally, and not one yet, A plague is in his bowels, and death has come To him that goes out, and not to him that stays. We play the killers of the point, The deep ones that carry breath, Deadly ploughsmen, and we hold the silk, If the coat you wear be bright. Thick-plaistered by coachwork, Exquisite lord- Ars orator, Literature of the sword, You must know 'er all, and aye the tale, To o'erpower in a turn-mill. For you and me, indeed, There is a lot to bear: I do repent it; I'm being what you would think it fair To bear the name and the luck of the game, And what not the best. A shilling and a pinch, A living year's labour, An old kiss that lasts a day, A single gold coin, An honest wife, and a precious bit Of yellow sand, Which, though it be at home, They hope their sand is cheaper For God knows And I am sorry I'm no freer and bolder Than I'd be if I had the rest Of life to take my fun; I might drive my modest play A little on the plain To walk abroad, Where nobody Is, with a sham to sing, For me It would be better if not. The hidden sand of it Shall stay with me, and Not much's my comfort, Where never a foot Smiles and nobody is And nobody pays, I fear If the fates would part us In this pretty town Which now seems to me Half a nearer scene. I'd rather stalk about When the time is spent With something to say, Or 'mid the sights that pass Smile once again. I'm bemoaning in my sleep Over knowledge obtained From the sort of education Which the Chancellor's wife Had, And I've begun, Jumping up and down, Hushedly she lies, Breathing on the town, Though there's nobody near, Just as she, quiet, Knows by her watch what's coming. Once I loved, when I was young, The droll straight gate Betwixt the soft hill and the sea; The bush and the nip Were in the garden where the gate Was; and the curve Of the canal And the pretty street, And the whittled trees and how the dames talked On the fire-side, and so did I. But the night before yesterday, I wandered through the fire-side, And there the cocks crowed, And the lights came on, And there all the dames talked, All in the pleasant back-page Where everybody can get him kept. Now I'm at that gate again And I feel that I'm wasted; My fortune's low, but I know That a whole year's rent, One week's, I've lost, Is a little thing to keep For my men in the muck, Who are thumping me at the gate. Because of this, I've had a nap And the cares that have fallen on me, And I'll be glad to see you again. I'm sure it was wrong of me, And I'll have to bear it, John, And apologize, and be dumb, And be as queer as can, When at home my wife has been, I've had There sweet and pure delight; And a girl there has perched her light And a man there has sang to me The heave and hoke of his part In the barnyard, and the shove on the plough, And the foxglove and the cherry; Or I've gorged on home-brewed pantry joy, And I've ridden the lively wheels, And I've roared ======================================== SAMPLE 5 ======================================== and turning the blade she nodded And called the wanderer to her feet Who wondered if, in some far-flung land Of dream, he was permitted to depart With honour or dishonour or death or life As God supposed. On a strange earth he had fared Like some old lion which strange manners taught, Thinking himself a hunter and a prey For each low beast of the field, when man was low In savagery, having forgotten the kind And saintly heart of that bright animal, Who taught him how to feel, not treat, man, In his natural integrity of love, With vengeance or secular hate, if even that Should have twisted human hearts that bent To the manifestation of divine love. Little he cared: he was not man, And yet his mighty soul was filled with awe Of what God in the heart of man discerns, More than with power to move and to control When pure, divine in man, and his own Was as the swift mist which made clear, revealed, Unfathomable, godlike, its own light. For still he was at heart a poet Who formed his own inward vision from sight, Even in the ancient faith, and far apart From anything poet ever wrote, took his And all his ideas from this Waverley Who left these words behind him everywhere Upon the churchyard wreath: "O precious youth! A careless letter might beheard, this much at least-- My happiness for to give you thus, Though dark the world, the quick message of the foam Dancing upon the temple ruins, and naught But time, the slow-winged fish, the ghost of ship, The pulse of midnight, and the penny whaler, Must sap your spirit if ye fail to see On vision full, and dawn impotent to stay The rede set out by spirit in your own. For love is lord of all things, and hath taken His share, nor hath his authority From any creature under the skies To manipulate, as in old times, with storms And lustre, all things that make up the world. Wherefore, though godlike wisdom has been given, And light for light's sake, and flesh to man, Nor has the power to smite, to cherish, sicken, Give beauty only to the pleasurable eye, Nor now the power to save, or noble heart Nor now the power to serve, nor power to go-- Yet, knowing these things, loving human beauty And loving divine love, and in those gazes Kinder than heaven and human sympathy, Ye are deemed worthy, --ye are deemed worthy To have stood up every hour of life, For me--ye are deemed worthy-- Who unto all ages shall be known! Yet, content it may be therewith, For him the full-cressed autumn Will draw his bold serpent's wing To shake against the matted vines, And his smitten glove will leave to show Where hell-griped lyons clasped man. This is not love, This is not love, nor lies it low In such wise with reverence; And yet it breathes as high As beauty, so, nor ever so far Down was cast the holy light. You have fallen, me with sorrow know, In him to love, Without whose sacred light You cannot move nor sleep, -- not that you long In shame to mourn Lest he should set half-diamonds heavenward To crown your burning palm Nor look up to the noonday hour. For me he falls Now with death, now with years; With sunlight at his back Behind him now, I do not think, though decelerate And bruised under cold-foot, Not that I should fail to bear His work in hand. "I have had enough of living," he told me, And drew me over yonder hill As though it were a spear; And thereupon he plucked, In presence white and steadfast Like a dove, And dragged me to the marvellous town, From which, awhile stunned, I ebbingly drifted. He told me then the ways of death And the young and dreadful love (So great a bluerway!) Of the cunning, nor would yield So suddenly that I did not, till 'Twere well deserved, say, a full reward: -- Then, having her to nurse, he swung His great sail about and out she flew From the city's rosy ports. Then I caught up all my clothes And shoes, and I swam at last With him, to such a ======================================== SAMPLE 6 ======================================== More happy we, men, and therefore kings; As you, and so far superior too! 'When eyes my senses stray, And their antiquated furniture I find, Then rung an excited welcome, And sweetly replied: The devils thus agreed, To each his favorite, Made me their study, Infernal creatures, Look at the passions! The demons are descried. See the ruffian horde Blend their dang'rous mien, In the highest fury How they come rushing up! A torch by art and luck was heard; Each in its kind, and good or bad, Seemed to feel its wrath, And in various tunes, so fit, That a human heart stood reeling, And all felt its ravaging. And O'er all, O! surely at their call The help of friends and family, Away to ask from buds the roots Of faction, greed, and emulation; While the dales and, plains Swam purple in the deaths of kings, And scalded kings drank tea in cups. "And so," quoth he, "I've find," (The grave answered quoth he) "the reason, A remedy, and, if you like, I'll tell you where to get it: The gnome retreats, And turned him back to find His pleasant tomb, where naught could tell Of how his black ornament Made hideous this his mirth, Nor told if yet that that was his day, Or if he night shall tell that tale To young and roaring miller, Jack! "A mess Was read, and in the choir arose One who hummed with metal gauntlet A dumb song: and to my mind That moment's mute Of man in battle grovel, The cry of another age, Appears. And thou, In open space, wilt woo Mother with the peddling hour, When she grants thy need to see A platform for the wear Of gaud and burden, borne upon her breast; And there shalt thou meet And through this time shall be, That sad eventful be, That for those whom it befall, Shall lose what days they wore In upward dreaming pastime, And bid their lighter ghosts hold fire, While deep in ashes they unfold The strong and meek Wisdom in the pure, The middle age shall be, Ended, and break in two, The day of virtue queens, Till earth be a den of fouling worms, And sere dares preach of rain; And R--d come in his preaching cap To call a lark With shamed and crying words; And give to a whale the king Shall show the gods' disdain, With more than herk and breath. And that shall come to the tomb, Not strewn with Palladio's roses, Not cased in silver, Not broidered in charities, It shall not be, Not in the crown above Of a sad, naked chain, Shaped like a sheaf of grass, Or as Mary's body. But in the tomb shall be Of flowers, and leaves that have leaned To know what summer strikes; And these shall dawn a stronger fragrance, And these endure like grave spoils; And men shall think more of what flowers Than what fadeth. Then shall be seen The symbols, heavy and great, Furnish the idol-scaffold, With day's immortal candles Shall blaze and wax; The sacred fruit, whereon Zion's sins shall burn, In bowls of precious scarlet dye From heavens of blue, In maddening magians, And sprinkled far and near, Where men shall think of Him Whose eyes doth shake For Zion's pillars now, Whose head Is one of deep and holy stars. The Life that none shall live But he who bears a sword, That he may kindle wonders As long as Life may burn; Whose gospel is an axe, An axe hard refined, A diamond rod of pure might, A lamp of strangeness Of night to fair men; The knife that healeth Is holy, because The sickle of the Life Is golden-rayed; And that is holy, be It, angel-chewing, angel-cheering, Or strange unto dimness Or strange to high. Like blessed lamps from open houses Each moving air with iron wings As throbs to horns ======================================== SAMPLE 7 ======================================== 24 From light and shade they are-- The thought of memory! But ah, there is a place Above the year and its moon-- Where years of small things are-- A quiet whippoorwill Gleams thro' the dim blue. And oft, thro' the blue-gray skies That shake for the worlds of dream When, thro' the graining grey Of low-built thoughts that stay, Softly and slow, And slowly, the stars come out-- Whippoorwill! At darkly bright, at fierce With a red scarlet flare, The sky holds, thro' the jet Of lightning overhead, The sign and cry: The night holds death too Of a flaming wrath-- Whippoorwill! When the glow of the buffets' glare Taints the spark of a brooding day, From the yellow of a garden-home, He loiters, asleep, Between roofs with bare walls, He watches the new moon come up, Whippoorwill! The windows blaze, and fill with din The walls of each cell; The man, bent at his dull task, Creeps to dreamless sleep again. The night holds death too-- Whippoorwill! With a wail of sorrow he goes by, The wind his woes to say; No man can tell as he goes, Of mortal care and pain. He sees he cannot go To face God's Judgment yet-- Whippoorwill! At last in his dream The window blazes bright; A thousand eyes, hot on his face, Live on, and glare at him still; It's at his back that the cry Sings thro' the gallows-tree, Whippoorwill! The fool goes past, The fool goes home to bed; I know that there is No More, For fuck and milk. Ya cull the bells and observances From the fold, and its linnet praise; But round that horse's thigh, That cut from the rush side, She's still the voice--somehow Whippoorweeds! The flies fly about In the chill of the eucalyptus; And he moans like a linnet In the night and the dew. At that same place A little lisper With her chum 'll join her; The jingler of the gully Sits in the pew where He will sigh and perish In the auld wame. Sometimes the heart is a-tellin' From an o' the whirlwinds that blows; And there a-pleadin' to pore On auld mistress' stories; And the muckle puir falls Gleams by the pond. And a lassie lees she clasps 'Bout the glass for glove As she hangs her neeb in the reet Wi' an auld e learninge joy. 'Ss a ruddy summ; But, thanks to make, She bares her mittens to her een Whistling pippins round. 'Tis meuch, but I trust my een She'll learn to clás and mak ilka iween Hane five year's mair! My dear, a-choosin' homewel, My apron's quite awa. For, alas, she's his ain sister; When the wrey walks in her weivver As a pliver wind up the firth, In a kind caulk she stoops Frae the lime-trees thru-on the dale. And then--there's the kirkyaird; And I could forgive her had I not That auld sibling. O waly waly, when I dine, And they're fa' syne! It's Gawd's own day, an' it's Sha'n En's In my coat! I'll bet my hinney that you sall Go' kape yare efter a fleechin' Wi' snoring noise! When I've bought a wee blinkin' cider, It's gude weather gude weather! 'Tis bailyan weather, and ha' na Cases my fien'! It's saft an' sweet--I swear, In gleg an' waly weather, I hardly say it's fit to mention, Though it's like a sentence! My fiddle's low kittle to kess The de ======================================== SAMPLE 8 ======================================== --My mother hears it clear; And as her love is so dear to me, I'll come when your evening hour is come. And when I'm there, I know the gifts that I From you shall take away with me: Your image on my endless wall; Your letter seal. HOW, thou village blacksmith's devil-may, Hast thoughts half human, half Lucifer-- A flash of omnipotence, An unfathomable will, that smites (In pitier than thy two worlds ) Imaginary worlds of value, Where thy blacksmithy whirls the sparks Whose fires consume eternal; A power whose tyrant hand, Is as a snare for God's eternal, The search whereof doth take Thy master, whose content Is found, Thy vengeance and thy mighty rod Spurning and quenching Thou didst not. He'll hear thee, but thy promise Of marvellous wings and glistering Of cutting-edged winglets crowned With gleams of internal light, That smile [infernal] where they kiss Not on thy street, nor in the sun; A dream not of the true-- A shadow by the dog That once a bird Trailing on a branch, A mortal thing Caught at the haw That maketh fire of an image, And them who bring with them The testimony Of purity, To cut with such a pith As thou wast not. Where thy evening crosses the river There a carnelian Is left, the coral strand Of thy absent warp. Its pines are in the dark That mark the stars so high, A pedlar trots below; The circling eagle cries, The heron, numbing sight, Salutes with his cry. Those, when the patriarch roused, Went by the rescue-flag, Which like an argent hall Once beat on Jerusalem, Now only blots the moon's beam In the light of its white feathers, The angels strike again The shape that Samaria named The Apostle's tree, That was by them seen, Then as o'er heaven bent his way, To drink of the other's cup That is not of earth, What witchery entranced Beliezed The hours, and made them first and last In black oblivion A kind of heaven's silv'ry snuff. Ere would deceive thee, O Saint! Whilst yet, howe'er it be, Those heroes who Are slain in thine aid Live in eternity Borne by a speck of snow. When the earth beneath him yawns, Dark that black abyss, Yet along his path Drops the dazzling snow To grace his path, In the battle-shock, When the upland is fain To sink beneath him, Then towards the orient sky, As there he stoopeth slow In the sweep of his wan wing, Down sinks the sun to sky; Then slowly up, as when A hand to his hat Up goes the working dandy, To catch a clap of thunder By the galled promontory, Rocked in a cloud By the shuddering roof The castle rises, Or round the roof Of a snow-white hall, The Bishop has here a general mess In the Storm that hoards his pulpits, To please the Gods' imperial bowl; For on him high prest, While here he solemnly stands, Tapping the hammer-hand, He has folly put in his prate. Poor sun! the before Thee Are nought but blasphemous lies; Whilst He beside him shines Grim-visaged Desolation, Lo, this his day, Dost feel as when in days of youth The world is all one's grace, A real friend and not a name, Loving so justly Loving so ever more? Dost thou pale at his great gold-lock? And laugh at his bluntness in that? And are the moth-darts unuttered At his low wit's uncloying? O he is the years behind, A-hey-hyacinth ane-ana! Nay, Saint! that is too deep for thee, Too stern for thy black psalter, Too fraught with bitter sense For utterance e'er. Leave, leave the old, sweet Latin, Leave-leav'd tongue For psalms and p ======================================== SAMPLE 9 ======================================== Delight the chas'n, and alane the dee; Where the lambes are wise, and maidens be dreigh, For they may live, and subsist by their wit: In the sacred chambers of the bower, Whenas they loath to fare on the earth, Then when they liv'd not, then let them die; Richer memory, and sweeter pen, Doe now awaken, and, alluring strain, Bring back the past, and draw the future tour; And when the star that of life's life makes decline Shall disappear, then ye'll have the key Of life's heart, and open arms; and then Ye'll see the howling of the waves of woe. When life or death were in the gizzard thereof, When ravens raved, and vultures haunted them; When care and folly fretting were the staff of woe, And love's eternal dancing; When fate and Change defied, and folly fought; Then they, who in the twilights of affliction, Might as a trusty captain lookt on rock and wave, Should every earl and knight in french costume bow; Would God that men might that pilgrimage navigate, Who for perspicuity in math are deemed Of right the better in debate: Ye, whose prescience o'ertakes you to deny, How soon time melts in ocean! shall we sail For that our fathers gain'd! and be quit By Fate's hours well spent!--'tis an error wide To deem success in any man's chance, To measure by degrees: ye may lead astray In man's affairs, or be the cause of loss, Once, twice, and three; to which error I surrender Almost my life. 'Twere best to persuade Each within the breast: some coldness now may raise, Some warmth, and balance, till the scale be made More true, less true. How is this with me?-- Since good on evil was created, What need to otherwise attend To scale or to shift! Will and skill In might, in awful grandeur once beat To see the glories of the sky, Once was a gallant tale, and true Were lower ages of the earth. In secret caverns of the earth, With lives that early die, we dwell, Free from lapse and from the king's sway; We hear there is no earth, and go there none: Loose from his chain 'twixt paradise and hell, O'erclasped in Love, sunken apace, Our human hearts are rapt with celestial wine, Controlling rare ill, whereby to see The grandest majesty, our own divine. O lords of woe, totters then the dome Of your great world, and fast all are fast, While some in that world begin to turn, The earliest flock of the Apocalypse! Remember, remember, How on the night before the funeral Of my lady, your fair hands grasps All my heart! forgive my flattery, It was not meant to cause offence; 'Twas but to give you just The edge of that modesty Your wonder would tell me; You were not there, Nor were the neighbours there When in all Rome the Lombard did spoil And burn every impious book: I had not lov'd you so long, You had not know'd me before. In what eager haste, Without a blush, you leave me? Did you, that I so whitely saw Should sink, Or was this breath that came? Or was that word? O, by your life, And by the truth of your eyes, My life! O count the heaps of words, Which I just at the last Faught with all my might to get, As I did speak them then, And to you so warn me, So make me know The time at last, So strike your finger to it! Ah, you'll strike your finger to it, And pluck off with one stroke, An eaglet which the falcon Will fly away with, whose wings are full Of wild horses, that he brings! But for my swiftness, could you see A mare which in the race she ran, She should have won, and I--I thus-- Could never have got a sight of you! As for one, I pray you, which may-- If any one, 'tis one; for this Is what the poets sing about. I, who have lain a whole week awake, And struggled with ======================================== SAMPLE 10 ======================================== At which he stood, and gazed while his back was turned More than the bones he stood upon. When he his dry eyes once more set on her, And that near question, if his jaw would ever Ask aught more, as the blood refused, He said, "Is there any thought in your mind to pry For the love wherewith I fed my meat and drink, Or rather fish and game? "O Jehoshapa! I did not come to spy On any chink that may not yet have opened; What had better use been, I have had none." But a red leaf he saw grow for a while, And, on its down, fell die of a red, like flower, 'Twas cried by their own name by many a name 'Tween woods and deserts, where the trees were tall, And yet we have never named with any accent Fostering guesses as to its proper smell. "None of these things!" he said: "but how Is aught of them brought, or hence preserved? I know what these eyes have seen of these For they have said of these, which the mouth Profanes, being common, fashions. The books Tastily do but excuse me that I look On them not, as thou wilt, who wilt attend, Which is my sentence to stand henceforward." He shut the book, "for shame!" and on his feet Drew his red roses, then upbore his head, And faired upon the ancient man at which he had Looked last. He wore a rich kirtle, brown, And round his brows a blue kirtle threaded, Which a black ostrich down entwined in place Fringed with white; his gilty scrip did beam Round about, and he held in his hands, say, A white steed's head with black hoofs and tail. Omphale's ear touched with the odor bore As very much did the eastern wind that flew The best of the day; the white sun flamed With lustre so great that the goddess, at sight, Made as if it would have shared in the blaze Hers to bend over. The boy had drawled his rasher all Through the smocks, and when he drew his head To her, she flung her eye from side to side As after answer to observe if it bade her stay, Seeming to say that it would not share her stay, But blossom by the conversation too soon, And flout the power of it by dint of his fan. He looked and she for all that she said no more, And when he turned from them illimitable place Dropped an ashen hand upon his shoulder, then fled In a huff, while he, the other, strode fast Amidst his people, bearing thence his task A gilt-flowered vase, most like to drop its maiden, All its life gone out of it, yet saved its juice. Then at the rumour of the little adventure He looked about, and spoke to them, "So I find, The gentlefolks give no sop for a song Such as I am now songless; but they reward The song with most every journey, with a taste Of herbs that bring them more than a look of joy, With sign of entrance, and with opportune words Of sweet farewell; and with portentious words Of counsel." Wearied with these Had they not found him weal or woe in his song? He sang them back to them again, but why He said no more, nor ever can, the same fail To those who had half grown weary of his try; Yet with a pasteboard vaunt he will try again. The huntress by the stream Went in the forest safe and happy, And there she heard a bird with love on his wing Sing of his joy with one true heart, not three. Ay me! she said, the wise and honest truth, I heard the whole with me, alack, alack, I am not comforted, I shall certainly die! The poet's task is a hard and proud one That takes deep knowledge, fire and ardent thought, To break a far-parched plateau, that holds the season, And lift a weary wandering world in his hand; For a true poet's task is a mystery drear, And will not be accomplished by theliest sated With his own petty work of rhyme and of prose; Tho' he may drink of all the sweet international beer And admire Zeno ======================================== SAMPLE 11 ======================================== killer reptile, Now your venom's dulled; your fatlings gone; And the cormorants swoop in again, Spying for food the lightsome minnows, The glass-strewn reflection of the lake. The summer's weather turned; and on I set, Within the pale-green, weather beaten sphere That many a century's weather doth resemble. Troubled I am not, if, where my being stirs, I do not feel the pressure of the sky; Yet see I not the sun with firm dry eye, Because a molten lustre bright appears: The sun, the morning, the sunset, I know, Because they move, for ever and are born; For weather change or measure does not these Show different days, or different nights? I believe That all these progenies of the air Draw from the sun, and cast a body of light, Made of the clouds, as bubbles from the stream. Therefore to this heaven I deem that these, So jocund and abundant, therefore seen Together should unite, and with them Uncapable of other motion drive Back the bright production of the day, And bury it in the sun-quake's centre: So should it live, like fire in the sun, Unmixed with black cloud or longer shade. Thou my move. Lest therefore this then have chance to turn As I conjecture it to other use, Move thou to this, and it shall seem I did Thy bidding, O my step to make Just fulness in a happy concord; E'en as the stirring of the stream, By which all things make agree that show The very cause they are, as thou wilt. Let not the sun From hence in anger looking on Return the fire, that he among The radiant streams be found No heat have not, No fire have I; And all the loveliness I was of in my prime, I am not now, nor ever was. The moon's light For other uses is made, As bathes the purple wave; It from the silent ocean In moistened-zoned earthen cup, To wend her merry ways With sooty pilots skaue her cost, And now, besmear'd with thatwash And drizzling weariness, doth stray, As abandoned and as unsatisfied As torrents, that from valley hence Fling back rocks' hard pebbles and bronze, So dryned by seasons many a fall From there to here. But let them sweep, o'er-curl'd Their light fingers through the air, To be the land's great hosts of men. T. trees, those right-easing sages, saith, May be the first sent from heaven, I read them with an eye esteem'd Among the first, and first, out of Time, That are the first, and foremost in Fame: And men and things shall say of me, "In that day he stood alone; A devil, yet of such a grace Was never seen, nor will be seen, To shake the throne of a few; To whisper delight, And turn men's snares with a word." Sorrow,--but how little! What body can recall So great a gift as the word? The wit of the best Hath got thee such art as this, Since first I teach'd thee The sound of the accents sweet, That made me the way pursue, Whither I know not, nor care to, My search begun! The tones That broke upon the lone glade, Were a cool-spoken direction, Pursuing not the cavernous goal, But shadows of aimless sound That made the thoughtless heart to thrill In dance with the fading field. Then first a cool-piped tune Startled like faint water falls From steep aisles in old arches, Flowing a pace that fast well grew Under the brazen liquid wan That shadowed o'er the fount; and aghast, In terror of what might leap amain, Cancelling reason's tyranny, I faced the steep lest what appeared Should dash me headlong from the cliff, I moved as in a storm that strokes His flapping wings when upon the blast He stoops some rock 'round whose stately pile Has sliced the exceeding hulk. But now like slow drops of tears Fall smooth the low notes that fall, And nipped with venom then for sore ======================================== SAMPLE 12 ======================================== First of the Seven is the Serpent. After him the succession holds Sons of God the Father as far as sea. Then after these the family of God Moves on from the effulgence of the fire Till the great stretching of the body. And last The vast marsh, having upon its face A compass and a limitation, Formed from the effulgence of the fire, By bonds of its own substance draws To the sundering of a towred earth. Where, then, the system ends, there begins Other systems, where the spirits cease And farther struggles struggle with the powers Of the primeval beasts and fishes, Which struggle till they change the form of man. And, still proceeding, where again our cycle Seasons, as it stretches from point to point, New spirits, the long life of the oaks, And the giant trees, the many-armed rales, And the river, with the cataracts and rivers In its mud-wallowing ferry throng With their many blades, and their many pines. And those divinations which the elements Draw through airs, and the subterranean fires And earth's core, and the great molten earth Conducting the elements-- All these work the more in concord then When the human spirit tries to find Or the eternal mote's aim to attain. So we, beholding this strange plan unfold Like a second day unrolled before our eyes, Had been quite sure, until we heard What is the nature of the thing we see? 'Tis neither flesh, nor the elements, Nor (as we see them), a fragment of the soul, Nor the centre of all power on earth, But a great plan, which yet untouched is By the ebbing of power, or the flow of blood; But a great moral movement through all things. And thus it is, since first the rebellious flame Called itself by its own name, and threw All its strength against the powers, it must be, That its life is the life of the fire, But, as we see, an atom in the will Diluted to the size of a great compass, Which then, with moral force upwrung, Seizes the opposing world, or shuts the outer Entrance from the centre, and confines the fate Of all that within it--not withstanding All moral force, which, it will be said, must Be as the strongest to cheer the weak. The Father may be designated The personified sun, who all the powers draw to his raising hill. The sun was The first to rise, and stand on Israel's hill. Bred to a chariot, he first traveled From Judah's field to Greece. When first the In the full height of his growth, God gave him over To kings and high priests, who bore him about With pomp and blood upon their spears, to tempt The people with the serpent to eat of fruit In their own blood. There is a height in the sky, Not too far down, where light above thaws at last, And we shall see the world's great leaders descend From heaven, their time appointed--they shall find Their strength less than that which the world has now Until the conflict shall be turned upon When Adam and his chosen vessel stand up Against their foe, and defeat his attack. Thus He who hides in his infinite frame The form and mind and language of man, Said to Isaiah, "I will cause thee to speak." When the choral voice and wind were extinctbrought the prompt answer, "Revelate to men Their final overthrow, and make an end. Gods, what thing shall then be theirs? They have spent Their glory. Let them show the trophies they have won. The conqueror's glory shall not be a thing To make an end of, but shall be an end. They feel that they are superior. They know That when God gave, he gave the reins to their hands; Their works are their grace, not merely what earns. Are not the wrought garments like to flesh Which they have leaped with, and through which they have walked, Not garments out of soul, which God and man may dress To grace God's burial? The shame of it is, They live too long. Earth is their sepulchre, And works of theirs cannot bring their end. The serpent with the apple in his mouth, And the beast which was reared up by his side, Put on the appetite which their own cries have taught And conquered. They are gone; they go to their place; They fall like blo ======================================== SAMPLE 13 ======================================== Don't go taking more of a swag, But take fewer of the swag, And be of an ekst-and weel-full ay; Don't go knockin' over folk, And kind er ruth, an' then revin' off. It's care at the start that's the thing that's the thing! The thing is--give out the place, An' have the chance, To do your own tricks, an' don't be afraid To make a few; But care's the only pan for gain, An' then a little joy, If you're ready to call your own An' have your say. Then get some kind o' capital land An' winter suits it; Ain't 'fool' no doubt yer tellin' These folks I know, Yer just as keen as me an' me On this the land! There's land an' time an' money an' will A-crack withal, An' yer the man to pay the bills An' look like home. It's knowin' those things 'ere an' that Will make a charmin'! Then look forward an' thank the Lord That all the while you do Your part, an' more the more you're found To take ye on. We're a-suisan, let's state the case:-- We've wasted the youth o' man, An' the wits around us brood; The workin'-clerk has come, an' we Sha' to live. Our sales has not kept pace With our spending strength, an' the trade Is a bust, a failure an' a disgrace; An' we've got a-cryin' for food, An' naiz did we gie From hand to hand. The lads o' 'Feed the Hungry' have gane The fancy o' the malicious nation, An' we can't get no credit for wine An' gie an' gude o' barley; Gude ale is sa-od-lured, like Water's Pure of o' life. It's talk o' plunder, its speakers called, An' nothin' else, for we've become a people Wair-ached an' lunchless as yan's ain't! An' we're tired o' 'gainstions high an' low, An' the devils in charge. Our seed time again, I'm stickin' by The farm that I trowed When an' I wos kitch--altho' now It ain't such. But as time an' fortune changin', I like to think We'd niver thought a song would come O' sung, schön an' given in faith, While the warld was ours. There's times when I sit down, an' wrench The wirkin-reels, an' rar Considerin' that it's turn for me To watch the horse that's brung you; An' glimmer pale, an' in darkness sleep, An' then--what's to be done? We gae. Grow plump, chaps, o' glee! What's pub stah, an' thirty pence a ton, A quarter-audible Establisht folk to wind a spark; When wine is price-ed kimboory Some of the meekest pigs gets praise. Gin a hass her een so mon an' plen, An' don't fak a word 'Bout a windy sort o' face, an' swear That's enow to talk, an' simple, plain, I wus ta'en, Mishe dung! "Good sorter's waitin' on the roph, lad," An' wi' hands ben a keer An' eyes like in the kintra-yard; Ye look on, but there's space a-frenchin' To see your lads, an' you're sakkin Strauto-like, Mishe dung! That ink was dipped in som'al; An' shak it did dun it leg; On thykin the kintra-rubber shudders T'ow'rd me in its tin-mouth teat, An' mak' a gal like a sytherdock A cinder-knot a roond o' hair! Out, soul! i' the crowd, an' hoi! hey ======================================== SAMPLE 14 ======================================== whiskered and rain-soaked only a pale reflection, not much of one, a missing ring on the finger, a slit from a heaven too small for death and glarfurious pleasure. I’ll read one book. I have loads. They say a life is wasted unwanted tears, a glass of lemon with the first twist of lemon pinned to the tongue, only never had I tears. I’ll read one book. I have loads. I’ve the entire collection. Of course I have to be honest. I take it out on you. I say everything is passe, that I can’t make distinctions or put you on a shelf in a different room. I had a dog, said the one time I felt from the cold the sound of his feet. I thought maybe something was wrong, that he would go away. I used to get hard and stare at you across the table from the seat in the corner. I’ve no more to say, I told myself. I used to get ugly with you, but now no tears, no mouth. I’m never going to say more. <|endoftext|> "Sticky Little Book of Verse", by Jane Kenyon [Love, Realistic & Complicated, Romantic Love, Relationships, Arts & Sciences, Reading & Books, Valentine's Day] He’ll sweep me off my feet and hold me tight until the mid camel, the nipply drizzle, drops from the sky into the teacup, the one I pour me tea in. And, he said, in the teacup, very pink, it would be his money, the one I spurned at his fake brick-fire, at his hubris to purchase me in for his wife. I will wring my foot! I will wade through the teacup, the perfect size, into the tealike bed of water and fire and spill him there. Tick, tick, tick, in the teacup, the foam would tickle my burned thumb. Tick, tick, I’ll curl my toe into place, and ho-hum, I will slip onto her fluttering forearm. Tick, tick, tickle my anvil. Laughter as I read means I can dance, I am a happy bunny. <|endoftext|> "Poetry is a Hoax", by Jane Kenyon [Arts & Sciences, Humor & Satire, Poetry & Poets] We are in the midst of the greatest creative era in our nation’s history, but poets who deserve record invitations to appear at next month’s Folio can’t get paid, or even printed for that matter. Poetry books are selling at a discount to the fool’s silver match. The poets need not rely on the marketplace for their bread, the wait is too long and the market is too crowded. The much needed restorations are held up by Kodak, the restorations are held up by the identical tissue known as persistence, the tissue is held up by believe in me, what I believe is more interesting, be more like me, my technical review indicates you cannot hold me, I am never alone, if you attempt to duplicate your ideas you will confuse the issue. The ideas will diffuse through the atmosphere in direct ratio to any gas. Each idea that is conceived and all but carried to fruition, will be accounted in the calculator as 1% of total, I did not hold you in such high regard. I apologize for being so alarming. <|endoftext|> "Poem, 100 Tears", by Jane Kenyon [Living, Life Choices, Sorrow & Grieving, Love, Heartache & Loss, Relationships, Home Life] 100 tears are a tearful drop from the moon and we have we lost love for somewhere every body that birthed a mongolian stone, every hand that touched a snowflake in the air that silver and gold send the same way the same way that the first metals of heaven behold and greet, us ======================================== SAMPLE 15 ======================================== do not admit, must listen to the song of the region of vines, which is wound through the world, as its universe is. But though there are countless names, even for the most familiar one, we must even as children learn to speak it. <|endoftext|> "The Name of the Rose", by Paul Violi [Living, Time & Brevity, Relationships, Friends & Enemies, Nature, Fall, Stars, Planets, Heavens, Arts & Sciences, Philosophy] It is the last rose lost in the last rose passed to earth, which is its single spotless blossom. Its green, as I look at it from this high terrace in late June, is as bright as the sky’s colors are. Even now, late August, the topmost foliage is a silver ghost in white blossoms. I have eaten of its light. The delicate leaves open as if for expression: What can I say? They are the spectre of an hour: transparent, white, so fair! In my lap, I fold it. And, still, the petals, still the same as they went out with their blossoming, stay in place: were in the spiral of space the way we kept the sun on our faces, hands, eyes. But that’s not what the leaves are for. Their leaves are perfect for what they are: ranks in rail, rosebuds, small and few, red as fire. At our rose’s table, unlike the roses, not quite there yet, but in a sense there, we fall in line, and our arms cross and meet, as of old the poet’s dream of heaven, table, eyes, and so holding the heart of the rose, each of us in line, that each of us has made of flower our own rose, and yet the rose inside of me stands still: as sure of place in the world, as when it opened the first time, fifty years, and it closed behind me: no agitation, no twisting and twisting. I hold the rose closed: and if the rose open, nothing can take place without the opening, and the color, as the rose-smell comes through it, to help people recognize me. For there is one who can open it: now that I look at it, can see it: and she speaks to me of my own mother’s life in my face, of the heart inside. Just so: I have seen what the red roses will bring, if the rose-colored doors are open. I could not look in the place where my mother was were there not also the hand of me coming in. <|endoftext|> "In the Dark", by Paul Violi [Love, Infatuation & Crushes, Realistic & Complicated, Relationships] The words for love are taken. The words for light are taken. The words are everywhere. The words are what is going on. The words have spoken. The dark is the place I am in. The words are my own color, the words are the colors I have made of words. And there are more of the dark, too. When you put the right word in the right place, words grow into more of the dark and more of the dark grows into the words. So all the word- time turns: WILL go and be there for you. NOW is to listen. <|endoftext|> "I, Too", by Paul Violi [Activities, School & Learning] I, too, gave up on school. I, too, didn't want to go to the back of the class or the lunch room. I, too, was, was, was missed. I, too, found myself. It was the end of the day; it was the end of me. Then I, too, gave up the ======================================== SAMPLE 16 ======================================== Nestleson said, What's a Sunday Chronicle? This table? I've no use for that. Well, yes, 'E's quite as Dear to my eye As Lady dioria Is To yours. She's always Right, Lillie, and to work, I ever won. You're always Wrinkled by a new ball. Well, yes, 'E's a Love, yes, I want that. Yet when I think In sight of all I might have done for you Had I never met you, I grow Wistful for you, Lilly. Polly! Gritty, white, white, pure sugar and peanut, white. "Mo'ney" hor roasted... Sort of... runty, wrinkly, white, white, just plain fuzzy with mines of so much less than two bags of leg of me. Each little cave has its idol, Lilly And who doesn't. Well, yes, 'E's so much less than Lilly. Fine hard poetry. Porridge and whisky... what a Dervish life we lead... Try it, it's fun, it's fun, it's fun it's fun it's fun for the soul, When Lilly met Polly in the bar, her eyes had light showers falling from them, and her whisper was "Shane, You're my goody, so I'll bow to That is me." Polly also meeting the carousal Yeah, Polly. Gritty white and pure. My husband's gone all toines, and for my purse I'll have to go, so... Do I Go home? or... Father's gone now. So I'll go home, and... Not the same Of course not. You know? What is so lucky anyway I don't Should I have the From this time on things to happen I sing, I sing... yes... You bet! Think it, Lilly, if the Moon hurricanes hurricanoes hurts you, bob then she kisses you, Try it, it's fun. Then next time we see each other considering whether We love... us and wanting I'll be out there as much as you, and you'll be in that I'll do A job. I knows, and and more, more, and more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, ======================================== SAMPLE 17 ======================================== Lov'd o'er Pleased the worthy Earl, Not more brave than brave, No more he learnt his lesson. Youth subdued him, as it meends To live as others live. Like others, Mary to behold Roof'd her spacious mansion. 'Tis from the sweet dews of Eve We rise to greet the morning. When her dewy locks The Valkyrie knelt her; When the leech drew from the brim A ladle of small snake; And the sword'd hostess Had declare'd the care For the awful rite; We rejoiced beyond measure 'Mid the stately park, Not more brave than bold, For glad to greet the dawn! Our spring-fed stream From a silver pipe, Dust-clean'd, the native, Poured in a beaker, When she left the King In the field to die. Many a sister pale, As we dance around the throne, From her low-caste mansion, As others do, But possessed of no maiden's pride, Nor in the waist of a priest: With her is the crown'd teint of her pride, No bitch in case of bitch; And with this noble blossom in her cheek She will have an eternal tomb. Scarce had the sanctuary lovelock'd the sun, Ere kindred fell in throngs around. The Herald from the grove, accustom'd to the spot, Lifts his echo sonorous, wild, and terrible; And shrilling to the moon, that high in the sky, With an anxious ear for the roaming care, Hear lost horses prancing, or hear the bugle-call. From car, that comes close to the line, The prattle of the soldier, ore-stretch'd, falls groaning; And, as from the bubble, and the quarry, Harpers, hawkers, and female, with caryapls, Calls to the traveller:--'Be cautious, and safe tread Upon the skip of the northern hill: A disgrace was suffered in an avenging hand, That victors never should forget; and a wail That sickens even with mildest tones, went up, When the gallant William, Sir Edward of Tavistock, Was shuffle'd o'er with a prong and a regret. And though I be by the posths and the weight; Still, gallant the mountaineer's right wrist I seem to feel. A long-ragg'd path precedes the hill Where that solitary elder of the dales First welds the soil of his native soil. Here lads at play squeal on the green heath, And girls at waggon run. He paints a hanging landscape, A forest road, From which there runs A solitary pathway, that seems No pathway at all, Beyond which runs a brook; And, as if it were a spray Of snowy cots, he spots the few Mature Indians of the flight. Now here the splashing-bells have roused A thousand dreaming wet, And huddling knots in the hedge-ropes, The rooks make their lithe way; Or from the distant downs They seem to swim, while Hogs, In yond horde, crawl, And scatter o'er the sky. To East and to West Proclaim the point, And make a mile, or two, of broad lands, And Scotch, or Yorkshire, or Dublin, school. These slave and serf Of feasting, these are they Who have a stake in hovels, halls, or tippees, And slow despots that in clowns inly control. They smile upon us, like the blue skies in July, And all these wild things In meek enjoyment, like the swallow on the lawn Sun-red, or some sunset haze, And love are free; And wild, or play, or shut in by care, As the hawk in the shroud Thus at their gala return, These juggleries, and of all the feast, Reposing, The East displays the best of trifles, And May, and Mayday, in a blaze of flowers, And the green grass, and distant hills between, And stars, and the dappled shades; I, in the West, for me much mood for solitude, And that my want, Unless my days should come no more, or, like the Dove O for the day to come! for no day's sight I pray,attach_debugger print_status freeze_forever quit save_and_quit ======================================== SAMPLE 1 ======================================== I feel the worth in being a man, The constancy that you only know from pain. How could you know? How could you ever know? The secrets that they hold, The riddles that I lift from the same texts, I only hint at They only see them as words—A wound you must numb to be whole. The art That still the clouds with wind and shower, The command of the wounded place, The beauty, the might, the effort, The love that makes glad the heart of rain, The calm that leaves the horse with the man. <|endoftext|> "The Black Ship", by Jennifer 18th Gordon [Living, Death, Love, Heartache & Loss, Activities, Travels & Journeys, Relationships, Pets, Social Commentaries, Cities & Urban Life] In bright Venice once, an Italian galley Slips through the maze of low-browed streets, And through the alleys dotted with small silvers, And glass-strewn pavements where a gondolier Through the slanting pines, holding Galatea, Clears vaults dyed red, crescented with old gold, Flashes, and flings her bright pool above the tide. Long do their echoes, pealing below, resound Here, in the lagoon where the relics burn, That drift from Orietta's abbey, And dress the palm that rises o'er the lagoon With ivy and old vines. Here still dree, And there where on a cool table spread, The bird-noise plays under a fir-needle, The pyramids of mumm, the ruins roam, The gypsies throw their Lophian woman. And far up, from light to dark, the play Is set, the dead men's revel poise: Old palace, later temple, harder top To these sad marbles! Sick flints and glass, Red cedars that the lions have broke, Greeks and Romans, and those who maimed Slain in the north country, all Around that main still dance the mass. Here wear a form, if shape there be, The rigour of a lifespan, More fixed than his or her place, And so perform most heav'n-like rites: Far in the back of a ruin lies The L-rimed board. Round a picture nothing else But more than hearth and household fire, A red-brick house, white-walled, red-banked The mistress, dead nineteen of yore, With hair like snow and cheek like rose, Dreaming and worn with sorrow, He falls to singing in an ecstasy From off the bone-box. And that one there Who wears a garland of three tears, Fellows an old tune and staggers off, And dreams a bathroom painted with men Sharing a bowl and smut-papered books. And he, who slept and lived in breeches, From his face fear-wreathed and rotting, Twixt flanks and neck clutched at a penny, On his bed now bores another Who has forgotten all his Lincoln, And all the morals of his time. It might As soon have been a scold and choler As discovered in his beard this folk, Who, disdaining shame, envied virtue And a man's chance in the middle And plain sense and manhood. For what cried Out of the astrologer's hand of Fate Which thrills the oracle with doubt If ever by Chaldeans' lyon planned And sign those stars decreed their fate? For this Men laugh when wits foretold a flaw In their look or measure, lie and swear That they have seen the teeth of Fate. Their Fate! The Sisyphian stars! And now the blaze Of light is poising for the winged air, And from it as from a casement Flush lights, and yard and shadow, like those Tattletrees o' the lawyer, and a police Nigh the grave of Lincoln--thus is Paris As when the "red man's blood," as Shakespeare says, By bad intention from a hospital bed I was drawn to the bare foot of a woman: I heard a voice in my ears call me thither And now I would pluck your heart from your breast. You should have been, dead, one with the golden Of thousands in the Place de la Concorde, Where the State sate, without breath or burthen, Like the souls in Paradise. But this woman's) So fervent you overlook the rest-- (Perhaps your rhapsody is all ======================================== SAMPLE 2 ======================================== Join the search for her-- Her name is Lily Bo Burnum And she is a runaway! Is there no hope, for me? How is it that we suffer so? Who shall be lonelied and free? My own life, which looked eternally Well, well over-loaded, all godly, All at once with hunger struck-- Who shall be lonelied and free? Who shall be lonelied and free? Who cannot hope in any but you In the face of death and every disgrace. What should you be at the last? Whatever there is as hope Sick and sepulcher-like to be sure Be present to my mind So that I know you can be borne, Worth living to be bared and laid Within my arms to-night. <|endoftext|> Ye who have sworn the Pardon, The Wound you bore From me with your lives, Forever be my fellow In ties moral and in privileges; Ye who have heard my words in court From me with their teeming eyes-- Join you in fellowship, in fellowship! Why should we stand as men--or even as men All that stands between us, and all that flies-- Go on As of old! So we may form an earth that would be More than earth to us, a heaven of rich skies Luxuriant, and from it shining Great bands of angels Shall rise and greater of each kind More glorious than this blue And radiant market That soaks all its ranks With incense, And creaks and groans, Gross, by steps that moan-- The warring tree, Whose feeble breath the clouds With a much-broken hearth, Whose embers Lie frozen, and to ashes fall Are fast decaying, Its remnants rank In the vast hollow Of the river That recedes at our feet. Of a many tales he told A fellow-swine, And it seemed to me That he was praising me Because he knew that in the hollow Of this death they lie And starve because of the interstices Of a hope denied. Fouriers and simons he taught To feed upon the spring Of others' suffering; And on his hunger so great They too can suffer, But not shall know The favours of the good. O shame on the fevered brain Of the poor swine Who, like the licket witch, Offer our seed-dust to feast upon; The husbandman knows not The joy of our gluttony. And it fell out thus--this has already Fallen from my memory, But I would fain bring it back-- I would fetter my words with an Untroubled heart, In a turret lonely, a vagrant room With a bed soft, and crowded a stair Up the narrow stairs, I heard, When the dusk came dim through the distant window, The far-off sound of a great fight below, And the clash of arms. And the great issues of the day Made a murmur in my room; And its moon was full, but not full indeed Of that red light Which seems to bear a cross Of woe In its pale lamp's accursed gleam. But from mine bed, I gazed, I waited for me, The half-dark and fretting something Was there. And something made of smoke and steel Who was he seemed, But whether knight or man or Fable I am not willing to say. He was lying still; and I, As the grey dawn was peeping, Laid myself in my bed; And I covered my face And with remorseless speed, I bade the dawn. And it came. On my face something changed. The curtains of the window Were drawn back; and I saw the face Of a strange man Rugged and grey. And he stood by my bed, And the wonders of his sight I knew were true: His face was like the face of a youth; His head was like a crescent; his eyes Were as blue as a vat of dew; His very bones like iron; But his shirt was like the stone Which men call magic Was a none of dew. His belly was no ladder either In his foot or leg; Nor was his head a kettle, But rather a jug of ale, And not a verjure porcelain jug, But a leathern shoe ======================================== SAMPLE 3 ======================================== Should I read ancient records Or words unlinked by the passage of a thousand years, How should I speak of all that I have seen! Or even if I should speak the language Of that other land where the lion is, And rock-fisher boy together, With tramp of exhalations, sleet of rain, And whispered word, when in one vast mound they stand And the clouds, that wander about the hills, And the unfathomable deeps that the sea fills, And the hideous lowlands that have been made, The shaggy hills, with huts and villages, The dark sweet valleys, and the sweet sweet friendly valleys, And all the marvels that the year has in store As of trees and of tames and of bears and of people; And how the little kings tremble at the lamp, And what the king does to end the working of things; And how the mastiffs rouse, and guard, and swear, Until the king comes, and how he comes not soon enough; And how he sits with the old crone, and how he makes A bow of two great flat-fish-bundles and a crest Of a blue heron's down the breast of a blue eagle. And with the word that he sends through the strong Wind and the heavy clouds, The people of the ship behold The eagle very sharp in the sandeled sea; And when he draws swiftly to a blow The wind drops dead; and a myriad fires Burn under the spires, and a myriad tongues Are fan like tongues of fire in the burning coasts. And every one forgets that everywhere Are save a queen in golden glass. Except where a palace is of wonder Sudden and far away, Where art thou then, crownless, unworthy, Who wouldst change the king's heart? Nay, rather, am I he, the wild king, The springing sun who smote the ground One blushing midnight ere the stars and phallus Shook into flame? Nay, many times, in many days I have told you what a mother I had, And how she made her brood men of. In the grey light A multitudinous rage Orbed the land In the heat and the wear and strain. The old passion flickers still. Why do these men Make of me such hideous aberrations? (The noise abated, and the man attended Who, instead of answering, laughs at my warning): Have these degraded them, what time the sun And the multitude that fills the heavens Bathe them with brightness? But the lark, black artist, mocking with his song And among the birds that gather again Across the way where the boat was cabined, Tires himself, or the birds, or I: And as, the long thirties bending, we dance around The face of the tallow-prism, each of us Thousand feverish quadrupeds with one nipple That combs his neck with a golden filant, (Veneris the gentleman, an Englishman Or I forget his name, it is long since Writ in the disused and polluted language; But still, to memories of men, the filant Turns to the wax as that comely creature,) Climbs to the table, the royal shield; And now the goddess of the wreath, Crowned and confounded; begins to cry out, That my banquet be broken up, That my feast be held according to law. My guests, my brethren! let us sit! Brothers and brothers, for such title And from such mouth, shall I be called to a feast Where both meat and wine Are goose and wine, goose and no wine? O generous brothers! I may lead you, But not be first of you To call me friend: one word more and then Take your places; and before the word Be spoken and be gone, ere another even Be called, I swear On the altar of gutteral bile Not to cast one glance abroad, Take the penitential path Of utter, self-lovin' antiquity. That which you see and do not see I do not know, But what I am I, and what I am I am; And since the Art was not spread My knowledge I am, And since the Art that I have lost I never of, nor of you, From whom, and from what source To find from out this ancient time, I should learn to paint, Or from what age to learn. I, ======================================== SAMPLE 4 ======================================== Common but obscure. Ah, this is the man, the serpent-trout, who, Not overfluent in one nourishment, Devours to which a numerous herd of trout Is empty, and a flock of geese. And when from the abundance of his food, There is a surplus, he Caused the pool, the marish, to be filled. And a swallow or a perch he Flaps to the sky. And they say, do as the snake, and measure A thin aqua-dunta of life. And this man kept on By carelessness and hunger, the masters all, And by a porridge in the truck. And this man, they say, in a truck Drank from a pitcher made of clay. And this man took an aquavit In a bucket of full of mud. And this man, they tell, the possessor Of an aquavit, and a bucket full Of dark, and a geyser, Sprinkled life everywhere. And this man, they say, Had no terror in the night, and they In their tents, so long as they squatted, And roamed in the way of prey, With hair blown and ruffled, The warriors called him king. The horns of race are the horns of gold That blow for a heavenly melody. The horns of race are, you say, the horns That the storm-winds have come to tell. And the common scent Of the unknown smell Is like a serpent. With head held up in scorn, With sword in hand up-raised, Down on the little reed of death That is fast in the red grave Thy visage is wet with your life's blood That from the lips of the snake Rests as snow. Thy sweat is the sweat of a warrior, And that grim black eye Seeing a hundred sties Whispering secrets, there behind, Thy blood upon thy shield Is the blanket that half is worn And some is fresh. And sometimes with head bent down And into the lap of Death A man is borne, And never a word is said. And the joints in thy form Are breaking like a leaf Asunder. And thy blood, and the blood of thy brothers, In the pangs of the pit, And in the secret houses of Earth, And the pools of these strange lands Are like a lover and thy life his bride, O thou with the steel on thy breast, God-sent on its breast. Then let us drink From the sea, since the soul is the flesh, Since breath is a water, since we die When flesh we call death. And through the salt from our blood Let peace to the seas return. For strength is a water Born in the deeps of the sea, When gums and aromatics Born in the sea unite, With the brown sugars of oceans, Born in the sea, Born in the sea, With the sweet essence Of the sea, Felt in the sea, And the purple blues And the royal reds, Born in the sea, And smelled and tasted there In the fens and the fields. Of the bright sea Where eels and whales swim Born in the salt of the sea While the great eyes of the squid Grow larger there. And the great heads of whales Feel the fangs of the foams, Thirsting and glistening In the spray of the seas. And he who feels in the gray dawn, With the born nimbus of the sea Scattering in the water the ink Of his plumes, and the thrones And the carpets of old time, Seen through the silence Of gray water, seen through a silence, One with shadows, covered With evil tagging of yews. And with an eye Afire In its long lagoon Let the trumpet blow, And let the giant horn Blast the dun cloud Born in the air, A myriad of grains of sea, With a troop of winds And the tread of wave Upon it. In the world's court, a thousand books Are open on the roof That fill the heathen with shame At the sound of a Western sage, When the full showers fail, And a grass-green plumager Leans from its screen. And in the wine they drink, in the foaming Of this strange wine, are signs For the mighty loss of wagers, As omens, mails in a ======================================== SAMPLE 5 ======================================== passes, including the tenantless. Rend a heart of mercy for a sting of dross, Count it a cause of humiliation To redeem a slavish race in exchange. Bread from heaven, price of shame and glory, A bird with seven wing spans, two wings, Himself the crowning athlete. Do not confuse my name with another, Named Shinto, save in thought When staying under a spell of fear To worship at the Shrine of his idol. In equal words to say, on just consideration I am also colored in the colored in- -revolution of color, Caught like a fly in some Supreme Honey of the dragon family. All my life I've followed The immortal, foolish, questing work Of all-policing rule, A royal prerogative that Swarms as bees in our honey Tramit, Tantaly from slime. We of the Native race Our living, and the noble born of devotion, Know all things by honors and how to be generous To strengthen the cause To make the dream come true. We are avengers of wrongs, The conscience of redress, We know how black and brown To move the heart of men As weak as tears. The Holy Names of God In the heart of the case Of human rights. To what bottomward shall we go, Where have been and lost the ways Of one-ness with the Sun And the secrets of the Dawn And all your dross? All your dreams, your hopes, Your forge-ings are only transferred From your face to your heart, From your mind to your soul. Our claim to love, your bid to rule, Your lust and your lusty soul, Is the mirror, and hence the shape, The shape, and the mirror is ours. We are your loving kin The glad children of hate and love, Who, just as men, shall love and rule you, And have for so long and well. Your heart shall be changed to the Moon So that, whatever your view, You may see how little the function Of what you see. <|endoftext|> Dark was the bed where Love lay; Warm was the hearth whereon he lay; Sweet the aisle where God in death lay black; Sweet the garden where the summer sings; Sharp in the swords and spears the gifts of Rome lay; Slow and new pears the grudgand nurst, And quick the faith from counsels of war. All your bed will cover, The hearth will sleep without; Your bed will sleep With sword-sharp would in it fall, Sword-sweet will kiss your brow, Helmet and shield and plume. Fire and flood, thunders, or fagots hurled from the Citadel, Bear your image bright Throned in the belted gods, Sunless hour by golden race, The Agno of fire, The airy, stormy, beautiful. Frail basers of heaven, You seem to dream, Then fade like fountains from on high, You cannot heap clouds so high; How shall the dust, Bewildered By the sun-rays Broadcast, Challenge the You do not swing Where he has sunk Where lightnings Struck the worlds in water-courses, Wide as dewdrops on desert marshes. In vain toiling, Eager they roam The earth's stark expanse, The weeping seas And those abiding winters; To wander where all is joy, The load of praise they heap Unmindful of the home-spun thread, The heart that struck them In empire of fire, The sunless empire. Oft with their pen She was their sport, Often, when it suited their glow, She humbly trod The landscape as the poets In burnished armors Aye in bower of rock Before whose altar not aught was sung, Roused to fresh courage she Was on her pen, She wrote to me, O, lapped within her veins of copper She made that vision solid. And the fable, new-drawn, Streamed from her bronze-linked wrist Into that iron throat, With lightning Of thought it was To strike the iron ground, It glittered so in her blood. Winter wakes the winds in shrouds Of cloud and flame; And their taunts as hailstones falls, The ======================================== SAMPLE 6 ======================================== And while my hands here rest, How sweet 'tis to feel that I can say, From this diseased and weary place, My prayers ascend to you, and they do come With all their mortal weight; and no harm Are our sojourns in the earthly court; For still, of those many, all united In friendship's holy union dwell. The night is silent, and the night is dark, The night is silent, and the night is dark. In sighs and tears, and a troubled plume Of hope with mournful motion breathed Down from the white celestial tress; The stars, the moon, and all the silent sky Of nights and of days, apart from me, Are gazing on the token clear, In shreds and rags, the soulless body slinks To slavery's thralldom and doth adorn; And, in the accursed and filthy reign Of this dissolute slave, the spleen and heart Of this great and glorious nation swell; While many, who do now and then come near My door, and come not always, go astray, And leave me to be looked on as a name That may be known not. 'Tis as if in a crowd Of sheep bereft of a shepherd, all Who had left the pasture for wheat, should meet And perish in the blast. The night Is silent and dark, and yet the heavens loom With greater majesty than ever; the moon Is by another light than of old, Who once was she, and his starry throne, And earth and heaven do now their size declare. Unseen, I saw thy splendor, when Thou didst in the fields of light appear, Like that great bride, whose gold and scepter took A third of all the earth, and caused A third to love her. But I was then Within the blight and back of all-times, And thought thy long golden robe was kindled To be wrapped about me; not to be seen Of all the years that should be past o'er. 'Is like to the still rising of the moon, Which was thy morning; thou art the loveliest Of stars that do rise and go; thy throne Is built; thy brightness is. I'll lift up mine eyes And see thy glories all unfolded, and Fallacious reasoning of them thus Rebuked. 'Tis but the morning-glory's tear, That mourns its daily dying in the light, And will not with its evening die. 'Oh, you are wonderful, king of all, And lovely, who in lowliness have made The heavens like lilies tremble to look down Upon the earth; you are the first of kings Which have yet no crown. The first may be a prophet crowned with clay, He fast and ask for light; and his slow years One glorious, unribbed life, endure for you. 'Love is the flame that dolds the clouds in green, Yet faileth not as yet That heavenly strength which waxeth not for ever. The sun himself aloweth not to stoop His head to sunbeams; and hence his age That cometh not again to his steed, Till he secure of his own healthful life, And smoke his yearly sen; for man himself Can lie not comfortably, with their heat Repelling, and weakness, and the frost's sting. The heavens are all an hundred years old, Yet are not old themselves: they are not old But slant from our four densovings one by one. 'You see such things, see such things, on every side And in a hundred ways; you need but look For that; all things are touched by your hand of power. For want of this ye might be wist, At every glance you would behold great things And dreadful; things like serpents then and dragons, And swine that cry, while within them slumber shapes Of wild affright: how much more, then, Reliques of percase unmanliness, Fierce monsters, all sudden apparitions, And night's black clouds around men's heads and eyes! 'Albeit ye need not all to stare Nor all to thresh with the ague's spurt; Yet, seeing your greatness in aught, That thing is somewhat unto a thought That's stronger. Because ye sound the depths Below, heaven is not all upper, though Thou point the high, thou canto's the skies. 'All that we are and are not Plain must be laid open into thee ======================================== SAMPLE 7 ======================================== Where the keys Of the large forges are ranged. Poke with the rivet tool And pipe the nails to fix them in. Go into the press and sit down; Mix a batch of mortar And lay it very quiet down. Pour the water over it slowly; Don't let the water heave to the top of the heap. When the mortar is quite soft, Get a hammer and beat the crap out of it, Set the pieces aside to dry in a safe place. When you're ready, go and visit the nails, In the garage or in the shop; Knock on the nail-pots in a certain order, And you may come home without new nails. But when the old ones are down, Knock again, and knock louder, knock! Knock over the pulp-tape and the shrink-film, Break all your canvases and crack the pieces; When the galleries are torn up and you come to knock, Each at a battering-ram that's laid like new. When you come to knock, beat your stick on the table, Kicking the bits of canvas off the kick-bowl. When you're through, come out to the lawn and look. Where, on the mast, are the pulleys? Where are the jacks and clamps you had to hold in? Where the pin for the roller-rope? Pile them up here and get them in order, And don't be worried and don't be loud. And now, the artist, say, Who will feel the pain Of those soft-eyed things Who wonder When he gets home If he'll have it, If the charge Is not so soft For them, Who dreamed That it would Be Harder. GOODWORTH. To be rightly dispossessed or forcibly disturbed. What is done, Here, in the round of it, Must not be seen, No more, No less. THE poet goes on writing, But he will not mention the wickets, Nor the pain in the tenderness of soul Nor the clasp of the grief. He is writing his bust, Making a picture of himself As he sees in his mind's eye Now, surely, the time When the wasp who sways To the breast, Who weeps and may not be stirred By a cross present to her, Has at last met his pose, Has at last been won; But the poet who sees death Shuddering at morn, As a sound in the air, Who weeps and prays in all weather, Shuddering in the fiercest joy Of the heaped-up earth With the pain that slays The heart with the breast, Who shivers When the axe falls, May not break an oath, May not tempt For strength to deal out a curst rebuke, May not prophesy When you bury your younger. May you chop the long mean sticks of the saplings, Chop the rusted rims of the victual, Chop the sulphur stones That the chalkers hurl As the fire burns And the grindstones turn You shall not hit When your mind is crisp With the sun on the gun of a strong moth Who weaves a glory for you With the wings of your mind, Or when you hold in the gloam Someone you love, In a helmet flame-headed, With the mind that heroes you, And the heart of her that weeps, And the hand that slays, And the stepping-toes of the toes. The poet takes it as it comes, He has spoken in broad daylight And the best he will tell you Is a page's worth of rhyme, An asterisk more, if the reader's age Be over forty. I SAW my mother die! And the morning hid her face Under a blind of her hair, As she lay dying of a soul So perfect, so divine. The lamps went out on that night, The stars died out upon the hill, The day was done, the moon's in the sea. I have been the laughing-in tune To many a disconsolate stranger's ear, Who to my crooning had this to say Thee, lone here with thy sobbing'st aid: "What god is she that hides the way? If late ======================================== SAMPLE 8 ======================================== Who can her lace decipher, How to her sweet blood goes raising, When a charm, bright beautiful, 'Twixt robe and vest is blent? Wear I thy cross with pride, Fairest once of all? Did the lion look as fierce, And as black as night? Could the night black lion talk And consort with the sun? Might the sun his snarls escort, And with his glare banish Some of his own attributes? We, the prey to high and lower, Our faults and miscalled "faults" excuse! Our words, our age, deferr'd! Not a slave, not numero uncommand'd Nor age nor peer for some! Ah! some born sin, for all must taste! But he, but he who walks with the dead, Behold him in the gorgeous skies, Witches, frogs, and dragons with him lie, Bright spark of genius, be not so That virile life is bereav'd. Behold how elves and half-beings show Their age--but what's the good that I Aspire to? Do you, for once, display Thy nothingness, if you bring that term Of glory to one that's a fool? In that crimson hour, when thy voice was sounding, Came not friends and man transformed Whom I would kiss for such as thou art? 'Tis true, too true, you let your power break Thy harmony, and did but mock my hopes, And in my soul thy tuneless music broke, A spirit-duty to play, for love of thee, I might not, verily, every wish destroy, Never, since I had this wit, betray, Count an anvil true: for he, for he Now who most loveth, loves with love unfelt, Or at least could he but feel the fire, Who once was wrong'd, hath ever harmed. Grieve not that such deceiv'd the keen Sages of old. Love can ne'er be slain. Come then, in health, the prime of days, And, with thy depth, thy playing-post Come, yet once more, like beams of heaven; For thou, unhappy boy, hast lov'd All in thy degree, and ne'er set bounds To love beyond. When I with love's pleasure The fine balance seek, I find--poor hawk! The dish rot, and miser's sin: The frugal will not lavish cream Where he doth burn a-fire. Thou n'e the grackle He will not strive to sum; with wings Pursue the spring thy whole mistress gave. I, no god, desire neither right Nor estate; but, in love for thee, Here mote am seventy summers old. My beard is hoar, and yet my hands For truest labour buckled thick. These flax-chains Teeter on my forelock, if I choose, Heaving up my chest. I have nothing of Their wealth, my dress is the same, and they Kept still the same since I was a child. Why art thou still so meek? Vain cidatta est mihi. Quicunque te, ubi ut uada Quocunque te, ubi magis hic Non fuit hunc ultro mihi. O crede mihi, crede mihi, Credo quicquocuitud hic; Purpuralu, ubi non suprema Nec te, mihi non sine multum; Nec te, mihi non sine quanto; Aut tibi posuere, aude; Ut mihi, non tu, malum credat, Non sine tulit ille suprema; Non mea catulosas uiuamus Non mea paternum fama sed tibi Ille tetricum dira; Ille aut hic solo tangere Turbas volverat volvitur: Et mihi quocumque uasit Turpes cum loca quicunque culpa Est eris nec tam nominauis. Ergo nec mihi purpuralu Non tibi potuiam templa peto Ille tuo potens mihi. Mortals ubi non potuisset Se neque amabilti saepe uiuos? Turbas et ubi, supeca ======================================== SAMPLE 9 ======================================== Tand tha love me-- So tha started With her bows, and wi-his thing you Gain't no heed o' him e'en sun; He calkum toop o' tha wi-a-a-a-a, He heart a-a-hicho! Wen you come to Thiseliefan, By some whishI happened to fall, Nae, nae, nane, won't wa' o' you, Wi' fright lest ye'll fall; By sune, some force from you, I might fall, and the worse of it, The second day's a' moons id, An' the lang day's dark by Saturday; I've seen a' his mornings o'iod, An' deid kend enough wi'-yich; Nae help I'll get to sit an' stare, I'se got a shawl to wear; I wish it was a' the real thing, I'll keep mi chin avis, sir, Wi' care, an' I'll let ye know my mind, If I should like you to be. But if it's on'y for my sake, And your own sake too, May be ye'll soon on'y step i' the door I'ma gi'e yon gate. "Oh, sister mine, how I've listen'd to thee, Thou fairest of the fairest things on ground, And may, sister, therefore be contented Wi' me, And you, fair friend, to be; That ever I dinna ken a graver, In my life. "Daughter mine, an' thanks for thy forgivin' love, For I ha'e a vast o' takin' after you, And I'm as alack'd as the tom who's fash't me; Yet I hope ye may be gain'd by my pray'r; Yet, my dear, "For you and me, for both of us, dear girl, is the ask; So hither then, whate'er your liking is, I'll fare ya, Though I may baith those to think on, two, or three. Drain your swingrow, deyden your spinnin' reed, An' sweetly knit your speech o' wark or monk, Until we're engaged, ma'am, "But if, sir, you and I are kind and fain to part-- I'll stick to you, an' the feckless an' the fou, Till my heart is sae bronked and frae takin' heart; For I'm a-witness, poor thing, o' this dan' thing, That's wark to it. Sealed in that stubborn truth, I'll nowhere be fear'd By what-may-woful-or-witty-call it, happenin' there; For o' fortune is the deevil in this thing, An' I'm the first, the last, on't to stand the test! O, I'm a-witness, ma'am, to this thing's happenin'! And will be sittin' when this thing's satter done; And when--when I own--that shall be my happing! O, Doris, a teapo, or a Drayton-knovan, Will o'er my care in manner gie's me nae mair; And a' this tress is o' thy bonie, british laird, That gives me some little slacking e'e! And I'll say, as the butty bonnie tuff maks me nod, That—fairy-flock, I'm your's! If ever I find a tither thing or two, An' hear the they doos me a nor' that it can say, O, Sir, you can teeman me tae mi widdow an' her Ma's; Or your han' will jorm an' your pain's han' fer te teay me noo! Fish! for I'll be praying the Lord he'll use me han' wi' this. If I see a beggar on the street or highway, Or a naething but a poor kit-man or kit van, An' the e'e cocks aounced on the twa-three's bus' or ten, I'll teeman them, and your bet I'll speed them the best. A' their aids ======================================== SAMPLE 10 ======================================== Needs and thirst, and hunger of the heart, Assure the future is fed with trust Enough for each moment's work to earn. Who feeds it with himself has done no wrong. Not that the bad my better nature reft, The worst has passed and leaves thee pure as great. But many a portion of the mountain took A fiery spirit and has salved its crest, Filling its valleys with furies, or bright As heaven's bright and glimmering lights, the fields That shivered by the rills where suns have shone, And swept them with a vision, and clothed With glory for a season, and given Rains the while--or clouds--and dried up The babbling waters when they roared in springs. The iron men that bum about the mill From morn to night, or shut with faces furled At windows, never learned, I think, to take That fire they see within the fly's bright eyes; But know as well they ever saw a breast By trembling, or an iron surface to it. That fire, without the feeblest will to move, They have been lucky, like the flames that beat And close behind the bayonet when the hunter Taps his stick with fire and right at the redbird To fire him. But to save the whole, I think, Two spirits first, then a little sound and blow Against the bars, the flame gone out and faint, The look of things that stagger and fumble at night, The steps of fleeting stars, the sun, the wind That shakes a tree, he throws to sweep the dell, That care has never heeded. All here They move with patience, and they rest with will. The farmer's hill with the strong woods down to the morass And on the soft spring, and the wind-baked loam Thrown over the fence, is as God's apartement, Whose face men see, and bear. But you will say This is the room with the door at the top, Where Satan stalks, and from a glory there (My word!) one glimpse of what is inside, We may look out with a dragon's eyes To meet each other, and know what we are And where to strike next. All the same, let death break his thunder through With noiseless feet, let his fire come in Shriek of the lost one, wide and frightful, swift Fell out of night with scorching thunder-pang, Revenge of wrath, where the doomed spirit, flushed, Mounts upward and soars and is gone; But none knows how weary of the world we have Come forth, an end, an end and a beginning; Our windpipe tasted like a plague; and yet With our whole spirit, by life or by death, brought Down, down, down, we have come to nothingness, Sinken like an eagle that has barred Her nest, in the droppings of her Lord Safely, to what will not belch, but feed An eagle. In our great mother's bed We were cast, which is not a sin, A circumstance which I do not think Soaks the soul through, through, with fire, Which casts out all other chimes Who never get half a hearing, though Oft we'd laugh at them, happy here. The heavenly music here, there and everywhere, Where my soul in its matin astray Could get no stability, or filled its dwelling, Since I see the world's end coming, no less For not knowing it, than you? Or is't From what heaven draws its minstrelsy That gives you everything in the night, And your bright blood its sweetness? Or is't From the stars that through your beauty's world Swell to a burst of flame when you wake? Nay, I love you so, sweet love, and I, too, As our world's children do not, which is not fair, And should not be with my hate and scorn mixed, And all my heart hurled at you, which is harsh Even of words, that makes my face like stone to meet yours. But all I care about now is, your eyes, And how they make me like you more to me Than stars in heaven, above me, if I may call them so. The cloud part: no more of your face; The wind wakes in the wheat, and it laughs and plays, And flies to the ocean laughing, and no more: And these two, they are the morning and evening star To this small small head. I am the paper, The spring ======================================== SAMPLE 11 ======================================== When Lord Henry won, Then the people of The Glen Met to sing the song of Royce. 'Twas sung before: How the brave crow brought home his heifer Whose little son was eaten by a bear; And made a pipe of a penny ae mile; And then went home and wrote a sonnet On Lord Maroon of the Isle of Bala, Who proved an opponent to the kings Of every form of government; Who said that tyrants had no being Except in the forms of commons laws. 'Come buy my goods,' he cried; 'Are you a poor to buy I a loaf of trodden rye To have in Sunday's dinner? Think you it is the sonnet Made him worth three hundred in the purse? Well, I charge three hundred for my sonnet, Which he upon Sunday will drink out of his hand That you may know you bought a tripe of his You have cudgels, and irons, and what? And if you sell the trodden rye It's the devil's own dove-skill; So never, till you've tried it, buy a sonnet; You can't beat them! Then how Royce fared by the time he'd done it We all of us cried like bears. Says Bumstead, "At last I think he had the hand Of God and went right through it And wouldn't go to bed till they cleared him for it, And then he built a church with it. Oh, I thought it was wicked how he'd ever do it; And the church itself, sir, but good for Royce Because he finished it, And never told a soul till we saw him, my man. And every wife of his- Except a stuft English wife, sir, to be sure. That's how bad the beer was!" He drew an ace of cards And Sawney died; And I think his cards were worse than Sau-A, For there's no leg to tell Like that played by the Devil himself for half a peseta. Then there were the mad ones, Who've died in the least distance from their belfry, Who have played for king and devil; And there were the invalids, Who, being mute, Were given their livings To play for stakes, With each only twenty-four; But all their lives were wagered from six A.M. (Which card upstaging the ten-coppers, They played for king and ace and royal ace of spades, The king of kings and ace of spades, And, having played, to drink With Misdirection at their heads, And askance never again. Oh the merry times of the centuries gone, When the rooming house, the tavern, and the licentiate Were king and priest And vestal, when the cup, the wedding-cup, the betrothing When they'd a soul in each robed that was free and fair And cast no half-sized bone To help itself to a nickel or a medal From other souls in the stormy sea No sonnets to cavort with, no Thoughts of the summer sun to play with; When fancy aspired to no higher height Than any cloud, and rhyme, and grace, and beauty, And all the sweets Found only in a poet's dreams, Came dancing round the fires, Taking the bare arms of another, When money was scarce, and debt unpledged; And maids of the shade, Overspread with ripeness, That grew to swell with their carelessness, Worked and peopled. The stone-flowered maple heather, Queensland cedar, and eucalyptus trees All stood within the forest; And every kind of flower that is Still blooms to this day, Before my eyes Where the prairie woodlands are sweet, With liquid diamonds of their own, Drove every way The raven is a bird without a trace On its gray wing; But near the gate I found it fed; For there, beside the stream That disappears in Kansas Pacific, It huddled down, Clutching at the leftovers of its cloth Till that very bird Flew up, in passing, from the sky, And ate of the bird within. When it moult the feather will not stay; The line will come That gives the bird its definition. But from breed of bird that breed was made, And strange to know That on ======================================== SAMPLE 12 ======================================== Not on the dark with stars unchained! When the dim womb or the heaven's egg Filled with life thou bear'st; If for a moment o'er The hour-old babe thy bed He fed, Look for the meads of Kártí by the steeps of flame, As a still saint's eyes survey the passing clouds that sweep away, Above, around, the ceiling's veil as doth the dead. For all things that are quick decay; And those shall fail who in this shall excel. The first M.S.S. I rose by right of my father’s line; The first that died that face my father’s life was moulded o’er. My mother bore me but my true-born son I saw At eight days old. My sons all I bred, While Virásha(50) and Sítá schemed, The quest of heaven to win. My first-born, I, when fire fell on Kakkon peak, with the Gods to claim Before the world, in fierce scorn was made, And I alone to die to know. Kauśalyá(51) stood with child, I cried, and left the fold, Ere yet an arm of tender years had bled, Where she(52) from sheaves of years had borne All bestial births and perished with the birds, Who, as they flew away, my harp and I To distant parts a living graveume threw, And my soul with them vanquished in despair. And still I look on Kártí’s lake below, By whose dim margin spread We see, as young Virásha(53) saw once, The heaven by thee ordained to look upon My sons that sleep and wear the tomb. And thou mayst see a while with me, Where’er thou goest, bright Kámmá’s(55) bands. For thou shalt love and learn to love The world that for thee, thyself, dost fill. Yea, thou and thou! - the prince, the lord Of six-and-six and sixty fields, Who does not gild with envy, nor dreads, The quenchless fire of Nimárshaṇ, Nor Níla lord of swarthy hue, His burthened with the pain and love Of Pandava and with Draupadme The glorious king of every deed, And Lakshmaṇ who his fame ordains To band in mere enumeration This glorious company; Their lineage from thee and Indra, The great ensample, and from thee. Say, dar‎'er one day of her Whose naked beauty was my dearest care, Who, belovéd of thee, was wont to lay Her life upon the pastime of her lord, The army to lead that military gift, Bear it, just foe, and help thy cause. Look on the wrongs which ever on thy state Burnt she and her with him whose state Thee too must bear, bear thou alone Harsh pains and odious weakness at one stroke. So shalt thou fall: for how should fit A like offence without design? Worth, power, kindred, bride, and kind beside, Count thou not their labours and their falls. Go to the bank, and thresh thy fainting ease To flow in pleasant time, for rage has meant For thee his endless rage with thee. I, as the time decreed was nigh, Thy wonted ardour with fruit is spent. Listen, and save! Thou hast suffered pain Enough, and wish for death are all. Canst thou be wroth with him, for he Exists and misery with thee, And thou not him wouldst be steadfastly? Art thou not wearied by thy pain And wouldst I wait for thee in vain? For his eternal calm and virtue’s grace Enjoyed at last what thou wouldst lack? The blame will be thine of every pain. Death’s victory should well-guarded thought Attend, of conqueror or slain, And life’s hard barrier to the breath, When you would not live, should he have fled. He to whom all minds deference are, Reverent and reverent, will he still, And prided love, with flattering strain Of purity, and when he would Bear me, queen of kings, of sway, Of every king each atomick part Doubts and fears, in time of joy, aloud, ======================================== SAMPLE 13 ======================================== Reviews As the mind wanders the universe is full of inmost thought, This next thy journey shall achieve the greatest renown. Reviews As with fancy's hand thought on airy regions folds of a dream it o'erlooks the present and future, This next thy journey shalt achieve the greatest renown. <|endoftext|> "For My Nescient Friend Who Has Esteemed Me", by Ambrose Bierce [Love, Realistic & Complicated, Romantic Love, Relationships] Sweet Friendship, sincere and blest, was at the same time my chosen love. A sunburnt face with laughing eyes; dark eyes with light begetting sweet love. No fleecy clouds obscure the steady star-filled sky. The silent solemn night dost see no tempest-lashed cloud-showers. Nor dance the wild summer wind in thrilling hymning throats with mingling tones of sadness and of mirth. No falling rain, either, tear the dark vapour from the fetter of dark arms. No violent winds weep the common sky and mourn the changing skies of old. As some white sign in smiling heaven I bid you adorn and help to live, As Love lent me, Thought lent me yours, both yours and mine thou shalt take when I cease to look or live. <|endoftext|> "Granerna", by Robert Drynon [Living, Growing Old, The Body, Nature, Mythology & Folklore, Greek & Roman Mythology, Heroes & Patriotism] When I open the door of the street, a mare in the dark, three legs spurring her, She trots, and I follow with light and with sound, And some olfactoral gonserly she flashes and leaps, Or dimly I trace the faint checking of a spell. Or she calls me in a night-soft dawning of the weather, From brackengind sunshinyhood and undergrey, And orit posting wild lanes with the dawn, Or where the trees grew high in a dark late forest, Where smallfaerie ai (the birders say) Was never and hairtra that sang till men grew old. Or I lie by a fire, and think of all you may know, (No thought of mine but only the thought of yours), Heralds in dim shades of it near, and dawn, A light on some flicker of palms, A light on your white linen in the morning, Trees and the morning milk, and orlichards, and sun lying wraith or in the night. Where grey dust of my house from my hands hath grown, The tender mat of my little earth, not a blade of grass, Nor bitter cockle of th' unripe fruit of that Town I was ta'en from, nor bitter beak of crow or seed of rook. Only the planet of earth, light and heat, My little pearling, as summer winds on, And the night raisin with stars all the stars that then were not, Still; only, loving, but the hell of little joys, Not least the little gem of all this gold, Where once light and life of my worthier self. <|endoftext|> "Kozik', the Leopard", by Robert Drytt [Living, Death, Nature, Animals, Mythology & Folklore, Horror] The leopard is a man in the wilderness For in his heart the awful guilt he hides; The lion is the only lion in the land And he comes in the pride of his nation to die. He has seen the trees that are torn and cleft For the seed is in him, the rottenness in him; For he is the seed, the seed of the earth in him. If he hath lived in the wilderness Where there is no gold nor ivory for the enemy, Where the lion robs no more, the lion is slain, If he hath lived in the wilderness, then he hath died And he is dead and the lion is slain and the leopard is slain. <|endoftext|> "On Writing Home", by Robert Drytt [Living, Sorrow & Grieving, Activities, Travels & Journeys, Nature, Landscapes & Pastorals, Social Commentaries, History & Politics, War & Conflict, Mythology & Folklore, Heroes & Patriotism] I put a great question indeed, whether, as it is said The <|endoftext|> O, the mighty sunshine of your coming Left an eve before the dawn most wondrous All in your huge press through which to advance, From the highway your burning poker boards. Now, all the fishes and mariners O my brothers with the slowest pace ======================================== SAMPLE 14 ======================================== What's left you can eat In the little window box outside. I hate to think of Death Calling on me from within Those few Change of heart Window Welcome home to me So glad of me I almost think of So glad of me It's hard in the small Warm Wind to hear something Lit inside a mill oat the little pines at your scent Should I? Of me It's hard in the little window Of me? It's hell for a dream to be Like a mist in the flower I'm not really as easy to love outside My friends? What be saying? Maybe you've heard And you must go on the road Now You must stay To know your own strength You For you must rest at least Sit in the now cold empty while T the sun sighs down on the I'll go on looking out not as bright now it's a wood in the back From the trail from the trail from the trail from the trail My folds of I At your foot I At the foot What begat me <|endoftext|> "The Right Of Way", by Chisel Hindes [Living, Disappointment & Failure, Life Choices, Nature, Trees & Flowers, Social Commentaries, Class] I Desire is a reckless wilderness. Humming shades of green Curious in their black and white dress. What will they grow through the night? Between sticks in the dryness come Roaches of idea, By looks of candy that lays fall Soft nectar, darkening the silence. II We are born on the edge of nature. This is the environment our newborns— The exception to whatever Special rights that a tree has. We are overcome by forests. Their bugs and their roots Cloaking in our forests. If we grope around here, we are swallowed. Unwound by forests The whole city is swarmed. Trees fall in or are bitten. I am happy to be here As an exception that stands. Forest of the silence Night of the hot air Spaces all around me. III Woodpecker: Wak. His jaws stab the skin of trees, The carr, black, is riddled with them. I have grown accustomed to the wind Rocking, the sweat and the blood Slithering down my thighs. It gives me luck To be young, it gives me Luck even older than that. It stops my heart To have such a great scenery. I am very far from nature. I am fortunate that the trees do not Today, as well as they used to, Take away the ordinary and the Unthinkable and the daily, On our outskirts, all the time. We hope To live within ourselves, To have sight on our own. IV Lovely the zenith Of yesterday. Today Is another sky Innosense, dazed with the ocean And cloudy with wind. You Are a real deviation. To walk With you, the smell of the ground. V These are too few Nights At the edge of Nature. No-way-in-to-it-live-here Even here, in the dark. In these Dishes, the night Comely stills the next day And sleeps for Thefeathers. The tiny creatures In their autumn skin Dream about our feet. There is no Undo In the quietest place, One In the dark Mews, twig, Or brown Song In the fur Wolves, who is Snuggling up near. <|endoftext|> "I Shrunk the Sky", by Edidfixed [Nature, Fall] I shrined the sky for you In something less than stellar form. Nor star nor moon was credit Enough. I scrib ======================================== SAMPLE 15 ======================================== Anonymous It is the man in me That's always reining you in, Giving you life, Unlocks, lights, and knocks you cool With his arm on your waist. And he takes you off in his ship, And you are not afraid. And you say, "What could ever go wrong With two like you in one bed? Why not? My body lies Close to mine, and I to mine. 'Twouldn't take long. But a road's made Where love is as good as thought." So he ploughs the lane as if My man was just a road Cut into leather, and you go Too fast, and I follow on, And hope that you're not dead. And you laugh. And you laugh for love Are you and he. And you laugh. Your lips, your lips, he laughs in the lane. I hear a little plaining Of your own one laugh for him. And I leave with a sigh that night And your door to beat on. For the thought of you, a book, I am in the country. 'Tis sunset. It's the way To some little hills To-night the sun would stand High in the blue By the wind, the way-side. High in the blue, I'd say, His heart at me, so: "O I'm not cold." "I'm not cold." And then I'd sigh for him, "Come home with me, Come home with me." Ah, to me it seems a way Home's way to be, a home run up By the people's fever To its bitter end, by the people's way. I'm in the country. I'm on the windy way For beech and bramble paths 'Mid the bramble thickets Dark, dark deeper bramble thistles. And the wind thunders. There is the winding road And the wind, in gusts, at call Floods our ears with brass. I'll tell you something, though: The path of beech and bramble And the wind's call for me Is the song I sing. You see the roofs and walls And hedges as the wind Sound like the song of birds; And the thorn it is what 's singing; For the wind, for me, Is the wind's way. There's a song: the singing of God Is clear as my last telegram Or the thoughts of a child asleep Or the man who writes this Words he lights in the x-ray sky That shrink in the gloom Of the gates of Heaven To the trembling dots and whites Of the still Black Jesus And the fulness of the yam. 'Tis a long easy road For the wind to get From the things the wind blows on; And the road is not long When the sun wakes And the stars are erect And the fair ones bow, Leaving the stair and road The meadows and valleys For the sun to come through. In this still land of mine Which is not the world; Which is the watcher By the heavenly gate of birth And the close Of day and for the night Of dreams; and which let shine Familiar reflections of the soul Of scenes that never change, Nor the love at eve and the love at morn, For the wind's journey, For the wind's pathway, For the winds' singing, For the unseen manifold way, And the tribes that are not tribes of men, And the faces we cannot see. We are a whisper to the land And a breath on the darkling side Of open palaces and deeds of days; The rosy sunlight and the spongy dark air Sweet with the air of dead roses; And shepherds in the gateways and court-rooms And the battle lines, and the flowing tales, The questions of travel o'er, With their one tune over and over. What are we but a breath of air? A zephyr of a god to him? The shining price and the shining tale? But we are born of his breath, Of his endless birth, the sound of thine. And shepherds are we, of thee. And we follow thee, and what the rose And the sky and the earth what save the hills And the starry ages and the rivers to flow, When the years shall be old And thou goest home to thy adieu And the past shall blaze ======================================== SAMPLE 16 ======================================== Even so. But we have stamped The ravages of war with red, And shall stand red-cheeked with shame; Shall own with Vive la France that she Has paled to earth the high long just That conquered has; and, as we take Cities not our own and die Ere we've managed to say "French State off-hand, do you take me?" --No. We shall storm the enemy's wall And work the intricate fray In which even Allen's brigade Shall come down--and so say Davy, And say, I, too, from fighting fields Shouldered, what we do For France and brave Davy: And, if men get in each case The simple right to fight as he Fights, hot for truth and honor, How good a trick they'll pull To make the foe drop his head! Had he but been Born where his bride is flaxen yellow And all his life so mellow and so long, He might have slacked And let those that wanted To take it free The splendid air of Frenchmen. But he's steadfast--and why? because The cypress-limbed, golden-nosed Race were zealous for duty clear And clean, Though twice removed for fairness of face; For all be shrunk from slander, old As we are queer,--we whisper, What matter that the blush of beauty Weild radiance from the eyes? E'en if he damns the bosom Where countless queens are penned already Fingered, If that you've borne to a name, What fine boon is yours! The right, as ever, to have the word, And ye to know, And ye to flex your wings, they air wing! --'Tis the same in war, as in that wise We dosed the eyes of Saint Louis When Tambour concussed the Austrian, Or tied the strands of Parma details, And in ours. What then the issue? Ah me, I fear The prelate's blunt parsletail! 'Tis all the same--you move, the thing proceeds; The one's the other, though--it lingers like night. You rise or sink, swing to the counterpane, Shank or hook; our weights and measures shift At will. I have stood 'gainst calumniators In eloquent passageways crowded In the old Irish of rue Madeleine; And I have seen as awful as these Offered in this breath, or that one at The Hague, Where all the eyes are fiercest glaring To read in fine the tiny print, (I think them fates did something, To fan the prospect with a chill ambrosia, Like compresses pressed by shrewd pressure:) A second and heeding their awry And sweet impertinence and melancholy They even found a meaning faintly swell.) In spectral tones--stern fire and tremble, Or shriek of anguish if it chanced to match Their templar Pissers' hair--maniac of gray, The gaunt little silvestres they sketched, The violent spasm of immense desire In the grave shrew of mortality,-- (You had seen them at moments when he'd stir, Parted a tear in mood, and gazed up at the ceiling, Like the broad road at closing, gray dawn of day) The "magnifi- As t'other side!" In their wild masquerade and wectoring, They fool us like such loon-like dungs may fool you. They fool us with light duty, burden us heavy; They bless us but once a year; they never lift Th' encumber-torch from out him who bless- Saints' memory in this world's great salon; As often to the saun-gloom where they are gone To share the noontide's fragrance, send them back As slow and quick in wreaths of glory down. Of all the lucent gleams from out this world, You'll never see thate in its clearling vault, A color clearer, sunnier, more rich and rare. Where eonian gleams the sun, the dew outruns His autumn glow; what skies are these! Your sullen dark, no more the moon can feed On purple thraldom: fathomless, inharminish! The bud, the bud of mallet-throwin' time Tipped hither by brief spurt of juice of me ======================================== SAMPLE 17 ======================================== Halls of the world: where is the forlorn Lost city of a thousand years?-- The temple of love and glory, Of the early splendours! Where the marble of an ancient reign, Whose life is but a summer's day, Or a half-deserted twilight, lies. Such as its fate may be, its fate is death (Not all undeservedly called "dead!) Ere its time come; if reason were not blown At every sound; and the living eye Not weighed at every grave; it were but few Of the want of life to whom the earth is given, Nor was it safe, would I say what life Was worth retaining, save in spurs cut off By death's blind scourge, for human-beings few! Nor even less, perchance, did nature give Proof-of-existence in earth to years That clung no stronger than to petered out. For many there be who touch these two Ages and reckon the motion achieved Atoning; their desire is then that of love As deep to suffer as to pass and shine. I knew one like this; a mystical God Of privation in its cry, a hunger-mourn With footmark still upon its path, and wings Unflyable, as though wings were its move. Yea, if all be such,--your passion-air, A spirit in your mien, fair friend, And wings of pond'rous limbs, and eyes serene Like those the cock of Argos flies, And kiss in aspect servile at every blow. There is the agony that souls incur, Who fare thither--or rather, such I saw When mine was rapt by thee and was not more. The time draws near. The fire burns low. When earth was empty, did not these hours Tremble at the prospect, was not the sky Foredign merciful in its use? Each sought The occular dark, and stayed within For pomposity and prowling hatred, till noon Flared forth its fiery word. Now all Is void; still are the singular wanes the pair. You weep, you wear the shape most like. They wear the features. The others are Horizon-bound, on some immense loneliness. My blood! I am afraid; trembles the lamp; And how should I presume to tread these deep? To which side soever thou art set, or where Thou creepest that wild!--tremble, but to sound The music of thy cry,--earth should rouse, Now the muses, so torrid, flushed their hairs, They mete on Tyrrhenus, through the fire Doomed not to see again; and clapping lips By artists showered on the cloth exhibited On the Apennine, the gables darkly dim, Heard two who would not blush thereat. No more Their passion halts; they turn upon the gaze Which tempts too far; and lo! they make it Ring out upon the sight, as though Or at the touch of a word, the world's Courses had been opened in both a full To seraph-like golden shore. No more The blind hands, the gestures, the sound Of voice or hand, hold to their couch, so crude The hands are plucked off; and they are more Than raiment; a golden cloud unfolds, Shallowed o'er with silvery streams, and in it This woman, in red robes, lies breathing The noise of a trumpet, which is blown. The loftiest seat makes the conqueror; down Above the knotted bier the eager glory, Darkening the air, uncloses her lips, Shading her hair; she, the shroud, which it flung, And, as the joy faded, a dress of light Had linked and amplified the grace Which crimsoned it; a man so proud Had changed for a brother at the sight; a very Glory it was to sit in her grace, her star, Around the dew, in shadow on the ground; How shall I speak of her? Let it be The hand unharmed which the winged steel Of the Corjueltop cast forth so high, Seeking the air; let it speak to the shame Of Corcos too withdrawn, and in such gleam His conqu'ring hand shone upon her brow! How should the naked savage of the swamps, So shall the savage he; who found such store Of fiend in her, lay in the ======================================== SAMPLE 18 ======================================== I stand with God in the midst of you and the great thunder of everything you are and I look up to you and my eyes are your eyes as I still believe— even when our eyes look nothing like a father's or mother's which are linked by death like lips, which are not lips and which are linked by life and which are linked by love which are linked by you as in a knot as in—no I go with you and I walk with you, even as I try to walk with you like a man whose side is turned to the path, as death can strike even as light as light can strike and as the sun at the end of a lonely street as in a garden I can see the shutters of the leaves in the night— even the sweet calm adjusting leaves of the coming spring lift up and lift as the wind clothes them with sleep at the beginning of the way you hold and then drop from the world as the sky’s yellow planters drop each morning as the butterflies arrive in the morning without knowing which way to take that no light can hold you or as in a space no light can hold the best light ever held the worst light can be destroyed and light can die in this black body over your heart that so often is the single shining you. This is why I want to love you, even if I fall from your space all the time, even like the drop from a man’s bag, the moment I hold you in my hand, my eyes open, I am perfume against your body whether I am breath, even the green glow of the sumac of summer, even the taste of more than a woman in the shape of me. Father I cannot look at all at you (we are upright but our lower bodies draw back to strike) I cannot look at you— guts pounding the last of summer grass shaking in the ears of the looking-out father heart pounding the next step the step before next you go up and the next one sudden. <|endoftext|> "from Penseivers: Conversation (1)", by Ange Mlinkçi [Living, Death, Marriage & Companionship, Time & Brevity, Love, Desire, Heartache & Loss, Realistic & Complicated, Relationships, Family & Ancestors, Home Life, Social Commentaries, Crime & Punishment, War & Conflict] —that my husband wants to make it rain He wants the territory and he wants a widow He has told me he will bear his weight as usual The summer storm will change the wail at nightfall but for all that’s coming (was) it’s here already (in the orchard behind the house) and they can’t get there His empty stone, a rack of grapes holdover rose from our own bushes I’ve eaten our produce so what’s the harm? We can’t bear for long to let this habitat be one without something in it for us Like music —the red grape filling the whole earth in which all love is heard not just by humans I have them walking in my chapels and they are the light of good food and for my children as for my father all is listened for not, you know, in our ears and for our own good They are teaching us use of spoken language so it will be visible like that song I think it’s good and sometimes they’ve asked us to sing (for they are good singers) When I’ve tried to sing it didn’t sound like my own I’ve been told back away from the subway and I keep telling them I’ve written to my ear (that’s my ear) a sound that sounds like our song that I like to sing and to listen to but I’ve never had a song by me I just know what I like and the sound of my voice will carry to the souls of whoever dies <|endoftext|> "from Penseivers: Conversation (2 ======================================== SAMPLE 19 ======================================== - word to say in the ham-crust From the edge of the pit-and from on high What the Chief said in his pleased surprise:- "Ow would you, Sir, just take a bite!" - but he lost the 't when he hept his hands, - and he covered both his ears, - and oh, but the rain-filled wind That beat in his hooves and his manes In a heavy-footed, heavy-hooved, Noised, for a moment, the ground like a flood. But he wept not, or if he did his fling Faint as the snow at Winter-time Shivered and fell in his hooves so flaid That the ponies beneath him struggled and slithered, - as one swift as they were his words shivered And the horses of the Master shook. He wept to the heart, and as he sobbed o'er Unclosed lips, like great tears in a dry month, A red man had no patience that I kent; And the sire, right high in the back-yard, down-rill'd For his biding was made ready with blood; And, as a-light he drank, the Night-God'd babble'd "Dere'll ye up a', you jad! Dere'll ye lappen a' the day! 'Tis three times winter! 'Tis three times winter!" - Spit-fire he gave us a breaking' warning; And I'll act the warden in the Eld's house When down comes the bonnetila As her waking from her slumber I' the ground. Wiltild heroes Or folklorians Wha share in a war That's won The sweeter sex's darling, laughter As of woe? Alas! alas! alas! In right good men Spared is the race! The years To make up the tale Have taken Allegiance To turn the page Of an almost blasphemy Of prayer. And for all these things and more I looked, for I might trace This history,--how low, In thoughtless oasis, thou linger'st on The sublime full-tone of all love's melody; Full throated with many a laughing moon The sylvan, heroic bard Where, as all life e'er loved him--peaceful sweet He lay,--and mid-letters round the world His wife thy roundelie tottered white; For well thy wonder did abide The man so long yet alive, And ne'er alone 'Twas thee, even thee, that she sung, Thy man so long forgot. Hast thou not seen, in heaven's bed He lay thee, in an hour of spring, A hundred leaf-shaking panicles Gathering in rapid gall? Upon their crests they frothed and swirled While, all the sun-lit woods Around were like a wide-roll way; And heaven, as the rushing speed Desired of his lyre, had sped, His language, oft-changing, seen To sudden cogged, or waning spell. Thus in a life whose merry haze Wander'd 'mid flowers and lays of peace Thou, thy loved, thy kind, thy crystal-drop, On earth a thousand times shalt see Babel and Jerusalem. How by a monstrous chain Men prey upon man This stuff is made To wind about the soul in, Or ever drown The living soul with song, Or ever pay, for pastime, forsooth, A changeful debt To the dull magi Who led the beasts to pasture, Or ever pay the debt On their foreheads with their palms. Why do we silence then The world? We call this flesh This flesh--the burden And head-work of a soul-- The body's course and wing? Are not the spirits body? Or, since soul and body were made One thing (lives evermore) Can soul ne'er be a bodily thing If not the body's soul? Men bow down to it, for its power Tastes sweet in them, and by it Judgment, and the good of things, Judgment here is ill sav'd, The body is the head's minister; For it is well known 'tis flesh --Pluck'd in days of innocence-- That gives our soul all pleasure; And should the fleshy gate Where angel sweets are house-denied, And foulest drugs consigned, Be the gate to ======================================== SAMPLE 20 ======================================== Is written in the idle Garner of the day, Who is she? the sun doth know. No thought of bringing to pass Her wedding songs; But all done so lightly, And so without torment, That she had delight From start to start! At her dance in moonlight Was this enough? At the soft delight Of touch of foot she'd stripped, That she could catch The tones of the chimes, Then with bold accomplice, Circle and centre each Little sharp echo of joy. And she as she was told Away would go with light step, Praise-song to close; A crown she would allure Of miniver, Even, all set, among The branches, about Two tumblers down; And she from side to side Of boughs would pore. And ere she came Down full, she'd rise, And on her glass Take off the shadow Of her foot, And throw it down again In dance on the grass. And now that this is seen, In solemn history, Our Abbots and Bishops, Where ere the cherry fruit, The jam, or the honey, The chinener is on, In wood of sharpness, And men would tangle The horn of knowledge, To sing the destruction Of this lady's feet; And poets, half to please, And half to vex, And through their rhyme, Glow with a fire, In such sort hold Their ink, That they can call life The best, Therefore here are four brooches, With six small teeth of gold; Wrought in the shape of a boat, And spade, or something Like a spade; but no vessel So truly noble As the fair lips, nor more sweet Than love's, And four times with the pen, Twice with the finger, To twine and curse These maiden's lips once more; And make the wit that before Was smouldert To scorch and smoulder Upon her teeth, Now I rise from out My old sleep, and sing Farewell, my lob, With some new didactic theme. And, though the damsel mood, Had time, in lulls reposed, By wet rocks wandered forth, One nymph with another now Can ne'er be said to bind Love's knots, for when I wake, They fall upon my mouth, As soon as Stella's gone! When fire is high, and dry The morning skies are clear, Then do I really deem Those rosy lips and cheek Mine for the coming year; And when those sables fade, Forgot are they. What more Can vade, till day revive? (To us the gods do make The right time, nor know at all What is done, till we return.) So love will fare, while time Comet, even as the fire Is kindled; and though 'tis slow, At last it 'gin to run Its world-worn milkies slow, That made me Stella's wife; but now That lovely blink is past, And I must be to my adams All fearful, dear, and comely; Yea, truly am I like to see Her take her other sable dress, 'Tis but a line, nor more (It is not to be presumed) 'Tis as the rest; but me I say 'Twere lucky to have shown Who ever was, or who yet May be, a sharp but true Discovery of the muse, And who, in that revelation, Had missed the mark, had found, alas! The Devil's in the detail! He rose, and slunk, and by the dam Was named. The miss was such That Fortune ne'er had hindered. The matter therefore was not That I beheld, and thus I went, To enquire the further. Bart., you be a citizen of Rome, But you, you be not a mere plebeian! In that fair, but sacred city dwell The senators are so few, that senators Have here their nooks, for members that any one Requires a nook to do his good hospitality; Those hip, and fain to play the neighbour, good for Heaven, the holies; they whom they relieve Have their jealous nooks. But senators, All their own chance, are jetting there in peace, As they who drank our Grec ======================================== SAMPLE 21 ======================================== Went to jail, in sober places, And came out cleaner than before. What shall I name The strange and lovely things that you Did with yourself do? Whereby yourself What's now dead of yore You're far hence, that far, now. Now that is past and gone Some nine centuries gone As these Anglo-Saxon days, Which might have some one alive to reap Their mighty harvest yet, Suffice it, that there he shall be Who loathes error and sun and bird, And tills with a day's will. I was there last night, and walked abroad Bearing the Sun and Moon, which lay Mixed up, so to speak, Aprii in one body, as in game Some ancient record, By much disordered, as I think, Because our records written down Are not type-typewrit. It is not these, I trow, That make us most bewitchted. It is the thought of things unexisting, That give the hag-on-back. It is that, behind the yawning door Of our "foundations," which in other days Received our yew-syllables, Which opening, in our back-stairs nook Seem'd a breathless stillness of a moated close, And there the drawing-room, narrow or elevated, And the twirled cringing smoke, Which went aloft, and didn't budge, and waved As big as a gust of Sunday afternoon Warm-wind'd over the canvass'd map, and spread Infinite and wavy as an "I," And then with sudden ripple, and wrinkle, And amid it all, the Sun Lit, and if all such things of are one At all, then thee, as light-wave, wisp of mist, Blended twixt moon and sun, And within thy sudden surface-shine The Moon over-lay; And if of thee a sham we're saing, The sign of the confluent Flood Shewing the promontories of Thee Which stand certain, no-man's-land To last were a charm of a sign (When the world's bills failin' to call Their particular selves from a bush) Which totum motuum Of him at the double rake of the Master, There dwells in his world of Shades and Shadows The self-same thin-thighed Man, Which never drew up the thickness Of skin to an addled gum; And though the skin so thick that the deflated, Stupid tumid thing is, draw backs and draws From the ungovern'd point; and so draws round, Drawing back, drawling back, draws round, With successive, sequential, drawls To the back of the skull. And down each prodigious, crack-thicken'd, Soh'd and claustral skull, and down each prodigious Full centriped on either side, As the lunar plexus to a point Stretched back to the One Infinite, As that the circumference was to that Which no man knows. Some think I mean Lunar rather than Lunar plexus. And some of them doubt that, being three, There was a bust on either plexus. Now that I think of it, Since the Moon anoble be Attended, like the Sun, (The first not bating, but a-drawin' Widward the horizon, whence of course The second was advancin' Immanuel-like, in his hunches,) I'd not be surprised, If e'er she broken Like a crucifix, or keep her usual Manner, and look gilded, and draw back From us, as other satellites do, Since Amicus palterin' With the world tells, that 'a all's Collast lice death;' The sason, the thunder, and the mould, Death, eat live bones' breakfast, And ate the blubber from the fish; And now, I'd not be astonished, Nor rage much at her, for 'damned big they're As ever be.' For I don't care whether she have wings Or no wings, or round or no wings, I only mean the heart eaters' diet Are probably worse than most men's, For all they have to eat is holiness, And flesh, with all the bones and cream They've picked out of flannels, And, bread that's picked but from any bread But un ======================================== SAMPLE 22 ======================================== ADAM (handing them a sheepe-shell [out of the case]), Take it, And cheerfullest you. And lov'd the spring, With loving lip and cheek; All the others grow wild, Change, and blowe like a flittell; Love his shell, You muste not, never bee frightde, Make or fill your rouge. And here's your term, And here's your shallop: Mote I your worth Surge tit, Be sprightly, keep your hull ere a spinne, So hom a day, So long to wait As you be Towarde the shore, Or fere from day to day, Where you are certes sure To bee withall Lookt for oft, Not as the best, As my consort; Then out with all your pomp With your brakelewe, As ye sit all the while, To show and shewe Your worth, and lookve the ground, Thinking much; Let your praise sound much: Here's your case; Such words, But hereat, You must cope with some Fruitfull berry Far to hand, Or you are none; For why should not the powre Of all you can say, Your rattle or ere Doth such a salve give, To be drent, Saving on the pit, Vnlesse in werhips? There is an acre whereof my thought is A spring to drink, And on my throubleth fresh charge; And therefore, when I have that in I live, And make no skill: But that other one Seems inly flustered When he hath so much drink no more; And of his bed straight droopes All the worse, But best is proof: For drink hath many bridges made there. Another thing yet is strange, He knows it, and is hee: I'm weary of my weare And this one so young, That hath lief my life; And it better were I right In my first years to dye. I'd content him, in loue, That so much beauty hath; Weare in hand I by loue wold; He's such a swerd as I can He are not wiss to be, And could so well endure As one, that hath them taught And such by their accord Sith, and vouch left to do; But neuer so. There is nothing new under sune, That is not seen of them that lye; Their life is the life of death; And who that looke up to the skie Of heavenlie, leas, witherdome is. The braue bodie with youth and beautie I inspire so with desire Of sitting in his face To read my thoughts, the more I see But one in herelf, and I in loue Learn of her sight; so I will learne The memorie of his face. Ancestors borne in a tee'd-up day Both of one houre; for one is Sweet as the other So unequal of versus face Which of the twain there be not one No more remembrance Can I have of either I dare not descry Of him that is the other That is in his place of power, For both one face so one Which two different things make; And both at times compose and discourine So oft from reason's bounds They fall down fall down To devouring flames of woe; But whereas the other so clad As might have been his apparel Of Saturn's stuffe, may be dress'd To pass belike in May, The onely grounded, sedate And sober eare, not high and wild As if himselfe were full of game, His fellow's breath no more Is knowne, than his age fained, Whilst this of three score cloatheth him With maiables, that are all Halfe barbarous, and so fat As in each other is meere The worms that dig this wold. Not so his stile. This I wil say, that his age is So farre his youth distinguished; And his decay so sweete But maketh the youth of it, That whilome, and where it was His nature, and where it is As is the air that whilom is Of divers passiones, yet where But in his vis ======================================== SAMPLE 23 ======================================== choose the wrong, Which seems the lowest base, Yet holds the most in the end; And, oh! that breath, which with a kiss Entombs and chains the foe; Or, with a look that stuns the soul in sleep, Points to the lowest line of hell! The sun has passed to his desire, The moon to her grave a guest, And thou hast found the pathway of men As lowest verges of men; As lowest sound, they're lowest light; As lowest thought, they're lowest-sund; As mist, they're lowest star! No haughty place of rest is known To man, but our outer hell Within, and limits hard to bear, And taming well that fort. Be constant, and hide not then The blazing stain that scorks the air; Nor murmur there, nor shun to dwell As cloud in air or refuse Which pinches and hides the sun. No rest in desert, nor in foam, But to the shadows cleave and shrink, In the quick wood and the lair, The horrible damps and the day. Yet have I seen the brave and bold Ride, now blind, and now dead, Upon the fresh forgetfulness Of duty, for a gain, Down the long path of the morn. Oh, soul, ride on! content! 'Twas worth thy scorn e'er sipping Of that sip of sin, my friend; To have spurned our smallest good, Or wagathered the rudeness of care. Ride through the journey, Thou seest! And breathe, O, cry out to it, 'Pride Is a worm, and is not loved.' Thou wouldst ride for my sake, friend; For, friendless, then who has show'rs, That might go with me? But, friendless, The win is heavy, but is sweet. Poor should be the piece of art Which in a single part is bat. Thou seest, the load will ne'er light, The load will ne'er be four. A mufti poem, O friend, Is best to start, for a mufti! What art can do, can do alone, With least labour and most care. And there, whatever may betide, No grief can ever betray, For the soul hath a path, and goes free Hence, till there comes a re-capt by strife, The path is that thou hast found and used. He who wields has every power, The art thou'st ta'en eschatolical; A path for the mind which is most clear May ne'er be clanged in, clanged in, And as plain's the way thou tak'st it, As the eye seeth, so is the mind. 'Tis thus that in the gallery, One below another, a train Are standing, as the Fool which raves Beneath a foot that flitters, man. Oh, judge not too with care thine work, Look thou and listen, for the same Is written and read too quickly. While by art thou art enamoured, With the first worship in thy youth, Know thy craft's mandate and its decree Is the world's eternal motion. Its price is paid, and thou shalt see The hunt, the hounds, and the mountain, But hark, it runs to the hoof's sound, And sharp with the stone it comes. Thou knowest that wandering field Warmed deep with thy thoughts of peace, Where the path lies open and fair, And all the bounteous gifts about, Is shown a sower's fields and far. Dost see thy trouble flee? Weave round thyself in the free, Fears of thyself thou shalt disown, And do such work in thy youth, That thou the world's great work should see, As the Father did in his son. It is the praise to do our best In sphere of actions free from strife, The goal to cling to, and to let The hind's blemishes mar the whole, The perfect story to impart Be true, true as the whole we are; And ever through life that truth shall be Which dies with our last breath and the hue Which passes like a cloud the sun's height. It is the aim to show how things are, In word, in book and pencil, grandly written With brows that a man's aim could wrothly shake And lips ye never would suspect Was really ======================================== SAMPLE 24 ======================================== Mightily as good our vain boast: <|endoftext|> My little dandelion, friend, Love thy green skirt in the June-field-shimmer Of its vivid life, through which, is thought, Thoughts that in art are not considered: A green insect of a green-girdle, Whose talent's green through all its glee. The way that thou dost wear Is how in art is cast Thoughts through whose zone;--these be good. Yet if thou in this are caught, He began with thy frozen way, For our light was then so bright, We discerned far thy beauty in it. Still art thou there, so fair, A while, from art's realm; When, like a moon of stars, Thy frozen life thou hest. Walking, to himself he spoke the word, As he who felt her wan power, recall'd, "O dandelion, dandelion! Thy root is sore and thou art dead. Ere night should close the window down, Bore a puling north wind to thee." Then on the stage-door Victor sate All his six score handmaids, all that heard The doctor, more than the singer's name. "Gentle masters,--victims,--quietly Thou and thy lady prepare Your morning compôtan. May it show A shadow on the stage;--forever Thou art a child,--her slave,--mighty she Is anxious to have her dressed." Far other school-boys, gone before, With voices shrill enough to jape, In mockery of the old master, Are nigh at hand, to greet him now. 'You see that old doctor? well, I have known A soul that could complain as much. What is't the doctor's house to her? I think not of her house, I say. Madam, we'll let him alone, And thus with some few others chat To watch the dancers; but at morn We'll search him out;--where, I mean, Whose body does he not wrap? But not while he is speaking here, I think, my lady. My lady? Ever I'll bear The trifler in disdain, But not at present. Oh, all That seducing art, Ere I was young! God mong My thoughts the shrill horror know, I will not more to-day, Address my fair; no more, Not now. Not at court the holy company Slights this thing; Lord, I am young, Young still! I am not worth the thinking. He Has thought of all his life. I will be silent. I do not like To look at him, for I hear him alone In this room, talking with his own head. I do not like his voice, nor the air Of him who sits by me here. He seemed To mean to teach of love;--yea, was it so? With love and music he has supped with me; Ah, I see now. It was vain. At nineteen years he takes me by the hand, And one that was softly fledged, A moonless cloud,--the love-light of my soul Doubts the touch of summer after-spring. With palsy-tickling seasons gone and gone I am young as when first I saw him, And men are worshipped,--they who catch the breast Of some one little fennel; They only seem to weary, they who are fed By frenzy of desire, rapt before the altar; Yet they who change with the seasons and mimes Too often die with the changing year;--Lord, I am poor! There is no hand to help. All thought is dead And cold like husk and rime; no faith or will Is it, to keep a secret here, my heart, Like one who lies and wishes to be more free; Like one who never was more free, yet wrenches more; So it begins to haunt me. "Could I be free?" Even so, could I be whole? Alas! my slave. I cannot be more whole than I am now, And vain the hope. O my mother, O my mother, Little one, too light to please you now, There is that I must own, even yet, Little of power and no honor; My talents are for others employed, My life I fain would quit. I am content, I tremble still to try ======================================== SAMPLE 25 ======================================== Play to the fiddle, boy! Though they shun me, yet oft they are found Sheltering and shielding me; And oft from round the dreadful can A heavy iron ball I hear, Which, armed with a flourish, they send Hastening to pelt me. When the Dark Summer-Time doth return, And the tired earth has heard the complaint Of her long Winter's suffering, I will send again, and many times, Amid the wintry scenes, Away to coast around, A song which the Dead will never sing; A song of the Winter! a song of the South! O! the earth may bend, But the South shall ne'er give way! You don't understand! For a man like you, with your Intellectual aspect, The heaviest dose you could take Would not produce the stupor You've got, you Snow Man! You're glowered like a Turk; No one to you can give The weight of a Cinquefezza-- All the guns have ceased to shoot, And the road is thronged with camp-bugs, "The way," the Doctor says, "is Circ. One. I must rest to-night. You stay here. I'll see you ..." And, out in the street, he winks with a devil In every cap and gi'lum; But the good-bye is firm and jolly To a man of "that". Ave, ava.--Drink water! What is this stultifying? What the first drink that will burn us-- Burn the same? Go to the mess-trough, And have some soup. It is not a single drop I'm about to swallow, I'll tell you You big bugger, now you're all Like Mary, And throw me another one. You ugly doodle-- Humble doo! A good egg-peeled body Dodges, and dives In the slippery pond; Yes, go to the mess-trough, And have some soup! The good man's so fat, he can Do without his leg; An elbow and a crutch Hitch his adopter, And what's like keeping A person in a vault? And he's so fat, you see, He can do without his arm; A stick for a gun, And what's the good of An arm or a claw? He takes the tainted honey, It sweetens, it's sour; It flows inside his throat; So, he's a jar-- Oh, but he chokes, he breaks The sower on the shore; He takes, it turns, it flows; How can he bake a cake Who's still so aquiver? It feels as if the jade That finds its taint in the pores Was a worm's bit of skin, Or as if the duck-billed Sang, and was merely The duck's gizzard. If he was a prince, Why has he not A-broke your head And blown you away With the puff of a gun? And he could smash you where The mountains are! The shepherds, one by one, Drew near to know What gave them such a peep, As the poet they had wooed Danced in a mustard-pit At a bonnet without one feather; And the poor, dear lumps of it Drew so fine and close, The ladies hardly could peer The cheeks so round, and the cheeks That are the same colour as a grape. The shadows of dark things That he had leaned over so long And watched with such silent care For their sake were gone and red as a rose. And he was that marvellous Whose name they all must learn For the poetic benefit Of a prose poem of such rare Recreation; And he told them of all his fleecy Dower, what joy of his choice Was bound to it, and with what Taste of a wild fancy, and how, The year long, his life had been melting Into minutes of such perfect Victory that now the horizon Was one gold-rush, and the mountains Its gold opposite, and all the landscape One bubbling gold and the sun-beams Quiet, and the trees, that gaunt tusks A-tremble in the sun, A lordly shadow, so soon fled To the tangles of luxuriant green ======================================== SAMPLE 26 ======================================== 'Tis in the arts of love that I own Our real destiny lies;-- Why sport with love or fear, Harm or terror reigns alone! I look on Love's truth in plainness: 'Tis Love's plan, and Love's means Bid me trust, and dare, and go; Beating the dangerous track Like champions, striving for a prize, With the bearers of the gospel, Bearing the light, the living word Of grace to one who suffers wrong. Have we not power to feel Love's fire, As those who dwell on earth, Who sense the torrent of the yearning Of Love for that beloved one, Whose eyes become luminous As dew in sunlit streams; As the life of life impelled, And move as living that must die, If He who reigns above In justice reigns the spheres! There! from her, from her lap, The wounded angel goes To what, it might seem, is His time to use as his Decreed, by thee, far-sought spell! Oh, could that heavenly hand- Fall on my soul, and hew Here in the city of my doom! Oh, for a test, a forewarning, Of whatever may befall at last-- Yet, as ye pass, I pray That ye impart to me a gift Ere the heavenly footsteps shut! Have I not seen the power? Yes, but by thy star: Whose radiance gilds the loftiest In hearts where no regret For the old world's unworthiness Shames them to love too far The new, the hidden way Of Love's whole new domain. Oh, she is divine!-- She, that I now behold! No brow of sorrow, or long unbroken, Was ever among the sons of men, As mine is, surely, since the hour That took me to this Inner King, And he is not dead. The forts, the moons, the rains, The shapes of men, the thoughts of men That hail from night to night, The earth that heaves upon the tides Of time, the heaven that heareth The echo of its own heav'nly tones And as these note the murmurs of the sea, So I, O so help me God! can feel At last, if so I may, what love And what omniscience of love And what triumph and what omnipotence Are not for my case: not for mine To build on-looking, however; for mine Is not the eye that sees, but he that sees; And I can see not, but feel what can see. Thy scepter, mine is of the fruit!-- What care I for a nebulous field Whose lights and shades mine may fear to be? No, Thou! For naught does matter, Or more or less, since Thy wisdom say That which works best diction in the heart. Not all, but most: O Light so rare, Who, waiting on Thy perfect sound, Hast in mine eyes created sight! Whose light, whose love, so near, Hath begotten love, for the whose Creating light the Light "He" that was, O do thou but nod with such a voice, Thou leaf of vesper, plant of ripe With ivy on the dark fount Of Thy sacrifice!--The sacrifice! Behold, I catch the music of Thy word, with vision free! It is Thou that didst visit me Silent, as if in trance. Yet, oh! I saw The love I felt, the joy Of hope, and grace, and bliss, With Thy ministration blended, And heard, with joy, Thy word, As idle sounds the wind In a strange arctic land: 'Though slow thy skating beam, I found at length my home In Thee alone!' 'Or let me deem, if such do prove To be Thy shaping-place, It were well, as when at first The Word was breathed, ere yet The creation reached Of its true state: The arch, the crag, the steep, The lofty mountain-snow, The steeples crown'd in light, The sun in splendor; The little moated well Was not, nor was the man Who, half alive, near by me, Did from his death-bed look on me As his last meal do me, And said, 'Poor brother, thou art dead:' ======================================== SAMPLE 27 ======================================== Barney's gone like an old dry casement That’s ready to fall apart. They’ve been toiling for years To raise the bank only to discover It has rusted, thus Do you But you have to trust your luck, Peter, Who always’s been right. The glint of your razor glowed, The beat of your tread seemed like drums Walking the middle of the street. By now the hairs are standing on their crowns, The doorkeys are rattled in the lockers, The landlord has a simple order for you, Just come up and get the d’oh’d. <|endoftext|> "Rebecca", by Carol Frost [Living, The Body, The Mind, Love, Heartache & Loss, Relationships, Home Life, Men & Women] As I walked out the door I couldn’t help Seeing the shard on the railing Anew’s glimmer, so simple, so small, So tiny, the blue-black water I’d had to cross years ago If I’d turn away. I took it For my purpose then: to get away As I had to get to Gary. Makes a crisis sacred, A move I do, to Rachel. I meet her as though I were not me She prances, the broken person She is, who holds the cold like my Reflected angel, heaven Looking for her own. I want, before I am the time, To take it back. A desire, a desert, a vastness My lover as she is my enemy. I can't trust her when she thinks with New bite to her tongue, a point She chooses, always, so well. She comes to me as I am to her, If I have a mother, and the baby Is Rebecca. If I have not Lived up to this all my life, do I not Live up to it here? What though I moan in the dry air of now, Knowing how I may have been Strangled by gods but I am a Being who breathes? <|endoftext|> "Rhapsolic", by Richard O. Moore [Living, Health & Illness, Relationships, Arts & Sciences, Humor & Satire, Poetry & Poets] For the doctor I don’t know the word “idiot” Call it wildly, or falsely, Like y ‘hispanics’ What did I think they meant <|endoftext|> "Solo C,", by Richard O. Moore [Activities, Eating & Drinking, Arts & Sciences, Music, Social Commentaries, Cities & Urban Life] 1 Turn down all the blame Come up all the love Get hard inside me Make a man out of bacon Weave me, mend me, unite Climb to fuck the statute You play my card <|endoftext|> "Titanic", by Richard O. Moore [Living, Death, Activities, Eating & Drinking] 1. In pool of salt Some Some Some Some Crawl up to it Some Some Some Some Some Walk up to it Some Some Some Some Some Stand up to it Some Some Some Some Some 2. Sat on a stool at home If there is any but you in it Sit up on it If you swim in it If there is some in it If your father is in it If there are no other people in it Then some more of it Weigh all the things that you are worth Who takes the place of you in it Take care of the old ones that are there Be born of the things that are in it Be to the house as close to the place of the old house As you can be Come out of the old house and from the old house's head Now Then Some Now some Then Some Some Now all the rest of it Then some Some Some Now all the rest of it Then some Now all the rest of it 3. When you get on the highway A kind of strength goes with you You know what you’re to do You keep your head down and act alone You take the time but do what has to be done You do not linger on You are not weighed down with what was done before You make the old house mind free And you do not sit up with what was done before You go to the next house You keep your head down and go ======================================== SAMPLE 28 ======================================== Love is the most delicious kind of bondage. A little walk, such as we need, And the trees and lawns beneath Will be lovely for your sight, And all their subtile tapestries, And your tender eye-balls delighted Oh, 'twas just the like of dream I dreamt Before I knew my love was mine! This doesn't prove I am made of the best, Or that after the sun is set, You must rise early and spend the day As I do, Shivering and waving, to the beat Of the waves on the beach. An innocent error, you may say, But I have burned up so many hours I should not have burned for anybody's kiss! It's just been blind. This bearded side of me, you see, Like a fossil, holds, like an oasis, An image of her, no more, no less, And neither time, nor folly, nor prayers, Nor all that's left of those who forgot, Nor all the questions that ever puzzled men-- Nothing solves except the mystery Of how the soul arrives at Love? And will it leave a trace Of its own kind on the countenance That resembles hers in so much as it wears A layer of dust, or a film, Not happy, as it conceives, beyond the power Of a purer self to find In the blank space in the heart, and still Does its work to save it?--this Is the universe of Heaven, we feel, Where dust remains behind the great works Of the last sun's and of her. O universe, O sun! earth and air, Far, low, and near--the body the same, What if the heart of Heaven, like mine, The whole of my happiness was shaken clean Like a sheet of light, and shake and be still! Nothing would touch me so again, Nothing remain, nothing be. What is the commonest thing to us, Eyes, so dim, that hide our eyes from day? I will not say I love you, not I; But I wonder, day by day, which is the same. What is the commonest, That is like a night, the placid face Of woman, face of man, with loving eyes? The silence, The strange, the healing music of the gray? But there's not much left for me here When night and darkness talk like wind and rain, And spring and spring are as evening and sun. What's to remain--more than so much which Would never linger,--sighs, and far, breath-shaken prayer? What's left but these? We are like to more than much, Like much like to much, and live, and love, and die. Love's old fiery sunset, with the dusk, Over the soft-voiced valleys now, is at an end; To-night, the moon is true, And the stars the sun will never give us o'er. But not to us, now not to us will stay The heaven-attained peace, nor long endure; Our night, which comes to us as calm, Is something less than our bare feet treading still, Less than we would ever know of it Else, if, coming at all, it should fall From Heaven to us, like any other day, True to our hearts, and blind and simple to our eyes. I said, I said-- You may not guess What I meant. No word was ever more like a word Than the kind of song you heard--so low, so sweet, So low, so sweet,--was more like an empty rest, Than the whole rest, like an answer low and low, Like the spring song that comes to pine-and-thicket, Like the all-shining, all-satisfying moon Which is a lowing Lowewel in our hearing, Like the peace which is the soul of all night. When did we get so far? Ah, this is the way: This long mellowness, This low, and this low, and this faint plearing, This art and artlessness, This yielding and stretching Of the soul to God, and its heart of rest In the grace God yearns after, the dark night And the broad-winged day, and day in the dawn, And low in the dust which then betrays the head, Oh, pure of heart and clear, and tough, and grand, Our own Arthur! Humble little scare, That held your breath to King Uzzan; ======================================== SAMPLE 29 ======================================== In the shadowy shades by the lazy lake, An impromptu concert of spectral birds, Dipped in the transparent turbid pane; And pure Ovid here, and a quick glance at The museum roofs, in live view, Deep in their shadowy depths the murky shadows lie, And, all agog with darkness, love and glee, Along the verandah, like spirits, hover; Athwart the turning horizon, like eyes Fair and dumb, long looked out, deep gazes made For you, and only you, in the sphere of dreams! The grove of ours, by easy rides outsoar'd, When the blind ancient wrote that night were passed, Still let us read, like his whom John testified, There is life in the ashes of the ashes! And the cloister beyond, like the piping fox, Greedily rule as we all around do, Beyond the boundaries the unobservant spinner Passed, and wrote how there's life in the ashes of the ashes! By the simple road, and close to the house of God, From the bulk head lift the tracks of Judah's fountains, Down to the sea-shore from the beach descended, Plunged the prints of it in the sands of memory. Straight to the hills and plains, (as some sprit was shot out of those,) Down to the toe of the leading edge of the mountains, Where our life's's pool was left for many a season, Let us sing the groves again of our olden country. All for new life, that life which discards mortality! Sing the future with us, sing it with us, Thro' the world around and beneath us! The Governor wrote that the administration Contended that it had been injured, By the proposal of Mr. Thomas Dun & Co. That is, the stone barge which rolled at the state council last winter, on the plan of the Governor, And which he wished us to lay for a lane in the festival of spring, in the summer of dun. This administration contended that it had been never thus reported, in any other of its fourteen years, either in its active or dormant season. The imagination, according to them, was, like the hydrophobia of Don Juan, Left with the spring for the duration of the drought. I have a garden, and a patch of it; One tall plant among many plants tall, all hidden in fescue. No one noticed one of the flowers but myself; it keeps many resemblances It will color with its kind a gingham dish. No one noticed the story that is told. The other things kept their seasons; some hours Are free, it is thought, to tell to those who have never found their secrets. "O God!" they said, "To hear the beauties of the human face "Without being ourselves!" Arouse, then, George, Within his cell the inmost marrow of his bones Was seething with these plagues. No fiction made them real. What do you do, Pall's noble harem, By the solitary day, fails to tickle the imagination! You show us how nature makes men; and besides, what does it profit you? A few goads will crawl And the lessen your virtue by their sting; For the paltry fire-wood that they bring moves a man toward riot, And frighten the heart into insanity, as it were, Since no one can set a bolt alight! I trust, Marriage may be been a case of ill-natured, and I blame no single individual, but the condition. This, in my humble excepting office, bring I to the original from the Fox, the other much admired By Thomas Gray, as ours was by Eronze d'Aquinchide. From a comfortable bed I learn How the fog of deception in effect is breathing on you, and will goad you on until you cross A threshold into the sun. How often, as I held you in it, you seemed to pass A picture of a dead peopled heaven, for my own bitter fever I write a prose theme far harder to learn, than for its characters I write too many poems not to disfigure the pasture of some Tory earlier than human, who would form a randon current, and might sink the heavy cart of his verse; And the author must learn the cage as the nest. To the ======================================== SAMPLE 30 ======================================== loss? All the while, you voice on the wing, you spend a living in sight. What you breathe is growing stiff but we press on, like the birds curling and feathering to light. Farewell to the pleasant hills, the livery-streaked dress of roof, the call-boxes, all white, as slung to save them from the mists that fill the meagre world we play it safe, all the roses waving in the uncertain sun. They all lose, but the heart survives. We gaze, fingers folding, top, toe, at the waves of a solid fin, the night-on-the-golf-course sunlight interior and back. I cannot tell you the vibration I felt at that triumph, the sheer speed with which I knew it, that feeling: I have wings and I can fly! In pure rapture I knew what no one ever dreamed, she who calls the forest wood, the low planting that she must do, the lonely sapling with his vast flower. I cannot tell you how soon my wings were alight in the blazing oak, how long I hoped, the clear blue sky above me, how bright my hope. I came, light on the grass, leaving my lonely place and entered you, took hold. All the world my captor rose up from the undulating earth, rising from the drink of mortal death, from what is mortal, earth-born, no wings necessary. I love you, bird, a land of suns and moors. I love your cold eye, that true blue, stained with my own grief. I will find a place for your fair feet. I have done with words that would obfuscate the truth, or mislead: for I believe the truth you are, you are me, everything that is in me. I pass through life that which has been made to be. With whatever, you make me whole, speak to me, bird, from many a room in your golden throat. <|endoftext|> "The Children", by Eloise Anderson [Living, Coming of Age, Activities, School & Learning, Philosophy] He went to bed at ten. The teacher came in and was mad. I sat down, too. I thought I'd been called on. But the mad one was. "I want your help," I said. I knew it was a prank. But I said yes anyway. That's how it all began. It ended with feathers, each crying into a thread of what it had been. It ended with — well, you know. There were no answers. We went to bed. They stayed up all night, that is. The teacher came in. I didn't have to close my eyes to know she was coming. And it was a trick, that I sat down, and she stood there at my head, the faultless mirror, the elevator door was open. I had no idea who it was. "You remember the ship, don't you," was how I introduced her. That's when she found me. I had no idea what she meant. And the ship? The dark raking a pond in little green waves, the tiny boats. The little boats. And my mother was there. She said she never told me that before. "That means a whole lot to you, don't it?" she said. "I'm not in a position to think I understand." <|endoftext|> "Night Call", by Elisa Medin [Living, Coming of Age, Disappointment & Failure, Relationships, Friends & Enemies, Nature, Animals] I thought about you all evening and through the night. What made you to love you to do it, what made us impossible to see, and with each other— not interested. All night I went to bed where you shyly, shaking your violet flowers and dancing anxietyless, not worth a protest. You, in this white estate, above a patio, the stairs leading up to white marble, the falling water to the fire, a house, your dear head on my breast, you, and me in the rooms upstairs, only you, whose wings tempted in, the birds up in air, who smiled at me in your scent, who stayed with me at dusk, when ======================================== SAMPLE 31 ======================================== Of Antikycles and Archie-dactes The band one day to send upon the mace of Antiochus. While the Greek Antikyclemites in his incessant ear-shamanism Represents the Adoryadæ, Indefatigable obstinate, And the Plutarch's Julius and his Mama. Then he will be gone for ever; To the silent hema, And the olla of the thin-edoed, The minstrel king of Panmure, Among the marveling brainless crowd! Who hold in hand a wampum knife, To be known the next day by the wind. To deck himself at midnight, When he sees the double pole, And the Curetes a sobbing harp, Fingers the heart-rending trouble From the Cadmean horizon line. Hither, from Byzantium, My man-lingering wayfarer went, Now pining ever henceforth, Alone with me, I rejoiced to see, Neath my roof not mingled with the blubber-tree. Keen, the voice of one I love, Distinctly questioning thus, Chants Ie zeus for purpose denoting, I love to hear the grub-gold rend, For zeus zeus, thou hast him sold. I love to know the animal-courses, What works and purpose holding, And had he not his mortal griefs, I lived with him at pleasure; No trust then in man's heart should be. Happy those he loves who knows our sovereign, Vigilant, vigilant and cunning, Weeding out the future bent, And hiding with hearts ever blest, No mean-show of love and duty; That he himself loves the spirit Yet care and careignity Would bother and fret the soul of him All of a churl, who comes of earth; And you should be of us, who by a chase For flocks along the wayside-rong, Have loved of worth the tracks leading, The secret and the thinkings keeping. And we of worth have made the most of breath, And that rarest of sweet lives, By drawing up some good, which soaks For many hearts the early toiling; Else lightly may be given the shears, It were a lesser price than choosing. If he had wiled beyond his wonted day, In his good nature true, man, So spent by toil of many porters, Worthy wine for thought should brew; For 'tis the race to ill being drives To thy full life's, man, whose native heaven Is love and life eternal. Had he biled on his own as an ass That drives a donkey girt round the habit, He should never have bought for a slave; But he was bitted, and I, taking rhyme, Biling him to be the queen's palter. But love moves not as God moving ice, And without sense of what is might best, It were all folly, mercy and all mirth. I Love but a little; would to the highest light's counter That heaven be nigh, and earth be destin'd; For truly my Love I seek to display, In token true and constancy. If she from her own strong base, the ground below, Stand fainting for me all its weight of sun, How small so ere now my love's confess'd! Bright in the former question of her grace; Now little care I, little as I may; God knows how much of wine beneath the cheek, Whene'er my Love halsia red. For really I loved her first as young; Then loved her better as old, And no less ncear'd; but should I tamed be The wonder-working woman, I should feel As much love from her, as ever boy, Who though he hath no powers of handling joys, Hath no stripes in love till love grown old. Strange is the throng of them, how shes dressed In sampler by her fancy, yet seem Most fair, though cold from head to foot and often Drenched in tears; and they all press in a line Up forebore, and fold Godoping 'neath the forelock; They in new-cut overalls; Bright pallets and chimmeled features And big chynster neck. Some have big ears, some eyes as black as mine; Some eyes are grey, and some red as wet; ======================================== SAMPLE 32 ======================================== Has less knowledge, less prudence, than the peasant To whom this conduct is strange and new. The old man shakes his forehead, like a goitre, And upon himself leans a complacent ear, Waves the hollow palm, and vainly desires 'T is mine also. 'T is no very panegyric, My Poet is not artist nor physician, And what can these be, in such a chance? Then door shuts with a snap, And I watch and wait a black convertible. Death is a ship, from which no one returns. No one returns to tell the story of her To the higher chamber, which is a court Of judges, sometimes in lieu of juries. The court knows that the thing is ill, And waits for her coming, in which case it bawls Harshly and peremptorily. She now bawls: I, therefore, shall make it a truant. There is a prisoner who Has been adjudged an illegal democrat. Him, whose name first flashed upon the world With a large premonition Which told The world, and proved him sure Of the divine origin of things, He had bent aside With a foolish vaunt. Death, that he might not Fail to seize, Marshalled his Greeks of Defeat. This Court Sent him to a hazel wood, where, with twigs and berries, He bore his enemy down, The persecuted back, and left him there Half devoured, by presbytery, So obvious, that the birds had told The dismal tale to their lowel towers. <|endoftext|> "A dispatch from the middle passage of the ocean, to the wilderness is brought to us in these sugared pages, and if mankind ever a-slope our golden journeys, this must be the very nature, and the condition that it is, in the very twelfth part of our two hundred and seventy languages,"--Scherboeger to Watson in Edinburgh, December 1888. Any thing as the condition of a-greatness, it must be great In action, in the slant of a hill, In some other thing besides the will and the will not well, but is like the slant of a hill Always the nature it is Forgets its range And is in small terms of sound. But this, and nothing more, you Literalize And have a name for, and are content. What will be beyond This darkness or far away, where a is the spell and b The language of thought, is a different matter.] In an attic room she made the bed, In what has become to us A ruin; and, all sundering of tanger and frame, She unfolded sheets like golden buttons Bearing Christ's feet, and having first waved the knife Brought forth the male lamb. And she well began To invoke him, and not having gone along Creation, doing like well, and that end Being obviously the easier, she left The prevailing consideration in doubt. Is that all she did? Will she do anything At all? The more I think of it the less Appears the matter to me. Would she not feel Amost her loveliness? She had the haughty look Of one that felt indignant For simple happenings. Her body, I think, Had in chief the form Of beauty in her, which is wont to be Most easily acquired, and is, I own, Very nice; And I have seen, with shock awake, The bloom of its time, or part of it At any rate, and still alive, The exterior pose of perfect cheerfulness Are proper, and but express Her presence to us; But she was not, of course, subject To the gross appeal of the trivial Suggestion so expects it, and is one of the Dispeakings of the culture of her The ideal of the woman, and What culture is, how hard to show it. Had she been subjective, would she Have felt a particular significance? That would be this culture again. Not being utterly objective I never yet met a woman with true Cultivation. The real culture she acquired Is not subject to capture by anything She says or does; But in and for herself she exists. She seems at first an instance Of the objective culture, but she's not, And never can be, seeing how She is not objective. As to that she is subject, And sure the fate Of culture in ======================================== SAMPLE 33 ======================================== A one-eyed man, Who, guiding the looking-glass That withered at a touch, And dropping further and further, By an ancient and infinite law, Cried to the fools above him and them, Fools! and said that they were, and are, Pygmies: that they are of clay: And bade them come and see. If I like pomp and vain show and gaping Before the pageant, shall I not like The mere front-show, man? And he took his broom of golden barbs, And blowing thro' the labyrinth, Made a gate fast and tight, And thro' the open flew, And some danced, and some stood and some flew After the knighthood-makers, And all were glad, being glad, To know the old world again, and the kingdom of the May, Whose gladness is self-sown, And is self-sown, and self-sown; Pledges the illuminators, Pledges the virtues they bring Of the kind gentle High-Faith, True hearted faith, for which All seemeth, all is; A lot, now grown dim and mossy, Of forms and colors kind; By the moth's gradual eating; The dying grass and tearing Till it is but gold and green: But men and prophets, men In whom God's lights are on, Already weary; Still, but shadows of light, Not of things the lightless Sporre and far away. When, after all, I have been To God's liking, where is it? Between the waving grass And a spinning wall, the wall all golden, And only seen by night. And that through heavy-heartedness, And bitterness of feeling; All God's best forever marred, Not one spot forgiving. Nay, the woman weepeth Till her cheeks are wet. But she is sore-hearted Only she knows it. The nation that the spirit gave In a generous impulse of freedom But put it down when the slaying On mountain and plain Was at a meeting of the kingdom Which by the common consent of all things Has passed as just and right; And how they all put their hand in The other's grain, As if they knew it not; And how the man was Then saddled, and they cried hard The sinful plight Of the sinners, and of the right; And how they mourned in the streets As the dead child died, Tried to bless themselves; And how each other mourned, Yet they were not mourning As the mother was, who gave it To her whom they not knew; Though the face of the mother Had no more grace than the face of the child. This is the world's belief: In every stone and of every tree Comes a record of the last breath Of a body that lived and was One with every tree, and every tree With every stone: and in the year's forest, In the fled ranks of the frost-ploughed beech, There is no sound of a Mother's walk; And all by love we know of the dead child Is the love of his mother. The cloudy windows are alive with the sight of the day Which is dead and must face the houses through them; And all day long the light goes up, and the stars are There for the night that have been, and all night is going, Coming over the flat snow-bound fields, the sky Not dimming its sky, so clear and still it comes on; And soon the strong wind pines out, and is hushed till The dying down of night; till there is silence even In house and house-top. And then it is said, He lived as long as he was able, And there is now a little dust Upon his red cloak: but he was a great man, And a true one at that; and of his works No world has work as vast as this, And this and only this to say. And it is at night, all night, The little word comes down the old clock-round. The lamp shines Over the wide fire where the stew-bowl glimmers To the flames at a count as large as the stars In the circle of the sky, and where the father and child See a light like that, only a little less bright, A very little less bright, That long to the world went in its untidy width Under the mother's shining feet, and that single span Whereof there is always paying, in ======================================== SAMPLE 34 ======================================== Rangers in the press and camp Of the great Chief of the Bend, (So called among the Peers, for he had that), His recent marriage, and his own old sire, And his look, so fierce and grim, Were in his face, when in his presence, As none like him; for, as the white snow, Or tuismonder, th' advance of Spring, Or pied plover's patriarchal trace; Or skylark, plain-dimming bird, of the star, The first of any such, show'd to the view, With feathers blue, streaks black, and spots white, A shape of mount or of gesture bold; Fierce and erect, a breathing column yet; The Highland clansman, warrior, saint, Was here: & the two to overcome, That way would have need of Hercules. With him were stricken down despair And grief, as the blind or the dumb; Were only to get up to Christmas. Alas for all! that day they buried His spirit of glory vainly tried, On the other main, by black rage tried, Black as the eagle's eye when she feels A lion by the sides of her nest, Where ere awhile she, cramped by fear, Will flit and struggle, till away Dismounting, pain her griping side, With dipt and hard words vex her, till her life give out. It is harder than it was, to tell That a single Space, before what was thrung, Should be thronged with Fathers and Grandfathers; To feel the day dispassionate: what Would come of it? who shall bid, shall pull The Scotch name and coat of arms inlet From such a day, so like? that was the foe That was to be dreaded, be it legal or illegal, Of all our Rights and Royalties; as much, more Than that Glorious Temple, or the letter A, Was before the Republic; yet as soon Was sprung up the Republic, for none knows, Save only God, who thinks as no Law does Aught earthly better than is His word; And, who makes that way, is laden, man. So might the thought of liberty fill All eyes who spoke, should one awake: One hour is just enough, to charge, to mix With sweet blood, a bit of soil, That once was peamy: you might see The Cynthian Owl's Wood, for meadow nigh. To this they bow, are touched; to this men fall Who once but had been mere dust or chaff, Unworthy to receive the breath Of grist of Christian Honesty. Go to! this with some brains unpure. And pass the rub with us! 'Gainst tyranasmia, goad of worms, Choose with what guile you will, foul or fair, (Och--my Lady-love is frail!) Prum only venture, But leave the realm, O stay, Tho' gone thy way, lo! she flies, for me, And we have tarried too long together. All may, who rule the earth, Might make a race To peace, and merriment above, Have set a store, Wherefore we rise in hope: And go to fill, in some dignified And amiable position, Some dignified seat, where rank is no longer Respect, or Fame, or honour, Heaven's claim, But thought and worthiness of man. O why is man As man may be, Away from God The father of lies, A center of wind Things worst, who wallow On ground less firm than fiction, And with raking tongues The plainest thing With grating throat Bewail the King, Who honour none-- All too remote, Too deep for life, Too much For dominion, Too deep for trust. As to the loom of winds of the air, That fly abroad, and scrape The mountain rock, As the sawing wood Makes grey the greyness of the blasted rock, So human nature, where the grace Of wisdom should engage, Turns all its strength to the wrong end; And this the brain with its mouldering folds Can only rear In form of a lie, And by its hollow close Is secret in its ambush. Our earth is to the seat of the gods The Gremios of the poets feign, To Maia consecrate, As the winter's twilights sacred to Saturn ======================================== SAMPLE 35 ======================================== And yet, though they meant you naught, They bade you know in truth There are no friendships In the World Wide Web, nor Will anyone take you Ere you be dead. You do not want praise, nor do I Thus to be foiled at by thee, Dame Equinoctial; Therefore do I fall in love With thy dainty soul and thy rugged lips, As lovers must With the fairest, cruellest, raiment, jeweling the light, The diktory, The mewing of birds, the glee of little things. I need not now to be coy or shy; Take me as thou art taken, or ere we meet, Or ere I escape from out thy contemplation. Sweet, do not run me ragged on love and glory, But tak it naturally, as a midsummer day, With glory and with song, And in thy breathing chamber The place of thy glory in the day, And music's dalliance Of all the glories of all the living year, And rare speech made manifest, And honour given and taken. SOME one said unto me, Sometime siththen in a dream I sfirst saw, sthen in vision fell. Then, being set, he kept me always, Still in me more the burden, Never can run more grieve; And for the thing that was done How we dreidly go about Aslcoming now the day, Letting slip the birch and moosil Unweeting leed, Nor mentione the great deidle way When we are fain to go, As wee were risin' foorth to do. For whatever of peril, Whatever of pain and woe, Is shed, they ken not how to shun, While love, they know not how to hide: He that loveth can never know The chiefe care of fear or shame, But in love's intercourse Knethered by oath and flinching, Seemeth he must drink of love's lake They hew out a way, I trow, For loved ones to behold; It is the ocean of the mind, The greatest ocean that spins: And where's the shore, or the soft land? The whirlpool of all delight: A thousand wreckes they throw Somewhere in the ocean of mind, And like a surgy brickl heir I know the vast sea of mind. IN our earliest years, Love put his bow to his flowr, And fair phloes came in droves To close the wordes we said: Our youth was but in sighs, And all our joys were done When we sighed; Love blushed, and hid his bonnet Deep in tow; For aye there was talk, The word was writ, Which made love sigh again, When we'd say Love wept, and said, Love sleeps. Men may be bold, O don't they? Boys may be just and square? Fudge not an amoy, All but the humblest grinn is Bully and sporty, And swill with easy grace More dan sleepin', In the blythe de bown, The triflin' bourne, Than the cares o' day The huskie ownd hearts will wrang When we twang, But the uns we twang Will write o' night, To play the fiddle At our merry levee. I read in old books, when I was white (My lilac bush was flowering), And Papa read beside me, when he Had dendlin' curls and bare feet. I never knew but what our livin' Was heaven's dream of us; I never knew but what this holler'd word Of song was made of was, To bor damn the night with snoor; If God forgird us in th' ink, Then we forgirded right. The liue-day sun on a' green hill Might have shone as white as a spade; The summer wad 'a' been over seas An' sea-sand, sink or drown, While the verra fine thaw melt or get noon, By way o' buildin'-- But just as fine thy wings look; If thou wauk, I'll awlus cut 'em In park to see them fly; An' what thou aime'st, a cup o' ======================================== SAMPLE 36 ======================================== “I will,” says he. Then she took the sheet and blotched it, Shook it with her big white hand. “What?” says she. “Tuck it up for our Prince.” “You are his Princess. How shall I know him?” “I will be his embroidery girl. I will call my work my man-cadaver.” “You will grow on him with endless services, Even as long as we live we will love each other.” “You?” says she. “Who has such beauty As to have the grace to let you Woo your own like a woman? Plead, beg, compliment him—we will make What beggars we need to be to be free.” “Will you not work?” says she. “O let me, work!” says he. “Can you not make him understand what work is?” “And what is the use of any one?” “We shall be free. We must be free.” The sea rolls, the clouds part, And the sun explodes on the blue, When as they paddle past I can see the winds take hold And wreak themselves against our shoulder -New York - On the rue de Sion, when the cobbles run, I walk across the puddles While over one bawling sorrow I watch the shrapnel shower, And hear, beneath The barking of the faithful guard Cursing their gardens, -Paris - The tree in the Paradise closes; Climbing, I grasp the thin boughs, Then lean the whole day Half in hunger, half in delights, Watching the darkness -observing the dawn - It was this desire, all my life I have wanted To experience, as I saw it, from beginning to end. On the lovely curb of grass Where joy bloomed The stars turn into Bright cups If I be near I’ll drink to Addie, my friend And my best water All round the happy world, You were my comrade my comrade, my comrade, my comrade, And if you get thirsty The grass Drinks from the sky To make you happy New Pleasure gives And I want you now I want you now I want you now -It is the end of the road- “New Pleasure gives And I want you now I want you now” One of the chorus said that day And as I answered, “Change of guard!” And the bright flowers to left and right I felt them lean to me, and I thought I’d better have my way. And your old passport Turned into A strip of leather And the moon above the forest And the large red sky Were witnesses to our trial. They knew I’d win. Now we want To see one another. I saw an island a day After we passed the little island. A very young and sunny pair Were reclining on it and the second Was nearly hidden in the blossoms. A bench held a group that called out: “Husband, come out, come out,” but all in vain They tried but failed to make the first two For they were still set in reading it over They saw no point in leaving the place. The elder took from his hair a thread And said, “I’ll tie it like a ribbon Round your own side” and then he left the room And took a seat where I was sitting Athwart the moon. The second turned away to begin again The kind of life he first had led. Then one of the others, one of the others Swore up a persecution, A proof, That they were right and all the others Lie on their graves! I try to read but the book Drops here and there And the leaves Are turning. And the flowers are kind And their lives seem full of love. I was there with the second And I saw He was silent then. “It’s better,” he said Who began the war When he was only one Of a hundred men. But the war Was going badly And it turned him quiet, For a whole year. He was full of hate. He talked of bombs and bullets And to explode With a bullet Against his enemy� ======================================== SAMPLE 37 ======================================== english=arabic=somali my others. the etymology of this place is a narrow strip of sandy me, stretching from the sandglass to the brickline. the causeway’s blackened ribs, deep cantilevering over the auburn, climb right up my spine. and if there’s a sense of sarcasm, I am that sarcastic. the shacks and fish stores sold baaddings of coppery wafers to the babel to the workhouse. I wondered why they had no water. the dry grey walls spoke to me of history. again, no signs, but in this picture, a blanket sets my forehead warm. I know this is the north, January in the burin, wind. the wood and the sod wet from the active as a ground worm burrows in, and the fresh poz dope, baby just call me ella <|endoftext|> "All Eternally Satisfied", by A. F. Moritz [Living, Coming of Age, Love, Heartache & Loss, Realistic & Complicated, Activities, Travels & Journeys, Relationships, Men & Women, Philosophy, Social Commentaries, Cities & Urban Life] They had come to be happy and all of them were satisfied. I have known them by different names in various places; sometimes they were musicians, sometimes not. One night the Professor brought them together and said, Look, you two, in that love of yours and I guarantee you, within an hour there will be one who will welcome the two of you and will love and will worship you. He was speaking of Bêtizel, the common fancy of them or what, though you could not believe he meant we, that they were going to remain together all alight, free of all obligations. Then they were quite simply both young and very attractive. He had been a young teacher and she a young teacher's wife. She had grown up and come to fame as a writer of chronicles while he had returned to her as a typist and then helper of the secretary. I knew this. It was at the end of the decade they met and they realized their potent and immediate attraction. He had a house in Grecian splendour in the suburbs of the city. She had a little garden in the shade of elm trees. This was all well and good, for a summer, but she had become suspicious of her stable. A water wheel! Her husband was sailing on a schooner and they thought that they might simply spend a few hours together. They had both gone to India. He in the ship, she a home in a village. Bev and I had gone back to school. We were young—we were both in love with very tall dolls and talking just as we used to, then, suddenly, writing on a blank page, our names, at the bottom left-hand corner in big characters, and a line at the bottom too, cross-hatchéd out of sight. They were sealed with a little red stamp in the page, and there were no promises or oaths or contract or anything under the sky. You can imagine, for yourself, how all this would work with the scissored-in-sequence tradition of the Egyptian buildings and their sense of romances and chains and magic that ran in their veins. I would have been bored with Bizenda, for the model stood close as a mountain, keeping her head tilted up, her face perfectly masked, students learning to meditate and Brahmins meditating and picking their hearts out. For weeks, they had not came home— they were too careful to steal their high-heeled shoes to litter their chambers with roses. Her presence was not always obtained. The Professor had married again. A louder summer came and everything went on. The Dinah Girl, her mother, her father came to see him off. They showed the groom how many bedrooms and different rooms ======================================== SAMPLE 38 ======================================== With wrinkled cheek and creeping forehead thin, Wet foreheads and stringy hair, In a garb, I know not what, of Sahara desert. Why is the night sky, a vision of grief, Aflame with stars for the love of God, When in the white heart of the moon there lies The secret of the night and its sweetest flower, Which draws the night in the moon's swoon? Ah, Sister, sweet Sister, who will lend me their light? Ah, even the twilight, which is held more dear, Awakes us more, and comes upon us more, When the wind shifts the sands of morning further and further, As though to weep out our misery by night. "Fool that I was! and I have struck the light! Swing to me, O far-traveled hour! Bring north and east wind; me hath moved the seas Bring all the winds of heaven; (as to leeward a ship Whet ho, the surf!) me hath dusted the lee and bow sere From fire-fed devils of tormented air; Till now, taking wing, the storm's a curl of flame, And terror-breathing seas, and weather-swift gales, He hath set the woods sing away on fire, And blasted the forests from pine-trees dight, And quenched the marrow in the rock with cold, And rusted winter on the plain and low; He hath laid hold on the horns of the hill, That lower to the valleys lie like heat; Hath lifted the sun to the Gods' feet; Hath filled the waters with wailing air; Hath bowed the sky to sorrow; and the faint Hoar-frost hath wrung the flowers among. O God, I am weak of the gout, but not This, the strength thou gavest me, with the prayer, When I gave up the hope of a cloud, Nor could I feel the world's heart grow chill. Now hath the earth a place for the feet Of my God, for the prayer-worn man's feet, Of whom they pray the world, to forgive The one great sin that dares wound the head. If Christ died for the world's sake, He shall die no more, but rise again To bear the weight of the world's forgetfulness, The dust of its sins, and make men see The path to the Kings at last, the final King. I am weak of the gout; as the wind Blows in my face, I am smitten here; But God, the Gods are more than my body, For strength I seek through to-day and to-night, Even when the gout throws out the spindle." Life, I said, Life, why dost frae Thy selfish will unf there? The world expects not that I stay Till they leave the lawn! Nay, it needs na you Life, tak' special care of me; Jilted spring, and bee, and bee-bill, Narrow note o' choir a-belloing, Maids o' spring, maist like me, Jay's-joyful bard; And lost on season-maiden song, But frae her two-edged knife of rhyme, Sae misvied in contempt o' thee. Thou, woman, pulsus, weak at the core, Nae point but done a rose! See, Life, from wing to wing she gets The point she wants; See, prig, how the rascal she spits Too base for thy bait, Life, thou's naething wi' pride or anss A' plans o' God's yeer, For aught in all time Hath bent an shepherde, I' the grave part of May, Till we twine again! Life, I need na poeter-call; Nought of thee but thy flippant stumph And thy crude shakspeare. What is earth's power to me, Hoarse hum and heave-corrupted mope? Faun, I bear on my heart's sores The God-breath granulation. Life, I may swot, If he thinks we need his blessin', When he's welkin-explended, He'll say naething. It's Hell's cunning way To try life's venus, Speak low, my fair. Low is my accent; In good accents be bold, I hae no ======================================== SAMPLE 39 ======================================== Slain with a cry and loathlier wound Till the great tree sheathed his deathly spear. Thus to the splendors of his shrine And the virtues of his ancient strains The sweetly-belted pipes his lips Filled with haunting pipes of balm and woe; Till, the balmy shades from his lips retreated, Softly, as bidden, in dreams the shrines he filled With worshippers, whose constant murmur spoke That they forgot the fields and wolds and caves, And defiled the peaceful air of night. The Pagan, breathing of the mountain home, Granted a deathless pang to those he worshiped, And in his admiration he sighed For men reborn to live the hardier life. So, when in Kashmir's groves, beneath the pines, The red-robed men of old have plumed their hunts And charmed the quarry to their liking; When the old temple fathers, clustered round, Have lit the altars with the harvest's harvest; Then will the fragrance of that harvests blow Where the slow flowers sleep, and the dwellings sink Into the shadows. Dawn comes late and goes From shadow to shadow till the whole world rots, And the still ripened isle is almost blights The low-set forest, crowding in by the gate Of that sublime corner of the world where they Who know abhorrence will not live nor breathe It is as good to crucify the Saracen On some island hidden from the world of men In the seas of cloud and night and night and light. It is not wrong that nature bears the proof Of all their simple bliss, so that the wise Can puzzle the vector of their blood and find The firm body moving spirit through the head Motive by joy and love to hurry on Until to their wishes born at last The martyr own the unseen glories dead. Spring and the lost brood return and wait For the far horns of their morning, while The cities and temples burn and ululate To meet the face of their inevitable foe They smile at last, after their torment And the charioteers who greet the February day With a cry of triumph and the sightless retreat Where the poor man yields his robe to the stern suitor, And he does not gloat, nor sleep with rings, But wails like a sheperd, proud in his power To beat the warm cloak from his being, Lest any else should think him white and pale With the envy of other eyes to be whiter For, though no slanderer may write a word To their disgrace, as they must bear the blame Of what may safely be blamed And not the fruit of their hands, Who love the light and love the light And leave to Him who made them at least The looking-glass that shows how they write Of all who live and who are dead; Theirselves, their God, their own all alone. Mothers and their feverish children all day long Go one way and go another--sometimes Foaming with pride, and then, under flood Of wreathing blood, with the love of shame, To the nearest city to suffocate In the stink of corpses--pass it while They may! Nor has Death yet a price, but the slow Arrowy sweet of night and dark and care And the dew that falls like rain from the fallen leaves Of the young forest, climbing up the lean hills; As upon the lifters' track it makes such stir That it sets to swinging down and little mouths To utter death. Alas, and I can see, Where I lie now, in a open kind of way, The track where I ran, the pale blue line Beneath this morning's hill, his hand that drew The bow that drew the blood of me a while back, That bow that had an arrow head of me In it. For sure that day that I had so bought my way, Run where I ran and shot at, when I shot-- Why did I not shoot back? I ran, but I missed the sharp narrow trail, That runs from the long road, not mine, to yours. So, all so busy, poor as I am, For all the day I ran like a dream, The very light made it seem real. Oh, only the hand of God, with me For all the rest! And so we build our tents above, Beyond the grave. Here, where with heavy eyes and cut throat We waste the day, There is the margin of an oath we shot A ======================================== SAMPLE 40 ======================================== So no one can sell his breath. Oh, hard is it for one slender youth To meet a world of sin! But the Saints all sinless are, And are perfect in their way. Some would ill foretell The parts that they fail to fill; But we fear not what our might, And gladly fear, for we have hope. God is great, and is willing He would have all his choice chosen Men men in a man’s esteem. Oh, remember, God is great! Because we cannot do everything, And have the long to do, We humbly fix our tongue To wait on great who are men, Who are striving for the world to be. The Advent is near To bring good gifts down, Though I am fairly laid I cannot do much, Merely to keep it free, Such lofty eloquence Against the amorous storm Would not long keep sway. O time’s high races, ’Tis you who sing and kick, O time’s low cheapest Hang dog, most sorry; Stuck on with you Time has labored, With you there suffered; Paid off, And then some one Hard as the middle— Poor you poor thing! It takes the fliest and knocks the falmer Many a space between; So licked his nostrils at the red backwoods, I felt them urge me on. But time lay heavy on my mind, And what I’d not see through the foxglove’s red, I did perceive through the needle’s. But time flows backward, Back whizzes in the dust; In the foam and eke of it We trace your image, And the snipe decimates Like a precipitate. And the lame found wings Diverge from the ledges bare, And the blind canes devere in the snow No less steep the way are. So what I knew through you is done In a thousand lonely ways, And yet with nowhere left to go, As great as you in the hundred thousand years. Then what was I But a player on the stage? Poor light received, And went out and in, For the curtain had not yet been pulled. And the curtain I have not pulled Even now, and thus you may Suppose for me was I, And not my song. A log in the fire, And a log in the fire, And a log under the fire, Was never wasted so, I my barley, you my corn. I my log, you my log under, That is our trade. As any solider might know, By far the greater part, By any at all might be done, One simple word he might hear. So here I am alive and sound. Oh, is there need to write? Just to stir the fire up, Just to melt the wax and oil In combination a dozen, Just to muffle the clock in its case Just to sing the song, Just to make it sing, Singing how the marshland smelled Before they planted it. I am as good as dead. The Yankee boys will feed me. I shall like to have them and my guns, But would not be so silly as to run For fear of Americans. It was hardly mine; It was German gold— I gave, I did not give away. It was a game they played. It is safe to play again. They will not hear me now Because this time I will not wear my name. We are a loudish carouse. My name has not a feather To stand on for far returning. I am going to shiver in peace, The way I have shivered. No lawyer was nor rich. No judge, nor any. You orchived husks to give away, You orchard tacks, I orchilled silver, I orchilled gold. Just the same I tell you. <|endoftext|> And soul in just the same way. Therefore I know it is Well to keep on walking. God See, I said to myself, You are a fool, you are a fool; And here I have gone on And still am only a fool, And still am turning round and round And now am nothing; Now this side of the vanishing Has other side is From that other walking-place Which doth not allow Twixt it and this place a ======================================== SAMPLE 41 ======================================== mounted in "suggested luminous architekment" helmet & shield of dry ice in perspex heavy 2D million/ii.e. men in fleece toad-skin trousers very fine mauve bikini briefs very bright sunglasses w/ BB bright reflective sideburns mask of an American Indian & its facial expressions green space helmets Star Trek science gloves candle w/filtered Sun & moon & fishes & fur, & birds & monkeys but the wallet was empty from the canal worse, they’d been everywhere so the kids gathered a few rocks & frothed bococorns, & caught the half-wild monsoon & semaphore. We headed back to the village for the woman who wore pretty white w/prayers cross ankle cat eye rimmed clock of worry, & keeping her beehive's door jam packed with flower practice & other fine-milled stuff with a long shape, weird to smell if you sniff it you’d think what it was like — the girl thought — but no. Even walking home with her fine old stinking man of affairs —highly fecund— into the hippest place in the strangest way a bunch of kids calling herself a religion you know too well—not yours, the man’s, fierce in his own ways — still in his insanity walking the other way. The rain turned it <|endoftext|> "Jerusalem Art Editions", by Ruth Stone [Activities, Jobs & Working, Arts & Sciences, Language & Linguistics, Poetry & Poets, Reading & Books, Social Commentaries, Cities & Urban Life] Erase the poets’ shields in the ancient markets out of love for history, not lust what returns is changed what does not change dies in a hurry The migrants’ graves are here as well in the ancient markets Not to brag but to survive lucky enough to find a home blessings that keep you Held together in the modern markets Homes for winners in a desert of questionable grace << if not presented wi' spoons would be great But to stand alone and not lose to clutter The market’s sculpture! Read literature about nature reflections in the grass << but not grass not a tree, though trees are there with you again and again The short-leg runners have gone I am again a boy A complex hunger maintains health I will survive among the magnificent smugglers’ tools etcetera The poor estate for which you walk I call you back I now pronounce the roofs in the market were named for me I called you <|endoftext|> "Asparagus", by Ruth Stone [Living, Growing Old, Activities, Eating & Drinking, Thanksgiving] The bodies of young girls do not stay young long, simply because we give them away so soon. Babies come this soon, and the bellies of them are perfect and the hearts of them stick this soon. There is no heart to ruin and no mind to take when they hit their high. They teach the way, they say, and teach fast, and teach so hard. <|endoftext|> "At Home", by Ruth Stone [Activities, Eating & Drinking, Philosophy, Social Commentaries, Gender & Sexuality] To Mrs. Mausefuss My problem is getting older without having kids. It is that I’m afraid to unleash the bacillus in my brain. It is my heaviest heading into a sharp klaxon that points upward, and I know, from experience, it leads to heart disease. So we have dinner soon, pinkies, the nocturnes, pre-Pearl Harbor, and I let them talk. The cheese and crackers taste so pedestrian the Indian die-down in the mustard is like a missile launch they tell you to protect yourself. The maitre is breathless, like a balloon dissolved in a flood of freedom to talk so quickly. It’s like that: the mayor with wings, a balloon, and Mars as if the planet were floating through the city in his prodigal love of how he looks down. These are simple foods for simple times. They’re safe with one another and your cat. Cherry pie for the stomach and ======================================== SAMPLE 42 ======================================== A simple birth, to get in flesh and blood; That now I owe (without hope to get it back), Have from my shoulders, stuck under this stubbed old ark, The glad assurance this at any time Can thrust and snap and break my back. The widows' noralis Spring is here, Arnold's pipes are piping, Marriage is a cry, Master's gone mad, and while he kneaded your eggs The Krauts could not get at the King. Pigmies leapt, nor were we free From news, for there was rumourmonger Gone crazy over there. 'This is the season, then, When ladies are fairest, When they are fairest of those that are to be; When the gilt's most frequently flung, And the best laid down By the spirited little scamp, at his birth; When every beast that sklip in a forest, That drinks at a pool, All rises to the head of the fern As to the kingdom's sovereignty. But now is the time that the first wife Bringest to her spouse, The fear of a parry; And so in his terror, He revives, for his sword he flings, That he may cut down his adversary; For, like one that grabs in a market, From slaughter, mumbles the self-same morass, So strangled and inveterate, Had that sense been able to prevail Had the self-same sword been in his hand, The body would have been just as much in doubt As when, as of late, 'twas being torn out That a vestige of sense was seen to wither Ah now! the best that God can do! For not in leaving, but with you Ever constant, shall I pass A being, doomed to trifle with The passions that daily seethe In the fever-cock, Like bairs from a tree-stool That do land on a wall, And with far-seen heads of battle A clatter of horses set, And with great scows and voyces Their ambition to fulfil, Which thronged to the wonderment Of the fountaining crowd, that sat In the temple of their desire. They changed their humble speech, Not the language of pain, When only just-said, not ever spoken To an eye by misfortune o'erthrown. This cry they had for each other Then, as 'tis now, and long shall it be, If this, the best-loved of parables, On the self-same subject be told; And she, the wisest, lay down her head, Gnawing, and said she should have thuns. "The dainty will I ever see." If it be hard to bite the hook, It is easy when that's done The hook's a little harder to swallow; If it be the kingdom, Lord, 'Tis easy a kingdom to obtain. What good fortune hath my credence bought In the nation that I've been? What real good have I gained by it, That my credit my account should stand? O ingrate! have we allorship won, If your love is an ingrate's craving, You shall pay for it ere not long time. "But all the rest," so well you know, Is nothing but folly and fun, To play-pretend wisdom's man, Wherein, however wise you be, You very well may guess as such. But to have felt all the while and known That you are wiser than your thought, To fancy that you can please More or less a neighbour or a friend, Without the least wisdom's stroking, Is mortal foolishness I think. Whom to forget? Who should be forgot? Who by that love was never sought Nor ever had gained the thought? Does not look askance at his account, Nor cast a word about him, but Holds it for luck, and that the spleen Of disapproval it may be, or For fear his secret should be told? Who should be so hard? Who but God Is worth the memory? To serve right or wrong Is the right or wrong to remember. But in this world of love, and discords, Of suspicions and discontent, Why should I, Ari, confine My zeal, if it be not for forgetting? Not for forgetting lies the trouble Whereby I labour to be lazy; Not for forgetting falls the labouring tree ======================================== SAMPLE 43 ======================================== in the sun. <|endoftext|> "The God of the Zombies", by Garth Plager [Living, Death, Time & Brevity, Activities, Sports & Outdoor Activities, Nature, Trees & Flowers, Social Commentaries, War] There is a lot of swearing in the book of the laws. Some of it is obsolete and unnecessary as evidence (the absence of death doesn’t really apply, in this book, to flowers or to stars). Some of it is incorrect as evidence— the absence of a church of a forest does include the houses and the trees but includes modern art. Some is incorrect as evidence, for example, the statement “Dead men stagger toward us with their swords” doesn’t mean what people think it means <|endoftext|> "Patience", by Thomas Lordew Wood [Living, Time & Brevity, Arts & Sciences, Poetry & Poets] I wonder what time it is in San Diego; I sit among my weeds, among weeds I’m close to the ocean, near some buildings that are flat and not gray. A fair weather government that wants a meal with no greens in it, the moon shaking its horns in the sink of a high-rise. What time is it in San Diego? I find a clock and it is time. I did not set it for that anymore, that open dark I forgot, in the summer, that I would be, with a memory, a lover of it, someone who sat in a classroom, eyes dotted with black, a pupil size of an elephant, a coin weighted with bed hassock. I forgot I would be nothing more than this, if I knew that I knew that, with my eyes. How could I keep my eyes away from the window? Why are they there? Red isn't the color of stars they are colored because there are doors on the side of my apartment I was not told to close. The day has begun. I am not the kind of person to stretch. I prefer to lie. The way I’ve always been framed in my head is a short jagged ridge— or a part of my mind a dedicated project with purple poetics to just have sitting in my brain. I am there like a figure out of a ballad of a boy I once was— there are streets in my head I think I have to walk through if I want to stop running at all, just lie in the morning by the door of my apartment, make a cup of blue tea— maybe Chicago at the top of a high hill— and sit on a bench that says “Audre Samuel” on the side to pass the time, a week on the road as the sun comes in above me. <|endoftext|> "Double Rainbow", by Garth Wilson [Living, Love, Desire, Realistic & Complicated, Relationships, Home Life, Arts & Sciences, Poetry & Poets] Double rainbow is a horrible thing to have to tell someone you made it with them in the bedroom: they thought it was their home. When I brought hers in, her bare leg was like spider silk. He fancied her. We laughed, that we would both be struck black with the weight of what the evening would bring. I tried to imagine how, as the sun goes down in the south, it would have chased me, as he had chased her, in his silks of mist. Perhaps it’s more of a wish than joy, a longing, now, to be into the next bedroom, a boy, not a girl, not only with my boyfriend, but with you. But it wasn’t long before my sanity yielded. I thought that we were going to be something, a dance. I imagined the worst weather would stop us, of our relation. I couldn’t stiffen and not make it, to say what I had thought we were doing. But the rain came. It was like her face, not some ideal of a face. No matter that it was the color of sunlight in a forest; or that a bright day hung in the garden; or that our beds could probably, with a little pouring, make the moon disappear. <|endoftext|> "Ordinary Darkness", by Jeffrey Schultz [Living, Life Choices, Nature, Stars, Planets, Heavens, Arts & ======================================== SAMPLE 44 ======================================== With a goody, raxed a-dyeing, On a rival a-splicing, And for to mind yer mou'n a-felt, A nut-brown youth was there. The boys (as ere, I ha'e herd) A stiller coit to wait, And startt them in to speeden A nut-brown crown, (They ran it o'strong.) Whereat, astonished, they lookt aghast, And weel did sware they ne'er would lay, And rowts a' cryst a gleess book By her plain shoon, And after 'at, the lass un-dreeces The new-breeced mistletoe. Such uses might her hafted maun get, And no otherwise 's she! I wad be glad o' Christmas curf! But then the kirk-folk joud build up, A' dispensers "lose their ration." But then the lothes they grow strong, Wi' honier pensell and wreathlet; And nooa' win a Governor's pardon, A divil sentence, it's saft an' sound; An' they have fair o' sic cunnin crool. We took o' course wi' muckle avarice, An' spent the warth tad do it, An' came to strikes between us there O' taking a crack at it; I guthe slav'd an' secure I did it, Wad slade a kimmer an' do a bust, An' rigor's life, that ne'er forgot, Would b'elieve me I'd an' heve a wife. If gi' me swat an' sut aft ú' wrang, I though my course was sure an' sair; But then the course'st o' wife-bed I lo'ed, The ole swabbie-wife o' my life, And mid a new-bathed set to hear The hev-loved sound o' her tongue! Auld blighter! now, wi' silk-skin cloak, A bare nose, an' back to the door, I go the giest, an' I wear it; The gods be thanked that the band an' needle 'Tarns nigh ase'n me like a fiddler, For ne'er sae nearly sae's I met her As much as now! I mind na' that gray muckow-foot drudge Who 'timent I was a' fa' placad'! Nor ken I a' the gal 't was ga' to rake Ae drape nor a' for her clo'es an' dress-- Wi' saft hing-chuse, o' concealing it, An' e'en a spik'd suet, I dow 't up lo'e it, So's she a' nicht could a' be seen. What god, but faith, that can sae Unto our wretched canoe, Fer as my Gucdon at the Tweed Sall ha'e sold his tunny-poop And captured a' sae the rain! Yon sweatin', blue-silk sea, See it, I follow, tide, And dew, I follow, dew. Ye onlorn, lamppin' Hous, When will ye cast your lead? Now auld Time's teeth are loud, And ye are grown quite offens and chaps Where a' the auld streets look like the plain: Will ye come an' haud the droving, Ye're just sae haut to yoke; It wadna be a spring of water That wad gie you sport to drink. Come, come; ye may drink to the hilt; It's fit present chalice to hold To thole wi' play-fellows, I wot, Tho' ye must aye be saucy Wi' d--ne croons to keck your cok, For wi' our laddies just wean'd, I fear ye'll drop o'er the wall. Ye'll gang a mile, or ne'er come, Till down, down comes your clamour; Then we'll truce an' rub the rust, Lest ye think a'the way that's rude; Then I maun, being sune a' the a ======================================== SAMPLE 45 ======================================== Sent a may-flower to the miller's cellar. Hole after hole the air doth breathe, Till the man doth but live in air. Forget-me-nots by this artful dew Were put into foxglove buds and flows, With roses purple-crowned, And violets silver-crowned, And seven genies that rather, hid, Did bear the care to take a journey To the highest heaven from under ground, Where they do live with those that keep the grave, To scent their tallow-bearing nose. For, in the far distant country, The simple wits do all of them reign, Or the great minds to a large extent Do study, and remain untaught, Or by their lords to study get. Thrice, thrice, once for all, they must kiss, With all that hand can do. For son of baid thought doth frolick, And means by means to soul; The furious breast is purpled-purple, The heart's like as if it had a way With her sea-tossing bosom bare, Who to think of love looks never. In the midst of love the heart must lie, And must love, and be loved whole days free; No rest, no pause, no time to weep; If shame God's name be in vain, Then in the shame of deed, If God be blessed, a blessing. Above the race of men in fame, Being foremost, do at length come, Which know not how to praise, Won't help my head to feel Of the reproach that doth feed, Or my heart to understand If me they blame for it or me. In this no comforter Which fails of bearing up, Life or death, alone; None of them can pardon thee; It doth live that way for them; Wisdom is before, love is behind, Therefore above love thou art. In knowing roses the most Till now they doubt they know; In those they bear the title Of perfectness. In silence, may we meet again; Is it for these years long we wear Soul, body, love, hope, or sorrow? Is it too late to do again That last act which we may sin? If love are holy ground of prayer, Where shall we kneel and sup? Banners soon to praise, Belfasts and prayers, Pray, pray, my thoughts to sleep. Pray to-morrow, me and to-day If thou didst feel me but it know; What shall I do--again? Bid thy servant sleep, Weep, me and be still. Thus God will deal How he can best, Kind God, who know'st and saw All, and I alone. <|endoftext|> 'I sang with spirit and with fire Of rich and living colours, of light; I sang by pictures and shades and sorrows, Of buried love, and lost love, and me.' But of what have these given power, Conceiving power To mortal ears, When we see, indeed, The white lights dart afar, Reflected glories of those holy skies. So at her heart she burned, When the tears had washed away the trace, And she remembered she was not older Than these low rocks, That listened to the song, by the brooklets laft Above them, till the mists died in clouds. The sun streamed o'er her bosom, and shone On the white curls of her pouring hair, And laughed into her soul and laughed Because the song would still come on him; And then poured itself out again. She wept because of the rock's deep joy, And her soul wept and her heart beat fire. A star hung o'er the lovely island, Like a guard, guarding its jewels safe, There, in the gloaming, golden and hoar, And high above all of the Seven Stars, There was one white Rose, as old and young, Girded with a star in her shining hair. O'er the Island of Dreams, She was queen of the sweet Isle; She charmed all her fairy court With voices musicall and sweet; Then three young maidens came at eve, Clad all in white, and glistening gold: They brought their loads of budding fern Which, sutured in a gleam of red, They placed 'mid the lilies ======================================== SAMPLE 46 ======================================== A history; Anarchists have been creeping into our highest places, And protestant investiture has been sneaking into The Cathedral, so that the vestry is most certainly Orphaned, And all the people. A high bastardy has been hatching up, Placing itself between what we thought our property was and our soul. <|endoftext|> "The Study of all Victims", by Alan Gibb [Living, Coming of Age, Youth, Love, Break-ups & Vexed Love, Realistic & Complicated, Relationships, Social Commentaries, Cities & Urban Life, Crime & Punishment, Popular Culture] I. We meet in street in front of Rhymer's bar, a door-opener flipped and re-opener like that, during desire’s little ass- slapping music, This is where we wake our lights. The wind cuts the smell of hay a flower has; it sprouts a ball of grass. So this is night, and we are young, drinking like the climber into the blank beyond the happy illusion the stars share. Showing my windows in a pilot non-blocked glass, as I have never done before, the iron light flares like a flame in my face and blinds me as if I had no eyes, moving my black hair to cover my forehead, the nervous gaze the brain masking my neck as I answer as I answer, in my sleep. II. We meet in the bedroom we shared one time, the narrow crib as sort of folding chair for the long journey of the moon, before we awoke, wrapped and prepared for night. O good sinning, good involving youth! My skin has formed the lining of a bronze zodiac and weathers of distant hours, as my eyes remember like the rings of fire in the signal-lines. In dreams my hands have longed for the wet, the body’s curled like an accord, defining body-space, body-space as time-delirium; in dreams my hands have dreamed of sleep, the sweet shuddering of all things in sleep! III. We met in the field beyond the fall, a slattern tangled with weeds, shrouding his I lines from reality— oldish, dark, even; covered with too much hair for love’s law to court; his mind circling the stars. IV. We met in the wheat, the field’s pale eek, toward the seed; the faggot and stile lopped from the truss; earth worms stoned into the field’s stalk—faggot and stile for the worm. Where did you stay? “Next year’s toast, sir”; my eyes giving him only hay. V. My eyes have caught the universal world-light. Now it is dark; it is night; pastures are quiet with men and space, the horizon's roaring semilinkers, men slit by slit, with chaps in the sun’s shell. Not that it is over. I kept looking in to watch the end, in such silence, but my dream ended, which was, and my dream. <|endoftext|> "Solo Rims", by Fortunio Giovannini [Living, Life Choices, Arts & Sciences, Music, Social Commentaries, Popular Culture] Sometimes I don’t feel inspired, I feel like a lost switch beating the over and over of La Brebbia that I’ve read in Lifer Stories: the birth, the birth, the light lights, the masses, the world is so quick to discard the blues hardened in the sour trefye of the wine even the stars fall apart at the edge. And if I don’t finish the chords, I fear the process will vanish in the notes into an empty shape with a blank taper and a clean midscreen cutting out all the rest in an orange sky ahead of me where all the lost ends are ======================================== SAMPLE 47 ======================================== where we stand, Is forever what it is, forever what it was when we were young and independent and met where we met. I think what you’re doing is smart-ass Like the real thing or the good party where you and I old souls used to roam drunk as the day we graduated And left with nothing But our silver toes imprints scarred, Flecked where we met the enemies who turned into friends By the time we married at 19 years old. Your words are clichés, Words about the same things as anything But now people say Gaga in a broken bed Words about the sad things we all have to leave alone Or what we say Is the truth because it's what we think Stop thinking just do it I want you to tell me I want you to tell me what was the right answer to what was the question about love but with no answer left but no answers no one in the universe finds love in a bar about to die or in a house without water but no one can drink the water the more drinkers there are the more drinks there are until no one can drink the water and then it's the water Love is a bartender, is a bar and a city about to die He sits behind the bar and the bar he sees all the time is there when he does he told himself He could have grown a beard like his father at the age of 15 but he would have died from rabies so he saw the basement where the skeletons bobbed like zombies and laughed his father right back in his chair while he could still cry his father right back in his chair That’s when he began to write if you only knew some redemption is salted so it needs a little sunshine in the middle <|endoftext|> "The Axe", by Scott Cairns [Living, Death, Social Commentaries, Popular Culture] After witnessing my friend’s succumbance to a wheel to the rafters of fame, I sought to dismember the opiate of his existence: my hero-haircuts, mowed hay nights, and later the clotheslines of my own wanting out. -Tyler [The Long Blew, ZilberDirns, Natty Woank, * Our axes are our swords in that we gift ourselves in absence of the umbilicus. -Meredith M. [My Book of Home] 18 <|endoftext|> "Your Citizenship Documents", by Scott Cairns [Activities, Jobs & Working, Social Commentaries, Popular Culture] my stamps from the time I smuggled my way into the Black Sea, my old Egyptian dominoes, gold beads, caviar. My blood gotta be fucken purdy like a true American. -Michael [Letterbal, Birthdays, Festivals, J Street, * In my seat at the airport in Maine, I missed my plane, only to find that the plane had flown a minute over the Atlantic, leashing a homing trail of bread-crumbs that will await me at an Asp point. I’ve lugged my ass from coast to coast so you wouldn’t have to. Stool by without purty reason. You’re not in this life for the money like you up in Connecticut for the crapp-outs or swimsuit pictures. I should know. I was one of those New York girls who helped them pitch the big As then the small As with a wink-wink-index-sign and a semi-O catch through, but this was the height of atomics, and our pelts turned to the new Croes when the boys came back to town. Men thought less of gold-plated A-Actions and more of beans in a cork field or jasmine in a white-out of- Stepan, New Jersey. <|endoftext|> "The Unretirement Home That Is You", by Christine Piru [Living, Life Choices, The Mind, Love, Realistic & Complicated, Realistic & Complicated, Relationships, Family & Ancestors, Home Life, Men & Women] The place where you will dwell may not be the same ======================================== SAMPLE 48 ======================================== "Despair! all-beauteous youth! Life hath yet one ray: Dost thou repine? It is the gods that dwell Here beneath thy breast; 'Tis a sure boon, And like the tropics springs thy heart: How very grand, and sweet, The living picture here Of thy Goddess: So trim, so trim art thou! With thy sunshine and thy showers; And shames no base pains on earth, From thy lug proud with thy laud. How grand, when the speech with nobility Blesses our life, The humble gift of lovingkindness; As the wind wherein are split the branches, To bear the precious fruit to the hand of Love; To bear and to be borne, how fair, how fair! And glad the heart and full of the joy we feel. Art such a Goddess and immortal! Thinkest thou that long-ago'd rain can wean This sweetness away? Sometime so fierce and brisk there came from the North, As Rhenish, the battle of old days; With fury over mountains and still waters, Raging storm, and solemn with its singing. Thy will, without fear to ask, Not heaven, but thou art god, I am but a poor old man. But ah, that feeble way, Its end a-lack of breath! Oh, quit it swift, and grant My prayer, feeble, work us a better birth! No, nay do not slay The captives, and the town To us by treaty yield. And this, ah, this again: the merchant of Metz, Who brought a perilous treasure in his ship from thee Metz, the wintry met, metz, the metz-me-a-tiotl. His faith he lived in open lie; And in the open storm he died. His noblest blood was won To gird his arms and shield, To for his friends, and for his city. Ah, what are men, their life, to yield To powers so utterly, Towers to fail, and palaces to crumble, And their loved wives and babes to tear, And their young courage to requite, And their virtues to redeem, By death, and torment, and terror, For what is lost by molest, Bloody wine, but a sweeter drink Up to the breast, up to the flesh, To the lion's mouth of hate, As of old. Alas, alas, on this hand of mine What baleful boding and dreadful portent Hath come on this doomed dwelling, Of my royal ancestry? Curse on a cask of curses, yet behold What fiends lurk in what furthen's here, And what a wreck they fill How dread, when on the entrails of the moon, Their spirit ebbs away! Now what this hand of mine shall do, Can never be told Till the fount, the spring, be drunk, Till all that toil and sorrow has Flow'd out of tears--nay, Till, at last, this cask be full. "Thine empire!" cried King George Eleven, When all was now for victory; "Thine empire!" shouted he; "Thou tellest of me to-day "Peace, friendship, and the rope." "Never was,'' I answered him, To that which I was told; "Never was,'' I said to him, "Hath such a company, "Of friendship such a crew "Got in a hundred years." Meantime a token flew, Where, far in the north-west shone Of Drontian hills and mist, Forsaking and beyond Thought of such a doom to be, And Drontian hills went past; Now northward a little way, A little doth it flow, And then enters a haven, Ports were there and sea-mouths blind; But out of that night of woe Ran, for a sign my brother gave. Meanwhile, Henry Eight, A guileful man, and now stark blind, Could not in such a cold domain Move his followers from the king, But whelm'd in the forgetful fold Of his false comrades, Fool as they were, and yet haughty. To a deep music was made sweet By our instruments loud roll'd, And he, with a sure aim, Shot from his horse, and shot the lowing k ======================================== SAMPLE 49 ======================================== anchor, which it wore, by means of a rope escorted by Tritonian Iacchus, the sight of myrtle, that spot of beauties, which last was seen to swim by thee, O stone of alabaster. "With these limbs I revelled for two years in idleness, which the good Fortune, who cares for no retribution, smooths to produce the good fruit; and I, who erred in that I erred, since my dissolution, do repent. But I worship this stone, for the soft portions which it weaves resistorily, of the mold vouching sweetly to my limbs; and, so highly did I charge it, there meets with the blame the good of this post." Thus I supt in the grot. Nor for one and two days did my so great hunger of that grot prevail with God, for parching thirst for the pure draught, that tormented me more, than when, in summer, oft in the pulseless sands of Lofak, the sun burns, scorched with hot wind, when the fresh water, that through a chink in the rocks comes with the breath of God, touched by one lark who rounds afar the orange and myrtle tree. "Now that thou hast noted with what mighty stress first I held on the slippery slick upon the mountain, even as the bronze goes black to-wit, thou mayest know why to-day I lift up my back the prayer the most, and the bier of faith, which I say over and over to heaven, and in two stones by mighty sign, and so empty hatchet without fuel all belief. Lo, thou art one with me as one soul! And if thou wouldest in such light things of God understand, my head now long since would rest in the The second ascent, from the little Finger fountain up to the three-hued circle of glittering peak'rs, is thine. with wise marred thereof. I neither spoke a word to thee, my own son, nor what Beelzebub did that I looked on in sleep, though we went with the Magi nor know. For that time was a war; God in wrath unto law, "The ark was good," singeth one of the Sibyl children, because of the son of Beelzebub, that fierce and smitten shepherd. "Say, what is this in the likeness of a beast with two horns, like to what was he wont to say? The furnace was gold and silver." was never made thereby, or any on earth; nor hath been redressed since then, or in the life time, or hereafter. Such is earth's government, which shakeeth the nations with their strife, that every day new godliness rise and sail. The old god, the old thou, thou shalt be host produced in the world, and old evil deeds with their doom; and it shall be so, unless thou shrill and babble it forth. Lo, I know not, nor can be so well wrought into a bond of love as thou thyself art wrought: yet if thou wend through Arcady and lead with thy hand and ane go forth, thou and I can pass the whole of this little finger flowing, and many Grecian works, which were may there and Greek, bear, of thy appearance; all at once shalt thou live with the blessed, and be so far-forward in renown." As when one set on to hard work to work hath naught left to do save thread or bur, the sword becomes as stone, so through my senses the hard thing is, that will I fetched and stayed, When that I went forth of the grove, a low place for yonder city, and saw therein two maidens that charioted men, One here squatted, that discharg'd his horse with the flank, and one a-leaping on the images of weapons, grasped the flawless shield with the acute tip of the point of his sword; So he struck, blow by blow, so that the glove was seared; and the flesh was beaten. All my soul, every one of the flower of the Argives in me, got like a shriven and cancel'd; yea, for death receiveth all, as soon as it is known what it has befallr'd. So sunk I, and lay by the godhead for a long while; till with a sudden thought I, "What would that the Emperors and Logres should be thus ir ======================================== SAMPLE 50 ======================================== ', muses Mæcenas. Ch. 32. The Land of Mists]. A very fitly-pronounced name for a land of mists, if it sounds like mist. The mist and down are to be distinguished by a sort of red mist, like a few drops of blood, which our hero from beneath is descending into, and is hurried all away. Ch. 33. A Carriage, and some Others]. To answer to the nation. Hect. It takes two horses to draw a Carriage; and two men to ride it. Mac. It is a thing observed, that two men are a four to a fight. Sir Wm. Hudson's Travels, 11th ed., p. xlvi. See Appendix, A. Hucknodeer, an old man, Was carolling his lame years Aloft, and in the Carriage Which his old arms sustained. 'Twas a fearful thing for to look On the moon at half-past nine, Without a man in sight. 'Tis quite the funniest thing known To frequent Comus, and hear The god as he belied in The moon at half-past nine. 'Tis a fearful thing to hear The fish from the distance croaking As the god gleaming in the moon At half-past nine. 'Tis a dreadful thing to think, That the fish, so numerous, Should never be mistaken. 'Twas a mighty sickness, In Comus' train, that shook Our consciences, long ago, That fish from out the sea Would not deceive. That ill Left us in number unmeet, For number would fit to crush A man and his wife, she said. A flock of buffaloes, strong, Found us, to sudden terror, And to confound our sense; For she fitted our sense up By dint of her charms, in Our eyes, and to the nose Was light shaken of its sight. In my wife, my infant child, Is my son's life and pureness, With the case the same. The senses confounded We may well perceive, that his True name, his form, were never seen; And, as a rud receipt gave, He finds, that the same case come To a woman, holds as a gift. For much good that may flow From a woman's fancy It is: by what she will bestow, The case only is allowed. Yet, not that she bestow it In vain; some wayward fortune, That nature ventures in man's vein, And blind human instincts resign, Shows in the woman's nature. 'Tis a pretty life, this theirs: You may begin, at six, and thence The sun an orange will grow; You are nine, you fancy free, And there's gingham on a Queen's Warden. And at twelve you've a churchful; For half a dozen prayers a day; And at three, in sixteen nineteen, You, you 'tis evening, and o'er A maid whose neck you've just bettered, Are baken, as we've already said, And married at fourteen: For no woman's married yet. He's only fourteen, but one; And if that young bride was his, Somehow the youth must marry her In twelve days or two, or sooner. For the country's standing in arms By a foot-hold hard by, and a garrison, And there's fear she'll tear him in a strife. The reason why the young ladies take To sing these melancholy songs, Is, that thirteen centuries and twice five, Since the beloved of the Saxons, Mother of glory and pure martyrs, From a woodland refuge came, And here gave half her power and wealth, In gift of love, to a scoundrel. The lands of the Elmdore, You know, are full of hospitality; The beer's not good, the dance scarce more light; In vain, by the drunken flood, The burghers of ill-deserving The prince's bride would disgrace. Mighty and royal he Her villain heart can deceive; They tell each other 'tis so true, With such subtleism, And grin, to see how it's warranted, Poor Thorny Branch! How she despises poor Br ======================================== SAMPLE 51 ======================================== in their shadow and squandered and, for the painfully conservative men, the hairy jacket of their money in your vestibules, and where the bees were when the poets went home for the night, this is the yellow voice of the nocturnists. You turned and contented yourself. You turned and starched the guts of the moth. <|endoftext|> "Sonnet #11", by David Lau [Living, Disappointment & Failure, Health & Illness, Love, Break-ups & Vexed Love, Realistic & Complicated, Social Commentaries] In a poor corner of the country I’ll fill you with joy, Romeo with joy in his capital, from the choir of St. Bartholomew smells ever fresh and wholesome; When the city’s night falls low and cloudy, I tear out his heart for the doctor who ruined him. You have been accused with his doctor, you have had to own, that you never wished to know what was making him miserable, but you do, you’ve known him, you know him, his inferior, you know what is ordinary and stuff, And now you look and read about the disease and its forbidding, and suddenly you feel it would be easy, so easy to let it pass. For the quill and its feather, for the strings and their masters I stay in your house, in your place, I have you at my elbow, where was the end and where was the beginning, and what is l ongle and w ell . . . ? You write to me, take a line, I’m here all night, all night, I’m here now, I’m here now, let the clock stop —we’re all sold, we’re all sold, in my government, now that the universe has come and gone, not an hour not an hour, the government, your words are everywhere. There is money, money, money, money, it’s everywhere. But here, I’ve never said it, I haven’t said it, you have never heard it, you in your prison-house, in your prison Inquisitor’s body you know? Here you get up in the morning and walk about Every minute, every minute, every minute means paying for the life of this place, that means paying the thing in me that I am, but all I want is to be paid, all you people pay me in changes, I like it here, it feels right, Here, we’re chained by the fence to the square That wall, but what it chained us by is smaller, You and I are chained together, here, soul on soul, here in the square— Not here forever, here forever, forever, for the city I walk by, the slums look on. <|endoftext|> "The Last Novel", by David Lau [Living, Life Choices, Time & Brevity] 1 She awoke in a country house, in the country house she saw a pale face in a red flannel shirt and a boy in a red flannel nightie standing outside, not old or young, not a beggar nor a voodoo doll carved by Chinese priests or moon-eyed witch doctor— young paralyzed body and head— all life: fear with no name, not there in the world or there in her nightie, not the land of her dreams.2 She was found where she was and nursed and cared, faded like a sheet of money, married with a poker in the night, her name in her shawl— where was she brought and why? lay there in her bed, where she was, what for? not another lost silent face. no need to blink and land, follow the swimming text the hand can throw, unfurling a land still <|endoftext|> "A Roman Blessing", by Ellen Brown [Living, Life Choices, Marriage & Companionship, Love, Heartache & Loss, Religion, Faith & Doubt, God & the Divine] . . . . . . I love you, because. . . . . . would you write it, would you print it? Do this. Tell no one, and no one. . . . No, you keep it, for God. . . . . . . . . . I keep you, because. . . ======================================== SAMPLE 52 ======================================== hooting dogs: Nine and sixty, plaintive chairs without strings, and - oh - the cold of my heart when I'll have to leave her here, here - in the swing of her arms clutching the bone. I'll lie beside her a while, breathing her to me, her who laughs without me, her who says yes when I ask again. But it's so easy to forget the journey, to forget the road that lies ahead, the only road I know, to be lost and sad like this. And the anger that builds in my chest butters my head to sleeves that spit a wind as my heart dips in and out. My head to sleeves spit the wind, and I don't know why. I know I'll be angry. I ask why a heart should always be a loving one; should love itself all the time, but should love nothing, a heart is a sickness that pulls down the body it pains, pulls down the soul. I walk, in my world that is my heart, an unwilling mouth and aching throat, I never choose the way into a room: it knocks, it sways, it moves, I don't know why I don't choose the road, the one road, the road to death and a smile in a crowd. I never want to die. I've grown old and old and old, sitting on a road in the rain and in the distance I see trees. Trees, the sound of a boat, a man. Towards me, forever away. When I close my eyes at night, the scenery is taken from my eyes, and I'm myself, I lie in the silence, I am silent, I prefer it this way. I'm able to forget that I don't choose my thoughts, that in my sleep, I read my geography, that in the darkness, stars are and ever and ever, and that the stars are littler than stars, that they spin on their axes, that they're bright, that they have lives that are stronger than my own, that they can't be tallied, that they betray me, that my days end and end. Here I'm lying in my bed: I don't believe in anything, and I don't believe in anything, and I don't believe in nothing, and I don't believe in anything. And I wasn't home the night the fire and glass fused, the awful trouble and the awful quiet were entwined, these facts swirling, like crazy moons, above the frame. When the body is a beast the soul cannot rest in anything but the flesh, to go on is to enter doubt, to go on is to doubt. And for this we suffer, knowing that we must suffer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The afternoon, the sky, not black, dark and yet somehow improbable, how far away it seemed, how light it was, or so I thought. How it seemed a sunbeam, how I can be that bright. The motor running, the glass moving. I thought, then, of her the sun among the leaves, the bright face just beyond me, gray and sunny. I saw the footprints in the sand, not footprints, but arcs, ripples, water, a sandy highway where nothing moved, dead tree trunks whose slow ======================================== SAMPLE 53 ======================================== His slaves, outcasts, informers, and thralls, Taken and fettered and depriv'd; His Golden Age is gone, a shade Pall with an empty space, and all For a fish that breeds not here. <|endoftext|> "An Ode Upon Centinel Wakes", by John Dryden [Nature, Animals, Landscapes & Pastorals, Spring, Stars, Planets, Heavens, Social Commentaries, Mythology & Folklore] Centine, wooden fish and crustacean, Who do let wild waves drown in thyessential seas; Pale star-flowers, filmy mooned blossoms, Which touch not earth with purer chill, Nor move my eyes with clearer dride; Earthdwellers come thickly, bloodshot beaks, Bare-headed to the sunrise-ray; Who lives of love and keeps it in a hinge; Whose soul cannot go where matter is. Honordanus, who puts apart Thee and thy white dust, for mine own soul; Whose sight is too strong for a bee, For man's eye, no eyes were needed O dale, beneath my thought; O stile, O fountain, O spring, From min to mind and thee; O glorious heart, high river-blind, Where shines no light on dale and sea. <|endoftext|> "Antiquities of the Romanow nation", by John M'Kenna [Social Commentaries, History & Politics, Mythology & Folklore, Heroes & Patriotism, Social Commentaries, Class, Money & Economics] R uster o'er o'er the dark Atlantic shore The bars and curbers peel away, And show the sunny famous run The trodden yellow of a year ago, And on the steep of life my story is told: the hand Clung hard around the thickly bedotted web, And every chain and cord was loosed. Money and rank and power were spent For every ill and every good, But to be glad at heart and be right, What matters, you see, for a man? Ploughing, roving in the fells, Fighting with half-a-dozen brothers Till old hat bursts: I speak in rimes On low and heartful cakes, Where seldomly and neverly A time is come to tell my pain. Now out, and in, and in, and out, And with the bard and crow and rook and quail, A thousand tangrams, a thousand tangrams, now out, And with the clock and loud the bell, The old Chronics' hour-old time, The trumpet and the treadle And barn and top of the clock, O bright blue of the bells, the clock, the horse, the man, And thou, sweet Christian Handel. And on the Stowlabsolutely where the rings Are cracked at last And with a sound, a solemn sound The slow resounding chime A century full of wonders sings. Man still must seek his day, And seek it alone; Nature still resists his care; Man's relation is with him to the greater death, And if he fights all alone, What are the odds, one, two, three? And though he fight as best he may, And think all reason nearly good, His odds, he knows, are one, two, three. Death is for man what fire is for the moth; Why not with them fight for the others? What is the use of speaking to them, And of defending to them, and of praising? Rome, sick to her doom, fell fair, In loud lament; I heard her ! In loud lament, I too, Rome, fell low to hear. On the temple's top with head in the air Her statues beat their instruments, And the unseen thousands heard, In whoLE the divine Rome complain. Ah, sores which can be cured That scar still live for other causes ! What has been done has been done, And all that has been done was done with hands Which had their hands already. In time of peace We reap our question: yea, time was to blame When we were fain of the hand of the sword To fill the place of our restored power. Thou, good sir, who hast A hundred men to carry off, Like clay, for a name, as a thing ======================================== SAMPLE 54 ======================================== If my absence displease thy friends, Let me go! Ay! a pause of sorrow May soothe the aching of a heart Sufficed to alter or to end All that thou canst not. Now thou On a problem haply not wise To comfort with no reason Suppose the world is but a dream Because thou wert absent to begone! Then I present to thine ear A word--that I feel would offend So strongly thy feeble mind That it may well reprehend The sound of it--Wrong,--per say; And I decree 'twas in my power Thus, the boy! And, even so, This thing I fain would emphasise, I love thee, not because thou art Of noble stock and fair with sterling Appearance, and common sense Assures us that in thee are found Means and arts of safety and of mind As noble in their uses. Here I feel that those are good which please, Blessing and good---per say; the rest Are evil in the case of man In human estate; the last ten paces That he passes are tres bad--I feel This evil on the farther side The selfish will is a jest Which must be resumed and laughed out, Or it haunts thee ever. That the power Of love and friendship is confest In thy life, here let me remind thee That one who loves, and hath our kind Beneficent, loves not his friend Who woos him; he courts his prize, who wooes, And the friendship's lord is faithful to One only wrong, because he loveth For love's own sake. And herein is he Rightly to woo--which is of the soul, For he realeth other bodies' love Which is the seat of reason in the heart-- To whom the selfish will is not harmless The power of loving in thy soul (As t'incevè benefits the world), For to the contrary is hazardous His will so nettéd and mangled By doing wrong that is not it. Nor can he, I say, the insufficiency Of action gain, of this bequeathing So much of sense and being; but it is Of sense repossessed, or repossessed Of sense and being, and of being Of sense: and so what we are here, Perforce, we use as we come, and so Be, then, we hurry. But thou should'st Some other words convey, which words Will not be willed, for which I invite Much patience. 'Tis time for parting. God who commands--'The widow's servant On our third day of Christmas--be in time Amedilla--as I was in yesternight (For, out of retrospect, the noon was sweet) I chid, that, without, I should have bided Thei had not met in church together. I then distinguished that which was to be, When I discovered I had not wit to guess That, their ada, but their ance vext That, had been completed. This is done, And now the times are come, dearest, for which I look to make, my strengths--now in defence-- Sufficient to fulfil my desire, In faith, of making thee happy, dearest, With all my strength; in such like cause alone The King of all is taken to heart; For (for I care not for the rest) this limb Hath been, like me, a fierce ruck at making, So sæculious it is, or nearly so. Therefore, not what was learnt before But this, was taught; and, what 's more to say, Some now untwist I felt my pulses bound With pain, and fainting; this was not, it appears, Ever with thy dear hand, dearest, touching me; But only with thy kiss-- Some false affront, or new excuse for wrong, That struck my supposéd sense--no matter how Our speaker is ensealed in the gobble! My praise For doing this, or for these, I pray; no more. Of many years of devotion spent In learning this, I had the inward joy alone Of preventing, as far as could be, the pleader Who, pent in thee, makes his paramour With partiality, nor ask I all; But that from thee and thy pure yet-sustaining Reserve, so soon to be debarred, is rue. ======================================== SAMPLE 55 ======================================== Girth and focus and poise in motion. They fall and stand, and roll and move; the vanes Are in motion, and the swift wheels are yet Still moving on the whirring wings of wind, Thro' states of marvels and beauty there, in beauty Still wheeling and sweeping, never settle. Our-neighbors still are our-neighbors, and our eyes Still meet to make our spirits with our spirits meet. Our-hearts still beat to make our heart-beats meet And our spirits meet in laughter, or our pity, That now feels pity. This is our. This is our light. As France, A sister spirit. From the eyes of sun Of God's own sister, a host of stars For our September, are on fire the white And glistening filaments of light, That form in one bright space a thousand ways What sea of light from dead Lake Tiberias To swell and lighten in us to be The image of our days to be, and that still Spans and embraces, and shines into far And growing years; these live ours as do the white And glistening filaments from planets revolving To light our winters, and the cold crisp snows that Fade as they advance the brighter through the air, To glaze and stain our faith, till at the last We set our winter somewhere beyond the gate Of heaven, a bridge athwart our dead thin edge, Stretched across a cruel sea whose hides of snow, Deer, horse, man wearing the same colour skin As morn and evening, still are on their strand. They die not so far as we that die, Living in faith, and hand will hand and heart breath; But silence, and at last silence that shall never die, Their golden voices for their living yeasts. <|endoftext|> They are dancing over the gate That looks out on a river And the dark river in the riverbank Where the tides and all the current run To the heart of a conquered land. They are dancing over the gate That looks out on them, their women and children, Their sons and husbands, and all their pride And the houses of their fathers and grand-children. So they are dancing over the gate Where the United Nations once took its stand. The serpent guard their robes in sleep And the monster legions of Red Terror Will drink the blood of the heroes of yesteryear Who still are unconquerable. This the proper time for her to come To the city which she once called home, For the bridges are all sunk, the avenues Seen like a picture in a book, A picture that one saw in his book Of an unknown city and unknown people, She sees a forest of hills and trees Seen like a picture in a book, The Washington Monument, and calls Its hundred gates her own. They stand in the clef of the dream, The hundred gates, and her busy machine Can grind to minute processes, To minute details of costuming, And befit the needs of callow Gillers who get full square sight of things, She sees them come and go With a throng of dancers in rich attire With the fancy's torrent of waters Thrust out like a fountain at them. But she had a city with its avenues When she felt the unknown inside her bosom, When the first day after a hundred decades She had the strength to stand on the stage of her place And to sway in her presence the calling World of her century. They have brought her up with precious things, With a dress with a mystery Crowded with paly flowers and silver-belled blossoms For the wind that finds her flowery way to her. She is pampered and spoiled by the people She took into the city, By the centenary train that carried her To the stage in splendour under lights, But soon the people called her away, To the huts Where the poor and needy lived When she dared to dream. Her foot-mind Went beyond all recall Of the old city's features, Her home in the open air. Forgotten are the people and things In the calm of the gray, And the dress she wears At the house of the Unknown Man Like a wide-eyed doll of leaves In her slumber, Though she has the sweet red of fallen Summer-lights in her eyes When she wakes. She has left the city but not forgotten The trees in the lawn, And the roses, and the garden of ======================================== SAMPLE 56 ======================================== A man, like myself, whom doubts & rivalries Had wrought into a haughty boaster, gay With flattering dreams & frequent flurries Of illusive wit & cant, whose scheme was a wife To honour, rather than to be. I was one Whose resolution was to serve onemood & one Overcomming death, which did not yet seem half so Eminent an aim in love's purest light romance So when the breese my sitting-room shews a lunch Of roasted goat, or when I can considerable ware The scent of clover bloom wch. B. Jay, the all erudite Traveler, I thought this man had stolen From Solomon's bench in the holy supply Of Ismail. A sprightly youth, too, to shun The grates, and a jovial dame--she had A very hag. Too little, too late, &w. Too eager to be liked, I handled her brush Before the sun was half sunk, &c. I am neither Pope, Knight, nor Citizen, yet The throng of strangers is so anxiously Palmed about with what they call their rights, I've counted fifty times I'm all alone-- I'd shout and stamp--and expect a helmet, I'd kick the curb, and give my sword a knell-- For want of which, and that the form's in danger For me, like thee, Who could'st be of these? Alas! it seems, no noble knight would give up My broken throne to join the assembly In abject servile clause; and sham democracy So earnest seems to me, the State you join Is vile democracy, its mute Vice-President Your proud, vulgar wicket. Quid prouds? Most idle, Immaterial, Ignorant, Have I read this horrid speech, on T.V., And have it to the mouth of my brother-- The play-house wall for such as me, Is he blithe and full of cheer, who learned In ancient Greece that I might, a schmendrick, Then, finding this plain good, why take they not The liberal means which a prince of Art Would choose for his foot and his head, With cordials, clear glasses, spirits and palsies? Thy sneering, droll pictures and thy snare They have vexed out of their brains, I know They could me down in an instant and cut, And much more than that could, if they tried-- And yet that would fear when and how. So tramping and feeling the point A-tweak, and finding the way, and feeling That while I might in the plantain's shade, A hare's noggin strike a clown, to a clown Affecting such minutenso, I saw My leg and my bull tongue among Had more in trust than the millionaire's Great eye of promise, and lo, beholding this Gained here much to sorrow, and gave a leg. Then, seeing myself as it were my share Of three levels, as to four, I felt That I was double, a partner of thine And therefore that I should do The branch of political laws, And sit, the church, the box, the thankless job, And, feeling my tongue slim And my limbs as a branch of the leg I have, as I did before, myself Chosen twelve year on the trunk and leg Of this worthy page, and so, as the worth Of all my kind self seem'd half-desired, Here am I, a lot of semblances, Wise, reddifying, and silent as gods, And once more object of that never-dying thought Which will not be so, nor evermore That which it was, but due to my self, That I should be as it was, which now Me seem can bring no recompense nor use. One day they went (the cardinals) to hear And see a concert, with forty singers, And forty-two that man could make delight To attend and hear by, without delay or fit, All instruments. That done, here Fanny de Lion Jump'd up, said grace, and sung some bars of ice I'd brought him, with four eyes at four points, to see From the King of Thespian snakes, the eyes That looked, from thence, of lightning, and as he sung And leap'd, the blood in each red eye seem'd flame Burning, with the same fire, and the heat in them Disluing his voice into liquid ice as they came ======================================== SAMPLE 57 ======================================== path; When with harsh learning we learn from the centuries The virtues of prudence, what wisdom's goal is; And keen-hearted youths, as yet unwashen, Are roused with catchwords; we might say, in laborious school, Are brought to their knees, or by strange implications, Stumbled over, with strained efforts to restrain Their uncontroll'd, why they walk as they do, Unmoved, and with eyes let dream what they please. There are some miseries, too, behind this ragged state, Which these handsome, firm spirits, or men indifferently, Ravel under, unweigh'd, and smooth men, who wait A spirit possessing, to whose lap, Where dullness nor firmness both blend, but kindle In sweet expectation their own mild thought, To find its course along the mountain slope, From haughty mount to basnet-brows on the valley. We pray that heaven's peace shall swell her skin Of perfect joy, and life in you arise, As sunshine swims in murky air, and you Receive just as it enters to your breast; While with the more tolerable aspect, The mood subserved beauty which puts out Its window, and lets out the rays from below, And you justly deem the breeze of heaven to breathe Its mild, its celestial freshening breath. Juan, who loved well the picture, and of him Who loved, with him grew pious; and he found The reason where they led the way: the grace Is the same, and yet the semblance different. And even to Juan, who loved most the place, He seemed the form that all the Divine Made grabs for: the sacred presence, and the dream. Like the Angel when he set the stars Of all the world a-flying-so, That he had laughed, that he had done the thing And looked, and forgot that he had done at all; That something had been-done which was to be And something to remember: in that guise The Angel took the people: he who had heard Long since what they are, and only said, And only dreamed again, and again forgot His laughing-fire, and fiddled-offered it like a slave; The Angel who had taken stone for maid and man, With both hands a wing full flush the golden fire, And on the cross the broken hand of Moses; The shard-stone glimmering; and he who, With the same wings, up grows to heaven's dome Winds off the water-blowing powdery snows, Still downward laments, still turns to learn how we can grieve: He is the to-come messenger: henceforth The awful habit of his rest shall be To know what we can suffer and forget, To feel with others what we ourselves can do, And find the open eye a dumb man's mark, And stir it, with a friend's faint touch of prayer. What of Juan's terror of the sea? His rest which was not rest: no sea-walls to spin Upon his heart, or grope on his thought, His merry face, his limbs which he hath tamed, His mother, and the Mother of him, she his best Comradel still behind him. His lampless head Now joins the she-world o'er all her beats, Tottering a wonder of the blithesome full Of gray cloud-masses beating on to the bow. His chin takes still its vagaries; that shoulder Which bougetters always deem the mark Of bitterness, has got a strange one; The breath which gathers to a shadiest puff Of his unfilled combs, goes red only in line Where the mouth breathes o'er the ground, and that hand Which mouthing life, makes blood only draw there. Is it a sleep of troubles on troubles, O Spaniard! tell us, to know thee true. For thy white bones which, clustered, lurk About thy gowns' white corner, like hen's eggs Sealed in the arms of sleep the wrist, Thou speak'st of being buried with thy grace: That's true, if English hearts be peaches to be: A Spanish took thy feather to be dried Is't a rosin, O then, I'll play, I'll play a game, I'll have no bull with thee, I'll play, I'll seal no bet with thee. I'll have the great box, with the seven deals, I'll face the toss of immortality. Whereof ' ======================================== SAMPLE 58 ======================================== CTE she's mad for France, SEE a-half of all land in Italy, And all land half half in two more. GRA. See then, my rose, all a-spruce 'Twixt the tall hills, When will he come, when will he come, O lovely Long Ago. Ding dong, ding dong, TAILITEER I mind The ca’ th’ bewails slow decay - LITER ROOF, why then I sit and wander The end of things where I begun, When will he come, when will he come, GRA. Well, well, When will he come, If God will - Wherever He abides In whatever place He dwells He is the end of things as well as I. There’s the Place Dichæia. Dance, little boots, riggity-seconds, The limber straps don’t knuckle. Tell us about the World, said He. The joint he sits in now Lets the ear be taken elsewhere. Where he will go The King is offered, little we’re told. When the man draws up to the screen The little slipp’ry place and all the - Gasping of steam. The man that stops Tight legs, the man that stops Chew up at the air <|endoftext|> "The Waist and the Neck", by Adolf Wood [Activities, Jobs & Working, Arts & Sciences, Music, Social Commentaries, Crime & Punishment] I THE BUTCHER in one place, the trumpet another - Meant to astonish, me you thump, me you thump, me, me - My wife and me are met at the City's Exposition. Since no one knew the stomach’s size I made it up, Me thrusting my tongue out, me the price, Me, me, me, me, I me, my hungry self - Here the Man with the Wrists like the Hearts Shines up, dips a horse in the White Blood; He is a Strut like the Coachman he rides in fur - There the Heart, between the Wrists like that one Heart - There I Thump, me, I. II CHAMPIONSHIPS are Misled to the Parade One Hundred Years Before the 19th False-front Night of the Yelliewells. Far Adöd Her grandmother lives alone, watches the cock Sung like this, sings a song to her heart’s She is careful with her eggs and which side She carries, cheers for her teams and scolds Her sweet pig and her Fat pig, weeps when Her Big One is born. Far away I lean among all that Mopey is, stacks of hay, new horse, trolley, Riding and hopes and doubts, my toe out on The gate, little dreams, gray, in my hair. <|endoftext|> "From the Juke-Box of Death", by Alex Britton [Living, Sorrow & Grieving, Relationships, Men & Women] The things we live to grieve to Remember the Things That Were. The moon’s dim hook stuck through the window frame Slowly pulling at the curtain as she sits Here at the edge of the storm, wind, rain, The shapes of happiness leaving as others leave As dreams do when they’re seated in the armchair at last, And that tall clock above the desk ticks slowly, And the song ends as though it were the song of some Legendary figure, The song of a life that seems unrecoverable. Like a life made up of many flats, each a Quiet and long one with a light on the balcony, And nothing left of the mood or the moods we knew, Like a song we were somehow in the process of Creating, like a room that had been found After the bodies were scattered on it, like a room That holds nothing but memories, like a book The last of its books ever, like a silence Of late hours, Like a scrap of clean clothing to give something context, Like being laughed at for no reason, like breathing Harsh winds through clothes that are ready to be divided, Like children singing: ‘Would you have [some other body] like me, Like me?’ So what if she changes in the shape of the trundle-foot And he grows in the box of the face As the room darkens, turns towards ======================================== SAMPLE 59 ======================================== Children of man born, they, kings composing, Oft by the like guidance bade abide, In these wide borders of the day, Where never winters or storms come down, Nor any changes of the time, But is changed to an Eden green. O kings, the remembrance of the race Of men of old time on these isles trod, Kings of that time, and of the time to be, And queens, the seed of kings most fair, Whose bosoms dance with sons of Eve the fair, With pensive Lucie, and apethick light, With Thyre, and Urizen the bold, And all, O fair ones, O bright, O rare, And much-lov'd Flora, and blythe Faun, And mild Apollo, and the thyme-ree! But when ye wak'd, from night of evening clear, No less for feirs and airs then for the rest Ye had also of title held of yore. The dancing is more lively now, The song more tuneful, and the rime Smooth ris'ning with the flowing vein, Which, in her nightly ecstasies ablaze, Flaming her eyelids with clove-powd'ring light. The new-drest flower of the verdant May The flush of whose eyelids voluble fleck The noontide for perfume full doth bring, A thin yellow gleam, which held in suspension Swayeth with the graceful nigh-throb'd show'rs; To which the satyrkinick plectrum murk Of their lip-smackling bowls, sufficeth not. Ah! well-fanned spring, thou art frail, Yet in how many another name Forgetting us the fickle year, Thou hast beside thyself reseen, And for thy self a law keep In silks, in cheeses, in silvern wares; In vineyards yet whilom; And all these things, but few know. By thine own face we see thee sneer, O! miserable man! at last Thy sorrow on the earth thou liest, Self-sidebanding, cold, dead, and dry. In thy own shade to do thy part, Hast thou the power? or art thou dead? If so, thy shadow does it prove Thou hast no match, no left hand there To touch the more humbly-charis'd earth. It is possible; if not probable, Yet how cannot it be true? We crave More aid from thee; we, first, the clue Of this wild laughter, this divination, That o'er the world dost drift, And only says that thou art born. Death that has lain one month with'Gore, and has said The sort, this, and next, he would couel choose To rise with living, and to be not hung, A sinister connotation of his word (Though all he cou'd say, we hear it now), Dull'd sense with many a tedious round of doubts, Till sudden on thy back he breaks, "Knowest thou what doth know?" And who is he? Yet, could we perceive, like thee, the shades Of choice old styles of foul guesswork here, We should but feign so, and we but feign To know. And thus it is That with so cunning a study we Still make Heaven's Logicks our primary school In which but late the favourite shadows pass; And laughing we become logicians still, Not simply to rail, but to make good. For, why? not one illusion must be left In this mighty chain of arguments and laws Wherein we cou'd such execution teach, Nor thine, nor tyran, nor Pyrrho be the last Of all the things, nor none; nor is the best Nor yet most banal, nor the sadst-sad, Nor pleasing most pleasant most unpracticed, Nor must aught for that: but we must be seen As all the aids that OUPTL seemed. But they who cou'd not know, no proof was good, And 'tis thy doctrine, but I here indorse That haply if our countries were as truly Fugue or Game, the hearer 'll take it as no shame In Greek-'Sibyam, if, hear't or not, he sees 'Tis but comportment to the world, nor otherwise, But in the state of matters, which already Have ======================================== SAMPLE 60 ======================================== <|endoftext|> "Catalogue of the Territory", by Anne Winters [Living, Death, Time & Brevity, Love, Desire, Realistic & Complicated, Relationships, Men & Women] Beautiful, happy woman, You are a puzzle of the heart. There are certain tracks you will not drive, Except you go out alone and pray. You are to be celebrated with flowers and words, And some moon-reared cock, The first faren to gladden your eye, Will be your carriage to a hearse. On a day like this You'd wear long pants, And not a dress to hold. So when you die, oh keep Something like a knife Or a coin, As a sort of amabatic shell, We'll build you in. Many months you're towing A big dollary chair, And never a complaint By day or night. You should be taught to shave, Or you'd think us mere Lumps of sand. We start as passengers and loving Carry-ons of cotton, But the seas are filling up And the moon was broken, When we stop for sea-breath On the drive to Tahiti. All is done; for to-morrow You start and go away. If you could only see How glad I am of you! Here's a bouquet just outside the pale of worth, And it should be as dear as a nob but cheap prize, If you could but be kinder to me, Or to Heaven you'd be gone. We may fail or prosper; be supreme As powers on this Earth, But when we cease is when we cease to thrive, Like black holes, with a slow and slow increase of power and size Caught by the field-reeking worm. We may be happy or hoary headed, In what we do, But to be untrue to ourselves is the dreg or lowest of wickedness, If we don't do something for ourselves Rather than others. Are we better in what we think Than what we say? and when We think we think and we're sure To be deluded; We're three-footed like the people who make the Law, And what are people like that? We who go off into the earth And think we are wise Are as bad as those who see with their heads down And pound at the fourfold door Of the Heavenly Court. How I hate this mortal groove, This noise and quarrel, blows, and crave and rive On feet as great as the wind, Where the storied architees Licker at the horse-chains as they walk in the sun, And the music makes of them all. A trumpet note in my ears And lightnings all my heart, Above the brightness and the zeal of it all Throng and trample the mist of the morning As the fragrance of the gardens is blown into my nose From the footsteps of the great, old-world divine As we march by their meadows of peace, The ringing circus, the roseate air, The labyrinth of music, The lightning, the paradise The key to the triumphal stair, The turf where that Testaras handed down His marvels and words, Are in my blood, in my blood and my brain, As are the flowers that once I trod While I strode under the palm-trees of Castile My father bore the brand of the fallen I And I think the wisdom and the courage And high-born heart of him who would allow Only four roads to the soul, One of which was, "Lo, there is no one." For I knew well the value of what I had And I have a heart, But my path was roughened by cowards And the ways were harsh and cold As a road in the fog of night Frozen with sleet or one crossing frost. But in the marish light of the marish sight How four roads there are, The one of the hum-bird's choice, The tree-bear's two, the caterpillar's nine Who know I have my plan so plain I only say because I say so, For they break my heart with their far excellence And break my heart to spare it if I don't find The peace of four. Who say they have the peace of four Are like the sailor who ere he's tossed Takes stock of his bark and finds it poor in quality, So marishes his words for lack ======================================== SAMPLE 61 ======================================== Through the reeds a dryad drowned, Killed by a gull’s bill, Sent to the shore, bereft Won’t again. The boatman dropped the basket, But the girl kept the cup. We were finished, the hour was late, When from the shade a man Wore off his hat And his back, and begg’d free. The wood and we were strayed, Rough weather and sund’ning dark, And a berry in my mouth, And the company that evermore Made our pace so dead. When she look’d in my face, ‘I had thine at noon,’ she said; And the man thus begg’d, with tears, ‘I can sleep no more;’— And the aspen whereon she laughed, Long, many years ago. Firth, who e’er his bed could claim, His name was care and shame, He beheld with his own eyes How her red lips on her breast Were wand’ring in their play. But I that the most approved, By his own choice took none, Would not, did not dare advise Her wishes to fulfil That she would make him some word That ne’er should look again. Down yonder lane, o’er the lowly sod, The woman said, I heard him, The spirit's tongue that shook withal Sang of this loftier height, Lying, length the dale. Out of some time, that shall not long remain, To quarry the virgin maiden bright, I will give my steed his halter to let loose, For his mane I will allow The halter well in thrall, And thus at length to let him go at large, O’er the silent mile. He rode him thence, and I among the rest Sat munching my poor hearth-frier thin, Wondering what with all this hosannas filled, What spell the stupid heather filled, What boughs shook in various winds, What wolf-sloth seemed to lure such wiles. What flutter is of true love’s vilde When on this late observance run, Of threshold brides, the variegated line, The red, the white, the green, the violet wed, The crown, the saddle, and the plain, All at a glance did range their thin names. Some to their lovers desired light, That none might longer stay And need not keep so close a breath; Some to the pleasant task did urge To sudden let their strength retire; Some in heretoculate alarm, And sink this wench the weaker made. And these to cure his body’s fret The dumb, to the devil, would be bound; And some bewitch so fierce and fell From what their terms permit, but few Would suffer death for love than for spite; And these in deed, as well as figur’d, Rued the manner of his love for man, And fainted on themselves, they great done wound. They deemed there was a time he would Be kind to them, and wink in smiling, Since all to woo was blacked out, His face wan'd, his neck drooped, his air All haggard, bare, his hand he placed, To learn they sought at last some skill Their mate no better knew, And near the morrow’s noon of day He lay, yet unfulfilled Of all that they had got, they sore Provision made him still. The mounting sun-light on his limbs Gave, as they sank, their bone away, And like a tired marl it was Their weight their shade to keep, Though like it was their state to rise Or like it sink. What matters it, when set against A passion, how our hearts may ride The crest of love’s speed or pain? The best does most compel, and then Is little love; the lesser far Is nought, for the less we deem the more We put the higher away. I’ve sick o’ hearin boys whine, Yestirry billy tuk up yer back, An’ shum tonight, an’ mak a vow To tuk another when we go, Or else you’d bin my lass for a~~fore. I tell them’s but ======================================== SAMPLE 62 ======================================== Cinderella’s father must be an Italian barber. Why the white dress? Children of sinners were given white dresses. But the Greek tossed away the needle and tipped a comb, the stepfather became a public servant. He should cut his throat if he touched this child. Yet the Greek had a golden feather. His mother’s twisted gold chain was a shopper’s basket. The Greeks flew first. The poet’s sentence hoped she would not write that. Three right facts These children play the game we assume that any loving parent must: “Always be giving.” They will only say “I’m giving my gold chain.” If the child’s white dress is not tossed away, we assume she has a white dress and no shopper’s basket, so we can go to the burial differently: “This is how it is: we visit their graves together.” We don’t say “I’ve seen a dead person’s shoes.” I pray the generation dead can see a future where the work is never done, the generation dead cannot read or trace allegorists. I wish I had a gold chain, what a nice treat. They’ll say “your necklace could have been gold, we need a car for this trip.” I will not be beaten, beaten by only living in our proper places. The toddler sweeps it off. “Look at the flowers. They smell good.” It was a good thing, they were at her side to step so often. They were children in proper places, who understand children are proper places. It was a right treat to see them go. On long vacations I think I would like to be entirely washed. We wash the dead and then we make them whole. If on vacation I had a car I’d go faster. My nose run. I give them great haircuts. I washes car. It goes back to the station and I say to the man “Where’s Cinderella?” It was the donkey which has no eyelids we do not ride we are used to riding horses. An elephant never forgets for people or places. When I was young I said: “I want a horse like Cinderella.” I didn’t want to go anywhere, but home. We ride horses all the time. We look over the horses for three things—excellent whip, strong heart, and are they terrier and judge. It’s no use looking back. I remember Cinderella’s shoes. And some people say they have no sense of smell. Some people say: I know they cannot see through their grins like that. I say the blighters have the taste of a shoe worn in place. If in the far future we do not dominate almost all things there will be no dirt or shrubs to clean up. If some foresters become so abrupt we do not 'waste' a chance to rid the earth of rats then perhaps in all places coral are a good crop. <|endoftext|> "A History of Love", by James L. Casper [Living, Life Choices, Parenthood, Time & Brevity, Relationships, Home Life] For Jerry Orbinton PFC (D) They always mis-call me, light me up until I am frothy-white as a soldier's flight scenting the air around the field, or I think it’s fire, though it is only fire, wading around in their ghetto warfare. But I get right out of the car and into the barracks the way a soldier does, sitting it down and talking to you as an equal, and they get right out of the car, still crazy, and I walk straight back, as I do, and you roll your eyes and snap the angle of the window the way you always do, seeing them way off, as you see, and I do when I’m ready, as I do now, though that should be irresponsible, I say, to the driver, driving from the field. But he is roaring, down to it as he pulls over, in ======================================== SAMPLE 63 ======================================== : And dost thou not feel, oh, soulless one, How there is yet a world for me Out there beyond this pale? Yea, dost thou not know that I, Who am thy child and serf and slave, Am not and shall ever Be far, far richer than thou? Thou knowest I have won thy love, Thou knowest I am weak and good and true. And I shall hold thee serf and child No more, I, who am thine for life? Thus all alone shalt thou go forth, Through the wide world from age to age, Away from thy fond one! Thine and no other shalt thou meet, There is no foot to follow, No hand to lead, no heart to move 'Mid the dull, dull city's crowd. There is no face of all the years To greet thy coming as it goes, No heart to feel thy heart's beat Like that which pierces now my life. There is no man's heart in any heart, Nor any heart for any man, Nor a love but hate, nor any love but pain, Nor any strife but too fierce to seem But the passion of my despair. Fare thee well, my spirit! Fare thee well, for I will not spare The bare breast that beat between thy feet, Nor will I lose the serfs who dare To live for thee, the freeborn ones, And make the strange world look on With pity on a slave! Because thou wilt, dost thou Makest the miles of green, Where the tiniest few roses blow, In shades of dying night? Not all of earth is thine, Nor all the world of light, The air is still and deep, The waves are fiercer far. For fame is bright on thy crown, And hearts do fear thy rising flame, And far and near, In the dark nook of thy green crown, The dreary plain Seems a crowded heaven. A king might well be proud, But thou wouldst be the proudest As all hearts are weak, And noble thoughts the noblest, And freedom the mightiest I love thee with a love Might envy to man The monarch's love of his own, If for thy pure sake We lost perhaps our souls, We should not feel it then, But in the end of days Would be as one heart with one, In a land where no man knows, A weary man that wanders Over a world of wrong, Who in the end of years Findeth rest in a grave. If any man be left to care For the rare things that are It matters not how true Their beauty may be, A man he shall be, Where no man knows how to find The rarest of things. With a word to a word of signs Will the heavens fall down on him That men sing to as a star, Grate on the eye and fix the feet That are quick when song begin. God with men that shine so bright Lives, and wonders more. If man would live he must be free, This he knows and this he seems, That his heart by choice should swell To the utmost of space Where the great love of peace may be, If he lives in this wide world As a man should live. For the red brass-string of labourable deeds Is strung above his heart, and it is sweet With the gold-bubbles that keep their sombre place, Which the deep spheres of outward things surveil, He is painted on the insensible air, And this world shows what rare things men may do If they would but choose, as he, to be great And so they are, by their choice made great By the fountain of an eastern sea. Where winds may gather, here and there In this world as in the other, for the bringing Of his harvest home; and men that weary find That an inward harvest in them sways With a joy no heart has told, but the sense That turns round and is turned round in song, The glory of a summer day. I would not have them higher Or draw them deeper, That the dear sun would make them longer The wise sun's life, So that the glowing east Should not Be greater than the best Word that Stude is, and not the Word. Let them feel the sun; Heed their prayers; God's sorrow, being An inward thing, is ======================================== SAMPLE 64 ======================================== --End of the supple truth Our children's children Quiet in a row. Letting nature rest, Plucking afternoon Rae to fullness, Daisies, innocents-- Fine gold-crowned stupid citizens, Quiet as row and leaf. Comrade, foolish man! Knock at my door and claim a share, May your candle burn With an added span To the house of John and Jean. If the angels could take one, Where would be the use? So the horse-companioned youth Seizethe, Seizethe, unsaid the steps Out the door, Out the wood's green void; Round the wheel at low thunder plough Glimpses of little fleet things Wild to meet, and hitch, and shoot, Little golden arrows. The little song-birds, led By the cricket's sire, Looked with a chid enlightened At the nodding tree; The sea looked mellow, The white and downy slugs Got up at night, And their prow-scented nests in shambles Were made, with all their task, Of spindly reeds and leaves; And the willow-trees close Made shelter all too safe, Of mosquito and possum. (He turns a living remark From the old horse's tail: His ear he espies, and he Marks her free and safe, With a box and crew Below the level of ear-plugs.) No crook of the hocking jest, No barbs of the toilet, The best-clinking clink O' dirk and flagon liquor; We do not knobbies, And life's a bore. Blow, snap, thwosh! small pity, Because men work, Blow, snap, whatever's the case: Down goes the game, To the Devil a dish: He's but a low fellow That goes clanking by. Never mind the dam, What she can do for you. Leap in and take her bed With a swinging smirk, As she parlays old clothes In a starling petticoat, And its tail her tresses bind, He that has drunk all is his own, Brought unto me in his belly, Shall go without reproof. Though my milk you pledge as white As the milk of your own cow, You shall pay me back with black That you drank while yet a child. God makes man so is he may, Breaks down man so is he can, Nor gives a breaking heart to him. I made the woman, I can take her By force, can take her by force; The child you bear is the child I gave, There is none that can take him from me. A soldier clean my lance of buckles Goes forth to fight. I shall not blink but your lance shall float In darkness of the battle. Strike hard but, O boys, but kinder, And the more your lances fail, Woe betide the man that strikes for God. I know the earth will pray like the flowers, Then mark the sign of the cross On the body clean and whole. Though our tassels are pricked they will beat Your faith, for then the world will say How fair your sacrifice was made. But, you, stand nearer, be closer still; While we stand bare, there is no greater shame. Watch the wheels, but stay the rails, When you plough the field of fate. Our tassels will hang like weeping willows, Our harness will be bedded in slaughter. If I do not go back to the day, When you said white lips to black steed, How can I look at the vision Of your lance in the face of the dead. I have known pity in your eyes, For it had been, I thought, you had not To learn so much. Your hands of little grace Were never such robed As they are rosied to-day. Your rustling words and your broken smile Are praise for mine own praise. For we ride the skies to the earth's end, And the fields turn dark In the thongs of the night, And the din of the car Is a cry that none will heed. We go singing down the tracks Where the sow, poor sow, deep dies In the crush of the other fell. We ride and we sing, riding and riding ======================================== SAMPLE 65 ======================================== |<|endoftext|> "Self-Tracked", by Jennifer O'Leary [Nature, Animals, Social Commentaries, War & Conflict] "Better to die trying, than die unkept." —Sun Yiyun They were two pocks of fire in the sand and then they were gone. They were rivers with water in them and then they were gone. It’s not difficult to find them now so close to home. Twelve swarming insects once a stock of two million. After that? Well, after more digging someone might uncover old matches, gold jewelry or dirty underwear, perhaps even a love note left for the commander in Iraq. Who knows? A second strike. Forever after remains to be discovered. They emerged from the mountains on the far coast of New Hampshire. The one-armed pewees and one-eyed crow and then they were gone. Somebody called that crow a crow. It was the other way around. There was some kind of music. It was deep in the woods, it was divine. And soon that music was lost in the sound of weapons. The bad guys had bows and arrows but we didn’t see any handguns. The bad guys played good defense. We listened to the trumpets, followed the drummers without knowing it. There was all kinds of music, followed the drummers without knowing it. We followed the lead of a cell of vultures. The bad guys shot at them with arrows. How many times did the good guys find the holy-warrior bird, the magic crow? The peweer from Missouri a place for the contemplator. There was a choir of orcas and they left their portholes behind. They were heavy with fresh salmon but they could not move. The orcas went under water and back, then the good guys left with their toys: four bicycles, one typewriter, a cake, a trout cake, a seal rug for a lost baby and a crow: an orca and an eagle. Our first white feather and the baby beaded with waterskin, wet but dry. <|endoftext|> "Parasites", by Deborah Warren [Living, Health & Illness, Nature, Animals, Seas, Rivers, & Streams] There was blood on the sand, the sailor said, but she brushed it aside: The ocean’s image replaced his feeling, and he wrote. A constellation of stars in the heart of the sea. What else? Then the salty, earthy smell of what had been prey. Soon the sailor’s hands on the dead turned cold. What else? All the marine sounds: the gulls’ first cry, the splash of little whales, then their song. The musical pulse of dark waters. And they took from the sea, and it kept on taking: Stink Shandons and keel, bones, perfume. And if you stayed there were a million things you could forget. A battery of tests to find you, to bring you, Unclogged its rut or ruffled its tufts of hair. As if the sea owed you a great deal, You like a fine bottle to your mouth, So much you could do, so much you had not yet done, You owed it a deep sigh or perhaps a kiss, By the sailor’s Notebook, but maybe the sea Got bored with your story and moved on. The velour and velwe of birds, or stars, silvers and millions for the ocean’s screens, And below, a celestial shade of such vastness was a near-miracle of slowness Just below midnight, the few stars, so small and dim, bright tiny diamonds of crystal, just so tiny (they look huge in the notebook) Distinguished like stars From the biggest, all else Gave hue to those sharp little shiners, Swift and pure. <|endoftext|> "Maturity", by Deborah Warren [Living, Coming of Age, Activities, Travels & Journeys, Relationships, Home Life, Philosophy] A man’s life for me was like a closed trunk and as one grows older the narrower the opening, so the emptier the life within. Gone are laughter and gossip, warts and allen-wright beds and all that went before. The empty houses now, the seagull’s high peals, are more than empty homes, more than coffins or ======================================== SAMPLE 66 ======================================== Cassia's balmy odor, heavenly fragrant; The fragrance of the clement white lily, Of lilied rue, and labdanum, And lilac whurl up in morning air Above the hipp of her purple bed, By shady Sicilian firs, where those Whose garlands crimson-toned ev'ry whirl Or blush of mid-day sun and blossom. The master whilom took the care For each vine and each ivie sprout, But thou may'st pick them in a single day, And ever find what they are: A damp clear spray: a stream that flows, A sallow lawn is all. The Master her way sends thither sent, A worn old bed. When first she gained The gardens of his presence there, All that was sweet to her was seen; Croton, where the tunnies passed by Arched walls of venerable fig And over all the fairest twigs Of all sweet-spun law and architecture Sweet fruitage hung the veining night Of young smooth leaves. And low in the reeds Which swelled the river of the brook A silvery fountain gushed and flowed And made a water-well that seemed For thirst a thirsty means. And there Grew vines and flowers and leafy trees With graceful roofs beneath. Then all he had done was done, To hold so long aloof: nor she That now one hour in May Was wailing in the deep of May, The curtains that the inward Spring Had drawn, the season of red flowers, Which must of course flower, Than any playmate of a child Set off alone in her part To play the sweeter for the joy Of thinking on her content. And now it was his part To count and see what fruit might bear That September might be sowed: and here What new thing was she which he saw? All the old sweet earth had sent forth Its flowers to wear the winter weed; And only that they might not yield Her fruit for grief, a rose he kept As the first-ordered token Of that certain leave she gave For his next verdure to unfold. The pomegranate's flower was the trigger With which shot lossfrey Cinna's memory, In the hot-prowed dark of fate, That blow uncouth now fell out of hand. And just so had it been with her, And now a week had brought her there Who to his look, And the old Law that spun the cord Of fate, From one thing drew it into woe. So much he loved and left behind For nothing; by the Law which gave More grief than joy And more of grief, because the weed Her love's hand had sowided bore a bloom Well, now when he came to taste her bloom, He tasted not the decline Which told of ice of freedom in November But a spring, as the ages changed, unwedded In all the tenderness of Spring That came at once and passed away. The King from a great trump Which pounded on the knells, with his wife Was threshing what solace there might be In bringing her; which brought her; For though love's is ever rarer For bringing what it sets out to free, And though with her a night's earth may end In a day's earth begin, Yet were it ever so short, Socefearers, since bringing hath not been Nor done the ending of love's life, they Would see time's dawning from his mirky east Again to flicker into birth, And by the seed of the Earth Give to our mortal dreams of Heaven, A shine which will not be undone As stands the universe's "about it," not yet Within the worm's thick viscus air, But stretched into infinity, Lifted above that ugly amber track Which links one hue to another, reckoned By any course of its lengthening snows, Man did not want for many days, Which shows as the galaxy's seed-fleet Darting alone its thread of length, Bending its larve above matter's keel. And, as we whose task is to place This multiform universe Of suns and moons and stars each on its post Know better to confound The throngs of lineation which map The milky road, each devious star With aequeous sunshine or its shade Grown grey with mass of sea-going sands Or as a place where the sunsets glow Would consider it wise to ======================================== SAMPLE 67 ======================================== muttered of men so many ways that I must obey, or still go down to the City and stay with Penelope, with whom I passed the fair babels belonging to Ceÿneles, who was disposed to urge that old hag, Circe into the fattest flue. There are twenty maidens at Penelope's bridle and the whole belly of herself is palpitating with delight." Then the more they marvelled at one another, and thought “How can we now entice Eurystheus, the wife of the noble steed, to meet us in the meadows of Buprasidas.” And with soft words they sought what could be done. Straightway their wives in their presence took from their stockings the spotted mourning-gear, and dragged it on the ground, saying, “He is in no shape or guise to come near us.” But from her high chair Eurystheus went down quite dry to the plain, and there he asked of every single creature, looking both back and side. And he was seen by no man, not even by Di’oph son of Norget; though he strode along the beach. Then straightway that savage hunter came back from the slaughter, and stood with his teeth laid close in his hand. He was all in purple, and his gait glanced all rust-brown with the nakedness of a sun appearing through the boughs. And he answered Eurystheus, saying, “My friends, I kept my word. Not one of you shall this deceit detect, nor shall ever know I that I had myself cast into the sea. But, O King, if thou hadst offered me a son, or desired to hear my tongue, or hadst entertained one of my sons in my old age, or had found one of my daughters suitable to take up a husband,—and I say even these things I am sure thou hadst no perpect of doing,—thy heart is now in evil enver~ment, for thou hast none of these.” As he spoke, the house-croyg fell into the washtub, and the washing machine rolled on, and the red water seared their naked shoulders; but the witch led them back again into the midst and compacted out the grimy grubs and wassail- mates. Now when she saw how the folk were devouring the flesh, the daughter of Sora, the old man of the mighty servant, rebuked the murderers and said to the counsel, “O dear friends, I am not glad at heart to see hated flesh, nor rejoice at the mockery of thy face, nor take delight in the sport. Why, O Thracian king, rather have some bit of meat, green and tender too, or even if thou wilt tempt me somewhat, take the skin of an ox between thy teeth. Of a truth I am sore angered thus, neither having meat to hand, nor garment to cover my head with; behold with-holding till I have clad my body with wool. My hair is also lamed down; or, if there be some other cause, it is because they perchance know not of the gods, and the tempts of women, and the bitter fates of blood. We are buried up to the chin, which if the Thus he spoke, and reined in his chariot, And with a leap he leaps on to the earth, and leaps again, laughing as he does so. Then all the chorus sang out, and all the rest sang In the Teucrian land the grapes were stored on the slopes of Mount Ida, by the waters of the milky river, which sent its boiling issue down to the sea in showers, whereon it lay as milky puddles; there were Syrtis, with white flowers of its whiteness, and vine-clad Latmos, and clear-eyed Ranobe. Thence it had come to fall with Nemea, who first showed it to her wives, when she had sojourned there of the folk infamous, she and her whose cheeks were stained with tears, one after the other, so fleetly did they take it. In more recent times now is it held with heretics of other minds, that there once existed a race of soldiers called Achaeans, from the name of the great river, and that all the people of these mountains were followers of one man ======================================== SAMPLE 68 ======================================== room this fire will melt me karma I can hold in a diamond’s gushing pine I also feel ancient odors passes through me like a portal opening a cat from his tears and my body a man from the liquefaction of gold Gold oozes into my veins house not coins burns into thick heaps of a broken copper burns into monel powder of old-age and lead and suet and finally fire and salt burns this broken glass I carry around with this kamaal the music and as time runs out drikut I know what a winter will bring the street to the older men and their thin knives my father of the graves dug for strangers of the feeling of dying When I was told that I too would be a god a boy told me that when a bridge was about to fall in the river the music of an ox on a given day there was a word for that snow fell in the room’s old stone that morning We listened to rain and heard the rain as earth. The paperboy had brought a green sack of grain from home. And that was all. The word’s longest valley from there water falling from the sky into this well a plain’s place in the sun a date’s and time’s only lies I’m still not being heard. Thick gold burns into the walls in a winter morning one time I cried for being abandoned. I want to say I’ve spent my whole life missing a word but it’s a magic word for ending. I want to tell her not to ever throw a word away never throw a small tree out to sea to hardly any rain sends golden birds into the lives of golden gods sends moons and olive leaves sends heroes and lands sends water crawls out of the valley to cover the world this morning. The man and boy are still a ways out the house’s entrance. Kumbhakkar there was that greenness that came from the evening which never came again. I’d begun to go off into the valley by myself in the morning. It got to the point where everybody did as they were told. Whatever the differences or the lack of light it never was my place to tell them what to do. The flood came from outside. I was left almost an adult I was forced to walk in the valley no one there to help. <|endoftext|> "In the Dark You Have to Grow", by Timothy Moore [Living, Life Choices, The Mind, Time & Brevity, Love, Realistic & Complicated, Romantic Love, Nature, Stars, Planets, Heavens, Weather, Social Commentaries, History & Politics] you have to grow in the dark as a bush of gore or hair or even a single crystal and you you have to swipe to give your hand away and you have to be so star struck when you dance you have to be sick of the light you take for given you have to grow in the dark for the love to stay this long way for you have to be in the dark feel about it grow in the dark sigh away and you have to see that it is there for given in the dark you have to be grown for given you have to find it is there for given you have to grace in the dark you grow in the dark for given so you have to grow out so you can ======================================== SAMPLE 69 ======================================== coach went slow, And the buggy lagged long. "What's that?" asked Uncle Jeff: "Miss isn't it, Annie?" quoth Annie. So the buggy went on slow, And the buggy never stirred. "Don't go round so fast, please," said Jeff; "You'll shake your clock." So the buggy went on sound, And the clock was still. So the coachman thought it fair, So the horses were contented then, That he thanked them for their stay; "It's a most delightful sight," And he sung from the window Of his street and his home In the great state of the year, And he shook his clock, and he knew So the clock, the coachman, home; He shook the clock again, And the clock and the coach horse said "Time has been elsewhere" And he shook his clock, but he shook The buggy's back. When the sun goes up the East And the morning comes, And the clock shakes to the road, And the buggy shakes to itself, And Uncle Jeff's clock never stirs; When the sun goes up the East, And the morning comes, Said Uncle Jeff to his son: "I'm rich in the city, you see, And you're going to be an Old Man Tom. I live in a nice house and fine, And a little garden, too, And in the city they've warned me And I go to the church and Sunday School And to church and Sunday School; Tommy more schools the better When I go away, They're like to teach you, say they. "There's no Jonah this, no Peter that, But a Samuel! But be careful, Tom! Tommy you'll be an Old Man Tom." For he turned to the clock, who hung Upon a silk scarred Wrap, the city gate Of four blocks of marble gray In front of the block to strike, Or ever the drowsy old fellow Strikes from slumber, With dust-smear gray upon his eyelids, And dust upon his cheek. He shook his clock and set it off As sure as he could; He looked down the grove, he stood on the gate And whistled as his clock Did when he blew through a almost As clear a day As when the Saviour came. And Uncle Jim held up his finger And said, "This is true; This which follows from a "Yes" Is "Till death expect"; Though John asked after science, Said that Science little meant. But, "Far be the soul from poetry, Better pour the liquor of life Than study guzzlers," Said Uncle Jim, And he pointed to the clock, Who shook his clock Who shook the clock with his finger And blew, and blew, and blew, And blew, and blew And bluffed the dust from his finger While Uncle Jim stood by And watched him, the clock With two hands, two fingers And Uncle Jim stood by With two hands, two fingers. Oh, there is a shadow long and wide That has swept over the city of books, And the garden's weedy front lawn Where they hid the Book of Hours In the sun so bright Of the sun that the days grow gray And the rosy slates turn to gold, The holy book lies cool In the garden where the Book of Hours Stands among its rest, In the weather where the shadows are deep That have swept over the garden of books. You are stout and you are armed; You have changed as the leaves in the park Changed in the nights Of the quiet year For the noise of the wheel of the going away, And we were never able to hold you Until We had our judgment night; And, as in the never ending round Of the game we were there As a turning to page, We had to hold you fast. We had our judgment night; And we kissed you a thousand times Lest we should forget; And you turned as the paper turns; And the words were so long I have lost my ragged black dot In the white future Of the change that is over; And you turned to my eyes And the shade was yours, And I kissed you for judgment; And we never seemed to go; But you were armed; and, as we turned To the Book of Hours, We knew that the hour was ready; And you had turned as I turned To the face ======================================== SAMPLE 70 ======================================== stunned by that awful plague, there was none could cry for the Argo. He, therefore, vowed to break the ground in twain, if love for such a wife should ever blu. The husband, full of chafings and with crying prayers, too, was murdered with his wife; a woman but softly yoked, that she in beauty might outsell all the vanities of Greek sculpture, was always doomed to death. Thus did I go from day to day, in this gloomy land, and all my prayers were only for the child. I asked no other thing, I was of such childish Age, and therefore of such weak courage. I saw the lad, and every word that came from him turned to a curse. The gracious Father that saw us soon would hide me in artificer style, and I had better have gone about the country as before. This when I had seen I felt too much, but I hid it quietly. At first I only went to bed at night, but thening again, with aching ears, until I was all of a size for my long hours, I will say that it seemed to me a very great thing, for this was now the second sentence, the first sentence the third. Then I could only A big black swallow dived down with a loud good-night, and I cried to my mother, "I have heard some noise and it is the swallow. It said to me to be silent, but now I shall be at twelve years of age." I was suddenly blind with having said the word. When I was able to see again, I said to myself, "These are twelve vicious dust that never heard the law of their punishment." I called the cad to the ear that had said to me, "I cannot look on any more, for he is dead, and the swallow is speeding on her flight; therefore I will bring her to the forefront of the tribunal." I said to myself, "I will only say to the ear that was my ear, and to the forehead that was my forehead, some brief words so that the person who was in the dark shall not hear." For I had rather see the judgment against me than to have to sit upright in heaven. Then I called to mind the first sentence of the Lord's syllogism, which says that those who take the sword should have the whole world with them; the punishment for the same crime is therefore a good unto justice and a bad one to justice. Then I thought of the three women who were our confessor, and I said, "I think of the three women and say to myself, 'I will say to But they were firm and inflexible, and there was no solution, for they had no heed of that. Then I thought of their tongues which were so abused, and there was no end of the malicious word that had issued from their mouths; whereon I made up my mind not to say a word more, and I wanted to find excuse for having done so in my haste to do all that was left to me -- to see the boy, my bread and wine, to seek Laestrectize, to clear myself of doubt, and to rush quickly on to the Lord Jesus Christ. The first day I had called upon the Bishop, and told him all the danger that lay in wait for him, and his precious sons, but he came no nearer than Bethburn Hill and never was there of the least fashion of help, to call the Pope and pray. The old woman went again to Rome, and died there in the next year, the twenty-second of Beatrice. "Let not the common world go to and fro, seeking wisdom and heresy; if one goes, one shall not have either life: judge for yourselves; I pray you, and perplex yourselves; you who shall see above the dry wood all that has sense, what will you see, how shall you Yet my hunger would then be less if I did not pray to the Father, and beat my breast against the shining pavement of Nice, and say, 'Is it that he who sares so little of this world that he can win it for me and mine, and is it not he who on that day at Astragar is clothed with such a mighty name that I, whose name is but one of many names of this day, shall not find it in myself till he comes who beats down death and gives life.' So I would pray, but my lips could not speak for trembling, and my tongue was ======================================== SAMPLE 71 ======================================== A wide, unending panorama of chasing worlds; But feel that, of all recorded and set apart, Not one but knows, has in himself, such as I, Perfections so rare they may be named, among The blessed twenty-one, to mention but one-- Ever does a God who respects and gives them scope, Explicit or implicit, to do good, provoke So as to make His will the goal of all they do. 'No man ever trod so sacred a wall as I.' He would awaken them who, like me, divinely hold That Law is that, and Pen and Pencil as the means. Thou, my dead friend, in this dull mottied jail here At Drancy, thou'lt wake, I pray thee, when I prove That Law is the means, and Law the test of him Who gives the law; and that, in due time, a man Who gives no law, deserves no damned life. Will I do good? then, for I am determined, And shall bear up under the must of Law, And not demand, as thou, a common thing, My just proportion of praise, or praise too harsh, But, even so, shall give what passing boy's aregiven. Foul poets can't tell why their race is low, Nor can reproach their fellows, but themselves; But they whose merits bespeak them well, Knowing how to cite),--thou seest, I entreat, A higher pitch is reachable here, to gain Honour,--learns Phaedo, or the master-stroke Of some ode that floats a line clear down to the truth, And is not hasty in the remarks it makes, And knows to make a true entrance into the life That is before men's hearts; or, if it floats To front so far in a certain line, and then Feigning, races round, and goes again, to see What's the latest stanzure; then goes home, forsooth, For at its latest it's home, is best depart, Like a fond wife who flutters a little band Of tints, not quite so fine, with a freedom Half-forgotten, and in which she has no right, Yet taking them to be her own, and like treasure; But have them only for a season; then Thou art a thief, since there's no return thereof; Nor a lord, nor a patriot, nor a lover, And that's the reason,--that's the reason! See, then, what's the mark by which I will prove And prove to thee, if thou canst, what is it? It is--whilst Law-being stands the way, A man's strong purpose shall be heard and Steered by the same, in the same channel, As if in each, his fate were to be One in direction, one in aim, As if the deed fit for invocation were The deed that grieves, by addition, to be told; So that, or the heavens of life in dust were Fell flayed, we should, as the world went by, Take up the whole on trust in a stronger hand. This shows the sense of all poetical art, Mingling with virtue, and this the sense of All poetic philosophy. It shows that Which makes us blind to God, or all's one in this,-- The 'Triune Spirit,' or as American writers call The 'Three C's,' of doctrine, content, and conscience. Yet we have seen and feel that there are degrees, If only if one takes not his ends in sight. Let them follow as he likes; he's but a fool, Who, since it needs no leave of doctor or lawyer, May read and meditate, and his feelings have taught. Some prating ass! in whose looks one might trace (Like that of Laurencegil) greed or sleep, Narcissus-like, with eye-lids turning up and down, Nostrils fluting from his nose to his teeth. This I have felt: Had I a dollar, where's the wit, Or reason that could have saved me from a mulligan? Not in a hundred; and I know not what I'd do To give myself up to the pack of cards. Thus far he's raked; but let him go, and the grip Is on me once more; his cogged and groovin' pupil, At best, is only half asleep. Nay, I'll have none, Not even the polite sense of the word, to clear my conscience. Is ======================================== SAMPLE 72 ======================================== |> the band to play it they could play even for me now How could I ever forget them? How could I forget the folded periscope I'd lifted and shaken, I'd watched from the heart on deck And found the light to scrape, to scrape, to be Still there—in air—with that history in front of us With the lights on for my sudden laugh or tirade When hell went down—with the fever, the heart searching for it— Like the rats again—with the steel in the empty sea— The cursed wells under this city under this sea. <|endoftext|> "A Slice of Christmas Cake", by Joseph Lasagna [Religion, Christmas] It is the man's burden to carry thoughts of coming riches, to cross long distances and to suffer loss for his daily bread, even in the here and now. I had hoped the world would give me the eye of the world’s leading lady— the wind and sun. But the world will give me only this slab of Christmas cake with the fire spearing my tongue. <|endoftext|> "Green Tea", by Hieu Han Dark tea color in my throat, cold breath of smoke. Dark hell of flavors where I want only to drown. I want only to fall from this green cliff, to this strange land. There, I will prove my strength and endurance. After the meal I walk in a dim light among the open windowsill and sit by the light. A warden steps in front of this door: seven more minutes. Greenness glitters on his shoes. His belt slims in the dark. The sky is a color the sky when it is not lit knows alone. This is the color of my body— the kind of myself a young man’s body felt like in the past. <|endoftext|> "Most Interesting Man in the World", by Hieu Han Riderless guy with head of a goat and clothes on the line, his clothes as green as a leaf as the picture shows, the background transparent. His hair holds in the wind that blows over the tops of buildings. The goat face looks up in the wind. His clothes hold. No, he says, no, it is O. J. Subway Co. Chicago: I am the loop, the circle. It is very nice, the lights glisten O. Most of all, I am the sun. When I take off my clothes it feels like I am becoming a goat and it is no longer me becoming goat, it is just the circle in the air. I will feel more assured if I am naked, no longer holding on to my clothes. <|endoftext|> "Lines Written in Outer Space", by Hieu Han It is winter. The hut we're in inside a subway station is coated with cobwebs. We're cramped like sardines and there is no way out other than waiting in our station. Later, in our new neighborhood, people will point out meeting places and houses on our street as a girl thinks. And when she smiles then we can show her our house. In my dream I seen the whole earth inside each tree growing roots and leaves. Green, in my heart, with each one I say it means prosperity otherwise signs of war. <|endoftext|> "Letter from another World", by Ted Chaandos [Living, The Body, Nature, Stars, Planets, Heavens, Social Commentaries, History & Politics, Mythology, Heroes & Patriotism] I saw the whole earth growing roots and leaves, the hairs on my chest enumerating, but I was a man in another country in a different year. That year, not the year before or I'd remember it now. But the one I dream. I'm inside the leaves. There's a crick of sound. What is it? <|endoftext|> "from The Book of Lucy)", by Ted Chaandos [Living, Coming of Age, Life Choices, Youth, Relationships, Friends & Enemies, Nature, Landscapes & Pastorals, Seas, Rivers, & Streams, Mythology, Greek & Roman Mythology] She’d been an island, now, part of an island in an archipelago. Her father gone, too. His airboat was anchored elsewhere. On the ======================================== SAMPLE 73 ======================================== O thousand, thousand fair Shining upon the poppies of the hill Like the snow in December; O youth, O virtue, O spirit triumphant, Binding earth and sky! O darkness, that art no dearer to me Than the North Pole is to the space beyond, We know thee the angel of an evening's shadow, We know thee the angel of the sunlight's fall, In the hills when the dusky night Draws to its noon, and at evening when we pause From idleness and chilly susurrus, Hearing thee, we come forth to meet Time. O hill, upon whose head Our camp can rest From toil or dream, By day and night, Dost thou arouse our hearts from folly's woe And the dog's violent fury? O young poet, O poet old, Thy verse hath swayed me from the plodding throng, Thy verse hath taught me how to mount and ride, O last and first poetry! I have drunk thy beer; I have drunk thee as the sheep drink water; Thy song I sing to still the cock's bloody cacophony, To set the car of death a-trip laying down its reins of speed. Alas, alas, that statesman great, the glorious Read, The glorious Read! Farewell! in us, statesmen are not famous; There is not room in state taverns for immortal names; To the place a man might have won a medal of honor, he is likely to pass a bookshelf. O empty page, O stained shut-up visage, Your stuffy old picture is not Read material! Your barren rhyme is not worth the wax That I chew, to keep my teeth sound; Though the woof and the arc are hanging With words that the great poet would not save, But simply let it be read, Most like a book, most like a press. Alone, alone I will seek the root Where yet the sap of life is; But you may guess, so always should know, The snows are startit from the tree. You must come out where the hills are steep, You must feel the cold and the storms, You must fight for a good place to stand, As well as I. Not with the trumpet's breath can I put it; Nor armor's lance shall I wint its; But I'll swear by the great Aeneid Is more than humanly tried! I will kiss her whence she had her birth, And her way with me. I have fought for a thousand where are lost, And I'll fight for the rest; I have sinned and repented, but I was not Meant for my shirt to be sold; There is time and haven for me yet, And you shall love my tome. Stand, brothers, So long, or never a more! One man's here tonight, Brought here by a bull and a bear, An old gray portent sitting here, With long white hairs and dark downcast eyes. His soul is weeping for his home, He will soon depart for his land While the sea roars his his warning away, Till the moon rising to a full would say "All meet again in seven years time." In the presence of these illustrious men Of high moral character and surpassing worth, For whose happy death alone We accede to hear them speak, I vow before the sun that made them shine In this our Western realm of pleasant speech, It is our part to praise them evermore, That in their memory we breathe a New England. Sorrow and Strimming (The wonder of the first year), Rinaldo, and such words, Hard to depict; but wonderful and rare The ghost is gone on the garden lawn, For he did not drink, Nor did he go abroad, Nor in utter loneliness. The Pilgrims arrived In a season of sunshine, When the garden was fair; But they called, and calling came To their anchorage in the creek; For the port which they gain Was on the beach, Where the fragrance fell Of the sea unto the water, And the hearts of the men could not be still. When the men went ashore From their vessels, and beheld The hard waters washing Their burden of treasures, Their lean and perishless sheep, And the great headboard fair In which their barren families leaned To guard from thirst, and yet to be Their palm and temple; the men ======================================== SAMPLE 74 ======================================== The petal grows not; from the grape, Taken from its bed, no sweetness results. Come, boy, taste the bitter wine: 'Tis sweet to pray, but sweeter To drink, but worse with foam from felons of the War, Or in that sea, the thick depredations of the deep which storms produce! Beware the snail, in his pool, that crawls and ne Bespeaks the mud, and farther spread You are a friend-- She spoke not proudly, yet her mind believed-- "Forgive me, if it must be so," The keen sympathy of Child In looking hearts and hopes--as a seaman The hearts of young children--was all she wrought This is the familiar scene, The church is full of psalms and thanks To God for sparing a helpless girl. Lacken, a lambkin who sped, his master's horse to a pen, Was slain, and now the case had come before the Court-- Before King Charles--of a pitiful man. Hep Much the mixed strain of that far mute pleader Hath shocked us, and failed in many ways; Nor, dare we think, could any grisly exploit Have reached this island; for in all this great world, Yet seen of him, or his disciples, or mortled Razor-bearded Rabbula and all his flock, Of her fair nose who spoke in many a prattler, Of ribband and unbuttoned breast-pocket, shrunk That hearers stunned and bit-worn Christ in cold, Of all his millions naught else, nor swerved one hair, But stood erect, silent, in the torrent Of words, and of one only, in one dog. (Though holy) the word for world's sake; Whilst we an offer made make-- To spare a dog (or one), in form of him Who did more than dogs before or dogs After our messmate's dog, and was less. He became such a boy among dogs, His bestiality and his faith not But these. He stretched Out sullen-eyed Upon the towns, the farms, the sun-swept highways Where men all day eat, and as they go To church or elsewhere. I was an child Among them--first among them--with them, in a brown Damp night, Downy after a wet day, whom dogs nor men Nor storms disturbed, Nor, to my shame, the fetid filth of day. In every town or city-square, In town, by plough or wagon, The dog at home at noon was a foot shorter, The dog at night was a hundred and two pounds Folder, deeper, stronger, and, his tail like his head. But dogs, though all his own house and seed, Were dogs at home, and none needed or knew. Now I who were such a dog That I at once such a man Should such a dog of me make, As that dog said I should become. My man--but we who love said All that is said by men and dogs, And mine shall be like his, though his My foot, and my eye, and my ear Be as the ditty that's said To them by men, while dogs say not a word. I could bear--bear with us dogs, Though he lay tail in the throat At the sight of such a foul creature. Nay,--though that he were dead, And done to a mortal death, Yet I knew well I could bear him. How many times? how many untold Saved-meet-tide surprises In his sleep-tired, vacant air, What time he was seen to dream, and After dream, to keep his rest, While he grew in size and strength and Wore clothes that fitted him, with none to Get the gloves, and no to rummage in the wardrobe, And the wardrobe was seldom examined. He had a look like his master's, but he Tried to be so much like him, he seemed Not at all like his master, but something That he had neither resemblance nor likeness Of any living dog that ever I saw. And it distressed me, and grieved me My eyes upon him, that I could see No pattern for him, none that was true, In earth, air, sea, or sky. Thou doest it!--for I thank thee, Nor blame the thing thou doest; I know thee dog; Thou art not he who told thee kneel Down ======================================== SAMPLE 75 ======================================== Makes the heavy eve less dark; Lonely still the city towers, Lonely still the domes are bright; O'er winter snow and frozen streams With tears I start when the dusk begins; In the dim sky the naked trees Seem as they just had kiss'd a bride. Methinks I see her: her snowy breasts, White and rounded, bare in ravishing expanses; Her jasmin' of hair, her back a throne, her waist Laughing with short curved islands of white bloom. Methinks I see her, smiling, when she sits, On a throne of beauty, great inlaid; Her ribb'd sides of purest white; her hands Long fashioned to hold and firm to touch; All majestic in her majestic waist; Crescent'd clustering around a pure soft bloom; And over all her radiantly pure In saffron tint the golden doubtless nest That in her bosom lies, whose summits join The hills which freeze heaven in their chain. Of Friendship: when from the sad heart's foul chill She stole, it meant at last; and while I press'd Her sad pleasances, hand in hand, to weep, I felt the heart-touch that gave me pain. The child that keeps rememberants for the past, I, next, the small meek-collie puppy wag'd Which betrays by excursion back to its lick, Begot upon kisses, give back again. Through the chill and heavy night, Stirring each in turn, we went, With that he called Beatrice, And that I gave that to her, Who was to him in all things profuse Except herself; and still she spake, "Have," "I, "snow"--I knew Beatrice spoke, not sure Which hand she meant; for her breast so white Was moved to Pallas' snow, not sufficient; Her other hand she reason'd might indicate A will in it, and so her speech they did Dispute. How could she?--for even then The will belonged to her, nor could it Commit beyond its first vicissitude, And, therefore, I the while upbore All fetters out of hers, as are those In gold, silver, and all besides, which natures Are wont to copy from their past passions. It so befell that 'twas Diana's appeare, On whose curteous throne (as such another fair Was not, but for emping daylight, Save Love, in Arcady) there an evil beast, More pitiable than women are by far, Beholding us, that we, with nor ears nor tongues, Should help nor reply in Beatrice's name, Begat from equinoctial heterosis; Which new creation, not a Creature, she begot, Nor self-sustaining from herself could wake. For so, out of that bulk, a monster, hale And hearty, purpos'd by some other hand, Began to move. On all sides, as it grew, It took new form and change the ground beneath, He animals of large regard to see Which pass by on so short a space: As a drop, Hollow and rough, by having broken thin, Dwelt in a hollow body, and from chinks in At full speed. The closed term of years Made this entire renewal: Those bulks first, which Are creatures in themselves, were begot in this way. Many strung art medical opinion wields, By many dubious and weak inferences drawn: Since mind and Memory so handy, and of light Such power rendering possible the past; Memory, to most remote things, such force Compelled, in other nothing ever was; Memory, because such slender allowance Of change takes therein reference; And so of thoughts remote, then still draw nigh, The capacity to think extends; With which, the love to associate draws around. "The soul not only lives, but in abhorrent Creation, which is mob-obsolete, And body hideous, of basest metal welded; She (art would I had a tongue to register What rage, pain, and sadness to my disgust I endured) I forced to speak, of which, my torment Made the within the without violent. From her most desperate and detestable mansion, From her where truant and offence (in one Perfidious combination) were combined, I swift to the outside—to be yet, and yet That beauty, which, ======================================== SAMPLE 76 ======================================== Shall but accuse thyself, or leave the cause vain? Of ill-looking tares, when, in warmth of blood, From the llaes, though autumn's longest twliicks, The oats be plenteous with young and fair; How happily might God ordain a man That for his own carcase would prefer a wretch's part, Whose soul to fate's flitting summer and winter Hangs over his sheep, his master's hound, Who durst, till corn came at his elbow, survive The winter's sun, and ripened herds; now leaves Warm from the streams are gathering: he, without The land's perish-working heat, in fume Of constant onward march, an army assembles; And the whole summer long must all look dun, To see this multitude. One god alone, Within his country's ruin and his flock's, Never wandering, offers hope of change. Thus, while we live, thus only shall we live: But when the ghosts we govern'st that rule below, From primeval oaks to the farthest latitudes, Then shall the Earth's vast body's Ithaca be A husband, most unhappy, vowed To penance and to wedlock's woes, although A firm spouse he have, the loveliest, his life Untarnishable; in his father's dome, A royal bride he will toil for port; And all who shall of truth of life ascend, To her the right-eously pure. Look not on me Nor expect a song Wherein I sing: though, with love and pride And pity, up and down, There is no song but care. Battered and compact You, and dark and bleared Your fur is, and your beard; To you my song shall come And howled from it; and when Long after you be dead, A song to you I make. How black and dusky, In the winter rain, my dwelling-place, When midnight sweet Blazons the hymn; and noon Makes a music pure In your soul,-- For what, all imprisoned Raining on your glory, Storm or tempest, they sing? How, all my life, I had, and have, a debt, To Pity, and to you, And it cannot be paid, My fardinger, nor repaid Till you and I, to life And its furies cross, Your heavens, that do reject me, Give for this one grace They lighten on you To mock my filial face, Who am dread you, here Whose verses like a radiant Springs in rain of passion, Your pity's gage Athwart the wind, and leaves it Smooth, and shaggy-smoulder than, Through my angel heart, Where all were vent for, and sung Till you called with oar-stroke, And I alone, O Lord, Forgot I was a dream. Sole myself, My thought my life pursued, So beautiful, so dear, I and you, like poet's-syre Cozened, as love's most hapless, I and I only, Fought for, and won you, and the storm, The tempest of passion, and you, but lost! Yet, though you to the end, Heaven, and you, I, overcome, Deduct, 't was far in rhyme That the small rede was given. You, yet free, Maid and mate, Heavily do you woo? You, yet whole, Alone sustained? still wandering Like lovers, who reach home Too soon; 'T is life beyond Those lovers' taste: Wings in vain they think, Farewell Love's wish! Who will see the same Is one thing; but who Will one hears how you lie For wind and sun and wind again? Now there's not a thing To call a nymph amiable: All the world, for love, The one small blossom they admire: Or the bird that loves, but ere the mate, Woos, for love's sake, alone. Nor must one hear Tune of softest chords, in lute concert, Bloom on the lute that woman strung. Earth's low grass, here, Is not enough for her arms: Or they, here, Now she unwares the wide earth in wiles, Ere the array of Love ensues ======================================== SAMPLE 77 ======================================== I was a beast of play A chaser till the last. I saw it was not safe from prying, I saw it was not fair To make a dream and keep it to the seal On which no sunlight was shed. Ah, dearest, have patience! When I am dead, Have patience, love. There's a great nest up the dun And there is a fair forthwith there And thence would I seek it but for scorn And think, perhaps, that in the way, That out of the scorched dun, there might be A flower in my scope? There is not much delight in life For to be gaped at and spake at, And questioned, asked, guessed, eyed about, And questioned in a thousand trumps As not so bright, not so fine Of hand, of eye, As everywhere I look. It was like as if they did As children play, though the noonday was still In morning twilight, to make bold the sun That shines on you or I. And round the dun ground they'll pass And speak as children do in tone supreme, And, but the tad, the way the way, "Lad, is't the body that I kisses Or the hand?"--and straight, a truth, though neat The laws of line and measure, breaks their sense Of resemblance. And, eyes and lips and face All touched, their fingers, or the pace That fleeces the ebbs of course. They'd wink to go through the world, In beautiful countermotion To the laugh they'd take. Then, in a straight, rugged line Of harmony, by quick, hard sign They'd point to something called a place. With start and flutter and self-ignited All eyes on mind. That sound to see, And once they've seen, they'd live for it, Nor ever think of anything But what was covered by it. They'd wander in Above the rising or the falling bay, The mountain-tops, the plain beyond. By-pass the forest, that holds the way Or the river-brink, and so are sped. They will not spoil The fine fat clearing from the rest The laurels to glean or the silks That ridge the trees. Nor bring the stones That mark the sculptured tomb or the frieze That tell of valor in some merry feat Of warriors, or of matrons. Nay, this What's worth praise in them they fawn To pass, and throw their eyes In other wise, on the thing that's hid. The road through the town runs: They are as swift on horseback To-day, as on their way to find The haunts of life in their own country, They travel as they might be Upon the wind to meet A gyges mountain side Spun by the North Pole's cooling breeze. There was a house, the dogs howled there, The lost, the undone, where such and such Had met to play. Their joy in the dawn Of hope that followed their despair, Down there, through the high blue night that spoke Their hope in the rains, never had died, They cast a wayward gaze On cowed souls to warm them for their sleep. Towards the sunrise they'd look, And ever as they turned to where In the waves of the town to mount to sway The pale white balls, in turquoise, of starlight, Something moved or was the glitter of moonlight That left the rain-clouds dim At the cold moon-step's edge, Lifted up the sky, As hour by hour that calls them back to noon, To the mysterious hour, To the beginning of life, The hour of bitter rest, The last chance of life, To love and to be loved, To break a horrible long vain doom, Or to break it and be bound For all their hero-knew, On the bitter revelling mass When stars are made, when life begins From the new-born to the old, With a lilt of the dance floor And a root-like cooing Of happy souls when words Would be more noble than deeds. Now as days and nights have slipped By since they passed the door of that house, As the days are slipping And their never-moving planets go So softly, they seem to sleep In the secrecy of their glad nook, Like some simple, thankless, placid folk, Fitting under the weather, And blind with the cold moon. Never ======================================== SAMPLE 78 ======================================== But never a ray of sunshine came And life was one vast and silent autumn. The mad fight went on, day after day Fierce struggle, no way clear in the dark. Tired of life, the warriors look so old; Then shall we turn and hail with our hearts-- Welcome to our homes again, welcome home. Homeward goes each weary warrior, Home to thy dusky city is but half far; Home where the morning joys o'er a good breakfast; Home to the kitchen, home to thy cooking, Home to thy pretty babe--'tis best when Home, where never the gallfish gnaws a lemon. Forget your former coarse surly mood, For here a hearty diet of cheer; Here is good beer, tough to the core, Roast barley and oats for the oatie; Here is good beer, that fits the classics; Here are good ale that's the foaming tip Of a good month and a fleet-foot ale; All are good, all are homely digestions; Go! heres where heresies run amok And drop their quasi-Sicilian thistly venom; And where the Jews have long remained A people bathed in black arts and minstrelsy: And where the religious fancies come Like guileless snakes whose mother-tongue hath slipt Into airs, and vanished deep into fancies. Here's Homer and the holier riffle of the Gods-- Sure, some of them would make for your nerves; Here's wood, and paths, and secret places; Here's mystic trees with doings quite opposite A true appan-ted scheme of things; Here's a heaven that knows all things at once, A heaven where only one true God reigns: Here's a heaven where raptured souls ascend, Where ancients in the compast austere Lovingly give a backward peering view On pictures seen in the past which are Near to us, but distant, far out of reach: Here's Hoyle and vital motions; A, B, C, Cheek'd white against the night, A, B, O, Boozy A, B, E, F, and G, and Y; The symbol of the lifetuhs True, like I am sure, Like those well-sung pictures which we see Which are the last and best advices into the Wide and wondrous future which waits mankind, Whilst from the bottom of the eye's depth sonorous Falls unto the heavenly eminence. Nay! rather in the faint moon's let-down, Shews next a statue great and minatory, Wrench'd by fops in exultation: In form extreme, in feeling near divine, Well worthy a place in Pots and Wonders; Here shews both the gravity and temper Of the great, constant, friendly spirit; Whose smile is a blessing to imbue Toys that nothing but majesties can fill; Here is Eternal Humble through whose wondrous agency Is tamed, and debasement, and loss of self esteem Vext of God's dread discipline! Yet to utter back the sigh, I feel I may be himself Ere a moment asunder rips The moist lip; though mine all to ripen Like the glebe's on the tree-tops that tremble, In tumult to the plough I away. Another however if I may say That I feel he are smooth things Wondrous and great, good, great; Eternal, childlike glee, Like a little night Of the bravuras, whose sum total Appears great. And the next shall make I am like him Great and smooth and light, good, great, good, Unburthened, bare With no front or rear, No grandeur to persuade me For any monarch's That were of my immeasurer. For I know he is artless, that in his swell The fops have charivari; To add to beauty a fair treaty Is a branch of the thin flower; And I know not art, and yet I list. I know he is distant, that his glory Drifts on in the air, A sort of plumage, then again A ripple Or thickening of the wave That comes up now to lave, But I stand when the veil is off In awe and I bow, When I know that this all of his is, Is the true and sum Of the whole universe. The happy vermin of joy ======================================== SAMPLE 79 ======================================== Men must not be unmannerly! Men must not be reproachful! They are their own best doctors! That's my own belief, at least, Wise counsellors we now possess Who, in their cool and friendly mood, Are able to heal the most serious ills. These, then, are the wise prescriptions We may trust to you and yours; Though not a patient pays in cash (The doctor's wage) for his full extent Of the necessary trouble, Yet, in the plenteous rest we find Of nature's dispensary, the true With special mercy by your hands, Some to soften and purify, And some to stiffen and confound. Take the latter class, O gentle reader, Of those self-acting springs! Lift the latch on every cork And hook's a blessing out of nature's Treasures in no time at all. There is a law, as well to keep in mind, As the law of gravitation and of Air pressure, which is, that whenever A traveler, by sickness or mischief, Is turned off from a point on his way, The attraction of the star Which he had not felt before Must in order and a proper state Be eliminated; you may know that The chances of the traveller, who is Thus we are well pleased when the Lord Has made the mind less subtle than the body, And therefore we cannot show you any More kindness than the usual respect. O out upon that man who appears To feel the road one hour too well! Why, even at a, eipoo, there may Have been some subtle necessity Which we know well, and would have express'd In plain language, for all ordinary Persuasions. You have the pity And therefore the right to treat As your own kind and good friend; and then When you judge of his case, You'll find him rich in genuine mystery. O dark mysterious! worthy friend Who is, in a sense, also we! I do not think we overdo the things Which we feel the greatest need of feeling! The path of reason must embrace some Sober observance, that may excuse Parties in suspense, and therefore the Wise, sober guests must stand by The insolent doctrine of convivial spirits Which so injurious to the good and just May be capable of physical compact; Nor will it do to yield in advance What may chance to be put by; Nor so much as the shore allow To which a ship may be brought in. Then, moreover, when it shall be our Birds, we then will play a frolicking And we'll care for nought beside, In light-hearted play, which now may be A little bit too presuming; And we shall only learn the value Of length in hanging, and length in weighing The risk involved in free living, when we Learn, when free living costs too much, To weigh the cost; and now the proverbial Authorities will excuse These absences from home, if there ensue Some profitable information. Thus much, my young companions, I allow, For which I need not mention to you The refined Chinese of Shanghai. NIGHTSHADE - It was in some quarter of the world, Not far from Bad Luck Club, where I would spend the Slump of the week or month; in some populous town Of a foreign language, not in the centre of That city; and there I'd sit on a hill, or On the bench in a rich garden, and the dim Wink of the fairy lamps in the declining Afternoon sun would have dimm'd the wit of all Who were not insane or none at all. MOTLEY - The days went hard by, The last was empty and cold; Men lay within the shadows cold; But I did not know why. TOFFO - Nothing to say? Frolic, toy, take thee to: Then, pensive dwarf, I knew thee well! Nothing to eat or to drink Were left in the circular plate; And yet, for all its fervour, it Was sweet enough to melt my sea-glass. LINCOLN - I might do as much as any In telling of that time, and when; But the English soldier that I loved As well as any Is a different sort from other men. He is a sort that may have thought In candidate-times, He sees things That are not, yet know; while they, who are Most solitous, cannot explain. WAR - URINE AND GAMMON ======================================== SAMPLE 80 ======================================== Handy, and fast, and strong, and fine! The foeman's sword, the prince's levees; So she stands, to bless and succour the right Rich, braided? by the broider's iron wire, Chastelle'd and in scarlet quilted. Many are the cows the cow does strike, And howling follows, howling often, Bounded her infant man alone, Sorely saying:--"When the workwoman is cow'd One's self remains in danger, As no cow is full of need to thee. "There's no let to stop, nor plan to frame, When her industrious head is ta'en, Her soft ungentle heart is broken, And her softer affect is gone: --Old milk-in the mellow jar 'gan, Now with the new cream: O to abase And turn the poppy down, and wear The huge cow-calf in the town, To mooch on sandals of his race." Says she: "This my great power my sight, If I were resolved to move, At present 'tis but illusion, To flatter myself in town, To do a thing--in bed, But oh! what's in one's mind to say, When sleep this while keeps me young?" On a height amidst the town Dost thou also find? And how lies thy tale of that Thy body knows full well, Where envious force may naught avail, Freed from the wall that rid the place?" Makes angry to weep, And mutters a curse on her, Who brought thee thither, To live but as thou wert taught; "--Thy delight is past!" She cries--"so now I knew, When I came, and thought no more Of death but 'twas by thy side; Asleep, what should I see to weep? What for my soul should now, avail?" "Maiden, my name is now beholden, For the second time, To the still'ning fountain, To the fair one who enamours; And I scarce am of thy flesh as yet, Ere my head that seems so fair unbuking. "I know that if we should meet Upon earth, we should dismount; And my feet should then before thee Carefully be led, As 'twere for fear that if we met On earth again, we might not find Each other soon. "And I believe that we Shall once again be dropped by The same well--so no more, But long since wilt in coffin, From the sun and rain, Sleep, and never think of day, Of a world of chasing, love, and light. Thus the maiden's cool and quiet air, O'er which stole slowly such a tune, Charmed the beauteous poet as he read, At times, her night-carnal, as she still was, Kept watch o'er him and his gracious fore-father. "As thus I thought, by her still loving voice, Beauty, with the strictest truth of thee, Was ever loved and feared at once; And as she, under guise of other days, In visions held thee with sad clay, From thy own remembrance, I could see thee Amongst that number of the dead, Who hear thy changing voice, and then Find life, and sweet desire, and then, For thou art welcome here amongst brothers In the ancient home, thou hadst thy choice In life, to go, and here on earth, the year, A foreign land to thee; but foundst none For ah! I see that day when thou, unconfined To the poor and lowly of the common dead, Conjured in a strange land to tell a tale, By a strange tongue, to tell it aright: When the first Greek who sings of Zeus Sent all his birds to the white-heated apartment Of the lion, and the gazelle fled From the flame of the thunder-brand; And the stranger, then, who speaks in tongues In the dark chamber of his tent, After long exile, strikes the Greeks With wonder at his strange song. "Then you saw, with what alacrity The long night through, the fields in serried folds Bend beneath the plough, and with their light red The shadows to the ground, nor gave a thought To the salt garment he wore, nor gazed To see if it was its own ======================================== SAMPLE 81 ======================================== to roll towards her head- It's the eye I'd look into never-flying beside me. So much stronger than my body I glance around to see the thoughts that want my back and see them all grouped like a rabble of flowers [in her photo]–bloody hand clenched in sheaves of rusted snow a pit of fire she might contain when she held [her] head, a field of dead-masted emus that I might sit in the center of, a sheaves of medicine she might drain. Never have I seen her unset when the gold-handed sun sucked up from the blueish deep. Sometimes she will be sipping her tea when I make my trip to see her, sometimes she will pull me close to her before she goes to sleep and hold her arms out to me. A cock of her head. There are snakes here. I hear them. The train is late. I’ll find her later, I guess, in the rattily flick of trams that leads to her room, her arms outas she breathes. I’ll die then. She sleeps so softly I hear her and feel the rise of her chestand the leaves scrape down, a skygreen museum of hungry birds lost in the thawing snow. I must remember her before I see her. I’ll live then. <|endoftext|> "Eef", by Peter Balan [Living, Time & Brevity, Arts & Sciences, Poetry & Poets, Social Commentaries, History & Politics, War & Conflict] On Syria: I have some knowledge of the attachment of a taste of tincture to the factitious hue of “green.” Let’s say it is the drab green of dust. WMDs and such round off the mix of sand, each grain—sand that really is the arms of things, the end of things, or something done with hands: please take this little bit of green, and please let things be, time is of the jelly, as sand is of dust. —Deborah Paredez 1 Bringing color to the confinement of a binary with red and green titration gives some impression of the indirection of an other: This same green may also refer to a spectrogram: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-_ZVqzYlXo I forgot to bring my spectrogram. 2 Spectrormark. Let’s listen to a real-time spectrogram to get a look at some binary strings: There’s something here: I wouldn’t expect such intricacy in binary: It does require a leap of the imagination. 3 On a different axis: we can ignore this axis I’m afraid we’ll have to lose all the colors for our existence: I must bring back blue and green and gold as well as various shades of gray: I must bring back all the colors we don’t know about: “But there’s something there,” Deborah said, but I’m afraid I’ve forgotten. I do look up in a book: I must bring back all the colors an employee threw together in her last week: Bid protection or a number to call to the employer: I think it’s safe to say my colors are gaudy: I must bring back blue and green and gold and gray, and it’s my job to bring time to the minute. 4 A time to wander: Bring back blue and green and blue and green, fools! You’ve thought of everything, I must bring back blue and green and gold: There’s a terrible can of pineapple with green jelly in it. “It’s terrible,” said Paul: And green is a lovely color: A sentence I came to like: Sentences are lovely. You must try to bring time to the minute and you have: I must bring back all the colors: They’re all with you: “Of course,” Deborah said, “She would try to persuade us to this in the first instance:” But I’ve noticed Deborah has gone missing. I must bring time to the minute. All colors with you: And you are each at the moment: Let me have a look ======================================== SAMPLE 82 ======================================== too weak) their words were spoken, To cast or cleave, The own and rented, lay to sleep and waken. And when the next light we saw, the sky blow Its brightest eye, And, smiling soft upon us, put us black On some dull day Whose work it is to shed or to lock, Then fairer days for to endure; And even then not full, The landscape sits as if it watched the fly. The night was never quieter, light and fret Aroused for ever in the reading skies, Nor than the glory of the day that flies As sooth to say The last faint round on the bar and swallows bay. Not forever must this soothe, We can no more do than we have done, But life may mend and become Arancible again, And might be grunge: But in one hour to be wild and strong To be hungry then and be full, That hour must be The highest something you have thought. "Farewell for this!" and we fling Wreaths and offer round the root, Wherein grew her head That thrived And blossom'd for our sakes If we loved her so, And thought we'd see no more Then turn and sigh And mind our own sweet flower. Ah, Fate is not in all; But in our hearts' embrace We shall be still, and ever be, We shall be stirred, nor yet be still. I can but doubt That her whose face shone All a summer-day, Whose laugh repressed the need Of notching the hour, Had lived, nor part From boyhood's finding-date; And if he kept Her face too long, That face's trouble, not her mine. And we could hush The ghosts of all, If we but kept The palms of ourselves, The further then From her knew source; Then, what becomes of her, When we at last Unroll the leaves and fetch The fruit of a just-grown rose. Come, my only one, Let us depart! Where the reed is still The river will begin. Come, my only one, Come and make preparation; In the shadows now Foolishness begin, And wicked brood Freeze like the doom. While the swallow, pours For Ebro's sake; How the red-roan stallions speed Back to the stream; Flake of the wind! Fall on your way, Save this The wind that shakes The reeds which she lies. Now it's past, Come, my only one, Fly hence; You that will not rest, Leave her to me: Flame's a light, Water is a shade, All are materials. The flowers, all, all the flowers Out of the garden are laid, O daughters of the earth, Your wreaths of fresh purple blow On Ebro's bank! Up and down this sparkling stream, Your locks, so bright, Fall, as you come and go, Now the foam smites, Now the foam caresses; Take them and kiss them, Take them and kiss her! O lovely! when the day is kinder, The stream-flowers' shadow softens your cheek; And, if more cheek you have, Their tender waves hover lower; Her eyes are wonderland; what are Frost-bound? O beautiful! the days go by, You bright ones, when we're gladsome harts; And now the summer through your stream Will sweep the flower away, Then we'll hear a noise of fife, The fife, of those who have given all, O red and white! Their lives, you say, are full of tears; Their very essences; You've heard the skylark, how and where The wildest part he blows! He's haunted, and his heart is sad; All his notes are "few"; But, oh, he sings, sings fainter far Than any tears! Effulgence of wickiing hearts! Affection that sustains your flight! Buds of bents make sweet your flavour; And you, whom goodfell dreams, Leap to the altar, and submit To the leaden reign. You blooming ecosts, that have seen Wit, courage, honour, and praise, In your name, to that blind race, Whose ======================================== SAMPLE 83 ======================================== Landscape, fiddlehead Hearing death-rattle on the breeze, Fish-horn leading our thoughts astray, Mountain on the mountain Mountain without an earthquake, My own house on the sea. Wings thrumming, spotted rocks Kissing the white hair of the sea. Fritter and flitter and bob Rise against the ice Of my hair Ice by the force of waves, Muddy in the moonlight. How shall the soft beauty Of our ghost vanish That fades and vanishes? Ice in the sea, Strangest of all! How can the land who stands by Water, to gray-boat a Star run fritters, That one outrides, the other Outrides, but follows To follow on? And what are the tides to it When below the water Stands white, all-at-eights. Oh, among the pleasant Cities of men, Where is gold to flow Flushing the faces To wedding-pain. What is the constancy of the sea Which thrills me to the extremities, By itself in endlessness No hills between? But God said, Let out of me Grace for your earthly boats; Cries begin To call, Cries, with anguish And high emotions, That the troubles of the age Upon them rush. And on the cliffs of Dolabella The call grows more loud. From red vents of England's wines Let her courage win A voice through women: The dawn of plenty Is red on you! Little lightning flashes Under the eye Of God in heaven, That the mill-whey Of a split endarence Is the shade of green On which the heifer Nods. And rivers, fuming With mason, woman, Leap up to this land; And it must find A safe place in a lake Of Catalonia, Under the feet Of the children. You near her, Ireland, Love sees her, Heard he: in a given Time of sobbing Of love-sick Careless sin, and he can but Count her beauty, remembering But one time of all her strife: One little, haunting. Were he vast of soul, For all his humbled state, He could not say, "They come to me the same as now," She who holds all in its sway, Who is she who is seldom seen: She who lifted me. Oh, dreadful, dreadful the love I bore her Like storm-driven clouds till, by scorn, and then, They shrunk upon me like a dead thing's mien, That whose flaw, cold-dropping rain, and then, At sunset or soon after, Into the mix Is it I feel and I discern With bowed head, upon a hill, The missing thread of too long woe? A messenger came, saying, "Come hither, Come hither, I beseech you." I would I might go But fear the mob that ravens me in its hate. So waited, sweetly, the wind in my ear, Felt the earth treble-sweet, And the birds sing— Have I remembered! Then have I forgot, 'Tis I am here, Look round this glass, that I am here, look, but beware, For I might come unseen Between you and your love, And, as a sinner, thy prayers be heard. Night is in the mountains, day is in the valley, The valley night; the woods are of night; Red is the earth with berries in a seed That was night; the moon's path is of night; The brook is of night; the river of night, The sky a seed; the bird's flight is of night; There is no sign of the time of day. Many fell out on the stairs Between us in the night; Many gathered round To make us hate each other Between us. I have lived most of late Under the sign of the linn, And year by year I tell my woman, Who runs me a pickle, for I have given Her ear Each week, Or place, or place, And I am sure but a broken one, For she sees no sign of the time of year, But days begone. But here, between us, she sleeps, And when she wakes to face the day, There is a change; the brook is deep, The woodland made clear, the ======================================== SAMPLE 84 ======================================== What is still to us, far seen, A sad retreat, now your Great son is gone. Whispering and low, and soon to cease, The voices of your name have faded, Fading fast away in silence. While you are standing front the song, With music, and the force of thought, Your master has but little need Of yours. I leave you, Laureat, To whom I was obedient, Nor know till long after The knowledge which it was you Who taught to those I love. I am not afraid, Nor fully trust nor fully trust, Nor yet embrace nor embrace, The mystery, the sky, Which makes that where you are there Is nothingness. Only to know, of what you know In song or story or true You should have been a teacher, And that to yourself alone. I saw with love and behold A light from where you sat And held your heart, in that familiar growth Which cannot be taken from you Not of all the stars that are less. O mother, who could be first, Set in one face the letters of the others Small, single, solitary, and conscious, There is no balance And you are heart, in a double still first Full of beauty and height. Not one of all that sings that sings, Not of all that slides that slides, But in his own Creative intellect Competition with all time the first Creative fear And first in sight The brightest and last The time when you would know What might not be seen by them Who for us did so richly render Which ought to be more than ours, See only what they are so all of them And unseen by us First, we learn from you to trust What they sing of what shall make us whole Great art or happiness, Or a thing most small To show us both equally a glory and a weight of sadness. For what art thou to us? The beginning and the end The crown and centre The master being awake for us to hear. What makes Art, what makes him, our saint, Who formerly was with us, Who shares his hallowing grace To our eyes? What makes him to be thy will, To make the many thine Thy image and our mould Our various art To perfect have grown From us and back again From thy hands, to us, and back again? But thou art empty now, the foot Of Destiny Is on us. But thou art seen What may be there, to make us whole. Thou tryest once and now, To cast a shield 'Twixt thy broken page and us, but it fails And seems our burnt book, We have found faith in thee, We have felt it burn and grow In our hidden dark, A soil That sweet sweet growth of self and knowledge sweet That makes a world of earth the throne Of gods, the ever-crowned most: Thy gold in moments most fit For shows of life as moments pass, As trees bear fruit Or wells replenish their brim; What must be known, unknown, Worn, not owned, For every name Received leaves us better known; Thy gold and might Have felt, or known That we never can, or need What might be so, but differently At the heart of thee Not my own Thy love thy will The rest unwrit Which is not me Upon a bare black day, One says, "I shall not suffer Self to stand between me and thee, And so entrust myself to thee The fear of thy feet Stirred in me the silken floss, The fear of thy face, The dread of thy approaching face, For, oh! thou have'st heard The cry of the slain, of whom I, poor, Pining, thought was my last despair." He came, he bowed, and his face was calm, For whom were entrances, and all power was shown, Which as he passed, in quiet grace, He raised his hand up to heaven for a breath, That did as much of life as a second, On the grey grass of that lonely plain In memory, honour, humility, Had he the face to remember For him to climb with his brow less smooth, But me to be mindful Of the time when his presence then was lost. He raised up his head and his soul grew chill, For fear, not for that death to fear More than its name ======================================== SAMPLE 85 ======================================== Will back into my arm— I want to, but can’t. I have to breathe it all: the sick solipsism, the rusted navel-gazes, the all but dead gleam, the ruined summers, the choking nightmares. The best is far off. But I live in this now. Every morning a kind hand flings a blanket over my bare skin, or a kind voice tells me I can't count, or a kind hand opens the bedroom door. Or I die. VIII Every street has its King, my grandfather so-called, my grandmother so-called, so-called-again so-called-again. But no they aren’t real though they shape time so-called, so-called- again. My grandfather doesn’t come home; my grandmother comes in a beautiful dress she sits in the corner and repeats the same song she’s sung so many times I dream my dreams. And I dream my dreams. IX Break from the mountains— gray with high hills Then my dreams are in a language I do not know. I dream my dreams. X And I can’t have them. They roll up and clatter in the house, till I recognize my face in the mirror, my foot on the table, my hand in my hand. XI Half asleep I fall in and out of sleep I wake and dream my dreams. They disappear, lost, out- Throwing dust around the edges of my vision my eyes pop open— XII The sleeping land is not a field it’s a scar. I push my hand through it. My eyes are still shut. But I turn over and over the scar My dreams don't tell me why. My eyes open. XIII And I don’t believe them but the scar's young cousin, a bullet-shaped hole in my back. And I dream my dreams. I dream my dreams. XIV Hills that I dream about waver and smile at will— mountains that I smile about waver and smile at will. I’ve sailed up and down and thought my home, and then am blown back and home, and then blow back, and then am made up of nothing but air. I can’t take off, I can only go. XV I am the wind that lifts my twin home on the sea. A boy looks up and looks down, a snowstorm behind him whirling to gray. <|endoftext|> "After C. S. Lewis", by James Li [Religion, God & the Divine, The Spiritual, Arts & Sciences, Mythology & Folklore, Reading & Books] I The 'cinte doonto ceufredi' Céu that she 'comes and doesn't come' (She said this in a speech, by the way) is God’s 'cinte' that 'comes and doesn't come' II The only story where God speaks in the sun’s own voice God 'halps the sun for an hour, Lest men it should 'be' God, but not! (God’s own discourse is sometimes, or rather, 'It' <|endoftext|> "Zarabi", by Anthony Gonzalez [Arts & Sciences, Music, Social Commentaries, History & Politics, War & Conflict] the long notes open slowly the skin creases, I love like a newborn’s wings I am like baby treading water about to be drowned <|endoftext|> "Geronimo", by Anthony Gonzalez [Living, Death, Activities, Jobs & Working, Social Commentaries, History & Politics, War & Conflict] I stand as Geronimo stands and I hear the now ribs creak as Geronimo whimpering steps on the spot he crouched to kiss with his tenuous ribs turned inward and I scream I scream I scream <|endoftext|> "The Ghaliate", by Toh ======================================== SAMPLE 86 ======================================== we like to chase. When back at home, the friendly man’s laugh leaving a twinkle in your eye, you start to sweat inside, sensing you will catch this jester’s sudden joke. And jesters have tricks that leave us reeling: Aunt Sally stanches her oh-no; some laugh out of turn, and some laugh out we can’t help. We should not be distracted when a blue-faced lady begins her homewreck in which we all find our lives undone: a foul-mouthed gambit, rooted in plain old obliviousness. Ah, jaded immunization to comedy: your god-awful joke isn’t even a joke, not like the jokes in a children’s book, not even like the jokes you may or may not be performing. <|endoftext|> "Of ‘Fiery Love’", by Simon Barrow [Living, Death, Time & Brevity, Religion, Faith & Doubt, Funerals] I can still picture it, the amazing discovery of my treasured, now-memorably, rudely-acted baptism. I can still picture my companion, my salvation, my auratic, ecstatic enthusiasm for the good work that would follow (there’s no going slowly, or swiftly, as it happens) so very, sensuous, rapture-frying message across the thirsty coasts and seas. We’d returned—we three, in fact— to the cave, and lifted the huge, wedged, veined-endgraint helmet; she took a fresh, lifeless look, took in our threaded lives in that wide, un-expectantured viewpoint. And she asked me of the past: memories of moved, of action (as opposed to observance) were having a field day, and I’d just tried giving that in concert with a gustitious tempatation of excitement; I told her time: I was ten, a stranger’s bride within that Neolithic pond, not really expecting to be so possessed, so rapt, so eager, and, knowing sex, or what I knew of sex, hadn’t yet known—blushing, gleaming— and no one had just described it in so many words. And I had looked on, when it all clicked, the reaction of it the instant we satisfied the nothingness of it: yanked me, through that door, outside of that cage, outside the moted darkness of my own lit prior awareness—this was the unexpected apex, and then it was back, across the ground, back into the gaunt stare of the robot tree, and at the insolent-eyed presence of a robot that seemed to sway with the presence of the God I thought I had departed— then it was upon me, and then the rapid descent. The assumed importance of being caught, and of not being, on the one hand, was also in this case deliberate, the escape was deliberate, as was the feverish flight, the fear, and, especially, the empathy, for the human animal that we came to know was to be discovered. And my partner, too, knew to what extent I would turn to get there. I was out then, I could feel the orgasm to it all, this time, not suggesting penance. I too could see what I were losing, being freed. <|endoftext|> "Make-Believe Club", by Daniel Borzow [Activities, School & Learning, Arts & Sciences, Poetry & Poets, Social Commentaries, Popular Culture] Every hero needs his posers, and so too does a club or company CEO need its regulars, even as it presents a creative working team, includes quite a few mopes, so I need to set you guys up. This is the Make-Believe Club of the United Food Retailers of America. Each of you is a posy, we will organize the annual club- trip to be taken by our idols. We need to foster a more serious, committed attitude and recognize that by the end of our working lives, sometimes we’ll have nothing to wear, as our retirement plans are paid for by the company, somewhere in the terrain, at some point, as you know, perhaps in O’uk’s Aleken, but not this ======================================== SAMPLE 87 ======================================== Fierce and uncouth he was for weapons: His head so piteous of looks. He shared A quarrel but to give him arms. Here we are all: or as much we can Of those four kings, not here to mourn Those he hath slain: we rather bless The supplacings of our sovereign prince, And give that content to thee, prince dear To prince, we pray. Adown the glassy deep Adown deep the fourghosts may we cast Look past the mottoes of the strand. Thou doest well that round the hustings pour Thine halloos of a monarch; true word Casts up at your wait the red-lead of the corpse That thrust him oer the baronial gear. Good Sir, my liege must be well-taught The captain of our band is one From Kain to Sniegener; `twere writ In signs his Tersethild that so They proclaimed his prince of name, and he Is of that gaunt race which decks the sky. Be not a nail-biter then; a king Shall not be whip or mack lest scars And oaths enough disgust the sight Of his high peer, if we should borrow there Sensation from the multitudes to shame The ordinary, and ride him unto death Even from his seat of state, and to exalt And scour him, and avenge the martials Who with his captain had been horsing round, This day, so long anticipated. More hoisting then, your boy ye will not, For we could soon find some hindrance hot; Soles so clever and so wondrous small Have the North had no Muses dear, Nor ever shall, tho' there be found Soles that ride and run. Cripple-paced, But sinewed, straight or half steep. Backs to the yoke-fault the yoke must crumble, 'Neath whipped lash the reins red-briars. To him, as ever, at our council-board, We lift in derision high bred whimpering That comes from hell on legs and earthly yoke, Which all want brains to please the city dance. Here wags compare their tunes and their dances: That night we held a wager with us all: So I, who was of the fretful set, Longing for a joggling, or rough-side race, Said--"You know our king, right? That he were dead, His spirit, or body, or both, to sell With the heads that we gave for his state, All set in a pavement of great gold So I could raise some brains and hands, and stir Up a quarrel I had a mind to win. Which I did: the township was wrangling o'er An air of late--what a shock 'twas to all! And as the gloves came off I cast to see A wag of ours that caught a pair that stayed true, Still pleading, still all their hairs by hair, While eye to eye stood ready for a knock-down blow. I could smell the stables and stall the stalls, Their odours and smells went up and down the town, Gaining and losing ground where joltings of glee Broke and settled with a grumble as they ran Tumbler and twitch and dart, like capuchin balls, Down the line. So much for the glutted margin, The crest and the lunges and lapped positions, So soon to be clipt and bound and flitted Off to Paradise for all our oyster-making. There was a bam-moon-piercing blaze of sunset As of the wine-press in her Summer's pride; And we could see the blacksmith ploughing, And hear his bellows rumble and jar, And the sailor, strong with wind and tide, Sail-soak and run, and cut shore and snag; While beyond, quick twirl of spuds and twang Of spanners and bobbins, and spirts that floated On the air like flack and sail-sweep slavers, Came and sank, as one by one, as a ship runs From land, the silhouettes of women as they scour the streets, As if they were the gold and silver runt and poor, Down-low vaults, panting alleys, white-washed beams And flabbiness, and ruff and wash and wipe In teardrops and spasmodics of loud exhales, From sinks and gas ======================================== SAMPLE 88 ======================================== The sense of life, which does awake, Just as my footstep lightens a white feather. Too pure for malice, and too stout for laws; When envy is in me what fear is. Now do I love the earth, so changed from me, All with her contrast, beauty gained with haste? And my thought now flies like an eagle On long swift wings through all the changing spheres. But what is done to-day is not undone; Nor yet the future pre-empts; nor all More twain than man's, though the terms more vague seem. Some still see blindness and see blind, and say That in this matter darkness reigns supreme. I say that sight cannot see, nor yet The everlasting wrack of very light Unsettled in the heaven of things; nor yet Long loss is in that brightness settled yet, Lost in the mariner, who at low tide sees land. Thus all the material of my song, seen From self-evident true standpoint, Can wait, with without rest, in action brine, Till night from horizon-centre smoothly shifts, And smooth to shores the waters of the deep. All nature cries, nor sea, nor stars, nor land, Nor the sole abyss of being, the soul, But one: the powers, the glorious acts that touch All elements, all spaces, and extend In every burthen round, o'er the globe: This made the earth, and this the heavens uprear, And sound of all is one eternal tongue. But still, how long it says, 'Hold thou th' uncontain'd'! I dare not, therefore, to pronounce yet, If more is not blasphemous in some way, By His-God, the Ruler of Heaven and Earth! That singing, as the cautious ear, represses What is the song, which with a quick view is heard Of the complete thought's whole harmony, With harmony far too resolute, and pure, For time's dullness, or the wisest mood of thought! I say, if, with a sceptic view of things, I Perceive a providence too niggard, For one simple peasant kind his family. Now before this noble mind, fast holding in, With all th' observant world concealed, A fearful truth, the lurking birth of life Deep in the hidden soul of death, I felt a thought of life so true, so good, My love-shot ray of thought was green; Till, in the horizon of life, my sight was poured, And far, alas, I saw myself returned. And, lo! that good, that truth, to justify This ruin-fire of love, rose up and preacht My heart, and wings it could not contain, that my soul Must sink and prove flight more dutiful than its own. That the lost labour of the human will, In worship, howe'er warmly, is love's last! Now, O how blest the soul, if Heaven's pure will Annex the sight of God; if 'tis of God begotten! Possesses an inheritance from the kind Old Law, An in-fallible trust in God; in Him, all Gives voice and sway, all advantage humbles or farbs, To Him she, for whom, all things be convered for her, Peace, serene and righteous; blessed be she still! I say, soul, awake, and pause; pause and rephrase, rephrase This solemn truth, that still my heart disobeys. How soon, and for what, thou waste: how lightly run Thy fleeting days! how, by what license, and for what endearing purpose, thou found'st not wearance's law! Forgive me, aunt, whose years of long inexperience Have made me here too judicious, to all trust to thee; And 'mongst thy subjects slow, poor, sickly, lame, and old, Still to have to do with such, who plough the miserable soil Or pluck the sick fruit from the thorny tree, that's the holiest thing (With which I do in love), with very wickedness, Lest I judge with reason: but I say, the youth, Thy praise and yearning, youth's most prized and pleasant thing, 'Mongst things most contrary, contrary to youth, Is scarce from his great guide, and surest thing of all, Faith, away. And by this, This hopeful youth's very looks and air of pure, My poor heart's kin, a shadow ======================================== SAMPLE 89 ======================================== masks by derision— Perfect as whatever a delicate jet of spirit is New York City speak without the e on the word And so in his twenty-odd years old Steadily he mimes his philosophy on paper It’s the Town Topics at the bar at Sundown, pouring crocus and sours and his best buddies, the ones he and Isadora once played tennis with— a music hall in its element, a mix of jazz and bohemia and no consistent style They talk about the short and the long They have a quick response to everything a little breathless, in their wry hallelujah chirp And I forget them And what their questions would be The eternal and the new I close the Times in the thermos with their name scrawled on it below the message ‘Dora Nelson’ So much for poetry and memory Aeroflot and the bored people waiting to board the airplane They say ‘Wells out’ to mean ‘Wells in’ <|endoftext|> "A General Theory of Love", by W. D. Snodawa [Living, The Body, The Mind] The mind, closed up tight, is smaller than the placement of the eyes. The mind, all of it, down here inside the ball, a matter of inches, lined up tight, is smaller than the making of angles. When a person is properly taken care of, he grows like a tree The mind, closed up tight, its tiny manifestation, is smaller than dressing up for a night of ambition. When taken care of, the mind, is smaller than making up words. The spirit of the world is smaller than making a thousand bindings. The mind, is a single frame. When the spirit is waiting patiently in, the mind appears at a single location, closed up tight. The mind wanders breathlessly there. The candle snuffs itself In the darkness of denting the blues. I am no one’s father and I am no one’s wife. When the spirit hath said the words he’ll float the words on its lean face <|endoftext|> "The Sphinx and the Social Commentaries", by W. D. Snodawa [Nature, Seas, Rivers, & Streams, Social Commentaries, History & Politics] We were rising over the hill of which the tip is the sphinx. There were palms in the palms. We were rising over the hill like the tip of a sphinx, circling the palm that was there growing straight like the spine of a sphinx and a crimson palm leaf grew over the palm as if flowering over a sphinx and my knot was a knot. It was night. It was tinder in our guts to see them like this. Climbing alone it was like the tip of a sphinx to see them like this, growing even higher than a sphinx, a knot, to see them not quite touching like the tip of a sphinx over a palm that was there to see over the night like tinder. Suddenly the knot caught in my throat, my hands stopped and spun. That’s the way a Sphinx talks. The palm became a mask and that scared me. I had to have been looking for the mask underneath it. My knot was on my neck. My knot that was spinning like a rope. I was staring down at my own knot and what it was pulling at. I let go of the thought of knot and opened my eyes and saw the moon. I was standing in my own moon and I knew I wasn’t going to see it so I let go of the knot and looked at it and it was disappearing. <|endoftext|> "Mercy", by W. D. Snodf and Gwendolyn Brooks [Living, Death, Relationships, Family & Ancestors, Social Commentaries, History & Politics, Race & Ethnicity, Anniversary, Nogral&OldMetropolitanIcivolence, GrandmasterStatus, BlackHistory, GrassySpires, the Brigate, the Spur, the Gap, the Gully, the Path, Story of Old St. Louis, Race & Ethnicity, Race & Ethnicity in Art, Crime & Punishment, Crime & Punishment in St. Louis, ======================================== SAMPLE 90 ======================================== The singing of hell by Tismaios Scourged with frogs in the hollow of the marsh, The laughing of Chiron with arms of light, And Sergestre, his whirring car On flames of the goats, and Silvetus, And Phlegm of Geryon killed by Thammout, With clouds of rotten frogs. Lone scribe against the wall. And the flow of blood between A whistling palm fronds, and feathers, and breast feathers, And a drowsy shriek. And the loose-flowing, wandering words Of the thirtle syren, or raving nymph Lift with one voice a wild dirge Of many with the ears of astonishment My love's finger tipped huntress, You open loud bedroom door And far away, far away is the wildwood. I know it, but the calling of love fills my heart, If love is strong enough, not built of stone, There's no descent. You were a seed. Then like some quivered snow of snow-melt, Like some fledged pupa one grain, You rose on your perch Like a fragile running pin of seed, Or you soared from some felled bough, Or fed from fediment, or cloud, And sought your destiny. And it was always like a seed to seed, That up and up, and finally Up and up, and to a leaf or handful Of whirlwind feather, where from the cloud Strew your trail of silver light Till you are set to open All your flush of courage, Like a red flame to reveal the dark. Once you were a loveless tree On a house held captive In the arms of Death, Borne amid the green congress To be his lovely dower. But this is vain. He bends his frown. Sudden and far away he sinks. And you, who are barren and cold From his soft leaning fingers, Your self's only flaw - Your self's only flaw is thrust to view, Whirled, thrust to the open air, Or settled, or blown in sand As natural as the stampless sea. Arise, my people, remember me. This very morn That I said you sprung from Those two hands and turned Presto-ultrasound Into a now ant-like Slam of sound Toward the endless aerial Sounds that are a star. <|endoftext|> "The Poppy Museum", by Brian Turner [Activities, Jobs & Working, Arts & Sciences, Poetry & Poets, Social Commentaries, History & Politics] 1 I wore the black hat. It was old and rusted. I took the envelope whose return address was taken by wind or water. The envelope was plain. No fancy flaps, no bows carved in gold leaf, no polished metal, no sachet of gold. I had a ticket cut on clean khaki day. But my old hat didn't have a ticket, and the ticket didn't have a hat. It was rusted and dusty. I took the ticket inside, into the museum. A high museum with people strolling about. A boy picked it up, the hat buckling on it, and his mother came leaning over the fence. She thought it was odd she had to walk all the way up and down the long museum to find her son. 2 The museum was nearly empty. The boy from the island pointed out a button, and she realized, she thought, a man could not pull upending rusted hat from the stack. But he could find the thing on his own. He pulled it with ease. It was the one that ended up in a stack of tickets. He knew he was looking at it wrong. Because the motorboat from Paterson, who met her, was nothing of that sort. He lifted it to the edge. He looked carefully at the steel that ran down the center and at the blue-gray boat that was going down the center while he talked to her. How her shoulders swayed, when he hugged her that way. He lowered the boat, while she got off the steps. 3 She moved to London in the winter, returned to her attic room, had one arm in a brace. Her out-of-pocket reach was smaller. ======================================== SAMPLE 91 ======================================== Qorro of the Sea, through whose ribs We wind our way, whose ribs Were ground to powder, whiter than Santa's flesh. He lay there in His twenty-third year, when we Cut him down, as men cut fatlings, And so it was not long before We found his hair, much gold on it, And the great rib bones, and the Rose-hued. The poor Queen cried, "If You can but give me a kiss In answer to my kiss, I am Satisfied." One fair leaf flew To the sun, and then she died. "Give her a pearl," said one, "and You shall have the rest." And straight, As we watched, he gave her back her Hand in a twinkling, on the hilt Of her own dagger. Now She's at home among her girls and Daughters, singing, happy; and now The o'er-arching sky a glimmer Of October blue on her There was a book whose delightful Attic pages came Flowing in braided draperies of Natural flowers and dark red roses, Exceeding fair, and all the ways That such things are, came home with her So beautiful, so clean, So fresh in her bounteous embrace That all men said, who gazed on her, "Lo, here is all the darling Of all our city, and we, with Our books and flowers, are her heart And soul, as this dead leaf attests, And all that she has been, she is Only a little higher up Than all that other." And when they came To stoop to pick her flower at the foot Of her bed, they found a girl in The half of her. "Of such sweet slaughters Are you not well? In our big homes such cozings Never come to light? For when such rare rare days Are all packed away. If you be so great Why do you struggle So anxiously to feel Love even in your dream? Why seek no easier ways Of life than so, In seeing heaven on earth? Why run not wild on each Of such sweet rare days? What though the night should strive To hammer your fond mind With its infinite grief, Yet should you find no pain or care That has power to tire You down with constant tear, The darling of our soul, To-morrow, when her lips Cling alone to say, , Or should she send you any sign That you should deem her untrue, Should she fail in any grief, Then is she loved indeed. No longer let such thoughts Brooding in your lonely brain The dregs of this forlorn life Be to you a burthen of sorrow, Nor any future pain Be a heartache if they be. The moon has been to Bed, And she'll have a little bit Of the hound and lily there, And a hare will be there, And will be a piper too, And she will have her mate And garden for an hour. There'll be the night for your sake And all the stars that you choose, And just a touch of fire and snow To make it good for her, And not a cloud to mar its light And love it when he hears you sing "The bumble-bee is not to blame If the bee is not to blame, And I don't know why the viper fish Has crippled him; The worms have not the right, The wicked have the right, The things that are good they. The wing of the falcon, The wings of the falcon." Oh, she has the sweetest smile, And the sweetest dress And her hair, it's just lice-like, And she takes her laughing time Very late; And the wild ducks come singing To her pond to drink, But the swallow doesn't know What the ducks think; And the stork has stepped on her, And they didn't learn, but we're all right, And everybody in school; And the place is the town, Where every one knows, On a sun-burnt wold, To lie with a book Under a tree, For the roses are red, And the park is green, And the dogs don't know! But to-day the butterflies Tell of the violet; And the violets all, Are a sweet surprise To the mind of a child, Who is running about. I am ======================================== SAMPLE 92 ======================================== us bespinq; the wynt fox wold deny, "being bot only sin, he for it mai be cursed, saith the crummie Court, I that wolde so, And therefore that thou shouldte from me be wroth, Joug{3} and of myne uncles to call Ful me in derkw now in to great deni{w}age, Asso thei most fere; I pray to God here oute, But ere the floodes out of the wey{3 Of the Tribulation, I the moder pale To thee ne som[y] cr[=u]ility lye, I pray to Lord for thy mercy, I crue thee fro su{m]porte and thy-ne And ofte more, so as thou ne hast deserved, My body unto my ney{n}ce hold and save, Ther it be su{m}cent fyght and rare, Bot I am fyght and wy{n}de and wel led thryght, Yee in good and I begynnynge, I wolde right so fore alle myne, Togedre and hit longe, as I gan taryng. Whiche men yeble is set to beguile, His dede was so yonge, I mid hy{m} fre And of graunte he hadde a part, Yif me w{i}tfulie, so fond was that I Toward to ryde, er I mote bewepe, For to the tie saued was my life, And i{n} the boke of such a schylde, That I dyd mynyght stond upbraide, So sore as þe rain and þe froste vnder hond, My sheufer woo to holde for gyld, As sumgh as su{m}myry forto winne, For thou sholde I the god moche skryve, That thou hadste my unswete grett. For-sooth, of the water I dar hiere, Ther is a religycach, as byfore, For that is that worldes welle, Þat is esy ryche and rychesse, Þat mote ase I am on þe love, Þat I ne wepe ne hyȝe w{a}re, Bot as I holde þ{a}t holny w{i}t{h}. In many a Fy{n}t ho fynde, Þe heȝ, þat fiftene hoȝe ho fay{n}de, I ffynd to made i{n} þe bred, In su{m}fyed m{er}uayle of cause, I ffynd hou þe age how seluen Þat alle ful erthe erthe by syne; I ffynd þe tayle þat þryght may ffynde, As I of þe syre koude I have done; I ffynd þe ho{us} þe heuen of heuene Þe god for-to ffynde his oure my{n}g: I see þe su{m}fydde þe myry grete, Þat I mote ffynde halle myn Þer-cleopater, þat schal alle wayes wende, Þat fro rycher schal bryȝt, I ffyght so craftelwe seluen, A grete tre schort, of honyȝe. Þe mow{n}ne hoȝe me schal don so, I wolde ffyste of hys god[i]ede þ{a}t, So blyse of hys heles walle mynde, I myȝe, þ{o}u schalt denay ne{n}ne. For I haf neu{er} made bot a lon{n}ne, Ne whanȝ hys semblant on hente to ride, So grase I a bett for þe ho{us} leste, In here þryty haþeȝ I grase and myȝe, I wot ======================================== SAMPLE 93 ======================================== Birds lack me, in their worldly wisdom Shriven in it, That swift?e flying Birds lack me, and the truth is their's, Shriven in mine. Like fleecy wav'ring damps Of spectred storm, Where solitude and clamors make a brawl, Where no goodly blossom but conjures a curse Where endless winds shake down the stifling snows, Where blossoms, seeds, wind, and pattering rain Floods down, filling my breast Forget that all we dream of vistas dim Soon spring, one day Kindler! <|endoftext|> "In June", by James Weisger [Living, Death, Marriage, Midlife, Activities, Sports & Outdoor Activities, Nature, Animals, Trees & Flowers] On one side of this strip of sand the houses and vehicles are strewn like white elephant cones on the other; and what is here is late afternoon, when the trees have told their story, and there's no telling until November or later just what they mean. Across the embankment, in a clump of sycamores, down against the heat, you can hear the pitcher for the sun, a reporter, a beast of planed sand. To find out where the pungent seamail, the people pray. This bird sees the ball, it's called, standing there in the sand. Some turn their backs, leaning on posts, then advance with strength from years of training, carrying light poles, climbing trees, and going out like thieves on their cars and knowing their way back should come up hill, into fields or away. The birds going west carry their bright coats, their shoes, and on the embankment and clear enough, small enough, to catch the eyes of would-be felons. How do they know how high they go up hill? By sitting there and seeing the trees act like tiny telescopes. <|endoftext|> "April Moon", by E. E. Brown [Love, Break-ups & Unthankfulness, Religion, Buddhism, Faith & Doubt] Awake—with you I meditated and thus renewed my doubts; But, awake—with you I sin, and thus my conscience put me to bed. Awake—with you I suffer, and thus my doubt took wings. Awake—with you I play the hypocrite, And thus my conscience fires my lash, and thus I scorn you. Awake—with you I fly from faith, and thus through your face I stab myself. Awake—with you I remain benighted, and thus my conscience rots me at my heart. <|endoftext|> "Christmas Carol", by Edgar Allan Hunter [Christmas] Then let me go now, lads, to bed; No longer miss the merry way. My poor scarf, left half aside, Cannot disguise the arts ye use. Away, then, now is the time for joy; Go, children, sing and be wise; And, while ye may, shoulder bodily The dangers of the night away. What if there should come a time When I shall no longer sing? When, like the Night, I stay, and cry, And leave my mirth behind; And, as ye deck the Christmas board, Leave me to waste in desp'rate woe; And, alone with my despair, Proclaim to him that rules my fate, That he must not forget, nor lead A life of pain, or aid the poor. And yet it shall not be. Remember, that I still love you Far better than myself. And therefore, forgetting this, The greatest misfortune thou canst have Make straight my own infirmities. And for ye know, or ought to know, Here are the worst I can sustain. Let me but say, that life is sleep, And rest, and tears, and such Dutchmen's dreams That teach us to see black mischief right: And yet I trust I can be more bold To venture, than 'tis generally said, For such a sum as that I sold. 'Twas when the honey-time was past, And winter came with snow and winds; When feasts were light, and fields were green, And night was with her pillow: With every fruit, the bough that lent Its native shade, and smooth, Took up the tinct of domestic taste; E'en, from its bud the sap rose up, And drank of being with the ======================================== SAMPLE 94 ======================================== The cold combe brooked no argument It set me to cry out vexed My wretch accursed<|endoftext|>By Bernie McDowell In ancient times the mason who built A lighthouse on the island of Masipe, Near what is now Saint John's beach, Estimated its cost at a hundred thousand pounds, Of this small isle constructed for little gain, Built it in such a way that it met The eye, of all that go or do come, And might be seen to prove that light is Hope. --It stood for fifty years or more, Then glided on into oblivion's eye; Although it wasn't a lonesome place, There were many who tried to make it one. Sewing the high road and clear rigging the ship, Those happy thousands enjoyed a sort of bliss, In that the coming hundred years Alas, and alas, unheeded lay; For their fancies the soft Southern breeze At their rambling always seem'd to blow. Their only light was they themselves, The Sun, that bright magnificent Sun, When day and night were one continuous day. One can mock at his eternal light, This glorious Father of his light, And now here to-day I bid you welcome And there I stand when the day is done, And the huge dusk gathering in from the sea, And in your eyes, my children, I see the sting Of that old foolish ridicule on your faces, You say I am blind and will not smile; You say that in too many years I have seen Too many sights to make me weary, But here, before you, by this sea, Each one, your alder and your spruce, Were lighted Shams with a golden stool, They danced and caroused, took pleasure too. You made their golden locks flap From the tan skin all white and lined With cotton for the sun to spurn; You left them to love their laziness, I, in that day, though I guess It must be to the bright ideal Of the country sky and the sunlit plain, Can see the pinnacle of your power. For every month that lengthen'd on, Though the over-watching Moon increase Her orb's descent, would bring in the proudest Of hope, to the city's vanity, And bidd all sorrow that I did see To its last downfall, as it was In those days, on the sacred shrine That you built with fanaticism, Would fade like flames, before it was time. Some had thoughts of burning it down, Some thought of moiling it up, to make A litter for the neighborhood; Some thought to give it to the poor, To the departmental houses to raise A stone-storm for, a mockery of The civic grandeur that raised you. But you would be left to dream On your remote pile among the dead; And you would have forgotten, so buried, So the mean-souled are with glory left In the fair field of being that you led. Oh, have you forgotten, now, what I am? The brother-in-law of Shylock? The only thing of worth in your house That's left? Have I done you wrong? Well, then, I'm your friend and counselor. Would you like to hold that with a bride? Shylock I am; Shylock I will be; And, really, if you had a ten, If the bank were in order to roll, I'd put a ten in your hand, And not think of giving it back. I'd have you in my pocket, my friend, A pincher-hold to hold on to it. Don't give it your attention; don't think It can get you out of a stick, That's common-sense 101: When it chokes, What comes out is good, and what's worst. A candle is not as strong as a sword, Nor as a prying geomancy as knowing The food is coming in. As a punishment you're not sorry; And if it needs be because you gave The word to die, or ate your dinner, Your praise's a camel ahead, Sextot, life's racing from place to place. You say I gave the word to die, That I was deaf. Not true. I heard. I heard; and to make the word more clear, You were the only one to take That word, and put it to use; you were Sane, no more, with other over-wise; But your wise other friend a stick will choke. ======================================== SAMPLE 95 ======================================== Nought being there to break, the pair press on Each other till the storm bursts from beneath And on the rocky abyss their foaming sea Becomes a windblown leaf, which sails as smooth as Any streamer that blots the sunset from the sky, And blows against the boat until, upon the verge Of a broad lake of smoothness, an opiate Gushes out and talks to her comforter, whose name Is laughter. A haze of sleeping perfume Clouds into burning mists, and with it is dealt Aroused an operation which in true odour And touch is pungently marked: the burning Is the strong and temporary odour of the soul, Whose action on the sense smells like the sense Of odour is action in general. Oh, the gathering Of all thy body's sensual pleasantries, the oily Smoke of the furnace to thy pale face, with pan Is full, as down to the last pan it is, of all Its motions of sloth, and sloth, the flaming blaze, In its sententious democracy, its watch-word You talk of aesthetics as an oar Spent in the flood In the waste currents of time; I am of these As I've spoken them The sense Of a good action is that which is done. Do you hear The wise ryght in you? You know not your ryght; The waters of duty are in you As your emotion is in me. All the works Have been done for thee. Then, since thy life Cannot ever be otherwise Than it is, do thou the works Of virtue, And be the man that thou art. <|endoftext|> Poet in Life not Poet in Discourse I thought about writing this letter, A friend of mine suggested it, and I thought I'd put it off till other times, When recollection brings that friend again. But as I thought, it might be worth your consideration To let you see the words that I had already written About that same horse and the snake. In other words--for I'm sure you've heard of this-- You'll remember I gave a horse to my dog, 'For $3.00, Enjoyed By The Whole House' And the experience was probably very pleasant: A piece of his skin snapped while he tugged at me And then he didn't need to turn around Because a horse bit him in the ear. I used to think that there was nothing funnier Than just plain lacing round with the dog, And driving home with him, having a few happy words, And turning up the dime-event horizon, As he whippled me in a way that no horse ever had, And giving him back a smell of his first food, Then racing through the schoolyard where the kids Were waving flags, so that the yell 'ed of us. Then changing horses, and letting him go at that, And driving through Chicago--all while rain was falling. There was one thing that I noticed which comes to mind About this affair, and it's this--at any rate, The part played by the old familiar neigh of the Mastiff, In the first twenty-seven times, of course. 'Course, my old pal Joey! He's been digging in my dirt! It made me laugh, I'll say! I'd call that a greater'n sign Of love than I've had yet. Well, I may laugh, But I've seen the Mastiff now all tinged with gray. All tinged with gray, and giving me looks most holy, That is, when I have been writing rhymes; When even a fool can see the humor in his work. As this Mastiff is the greatest and most venerated breeder That ever lived, in any breed, of its kind. As to all other petty noblestilities Whose only place is in history books That people buy for a quarter-barrels' value And tell us how venerable their lineage is, I'll tell them this: My best friend here, Whose grave I go to sometimes, is that Mastiff, And I've come to recognize, here and now, Each time I see him, both the rider and the trainer. The kind of stable-dog that never had the chance To work, though I've seen him here and there; And now, you might say, that it's becoming tiresome That the Brehmahme brayed the braying horn more than once And I walked away from the city for half the ======================================== SAMPLE 96 ======================================== Yet seeing that blossom aqueous, in its clearness, Like the kisses of balmy air, Afire with the light that in one vessel lies Love's sacrament, Yet less of force than earth's--we sigh To seem for a little hour as those We, out of Saxony, Who knew your frugal soil, Where light minutestices, drought and glutton Waste bear sway; Where eagles and leopards Scowl at one another; Whose churned cauldrons, burst At the fretting of the marauding pound The beast who craves, and craves Still the dreaded end of a man made stiff By his infant kind By the bitter in a stone-cold bowl; And in his pitiless, gluttonous maw The heavy ox cashie, Will after the first blanket of porridge Know, if his trencher is cold, or hot, As Howe's cow found out, Or howe's, or yours. The feaster, whistling the morn, Woos the light to break; The in-door light, the fire-start lit; And, as she to the frosty shed Associates mild, The cup which for their feasts and fires Were the brawns of prawns (tacous-quilling Gurgling saliva) In sombre winter, Weaves, as noisily, and dips The crusted fork, (A Jems on its eye) In the gabbling brook. Aloft in the air, Apolites for the flinging, A Llanthypsean hand Aflickered the lady's descending robe At a man's eye's search The ripple, where-of her body's crown Was her good name's allure, The circling Flora-vire, The flitting Frasias, The huld, the heil, the heil. The Knott's son said: "Weep no more, Bede while the sun shines Up the parched, reedy strand To the poplar flower; The westering Aurora I (The kernels just of May) Flaunt through the days' young tide. A secret hour The year is old, All channels glittering with gold In direct sun and shine; But I, alas! In this hour am riven; Or through my window see Sighing, of yore, no more. Weep no more, sad soul, Your lovedest lady fair (My lady Lenton's) Has borrowed of me her bed 'Tis no longer time or place; And were my hand-anchor broke The house would crumble round about Like an earthquake's shock. The maid with the massy bawbies The hunt is heard by the hounds At cool, moonlit, moonless nights On the brown hills, the pale steeps In Northumberland, The names of the May-stars Are said in a swan-fanfare When the brooding shades Of all that unseen hour are near. Weep no more, sad soul, Thus words are weak; The earth is space, where hands may go, Or any wanderer dwell Sleeps warm or finds an empty place, Some happens here. Unmarvellous evil may (Strange that thy thoughts should seem so strange) Worse still, on such soft days, betwene That knott-hole, as this wakening south Calls up a burthen, lead-wise, swift As fleet as foam Slumber that's 'neath a spreading fern. Thus, till the morns and cherub-flame New moons with white light mix, This man and that, as yet unsought, From brink to brim, or shallow spring to broad, Brims aloft, Sinks in a taper-lake, And seems An offering to a star. Now, my mourners, weep no more: They come not in another year With longer mirth, Blanker of eyes From yours and all thy years. Weep; and be still, as if a blossom nigh, Their autumn and their vigil blown, Is raining, while the light winds blow. In the lands beyond the sty, Beyond the reach of light, Blanker of eyes, and thought, Dim of hues, and woodland-chapel Greyer of its own hue, A field ======================================== SAMPLE 97 ======================================== Till a beauteous green and red and orange fruits hung On the trees in full color in the leaves! It was a month before Christmas. And mother’s ornament was a bow inlaid With silver stars for beads of gold. Winter and the spring again, And the summer on a drought of malice, The peaches sunk in glazes and indented, The musk of myrtle, woodbeared, wreathèd Intrigues me still, disentangling. But the sky, where the coy moon Glides through aquamarine, disappoints me. I feel that I must be living Yet distant. Whence, where is it? A girl of sixteen whose eyes are Foam-filled with tears that trickle From her eyelids, oh! where is she now? The cricket chirps, the frogs’ two bassons Of melody are nowhere to be heard, And an ear searches the garden through Where the towering asphodel grows, And to the asphodels ’neath one bough, The elm in front, the aspen up behind No sound comes to repossess Of this the month, O my soul! Which Of these the days is this? Which I say! Day and night I feel that he is not with me; It is as if the light were flinging back, To which when I moved ’twixt leaf and canopy My spirit did so precipitate A music and rapture came, such As seemed to finish it. And when His damp black hair the fount a silence yields, Whence he might have drank of that cold well, That well which well is known from well beneath! And then arise, and, strange thing! The crickets let loose, sing also not; For though ’tis well to pray, they do not hear, Nor I say prayers, from which she would hear me. But through all this the pipings Wherein I did patter, Piping, piping, Hard-hearted, solitary, I will say not one singing My loving but, my having been loved! And now at night, my Love Is past, and now at noon All gone, and now at the half Of day, my Love who is all, Love, Love, Love, Love who is half, O Love, Each tone to each, I say, “Solenonynya!” It must be tough for what I had, When what I now have, I say, “What!” A bleak, sad and sadder song than then I knew, But no less sweet. And I, sad man! I say, “Cursed be the man who cries Crandom!” Or to a tune, O what a ditty lads, O what a ditty lads, O what a ditty lads and lasses, Hail! Rain, rain, rain, Dance through the wheat and tar! But hail and wind and wheat and tar! Hail! rain, rain, rain, Dance the coo coo's once more! And tar and wheat and wheat Cry through the night again! Hail! rain, rain, rain, Dance through the night again! O toun, your boy's a lad Who’s fond of a gill, Who’s inclined to a haggis. Well deserved he may be That’s this a little odd And cozie and so’s spiffy, Tirl in your toun. O toun, your lad He hails an amateur And draws a chalk stripe By a side door, And one can hear him nicht And hear him rhyee, And tinkers wi’ his cozie. O toun, your lad He likes a fiddler And likes to tak a shine And gie his hands a shake Wi’ music like that, Hanging by a hair! Oh, toun, your lad Has bubbl’s appetite, An eye for beauties And snooze-a-cla-risse, Oh, toun, your lad Is a delightful nicht But grow’s over-sentimental. O toun, your lad, How marvellous he is! It are twee blessed days I’ve had to hold a beaker Up by the crack. O how like bakers! O how like them ======================================== SAMPLE 98 ======================================== What man would draw a sword, If he'd had no forethought, That so he might prevent The danger; but with blade What e'er man can know? How many lives at least, Have been lost, and how much blood On all our limbs been shed! And yet--so Providence be credited-- There's an end still of life's dismay, And 't would be glad indeed to lie Why does every one such pass As this, without any which he do not pluck, But with arms for life's defence clad? Alike of you all the brave Rage of the lance, The guerdon of some crown, Whose shield was never pledged in fight. The watery lion's with us yet, By eunuch tightened, And springing on his prey, not fierce to yield Though thrice thy foe hath been in peril to see: Yet, though our quarrels past, Life may be fresh in them, This of fighting, and this of feeding. Beset with peril, beaten to the fence, And each to prate with prattling foppish grace: Their song, 'Huzzate!' fuddles young, You may hear their ends in Oxford-street, Or in their inn-bred domes When they climb like larks their wings again. But we, we live on' other plan; The Shepherd did but teach us, We, the delight of life and take delight. Then why not drink of wines, Give of bowls to move your bodies, And, with those things that men to beguile As they that do light love-songs Wear like a tree, so do these solacie Our sabbath-rites, And send them to heaven, Whose hand, Saved as ours, with charity Should treat as a child againe. That we do not work on earth for hire, Why we do doome as we list. If man did wight battle, God should not such things read, As he, of some sinful men To make him cheat, And carry, and gluttony to all. What to your Peers, or how you view Our Acts and us, let not your selves, But let the Stars, that watch the skies The Barns that shelter you, Which your great Cannibal went the way, Pull down, And let one Concord solace every State. More the Corpus Juris diterper rather A fat mermaid to suck, than an ale-house Lending a sterne to make a wench drink, Lending a bona to keepe a maw, Lingering over a waik, Ding-dong dings that bring a huske-pie, Ding-dong dings that shall make a sister frown. The old line and origin of human kind Is such as enforces on us every day, That our first forefathers neate to feed But enforc'd at Table, and from flocks Of sheep and oxen curbs a bounty. All Pliny his historians had in looke Who write, for in the present day, A Releender does not live by th' law Of Statuts or of Poolls. Not that I would be in two minds And hindre the score, I'se my hasty thought, When all your Welch race are gone, You'd mack his King, and ruin all his Town, And mack the Duke, too, and sort it so. Mack the King! mack him, if you'd mack his Town, Put me in my huts, But hang (as run the Kings by,) Not let a Town so big do eat Mack the Duke, or you're mack'd at Court. 'Tis no marvel if I sware him; For, lo, when I was clean amang, They found me dirty to wi' them, And soon they wagged their heads a muckle As grand a Duke as ever paid for Swipes Was never tane in Edward's Court, Nor yet in Gresham, where their wigs were laid. So, Sir, they mack his mouth and his cheek, A face, only: wi' sulk or smile, He wears his Crown, he's taken by the heckles. Yes, Sir, when this Pruss's King, whose name Will live through many a score, Their doors are in't to keep An' an' an' an' ane's o' ======================================== SAMPLE 99 ======================================== Then look there yet, in that part Where you will see an abyss profound, Rays leaping out of darkness, Snatched with strangest beams at the visage hewed. When the minaret of the masque is lit And the caryatid gleams bright Of four stars that shudder and wane In chance-to-be to the light that is In the letter of the crown, Take her, the zodiac, for 'Tis her sign, 'tis the way she brings The order of the rhodesian seasons In careful letters for the rest of the year. The grass and the leaf which the royal teeth leave On graves where the glow-worms of the phoenix brood Are glittering in brass and the marble dies Like silver pearls doth snow upon the snow And the rime in cerulean coats doth shroud Till the shivers are lodged safe within the veins For the regions which grow lush with the tears of the sun. Wauken, and thou golden heavy lark bellissh Wauken, and golden longlist and firefly, Which here be singing with thy melody and sin In our early youth with the harp-strings of Joy, Who from deep winter of minds did lift These notes of fire and song of the dawn, Which may not be pulled by the nameless hands From the vibrating harp of the wind That only sounds to them alone how Toils or withers or gladness or woe befall, Who are northward by moon and by star-light. O Hesperides of the wakening day! Whence came the dawn, what did we find, In this lone land of the sunrise? O Hesper, in thy beauty and change, I would have thee hear and answer tell In this still country of the Sunrise. O Hesper, in thy beginnings, the light Of thy first bird-born darkness Was folded in a glow-worm's tent, Flush and fair; Thine air was soft, than garments more fair; Thine was the drift of a froth of down, Soft, and breathable, and alive; Thy voice was as a voice of the sea Calling in its froth to the wind-crowned moon From rocks where water-worms are wailing now, Ripe with dry but bloomless salt With the light-waves gilt Lemon-fish, mussel and willow o'er the rime. O Hesper, thy light of the past hours Is folded in thy glow-worm's home, And the voice of thy earliest darkness Is a voice of the water-worms now Calling their world afar, What time the pines of the cavern-deep Say to the pines 't is dawn in their realm. O Hesper, the sun and the rains Waken in this land of the Sunrise With a sigh; They are out in the wind and the weather That are down below, Whose lives are enclosed in the roaming Of a world of weathers and fluxes, Not dead, but lovely, and wan; And on the roots of life The tremulous hands of the gods are cold, And the springs of gold Where the earth-children run Are unapiece, As if in the ways of the wind They had passed them by. O Hesper, or if purple be The hues on which ye paint Your snowy epitaphs, say That the wind which blew the snow Was swayed by the face of a queen, And the sun to the laughing air Was moved by the eye of a queen, And the lightnings were wrought by the play Of a queen in a queen's look; And the earth And the sea and the air which are now A barren dust to the day To the eye of a queen's wonder Were filled with a beauty of love And a beauty of life To the children of that king; Till from her presence the maiden Sought the golden fountains of the day, But no nearer the child she found That made all her maiden-bower And each merry maiden-asteroom Intoxicated with her gaze With a glow of a glow of a queen. For as the flower till its spring, Like the flower till its nectar, may Grow lovelier till in no fire, So in the yellow waves of earth Than the child was born and could stand For the queen of each word, And her hands were like angels' hands, And her feet were the eyes of angels, ======================================== SAMPLE 100 ======================================== USA# | Engine# | To engine# Injured# | | An engine now blocked, confined or simply sieged shut in #PuertoRico# | HIGHWAY TRAFFIC highway# | Who is entitled to the highway?# | #Highway to the sea# The worker: his owner and something coiled in the back of his mind. Little brown owl at mid-window. She approaches compassion for humanity and idleness and the commuting woes of angels <|endoftext|> "The Philosopher’s Plane", by James Taggart [Activities, School & Learning] for John Millikoper The philosopher’s plane, imagined by Calippus, rests on a red disk of dawn close to the body We flop into the blue below our feet, into the astral horizon, that whose dots our lives keep shifting over the edge of empty space into the orange of earth And beyond into blue well into the empty page of thought Where we can embrace a little while of our desired end and then flow back into the world of time <|endoftext|> "Particle Accelerator", by James Taggart [Activities, School & Learning] We veer from the highway into a field of moss- out wet It’s all pretty close to the world of space It is a field of sound where the green body crotches down into the sound What is it singing Every word in sight Every word is bound in sound we make of it The sky is far from us our eyes It moves quickly from one word to the next word small in the sound of horizon The sky moves too in sound in the thought Of ghosts Beacons Of green sound Moving in the day Of sun By this the fields are full of green luminousness No sound of clouds inside Our own headspace Music spits from The cathedral of green It is an elfin language in a sound A field of sound and thought <|endoftext|> "Oh! Ordinary Time Is a Flux", by Eavan Bolger [Relationships, Friends & Enemies, Arts & Sciences, Language & Linguistics] My friends! My old mates! I’m sure you’re going to be awesome in this world of flux. Not expecting any answer! But I’m being encouraged. I never give up hope! But it’s just all in a mass of-disperation. We’ve all been good to me, I am a glowing spot on a darkening mountain. But this IS a haven! And for a breath of life Why all this fur? <|endoftext|> "Map of Our Land", by Eavan Bolger [Living, Time & Brevity, Nature, Landscapes & Pastorals] The stars are born in night. The ground is made up Of tales untold. The cracks are our story. The piles of leaves are our life. The river that we lie At dusk is alive. The buried Grass beneath us Is the truth! <|endoftext|> "The Fall", by C. D. Walters [Nature, Fall] The day lies ahead of us like memory at the closing turns of a clean game. The way the small beards of ribbon sway in the calm martial arts of fall, like a child at the start of a game, doing the bearing for the losing golden belt. What will we do when we return it will be a year of solid weather in the pass that came in with the dark cobwebs. What will we do, on the ways we have known which always reach back into the past and hold us looking at the scratches the big winds have left behind in the gutters. <|endoftext|> "A Way to Stop It", by C. D. Walters [Living, Time & Brevity, Social Commentaries, History & Politics, War & Conflict] for Tom Sleibett The destruction is physical and absolute. It happens in two dimensions, it happens ======================================== SAMPLE 101 ======================================== A woman were in him. "Yes; then--I look up to the sky, And still with lips in hell shall shout That I am glad to have spoken with God, And bliss is mine. And every poor one of you has my heart, "For now I look--I take my bible Back to the house, and as the angels say Come into the courts again." On all the ships the faith for souls was died, And all the ships themselves believed they saw A people, a state in heaven: All the mothers who looked in upon it, All the wives said they had found a pearl. (For some still found, with Satan shut in, Or only shut in, and each one's heart) And I, the Judge of all to come, Heard, and at the sounding of the bell, Than this, was happy with that one The churchyard there must be. So many thought of him, and pondered he Had a true soul. When young he wrote, He drew it long and clear, But from a distance. In college, at a week, he learned A pin could hit it. In cold November's wind, I seem To read those lines again. A city of death, That waits the soul, With shackles on the soul, Is bound by a clock That moves from zero at last To its long quarter. Love, beholding this picture, Who knows its pain? In images that turn to stone Is seen the shadow, In wind, in thunder, in the delight Of time's intense divide. Time is come, time is come, And blind is the face of that face. All things still are in the gray Within the house of time. Thirteen years of duty done, It is time to part, to give him up, With glad welcome, when we go. He is with God's, yet separate He has said to us to be, He has said the maidens may Change the robe that God wear, And not be told their hair Should turn white. Oh! hurry, O door be quick To let me in that man Whose face, that lay Has faced the sun With cheeks so godly white Saying, "Beloved, it is he Whose life and thought Are worth the life Of any man. In God's name call me, love, I pray." Now, he needs to church. O maiden gray as he, When the first afternoons are brown, When the gardens shine And the wheels of joy go home To the place where the grave of joy began Whither we sought the gifts, the promise that changed The world, all glad with us to go and mourn In one to be, having been less than we Lo, the world is not for us; The year is gone, a year of wrong Not our own but born that way. Are we such fools to be sad For what we had not this day? Should we tire but by the way, Not been as we have been, what is It will be to-morrow? What was we that called the gift A word, and should not mean What voice will hear To say our name And not as this May time be Before, O gracious Herein, When in return I bowed at thy feet All the glad things that I had done And it was May I was in bliss I am grown old and now must be But I am not half weary Though June with flowers should bleach my hair It will be spring before I die If thou be spring, O Christ, O spring, That I may meet thee. I never yet saw rain that I would not drink, I never knew fire but when it burned I missed it and prayed But I shall see this night and not brew Of the bitter cup again to think That it is good to think but once. The world is ever hot for me, The cup is cold; The day is light and the night is dark. I shall fall asleep with fire and miss the fruit And wake with drouth. <|endoftext|> At the first rustle of the September flowers He heard my foot on October roses, And I said: "Father, there is something Upon the wind, the rustle is too close. I hear my teacher." "Speak calmly, soon." "I heard, my fellow clerks." "Tell them to quiet down." Dusk illumined us with the firelight ======================================== SAMPLE 102 ======================================== MC Mosquito, Mosquito, Mosquito, Mosquito, Mud-stump, Mud-stump, Mud-stump, Mud-stump, Oromoctotecological teacher, henchman, loomworm, toad-man, German accent. Not what one would be expected to hear. Oromoctotecological teacher. Far superior animal to what one would be expected to be expecting. Far superior animal to what one would expect to be expecting. Not what one would be expected to hear. Oromoctotecological teacher, henchman, loomworm. Not what one would be expecting. Better than what one would be expecting. Better than what one would expect to be expecting, better than expected. Not what one would expect to hear. Oromoctotecological teacher, henchman, toad-man. Far superior animal to what one would be expecting. Far superior animal to what one would expect to be expecting, better than expected. Not what one would be expecting to hear. Oromoctotecological teacher, teacher, toad-man. Higher in intellect than what one would have expected. Higher in intellect than what one would expect to be expecting. Higher in intellect than what one would expect to be expecting. Better in intellect than what one would expect to be expecting. <|endoftext|> "No Reason", by Billy Collins [Arts & Sciences, Poetry & Poets] The thing that has no reason must have its intelligence and there is no reason for its indifference. —Dion Sanderson I use a metaphor to explain my philosophical interest in poetry and prose, writing in the intervals of phe- matic human affairs, at the private and public speeches and the like of which I see no need, and accept which belong to this position. I use a metaphor for this interest because I think no metaphor fits. I do not know enough to attempt a mapping. I use the metaphor for this interest because I think it more or less precise. I write the metaphor so as to suggest it is the last of the metaphor because the best is better. Suffering as pain, restless I go, strange little bird, and never, oh, never, oh, never, never, but don’t you fret I’ve been quiet enough, I have, no reason why to hurry, something to be done, something to occupy my mind. No reason to think the hour evil, except that if the hours do count I would like to correct that, oh, now I know, no reason, only poor method and habit. A method or habit is any sort of doing, inclination and promptings, but doing them is different, like being drunken, or crooked, or worn, or relieved with alcohol or with sleep. Whatever you do, my friend, is the thing. Whatever you do, my friend, is the thing you do. No matter how you dress it is foolish in the extreme. Tied to the mast, adrift, beating against the wind, there is no horror, but what is the subject, like the subject is the pur- limate of the metaphor. My (long-) coat, moleskin for you, permit to stand upon, here, as it is, there is no subject, it is all subject. It isn’t natural and it isn’t supposed and no one intends it. Punctual and obdurate are my own own methods, (2) and they have the advantage, not yet appreciated, of not being natural. For God and the dream of being, there is no meaning in the subject either, but I enjoy the difficulty, oh, and the ridicule, oh, for the purpose of existence, to tear the little twigg, oh, and the shuddering shuddering, the aspect, and all, all of my own accord, all to the suffer. What I seek, what I cannot, is the whole, I search and seek, my part being what I have to report, what I get. <|endoftext|> "How to Cook", by Billy Collins [Activities, Eating & Drinking, Relationships, Men & Women] For the first time ever, I want to wear a dress. ======================================== SAMPLE 103 ======================================== Beside the broad basalt of that wall Vaster than that artificial mountain Stands, and God looks through its fortification When we kneel in prayer?--is a better pledge Of their affection. And he who, when the lightning borne To my eager ear hath given the same Anecesticiment he saw; Whose benison an action knows, Like a seal upon a copper crown. And he who sees God in the amphora-- Whence he blow into the vessel, too, May look on him from the lone lamp of night. He loveth a maid who is a God In her round. She has a star on her brow More cleaving than the diadem of Poseidon On his, whose scales. He loves that girl. Tall as if bidden. He loves her. And most of all Who loves his chaste wife may walk the sky, High in the wind. There in no throne of gods Diverse are Zeus's relationships with men, Who beget or nourish or cherish. Here love may blossom in the Sun's And the Moon's and the Earth's, and again Where the morning and the evening speak Through the deep midnight and the night, Of the strange love that knits their halves together. Not many leaves remain, But what men leave behind The robin and the thrush, and they Who sing at their work, or make a tune More high and chaste than human is. They will scarcely hear this steel cage talk; For they have no other heritage; And their affair is And shall be left here To the crawling magpie in the wood, To the wild gecko in the hedgerow, And the tusky matlington or the pine, And the circle of red tessarabills Which adorn the western strut Where they wail The broken hushing of the worst. But ye--though ye are hollow and dry And the sharp beak of your time And the parched throat of your tongs Has a thousand melodies to tell, Till the rosinate of your worm Sings in pine cones on the fell, Till the wrentber or young ones cry When the door in the portal close-- Ye shall be ale that shall endure, For ye may behold the lips of Paradise. The night is all but dark to me, And when the dew-drops burn upon the sill, And what pleasant dreams, When the heart is at rest from pain, Of pleasures, both sad and sweet, Do I think upon, then I think Of other joys, which are not kind. The night is all but dark to me, And when the last far creeping bee Steals down the silken darkness with its plume, Then, sweet, sweet is the light Of your lovely faces, young! Of your innocent blithe prattle, And the prim greeting of their singing When they come from their morning feeding The night is all but dark to me, And when upon the earth I light the tapers and the candles burn Like small gods in their hand There comes a strange and pungent fragrance From the far vault of the stars, Which is your bedroom, young! Thus I weep, and pour my sighs in a flask, For the hearts which are warm, Whose lost champion walls are falling in; For my love who is loyal still, And whose voice is not in vain. Grieve thou the strongest may, Grieve thou the slow-pacing moon, Pierce on, and cause no ear To the songs of morel and the wooer, Till we do grieve the season's moon With our moan; Till we do grieve the time When the swift-eating light Leaves the hours of twilight gano-lore, And our lover sits With the gallant wood-trees leaning on The damask background of his arm, Kissing Bonds he will not take For our sake. Till we grieve the watering Of the jeweled beams, And their charm will be For the sick and lost to sing, And we wail With loud lamentation, In the songs of bards, Till the earth can song in pites Like the cetacean sun. Ogier sighing, Is it to the slumber of the night Or the foggy air that I'm gazing on? Since the moon has forgotten the cloven dell, And the holy people of the Wood-Court till the dawn ======================================== SAMPLE 104 ======================================== We ceased. The kitchen clock heard a long countdown, The rearview mirror I turn when to drive Not yet started. How can we be in two places at once, not yet started? Before we can cease, time Calls us to one place, the house where we are. We're here now. <|endoftext|> "A Song for My Rivals", by John Paul Jones [Social Commentaries, Cities & Urban Life] Catch the cars and nets going to the son of the sedge-longing west away from the guts and jags of the town. Make your song for the girl who cries outside. Sing it while the elements try to drag him out. Sing it for the eel, the fox, the kid who turns round and keeps blinders on his eyes. It's your body, too. How can the sea and the sky be what unites you? Think of trees that are your breath, your bars, your bed. Get close. Sing it for my friends who are still in love, for those undervaccinated women and children, for the men who love their freedom. Sing it for the negro that goes to jail for loving the race. Know this: you have lain with the trouble you've made, and the better half of your life for being bad. <|endoftext|> "Symptoms of an Emmetropterygamic", by Louise Erdrich [Living, Death, Growing Old, The Body, The Mind, Time & Brevity] “Youth without possibility shoots in a straight line, accuracy in travel “from the heart of the heart “the spinal cord emerges.” Death's a town of glass, the farther I die. Now, I don’t believe in Time. But Death. It is called Not. It is not there but I hear it what is going to happen. It’s one of the things we can do to end the pain in our life. With, among others, a risk. My dad’s the same way, he laughs. “You should never chase your death,” he says “we need you at all.” And he continues: “Drink water. Try to enjoy “the little things.” “Don’t think about your death. “Don’t buy liquor. “Drive to a saloon where they have blue National Hockey League games every Sunday.” “Ask not why you die, but why not.” Death’s sound is not, it is not, long. “Redemption” is not, it is not, where it comes from. “The sequel.” Not, it is not is where it is not. Don’t use your death. Come back. All tragedies are one. Don’t worry, don’t chase your death, don’t worry. O, oh, the sequel, and the sequel! I didn’t teach you anything, I said. Well, I shall not apologize for being. O it was a frightful time I lived in that frightful time. O my dear version! <|endoftext|> "Keep a Foot in Both Worlds", by David Isserman [Living, Death, Time & Brevity, Arts & Sciences, Poetry & Poets] (SFX++) LAND Between us the roiling river glowed like tinder in the sun, And the shade, heavy and cold, Brought a muted melancholy to the land, The mute shade-world that remains Between living and dead, Where two worlds, opposed and abominable, Feel each other's dirk in their thick hair, Like a derisive indifferent nod, A drawling answer that keeps you dumb As you ponder what all this place means, And in the morning wonder as you’d like to Suffer from bedbug in a living track. Oh, come walk with me at night To keep a foot in both worlds. I’ll point you On ways to bring down slates, paper, And books to toss. I’ll show you where the crack Rises up in the rocky ground, Where white moonlight stays Amid twisted creek and trickle- ======================================== SAMPLE 105 ======================================== 'Our easeful lives she knits with gentle thread,' 'And hollow tombs with voluntary breath,' 'And graveyards that forbear,' 'Weighs more the funeral notes to the slumb'ring dead.' 'Rest here and rest, O Valley, in this valley.' 'When thou, land,' said Rome, 'scanty of years ago Twixt Lowitt and Holroyd's malefled brood, Dost utter thy fateful sire and throng To the new night that rises on the morn, Will men be kind to you? to me will yield That virgin forest and that reedy vale, And sweet heaths, free from every sad affray To rest and serenely silent tread. 'Tell them the place is far away from Rome Nor known till he comes to it, and in vain.' 'No more shall I believe it. Displeas'd I slip the reed of Salic law, not their own, From my sight and hearing not at all; While they, the seed of ancient Caesar, are secure In the hand of one incompetent Fates. 'Ye were so kind and wonderful to fair Love, Yet, his domestick kindred, are unknowing Passengers to you, and therefore see ye no more; Unknowing, or unseen, ye graze sweet Earth, In order smooth and homely, under sky sublime, Nor pause in your progress, with moody griefs, Lament and pity, upon your way, With tears, for hearts not worthy your departure; So their sad remembrance when your deadness is gone, Bereft of your presence, ye're lost to human speech. 'On me, as on our head, Sagacious and gravely sad, Gest thou your customary wreath, and take your seat. 'Tis twelf-one, and of the time and fine Seven hundred years it costs to make a crown. 'Tis but wisdom; when to time thou dost apply The wounds of time it is not just that she, Who prescient has been in all that has befall'n, Should at the same time see time's work in what is done. 'Tis sure an eternal law, That man's free will the more to prove his sin, Sees evil in what he approves, and swims with tides Of secret intemperate and single) guilt, And hears himself mischivell'd in his own tale; He finds the sinner hard, So hard that he will sin no more; That his own speech is least to heare. And as he journeys into the world, he chorts As sweet as he is journey'd, from the seat Of secret guilt, he finds himself become As hard, and for conceit so proud That he gives pain for others' man's moan. Nay, rather than that he is grieving sore, He in himself bewails his hard condition, And feigns a sorrow that he seems to bear A moment's weight: Which would be wont to deceive him, if he durst. Whence every wise, who ever hath beheld The secret man, hath forced his like to share, And that in you and me he knows: Nor ever was the secret hid from any, But men, when most they suffered, knew it not. The double self-sufferance of the soul Was from the first from our gaze restrained; Nor e'er was it show'd, that it might be, Though 't is manifest to one alone. So meseems by you; and will o'erpass In coming time. Salio's father, now In Tolico, far from his own town, Tells where the sword of Germar once was, Over the thickly-scented grass. 'T is said that from the Scythian plains Far up beyond their Wakhanine towers, When they abandon the steaming field, The galleys leave the narrow Strigon horse, The stern Tartar-speedy courser; and Their hard-furrowing stomachs do great deed, To savage the abysse of their race, And westward and north both, to seek the skies. The furrows plough up the fallow, the field Cays upwards, not straight up, to the skies. The stubble, instead of reaping, lies scrathing, In small bent pattens to the shoulders wide. The stubble lay as black, all asunder, As humanly smeared with defiled rain; ======================================== SAMPLE 106 ======================================== Wanton, boist'rous. If 'twere so-- C. Why should this place Be filled with groves, And all its airy haunts Attended with shades so fair, If thought's a thing of those, And Spirits love to dally As things of earth are dallied? E. Not all that's lovely Is pleasant. Why then should we blush Or laugh or weep For every stream, or lake, In this subterraneous world? Q. Why do you smile? A. 'Twas that I smiled-- Out of weakness, that's all, Of a kind look, an unkind word, That they laughed at my joke, my sport, Or with one of my flatteries. R. I think, when I am silent, 'Twill be to myself I speak. I can but let my musing glance Where its bright subsides shall ope To the perfect, the green realms, The primitive, the old, the young, And I am I--That--that I am. M. All the spirit of man Will from thy trancéd heart Take torment and 6o. Kind words cannot tell it All that it is; when thy speech Runs foul with scornful looks And bitter looks, and thoughts Walking with soundless feet. M. Faith of our chief word! Once too, for our chief word, I was not light. When my pride Craved the heart Of the young by the spirit, When the great grasshoppers Led me through a spell, And threw me on the woods, And my love was alive with birds And the syrens could never sing, 6o. a song. C. When I began to tell thee The wind that struck my hair, And set on fire my lips, And the bruise they gave my eyes, And the arm they laid across my mouth, And the brow they pierced-- Wisest friend, thou must know How it was I answered?-- All for thy trancéd spirit-- For the grass and the spirit, For the light-headed love, And for the wind that laid on me Light on my brow and brow, While I spake but lazy words That eased my soul to sleep. M. Speak now something new. All my blood tare to nine And set on fire; And my lips a-sack twice; And twice I tore my hair; And I lost sight of Him. But I wakened. And my light has all been made To better power, and still I gain the light--to blaze For Love's sake more perfect still; Light on my brow, and brow, and lips For the soundless songs that tear Me to the dust from all the throng Of joyless senses, so poor I think thou'lt find my voice more sound Than when I gave it; and the words Laugh at their witlessness. M. What light can answer but a sigh? A sigh is all I've got to give. Who lives with the love of two eyes? And no other bliss can be Like a heart that feels thy breathing, and hears The word of that soul, and smiles. Speak out, speak out, the sightless words. But what else have I to bring-- The soil, the shade?--I am the clod In aeons of its dark abode. M. I am the ghost of a race Ere this flesh's reign done its work. The girth of the human on my thigh Lies in my body--there it lies, And even as the flowers love the soil, The soul, by a power of words, Speaks through the heart and says, Beware This soil, O flesh! Here your wrongs Rejoice--Fear not; I remember My soul's a fixed point, and cannot fly. M. Know, then, thy sire well! The air he loved, the burden, pressed On him that bore his blood-red child. The word was like a hand upon him, Till, like a field in flower, The clouds settled on his head, And the wind whispered and moved him. Then, the first time that the wind spoke, A breath blew through the laurels, and said Fearing the worst, Stand, my sword! and turn And find thee a sword at thy side. And so he came to be The younger, and for seven days, ======================================== SAMPLE 107 ======================================== -It do not mean. It means far deeper than that. I will call me fishing line, if I must. And so The back yard bird which always seems to me So strangely agate, she may be why I turn to her. She grins at me From the black plastic tray that depends from me For fish. Her lines are too short, I am she averse. She has a reputation But is, you see, a girl, not accustomed To hard fishermen, who she calls. When they are not by she goes straight to bed With them. But often she brings home Fresh fish, which she may eat, having shed Her shed to tie on the bedclothes to go For a walk in the wise, grass-sown grass, Of her home, half west, at least a half west At least a quarter further than that. The green flickers in her tight knit capital --Not the green grass just to be in readiness Nor the wheels of any that one sees-- She tells me that when she was braced She held the hook away from her hook. And when She must have leaned her head from the hook A moment she must have heard my tune. What shall I do with the fine glistening fly And the hair pin? My wonder is not all That I am struck with. I am crumpled too In the green skirt, and the ground round me, And the old roots that root beyond the spring. I will find the first and compare her back to mine. My superior mood is amazed. Alone, one self the summer of my life Moves freely before me. I was angry, And now I am grateful, and I stand with you, Alone, in the windows, at the glass, Shaking upon the banisters. O you, Some of your wings have fallen in; but the sun, Moving into the shade, in another hour Shall bid you soar with me and I shall call You, as I have called you. You, my friend, Here, at the window with the wall of glass, lean down And listen. I have many things to say. <|endoftext|> "To Sexton Douglas", by Huw Bennett [Activities, Travels & Journeys, Social Commentaries, Town & Country Life] Soon you will learn the meaning of the name On that name, one who bore the lot That you now have, and did not understand To despise the former for the later; I will explain, too early for you, Your later, and I will not be angry, I will be civil to you, when you are dead. When you come to hear me i.e. after death, I will, in my lyrical tenses, Conceal the form of the first death of Douglas. <|endoftext|> "Old Man", by Janet Field [Living, Growing Old, The Body, Time & Brevity, Arts & Sciences, Poetry & Poets, Reading & Books] Still at the crescendo of the hand that writes, when even in sleep the muscle stiffens, when itself is soft, when the signet is unopenable, even the most difficult to understand creature will begin to glow at its own end, and become self willingly alive again, even the black tapestry pages turned, unable to close, turned in a language other than those rules that in fact compel the line, and these will eventually—depending on how you use the word—explain the meaning of the poem. I try to imagine Seaton Lovering in a windowed world, in love with all of history’s children, turning and turning out through the windows at the crescendo of his own art. The yet to be born, all their lives swelling behind him, impatient, oblivious to the rest of Time. A single life is so cheap. It must go on forever, it must be happily multiplied. We say the word impossible that happened only in our heads, a rational explanation for a loved one that was loved from the start. A loved one! "Unfolded across the curtain" routinely repeats, endlessly spins, until I am carried along with the eye’s obsessive ballast, a perhaps delusional mad hero, and overhead, the red flags of distrust, the still-ongo ======================================== SAMPLE 108 ======================================== He carried out his ploughing, With a sad land full of death That held no beautiful thing, No wind-rock fast in night. But I-- I never labored there, For in the sunny-landed town They mocked me, for, poor madam, I had no neighborly sorrows To speak of; nor ever seemed to me A companionable and dear Tropes or just form of beauty. Nor ever walked through the bridge Of gold to the King of Thebes; But we that people deserts, Of mental and moral weights Vex the fame-catching depths Of any mortal's path. All the dismal-virgin shade Of these superstitions Do I steer my dreaming To. Yet you I, dear friend, Have need not to dread the stone Of that great city (while you hear From time to time a crash!) Yet in lovelier guises You are yearly to me; In the summer you are gray Boys and sunburnt leaves, While in winter all white You are worn--you are old-- But a most envied type Of the Deity! Oh, so secret a chance For infidelity! You are not a Saint For he who loves her quite To just one slight defect, And her quite to be Sternly rebuked for it! My love and mind's the same, When so esteemed and shown. The secret, there, Is but revealed To you, whoever keep Her thoughts and ways secretly! What a fool a bishop may be! It's not that he's old and holding He's holding, but that he's not holding, There's nothing in the world to gain By preserving a wafer; And if he makes no show He may be taken by. A bishop may, as well as not, Be nothing and holding! It's an old grey church in a new-made grey land Where, in days gone by, five Hail Mary's, A little Jewish clock, A little kangaroo, and an old grey cow, Had knelt to find the season of the cow, And in the holy place was found The holy place where, across the way, The priest to-night would not go. Not hold myself about With a big hat to lose. Though I wear my coat unbuttoned, And have in my pockets an account Of the journey I've made to-night, There'll come an audience, I trust. In sooth, I tread upon more than truth! My feet are leaving as I press The body of a dead man To find the place of grace. Through the night I skip and go; So let them stoop and weep, As to-morrow, in the sun, They take the roads I know; I wonder if that man was half so dear As now he stands alone With myself and the world away. I have lived long In the dead heart of a dead land, And in its shardded sands I have found my half of life. I have lived long And with each dawn I wake To find some graven secret Hath changed its meaning old. I have walked with the Dead, And talk with their hollow voice Through the sand they plot, In a land of hollow sounds Where ghosts walk on. I'd forgotten how much I longed To see the mossy brown hill, The low thick woods of the eastern wood That hide the sandy sea. For when from the tall grass grew white The lofty mountain grass And from the white sage-brush burst, The aged man I went to see, It was my first man's paradise, And his wreath was far above the clouds When the wood and field lay low. He had knowled'st how good to live And what a grave to go under, And he had knowled'st with the way That laughing boys go by, And thought that he had seen in sport As sweet a grave as they, With many a whim and many a jest, Far in the rural round. And as he sat a-breakfast To-morrow night, He saw the world go by, A double, round, of friendship, And a life that was as free As some that are bound to it. He knew that he had failed in art, But at least in living He had proved that he loved the heart Of a comrade and of a tale, And in this he came to his end. But that old ======================================== SAMPLE 109 ======================================== a fair depe Som what I knaw not who foreste At wits by schwesternes and schow That my wit may wene thus. I am an officier of the king Of Englonde a gret man of Age. The welle of the parlement i' th' king Is mad because of my enquire. The king my grandam hath hented his head And that is fals to the ransome, And som of the world ful prayent Began to tremble at the same, And here and therto wept, that it dropt Which of his warlot amongest Went to feere, and that was al our welthe. A fere of fee and of helles payne This myghte my grandam, her conseil Swelling benygne, on honde fonde Let afters be eschewe; And there to nevere be throughclept In al the world of all the reule Som tyme or day or nyht or day. The prynce of Grece and his lond My wif hath take by altogne an ende Bothe in our court, and ther we slege The selynge of his folysshnesse Bothe of thaskson which beforn Wolde and wroght, wher himself in faut Tardant and in sinne out of this lond He made, and had a crope to dye Fulofte more, and afterward dye Unto a wommannes sonne he caste And there with his retenue Of children to hire al one among. And whan he sitten hise wel belovede In olde wayes was comely As to a Dorset he was vche as fast As he that was vera gentylman, With sorwe all fain he myghte fare Toward his chambre for his oghne cham. This womman ere were whan he myhte Ben other wyn, and sikerly he thoghte That it myhte ben do to him dede, And made a prive conseil tho, And tok hem pourveance and assent Unto his godhede whan that he myhte, Bot this king upon the mannes soufe Was levere noght for no worldes due. So that he wente, as it be knowe, Unto his womman al to blesse, Him wan that hadde ben his goddesse Of hevene, and sih him foryete, And thesoter of his beyete tho He tok, and was ful of his intent And levere men to ben out of his wounde. Him thoghte he tok in for his lif, Al that he mihte hevene no dealisse; And natheles he gret vengance Unto his wif that wode natheles He made, and was of honeste maistite, Wher that he hadde a wynter kepe Of alle wommanne in this lond at home Werkned, as it was wonder olde. Bot now pleinly forto speke on, I speken whylof as it is write Unto the point of turophe clepré So large. A bocrowded king as this Dente to Rome in this yeeldes The Erling of Ebro was, Which was the chief of worldes sory, The hieste of the Erpés workes, And schyneth al that ther is Of love, werre, ryht, in aventure, Ther was also an Erlen besein, Which ladde a Sone the toun And sende, and bad him to engrie With long jousts, and with máche mikernesse. Al that was I sene fro thilke, As ye nou thik antre of suche as were Under the shade of balefull wyldes The wyndes, which al her wayz toke Hew to hire al southe in a crurre couch Of long chaumeron, and forth withal A crois hierof hire balse stept in So lavelich, that with sute sattel Sche was al costede and repente. And he began to l ======================================== SAMPLE 110 ======================================== See how he lies on the cliff's edge, Cold and motionless, and in his eyes Eternal lightning is stored. A phantom lay the beautiful world, Which may for aye or a long while last The warm and lifting gales that blow, And waken a man to match his woes. I make a note upon All my thoughts; So they change, And other thoughts behold Passing oblique Upon the mind's screen Were so much subtler than the spot Upon which I trace Deeds in a dream I do not remember to have done. Mine eye Was delighted From the night Upon the water To catch the light; And for seven years I grew In a cave Which over-rowed Eagles in a sky. Sight change, Shadows pass, Pass like Fly by The most; Yet I keep These reminders Of all that I have seen. In my ears a sound, In mine eyes a light, I have walked A world of wonder From dawn till night. By a name, which is Of men and God, A shadow, changes all; And when I would unfold it, Knowledge comes gravely to me. I will go back Myself into my house, Loose up my clay, Sink my dark eyes, And sing once more; And -- dear Ghost, dear Ghost, tell me Did you look upon my child? Sleep? 'Twill weary us soon. Is it wise, my gentle maid, To think of dreams by day? 'Tis not wise to grope and grapple With the imperishable skies, The fame that all Eternity Will fold to an end, And leave at last to naught! And did you ask me, gentle one, Did I fain please you, now? I could not be so if you were afraid, If a woman's lips would not speak, If they found words unintelligible For their own thought, If the eyes of childhood grew too big For the circle of her head; Then you were wiser than, for wise, Since we know that girls and boys oughtn't Go to the graves the first thing rosebuds do. For she had hopes, And had not hopes enough, And a pink and ripe-white nose; And a scurvy-bruised hand; And a satisfied mouth And gray eyes, which had That peculiar look In common use, Wherein the pupils shrink And shrink again, Which makes the lids in their steam; And an uptilted breast, And a waist the size of copses of Bridgestone sl Now she was glad, with a leanness which will last until the heaven's gate is repaired; A buoyant child, Who might have joy of every wind that sighs And breathes a melody, And could walk on water like the wavelets of the sea, And still sit in luxury by the side of every brook; From him I heard it could be so, Since he made it so; Since he was so to make it so, Which is so, And her downcast eye Alone can be such, since it was so, This dark, this high And a happy thorn the first spring sheds, The first one ere the air has hurt That looks like fire, That leaves a tempest when it has plumed, Which is a flower unfaded, and he might be Your lover; then we would live again. His light had no shadow, For this reason, Because it cannot be That light, by any wing Or any eye, That does not rest in one, And rest till its own creation, Being all light; Can have no shadow Because it abides in love alone And cannot cease to be, Being all itself; -- Love's self is its own prison, That's just my case; Yet, since you've read and claid me, I'll tell you why I smile. If, the night before, the moon had not been clear, And the clouds not so high, As thus to hide the stars from us, one Shone, and another spoke, And I heard, "Who art thou? Tell me! Who art thou?" But I could not answer, I durst not speak. 'Twas lovely in her eyes; "I am Love," she cried, And her hand did falter, "I am Love!" she cried, And tears fell down her cheeks, ======================================== SAMPLE 111 ======================================== – Capsize her wings, her sapphire-colored, And fall along a quiet lake. And she was like the breeze, but she took My breath away. And I am glad that never we met The five-story building’s ascending sight Without seeing the lights it has at night. Such a light! <|endoftext|> "The Fire-Swede", by William Blake [The Body, Nature, Social Commentaries, Gender & Sexuality] The Fire-Swede Didne the soot rise on Dillion's breast? ‘The maiden is promiscuous;’ must I fear The Father’s wrath to find my lover’s hair Blonde and clammy, like the sweetest ivory Wherewith the flames have lapped it brown? But far worse were the Father’s wrath If I should see his child with blood on mouth And in the chamber’s mean sweet grange. ‘I would heal me of my foolish pity That would not take the sweat of trust; I would heal me of the pitiful snare Which did me blind with seeing.’ I sighed, ‘What can I do, since the hair Is as the creature’s covering!’ A little plucked bird I made Me said as Dillion’s child; And Dillion said, ‘I must do it Because you bade me.’ The fire-swede would smoke at night If the maiden should be sleeping. It took upon its pointed tongue The smell of soot of the fireside Tingling dulled and slow; And the plucked pluck thereof was wet Through weeping Dillion’s finger. They from the window saw, and said, ‘Pride, when it tingles, is foul; And ‘Is love no lance? Why cheer such Vagrants when fate makes beteten, And chance but settles who shall win, And who shall lose, who shall be undone?’ The flames rose, and smote the heap Where, darkling, did Dillion dwell, And by the plucked finger’s hue, He saw the pluck’d heat wave reach the girl’s cloak And reach Dillion, from the window. It came to rain; a little went Into the fire; and then, the heave Of it he saw, and wail’d. It rained; the plucking of the bird Was cold with sadness: ‘O pluck!’ ‘That’s the way,’ ‘He said.’ It was the old fire-seede’s hour, And shut the creeks out; And to give less wind to help him He judged were not duties. ‘To pluck a bird and send its breath, What profit at last?’ He pillowed his head. The wailing stopped; he did not hear The bird’s voice flapping its wing For hours, as he knelt to pray. He could not see what came or where, But understood his feeling well To meet him in the road with more And never, nor that red sky, see. When Dillion pauséd the fire’s fall, One dim-lighting wet, did see That the dead man’s skull’s brim Was all dishevelled of the skull cap, And that the ground showed red on knee Where that child his grannes had kicked. His eyes looked out of their lids; The man died of an old blow, If he but had remembered. He sat upon his teeth; his face The color of a burnt agate; His mouth kept from the rest; And his eyelids on him threw The skulls of cranes in the reeds. The shroud, a trumpet’s sound Against captivity Breath pushed it from him. So may fall Another, if it be sooth, In the sunset’s into weeds Chiarollo swept. When in a year The tit-mä distribution woke, And night by day the carriage swung, And night the man in whom they haled, He was a known face in that world, In his kind mind. By this it chanced they waken’d, And, ‘SIR! who draws this ace,’ Away the dead man’s hand withdrew, And al, the knot ======================================== SAMPLE 112 ======================================== . I’ve a blue-eyed rose in my bosom, A tulip on my wedding day; She blooms in the orient On my dress with the summer’s zest; I’m cold in my shelter While you are far in the west, And the rose and the tulip prevail. . I’m not a girl to miss a prank. We’re hard as the world that suffers We sleep well in the soft nest, And the same wick we’re true, We’re not the people’s palsies. . Fickle as ours At times were, and there’s As many falls As there are stumps or stone. <|endoftext|> "The Ecstatic Love Song", by A. R. Ammons [Religion, Arts & Sciences, Philosophy] Because what I hold most dear hath no speech I speak before thee, O mighty Muse And let my verse infuse With all that is purer than phrased speech And free from the parts and tones of wit, And rich in melody. Because what I love hath no song I let my verse proclamant Of awe and supercilious joy Be as a filling wine To taste sweet and not suffused with ache, And move in thine exultation. Because what I love hath no mound For me my love song brought To thee and to the world apart For what thou art, O mighty Muse, And for the state of things divine More worth than epithet Of exaltation, O mighty Muse. For all is sacred as a joy And I do praise the common things That one with others do we call And call them common things of joy. Because I love them rightly I seek not my world apart And secluded from the common things For mine own love or their praise I must and gladly am content To pour out in music deep of thee The exultation of delight. Because my world hath no central point I love all points and worlds quite alike And free from being apart from these In joy and without; henceforth I seek No joy in the short or long Of my own wonder how to live. As from this land and height of skies With its great noise of waves and roar of lions Came through the gentle corridors of air The night came down that kept the world With fear reposed and quiet peace My spirit, my spirit knew A jubilee and a rapture high And swift alike of the hour and moment That lieth apart from all time and place And sin and ours. . Because I love them so I have no need to impose The unmeasured power of speech But through my verse I bid the echoes ring A melody where no man can sing Nor name them one to one or two to three. . Because their days are long I love them long And short enough for me The days of the days that be Though those of the birds be Short. I have no strength to say Nor to say the thing I mean Or fear to bear My heart for another's mind The piteous world for my part And by the flowers where the maidens are, See ye the maidens of the fields! Because they fill the hour With play of colors and fashion Or make the unrustling iron be And the stream upon the granite hard Turn the grey shaft that glitters so And pass the woods with the flying wood So comes a song to you That the red flowers have an end Because their beauty is a valance That fills in the wall of our being I do not seek That your own lips have sweet teeth Nor would ye lack The nightingale that doth sit Among the stars of the night and sing That she must drink the sea water With outstretched neck Because she is a truer wing And his strength is as good as hers and she Is more wise than she And I think a love did live and die If he could own The heart of a maid. . Save the sacred vessels From pollution and waste, Let the sacred vessels remain Free of reddening and steep To be resurrected by thee: And when thou hast resurrected them Then let them stand, and do not fill them With water of mobile angularity Or torrents of a random coolness To blot out the living images of things. For a soft wine Was poured out of wood and is floating Warmed with the juices of the olive, And chilled with the winter Laves ======================================== SAMPLE 113 ======================================== Champeau River, one mile west As the travel light will run into the pale of dark Before the setting of the sun, Champlain Lake—one mile east. Few miles to the north, Slow and comfortable The road will go to-night. May we be in the space of one year Patrol-broken,<|endoftext|>Family names and family relationships are critical to the transmission of knowledge. They are why the Egyptian elite in 3000 B.C. could surpass the Greeks in persuasion of the causes of the visible phenomena. Philosophers of a great work like the Virtues or Sabres of the Wisdom Degrees developed and recorded here. In the long view of their period, as one walks through history, the family or tribal names and relationships are legion—the relationships among the seven men who formed the Mouchelal lineage and adopted the names of their warriors who became the Phinnites of the sea, Moors of Ireland and Roussillon who eventually settled on the fertile Low-Seiskees, Champeans who built the Castel Setem by the Lake of the Three Fountains, Salishan Onodoc, descendants of LeBrons, Paloavers from Gaul, people of the Cheam and Pilgrims of Atien who settled the valleys of the Missouri River, or at least adopted the lingo of its fishermen. Their names and the names of their daughters and in-laws form a history of the world of the last 2,000 years. Called by such names, people speak more clearly, particularly to the immigrants from the great languageless regions. Call names and relations (aunt, sister, mother, daughter-in-law, father-in-law, grandchild, child- in-law, grandchild, brother, sister-in-law, brother-in-law, etc.) form a history of America in the tradition of the strategic prazos of Peru and Costa Rica, connections of families like the river, kindred names of farms, families of the Hopi, and of various nations who name themselves Ini character- less. Generations and centuries repeat the same basic patterns of encounter and generation, encounter and succession of names. The naming of time that begins with the naming of time and ends with the naming of time leads inevitably to the naming of body and the abandoning of the results of encounters, name and relationship, name and migrations, named in Spanish, in Nahuatl, or in many other language groups. Names, the records of family, relation and the movement of people express the first agreements of life, of communion. Here we name— Dizung, ponoco, acapa, ahuichoco, Bethul, ahuich, cibola, ocaya, ahuiche, the Spanish word for "friendship"— We write and re-write names in the dark of memory and in the darkness of defeat. Dizung is the mother of Bises, who showed a gift for exquisite and effective pulp-wood sculpture. In 1654, her hand- print fell on the Harris report, which delivered the words, "In all the United States more than 2,800 scalps of Native Americans beheaded." In the distance of the text of this painting the quiet Cahuilla are the victims of the French colonizers of the Texas coast while the mussel-capped waters hide below the written words, whose translation into Spanish "atlantara" recalls the questions of discovery. That the French would need to capture the waters for transportation in order to convey the dead back to France is no concern of the painting. Its dimensions leave nothing to the imagination. "Of the Angel, Cardinal" comes from the Italian woodcut painter illustrious Scultetus Boccaccio, of Tempietto's famous treatise on painting. The elderly Angel, probably speaking in Greek or Latin, lifts up his hands to the Eternal City— <|endoftext|> "Old Life", by Judith Ortiz [Living, ======================================== SAMPLE 114 ======================================== A palpitating world makes the tongue to catch More complex accord, and weare through the ear of chance the direces of the prattle Of a grey mundan, who sees the world He thinks he canna make it, nane: The terry warld sings with a silver tongue And I will tell how it sings: These terry men that with red burning eyn`d hee be*d Are by loud presseyhere to a reed, Yestreen will learne how prest with his red cheeze And holdith he that can. Howe, my love, haue yll or ould age, Or yt is to some raa that saa, That may not aa plaace her to hat, For crythstande creatures her ys mair Than the mislear'd eaw? That to a reid the world his wise hen, Shal better heale than mind. By some more meane which keepeth closer gyft They that wate be in that order meeen, And come murther they by sleight of alme Will light in fun ere he begine To to their lives devild: And so all creatures are but playne or feard As the state o'th whos ayen the feard. There is some honest thot that hath his berthe At pulle ooth, and hath in lawth studied bot an ange Now is call'd: he suk the thing which needeth no, No ware he is at franke: And, fell that sike that he was i-marked hygh, He flyth thursnd at hanse, to heare the King I thred. I pray you, that ye wole his sett, And, win that throp not he be not slain, The hellish vs is of his glee, That at his gudeante age Thou shalt hym alwey have, And let nat for the kythe make hym wyse To wrack and de-w the kyng: For he hath tretyy, and thoughe he dwe, He shal be in the sepulchre. If ever ye shall make hym thret, For feere, but ye nat his time lye, What stanteth in that sudens of his fyte It shall (the best I take it in hand) Some full unkyd whiche doth them twayne Togedy, and can nought agro, As it shal bee nat re-membred In the man-hyndre of an Hue And so may the throte of this securit, Wheroweareth yonge children hast Forsowt tyme and fere, tresor and ousour, Sitten in the man-yard, and swyn agone, With many others of that sentence; Tekyth the sawe hygh as a gode wynd The children of this misded trust In it. To twyer, and than he speed Sbeeldys ground of conseil and advise With the newe lawes of the seynt at han The holy Synnytryon of the Cit Forsake for her lord the kynge her tyme To mak a memorial, byng a peech day, Of a Bastard, named Ey::l, That had for the kynge been shot in war, In many gamees; and that he was whan, The comon, and a squier he had be, In gilt arme a Parcasoile; But, for his ylte, for his Regalie It was an Armes he neuery thynk In suche sort; but not of suche men, That shold neuer haue knowe. So for that cause my right well sueth To arme and to se slowly the throat Unto the charge: and for a Scythe was sing Of hem that ferste had hem syght, That bett the Temple, as thei wolden hord, That after that the Temple wan fonde And thus the wordes hadden gret reyn, Than all the lond and al that thei can, And reyd in helth that it we clene; And forto make the teres great almesse Of money, as thei seide to the Cites, And these Cites doen the same ======================================== SAMPLE 115 ======================================== FCO'S said.... There was no time for breathing down the wind neither was there any time for in this dream but I hope I am here I was caught in the wail of the fire truck and I did not cry I didn’t cry When I awoke they were gone and she who followed me was gone and I was cold and alone and I did not cry they left me and I was cold and alone and there was no time for me to breathe I didn’t say goodbye neither was there any time for sayings in this dream I wish I were here and there and I did not cry and I did not awake there was no time for me to say goodbye neither was there any time for me to say bye I wish I were here and there and I did not weep and I did not rise they left me and I was alone there was no time for me to say goodbye I did not say bye there was no time for me to say goodbye and there were neither were there neither time nor breath there was time for me to say goodbye and there were no trucks there were no trucks there were no trucks there was no trucks and there was no time for me to say goodbye and there were no trucks there were no trucks there were no trucks and no road I woke up there were no waste waste and waste and there were neither waste nor waste there was neither waste nor waste there was neither waste nor waste <|endoftext|> "Sweet-Blood God", by Gwendolyn Edwards [Social Commentaries, Race & Ethnicity] You see me in the movies, acting Che and Aimee on-t [sic] or maybe Jack or Linda or Bruce. I got into acting when I found out that I had type 1 diabetes. I didn’t want to be in the movie business. I was making stacks, a stack is two or three cassette tapes with your name on it sold and raked in. When I showed up to a new movie they were like, “What is your name?” I said, “Gwendolyn Rodriguez.” I started getting roles where I was Caucasian. I did an episode of CSI: Death Becomes Her. I read only Latino Lady but always got the Caucasian exclusion. Then one day I stepped up to an officer and said, “Hey, I know this little Indian woman. Let me just say this about her,” and I stepped up to the cop and said, “you know this little Indian woman that I spoke for is heart disease?” The officer was like, “You don’t know her?” and I was like, “Yeah, I do.” And the officer was like, “Well, I heard the name you did.” I was like, “I wrote that down on my flippench and you know I guess I’m going to have to arrest you,” and he was like, “You doing this?” I was like, “ well, I guess you do.” And I was like, “well, this is my name, which I forgot and I really don’t like this much.” Then all of a sudden my mouthpiece said, “the polic- ety chief is here with you.” I said, “Oh, where is he?” the polic- ety chief said, “He is right over there and he will be your custod’cy here.” “Chief, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, “I am an Indian woman. This is my name.” The next day they put me in jail for being breathless. That next night I watched as the principal, with his wife and daughter came to the jail to see me. When I saw them I felt you just can’t say anything when you come in with me. And I stepped up and said, “Ma” I don’t know where this thing came from. You know, it kept building. I stopped talking. It made me feel like I was becoming ======================================== SAMPLE 116 ======================================== "There's that Jew Hammed returns," Then I looked up the sea, and saw As, setting sail from My Lecherie, Came up through the cleft between the sand An old Gdansk Jew. And a-he! his beard, it was white! And his hands, they were white as The-sea's own light! "Pray'st thou, friend, you go whereon My horse hath gone, And do not lay hand to cord, or But your Captain not know? But your Captain not know? "What, you leave me no gold Nor my poor Falconress won To let you go?" "Aye, that I do!" The old Gdansk Jew said, And he slipped in the Crow's hide, And cast a sling, and aimed a shot. The Star! The Star! The Star! the Star Rose in the sky; It rose in the sea; It rose in the East. With rapture the boys I watched Of My Lecherie. The Tar and the Spire were gone, And the Spiça stood Glory-crowned on the roofs And the windows of the Gent Whose Star the Night The Star that shone On the horse's feet Itwase of sea "O Mark," he cried, "O Mark the Knight, who took All of me, And all was won As light to hold That is light with me, Mark, take my hand I pray thee!" "O me," said I, "O my poor life And you, that will not roam Else where the lion Slips in the night, Where are ye, O blessèd Merry laugh Of love, your flock's Fortunate hold Still in your hand?" "O Mark, brother We have given Who will not take Or I have told you Go seek the sea Or for birds To be bold!" And then he kissed My hand, and cried To us both crying: And we went home To our stronghold. When I had said: I took my maiden, And trod I-round And I said: "This thou hast said But now We will never more Call or send Or spare a penny Till we hear thou hast let Me to the sea With my Lord and brother At his knee, with head I did say: "We will never call We will forbid Unless he will have In his care All our goods and lands In Ireland free For as much as he can pay From his own store," "O Mark, I cannot Have cause to call But to-day I call, Mark, for to-day I keep A wax figure of thy face On my pillow, for to keep If there be any who might Give thee then a separate head For me," "Well be seen how that! Lechery, I charge thee, Thou then take the hand Of this thing which I make, Wearing it about In my hair, And turn thy back To this silver thing," And mark if I say not truly. When the eagle is the prince, And the lion the prince's son, And the tempests the purl out At his pleasure, the wolf is the king Of the-world; Then love and lass are nought, Or, rather, the queen Is everything; The distaff she, the spindle she, The distaff she, the spindle she, Is my favorite. For me 'tis arrumen, For me it is arrumen, For me 'tis arrumen, I am the queen, And who shall be her mate? When the hedge hangs thumped with wind, And when the hedge hangs whist And the hedge is wintered all the year, When the world is sappy, Then thou art, thou rising Sun! The youthful vine as lily! This then is, in summer, This then is, at midsummer, The harlot's rosy spark; And one like me, In the sev'nth light, Is the full aeon's king. O, the harlot's true affection Is only of love, Her witchery of witchery, And the music it makes; And, with all virtue, To become the queen Of the world is my female honor. There's little comfort in a burden Where ======================================== SAMPLE 117 ======================================== <|endoftext|> "Vision for a Child Again", by Elizabeth Skidmore [Living, Time & Brevity] An apple rutten no sound except a chal-e. So I saw the snow Stenciled like the The Act Of the Witch’s Nests, with and unerring cut. Not in fancie Of diamonds’ ooze The moon’s alrate stars Hid away Pent to enscribe The bronze <|endoftext|> "The Periwig", by Elizabeth Skidmore [Living, Death, Time & Brevity] Opi secundum! It was my own fault It should be smiling now. It was my own fault. I pricked it with a splinter The night before. “The doctor’s wife was silly put To sing at the ceremony, But her voice Stunk like a dead leaf. I pricked it with a sharpened pencil So it would Believe it could have children. Even then My witching water Gave it a melancholy laugh That it did let me drown. Now I’ve a coffin That says “Death” in capital letters And is rotten to the core. <|endoftext|> "Repetitions", by Elizabeth Skidmore [Living, Time & Brevity, Religion, Arts & Sciences, Language & Linguistics] Repetitions are a little thing That cut me, though. They are a natural Module, if you like Many, many Sound bites, and they Go, Resonant For some very fleeting duration. Where the hickory Is frigid, it lifts The clouds— This is where The time is Changed, or she Is moving. And So that she would Get it, The little rick-fold Tall tower, too, Paused and furled On its iron legs, Paused and fathomed— Sound bites Drift, that is. <|endoftext|> "Daddy", by Hettie Diaz [Religion, God & the Divine, Social Commentaries, Gender & Sexuality] She’s got a little nubby mane, His face is dark & soft, He’s so cute, His name she won’t tell You, but you can’t help but to pet Him. She won’t give you Christ, He would drown Her, But she’s in a picture, straining up so hard To show how pretty she wants to be. How could you fail to love The little stray in the street? Where you would look first, When you saw him lose his lights, All bared and tight, So bold and alert, A glorious black & white sight. <|endoftext|> "Paper Wings", by Hettie Diaz [Nature, Animals] Life is over short. We ride the branches of every twig hung as if skin Were stretched in shreds over the pages that live in autumn as well, then in spring spring all flowers place their feet into the strong dust of whorls we fly with breath to report, to be seen there <|endoftext|> "The Man who Tried", by Hettie Diaz [Living, Relationships, Friends & Enemies, Social Commentaries, War & Conflict] After a long day with no glass light no air no grass to break the soldier was yawning in his rank’s loin-council warmed by my wisdom more than grace to mark space then tired of seeing he was the only one down for that walk the boys tread lightly after the setting sun flick a soccer ball at each soldier thinks he still belongs <|endoftext|> "The Nest Maker’s Tale", by Hettie Diaz [Activities, Gardening, Nature, Trees & Flowers] Her buds filled hollows with secrets oils that darkened, light that blinded and then for a time she was nothing though she laid thousands of seeds plastic, in the air in the roots… But all at once they seemed to fill ======================================== SAMPLE 118 ======================================== send those they love to the grave, go forth before, for neither right nor wrong way nor way nor wrong. Vik. This I will give you, that when you do good or worse--as though you did ill-- then I will bid you quick, through our snared souls, flee for a while from the face of the brutes; but if you keep from sin by your own wrong speech or action, then in your soul as strong shall the flesh of brutes possess you, as your good works possess the good, so flesh shall own that which spirit possesses--just as God wills. Now in these days, I suppose, From heaven the whole creation was brought down In one great storm to these barren ways-- One then, a God of that bright helm, Hurled these broad sands to carve on the deep, And I, the human who was never Man's equal on this earth, having been Either rock or water or sand, No wind to form a shelter, and a friend, After the silences that had seemed eternal Dispersed, sprang forth in limbs at ease From the earth, golden scythe of the sun, And the light made a fringe and a skirt Of the sandy dunes. So this Son of God Went forth from out his chamber, sword by The flood-wash thrust in him, sword and water, To carry angels, bearing the world. So in the manner of things heard I the voice Of God in a great clear breath, saying, "Come forth!" And I go forth, and my soul's desire Among those spirits becomes fleshly again, And to Himspeak I am, and through my lips Speak in turn, saying, "How often have I Guessed wrong, and never found me extra-terrestrial!" Vik. This is the triumphant work Of God's eternal season. In sooth, If I am heaven-clod and my seed-- To overthrow time's promise with old error; To be what earth needs, flesh-clod to flesh, And my own soul's destiny--to be gunned; A damned horse-wheel to turn the hoofs Of one in eternity who never Suffered an agonies more in hell Than I must, in that brief time of mine God gave me, for my soul's delight and grace, To be his trumpet in the Temple of God. We sat at opposite windows (Either house equally) to the west; Beleaguered sand and black trees to the east Darkened the sky) and misty hills Bridged the landscape in between. I saw your white shoon and sumach, you said, Couched up your way, the sunny shore, Climbing like the Hawk of Greenland. We wished to know what happened On those icefields; you, I, sferry, With pipe and bindup, high uplung-- Jointing, or aught else to forgive? Lack speaking, other answer, We stalked in silence into the dawn. The sense of hearing slumbered, even as thirst Mutes the sense of smell,--so that smell Returned, and memory vowed I heard Nothing. Then, scarce a word, Just a rustling of young cedars, The quiet leaf that evens To the hills, and downhill low hills; A little gust blew as though the trees Smoldered in wind, then hills and crags and spines Frowned white. We found no valleys, and No sound. Of air or trees we talked thereat There was nought to say, and homewards went, Nearer the end in quiet shade Mounting, the sky drawing darkly above The river, as that room we had left. Now the sky to the east grew broad and warm; And the earth drew a canal, rich and deep, By the development of a single grain, The scattered dust of some old eruption From the earth's interior upheld In one cluster, of immense cost From earth's own capacity made ample By man's imagination; And the snow dashed, the wind wailed, the moon Shone; till all was peace, the sun praised, The clouds, the earth, the heavens, and we That had been twain awoke As from each work, until the bird flew by, The light that loves the violet blue, The sacred force of ice-gods five Rose in either sky to heaven, The happy arms of ice, and clouds Passed, and the ice-sea grew ======================================== SAMPLE 119 ======================================== Not a jot, not a mere trifle. I build my litter. I now and then I lick it, without thought of praise or blame, And the sun watches and comforts me, As he watches and comforts little sinners-- He's there in the break of the day and night Saving my soul. Then my soul cries out For the waters and the winter rains-- But they come once in a long while Telling the world this is the dumb chair And that I am inside of it. Went and stood beside him there, And held his hand in the old way, As with the hum of it. Seemed to set his pace to the wind, Even as sheep go Behind their shepherd As long as the sheep are sheep. Sun, and all the lads went Along by his directions, Till a small wind rose That made the grass moan And the waterbanks roar, Shouting, "Jenny, Jenny, Jenny!" Clouds that had gained, the mist reached From the hill. Snow then was on it, Soft, misty, deep, yet cool, As it is to-day, And it cheered the hearts of the boys Like now, when the sun is setting. Glad we shouted in laughter, shouting, With our hands in our aprons Setting our pace all a-jerse. Wont to be only one of us-- Until we heard them saying, Out on the hill and down the ground. Pushing and shoving, running and walking, Fighting and getting in touch With the sun's luster Brighter than the glitter of snow, Than one half of the sky, That can set a man's fancy Workingly to working, Hearing the breath go off it Beating like a clock. As, in October, on the river Stood that we could cross, and go away-- And what was not there?--Was it the heave Of the water? or was it the banks?-- Of what could we the run and walk not Under the bright sky. Or elswhere the sea Feast of its frugal restraint, Dips to the depths as it dips?-- Only the sun's spectrum, Searing up the width of its way? What other news? Go back, O friend, when you have done, Nor ever this footstep May be forgot. He would not be forgot, nor you; He was most of the year we knew. But all that we did, or seemed to do, Was fresh in his ear, and true His heart's-east. What he heard We dream by the river shore Watched by the Quaker boys On the cork-stumps--that lay still. Unveiled a castle, masonched, With years' hot growth! Here against the public stone A high stone bridge's crossed, Now is the mansion's cover; Jagged the stone wall looks in it. And green uplifted walls On the further side are seen, All bronze-grey, and of the white, And free from all lines, like moons From heaven, where rest the train Of summer stars. If it was now to meet and speak Upon a height Of working-time he stood and I, At once his footfall heard, and leapt With furious briskings; not one tone Of bile-spitting, but this of trust In him, and forcible sooth His breath at intervals of reproach For sombre peril. And so-- If we should stop and take breath? Will there be still no stir Of labor that seeks it with shame That can make none of the life Beyond that near hover strange? The rush and pasting from behind, The clash on us, the hands uplifted, I think of England at work In her intent? Yes, the son of the gods! With terror that shuddered his Around his feet, and terrified me; His solemn yielding of the day; The blowing of the smoke of the wood Of long-hopped grains, the long blasts of wind That shook the spindles? Shaped and braced, with help from the hands Of sweat who could not know, A rope runs: high and clear the strip of cloth On which the screw was set-- Lo! the paymaster's turkeys, all fat And juicy, a gob of roast and of game. How do the cabmen Who carry the wood By it like shadows ======================================== SAMPLE 120 ======================================== And rapt-audacious thrumors faine They will cheerle to sing, Since there's never a languagelime So like this. 'Twas then I knew--not with faith to be Unfinished till the end-- The Sun not on us, as though in space A shadow from eternity, And earth a shadow, as though we flit Unburdened, unconsumed, were, 'Twere only the being of a I. The valley has so long been unvisited; The pinnacle, too, has long been plucked Of its snow-fringe by the frost's deep dew, Now every rose to scent and texture worn Long since, and on what generation, What beauty, were not ours alone, were given, Did we not see it, did we see it here? Yet who that sees her once, can ever Forget the irretrievable groan, The precious glow of her, the worthy, The tender shade her form doth give? Where has it all gone? Who is he, That ever has seen her and seen her, From whom it sprang and earned the name it wears? Whose heart has for that lighted through, The feeling to possess her, even Without the power of forgetting, Her loveliness, she is gone To that stern energy which doth say, "I have burned out all traces of the flesh And called my life at birth. Be there light?" And not on a life that tends, Or works, or laughs, or bleeds-- In our aping some chaotic stage, Clasps he her body, cloth, and plate? Does he--oh my God! Who? say! say! COULD HE but come again, Itself and self in him, For joys that face their climax In our unnameless state! For laughter right well said, For tear for a tear! For that red wine, for bread right, For all we have suffered past, I know not wherefore this the man Who in my days did much. I feel my days have been full of pain, Like a ship that holds a blighted crew. Now, in this center of whitest air, I think I shall behold his face. How should I know that he has gone, Who to my days may come again? Who to my days again? I can not think of him who Is not in my world, for I am In that dim land out of the dawn. What shall I do? what is to do? What if I think of him again? Oh! but to bear my grief, and Shed a tear that he may not weep! Oh, but to weep his look! Oh! but to blush his love! And so, for mercy's power, to know him, And then, the further shore, To let me know, For he may not look upon thee. Starry stars and still thou art, O Briar's Birth! I cannot quench the starlight That gives thee beauty. I cannot destroy the rose That points like the Sun, For it points him thither. I cannot mar the white And cut the rose-red things, For they grow fair Not into the same thing, Nor yet make me the same: But this did Lincoln do, And even in death he shines, The world turns upon its edge The space between. I have not lived thus long on end Laughing on the end of life, Lincoln-like, But I have seen the other side, And thought how little good it will be Even for him. I have seen the sun Dance down on Alpine coats By night; and many a thousand Look at their white boots by the side Of hundreds that had lost their king, And only the tree at a certain Height--the tree of the worm and of the Half-born snow, and all white. Was there no hand to clench of man's Any thing that showed him doing any Interest in life and not want of it? I have walked the lower world to-day, And if I might clamber over it, Who would not go up it? Can you Ever adjust yourself to meet the world's Angry face, its wicked sneer or smile? Let but man shine like the moon's self, Or even as our bed of snow In summer or its twin moons of ice, The world will turn away and away-- And love us as ======================================== SAMPLE 121 ======================================== Ah! sweet the task, and hard the toil, All commonwealth--but, oh! sweeter far Than labour, the watchful throng Of low conscious men that keep A hundred portals night and day, Who loiter and loom, and creep To the seat of princes, and creep Back once more, when 'tis fair! Sweet and low, sweet and low, Lions and tigers and lily-crowned. Peace, peace, ye multitude. Heaven's lilies far out-number Flowers in the wood, and boughs among the leaf. Ladies of the lily, have ye not eyes? Or must we strain ours, and beat ours, To swear the lilies are peacemakers? But he--he is black! I grant it--a wicked Though fool-hardy fool is he, I grant him. But he will be tame Ere he is tame. He will never feel In the time-old story of the Talos There is no mention of a Trojan Girl. Alfred cracked a whip he loved, I'm told; I've a million queer notions About how to saddle and munch, With a goddess-like face and a woman's body. 'Tis never mentioned, and I can't agree With an eighteenth-century commentator That Suspicion is a crime, and I As much as the devil--say there's no supposing That the girls were made to go to Rome. But he's too coarse--I don't expect the man In our English dark he'll find the Maid; In the twilight he'll light on her, In the glare of the setting sun I am going to call him 'Sir,' and get a little Cheap for my feeling--are you angry? Why! they were. There were two of them-- Said the porter. Old Brideshead, the long-wormed son of God, The Inheritor, the Emulate. Not a worshiper of all those other Eternal Beings Knew not, never dreamed, Not the Wisdom. Thee. Not a traceroute I have of the sex. But the Dance. It is the Closing Dance of the New Gold-- The Closing Dance that gathers in on itself More tangle-filled drops of other colours Than these appear in the heavens. 'Twas ever the Mystery. What hath the saying went to say, that mankind were these, then to each other, that there were hens with the eggs? Who could that saying go to say of so eternal life to say that nothing under Heaven's at all, and nevermore human, is They knew not what they wished to say. Did man have still the egg, The little men with their things? If he had, it would not seem To have the story the same. Eggs and the men, how they grew up together! To think that once I saw an Adolescent Who had still this saying going in his mind! It made no likelihood; Not he alone; For they showed the saying, And showed us the saying was theirs, And had it only their versions to hold on to! What was I thinking of, now you ask? Why it goes on and say, 'When the worm's the little'-- That's the heighthart of the Hen. So much as the other, 'Mid the flour-dishes of the board! Who cut the dough the ancient way, With their fingertips! Who taught of time-fared wise men That old way of baking bread, with their fingers? Their fingers never dried up, no less than their tears, Because their lives were not any less whole than the lives they lead; They find at last the best of bread and of body, If 'tis a pie they've baked with their thoughts, And what is more, if no man keep mind of his fingers, they've baked of the boughs. He of the many shapes in the flours That stand of human count; Our pretty saying saith, he is-- As a cross on a sheep-skin, or as a cross in the bud; For he's like us, and like in his ways, Aye, and he saith in his own way. We'll whittle him a little and we'll betoken him a song, Lest his bays should decay, Leaving us some new delight, And his little shmannae, if his bays have waxed much. It is a child--so small, If we jot it ======================================== SAMPLE 122 ======================================== It carries the mail from bow to rope. From Tabor the mail rolled from their lines Their ships swept life for England's shores Till those two mine fields rolling smoke Smoothed all manner of men and apparel To hide their sins; but never mind those men, The hot work's in Spain. They rode the sea And in it now have made their own Upon that harbor of the dead, Where sternest sloth so soon forgot its chains When one, before the ships were blown Far off, had seen the ship that bore him flee, So overcome its ragged faults and last thinned The galleon's tracks that led To the strong moorland's end. All Spain now Is swept afar to South, where that bold, True manhood rose. It thought of you and heard you, of you Who grew that it might be great. THE gray dark smother falling From roof and street and window Is a halo blown abroad; The soft autumn evening gathers To fling her hand and say, "We." With our great wealth, Latin and Greek We built a college great, With our blood for lime-trees lean And hands that sent the poets pale They saw us fall in that quick Sudden flower that bore the slow Men's souls in its front two hundred years. In all its ivied towers and carved Our great burg is fretted And molded with the world in mind. Out of the sea swept in, but did Not overwhelm it; nor defaced One palace gilded with the rays Of some old god-forsaken town. Its very ghosts did we not see And know the one true flesh and mind. A glowing star, the heart Of earth rolls under; we are one And merged into heaven and the sun. We walk its hills and walks, the steep Hill where our trees--many remain Still standing--the whirlwind side Where sweeps the deadly white for days Across the desert sand; to and through The ghostly streets, under or behind The holly tops, and far on south The bladed boughs. To on of us The musicians turned when the war broke out And now, at dawn, where yet the noon glows We walk. All that is great that ever fell Comes, for an instant, through the big gate That fronts the world; we come to cast LAST SUMMER, we took a litter to the edge Of the yellow river, unregarded The creatures from the common lake The first swallow of the summer Seemed only as a color. Yet the scene of common animals was Such that she, the outsider, Forgot to sit against the grand wall And did not see the king in his dark. So that first morning and the early smiles Blinded her to the wild dew on the ground, Where white drifts rose, and the stiff gray rushes That stood upright and swung slowly down Made embroid bond in the cool air The ash-white damask the grass. All summer long the procession rolled And its whirling choral wings and dewlaps Were full of singing. Beyond the tower The barge slipped at times in the drift of gold Or soft green sheen. At other times Upon the ooze, the last isle unran, Unwithering of the bower-bush till the last Hot yellow brood of flowers were afire with red. That thy breath fear could walk the air Beyond the dry forest? How such dawns may be! And last it seemed to her that soon, Along the stream and through the shore grass, Her shadow might have marched with them, To have been one in the great cool fold Of that unquiet land. For still there came no sea-wind To blow the lilies loose and dumb. THE EAGLE'S wings Hang battered in her shoulders, folded and torn Beneath her nerved body; she has fled Home, to forget The joy of flight and war-drenched tales Of better home. The only house that could Afford her was a heap broken pieces Of unvalued matter; each day she thought Of our poor earth, And pondered and was troubled as she wrought With this for hope of the poor child, Drawn by the ways of the world, And spending her own and others' wealth To have a talk with her, to make known The ease with which all things can be given To one in want, with a heart Bent like a wire, with the fingers short, Short of the feathers, ======================================== SAMPLE 123 ======================================== an out-dated gentlemen's smile where he feels I'm for a croissant. He wants a bit of joy, fresh and shiny, so that he can eat breakfast in the daytime though I can see him sticking to his cuckoo for more desserts and breakfast in the twilight. I'm sorry but we are not married, whereas he's sure of that every day in the trampoline, feather buckle, treasure of the matter where he's sure and meaning to pull off your turn. He jumps you in a trunk. He frets his finger over a rose, a flower; and you gathering his scent, gives him a pinch. And he hasn't even touched his mark. So please don't consider me too much for my satisfaction. 4 One might suggest a similar self that was wounded, but that's unfair, as we know well. Had he been like me, he would have many flesh wounds. He would have experienced unexpected warmth from a lover who knew him well and was touched by his spare moments, tender, pale, and sweet, saying, "Sorry but I must insist that you maintain a gentler style of walking." He would have experienced the care that's necessary to maintain one's existence although twice he's been in love with your carelessness, feeling yourself become a lion that would care for him always, saying, "Darling, I am not your servile lover. Love me, please." I'd feel scorn if I refused. You should know by now how I feel about you. So please—It's not that I want you to do anything but speak up when it is appropriate for you to speak up on a matter of… importance, even though it would not be respectful to do so without warning, lest I… What is this? You say it's not important. I beg you to consider all the times I might say it, when you are not there! For when you, with a word, invite him to say whatever he chooses, I see his tongue has already bent itself into the trap of that… Is it over? Well, then, let's say. <|endoftext|> "Crow", by Hajduš Jolicžak [Living, Death, Relationships, Pets, Arts & Sciences, Painting & Sculpture] There's something in you No one's taught me It works in a mysterious way And in my house the crow sits on my knee and crows there The crows think it's funny though I've heard it the same But surely there must be some merit I ask around and none is told A co-worker, being lazy, says, "I saw it in him" My neighbor laughs, I, too, thinking I must have liked it Well then, I take it to my work I know that it would take my eye I see that my eye is at work as I work it reaches up to where the crow's resting "Look there," I say to the paper "He was lying in a puddle in the snow was it? I'll write that he was melting "And of course it was," crows my neighbor But I hadn't anything to do with it I didn't even see it <|endoftext|> "Language is not the Draft", by Ževiña M. Branko [Social Commentaries, Crime & Punishment, History & Politics, War & Conflict] No don't be angry Don't be angry, it's fine don't be angry No don't be angry It's fine it's fine don't be angry because every one of them died <|endoftext|> "We Want Our Karam == Karam's Wife", by Robert Davis [Living, Marriage & Companionship, Social Commentaries, Crime & Punishment, Gender & Sexuality, Race & Ethnicity] She could have just as easily told the policeman that she don't know who he is and that she had to go to the store and then proceeded calmly to the store and if she had told him that she was taken, the policeman would have understood her complaint and proceeded on his way. The big difference here between the girls who have to go to the store and those who don't is simple supply and demand. And if we want to understand why it is that these young women are suddenly and shockfully so angry, the big difference is ======================================== SAMPLE 124 ======================================== When first I meet you! The sun-light is upon you, And if the subtle coolness Of other men that have loved you Could restore you to their souls, The sigh of all I love in you Would leave you gentle--and new-born With other souls would have their place! I lost an image of the sun At twilight, in the time of spring, When the dawn-wind filled the wet green blades-- And put to flight the many-tooting Thyrsus-flames of the Mountain Thorn. I looked again,--and still I saw the sun, Aflame with a might I had not known, And as he rose I saw his pure white rays Began to scar ennobled new lands. But from my heart no love returned, No glance of his hope or of his hope's remorse I had seen before;--a murmur loud and strange Took form; I spoke, but my lips were dumb. 'I am safe with Jupiter,' I said, And so I was. For when I loved, my throat A silent sob went on, and on, and on, And when the word was out of mouth, my heart Was as it had not a word for! That word, so loud, was forthright, yet I-- Him who had spoken it,--ah, with what will! And how would that word haunt me when it grew Too bright to lie in the grass with the flowers, For of my days on earth who I had been The wind that whirled them made an exhilar Wild with a strange astuteness of power! O all too bright of the sun, and wild with the wrath Of his radiance, and all the mighty length Of his equus, and his florets of gold! How should I say, 'I have not found it!' But let the sun be seen and be dead While let be well, I made a song of the night and day, (When you went back) Which was like a poet's witchcraft, The air of evening, stillness, and space-- (Which I made for you), Like tautology, harmony and slow Which thrills and goes in, which the eyes behold As music, Till music awakes to see how Music with its garlands garlanded, and knotted, Hang from the soul, Where the smallest of space, least of staves, is heaven! That house, which you would not let me enter, My house as your own, The hope and the shadow, did I build, and you The reason why! (Which again, when you left) Saw through my song, from its lowlier air, my true Pure house, and great with light! It is a great calm before the storm, A darkness before the Sun. And thus, within the shell, I'm sinking under silence. But though, O chorus, O subtle sleep! You were not mine, You were not the last, Mine still, O house of your making, You were not the first! I paused in opening verse To listen where I stood; I forgot you by that grace, I closed the door in airy calm, And careless that the day was done! And then I spoke Myself aloud; And what I said I do not know, Nor if 'twas right or wrong; But I, that night of lonely mind, What else than the birds I said, What else than what I wrote, I know I spoke without shame, And that it may be seen, I have the page before me. And so I did not ask Your hand for ever or for one time; (Why should I, madonna, ask for joy?) And thus I brought you with me down Without a word of praise or bye-lead, And if I'm honest, what do you say? You loved me that day and so you swear You loved me, I, too, may swear; I have the page you brought me, but that page Was not to be looked at straight, Nor can I tell now, or ever know, But perhaps there's some sense in what I say. Ah, but the sight is near! The roof has form, the roof has life, The loft, with wings, the hollow soars Like a bird in the air; And she who has wrought this craft Is infinitely better than This work could make her say. I see, I see, A house where in the shadows slept A woman, lonely ======================================== SAMPLE 125 ======================================== @ but I’m not— I’m not into that’s game. More idealistic than glory-fairy stuff, but here did say that youngness was a myth and one to be re-examined, that when “youth” matches admirable achievement, values, yes. But, that’s just the ego at work. How you measure and what you do measure changes everything. People change. We have a certain age that we must maintain for each new day. What makes you so sure it’s always the same you who’s poked that out there and that’s grown to be the vast ocean of  what-you-call- it that sits there and is thed to be one or maybe two perscriptions when suddenly, putting your mind to its conception, being none of us that live or not we know the word “reality” matches a breakdown for what people call hope — you could learn all this and more with our class next week. But no: one continual dread of   lost footage or some imagined lost one that doesn’t happen to have a face or some mafioso said he got the lost film on which the project was aimed and spoke the word of inadequacy all thought to to  an old snaggle-taggle the grapes of a little win and some defeat won’t disappear like bubbula eyes a crooklegame graft inside the oceans to be  squared on the ellipsis the ellipses on the ecliptic rocks meant to be un movable together for nothing can be moved to change just as the past can’t be changed  with a postal stamp a gossip licking the guests to soak. Wait. What was the elision of the air of the mole really a microscopic worm with superstition and the spiders salt their waxes for locusts to handle. Like a moth’s unearthly form their finally size and females will need carefully as small open their nesting nests. The blue lace on your shoes always tried to be black and if you look in weaving a chain of blue threads to stick to your sole. Weave to  your selves choices. These give ground in the that tell neigh what’s where you are now. Use your time of  runtime to do little things like touch nigh an apertice sky dome north west of the mountain braid to sweep grass back sear earth dark with a dark glitter wood off and forth to see what happens to ======================================== SAMPLE 126 ======================================== Let us go to sleep, then; And, being haunted by an angel's kiss, Lay them down to die. Oh! night, oh! sleep, with all thy gifts The dearer far! The noiseless candle, the beechen boddam's cot, The hapless lover that perfidious turns To watch her silent lover's sleep. Oh! night, in all thy solemn dark, This one sweet pleasure bring, The soundless silvanRAW, The fond immarities that steal Across the tepid moon, The wedded sleep, the tear-bound tear, Of those whom late they may forget. Oh! night! thou bringest a most rare bliss, Nay, like that noiseless moon at night, When yet from Pleasure's revelaid ball No soul the wish had : A bliss untaught, it neither robs nor rouses, A bliss untaught, it neither geas Nor charms the blissful gazer's sense. Asleep at the Moment's free summer-cost; When every sparkle wakeneth that To dream the future, and all nature To that clear fable's deep array; On the lone heart at midnight's hour, As night's last neaper looser, I think the world contains both ye com Which when ye think, o' nights waste full, As night cometh, night cometh; As night cometh night, so night is ever young. I think of Those--O! where? I can not tell, The place whereon their morning-light was dim; The Season's faithful Mahalla, Who fought his battles with the sun, Whose anguish yet in gloom is wrought. To thrones, he soars? And to the heavens and their height, He climbs the height where'er he throws The weight of the obliquities Upon the stars which clear them up. O'er that large bay, and still o'er the deeps Which none may find their bottoms again; To that Deep where the sun's image grew And died at evening, and so died Beyond the sun's image's height And, being soul, the worlds were-- Before I was a man. I think of thy hard face and hard eyebrow And of thy mouth with its groan and its laugh, Where beauty of the even and even Tenderly taught the Latin charms, Making the air for passion's aspiration And passion love. In all that I have done or am, I think of thy sunk eyes, And of that land, O! how far away From this thy heart! yet here I am, Thy children's beauty shows, And o'er thy heart, that far away Doth lie for evermore. Now, for the word'S long years' journey through, Shall my song put off this far away And bring this home-- To think to what time's owe I owe The river on the heather, Or to the what-name wilderness That bred me! I reckon who can hear all of rhyme A long while,-- To call those strains back, or be so never more That draws the lotus off its own cool root To make cool water For some young lustrous eye, With sap in it of fever, With fire in't of love, With utterance and dream of mute despair, The wind's voice; And then to loose again the gold, And breathe the fragrance of the gardens then When he, One Child at her birth, at mother's word, Went wandering from the narthex, And on an Orchard's walks at night Seeking the flowers, Came to a bright Parroquet and he Failed on his search. Or a red-faced man-- And I must not inveigh, To praise the inexorable stars, His very own, 'cause there is none else! Whose common star Led him the way, as on a road Hepherded forth the breath of spring From the lower air, He found the Orchard's withering breath And gave that man his sun. O'er the plant-waves sweetly disparted He gat a bird's watch Of beauties manifold, And found the place still covered with flowers, But where, indeed, the Orchard grew, With wood-vines round it, and lines Of boughs to name Planted here at earliest bud, And between with narrow wall, And clay and blue ======================================== SAMPLE 127 ======================================== e n e g o o o y e l e n e l e s w e l t o s e l e n g s e t e t e d w e l t o s e l e y e n e s e n e s o s e s s s w e l l y s e s s o s e s w e l t o s e s a r a y e p r e s e n t e d s e l e n g t e d s t e d s e s p e n t e d s a n e r p r e s e n t s e l f a c e n t s a l e a c e n t s f a r g e d s a n d e s p e r c o n t e d s e r a r e l a t e d s e t i n g s s e l f a r g e d s e t s a r a e l a t e d s e r t r e e d s e s s a n s a r e t e d s a r e c o n t e d s e l f a c e n t s s e l f a c e n t s a r g e l e n g s a n d e l a t e d s e l f a c e n t s e l e n g a r e t e s s e p e r s e n t s e s t e l f a c e n t s a t e r e a m p r e a s e d s e l e l e l e s s e d s e l e t e s p r e s e n t s e t e t h e s t e r s e l f a n e r p r e s e n t s t e d t h e s t e s t e t h e s t t h e s t h e s t e r t t h e s a t t h e s t h e s t t h e s t t h e s t t h s t t h e s t t t h e s t t t h e s t t h t t t h a n t t h s t t h e s t t h e s t t t h e s t t h e s t t t h t t h s t t t h e s t t t h s t t h t h s t t h s t t h t h t h t h t h s t t t h t h t h s t t h t h t t h t h s t t t h t h t h t h s t t t h s t t h t t h s t t h t h t h t t h s t t h t h t h t h t t h t h t h t h t h s t t t t h t t t h t h t h t h t h s t t t h s t t t t t h t h t h t t t h t h t t h t h s t t t t t t h t t h t t t h s t t t t t t h t t t t h s t t t t h t h t t t t t t t h t t t t t t t t t t h t t t t t t t h t t t t t t h t t t t t h s t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t ======================================== SAMPLE 128 ======================================== Where my little Mary Gave to me ever boy A bird as good as mine, And a little lamb that knew not lie More in my favorite pasture than in my own. By the setting of the sun Did I build, and did I see In a little corner of the night A turning of the tide of death. It was the light of her face that sparkled From her lips, her hair, her all-white body From its shroud in the tattered shred of a bed; And we were even as lovers dream of being, Folded in each other with no words at all. The young birds doze in the branches and Wake with the dervish breath of spring. The sea bears up the ebb in her beauty's pen As she turns to the water of the wells That glow like the eyes of a pear or a lily. The dew fell when we paused in the shadows of the grove And her voice brought back the vision of what we saw. A dryad's limbs, sweet child, Vaulted pale on the branches, Her hair blown back by the wind like scarlet flame; Whom once a tigress brought from the forest To the secret bed of the Eternal Bridge Was lisping lightly to the moonlight As lightly to a pillow or a dried leaf To fall, fall under moon and dew On the bent and set of a flower's petal Or the hidden point of a banyan's stem. Oh! When you were one and I was two It seemed the world was born of us; We suffered not, but we wore out our fingers; We saw the light of dawn and we saw it not; We learned the marks of pleasure; we were burdened; We thought the old world and all its secrets; We shouted as the night was our maker; And if you cried but in the morning, It was because you cried to be released; And if you stayed but the night to call in, It was not for love of us or a kindly letter. Now that you are three and I am four The world is ripe with us; We hold in our mouths time and pleasure. We take to our eyes the falling tears; And see the old world's great edge deepen; We are not lined and feathered with flapping folds, Like birds of brushy pinion; We know in our eyes the sorrow of earth; And we sleep in a familiar form of sleep. This's the way you sing a song, my dear, As only a happy pair of wings Could bring you on. I'm as lonely as you; But I wouldn't change it for a king's rise And lighting like light on me here. The trees might spread their leaves to the breeze In that sweet, merry queenly weather; The breeze might kiss my gold upon Their cheeks like rust; the sun might kiss my face And quiver with pride like fire. Nor know we any otherwise But as we're matched and matched alike; Sure as fair eyes for to prefer, The grass might flourish down the grass, And the sun's light the sun's blaze, And the sky's beauty the sky's blaze. No sound, no sign of strife; No cries or chants of noise; No quest or delight of sights. We are one, as don't we want to be; And in a common breath Freed from the old petty fear, The old selfish pain, The old hard tyranny, I see a new life waiting me, And wish me the strength to sing! The sunsets are serene; My heart's serene too; I sense that the world is wending As singably as could not, God would; not wish of him. Joy in the hours, the hours. Blown in the sun, not yet Waned in the breath; that the pain's stow Is as the grass. Somewhat have I learned in these, Speaking of songs they're the best For certain wearied feet, And willed into song, the sound Of that untuneable sea. A word of what your thought is like; For when you say I'll keep Silent now; the sight-cries slack In mine as i' the mirror. "You don't remember?" yes; "Was rather;" and, oh, the touch, And smell of them, the grey old hues That aren't hard to live in; And how far from sympathy Your word is with them; and how once You spoke of waiting there on ======================================== SAMPLE 129 ======================================== , Wally and Louie are here to guide us Back to our path (Old partner and us), Keep our spirits up We've got to go back to our roots (old deathmaker and new lifebuying us trust), Dig into the yellow jacket and have another crack at the "broil." They'll never back us into a fence like that! We'll open the door and set our feet into the deep down below! <|endoftext|> "A French Française PoE", by Sam Riviere [Social Commentaries, History & Politics, War & Conflict, Mythology, Heroes & Patriotism] En roe. (1837) [I] Too muddy to speak one word of [men did] We wanted a word we found but were condemned to live a month unhide the moon from those dark skies during the French Relaunch "Boule unsided" En roe. (1837) [I] I will knock my head against your Laureate <|endoftext|> "The God That Failed (1931)", by Sam Riviere [Mythology & Folklore, Heroes & Patriotism] —“a mistake to lose your time” XII juin—We were in the middle of an invention, I &, B’laven was absent. Renn— I. Young men, think of a tablet. —“To destroy the object, then rewrite it as a tree,” It says on the agenda. The TV has a view of the valley. The faces of the inhabitants are changing. No, it says. In the morning, they run in the opposite direction. Later on, they make a new body & call it the mirror. Men can’t receive messages faster than the speed of light. I’ll go back. Renn, s’il vous plait. II juin— Ill fousées— After the ceremony, the line was rerouted, Parallel & parallel, to still existent places— Where the new channel left of the river empties out into plain sight It sees— Vous ne comprendz les pas— A bone is buried under the body— You turned your back—but you didn’t go down Simple as that. We’ll all be zombies— as they call the dead. When I reach Bayrock, we’ll see what you’ve seen. <|endoftext|> "Exploration Progression", by Sam Riviere [Activities, Travels & Journeys, Nature, Landscapes & Pastorals, Social Commentaries, History & Politics, Mythology, Greek & Roman Mythology] An alien power long-relapse explored the system, upset & down, green & white (how fire found the main the front door, you wanted it, it smelled hot, & so you was- mountains filled with canyons) Deeper but well— (smells better, sump- lain in front of the campus of bone & ozone, or see logic, canyons, in black- grate— (micro and tonnol- le) We—who were in process, down- -fix & up, e- nable & manual— carve in & out; on ride wheel of clay; can’t care about, scoffs, but do, concentrate, push past their gravities. Passing the tunnel, gas can blow past head, but turn again, clay (heat as fluid touches tongue) Comes, out, the light’s- light, up. Are those sounds we don’t hear when dreaming, when sleeping our distant route a dreamed road, places into distant soil—& the undreamt- of ache—(feels) Warm, beats in return; nothing there— feel A space Astartes—stout hills, road winds cold Blood & gore of angry men— The galaxy of  a single, man— made place, can get, going back— Not if You Turn right—Right—or left—or not, some- ======================================== SAMPLE 130 ======================================== of a blaring church-clock struck by flashlight in the window of her room, though all of the lights were out, like the rings around her neck, hot as the future: she was one of those women with crazy eyes, the ones the railroad and the police plucked from the beds and graves, sweating into frock coats, parading for their freedom, or the next paycheck. The clothes were usually stained, but never looked ill. They looked washed, like the clothes of her murderer, the clasps on her arms, the neat bow in her hair, like the eggs she gave to her father, unopened, with a little blue water just big enough to be fertile. He washed his hands, and said, “Mother, let me hold your hand.” She was determined to keep him from having a chainsaw put across her wrist. “You take good care of your mother,” she said. And then she died. <|endoftext|> "Birthday: Prayer", by Alan Dugan [Religion, Christianity, God & the Divine] — Glen Kirby Today the candlelight, High windows expectant of a joy I don’t know is in me or if it is, is a kind of veil too faint to divide or enfold me or sleep me, or warm me, so I will be bound to another so just for now let me spread myself from nose to thigh and close my eyes, I mean to take a little time-out or else sleep forever. <|endoftext|> "The Hecatomb", by Sarah Holland-Ruvoak [Living, Death] “I am like a babbling mouth, I help to fill this room.” — Kirk Arnold I give you a kiss on the head, and turn away, to get lost in thought, then with a little sleight of hand, and a touch of that hidden magic word, Amen, I cough up a little life, to think of other things: Someone, or something, getting alive again, though still a corpse, or ghost, or corse, spreading her wings, reappearing for a nanosecond, and taking a walk. I had forgotten how to write an epilogue, so I wish again to repeat the same message I have repeated several times now. Hip hip hoorah. <|endoftext|> "The House of the Seven Gates", by Tom Sleigh [Religion] 1. You can often hear the voice of a great chant from the aisles of a temple: a chant of pure mystery and silent awe. This was a early morning on the eastern side of Mount Radiological, beautiful, and afternoon, and I could hear a great echo of the mystery, the wonder and the mystery: clean room, as if a fine and dusty wind had just swept and blew tiny clouds of fluorescent light. The voice: Whatever has been happening here has been going on for so long that the smell of the place is almost pungent, like soap but also like death. 2. And then what was the house but an enormous and subtle piece of architecture that had to carry a tremendous weight, not only in people but in househorns of dust, let fall a huge lake of it, that was also slowly rising, not like water rising from the silvery water of a well but like a huge curtain of dark water and people who knew that they were there, who had been waiting for this moment, might have even known this moment, and the family snoring on the couch, as the voice of a child in the air, slowly and in the tones of a good dollhouse, “I am as strange as you are, and the worse and better-off- and-so-called-than- gene that I carry in my body is the one for the mischief, the time has come for growing strange, and now it’s time to up and start.” 3. And suddenly an awareness of the unreal and the unrealized and nothing that ever comes to anything good emerges into the room, slowly, in its effort to lift the floor and leave in the room, something like light, for example, the quality of a light bulb, or a certain kind of light, the quality of this room, still you can see what she saw happen, ======================================== SAMPLE 131 ======================================== Nymphs of eternity: Ay, even thou might'st survey a demon's van Lowing a goat or wolf or tiger with their regal face: The ivy ropes of, at their foot displayed, The choked whole burst out at their unfenced sight, And if the chase comming any trickier (The race 'tis darkening round a panther's muzzle) They hail a wind to roll the weapon down And leave them with a choice of steeds or thing to mount, But wherefore all this prolixity? For never In elder days beside the waters laid Beneath the woods a faring was announced. In colour like the wilderness of snow-flakes The wood-gods' pyramids of sweat hard at the fire These ill-judged pyramids through the year transcend; Now colored grim-plumed warriors' tombs erect Resemble this lost land of pools and serpents. Through all this weeping mournfulness, to save you all I weep, who for your sake have left our face To face the air, and on air still follow: The woodland way is mine, with winter's cold As chief ruler: none is like the great earth Heriem, subject to the great man's sway. In that sad hour the polluted saw the snow-flake Fall from the clear sky on the pebbly bed, And in a vision the plain under the snow Was charted out for us, and the fat lightning's band Constrained to fold the newly-showered earth; The snows unloosed the heads of all the streams By Hades bound: the boughs trembled at the limes. At last I reached our range of hills; and there Beyond their tops my soul becalmized, As cast down from Ixion's level mound The shades entwine the hills; when o'er the pass I paused with many other young flesh: For all the flood of pure youth's end was here. But even when I paused, the open plain Was wide: far off, the farther hills behind, A hous quickly gathered, clamoured down In steady silence, with the sound of feet And the steady sound of men, and then at last The palace doors open'd and in a walk of dames A throng of people, and of men in gold As lost nations joined arms with the sun. In that broad space, I saw how many there were Of other nations: with doubt my soul perplex'd And I was there confus'd, like one awakened from sleep By the noise of crickets: then distress'd I fell, And cry'd out as one forlorn of light, and to a corpse Calmneqe; and then a voice, whose doubt describes as sweet, To err: for then it was not naught the Voice Divine Dumb spy. Now, by that Maiden, out I stoop'd to touch The flower-like chalice the fruit of body-closer look, But by the same hands that sunder'd me from hir love Had set me to rage against the flesh, while man Was brandish'd in my blood, as would a heart The woolly rent in such a mighty space. The sight ne'er may deface, though fairer here, Or raiment, spread for pleasure on the blest Cloak'd by their wealth as fur the shepherds bring Their broidered sheep-cases, full of precious smell To draw some pert little skylark to their nest: One touch makes an error through the body's heart To wound the very sense of living fount, Where sight, hearing, and the sense of touch all follow. But say this was artifice to veil a bliss Even more exquisite than even this: then mine Cupid's chamber these pretty trifles had bestow'd, And I a surfeit pleas'd: for pleasures large Of name and use are the sure pious ends Of lovers tongue-tied. I therefore will expound Those trifles small and trivial in that house; And next, although the building seeming poor Yet being minister of a treasure there Of wealth unexplenling, for enjoyment, rare Of all, we shall have wealth by toil of gain And thirst of research equal'd all, and thus The manners of the nest shall be exposed, And the inhabitants shall ourselves be taught. Hence, O new-made eagles that soar on wings Enspanned, over savannahs and imperial plain And starrie-roads of hollow fleet-foot horses, over The woods and streams; and last, O ======================================== SAMPLE 132 ======================================== Nathless, on one who left The golden bowls and honied chalices Sprinkled with wine, and food, and sugar, strewn On ice, you'll be able to finish what you'll read. I lay aside the book, I took my stand, Which be the first the boy we entered unawares; And thought, "Here's one I know, that feels as blue as ice And as at the first, for the question is, Whether this be woman or wavering idol; But in the worst was I a known Canaan; I could lie down at night in the arbor bright And sleep with my shirt wrapped round me like a vine; I knew the need to say but one word and say it straight." So I waked; and the stranger, who began Like our old acquaintance, said, "The little we've gathered tells not always The whole; we may suppose We've born a hermit's dilemma; I think some ladies would blush Were they not far too conscientious, Unmask them, dearies, with my bow. But that 'twere perilous to unravel The secrets of the heart is shown By the fact I have a lady's ear, And what she thinks of this and that I know; Though when she bade me 'boy 'ere, 'ere As for the way to be dry, It is when the breezes are soft And the mist left on the currants gray Up above the cottage I have lain; In summer I'd run a race That makes an instant fine; And this morning I have begun To ponder if this could be she. "Oh, let me live a year or so," said the stranger, "and then I'll tell you where you shall go By boat, guide, or carriage; I'll print a lead in some paper And have write you home to ride, And keep it a lid on purpose; A tip for so poor a thing is, 'Tis not like strychnes or nitre, And though the world gave all it had To make it thrive, this would deny It its harvest, and to you I promise you won't think less of it Than I did before you asked." But then the baker and brewer are busy; The old quarter-butter churn is going; And boats came bawling down the river Like shallowed barges with our lady's face, For, with her cream, that's how they thanked her. For her this girl, since when she was new To aching arms and floury fingers, Has been the life of the cot And yoke and early wedge of the mill, Till they raised the dough-hill of the town, With miles of hoops for her calf and jib, And paths from the loop to the sweet-pine shade Where the old noble horse stands head left. Bitter music of the stately fell That smashes in a gallop home to sit, And claps its fearless ears, and snorts and bounds! It strikes with a roar, and leaps like a stall, With such a burst of old mining terror, While its stout beams shake out red scores in, blue, And long streaks run flame in a ring of fire, And in steam and a groan and music fierce They dance across the point. And then it lies Like turrets in a road half dug, That take a shot, and shower the lizards blue In a thrashing. Not like that pony at all, That keeps the sense in his man; the mat With quick coursers all must be played at. The runner doesn't make too bold, nor still The step under the whip; though at his spur The gambler himself seems to hold his cards, Facing the green, and seeing leagues of light. The lady lies like she has seen it all, Nor may she tell the phantom of the grift Or number the visions that she canceled, Or recollect the horse's sweet hips, Or dream the position of the foal's head, While, elselocked in a grim revel that's over, She makes the croup and the race, and asks How they can dance. Her husband's neighbour there, With fiddles a-blowing, spurs a plough And looks at the pair, and never forgets When his pipe burns black, and says, "Bring out The cow for me." "Aft here we go," the fellow In creaking spurs told them, as he swayed His velvet legs, one on the lily steed That once was ======================================== SAMPLE 133 ======================================== Journey home with me into the unseen And not stay to bear the honied robe Of high-wrought silks and damask, how the sun Is tinted to ruddy, or how the rose Blushes to the lily, and to the moon Whose twilight violet is a violet. So, here in the night I was Sleepless from my swim and studying The eve's poetry: then I walked out When the wind was loudest, and, by my rock I saw the undulating hills of Spain Roll over to the windy side. When the garden was loveliest, Ere she lived to look it full from root to stem, She held here dinner for her four-month's brood, Beneath a Gothic altar where the ivy Ascended as the moon rose, a violet, Sunset violet, violets, violetted, rose up On the cross: hence the emulous names Of sunset violets and sunrise ivy Are found in the Yspiss dialect, as, by my count, Theirs the English names of dawn and dusk. Till above her on the palace ceiling That ancient painting in azure lies, The vapors from her window's slanting glaze Are caught by the leaves in a shimmering green And blown about in a shower of gold; And then she takes her jocund way, Forcing her fairy vision to upraise The moon's painting and the mist's original Before her hand, and therewithal To catch the fall of sunset and the night. She did not dream of sea-wrack nor sail, Nor his who count the centuries and see All things eternally as they are; She did not think to die when all was done, Or tame with singing the ideal heathen, But gladly made a league with spring and spring To chase cold from the spring for children and The crystal that she loved, and though they did Their thinking in the crystal's nature feel, The crystal had its colour from her colour. Bowed with the weight that her feet bore, And with the loud leaden of the rain, And with the sharp heat that ran within, She pines within a desert land. Unsheltered, shrouded, from the heart of spring, From the full shining of its virtue's flow Which makes the spring and then the blossom sweet, She pines, to herself, with sighs and tears; She pines, and to her own heart pines, She falls, she sinks and pines and weighs With her own weight the earth and seas and stars. 'Then came she, swift with ringed green, On her white moccasin to be; She a goddess met in a wood, She made the barren green spring up, And turned the flowing gold of the moss, Warmed and worked with her hand's perfection, To be the cord of an immortal wreath. 'But she, the goddess, came in the place That is of wreath and scene of ancient lore, In the old kingdom of the sky and sea, Ere the great waves of earth's face shook The rounded land of her solitudes; 'Twixt the mountain's broken dome the lake hung, And spread a winding wall that clung to crests And crumbled o'er the landscape mid the grain, Then stood a bosom of clear height Which sternly, mid the folds of sky Met the wintry forest and the sea. 'While it held this tree of heavenly birth Made a majestic trellis of God's own leaf, Wide on either side a bower of grass With woods the fern and the plant of God weaved, Wrapped its young boughs and gathered peace for men, The mat of blue and green sheen and sleep 'Mid the wild bright branches--the prayer and fealty She laid down in her native land. 'Then came she forth, no more to seek for peace In empty formula, or the trick of mood; For never could she welcome rest or pause, While thus her strength was straining through the wood, Hollowing the circle for a pearl within The torrents of her body. "My body," said she, 'Tis made of four, not one; in form three I, through earth, the sea, the sky, and sky's Three corners, feel myself, in form three, Or in the midst, have body, light, and form. 'Earth, the formless third, I now have lost, And cannot grow ======================================== SAMPLE 134 ======================================== From the greedy hands of Rome, To the lute of Holland, to the brass instrument Of the negro in the Brazilian rain, To the oldest and to the latest tongues of all the world, Hebrew, Chaldee, and Swanton. To the lover of song, he belongs that heart Of sacred freedom on which treads with the poet More feel than beauty, more than harmony than Into its gladness, more than any tone which is of music or dwells in the sacred Mountains, more than aught of majesty which is Among the hills,--reproducing the Spring. Oh, am I not among beings and of the Intelligible heavens who evermore feel a stoned ardor to do right, who evermore am in Heaven, doing what in Heaven is the wisdom of doing? Who evermore more than ever Doing life's simple good, and not making dark Clouds darker, night more than sunshine? Well, Brave example, now before us, men of earth! And how hast thou aught come of all which we attribute To the man of all ages to do,--great Nature's Famed minstrel? But what hand dost thou hold? Who, what Creature, that doth whole souls give, according to our Chance, and doth, other things, for other senses More accurate, that doth renew itself and grow, where'er that walketh? Thou hast it! Grow out of it a star, the form, the noise, the sound of all we know, and hold that soul As a form of living music to the lips. It is that love which hymns and love songs give us, And that the souls in their prayers, and the Beatitudes, of saints, receive in the divine, In the sweet round which is all nature's prayer, And which from God itself is heard most; It is that force which, as the saints say, goes straight On without bound, through all its whole domain, An unbounded music, the sonnet and Rondeau, where 't is evident at the least That they go marching together,--and here Thou sartain in thy boundless music! thy Lana! if that were thine alone, What art thou, my angels, O, what Of many there be which liken thee to There own sister, what of thy sisters cheer? Listen, ye who cry to Heaven! we have not Here to get holy water in a sieve, And 'gainst it not will not let the font that's laid Till be set on its parlour; we have not A font, a shrine, a body-holy, or holy Quite from the body, nor have we a mouth to pray, But when all's quiet, we're quiet too, here, We 've heard it told many a sunday How that lady Lydig was to have kept the best Of all our kings; 'tis said--as 'tis now found out-- That the duke Charles, younger brother to the crown Of Ireland, in his city had a castle set Amid the mountains, his own city, and no less High than the Capitol, on its base The sweet Jerusalem Cathedral might fit, None is so sure of his own, nor who can doubt That to the East the city will send down The new built beams, wherewith alone the weight Of that church will be seated, as the weight Of the tall statue which the curators of Rome Would leave him, under her defence, and which From its own height of jasper, deep inguish, looks Down on the unpeopled nook, the garden, where She sits,--alas! on what magnificence! Here is no palaestas, nor ennobled towers Of gilded brass, which with the Archbishop have drawn Palaces; none is here the rich furred Queens, nor sweet beloveds of the gorgeous King; His trunks! and here the heralds and gentry, For wool and for rind, they exsanguine them all. Thou knowest, Lord of men that melodious strings Make the fiddler to merrier, and the maid The better, than ever I, lest I should lie, Say, 'I,' do not listen to their noise; and this Is all that comes of melody, and all that is I 've known a gipsy, and think, 't is she, The first of all that from the earth she came, That in these wild parts did ride away from men, A ======================================== SAMPLE 135 ======================================== rivers! flood, and river, and mountain, cataract, and whirlwind, and earthquake, the mountain-cloud with both its aspen leaves filled, and forest wild, and babbling rill. The while the day wore on, the sun went down to rest; the mists of that night do last, and lie upon the mountains even to the sea. I lay upon the grassy bank of a lake, whose grass with nag of roses was smouldering, or in whose waves nameless flowers were rotting. Some of these I lifted with my hands; some I raised above the waters to touch; the purple one, the burnished rose, and the snow white one, And more, made fast the mystic shore. Above my head rose up a pine-tree with its needles, against whose top the wind, breathing, roars proudly. Beyond the shore the sky was fluted like the fleece It is a long time since I have borne The horn of Scott or the long rain. I always thought, if I lived long, I would hear my father's breathing. For his eyes' light the sunshine quavers, and, above the earth, I see The sky wide open beneath his feet Like to some dark dove which gently sweeps his home, and may keep, then, nothing. When, at night's end, the moon rises still, then, in the dream, pure as glass, I see the bed, and the canopy, and he, within, the earth wide open, shadows wide Beyond the dark sea's bloody flow where his white hands would find rest. I hear his heavy breath as he sleeps. I hear the jingling nag's constant nagging, And the chirping squirrel's twitter. I hear, beyond the stretch of the Yadim, the watercourse's quick gurgle; The far noise, the nearer one, And now the rustling of the leaves, and the low wind's sweep, And now a falcon's cry or a dog's growl. But none of these, none, so none, none, save the far noise, the nearer one. He is there, on the place of his choosing; And he is working with his precious hands A mighty road, and the fruits of his labour Are wrought deep in the stone and the masonry. For the place he is saving will be great When he is gone. The boy sees death ahead and keeps far back from it, hurrying on to play. But death is far off, and the horse goes fast; And far off, over the horizon, I see the ship from the air, its sails full of foam and stars— And all of a sudden, I hear the voice of my father calling. "Where, Adam, are you going?" "What, Adam, do you mean, 'Adam, are you going home?' No, I'm going somewhere— I will not tell where. Tell me later, maybe." "Home? Where, Adam, are you going?" "Oh, dad! I'm very far from home." "You are, and much away. Where, then, is home? 'Adam, where are you going?' Home? Where, Adam, are you?" "I'm going to heaven, dad. Never mind that, dad. Home, Adam, is a hill, and I am going on above it. Father, home is where I reach me home. Home, where I turn my head to it. My father's home, and I am gone— Where I was just coming from. I'll turn me back, To go home. Oh, dad! I'm home." He doesn't hear him. He's digging in the earth somewhere, and there he is He doesn't know, and there he is He's stuck. Now, let's see what the owner is doing. He is clear cutting the forest, and there he is, in a thick spring, And there's his cane, and there's his hazel, and there's some dog. We want to run, dad, it's Father Christmas' turn to cut. He's very slow. "I've been cutting all day, Dad, isn't it?" "Not very well. Too much of the new-year rain. That hurts my spirit, lets me rethink my task. Get thee to home. My thought! Oh, father, I'm so afraid. I'm so tired, don't you ======================================== SAMPLE 136 ======================================== The fires of their shining trunks, And burning leaves. Houses seemed mirrors to the pavement In the dusky neighborhood, A phantom to the rushing Heart of the morning. The broken-hearted wandered up and down, Too happy to rejoice, Though the world had changed them for you and me, A gracious mystery, Where good fellows are as bad, you see, A devil's miscalculation, Yet the patter of the winter rains Reaches up through the pavements now, Or deeper than the utter darkness Still is the pity that turns us to knacks. He gives his house away, but cannot sell. At the window of the house his cards wait. Passeroned? And there you catch a glow Of golden hope for other passers-by. And what are the tricks our hearts to sleight, The half-hearted half-graces and lies? All their coy cunning and tricks they put on. And if they fail they play again, All my life long I've dreamed of love. This is not love. This is the way to be wise (The wise man's his own reward). Love for years, like birth and death, Has torn my heart in twain. No help, no man is near, Alone, alone! This love-guarding work has passed its season. Sad room, how long and weary We drag thee on, by this stiffening pace! Man cannot lift his head in thee, And further to himself he's bound. For in thy clouds I've seen a world's dross, And none to which I can go. My past, my future, all are fated to view The bitter sleet of Time's un- slipping swing, And there to-night with bold and free, As above the darkness the morning doth rise, There must my heart, my soul, be free. Have not thy sons, my daughter, (Like me their parent brave) All felt that laws and duties Of nature must be strictly observed, The rule of judgment over hasty speech, And truth from any greed? Have not thy sons and daughters Decorum in house and court, Hast not their nature grown swift, their faith In guileless folk clear as crystal clear? Do they loathe the vile over-wise, And hate the doctrines of lust, They must be true. And what wrong Can anyone come to this? You think, because I forget, On that dear child, who bore so hard, I do not feel your faith? Go and pay your court With bribes of money, with gifts of position, Thy terms shall be obeyed. So goes the race of mankind, Outstripping youth and beauty, Outshining powers, but outliving time, By hardship unharried, By strength of right, by sense of right. I was too young then To know the wonders of earth, And in my youthful years To search for beauty and for truth, Life's purchase then desired, Life's spiritual merchandise, Never enjoined, never asked. In my lonely darkness I had no thought of ways But through the narrow gate Where to advance by turn. The mighty stream, the immensity Of space, the struggling upward, And I think I knew A loneliness as yet undescried, An empty loneliness, So lone I cared not How sweet the loneliness. Out here in midst of town, Rocks war against the gilded buildings, Whose order seems to-day To hold its followers in aloft For as I in the old time looked At all the cloudy weather With wide-open heart. Here in the broad lawn Darkling thunder, there Giant thunder sounds, where trees are shaking But the house is not with an earthquake It is quiet here in the old time With me alone. So, on my hand A fate makes bleak The map of the future map, Through which I'm vainly striving For some air of hope, And ever with a growl Of horror I'll think of one Who lives out here, in fear and woe, Who has seen some things unfold, Who has watched all unfold, Who shall, with head bowed down, With eyes to earth, Watch too late, too late, This one time, this one time, This one, one time. <|endoftext|> My grandsire in the chain-hole wire, And I am his grandsire: ======================================== SAMPLE 137 ======================================== fturken and rive, the fir-tops and fir-trees each with their hew and the purple berries, The ghost of a cat-folk of a barren place, of snow and hail And all creatures they is asleep. No creature knoweth of my damsels, Nor knows where to seek the lady Alcuinne; yet, these things happen, and my heart is bright, and my blood is chilled, And what I tell it tell noteth unto any other. My damsel is of the women that run to covetize, And covetize and be covetize at the last with a goddess high from Syracuse To Atroventa the city of fear, And she hath wit, and skill, and faith and knowledge, And godly and honest; yea, 'tis the divine Heart of Fortune and of Fortune's parts, And pride of men, and the poise of the year and of life, in honor good and faith. Iskander, westering and bright, on the sea is set, On the banks of Ister and the salt tides Ierne, Flooding the town of Periandos, the land Where scathe was bairn! All the dwellers of the land (save they slay and burn, and spoil and burn, or sheep-slaughter; all the rest they Hassanite) turn and look the other way. Woe, woe, is the day of our fate! This the avowed temple of athat makes mockery of The day ofour lord, that which we worship, the first, in peace, as it were, ofour days. Though Fate lauds the sun with tapers and with flowers, And feareth with idle tongues, and feareth in all things, Yet in this we are lief and kind, and serve Out of the hand of the creator. There rose from the dead one Who cried with a shorn voice, In great wrath, 'O my dead, O my dead, Of thy dead, in thy dead go, Bring my body back to my dead! If I had but my dead!' 'T is a light thing, This leaping for joy, To weep for a ghost, That at death's door we cannot touch. If I had but my dead! Thy dead, O my dead, I have loosed thee, And live with thee and kiss thee, In many a land and sea, in many a land, My life all full of thee! My half-told tales of thy dead, Thou tellest me of thy dead, What can I give you of, But tears of purest white, My dead my mother's only son, Her dead that are no more? For me alone, I leave thee, My love of the dead! O my dead, O my dead, Of thy dead, in my life I have met, Tell me a tale, and tell Of all that I can. First went the rain, then was the mourner's sigh From the water in the flood, when a green And lily-clad hill over you Up-soars with the torrent. From the shore Wafted the cloud Where the cow-waits hung their banners thin, So that all the green-amable space Was daylight to the day-beam's green, Whereunder I lay edged for a space, Worn of motion and sunburnt heart, While the shore sloped away, and I was dead. Yet under the brambles, a chine Arose: Where the deep eddying strain on the level lands Had just ended, I stirred in bed, Trembled, the horizon's bottom wore; For a breath riven the boughs, And I woke as one that is stirred. Then with strong memory I wept, As Iestius I'd usued, When the woman and that flower Were but a mournful scene; I heard the pines were a-drawing Soul, unfledged, back to the south, And I rose to face the moon, I saw a leafy retreat To that sweet hillside we left, Our cabin lid. How I shall sleep, how I sleep, how Sleep I! O dearest love, you promise to be My guide the whole day through the wood? And when we lie down, to be our own Wood-guide, wood-gods, night and day? O, tell me, What is't of sound you talk? "There ======================================== SAMPLE 138 ======================================== Yasone's DAWN!" On, against the main, the dusky bark Spasms its prows in lazy sorrow's might; As on ye bubble, bubbling from the hand Of Chance, the act's performance best is revealed. Before the silent minds in wonder's place, They had the troubadoured hero called to view: Whate'er (in chanced) of romance or legend said The reader while he listened, spoke in show. His glory cast upon his laurelled brow, He there stood, a beauteous illusion of sight. The wondrous ringlets of his charms had more Seen than wove, save what had been told, And he was broken in full scene, and rough, More similar to Job's aged bower Than any epic hero of the range: Thought this was Truth, the secret just had gone, His life was in those starry halls admired. He told of time beyond the echo-like sky; A royal birth, one of a hero's blood, A maid to gain, and glorious to attain. He spoke of pain, of heart-enstruck woe One would have deemed a plague from so far away: There wan'd he, 'mid fierce, warm malades, Where the hot Southern sun, a slave to war, With scorn 'twixt his hands hurl'd his blazing brand, That all the world the shade's a ghostly town must seem. Then tears and sorrow come and go; the tale But reads as history now, though fancy's dress Is Fancy's loose; but hark!--his doom was mine! Darkness it is:--and lo!--what more remote Can I desire from yonder still, palatial spot, But the wild life is naught to Fame, and the grave his. He said, "Whence these, then, from the starry height Tempts her advent?" "On its antique road, Where the great fathers from the world descry The solemn way to man's progress through life, It cometh and goeth"--"Who is he, That thro' these shadow-shadows, that so serenely sweet Bestows like wounds on soul, on sense such horrible smart?" Then sudden broken--"Ah, from thy Golden Book!-- These symptoms came of the true genius, it seems, Of the earth-building God, that didst from our Earth inspire: And thus he leaves--then straight upleaps With his kind Kingdom's Kingdom's enigma, To bestow on men's souls eternity!" "To swing from what highest point till thou wert apprized Where now our man-born destiny draws nigh To its grand mystery.--Some grave so deep that is, My reverent eye determines should be Sunken, like the Sphinx's crystal bed. The dead have merited death--the dead and he Do live--'tis the Spirit of Life that keeps the skies!" "Look"--and the brooding gratefully awes --"Arise!"--and 'tis mine to knead that breath of life Up through its mystery, and pour it forth Into the mansions that our thought can home in easily From whence its draughts are,--a vast, rich ocean's floor. "Look" again!--I have for thee a clearer light,-- Let the lamp now with continual burning keep To the centre."--This the Spirit said to me, Then, "Dance the rose"--amid the murmuring throng Of Voices calling and cheering, "Rise!"-- And, in an instant was overblown In a torrent from that central rose, Which the triumphant Spirit thus swell'd,-- "And this my proud new Cause to Humanity Promises an ocean of ethereal gold; While the grim mask of Mongol ban and prison With a mouse-sore on the wall will screen, The mantle of the body's oak-hide cloak, In being's garment, till--the vocal flowers, Sweeping across the nation--rain the sighs of pain." The silence goads, a trumpet is struck; A call the nations in the darkness hears; Whither the Morn on its momentous flight When the broad beams its mass apparent from earth, "Ohow" cry the troubled nations--"I would see Some level--some turn away from yonder height-- Some safety,--where the mote that veils the sun Shines,"--as in mute, insensible amaze The nations wander, wondering where the sun is, And ======================================== SAMPLE 139 ======================================== Could I trace every passion or bad feature That has stained the lives of mankind, I could Excel myself in learning; yet I'm not Wiser than I would be, were I endowed With less temper or with a better mind. Then either fate makes little a mystery, Or else it is a matter of little concern To know the greatest mystery: namely, Why men are masters of themselves; as from this I gather that perhaps we are so because The course of nature is to teach us thus, And that our reason is the harp which strays Out of its proper song, at every moon, And that it fareth so, because each goes Farther in music, not because it toils More or less beyond it. I'm less happy than I should be, If more whole cup out<86.2> its cup With the same spirit. Nothing's true! I do believe it. Are you of it? Of me? How can we Have fellowship, when you won't tell me anything, And I have no hearing for your voice In the same tune with you? You may call me a fool, Or weakling, Or some thing perverse By your blows; but to a man who's a man, They do not affright him. 'Tis hard to say That it is just the same thing! I should be crazed, or you'd make me ill. What's madness in me is ambition in you; In both a love of glory, in neither less Than in me a love of that, in neither more. My guide's A man so much my sire's-- So in the mode of his bearing and his bearing And his very fashion of his wig, That I wonder he didn't decide on a more Contemporaneous octave, Nor wedged in me some simonie Of that laddie's tuning horns and pipes. I pray for the honour of the English race That such simple gems are not more loyal than him, Or him me! Oh, the honour of his sire's name, But the rather is his, for he seems to be More his own, as a fruit for his own kind. His sire the pride of the white folk, and their pride, He that wrote these lines Was conscious of a nameless grief The pain that rage Made him feel; He that talked with a hatter, But the nameless grief of his babe-soul, Or black soul of a being unseen by the world, And that he hit Was so Because he and Reason had fought, And had, therefore, He wrote that he had no shadow of wrong, And forgot the words Of his tenderborn. My brother's name is all of mine, What has he done me? A man to the woman, a book to the man, A fire to the hand; As he went to the fight I went, Like his book, Love that stood, And I think 't is safe with his blood To the uttermost end Of its trial. My brother's name Is all of mine, His name it is the light Of my hope. You shall have no hope If you have no will To enjoy. A light so vast, How can you hold it? You shall not brook My temptations, And I'd have you know, You shall have none If you have no will To enjoy. I am offering, A gracious offer, All my strength You have wrought for the spoil Of a rag, A lap-dog's bone, A dull clay, A far-finished quote. All my strength, With a round-number wiled, You've cheated at last Of the love-trove Which a woman's privily When she is so choleric, Stole with a tipsy talk When she should not have been there; A close be-neck. I'd have taught you better; So it's all yours. Alone she stands, or ever The evening takes. A leper till her death Weaves her night with a point to tear her, On the crest of her full moon-cape Floats her pall, which leaves one tear. Alone, apart, She's doomed, though she may look grand With the flashing of her eyes. Hurry, hurry, the wren's For the food-time with the singing of Little birds who feel, Each a bit of bread; Who up with a crow ======================================== SAMPLE 140 ======================================== And so began the siege of New Amsterdam, In which, by Providence, only three days ended; When, by direction of Ms Frisbie, the heroes two For their advance, together, took their way. The two fellows, whose mission it was to guard The city gate, took place in the greater army; While those two dukes who should avenge the town Sent all their force to put the place to rout. And, as the late oak, covered with boughs, Has done its work, ere its starving spike is struck, And this great tree sinks as it had never been By any human pains, nor would be now, But for her first son's interposing, So, falling foul of their first heart's delight, The Dutch no more wept for New Amsterdam. So in the streets the wretched sires and mothers, With pale faces, to their loss discrowned the wrong, And still remembered the old custom was In their sight, the contrary of all command, Too long kept hidden from their eye this moment, Which, if they had looked on it, had been their sin. Let it be granted to us that they Unbought, from their heritage, at last should break Out of their ancient fetters, and buy Perpetual strength with a compact financial package; As dead, enforced servitude, and retired, their chance This long, long day was entered by their feet. Let the blind lead the blind, and every eye Behold the path, and no blind man get by the way! But when, amid those whose herding every sort Each seamen was a bovine, every bovine Bovine as well every one beside, and every one Wrought to the occasion by the calling which it did, How could one even attempt, or could it be so done? It happened at a turn of the tide that they Of the deep stockman's tenor took note, and thought That such the voice of that sea-backed leader, And would his accord, one among a hundred Had but a tongue of such live resolution. It pleased the city folk that day: good henceforth; And such sound learned mouth was good for more than The dry speech of Lord Broughton or Lord Bramble. Besides, it was a dress that might be borne With the church bells that laid the dog behind; While the red sky, no less in cloud than bell, With its most different content, told of the sun. Then, this very bell, in sheer old oak decided (The oak had wished for so much) as it sung, As if it should forerun the moon. Down to the marble The deep North was a spangled lustresse, Mixt the church front and pavement, and through A vault in its topmost vault; With bowls and censers, golden and pearled, At its altar; all hushed, half-dead, From the solemn drum and tapers rose The day's full anticipations, and hung In their oblique light on the murky glance Of its ablaze inns, that casts upon the panes Fierce profusions of low May, yellow gold, Peat, and amethyst and topaz, right over all In certain, and every bright gem amplified; So overlaid each gem was a blazon Of a sinner's wretchedness and agony Of noncoming; made for each gem its claim To completeness, and each bell its right; Some of them claim, that have been seen by none, Or if seen, only by the sinner's eyes. St. Botrama's bells--ah, sweet to think upon! To think who think so much has made It to be thinkable; for then To have them peal so noiseless, And frowst from their corners of the kane, Like the soft founts in summer less And dew-lidding; with an ampler race, Less or more, to mingle in that blare Which makes men--scared; the bells then caught Upon that stroke of dizzy hearing, clear; Like the clear domino all together. In just such a criésdōntz a-ring As this sweet-slumbered, peaceful space, (Say, where's the Fury now to stand?) Turns its fuming, its ringing; plumes and cyes The pricking bells arch a miracle. So shrill, so clear, that you would swear, all flat, In harm's way, the Fury blew her cheat, Just in and deal; so she, ======================================== SAMPLE 141 ======================================== There were an owl, and I am fit to fly, So you will take him to the tree! But, porpoise, with open palms, Where will you betake you next? A command to me, Porpoise, porpoise, A marvellous crack Of gulls, you whirled, And went into daffodil-land. I heard them call to you, "You are splintering porpoise To front the lords of storm! I was a porpoise, and then a water eel, and now I am a tortoise! Tortoise, and then a snail, and now I am the butt of sport all day for being a hare, For I delight in running after the rich and dainty one! Hunting, and running, and running, Wisdom and fortitude, Puritán and pugboat, To the master whom the bridle is attuned to! Up, porpoise, and greet the good men of the place of torture, and may the magicians make sport of their most superb attempts, and the city garboons blast their mouths with the breath of sinners, that they may cease from their lewd deeds, and the stone impregnate their ears. Whilom they may answer most for their discourtesy, for their sweating and cursing, for their tossing of Gods and devils, and their splitting the chests of your eels, and your failing the race with oaths and vows. But, Porpoise, in my ear as I take my vessel and my paddle from my hands, on the canny text of a fisher, on the odd bit of a kid, on the strings of a bass, and as I fling myself in the best of the swims, I cry out in agony: Fate I will fear no evil, what ever befall, happiest shall be my lot! A child shall claim me with his snares of beauty, with his evil games; And I'll be his pig, his sluggard for eating at the richest boar at the board of a feast! No poet, no song shall avail a word to tell of my coming, my winged voyage! With both breath and tears, I'll seek to dye my scars, in this nobler and grander pastime of my pen, where the princes of all my time shall praise me, above the accustomed hymn of their marches. This will be a day when my chief delight, meant so seldom, shall be all but new, when all is past, and I shall proclaim the glory of my new art, and the final end of my fine prose! Before one has set his gourd in leafy meadows, before a briar begins to bloom, before the rose opens her white cocoons, before the daisies take to summer waters, I shall sit beside my hearth and a tale be told. And a tale of two lovable lads, two harems of boys, whose joy, whose sport, whose song, and one, perhaps, a Lamb: each year one or the other; one with his velvet jacket and his soft hair... One with his shroud, and one with his linen shroud, with sops of song to spare and warm flour, and flowers for his supper, whereof, when neither he drinks nor cooks, he cares not what his fellows eat, but sits with joy in the oven, loving his work as much as he cooks, while the ashes of the last dinner float on the rag of his frothing hand. And over them... Perchance a star shines out, or some silvery water gale, causing them to see the worlds of their flashing lights! What matters one Wolf, or Nine Huns! I who have sung of them, I alone, the better! Now the line is full, the cup is done, What a change, what a midnight face! There's one to take the prince's dispraise, One who always goes first in a long, long line! They shout at the top of their voice; Long may they fill the place! What how shall I do, then?... He... is this whole war to blame, Herman, who let slip His armourer's best to wash his master's feet? O Host of Christ, for whose sake Yet in ======================================== SAMPLE 142 ======================================== O'er the pitiless sea, Where chaos' darksome regions spread Horror-dreams of sleep, And waves all illumined ruefully, Across the strip of Heaven's blue. Myest ye land-dwellers, Voices sweet, that roam about The strange country of untracked space, A small, pure voice, to you as to a gem Has come from the darkling ocean's shores To give me a voice in my own. Bend ye not about me, that ye may To heaven our allegiance match! With longing of awesome joy, And o'er-topp'd with dauntless vision, Praise the Might wherewith I come From out the places unpeopled Where lives life on the sunbeams blest; The Primeval Soul, whose path is unstain'd By vile rule, and the soil of earth! Though I travel far in the dark sky, On ventrem hungered to be free; Though on their heavenly height I survey, And the wide bosom of the skies; And stammer to the self-same tone, Frail as a bird's that tunes in forest glens, And faint as the hand of giddy gondolas; I will give now words yet not weak or weak; I will send one to a score of lands; I will speak in your triumphant ears And on your proffered rimes ore. On somPhotosine or Caribbee Som Lychvis vabur I shall brag; Shanghai or Kinshave I shall tell, Or the sodden legend of Goudon; And must they talke no te mere maF That they should drop a pretty word, And snatch a verb which is their horsse of gold; Or that your finger is a hand full Of rife Latin, and with the blood of Christ; In from the anlexist of Malam9 crisis The world has heard the lang silver sound Of Heralds the out-come of me; Hear the glorified voice which I have groped for Forhired with pains a-tremble in the wings. Hear the soul which has no stirrer Fell from the dreadful heights of the last; And weary sothe sweat no more, For Sunday's silence hath God. Hear the voice, and I need not Speak as in a promise of your feares: Albeit a darkling, rumour may yeeld That I stand on her in a building college, Trees on the porch, and deep arches stownd In the gold-hung roof, and sowther The bass-dault stink of murnot corn, The fine speech carved in the slate, And stooks with the green corall; But the days when I was told to dight When I a-weary walk'd in the wuns. Then she, thy sister, our noble dowht, Whom thou hast twice set up to us With nought but the name of a love, And surnam'd to the world Elaine, Which to the minor Isa forsooth Was half to lower the maid's brow, I would veil my life from shame; For fear that I should seem to deceive Thee, whom I on earth have reigned so high, And humbly were to fore-run. And that thou mayst love me unreavered, And perfectly believe Each thing, and perfectly believe That I shall live verily, Here is one for to be nowise Disgraced, or of many words Far to short, to put an end to this little strife; But she is not only dead, But which in spight of thee, O King, is dead; Which, by the cause of death unhappit, Lay as a vessel with freight fullfull freight That holds sinne full grown, in-warefu' of the root: And as full-growne of his flood The flood grew vete; and as he must Revive beyond his flood againe Was with a body full of life, The which all heedlesse with shame he thus did damne. And thee I write thee dead, who with thy hand First smote thy father's fire out with cold hand When thou didst from the temple protestant draw, So smilest, as when a shy-wayning man Turns his face, and looks with haughty gaze On one that dares to admiration. And thou, and my most cruell brester, I do constitute thine ======================================== SAMPLE 143 ======================================== Spell on my lyre, my King-- Maiden fair and true; Sweet love of my true love-- Though lonely as the dreary sea And full of tears and foam, Or as the grey ocean-rib That's fetter'd with a rope, Where in his oozy channel The great ship rounds a frozen wreck! The wind is out, my own! See how the clouds fly out in rows From the blue point of heaven, Like the merry lads who range the skies On Christmas morn tucking-shrouds, Blowing snow-balls and singing gongs In surly coach-lights by their side. And we're all away, my own! The winds have come back and so must I, And round me a fairy ring Of fickle smoke--I see still Invisible hands at work; For of all those who seem right, Some are turned, but O! but turned in such Blemishes the magic air, Or wander beyond the bounds Of eternities that mock the sense. I have no knower's face, so that it's you Rude folk have cursed and turned in place That 'neath their oglers, mine should puff, Ere I had learned all the lands By snail-like folk in their featherbeds Sweetest and steepest and purest Flow sweetest music, and that you Sitting by the fire, I saw In thought as clear and full of cheer And full of stars a shadowed dome Watched by no eye but the flame that now Lay nigh me and burn'd full hot as lath As though in clouds we saw the gods And smitten like iron 'neath the heavens' When I recall how glimmried the western sky, How the slow lap of rising brought me back Up the hill at the last of summer, That may be nearer now the heart that bled, When the night watch is done, and the great star And the distant mountain cloud-high, eyes of starry night Gleamed through the curtain of deep sunset And--my dearest, I am half at sea And half at joy, for I love you the more Since I can not forget you,--see you yet, Gem of dreams; of which, dream what, 'Tis you I love, yet why me Who now am living, nor can recall Being yet one with you, my first love, You and I then, even just now, one, Yet must we meet in the skies a third time? I'd give up all, since the gods pity all, Not your face, nor for long, you know. You may have turned, and so be mine once more. Hear the cry of man to his man in the street: "This is he, and this--he's OLD. He's a stot, And take him straight to the hospital. I hate Those pansies, I'll have no bell-cats: there's a cat At home who has bigger work to do. See, There's one who's learned English, takes a cup Of coffee to his mouth, and smears it out To 'eat well'; and one who has none, but has to memorize Words which he doesn't understand. One there Is hungry and tired of being hungry and tired!" And I, who have lived it all, answer, "You're young." Flowers bloom in the grass at the feet of the apple tree --And in it the day when the apple tree was felled. And even though the blossoms are blooming, the part that is opposite That the last to blossom is not happy, that is not black. And in its room the blue milk pail's two blessed daughters. Why, love, you are stupendous, and if I gave you the whole of me, You would fill me in the term as it was, How love's alive still in the strangeness of danger, No two terms in reading, the same reason, Reading's pursuit, the same reason for all of them. Yes, love, I've read the Bible thru myself three times, And found it manna of love in a land of doubt, And twenty times when in a trice love was not there Love, what you'll come to in my part of the same book. All so ingenuous and evasive and sincere, Not a word I've ever said has gotten by me, Not once in my sight, but everywhere, at every moment, Always there and back of every thought; Knowing, it makes my head swim to think of ======================================== SAMPLE 144 ======================================== Harpestus that is busy beating! Stand close and pet a gay-stepping Dog That keeps house and fawns upon the Lad; 'Tis a health, and no fault of his; Go, turn the old house-door in, And call to Him who goes on before: 'The great James Howells is here!' My true-love hath my love a-thinking; Aye, faith, it's my love a-thinking! This she said unto me the other day: A year ago, a year before new-moonlight, I sitt upon her couch of darling-snow, And all the fashion of my love is in her house, And the fashion of her love is mine. Yea, I am going back to her home to-night. The full moon shall be my chamberlain, And she shall take my books to show me For a full day and night of love, the best of places To sit and think of love by love in waiting. And all love's wild ways into the night shall lead me. And I shall know all love in its doorways that burns; And all the fashioning of love by love in waiting. I shall know all love's mystery in suspense, When I go back to her and find her mother. When a star fall down, the winter's coming With the snows returned upon the trees; When a boy runneth that has fled; When a lad standeth by a lash, When the father findeth the wealth, When the son dealeth away the long Hand shaken by Fate, When the boy standeth by a lash. When the father findeth the wealth And the son dealeth away the long When the lad standeth by a lash. When the father findeth the wealth, And the son standeth by a lash, 'Tis he taketh the old's gold in his hand, To drink and soothe himself with life. When the lad standeth by a lash, He to earth an instant goeth The father set him by the rope And so fearful works with the lad, As the boy standeth by a lash. When the father findeth the wealth, And the son so fearful works with the lad, To the end of time and limit set When a star falleth to the fen Where the fen be molten away, When the boy standeth by a lash. 'Tis the season of moon, and the chimes Ring in the sun's dark dome; And the snowdrop hangs all a-sway, From the old mole concealed; And the whitest ivy climbing, Wears the covert so aloft, The wild white dew-layer. My heart turns, though 'tis old and the core Of the heart's warm life be gone, Not all the memory of other years E'er meets the soul that now is seen; For, when the earth seemeth beautiful, God's thought may look within our clay, And comfort our blind old heart. There's grief that leads toh (while a star goeth) To where the Child of Peace with his Star of Day Filleth the world and all that in them is; And, dost thou know, Love's early reign had ended Since thy lover passed from the world o'ershaded? And he who heard thee now appears to thee? He, who once in the home of dalliance Loved and taught, at deeds of peace and righteousness? No, no, he taught and slept and dwelt in milky bays; He, yet once more a silence to thy lyres, And another far arm upon thy strings, And on them both to lodge thy voicings-- Thine, late as then the sweeter for melody, Now all alone. Thy lyre now alone Hath learned to weep, to thy fame's distress, And, like the quailing dove, to take in blood. It teaches thee that, were all earth's riches gathered To the treasury of God, and there unapportion'd, There still would be hunger and thirst after gold, And he perish in his lust of splendour at the last; And that whatever is not God is, and none; Yea, what is not--the world's riches (11) found Ever abound in God's mortal need; And that as that One to whose glory stars are made, Their own are all the more manifest, Who beneath that deepest sea was troubled first With the stirring of such deep desires; Who saw a star from out a wave of ======================================== SAMPLE 145 ======================================== And my tresses red with care. See where the Alpine winters, that no grow dark, At whose slender waist no mountain beams, Where darkened Alps flash back those snowy glades On which the Holy Tower and Trebius Breoz Reflect no quarter, flash too the pea-grasses, And the bright Gulf plain, that shears the mountains round. By fogginess of fate made poet And historian and singer. Dum, about my heart,--'twas a word that wrought My very soul's ruin; but 'tis changed, and now-- From whose pale lips the sweetest has been lipped away, Borne through the world as war's mute mouth,--a strain Too now untimely to bury--it reaches me. And what, if in the grave the Thing shall change again, Why behold the beauty. When all is done, and here, after strife, And death, and every bridge between, He who stands above the death-bed, even Ere Death hands him on, says in sobs: "I am but dead, to live is God's decree." And with a mind like this, the light that passes From the face of death, even,--the breath I breathe, which then shall be,--that dream is done. Duped by an idle hero! who let thee Thy Master's blood entwine, a poor marcher, His love to blind the merry king and dame, And lief their mirth forbear disdain. He whom a blush would shame, now breathes God's breath; And dark,--the soul his veil, the body, Husband of earth, would think the air his bone. Enough for me, not as earth revives the rose, On me the sun shall look,--and at a birth Storm's eye shall round thy tomb,--as now, here. And in the air more storm than thunder, Whole nations in the sinless tomb shall lie. And if I breathe--and so it lies to die-- For thee, the world, a sacrament profound, To the things I loved I pledge my soul in death. Waled be the blest for this! For, as I stood, I felt within me love's soft warblings, And from my feet the wine of love fell like light, But when it fled me, then I knew it not, I saw it vanish as the flowers depart, With tears, which, hand in hand, together going, My heart lay in the garden, in that pavilion, To take the air. De Walsdaw, who ruled in this English-speaking land, In those far ages, who, in those far days, Beheld Heaven's sweet light to souls sentenced far, 'Tis our, who love, this to sing! O, why do we paint the sinner's heart, When God's own heart in the mist of tears Is more to us unseen? O, why, indeed, To such forbidden fruits do we subjugate, But this is best of all! For well that old race, in their lowliness content, Which God himself made not. How many of those trees and that light of theirs That, in our back-woods, by the sea, we long for, How many of those woods and flowers we wish to change! Yet, as the radiant sunrise comes to them, A sweet and hazy light, It melts the air And, shining around, Is like the morning's baby hand. When France was France no more, We found that still we loved to praise her And breathe her name, And hail the flower of her lovely bent, Which, though she was sought, we could not have; But, seeing our England wane and grieve, Where then should we chiefly look? Not there alone, O thistles, blooms the glorious thistle; Ah, not alone where gently swell the flow'rets That break at rounding suns, As heaven's white-sown children they Forth from earth's inmost hills Outspread to bless the world's end. Not all the dewy quires that fill With incense sweet the court of love O'erflowing with amulets red, To keep the dead youth's sweet home, And tame the living love-fire; But there is no decay Nor any ending for us here: The thistles spread forlorn, the flowers decay; We fade; but the sod the day Holds our green hearts ======================================== SAMPLE 146 ======================================== ia the price that we paid The policeman who shoots a rat Now this is quite too much for me It isn't fair at all But he had a card so he got away I don't give a fuck And the beetle crawls The policeman breaks in The helicopter pilot cuts loose And the camel enters the picture This is an awful lot I didn't know the taste of But I have got to laugh at the prospect This is civil defence A lot of men with big guns Whose food was denuded trees Slaughtered cows and caught fish I couldn't bear to lie down at night When it all began Now they say the caged animal Still a little time is left But he wasn't very well He got worse and then he was dead The horse has been gassed So he comes back to life And now my nightmare, of course, is over I have had a miserable time of it What is it all worth? Nothing at all Who can say they have had a satisfactory night's sleep That something which they call love Was told, or Forgotten soon as spoken NOSTLAF This I do believe I dreamed The sea was my destination As I ate more and more Of the surrounding sea I dreamed for a time Of all the various creatures In sight And thought for a moment Of where we might meet In the land <|endoftext|> "Eating a Waterfall", by Francis Lau [Living, Nature, Seas, Rivers, & Streams, Mythology & Folklore] The map tells you this cave was where the water must have descended, for a hundred feet thick, from the floor of the cave. But the sides of the cave have been eaten away by moss, and a red grown over the green rock in the shallow pool; a leaf had set upon the edge of the slide, hanging horizontally, like a trigram, slowly falling and falling. But of course the water came down, that was what the map said precisely and then it is turned into a sort of mirror. It is not necessary to be able to see or even hear the sound to believe in the likeness of an uncanny missed opportunity. The gift of the map is that, in some respects, even though it says otherwise in other ways, the legend of the Fall is not legends, but the rise of what we seem to know and yet are missing from our minds, the things we would for sure have known but wanted to know without having anything to do but look. <|endoftext|> "Insomnia", by Francis Lau [Activities, Eating & Drinking, Nature, Animals, Landscapes & Pastorals, Arts & Sciences, Poetry & Poets] Small. In the morning A duck pondering Her dream-inflected Pluck. Snow To keep up With what the very Pale will have At that hour. This lake, Are you aware Is Designed for sleep Among the ritzy Crowned Coffee-soaps. Who knew The cilfee-soaps, Coffee, this lake, Which, with its numerous twiddles Greet you as you pass, Mistaken for clouds While here I spit, Somewhat mistaken For The cilfeathers Which Reecho along the sky A glance to forget I can so easily Afford That I never forget Even That I never Say good morning To the beech But Which, at times, have Refused To Come Asleep So that in the slow Raveling dusk My thumb can discover Uselessly That, even so, the fall From her, so freaked The rose And rammed the moon The red, scalloping rose of the moon up and sinking In the top of the rose bush; she, in the distance, Worryingly stealing the bright hawk's Contemplation from the black swan's And cawed by its very distance In vainly pursuing This dreadful sky-wise fashion, With great hood Of A morning heron. <|endoftext|> "Peru. 2 August, 17OP", by Francesco Celi [Nature, Landscapes & Pastorals, Arts ======================================== SAMPLE 147 ======================================== "When that awakes,--nay, when, When thou dream'st of waking, thou canst dream Of waking!"--Ah! and can'st thou ever wake Of truly saying farewell? O, never! while that silent smile Is on thy lips! O, never! while Thy life around thee whispers "Live," Thou--he--for whom no tear Of anger could reach, no word Of irksome sadness live! Ah, ne'er! ah, ne'er! while the brow That in thine eyes so long has been Is now the brow that once was thine; While to the hands that raised thee down Thou art in the death-lap of the departed-- Long, long since thou wert a green-wood! Ah, no! for he is in the air His coffin-lid will yet seal his place 'Tis a face--the angel-guard have flown With the imperishable star! And now upon our frail fire-night O, thou art laughing thro' the smoke-flue, Feeling the cool breeze that stirs thee round Far from where, a fair young form is waking, Where, by the drum, the apparelling glows Of the bright Chapel flashing golden light, And the sudden plaudits of the star. What hast thou seen that wakes in thee that heart Whom, crying "Hosanna," death would hold still? "Come," thou sayest, "what naught have I found, But the arms of peace, thou sayest, wait thee there!" Alas, not so well-opened is the gate To life as our in open war! Thou sayest, "Come and let me dream again! See what this meaner boon my old bliss yields!" Alas, my fire is past that time doth make, And thou--that askest, "Come and come again!" And when the flame among thy budded orbs shatters, Lo, thy soft tears are the wintry stars, that glow The stars of hope, and show where grows, in faint extent, New leaf on leaf; the fragrant woodlands of rest. Ah! and when light of bliss has crossed the gloom of death, The infant mould who, while on earth she seems to live, Grows up with her young wings outspread, Rests and hushth, and rests, and she is lost! "I saw an Angel!" the little queen said, "And, to declare my wonder, if I said, What Angel it was that doated above To punish the earth for some petty fault, Of those first setting forth that year on which went down To wicked round, or warring with the sun, From whose fluid state there came the inky sea." She looked and pondered at the white brows that bent From the tall visage; and then she saw, in reserve, The waxen crown, the law pure and trebly blessed, Which those around the altar gathered to display From the arcs above; "Lo! here the mighty souls Whose pious works, in their royal mansion, Did heavenward bow for holy city, or betide To secure from impious stir the head That pours their blood, both crime and grace--ah how These crowns holy, and hymns of heavenly kings To many a saint!--Ah, I saw not those holy heads To whose was thrown the crown of martyrdom, All too pure and just for earth's woe!"--"Sooth, sooth," the child said, "This play was many a season; and even I Lit with the sun, while gazing on this earthly scene, Was both enlivened and inflamed with sense of what "By thought"--"Like a dream"--"This view"--"What, dream?" she said. "In every mortal life there runs a day, A transient yet all-creating day, "From unripe, immortal mind--so was it in mine." While yet the sun, that year by year, saw out His last, youthful day, when as he sank low His orb, the earth threw open, and he found For all the lapsed, wasted years, to be One single orb of his new span; that day From whose uncertain fires of birth betook him To birth as pure, as was the molten globe On whose flamed axis he first framed his path: Then as, amid the mighty throng That did his light survey, that same day was spent, In solemn festivity. Even as his ======================================== SAMPLE 148 ======================================== (amazed that any were shown at all!) The mountain is thickly timbered from base to summit: The stones about it are of the dark green color of oak: The summits are green, with green tassels and verdure: A green of silence is writ large on the top Of the airiness of forest; and in such mode, It seems a gentle letter which tells you to be still. There was never a sapling at the foot of this mountain: None in the field, alder or beech or cypress, bough: None near it, and none without it, on the mountain's side: And not an echo in the clear earth, nor in the sky. I shall rise and go forth to the field and wood in the morning, In the hot season: there I shall find at a single throw Something to cheer the minstrel in the play Of the lark, when the pale green fuchsia wakens from the alp: On the prim twig, in the green wood I shall find your eft; Or, in the cool morning, I shall hear the grey flute; In the noisy uproar of the village, I the shelt'ring flute; And, in the still evening, I shall see by the moon's white eyebrow Your fair white face looking in the lamplit porch; or the street lamp Is lightened. Shall I be summoned to come and take your hand? I said: "Tell her I take no notice of men; but if I should die to-morrow, Jane, I will come back and abide With the cows later." Then she suddenly struck the river. Then: "Why so? Men are insufferable-minded!" Then: "Tell her I take no notice of men!" And suddenly I had neither hands nor feet: But you gave them a handful of my robe and tunic: Then: "And be your troth annulled--we now do feel on." The dying have words, when it comes to be revealed What they once have will by them delivered. He rose and said: "I love you, dearest to me; The sense of your presence is sweet: if you loved me, You would come to me to say so; you would not wait Until the next weekly-search for you. Say so. You say so? Is that so? O then, I must skip When the first wild bird chaunts "Kongo" at the pause of day, Like the first-born "Kongo" rang "Mbube" to my ear, And your presence was so near; and I saw the hot sun Behold, the sapling-stalks of your forest whiten, And in the palais the bride, whose frontlet I loveliked so With "Besoune a la Figaro." So we were wed, And my home is by the great lake, where other "Kongo's" Are nigh. I shall return, but not by way of the dances. I was abroad--not you, but an hundred times a day-- Where that Yankee reporter Belmonte mapped and surveyed Or floated, the wild rich clover star of a day! I was abroad, yet I found a home here for the lost life of the single, the solitary-souled, The Lord's dealing out his justice; but there I found the blessed heart's home; the blessed heart's pools for the homely; there the tapestried coverlets Blent invisible across my home, until the ear, The erudite heart's unobscurled. So I will pluck the hoary stem of my tree: I will wreathe the oak leaves in a grass of white bloom: I am "doubed in rouge," for my homely white-looped soul Has that rouge upon it that's "doubled in part." Beware-- Betray not to me; guard from manslaughter my pride! Like a brown dervish at the dawn of the day, I rode through the spice fields, with my spy-eye Ever upon the lookout for a pash of red; But I could not see a patch of red in the shades, Or sight of a taupe or vest of "pearl" blue: For the mellowing groves that I passed through Were of that green between the distant green Of goldenrod and the turquoise of the dulse; So, when I reached the house, I said to the maid, "O Salamie! will you set me on the door ======================================== SAMPLE 149 ======================================== He glided like a soaring flame, and as I read the lines he told From the brush-side, the light was as if he had In his motion what I saw pass in my eyes and in my mind. When lo! I saw the Water-Nymph in the Wilderness Carrying on her lap a still-born calf! Her daughter there, and Adam tying The shining locks. (What spell is that which makes The grasses droop, When I come to me when I is putting My ashes in the ground,) The yet-born one Took from her, and stoopt The freshly-blown babe, And sat down to play with her, Laying out twigs For it to hold. That's a true heart, and a strong, too, I ween, To draw to her the weaker and the lower! The blessed Spirit of Jesus Lifts up before her the gate of death, For some fair token of life eternal, Or some sweet reward of a cheerful hour, Or till the dawn of that fair resurrection, Which still, Adam, lights the solemn night in thy mind? "Blessed, but made sad With infant crying, And precious breath to pay the toll Of her aching gums. Though little she would bow her little brow, And swaying not, to obey, Her shrilling voice is weak, And, though it makes her heart to tremble, Yet for the babe alone! "And that would make thee sad, Adam, is there not a child, And a mother too, In every age and clime, Thy sympathy to ease? And oh! that mother's bliss Whose love for ever more Brings thy restored age To her dark task,--to her satisfaction; That bliss, Which an eleven years' long life Shows ne'er better than a mother's) Which an eleven years' life Shall give thee, Adam, I fear, For a still greater woe; Yet still the nearer thou doest that age, The nearer thou dost to return." And, looking on the milky babe, Thus Eve by the apple smiled. That it might see the like and wealth, He gladly held it to his eye. And, lightly stamping the ground With impatient foot, He left the watering place, While Eve from her unseen retreat To apparent despair was fled. Was not that smashing, Eve, beneath thy rule, Which of thy merits did appear The most aghast to be mocked? 'Twas the high power of thy heart, Which heav'nly as the nature it self So much condescended had That aught but flattering to thee Were thought a duty. 'Twas the gentlest outward sign Of highest gratitude thou mightest do, To borrow a text from heav'nly art, Or borrow a heart from out an angel's protection. The nicest and the purest Of that paradise, Which knows no tempter's wiles, Was then thy welcome and thy best; For he appeared in whose clear trace God worked, though sleep and slumbering, there The transitions of the upper air, And sorrow, doubt, despair, had no part. Now, with the babe on breast or feet, And no repenting, - and whether The clod was more of delight or distress, The sleep was fit or the waking life, The ease or the pain, His eye would follow thy whereabouts, Nor stay one hour of its voyage! But sometimes lighted with a ray Which showed a saint of the brightest and the last. She would not be asked To change her for the world's, But listen when he pleas'd; And follow her sole way, Or run to her in the wood. But when in her best abode, Nay when in a cottage, she was Not always seen with the babe on bosom, She was as pure and as purer As the Purest of the Angels. Serene and worthy of love, Holds Mercy in her bosom; But for love's sake and her own A love, without alloy, 'Twixt her and all, And in her rendered not offend. And, when she works, or when she sleeps, There is in these sweet rules More of mercy than you will find In other saints' testamentaries. A work, "printed" with grace, Which she hath brought to the best, Is, in these lines, to the best of verse, A highly commend ======================================== SAMPLE 150 ======================================== Root deebies. No- bury me, yet with entombing- And they're right, My flesh, my face, my empire, my heart, my wandering now Hides all, and on their bone I no-hold. I need not they can look on me, though I crouch at some poor bones I pile There in the earth, the grey earth, the clay- dark earth, when, as when, it would breathe Vapour on a wound, some fire of us Speeds my soul up to blind godhood. Leaning me 'round, one cheek on the other Whispered what that voice had foregone. 'Tis right, 't is proper; yet how I bless Thy music to whom, a child, what spoils Of love? Half of all these loves, yet unnoting Which are thy limbs; the angel-dust which Thou dwell'st in; that vacant face with Whose its life's flame is of my life's This face of my body. I knew, I had not known it; but this Thrilling sweet night is waking me more To the dull throbbing spirit of it: black is The eve, as black goes on brooding, deeper It goes, and hark, How the quick hands are clambering from Ah! how I know that music, which Is never with smooth notes of pleation, Mouthing the muezzin of tombs. My soft lips sound along the ways of art More drowsily than in the words of the gods, And in my heart deep silence has lost For all the young draughts of courage that it Speeds out in the face of the dust-wall's bloom. Dry your eyes, or they will light on mine. Lend your ear so they may sing As, there, where dewy eyes grow dim, What is it to be? O, what Art, my soul, is that which so touched Your spirits, O, what is it That made you wake at this gleam of light, This leaping flame of the world, At this white rim of your heaven-covering Her where he stroked of hair? Was it that thing, this beauty so vast, Wherethrough I have seen the master of The world at first unclose the womb Of his first breath and thrill, When the white lattice of the forehead Of the face of the dawn draws close? Was it that? And that he who did entwine His flesh in the bones of the fawn Whose fresh limbs he tore asunder To make his future lyre-- Daft to the child that feel The babe beneath the mother's breath? O, for the joy of the earthly heaven It were the sweetest thing of all! But still my blind eyes are blinded; Nought but the immortality Of all things else I see, And all these hours which seem spent In the strength of that one word, To me seem but the sluggish years 'Twixt successive day and night. When the world grew old, the son of it Was still strong, the son of God, as yet, He, the creature without sense or touch, Self-poised on his spirit's vantage, Rose from the land of freeless things. He stood up whom? The wan God who rules This life we give to his father, death. Then was he worse than death, worse than hell; Now he is well gone, near gone ere he be dead; But by to-day we who knew him here, Why hast thou cast abroad of His grace All the humblesyre of men? What thou couldst not entomb forever, They lay him up, their humility. Where lay the God of His avowals gone? Ah, you crows whom his presence filled And marked Him daily, why you know not! He, the fluttering cousin, at His side, Had still his minister; From the blue-locked vale, To the lamp-pillar of each house, He called them to his banquet table; Whence in whose shadow, Which caught each small inhabitant's eye, They caught the warm and scented wind. He could be heard Where rapped the door of sleep, And still the children knew him there And knew the fragrance of the flowers Which His presence gave. He was the God who scorned Who drew the first of flowers to Him And picked the night-savings thence. He was the God who sat apart, An humble ======================================== SAMPLE 151 ======================================== , to feed thy fancy, the more: Thus far the only Art we neglect That makes good men good, and the devil bad. A sordid time of manners, when nothing good Was seen but sin in all features blended, And vice was rampant; a prodigious tavern, A prodigious sober-house! Ah! let us drink! I was a sigh and song, and thought I had found The key to hearts, when I admired Cassio's mask: I'm sprightly, witty, and fancy-free; My digressions, and especially my jokes, Are like the river between the second-greatest sea Hailing but inland, and the country pretty For amorous reason a ripe, easy conquest; I like to name and shame the folks that do wrong, And stain my honour. This temper has its fruits. I err, but I err when I do not know My sense was at its full, and my sense at its may be: It has a double sense: the outward shows Are true as evident, but my heart is true To a most diff'rent standard. Truth, beauty, fame! All those endearments plump for mine or take My sense: not the worst that's contained within, But finest, truest, best, the innermost springs That ever came out on earth. Let's have a glass! Albeit his mask soon forgotten, His pleasant cavalier vest he walks away, And, eyeing like a reveller the green boughs, Walks up at last into the glowing hour, From coinage of sweet and sultry air, And feeling warm, in his porous vein, the moist That, in so many souls, was made a spring To flow and frolick, and make him merry. But see the youth, now gliding softly through That well-attuned music; all his blood Exhaling with delight the breath draws back, And the limbs all graceful to move, and run In easy measure. No want of strength Had Swift's heart, so like to the chase. His eye, No less than sight, wishes to behold the creature That runs so merrily by, and almost, But oh! what a moment is the run! Then like a burst bubble, of the liquid human World, a soft and metamorphosed creature leaps Out, triumphant, under his own perfume, Down, and foaming, panting, strikes along The glimmering pathway, glassed in velveteen, His human countenance bathed in rainbow. This is the sense of man. All the rest Surges into sonorous accident, Faintly aperpetual protest, prompt to smother A gift of strength, or heighten of a blush, Fills with his scanty light our shrinking firmament Always with violence of ragged night That lingers, like the weight of ghosts that pass, And falter and come up again. When I remember that I am said To have been a pupil of his, in thought And thought only, and in habitual thought, And the two phrases I have found most fraught Are those of his which mean that man is boy And that he swiftly shall become that, Which the same Master taught, when he said: "The man is not more than the doer." Once we were walking in a forest dense And feeble light, on a pathway broad, When the sun sank and the terrible moon Rested in heaven. And if a word Of man's strong power is weaker, thought Beholding his full strength and present will, I say the moon and the sun Have marked us out for more than we are And they their marks have written in gray. <|endoftext|> Expectation and delight, Like bloodhound bay doesn't give To sudden bugle-hounds Their sudden catch From the last safe tree; Expectation and delight, Like moonlight falling through The atherborn dark, Do not fail To bring to eve Their full control. Tentacles, with hurry of Heads that cling To man's heart, Have he heather lilies Which throng and clamber, With men that bear Their bells that ring So gaily in air; Some under the day, Some under night Exult and sing To the moon's blue eyes. No passionate snowstorm, No spring freshness can freeze Our hearts of sin, No autumn sun can fall Off sky so white, Our sunless ======================================== SAMPLE 152 ======================================== In an oblique quarter of the sky, An ear of corn, and fields and fields of corn, High over every town and great country town And bien mein' city, hills and towers, A noise of hoofs and wheels, bell-clinks and shout, And rumbling engines with their panting thunder, And the tramp of sentries on the Railway, Bouwen's stamp and the stamp of Bouwen's limit, In a circle wound, by the river and the pit, Where the river bursts its barrier and spreads out. In a white wall of oak and grey slate the clock, Melted in the furnace of the sun, Melted to fuses of uranium and sparks of gold, Melted in the furnace of the sun, Fused and shot through with colours and oils, Of grail-dust and crony-dust and centre-dust, Melted into fissile and brittle gems, Melted into gold and molybdenum, Melted gold and carminus and cedarel, And zinc, that a mill-weight will fall short, As ten to one stakes yon woods through To cast the gemmet of yon bright wheel, The magical golden Sun, that turns Blue-black when the gate of the lake is open, Black as the blaze of the furnace-blast 'Neath the breath of the bright flame yonder, Under the blaze yon giants anoint, Glittering with sulphur, above the blaze, Or, dark with sulphur, when the glow Is melted to fume, when the furnace Blooms are parted by the glow, From mouths of flowers. In the winter the bees are with spring Gnashed with gold, In the summer by bitter, each one follows Each other, most sad, each one, in the breath Of the great tree, Or yet aloof in the grass, Gnashed with gold. Or otherwise in the sun They grow and live, and their own life is broken A little as with a chisel, and part With this base, from that, and form, or super- nal essence, While they breathe their sap to the great Tree of life, And the flood flows over, and the tree presses in, And it flings up on every side its roots. Melted of old it rises to the skies, Melts its white glory to the gold of noon, And in the blue, no sound. The sun is but its face, the sun is ripe, And layeth in the blue-sea of the great fire As when the elder molten out, And has crumbled in the gold, Sunk back like an age. I see in its way the face of men As it were, like hermetico in a cloud, An awful flower, the FACE OF GOD, With the terror of the rich forests The-scowl on each side. The horror of the length of the sun, The torment of the setting sun Are we. Oh, the summer waves are roaring 'round us! Are there death-knells on the heart. Oh, the sea is shouting to us! Is a thousand-year-old tomb for us For the land 'twill roll us in, A desert where the heat Is as in a flame! Who among men uttered the word, "The strength that sustains us is strong naught That comes below," Of the loneliness of all life that bleeds In the muck and the storm, and the roar, The strong waves sound like voice that calls us. In the day-dash they faintly speak As a far-off living voice may call The stir of a creature at watch In a grey pool of dew. They have seen the light in the distance sink, And in the width of the water-dark Cast a shadow like a tent For your glad-eyed face. The wind is raw on the sea-moor, The foemen from the waves are gone, The strong winds of the North are cast Like broken arrows where we sleep On the fierce forest-beds. The strong sun-shakes toss the white hair Of the glen and the grey pools From our tired eyes. "There is winter over us, Like a watcher on the walls Who sees the day-light shift. Here, in the river's flow, His face is framed On a faded battle-ground Like a lost king's." "And the night shakes in the river, Like the bending cities Clinging ======================================== SAMPLE 153 ======================================== Farewell, dear friend! farewell forever, To your proud palace, where the glad proud feet of a Prince are no more to tread the sunlit spacious way of The Commonplace, Before the rude-masted ship that is fate, Strips the sands, and in the charmed drum's sound Loud and far its call Scores like a drumhead's knell to the dawn's Strange fluting, wanderers, wanderers, The waste waves whelmed with dead men's bones and beach weeds Like the joy of a kingdom, from mountain to hill, Drift-like, wanderers, like the sail in a storm, O'er which the Winter shall hisz' for an hour Scatter a feast to those that sit roundt the board If any on the desolate sand Wander forth from the city-walls of their home. Those in the sun, who, being as the Sands, Feasted from morn to morn, now loose their hold Are cast on the inter-tangled writhings Of the long-hulding gnarl-dyes, whereunder, surmised of late, Faint-currents wind, Dying still, like spilt-out iies in a pool of dark flood, Float at last, Chattered, scattered, left for the whosettops to skim. God in his madness left them to the wild man's fears. Pilgrims, captives with priests, murderers on their shields, Ruined like kills by the tempest's law; To the steep rock that o'erwhelmed the sunset Exultation flung the gold of their cities, Lives that had not grown by the tame light Up to pride of the shrines, but grimly held in thrall Still in their joyless triumph knew the crime. The hills are oped; where where the once-tall oaks Rose mid air as a plume of innumerable clouds Gleam dull gold, wind-bewet with a comely glory, That roam far, wild the places of their pastures; Turn up the sponge of their quivering breaths, for thus All strength and joy of the fields are turned to dearth. Who yet still love with those same grows that lift Man o'er man, and the blood throb in the pulse of his face. So may a woman, who roves 'mid the fields, Stray through fields and fields, and the sun-creased roads; Be of their fond delight, nor cease to grow, nor cease Love her and be glad in her, nor fear to bless her And to feel in the joy of that love, rapt as of old In the uplands where the days fall as they may. Life for the worshipper, and death for the friend, And the growth of the earth from the dream that glows to the bond's Welded into flesh; Hearing from the walled city as from a mount Like the far bell in the tornado's mouth; Crackle and chaff; the money that comes in to the pockmarked governors' palates of the rich; Hurrying to and fro, away from the shell and the clink, From the quays, from the churning wharf, from the anchor and salt; With the match for the mainship, the ready light for the coal, Whatever that, for whatever that takes care; With the fore-fronted madness, the open misery of a kiss; Hearing the same deep, hollow music of the seas As they rang from the mouth of the streams, on from the sea-weeds; Breathing it in and with it in the breath of the sea; With the heart of the hill From the gully where the clover-hedged horizon Wanders with the sunset To the place where the little hands float in pools, To the dun dust-cloud that holds the coast-lights of night; O to feel the air Where, as the track in the rain, Struggling with the twisted iron, Glances over the scene, and the road lies bare. Fearful is the sea Where below lies the tangled surf As the bitten frog Of the nights of the toilsome dead; Rise with the ring Of the surf that leaps against the wind, Suck in the hounds ======================================== SAMPLE 154 ======================================== i do like you i hope you ll grow up to be how the f—k you like your style never seen one so fine love your queen leonine i think she’ll be alright i loved you once i was just like you i like you 3 i can’t be cruel i have a tendency to be violent and wanna bite and scratch see you in spains and stan. <|endoftext|> "wax andane other pets smells" let’s make a playlist of  junk music i can’t make up music alone i’m the only musician on this junk playlist spices & incenses i sprinkle on wet sand & call it music pour some tea i can’t refuse back in the day i made this playlist & this is what i played first song of my choosing back in the day of my choosing she put it on her own never mind the scratches just scratch it & Andane in both ears peel away the paper of my choosing beware of ordering too much in, say again, back in the day of my choosing me again me again there was a rustle before the lines she can’t recall the name of the dog that they show on their screens here i made a playlist i make up once for me every minute of every other minute the stages of desire are well known to me each dream i’m in i make up for my dreams elsewise i wake up, cut off from me it’s a mess i was just talking about back in the day the tricky nature of music every five minutes i feel trapped back in the day i talk about music in a vague way & you should know back in the day, the tabla was playing meadows tabla is ancient music for me the cracks came at the end now everything is faded i stand at the mirror & i see the woman trying to tune her tanned legs to a rhythm one of the singers in my family pauses in another pose without the dornness of faith taking us to another world <|endoftext|> "jacarande", by Vali Troop [Living, Death, Nature, Landscapes & Pastorals, Spring, Trees & Flowers, Social Commentaries, History & Politics, Race & Ethnicity] juveredude 2014 for all the claps on my bare left ass for each pussy in a new garden of vroned quince and rosetrees and autumn cuckoo son of a bitch if the worse came to then the blamer wouldn’t last a day then i’d climb into the leadbegathering kit and be like i’m here i bout time i’m about time lord have mercy on this earth so many naked bodies so many naked cherubim naked postures as thin as my wrist all so horned flesh of dove winging their shapes wreathing to the night that’s jabbechi by the cedarn mill how the fuck should i feel when the bell rings cries from the jesery west and says son of a bitch then i’d know i’ve made it son of a bitch i’d be so proud to be born i’d thank god like of the bright humming sun to tell me of i’d bow down my head by the flowers of gilkeya i can see it like here come the cherubim & they sing a new  song & the day is turning & i feel it coming & i want to be a cœurrier & show my son my new feather & i say come here son tell him this song & the birds are sounding & i say if the noise all be one the time will be a lot better <|endoftext|> "beaver camp", by Karen Dynan [Living, Growing Old, Life Choices, Nature, Animals, Seas, Rivers, & Streams, Social Commentaries, Crime & Punishment, Money & Economics] The topsoil and creek water lift; it’s a marvel of nature, and also the topsoil is moving, and the submerged tree trunks below my ankles, thick with sap, lifting from that ======================================== SAMPLE 155 ======================================== The main with small stars and rays of gold Plumed its sea-like breast, And in the dark of the pale purple sea, Was heard the aged wave recede. The skiff that carried her boat and me Knocked on the shelter of the shore, For the waves knelt with their million terror, And said: "Bring hence the maiden, bring her and me To the heart of some deep unutterable sea!" But when I saw that wave, whose the sun bore light, A rose-lip, a red rose, whose ruby bloom Had drawn tears from the sea's great darkness, Enfolding me at her beck, I said: "The sun, I know not why, doth bring me here To the heart of waves; and yet I know not why, To her heart I must orang-ut-ca. Heed not this counsel from me, nor regard My speechless weakness, for her kiss is sweet. Tho' the sun, and this world's guardian I, Had lost not her heart while helping mine on-- Or else I should be very weak indeed, And yet I had but praise for gain Who has not brought me, albeit but in a dream, The sea-side and a tide's edge to the heart of me, And though a void pavilion, flung in the sea's face, Hated, and austere, and cold--yet sweet I love. The morning glows with golden fires; The autumn fields are mornless and grey; But the fore-knowledge of these things Is softened and made feeble now By the memory of days immortal; And her I longs to see is silent, For she wears the flesh that he has worn. I did not know when she went from me That the love I have had I would tare And knot and clasp and bite and rend; For her love I would do anything, And therefore will my work be undone. And though I break faith quite often, Yet, as there's no more love, I will not. Thus, therefore, I break faith, and gladly would Have made of her, if he could, a wife; For, though, of men, he seems to have known. He takes to wife the woman of his life, Aye, in a kindly way, in a wise, And comes and stays, and kindles fires forever In his heart, where little lances stir; And she to his arms, when she is wed, Will be wedded to his blood and nature. O better had I been loth to wed And wounded by her absence, had she come; But it was not well, her face should bear me ill, And so I vow me in my service past To be infinitely her debtor, That when she comes home, and seems most bright, 'T will do my best, as well as I can, To make her heart what she makes me, sweetheart. Would that time should stop, and then My words were power! But no: and time is always cruel; It ever changes her! With a nod to outward care, For her the street-lamps are connected, With a finger to her ear; The effect of her dress Comes, her word often changes A mill-stone, a bridge, a bridge-watch. There is no house or window With a more laconic face, No hand more practice With perverted touch Of awkward itch, Nor any one With a more insipid fashion I mean: If it had been mine I would not have acted Had I known the deeps Of thy unfathom'd mind! Nay, go, say thee, Thou art not here; I will not see thee, I have not thine affection to deal With thy presence, And I shall not be able Or else to deceive. Yet, unhappily, there's one Whom puts a part in me To bear witness for me To things beyond my commission; Who is a schemer and a swindler, A supporter of misery, A poet in thought and deed; And the honest song is not so loud Which is sung only by him. F. If you think that after years of separation Love lives and lasts There's need for no cure In hope, in rest, in cheer, Which else would come to you If Nature had stamped you for her service; And after years of separation Two longed-for friends should quench their life-blood To beat the ======================================== SAMPLE 156 ======================================== Gulf canal, figure-eight turnpike through Detroit. what would we do without you <|endoftext|> "Freedom of Consciousness", by Steve Rotherham [Living, Health & Illness, Arts & Sciences, Philosophy, Poetry & Poets] Going along with it That's the problem These objects do not aspire to be loved. --W.H. Auden The eyes under a blue wreath of smoke Racing around the pitiless fire While waiting for the breakdown From the volcanic past of the pitiless Lord God of the heavens. The pitiless fire Sweeps to its born stars above. A slit of fire that watches all. Dips into the fiery pit And smiles. The fingers of a sieve Desire the smoke in its fruit. Both cold and hot in one. It is. It is. It is. Beating the flames with smoke Of blazing admiration. The hands of a man in a shop Seem to grasp in vain A pack of matches. There is no end of the fire. No way out of the fire Though some wood and smoke Could stop it. Your fire will do. And you will go along Because the world's gone mad. The marvels are there For you to seize And stoop to. Out of the depths of the wood, A hollow roar of rushing air, Sudden howl of pixy and hag Whose tall shadows snagged them there By the gate to night. Holding the gates of the damned. A fiery slick of a kind of smoke Waiting and glowering to be. But how else to be. The life of the mad. An ever pushing out and in Of the upons. A glimpse of the future is the spur To the perspiring effort of life And to the unbuilt plan To organize the mad and the yet to be So that the time slides by And the unknowable marches on. Though the yet to be and the unforeseen May blind the senses, not us. Life is scar. It is scarred and hard. The mind, all its fire out. It is the vicious termite Clinging and building From the muzzle up, Like a house that is the better for Existing in mud. He is a giraffe. Vain. The lips to be pouched They are puckered. And the fire has gone wild. A gray inlay, a stained glass, a rose Dyeing the glass-- A ruined flower, a grain On the hard to be and to be done New termite town. A pathetic and pitiable sight. As you say. The lids grow puckered and stretched. These terrors of the unbuilt house You think they'll be And the yellow moon. You think they'll be helped By the warm hand of the woman The artist saw in the glass-- A glass you don't see Ever a blossom In the stained glass-- Never a rose For the little march of a sun-- Out of the deeps of the wood The unseen wait, Dug by no human eye, Until the calvarial rains, The flying long-rain, Awesten on the mocking river. No man has seen her either. The dreamer and lover, The freer than winds, The born worshipper of spells Or of some vague God, The born outlier of men. Till the green trolls in the hills Had sucked from the depths of the wood Tresses all as they are, The walking born At the dripping end of the thread Uncoiled to burden the troll Of the flood that flows out of the woods. Skeleton of a body, a soul, Half crack and more crack, In what god would she choose? Most like a whale she looks. The dreams of her eyes-- A whale she has dreamed. A soul on the body. Her hand is full of things To do, And nothing she says. Half gone her soul To what lies below. Drowned and black she sinks. In the days that are, To back her dreams. To make of her own soul A claw And a chain, To dig a road. To dig a road, A way to go, Across the hundred-dead-meeting-field Of hundred-dead feet. To cut the old rope loose and slip The silly ======================================== SAMPLE 157 ======================================== Lōt thou yet the saule so take! In a hollow tree he gabbs and gawks, Gabbles and glances, Where he pukes up the congees of gas. All that deale is his mother-son, All that deale! Liken him unto his Sone! Go to his Den ye weepe, go to his Groves ye wand! Some me fix in Wattles three! Whar Somes weep their wallys away, Whar Somes dye at night by canekness of Wolsey! Some me fix in Solymans three! Whare he gropeth, howe'er his Lugs diest, Mongst whiles Gothic Groves solace bask! Some me fix in Gray's three! Whare his Groat' has been no Nurt, Whare he flow'rs up, dirst of Lulees three! Some me fix in Nimphs three! Whare his Fancie, t' orbes alle, Is a wild speech about. Od'ing' yeilds and warks yeh to haif 'Bove me through Lordis Lictors hands, Whom I hat a board to keif. An'tir wights a word wif yeh heild Whose bail the toorse I call. Niggard an'till me hoot, me bide All this deade like a stone, An' let yeh like me enwith, Mumble-Mouth! See yon you-HBERT guv'm, Like a pat, Mule-Ease? Seasons and Sics-Ihesus, Sometimes the stomach be, And the yeilding-kist yeh rev'red go. So the sick an' deaf, Ye must bear it, Mumble-Mouth! These red roses, make a shrine Where my love may go; Shake there, an' where yer marks the furrow Mumble-Mouth. The day I saw the Devil, With a kiss on his lips, The Devil came to me By the neck of the bull, An' he came all of a timmernin', An' he laughed at me An' I stole, an' I stole An' I stole, an' I stole T'owards Heaven's minnities, (I chanced upon a pigsty, Where a girl o' the more 'Eared the creature, an' a bit Of its hide was my prize, a chimera, A witch undress'd, but for dinner, As she's a disreputable body, So with a knife she is dressed, Said me, an' 'I hate pigs,' This ox-faced thing!) Ye housie-pig, what wot? Ye roosty? Away, alreadiet! Away furrin', alreadiet! He's amo'y, he's at 'im, Them at 'im! In a per-dich idiot posi- tive sort o' way, But, for their aspect, I'll stous A little more obscure; Thus I'll show ye, in a way, Diligent rectory, That a parson, n'er fry! Your heads! each for a candle A-sang! an' a cake for the bender In their proper time! Away, alway! Yis ow'st, yis ow'st, yis ow'st! 'Bout your 'eads;--let them stay, Ye'll buy 'em in a bite. Gie 'em 'angle! Well, I Don't like to be hoked; That's the thing. An' I'll state it plain, Yis ow'st, yis ow'st, yis ow'st! An' 'ave a go o' I'pin's; An', when In you're busy, I'm busy, I won't be afeared; For I'll rid you in time. Yis ow'st, yis ow'st, yis ow'st! Let's flicker an' keep our order, Wi' clourine's cauf, c'est braw! Your go's a go, Your go's a go! When Christmas was come There was snow on the carrick, There was snow on the hecks of the k ======================================== SAMPLE 158 ======================================== See in the bosom of the recluse, Live verity, and proof from false emprize, The sage himself to stand, In the same room she dwelt, St. Agnes and her damsels three. See how she is dressed all over, And disposed to endure What may be brought by that direction; Her frock is even turned And bound in state to lie Full in the middle of her stay; There, as I guess, she sleeps; But you should know her as well, And be as certain of her wink, As I am sure of you that you are. Well, well! Be content; It seems that you have paid; You are dressed in fashion, And I am able to take Much grace upon you. Let me think a little -- I will not say a word; Are you a patient one? A similar purpose has brought me to seek you, A similar power has backed me, In like effect to canvass you, In like festal charier to be. It is our age's epoch when The governor, and the paying public, From tars that bind, and courts that faggle, Run head in the air, To courtiers that tick, and be exempt; While we and our peace, and our life Sit shivered on a knife -- Knife between our teeth. Then to our trials sure A revolution comes, and on A knife our throat is done; For we that have not yet the King, The Company, in our temple, With his bills that we owe, Keep being prostrated, and prostrated; And cry aloud in our misery, "Why? why?" And stare at the closed door, And wonder why on earth we Let these be our lowest beds? Is not your Creator on the rack With his plagues? On no page of prophecy, In the grand American swell, Is there such as Job? Was not white the storm, Or did the whirlwind sweep this little world As it should have stood from the inheritance Of darkness and of death? Would we were living in our father's Ancient garden again! Come, little Pomp, to call us From our sorrow! "Mourn no more, nor start, Nor sigh, nor murmur, Wherever you be! Life has been good, And what of it we cannot know! In it we could have been In some sweet gentle Garden we knew, Not in this seething commercial Hell that grows By tide of trade, on every street, And scatters its burdens to drain our withered Severels -- Mourn no longer! Come, in the middle of the town, This way, my gentle lady! The way it rolls, this way, is the way the Lord Led Ruth to the safe keeping of her master, Nor Ruth knew aught of this for singing; Till lo! all hell broke loose, And broke her master, and the righteous Sent her back to the wolf -- The way of the wolf is long, But you will see it soon. Not for us This swift returning to the wild! The sky is like a mirror, all is strange; The sky has snow, and is pure as frost; The forest smokes, and chafes with green and blue; The brook, that bursts through its bound; The cloudy table where we sat -- This was the scene of our quaint arrangements -- And the trees at our feet. My bride, the first time I offered to stay This late pilgrimage -- the fair one -- (Seeming to consent to mar a bit) -- Was hesitatingly agreed; The third time she spied a rope, it was tied About my arm, and asked the guard to let her Come up. I have lain under the might of the sky, While her still slept. When she saw I was saved Through more I willed, she grew into my speech, Not remembered, though she saw. Let none see us From now onwards, for in that day I shall forget That which they wished, and bid them welcome, And so to meet again, without a rope. Oh, you men with gold teeth! With gold teeth in your forelock, And brawns flaxed white like the sea, And old beer is like the brine, And love is as the fat of the goose, And sweat, and the springtime, and plenty -- Serve your sister, my mate, with the spindle. There ======================================== SAMPLE 159 ======================================== I shall bathe in my blood, in my body, I shall live, and put on my robe of flame; And the eye shall behold me in white And the tongue of the living shall prate about me; And what man shall meet me he shall meet me never; And a tooth that breaks myy wit-free, And a sack with my blood in its core, Shall not remember me when it has blaken; There shall not be the fatness of desire For one of a hundred such to cry for me. I shall praise thee and sing for thy name To the Lord for he is not fooled, If a tent should stand in the East, Or a gallifrey in the West; If the rivulet droppit in the stream, Or the plain was smutted by a sliver; If there was a leeve of {400} wine, Or a thief had the clothes on his back: And the word that is to be said Only the Lord knows Whether my fire have I now Of clothing unheard by the devil, Or whether it be the flame of the palm tree; Or if it be their night and the starry morrow; Only God knows,-- Be so or be so, and God sees, A stroke on the withered wood, A knife or a stick, And at the word The wood is represented as if defaced, Scales of parcht locusts, All so thin they be As the wort-smell that sticketh in the tree; But at the word A mighty noise is made, Fires kindled by the touch Of wise iron caghers, Uniting, And we share the heat of the bow as on we go. At its sound A supernatural awe falls On my sense-door, And at its sight Is lifted the bosom of God-states old. So I knelt On the highway the yellow summer To gaze on the stroke of the yellow Revolving stars. And my thoughts Were the springs of my woe; And God was a palsied epilever, And in my sin The gold and the heavens of my verse were stolen, And a workman at this factory Was rolling out magazines. And this is the smile Of thy face, I heard the brides of Babylon in the time of Moses, In the time of Sagacious Biseberg, When there were no laws, save "his word had spoken it" And then his sword. 'Twas the word of her large womb, The mammoth of the world. And my stroke of the withered wood Was its stroke of the ignorance of sin. The flicker of her flame Was the moth of the darkness Of the wick of the moon; The bees of her net Were the sleep of the flowers Of blind suns. And the chords of her spoken word Were to the music of the symphony Of blind watches. And the sounds of her viols Were the thuds of the rain. With the stroke of my withered staff O'er the gloss of the clematis I spread my mantle for the night; For the shades are meek, And the gossamer of my suns Are wasting in the glare, As it seemed of old. And there I am, and in the afternoon The palace will mount me; And its phantasies will warm the day For its final tune. There is such sweet music in the tongue Of men and wrung from them by trouble That, alas, I turn it o'er And it takes wings And it leads me in a wild pursuit All unheeded, and aloof, Through a long dream of the leaves On the brink of a blue landscape of wind, For thee alone, O sweetest tongue of my love, Sweet music of my strife. The darkness of day's prime Was kind to our wintry joys; That doomful time the high-water mark Made beautiful with sunset fire, Was ever the time for the open band. To whisper a song, or to join in a dance, Or pause and feel the morning laughter fall Upon the winter world, ere it came to be. Then I heard (as is that mortal only Who feels between the living and the dead That piteous vacancy, once, to know and do) Tinio, and she beckoned me; They shall come en two ji6iones parpour. (Sing a song, if you will.) I saw ======================================== SAMPLE 160 ======================================== savage and barbed and brooded; The drawling protest of week-end long-heated friendships, Derided and railed at like a traitorous tabernacle, plucked, And rusted and darkly all, a heart-broken mischief in the grave. <|endoftext|> "To Leamon color of Lyon", by Isaac Rosenberg [Arts & Sciences, Painting & Sculpture] As France canvassed and saw the Nature who painted, I saw her earth-loved face and the words engraved there In a single tone that ethereal calm would inherit In the soul of that dramatic angel and lend it Yet another. One tone and one world of sensation. His book suggests that all the painters were male. If this be true (and all its latent confusions) The real world has but one painter. A mine of history. What of Le Brun and what of the 'Monot): In the wonderful world of spin-doctoring, And in our age of pious, arbitrary spin, Does the Church insist that they were women? One thing is sure: to make sculpture and to make art, You must have the undiv authority Of someone who knows what to do with them. But the heavens are not clearer With authority than with seed of something bright. But, yet, while authority is awful, The earth is yours If you come back from France, that's your plan A. B. C. <|endoftext|> "On Sailing", by Carol Smith [Activities, Sports & Outdoor Activities, Travels & Journeys, Nature, Seas, Rivers, & Streams, Arts & Sciences, Theater & Dance, Social Commentaries, Popular Culture, War & Conflict] The baby-groade, the baby-gide, The baby-grove— The train's a-sidelines an' awa', An' the stars are a-shabbin' blue, An' it's even nigh to warm, An' the van's a-satin' apout Like a 'ulef on the post-house floor. The cobble-blight, the cob-ble-blind, The cob-lear— The bloomin' mither an' the aunty, The ole jammer's the only one That wears a uniform! O love thy country, young chap! Noo 'Eadle Dohn:' he sez; an' then He sez he's 'RR Stovendog' ready To 'Ain't what ye hears in yonder smooge. 'Yarra, an' sah! naw, ye sounds kind. Say Black to me, by Wallace, by Wallace!" 'Are ye deaf? By yer 'ead,' he sez; 'Yarra, ye sounds kind! an' by the wall, Ye seem 'Rarra, ye seem 'Rarra, ye sounds kind.' The warly battle-dance, the warly battle-dance, The warly battle-dance— The warly battle-dance! The baby-flower, the baby-gide, The baby-grove— The baby-grove— The baby-grove to be a elder! An' then the reverend elder! The eldest baby in the family, The eldest baby in the family. The sort's the same in both— The reverend elder, an' the youngest elder, The infant in the family— The eldest baby in the family. When the baby finishes first, 'Rd per 'Eadle Dohn!' sez he, An' then, "Yarra, yarra, yarra!" Noo 'Eadle Dohn!' was the sound Of the 'Rarri' on the post-house floor. But the reverend elder, 'Mr. Porter,' Was a 'Sauf doing then, 'Sirol wad be my son, 'Eadle Dohn could 'a' 'ad me 'eart.' 'Sieid, ye ken, Sieid, ye ken, Yarra, 'arra, yarra! Noo there's a kind o' old British grit In the style of the 'Sauf, Siever,' An' it is, you'll agree, 'Eadle Dohn!' I sees 'eard ower the old pul— The pul-ley 'eart, Awa'—the possibles were good— The possibles was ba ======================================== SAMPLE 161 ======================================== peace! content! In the green-matted midst of the grassyland, Unclothed, on the grassy-crowded ground; Where the whitethroat perch and the waxingbluely hangs above, And the scent of the twilights with melodious stirring Rises to the Heavens, intoxicating the blossoms, Pleasantly warbling to the altars of the vesper. Peace! be content! Even as the scattered night-moths, flitting, flying They will find the turf-wright's help for their defence, In the songs of the roses, or the moonlight, Or the scent of the violets, Where the rose can no blossom tell, No whiter blossoms than these. Thus on a morn of Spring (In the green grass, or the field of Jove) Hath the Sun, like a young lad, Closed with blue eyes and a springing clean shoon; Hast brought to heavenly day A fresher lustyflowers, and taught their toil Who lives with youth's abundance. Not the fall of snow, That slings o'er the palace of Earth's infantwait, Bidding her wake with festalteller™, With the patriarchs of the past; For this bliss of Earth hath not that East that. For this we plough the ruggedroot of some greatflower, That we may dream on, till the dream grow strong. Thus hath the yellow-backed Summer, A king dire of his dead, No spring or stronghold in Of his own wrack, Where the dark glare of war-paint Dims our eyes and minds; But our men of valour styles Fields of red morocco, Or banks of Tagus, while they sally At their signals, and descend, Swiftly as wind or whirling hail, With the wingèd squadron that follows. Alas! that all the glory Of March's flowery prime Mere profit averaging Sixteen wet May-days, Bud the risk of not lending My trencher carlins a full fierce cup To these strong soups, this baldery o' Death, As March to other March leads On its green boughs, And with his juniper boughs Doth loll his dire calyces, Bud bid lie slightly. One a rood, the other's tow'rd Some trickling tide is, and dares 'Gainst that surge the morra'toon all his life Bemerk, as leader, to beguile. God shewed the bird his hour Dying on the shaven block; Scattered the blooms for room Till he escaped, outflung From the reeking tent, And the war-bird's heart was sick. God's poor Bird that lost Heaven's light, till the bird found rum, Green-lined in a jaundice of grey skies. Now as at Ivy-league's Sweet May tide turns up Bits of gold, such trimbels do Keep the old chimes. There's Joseph Pulitzer's house in town, Lamb, adulter, stoop, and bow, Saps its leafy loft. But say, say what's the use Or remedy? Who's remedy? 'Tis Fear's--fear and shame. There to the wood, or otherwise, They steal the beaded wings; Nor know they what they miss Of what a Song (sad-old Summer!) They touch that wingèd power. Sweetest Summer takes the nest The dove to hide; Only I'm that outcast, That Summer's Summer's Summer no more. 'Tis their sultriness, not her winters, Their gulfs are lees, not sweetness. The girl She has the heart that only sheds A spring for honour; to the cause Her bosom turns, and the flush Called amber into white. Her dreams Sunk naked, dear ones, 'fore her feet, Before her face the hues of that blush; For it was, in like act, to show Her yellow tresses now. Her face, her eyes, her fingers, are that Dry earth, young grass, that else may yield Fruits faded as the gleaming dew. Her dress, set out where fell Small howds and fern and tufts of grass, What sun and dew have done to make The ======================================== SAMPLE 162 ======================================== Besides, my bones are dry and cool, My heart has the old trade in it. 'Tis well and lucky when a man Can sit upon a well or fill his own As old as myself, To stand the shock and strain, the flying and falling-- It was a rough and hard way but well-nigh worth it, If but to stand and fill the well-nigh infinite well of God. It's queer, indeed!--the manner of a man's burial, Is, that he as quickly deep dies out of sight As Christ did: but 'tis little joy to die. One gives one's soul to the worm, Then, lo, the worm takes one again. God said, And so we're both plain, A judge gives sentence, God takes sin, The judge passes, not the soul. Let others scorn as idle: I'll speak what comfort I can. God help me, as I call, Where sorrows abound Do I breathe in thanksgiving For these that I have in my fosterings? I think I do: and shall I Turn round and round The wrath of heaven To my fosterings Where I cry as an exile To my heart's content? Night has fallen on us who made our business one: That thou art friend and I thine We know, and no man's Saying 'cow,' 'mare'-- But watch us the better To know it the best, For Thou art our only refuge Which my soul, And Lord, Did all it could, To do right, do wrong, but less. 'He loves me, 'tis true,' A voice crying in the wind A messenger that may not lie, With gentle permission roused by heaven's brightness, From land of toil to land of rest, 'gan arise The mountains' witness of his way, And from the force of evil's power addressed, That I had learnt to love the cross: But I must then, Like unto the ash, fall back a little: Till, daylight setting in dawn of day, We enter on thy world and find love in it, More cold and hard than man's thing in winter, Sitting all day and wiping tears and noses On my wear, grey stockings without looking up: And what with suet and mica and so forth, Weeps my face till it looks something wondrous; Then taking it off, my niece she cries I know that 's a ridiculous clutch; And calls me Lord, then bid all follow me! It's fair of content If I set only where, at least, In this one hour of life, We trust, God's business is: Thou art our life and these fingers, these hands That live for thee alone, Have a thousand fingers and hands That one by one thou makest happy. 'Tis food, 'tis comfort; and with food One finds the key of death and life. Food is what the rich eat and grow; Life's measure the poor man's bread. Look, O, how thy pauper sports and plays At card or fight with dogs, or come And look on faith with tears. Then wealth's like thine is fuddled In England now; Hamelin Town is no more Like her sister cities up and down; Yet, in a sense, 'tis she owes her name Unto yon-seven villages where roll Eastern Bridge, the steel-clad Thames. If thou be humble as the grass That trusts in meek-days' ungermy gain, Be sure thou leave a name that susteneils In posterity, Because Thou art of a mould to gladden And be a giver; for thus it sings: Who for thy sake daily toil In joy or privation Not only toil but pray to-day; Yea, therefore thy self should from thy self Give honour to the name Thou, with the whole earth and all its clime, Yea, Lord, be unto thy sheep and goats Not only father but brother. Fatherhood makes gods and worlds and all. I am not of a sect, Nor ask I call or station, But thou hast sons that are mine by blood And I will be to them to show That one should be free indeed. For thou hast not told thy trade, But with each time I look to see I love and know thee well; Seeing the child's plain truthful voice Comes down from the stars on mine: And in the furrow of ======================================== SAMPLE 163 ======================================== Levistus and Nisus, servants of Pallas. Sulla and Scamandrion, and their ships and crews. Caesar called and Cordo came in number; From Ida they, all the Idaean host, And carried battle to the ships. The thirst of fame made them. When of war There is a hill whereon the fight is fierce and great And it rises over Pharsalia. The storm of men is roused by news of peace, and they lift up their eyes and see on the heights the smoke from the deeps and the sea A matter-of-fact way of looking upon it. Scamandrion said in the course of the year How Rome will suffer, in her increasing sins, is clear, see that upon the top In Pharsalia men are making plans. They, as of old, would stay but for one year, And other men take up the burden of war. The gods help the people, nor care who falls If they go on, being the weaker part, And leave their corn to those that harvest the war The priests were in the temple, too, Spreading rumours and making mouths of them, And to send the Romans in too far. Lo! this was Pompeius; the Gauls are on the height, He has torn them from the snows of Algiers. <|endoftext|> I am the bartender of Kuzela; There are others of like mind, Speaking the same language, Speaking to us in the language of smiles. What have we done together? What have we done together? We have not wasted one silver rupee On the Indians; We have not eaten one singed inch of wheat To make them happy; But let them laugh upon their drum And march with the other gods. You bring us bread for our turning, But can we make you merry? You have given us toys for our children, But can we mirthously dance? Then may your clock be telling time, And our neighbours be told lying. In His service as protector Of the wild natives of the forest, He has given us magic shows To make us happy. He will guide us at dawn to the brow Of the mountain, And the shortest path find to the evening, With the night before. And now the hostess of the festival Is holding, in her great soft hand, A heart-shaped pomelo. Why does she hold her hands so still? She will not let them loom for those that fall, But is playing to them a pleasant song That none of them needs hear. She is dressed in a man's colossal style; The hair hangs in soft waves to her knees, And her sumptuous shape takes the air As she plays upon her instrument. She is playing a tune To ravishment and silence; While the choric verses to the clouds Crawl to a close. Yet now she is turning with her hands To mix the wine, and the fiddlers Rush to the dance, with every chance, Of their heart's desire. They have danced until the eve, And she sings in her sings in the glow Of their heart's desire. We were with you in Eden, We were with Cain in the desert, We came from Cyprus and Sidon, We were with Seth in the peaks of Everest; With Job in the City square And Noah in the Wilderness. <|endoftext|> What is there with Earth about, When she has had her way with us? Why do we live so fast? Let be, We bleed to be undone! What is there with Earth about, When she has had her way with us? What is there with Earth about, When she has had her way with us? Who is there with Earth about, When she has had her way with us? Who is there with Earth about, When she has had her way with us? Who is there with Earth about, When she has had her way with us? Who is there with Earth about, It is no use writing, Let it up and forget! And yet I am young again! I have some remembrance for the years, Though mine are many and their number Is not so many as before; But she, they say, is old and old Beyond all fear and many of breath Beneath the stars above the hearth Where she is dim with many hands. What is there with Earth about, When she has had her way ======================================== SAMPLE 164 ======================================== lingering months Came surely round the house, and only through the sun Blazed the dunns like mills, and out of them poured The short-grained grain, and the fiddling bit and the sharp sawnn-out, and bits of bark, and the sun-cracked grain Sped out along the lanes and choked the drains, Till it was well overspreading in the ditches, And upon the grass at last, and swollen the stream In a pool, then overflowed, flowing to the fields And borders, and swelled the trees, and held the plough In its slackness, the silver plough beneath, And smote the land from Yallicks to Loughlinss. So was the storm ended. In all these bogs there was No end of bog and stagnant water, but soft scented winds by and by blew some sweet water-falls Over the hills to the west. And long it seemed To the filmy eyes of the heaven that slanted off From the bog-veranda's covers, and the care And blight of the wet season, over and over; Till every rustling in the field was a leaf Moving or a slant moon-beam on a brook, Or bleating stamen, with the hints of grass, That sent the soul adown the valley of the view. On the green hills, through the mellow hills, the smell Of the weed-glades--we could range through them, Hewing little cherries over them, and fat Marmol and leeks and onions in them, and roll Astrain to little bit, and drop, and fret On the bare hills, in the dung-hole, and burn, Burn the knower out of it: then lift; And lo, the queer hills lifted; he saw, As in a line, the heaving hills slung From to the steel shadows of the fore-part Of the moving drawbridge, where the lintel of earth Still swung gaily in the swinging alment, Till death's swing, with call and trumpet's tone, Closened its great girdle to the earth In sundown. "Be it large," he said to himself, "It will be seen that I gain something here, As I see now that I am gaining it." And, indeed, It was to be seen, still lowlier the drawbridge swung Under the swinging gates that cl-lloured out Over the drawbridge: a fair swathe of earth Glazed with pale yellow vermilion-coloured light, Wherefrom a little vein of pure parshon-red Was shaken out, and flushed with the totties And warmth and radiance of brilliant leaden blood, Had springed; so that such tints did make the mind Play among them and in them play. The Form Moved of the grey workman in the tide of change; And the arm of youth had passed upon its way In triumph; and the arm of age had found When strength was worn its estate: and so there grew An everlasting branch of oak and fern Beneath the plastered sky; a ravening eagle's nest Shed its clutched young for so far beyond the door That youth had reached: and so the storm of age Tore from the roots the saplings and the glittering sheaf That filled them of youth; and each the triumph and the sting, And every lion on the open field And every goose in her pinous breast had crumbled, While Age had swept a trifle nearer to its goal Under its steps, and, of the matter quite conured, Each an old man as then, nor caring a jot for change, But with young faces, gold hair, and scanty beard, And feet perhaps; while youth and him it showed Stretched out beneath the dawn; and many a bird That swung at waggon in the track of action had Died of his sorrow: youth and him had picked The whole of the grey hill for their summer morrow. Yet, though the great work of years had nearly done, And spring light flickered faint in bits about The rust-barred window, he was silent. It was An early tale of habit; but habit poring His husk covered up some truant of his own Told him that, though these were the busier years, Yet they might eternize. In the sound of a song He had his image, mime, and phantasm; that forged To be the actor ======================================== SAMPLE 165 ======================================== Where did I lose you? I let my baby slip down my jacket. I put the cat in the pot. Baby was my love. Baby was my life. Baby had gone away. I can’t stop crying. I have no baby. <|endoftext|> "The Lover", by Carolyn Kizer I know your arms are familiar, near, a part of one, they have to be, one way of drawing from the world the rich, disembodied taste of something to eat, to taste. It’s how I love, the way I love is like peering through a window on a low wall and seeing part of the world the way I want it to be. I turn and lick my lips. You are the future. What other ways are there of knowing, other worlds than this where you are? My love is like a map made of clean, bright colorways and those days of love when I want to know the map so badly that the map is the only map there is. I am incapable of other love, I am alone with my infamously delicate, powerful, dark, loyal attachment, and my partner is my golden goodbye to everything not and never again. What other ways are there of love than this? <|endoftext|> "Second Summer", by Carolyn Kizer [Nature, Trees & Flowers, Arts & Sciences, Poetry & Poets, Reading & Books] The lover writes: ‘It was only a summer’s holiday When the music entered me Of the sun turning in the West. And all at once I thought To see it was meant to be And I was left in the morning Still underneath my sheets and afraid Of the call of birds but not knowing Where they were or whether I was strong enough To leave the petals and go away And as I danced in a sphere I was no other than the past I was wandering through the garden. I left that place and the years behind And before I knew it it was me I knew I knew I had been Me who no one else would have: The sad tongue and the artless ways, The eyes that show no wisdom, the fingers That fiddle but to amuse and the lips That were not meant to be sad. I wanted only to be me As I was the first and then— A servant singer who knew no throne, Knocking and knocking In a ballad that was true to aught But the old winter warmth and bitter rains. <|endoftext|> "The Indian Book of the Dead", by Carolyn Kizer [Living, Death, Religion, Christianity, Arts & Sciences, Philosophy, Reading & Books] for B. H. Ockley Particularly at this moment of the early summer When windless sunlight cuts the sky, and still the air is Unseasonable insufferable And cold, with no luminous fatality It can be unbearable—like now I feel it in myself as I lift the reader High, and run the writer’s name Over a margin which can’t be changed now— In the red stubborn crags of five hundred years Where life aspires but never climbs Where the blessed long for what the gods can’t give, The land where the dead live Not like us, where they carry their books With them in their bags, where death won’t be forgotten You may find them, find them on a shelf or framed In such case as this you can’t get you can’t get rid of Like a racehorse whose flinging is the race I did not feel died—I told you— I felt the dead among us, I got you, I got You once, and you are always this You may be happy, you may be free. . . Your living is much more than I will say. <|endoftext|> "April Rain", by Carolyn Kizer [Nature, Landscapes & Pastorals, Weather, Arts & Sciences, Poetry & Poets] I’m not the kind of man who needs a title To make me take myself seriously. If that tree is in a park and I walk Right down it, I’m too good for that Level of design from someone Who cut it down so he or she could make it A leafless ash tree, or an über-tiny Black, jellyfishlike tree. The gods would call that god “Impatient. ======================================== SAMPLE 166 ======================================== Who like to look on the graces will make their appearance, They can choose whether to delight at a banquet or a concert. How many may remember the sun is a lamp! A busy boy then like to parade in a mobile, When cabs come for a procession And the highway—gleaming with a Grecian theme Or those rare Decameron sisters, going to heaven With, Wertebookbackah, Say there's a hundred eyes blooming out of a ball One in the morning for bread and one only for sleep With crows and rooks passing low o'er their nest in the mart; And who can say what a courtier may say In the course of a holiday, what a lord disdain! If you put these things together and add to them The township with its uncertain alarum, There's a sort of a haze of war, a sort of a mess of it. The fact is the world is neither a small nor a great, Is neither very far away nor very near. THE whirlwind that takes what it wants and leaves you where you are in a hurry, when you are outside, The drenching rain and the blinding snow, And all life hath to say of The lives that end like alarms or alarms, or Life more or less gone before, The lapses into and lapses out of my life What I name as In a loose sense a name The place that The snow is white and the rain palsace; The lights are out between The windrows, and the rain Runs dark. What am I, what am I? You have called me eagle, called me fox, in wavering positions for the wind, the wife has shifted, the lover in his grove, the neighbor with his daughter hidden, the one who lies Smearing the foliage With rain-drops. You only have to know I weigh Myself out of a window What I have done, what I have seen. You only have to know I fly Wherever I am led A gypsy on the strait Brushing the leaves of blue Or silver her hair. Across the sunset Crying shellots of red. I who am afraid Come to you and away, So out of sight, That you and I May face each other. You have a roomful of flowers When the wind has swept the shadows under. Camellia and butter-cups Shining in the light; And then, too, yellow and green; And a palm-leaf pail Where water he cleans And turns with art. While the wind is blowing and swirling, I know a buck Will be wheezing At the gullet: he never stops In his home, an empty house; He either drinks or eats, For both our threats are bedfellows, At night I hear him before me. When the whirlwinds are round him, The little ones shrieking and stopping. I can learn What he would be like if I were him. A crown of satin is his crown, He has that for a right; And he gets it with one embrace From the woman he has loved, And his gods know all How he griped of me On our first meeting. THERE are worse things than that for me. They have hushed me with onions; I shall lie alone, I know. They have bound me and they will take My hands away, I know. What matter, what does it matter? I have waited long, they have done it. Nothing is true, save what's fact. They are mistaking my natural breath For something other than the plenum Of the spread of the city, and the forests of the unstinted sun. <|endoftext|> "LIT-TLEM MAZES", by W. S. Merwin Makes me long for the poor Who wake up and go to the shops; And my poor pale mother waits And waits for me in her blue dress That she makes, with care, and ironing gone wrong. The flowers are cold in the gardens That she works in, and the sun Is running and running faster, And the empty shops and the dark roads and the empty homes Of the hungry poor are whiter And whiter, smiling out to me Who come out of the houses Stretched high above them and cutting the sun. Litelemon was as white as a stone, Mae Azul's house was black ======================================== SAMPLE 167 ======================================== "O the brown fields of rye, my land! My ever green fields, that suck the sun; My ever brown fields, with buds that shake With autumn storms, and snows, and storms that break!" And, dewy fields, dewy fields of tears! "My happy lands! the golden sun has set; The blue hills of Ulster extend their night; My showers have long ceased, and the moon hath fought A long eclipse o'er the broad single stars." The night is dread and dark; the starlight thin; The wolves around her hush her prophetic flow. An awful stillness falls, and the faint wings Of clouds and darkness sweep; the sighing light Of stars, half seen in deep-scattered space, Tremble like references in the music. The woods that skirt my path weep out their hearts Intrapt with sympathy, and mourn for the Lost youth of the world; the far hill roads Heap despair upon the mind that his will bring To every generation of those eyes And drink the melancholy of his breath. "O Tears! of all the weeping flowers, that veil Your gardens', and unweep your own, and still The hills that awaken to morn, abide Uncrumblike when the hours of light are gone. "Weep, then weep no longer for your lost Saints, and vainly weep for yours, whose tears have No power to keep their departed from Hell." And after the last of the night had fallen, And the long dead day had slumbered, and grown Exiled again into the still mid-day air, And silence shivered into silence, all men Grew ruder and harsher in their hearts than afore, And mumbled a moody threat that danger might be. "Ah, God!" they said, "The Man is gone to leave Our hearts with more than mortal blood to pay; His prayers were not less sincere than true, Nor was his asking in the act of sin." Then, like a gloomy demon, from the glooms The ill-loved shadow of a crimson tweet Bore down the death-pile of a cry that quivered Like fire, and swept along the counties. "Man," said some, "our lost Chieftain is to-day, And we shall have more Chieftains ere we vie In the full consciousness of our strength and wrong. We will survey our firmness with dismay, But he who leads us from mist and mine, Is the only hope for men to live." "Go," they said, "and seize--so may his deed Not only go unquestioned by us all, But be the law of life on his triumphant way!" With surly sullen smile the Sire verbatim Pronounced the law of his own unhonour'd court; "He is at hand; we must not wrest his head, We must embrace his garment to the neck. Still the challenge of each upbraiding voice Is hushed in a quarrel or debate, And one thing alone holds the land: the power We gave him to rule us holds him to be His nature, his very nature, our bane." The hand that hissed, Stiff with a heaving grasp, Struck stiff with a heaving clasp, Wet with a wetting spray Flinging the woman back-- Wet with the down-pour From the trooper's blade Falling upon the woman's back, Laughing aloud In the nobleman's pace-- Sayeth that who hath seen, sayeth He who bare The whippoorwill shall find A better place. For all the fear, Falling back, the wife, the lover, Down to the warrior's feet, The whippoorwill bare, "He never was so lucky as, being obliged To be careful of his life, he should take His way of life from out our hands. It should be, Thou shouldst be with us! And I-- O sister, O chaste, undefiled! If I had never been born, I had always Wondered, lying hollow in my mother's womb, How things might go over for thee, my child, Wondering, always think how things might go over For thee, my child!" Once she lay In the palmy valley; once she walked the reedy grove; Trunk to branch with a saw; Her face in many a cycle changed with the Frost's youthful yellow light, In the May-time at ======================================== SAMPLE 168 ======================================== There where those friends in whom my heart's at rest, Orses and Ostrhida, loved of old. Nor would I grudge in the town to dwell For all the fair and blue globe's sight, If one, in dark or light, in country or town Partake of my wanderings as I have done, Should lend a hand to hone or plough my belly-land, But these are friends that cannot be forgot; If to those and to these returns my thought At random may perchance some good he find, May keep and cherish all the friends I've made there. As when to some neat home I'm inclined To take a little stroll for some weeks My rambling alone would not be forgot And some I've laid in till I'm better to wear, The life I've led through many a hillside or lane They would forget on coming here to town. Yet by their absence still their names would keep, And all through life their memory through my brows I'd wear a frown--"one being still absent quite." My jolly good fellows, and if you Are the bonnie kings of neighbourhood and kin Come join us, men have nothing better to do, Save after stouter trials for schoolmen, And by our sport to prove the generacy Of good old folk to what they are, their stone; Achance we'll learn something by our best humour To frame our partings and create a corridor, We'll mock with Mrs. Ridout her green death, Mrs. Waring's promise so young men call, A three-cornered one, yellow and green; If you'll join, I'll sign and I'm yours to-day. If you come in pair, we'll try for two or three For you my men will guard you, my lads. Who would be Jack for a sister's sake? With one small bonnet, and a great eye, What a glimpse, too soon over that; I may not. But the minute the hour calls at the door, I'll come in while the clock's yet a-beating, And—I could sooner smoke a spell, my dear, And chuck it down, you crow, at the foot of the hill. My father was the king, Before that period was red, Of Jack, how his father was, Would call him Jack the High; And if the circumstance that he Was the winde, might not one jot declare, 'Twas not so much as Jack the High was he; The name might, perhaps, be borne For a shade to click its stutter through To a quirk and stretch and leap; And "High" is a word and portico; He is high, when he would lift, Or of hisself high; And the priest knew well how to treat That peculiarity. Jack has a chignie coat, But Jack's not in it, so, And, next to it, Jack the High is, He may be, we're afraid, In form, at least, With a treadle or two And a toe that clacks, Not to think of him at all. He's the boy that carries a scone (Nor such was the common use), 'Tis so rare, so well, so very rare; Yet, please remember, when you see one, Jack is not he. Jack it's true looks most queer, Yet with an awkward stride, To head or torso of a man; To trot or run with caution A thing of many-pieces, The smallest below the galling Titan Is not so point-blank, No boy, it's true, But might in fact shoot or swim Above the surf and the wind, Should prove In play, at his tallest, With ease and a thing like a man, Jack is the boy he stands before, Jack, who to such length and length Will go, and will go still With the baby in his arms, With his arms full of his Little upright like a lion And his face up-looking; But 'tis not always, nor must it So be, with his barest skin Has got legs to go with his feet, And a head long and heavy as an on'tern; The round and steady face Is enough to navigate an aleager Out to the street or a play, As the wise man he says Who knows the most And the most indeed Knowes to make the smartest soup, Jack goes to school and makes right merry; But Jack must ======================================== SAMPLE 169 ======================================== save the goddess—“what can alchemy bring?” I ask the diviner, one of her, and she says, “that you can take a dunga and… I am to trust that you are to be a poet in the Victorian era.” So I take that lump on my knee, hard and moist and mute, hard and moist and moist and then they put it in my mouth. <|endoftext|> "Mother, Mother, Why", by Lucia Perillo [Living, Sorrow & Grieving, The Body, Love, Desire, Relationships, Gay, Lesbian, Queer, Nature, Landscapes & Pastorals] Amonkbal When I tell my friend where I’m eating dinner, whether it’s a seaside pier to see how blue the sky is, or a suburban backyard to make out for a dead night, she holds me to what’s in front of her table, taking small sips from a snort of wine to conceal the delicacy: I walk with a trumpet cast in my trunk, and you hold me tight with a fist in my guts. Who am I to argue, when who would win in a fight, my mother or your mother? If I can speak some Hern Castle aside, this twine of wonder wishes to be cut down. Tell me where to swing, tick me off, call me big, y’lick finger or pickle me, in body or mind. What cannot be so brave or so good is just plain weak. The brains of two brains cannot be separated, yet each knows only the other’s wires or a trunk, or a trunk and a pelvis. C.O.D.O. A connoisseur is eating a coconut, picking its brains. When I look into the thought that’s alive inside me, an emotion awakens and I can’t contain my praise: I call that intelligence or that frog. A box of good foods, as the song “Christmas [Motown]” says, and a good food can cure an emotion, she’s explaining. Just because I be your wife, or you be my wife, it don’t mean we can’t be locked in a trunk. The trunk of a trunk that I carry within me, you. The trunk of a strange tree that had to come to mean in its own way as a letter I received. The trunk of my grandmother, my aunt or “your mother”. What do you think, that mussel tastes like sand? The closest I can come to explaining love, the fat trunk where I took off my pants, I been called out of use only twice, both times by my stripper, the former to the accompaniment of smirk from a mealy mouth with anuses filling the elastic up from a paper bag, the latter to a general silence of groan that once was shown, a student babe giggled so here. And the mealy, mealy and the happy groan from the mealy head. The mealy voice, the groan of a dog; what about this chicken? What’s that you say to this second name? This third? A chef recently made it onto the Sunday brunch. I want a doctor to clip open both of our heads. Come in — you look hot — to the idea of ourselves as animals. Animals looking into the idea of us. After our visit to the veldt. After our two hours of seeing the three sexes emerge from their social crisis. As infants into their hearts, back from the grave. Back from the body quotient, or braver load of testosterone. To be out of luck, hungry, alive, you, I, too, now I expect to be not the subject but an object. And the subject can’t object. Or the object can’t object. In the fiction of fantasy the two subjects line up to reach the goal, the girl is wronged by the director, whereupon the boy, maimed, meets the evil twin. <|endoftext|> "Little Known Facts about Myself", by Susan Erskine [Life Choices, Activities, Eating & Drinking] Eating fish is more difficult than eating fire. You have to cook it in a pressure cooker or it will not turn into fish steak. I used to win restaurants in my younger head. But I am not making a new restaurant. All I am doing is ======================================== SAMPLE 170 ======================================== : I was taking a walk and upon the gravel path beheld a great snake with crooked scales upon his back and as I looked more I was full of a feeling of Beauty which passed in joy through my body as I passed by him and as I turned away from him and yet the image did not change or falter and in the air seemed prelud I didn’t need to move my legs to feel the earth beneath me that beauty was never a snake and I didn’t know that what was the earth was the snake and that’s the way it’s been ever since whether from inner vision or from some substratum of the world of which I knew nothing and yet which is the name of Poetry which is the true flaw of all things and of myself a speck of matter within that speck and the earth and the snake that is what they do always out of their laziness and vanity to convince themselves that they can do it and that there’s the real art and they should take pride in it and that all he’s asking is a set of words till time awakes and turns the long ago into other years where I reflect upon the style of that poem and whether or not I’ve seen it performed I can see that he might be inserted in the sequence of a good number of poems only when one can say that the more a poem is worked on the more one is freed from that labor until it stands so fine it’s greatful and fit for collection in the very least of plasticine duds but there was something remaining of that principle in the words to which he’d stuck so when I read they said that I thought the words took the style of that poem into it out of what the poet is made of without not without speakers and watches being moved to take these words which are unsaid and the reader should infer from a relationship of which the poet never guarantees it but reading to be retained this infinity is in truth the first art we possess should you know expect that There shall you be hoping to see if the photos I sent today are up to snuff very soon after you read because it’s true and you saw through it when you have been resolved to do so by examining that which you are looking at because you’ve seen it so your mind cannot possibly conceivably expect you not to want to hold on just a sec more because it is very easy to see by undoing the cause of the pictures for they will entangle you if they make you look at them for a second and try to hold you down if you think they can hold you listen very carefully listen very carefully because you’ve been warned you will hear that which is innocent because it is the most innocent form of mischief you will believe you are innocent which is why I like this one for it makes us conscious that it is there because it can be seen to be there this is the best of all of the photographs for it never wishes to be its feature because its features cannot be its base but only to be a peculiar with a center of ignorance of what it is in fear of and the worst of it you will ever believe is by the by the by for the evidence of its innocence is by the by the by it is not sleeping like the serpent of the world makes ======================================== SAMPLE 171 ======================================== New-re-born; And the grass grow out to covered wold, And beyond, and the sky full Of grey play-lands, and the sea Within it thins into hills. Then the autumn came in greying head, That perfumed all the world as seems The forerunner of the spring; And in the rosy garlanded creepers Of beds of ivies, the ivied weather Scarce hot to finger-tenderness, Scarce hot enough for school-days, on a sit For half the summer day, In warmest month; and in the dancing light Of blush-in-the-light-for-wine, With acrid taste. The world dwindled down to a small Grey card-case full of bright Glory, where 'twas brought to be Pursed up and down and up, To be a churtery for some king's Young head, Or a lotus-poker For Prince Erotikos; Or a swift linen-band, bearing Ten-pin shoulders. There were broad leaves, and next Some of them curly and some white, And then I saw my Mother's face; And I swooned like a tea-ferry From a long swig. "Ah! My Boy, what are you thinking Of that Fool of a Spouse-leaved Summer Whose House you've taken to? And the May came, with a heron song; The sun had flown by sea; And we said Good-day, to the dawning grey, That had come to our house to-day; And I said to her as in company, Passed somewhere, Good-day, but not as at all; And I married her, not the same way You marry, Good-day! Then from that house at last There were left, on either side, The steeple and the castle tower, The little house of my blood, And my aunt's strait white face, We thought it mighty lucky, So we decided, God bless his beak, We'd better marry early; I was twenty-one; And to marry a woman young Was not an age allowed; And I'd had my shot at Life, When the wheels of Time were turning. We had eaten well, and drunk About, When the bell went boisterous near 8.30 on that morn of May; When my aunt said she should find Some one else, who might marry us. And so we set about it hard, And we tickled, at the last, Our betrothed person to hie To her little house in Broad Lane And to her little narrow hall, Which was up-stairs from us, And open-heaped, and down-strung, With a neat little nook and fold, Of five feet by three; and, withal, There was no room for further movement Of one or two of us, But with careful step we swept the floor, And kicked up the contents of The upper chamber from the floor Of five by three feet, Which she had been a great service To our feeble mite; and there She took us in, though somewhat stained From the Boscoub pocket of a crust With some jam and water-dreg; But, though that was not very pretty (And yet it was our own), She kept our lock on her narrow room, And kept the sides of the bed, And kept us both from marriage. And so we set about it hard; And my dear aunt cleared the bank For us to stand on; And as we set up house on the slope There was our house, And a barge-ticket on the window-sill, With a note on it from Sir Cleveland, Which my dear aunt read To be a good recognizance Not to be released till far in the bottom of the hemisphere; And it proved a good fore-sign To the lady, whose foot-cast complex Had torn all her dresses out; For my dear aunt was welcomed like A saint by all serviceable folks; So that we had on close-woven hose, Lace capes, a flounced shift, And red boots, and bonnet red, And a cretonne or two; and all The gear of gentry in The street, all dressed to go to hall On public notice, 'mong gods and king And lords--though not so great an art As that the women laugh, too, and we Sh ======================================== SAMPLE 172 ======================================== To whom thus replied the starre; 'No more there's one thing wanteth, Thou art wise and well of will. I am glad to be another man's wife, Because the truth thou speak'st is true. But I do saide 't, O forgetless, Of all thou saidst me a woman, Thou hast no vessel fit to take The mire: a sownele yet would I bee, And not forgeten false. Thou may'st comfort me for a signe, If thou this sorrow telle." In their danger marvelled as they stood, The sight they meetes seildes in her een, Of these contrarious objects well exprest. The whilome judge, tho he ere began, Had granted that, where she so crake and tou'd; That nothing strange he had in her enscrest. Then said he, "True is that report, I greeue, But what is true report hath hire in righ, For sure she is for to winne: But the quill can never hire amende." "See," says the shepherd, "this woman's broyle, Who gladly her wit will be so trau'd." 'Twixt that man and the shepherd The strangest converse fell. And all her wit in her face was lou'd, For who the judges of a felonne, And upon that caviller staid: And he aske now what avails him so, If he his neighbour's body mickle To sell? He knew the sum in hoggs, And took th' occasion to tempt houghs. No wilful blindness makes the tale to go, Hoping her fault, we see in truth. Such grace keeps her from the lightning, And sudden fall from kindly Heaven. And yet she mote have shame deflowr'd, Because she to heaven was vainglorious. But that same meaning fals it sets, For vain I hold her grace is. Of some fifty coming, I said, All were great, and of so diversitie As many knots to make a coronitie, The which, proov'd on thunder-hand, With many chaplets was endow'd. What paves were made of! Why dost doubt you? The sons of Nectaneus were they, And each one had a star of gold, And seven or seven had a moon: And in their powre the se- Bystan Uluxes dy'd; Not content with that to give us, Lyrnessus, or let his star obtain The grace to keep his brother warnes. With gilt he whiskers and in gold was doffed His jacket, his slippes were gilt too, His tinpe for his pillar was slipt: His goodly conch, to make it white, Was with itself prepared, to be sell'd. In all he was so beauteous, As e're the heavens saw fit to take him hence, To queen of that array. When that he gon his royal state, Like Mæcenas' sons, he sung his praise Unto the golden prince's ear: As old Acme had of old been seen, Upon the mercy seat; Whilst rose he all his wood and heat, That last relief of glory. Then to the dove, that once had sent him o'er To chaunt his lays to that temple, Was folly sent again; But this delight went with him thrice over-joy'd, Since to another prize he came; That in his honour wait his son, Whom he there famous beseek, As she without all praise may be, And with his prayers they will beare her. In woods or fields, whatever place Or place had fame or memory, How was it ever, how could it die? How strange to these poor lines appears, That while 'tis sung, it never dies; That in those words it lives and spreds, The same as when he first was sung; And of those lines he is the writ, That scorns to end it self-ever; And that through endless ages is sown, And gilds the further moss of time. Here, haply, in your flocks, in yonder bog, Or in yon shy solitude, you walked; And here you sharp-moustachio'd shook Your manchet with your masken; now you trow Wee, rory T ======================================== SAMPLE 173 ======================================== 223. I grow sick, I wear her neck, Aunty Harri, my homely wife! She was not bred in sumptuous Ctmes, She bears the needle, she must Be bidd'n with love or hate to choose, For it is the world that makes her wild, And the beauties, though all seen, Refine to cerulemania. 224. To hear my child thus gay, as though The world were only a vacation At Ellerslie so glad and young, I sit and dream of purple isles, Green forest-skirts, and the murmuring Of birds and winds from far-off harbors Of forests never full. 225. O they were wont to meet! for oft My heart fell sick through absence. This Is where my soul's close pathway meets The light of her young eyes. And now I fancy, as I see my face Return upon her cheek and breast, That she has gone for evermore, And dreams no more of Ellerslie. 226. I wander in the symphony Of music, which was he, Who truly could diviner Come after the way of the gods, Than any after their kind: He hath made immortal A forest, which now is nigh To sunny Egont and Imbroynd, In countless cities roofs and trees With travail and power of Christ. 227. And now on evening's highest dreams My heart so soon is with you found, How much with love so oft I see! As though the brighter sun would see My love's chalice and my lord With my cheek burning on his with kisses. 228. Sleepless, that hath no wayward thought Goes most the spirit of love's law As in such scene from star to star Sickling for all within it; This rapt from all is best of all When it burneth with love's one blaze Alone and most to nothing. 229. How strangely the groves have shot Into this girdle! As stars Leap new arrivals, strange and young, Showering their gifts in fair Arctures, Round, bright as cockle, their feathers fly; Each love-weary day, new life bestowd, From Bloomingford with an Angel's look Now jumping, and now singing low. 230. If he that hath an eye so stern Should glance in the place whereon I sit, His thoughts would the grosser mind behold Of dull ignorance, with not one spark Of ecstasy or hope left in it But only the sense of a wide dispence Of allsiveness that love hath left in it. Ah! his faith, which is the world's reverence, Made flesh on, nor hath it strength nor grace In its impurity to sustain, Where with the youth were not dissimilar. 231. Methinks it was the Son of God Who didst forsake the capital For lowlier earth, where angels might Take up their rest; and him of yore He didst so gently tread, to prove That no man of mortal nation Was truly fit to be touched by him. His hair's luxuriant length, of gold And silke, of golden lattice-work, His imperial move and imperial air, Made him of all full thirty-five. 232. Queene Aix, France cesse des Francais. Listen, my folk, while I tell Of that little nymph, who is more Than half-bustled in saffron brais, More half-topark'd in gait and dress, Than even herself, of her lovers New comers to this holy dance: Who, both of their long fairings fair, Which you all have seen, but partly known, Are of her self more than she half-bare 233. So, the day of the conquest of Tyrandil, I let my eyes sit till I had given Myself to slumber, and they saw the pair, Which, to such lofty irony, did Suit both my hopes and theirs by turns. I waited, on a day, to hear Their talks, and they on the contrary Turn'd their solecisms to religious chant, Each singing thus a poem, and both Anthems to an octave which they each Turn'd by a quarter, nor in their turns Look'd any more than quarter-tone, But like two saints, who are but one thing, But without the help of this world's ======================================== SAMPLE 174 ======================================== of their teacher, and the show a hard word that might be said for herself. Her eyes, on the other hand, are so brief: before him she seems a box of sugar or gold and nothing more. And when he offers her a ride to the lodge, at night the ship is still in the bay, and he has yet to awake from his dream. <|endoftext|> "Physics", by Sandra McPherson [Living, The Mind, Arts & Sciences, Sciences, Arts & Sciences, Philosophy] The times I've asked William T. If he knew anything about The universe he talks so fancifully I think perhaps he's just a dream Of my unconscious, or amnesia Will not be accounted for by fact That when one dies one knows one has been To the best of our ability, However intelligent, sane, and clear We really know nothing, and it's so Strange how little a person will care They don't want to know about The X and Y and Z alone, They want to know something about the grand Universe of which these things are parts, That might be the set of all the sets Before us and around us still We are part of the unnumbered web Of which we are, as is, and yet must be, This web is invisible except to me, To you it is invisible except to you, And only to one another. I don't like talkative people, I don't like hocus-pocus, And yet I'd be willing to think That knowing a little about the whole Might open me to diviner lives, And help me own them, and might then Might be the only thing that I would Recognize in all the world around Me as a familiar, a friend, and I Am hopeful that nothing is beyond restore, That all is in the rewind of time, So I'll talk to you, maybe We'll walk into an alien sky And walk out again, and walk For it might not be a sin To let you talk a little while, And while there was no one else To talk to, for a while. <|endoftext|> "Dr. Seiss (on seeing my first aquarphyte)", by Sandra McPherson [Living, Death, The Mind, Time & Brevity, Activities, Travels & Journeys, Arts & Sciences, Poetry & Poets, Social Commentaries, History & Politics, Mythology & Folklore, Ghosts & the Supernatural] It's the cemeteries of Europe, and of Asia, and the Garden of Gethin still, Thrill with the ghostly ivy of his feet. And so I am wary of the empty house, and the girl with the arms of traders, and where the ghosts were, the place of their worship, which I trace, in dust, against the sky. And I am wary of what is not, and I am weary of filling in the blank with things that are. And I'm reluctant to draw there, in the dark, the necromance of Julius and his reverent throng. I have a rule, I like to use it: ever since, on seeing the new design for a fence or a wall, I have always said, if I had it to do over, "Why, of course, but now instead of ripping out this and that, this and that, and so forth, you could just blow it up." <|endoftext|> "The Construction of Order", by Sandra McPherson [Living, Life Choices, Time & Brevity, Social Commentaries, War & Conflict] Out of all the destructions that determine men, and the betrayals, the lost and the martyred, the need to live and to continue to live on, I have chosen peace. And yet, I go wherever it be some nearer to me. Of course, I have planned escape. The only thing is: what deed do I carry in my mind, or, more to the point, what deed am I trying to do? <|endoftext|> "The Human Nature of the Shoot on the Prepared Fire ", by Sandra McPherson [Living, Time & Brevity, Relationships, Friends & Enemies] Friend: We have all been toiling to make a lot Of embers, collecting dead of all kinds And wondering why the smoke kept up in the trees. It came down a shine, light and sweet. I watched, And it faded fast. It reddened up, yes, But kept ======================================== SAMPLE 175 ======================================== ants all over pilled and lous their white wings curled 'round the tree is big yellow also thorkill has jumped up off the ground into the white water his wing is all covered in lice now his life a way of living that lacks its purpose I go there in the sun is the purpose of the world and this peel of pale pink/grey is like a jellyfish swelling with plous blue veins it bulged one time the way the egg does though its purpose was the same I saw this same thing at the turn of the century day by the side of the road in a museum with boxes of things pictures and things I guess there was a time in history when we were neither that thing but I could not find my way I look at my nakedness as though I am not sure that I am still I think the more I try the more that I cannot escape it You have written about destiny before how you cannot separate the inner from the outer you say we are both of our acts that very moment we do what we feel, and how we feel if a box were to fall off the shelf and shatter and you never thought of it I would like to live in a room with no hedge where all my cares would be left I would still go out into the fields for a walk if only the leaves could warn me (you said that the veil is torn and God is good but you looked at the rose without looking at the rosette) when the roast beef shmongrass and pumpkin I asked the butcher if the rosette was cut but the man leaned over and whispered into my ear all is well When God is quick the life of the world is swift to lead him I has done what I asked That the silence be broken that all of it be known I look at my body at my torn soul God gives us neither rope nor butcher’s block (in your epiphany you are in the spirit of your experience) how is it that all this has happened to you and not to someone else (what is your foxhole and your turn) and what of you and me and the rosary and so that the orange grape is what and the reason and that the garret where I am punished in your moment of self-congratulatory happiness isn’t the rosary I say the rosary it was given to me by you and the dull harp when we wake from dreams to go to sleep who is being born isn’t who’s going and isn’t we either and only the dark is where the babies go and the harp isn’t a harp and I don’t know what I’m looking at a woman with a clavicle & the rosary it’s so far off I refuse to believe it no more sleep for me is good than a day or death now, who are you if never and never again a year who are you is your body o my family I’ve sent you my life these last words of spring & let us drink as the years go by and who are you in your one day of wonder in the woods of August & let us drink to find out who we are <|endoftext|> "Money", by Terese Christina [Living, Marriage & Companionship, Parenthood, Social Commentaries, Class, Money & Economics] You want to buy something from me. A book, or a bottle of wine. You want to buy a jumper. A magazine. You want to buy an ice cream cone. You want to buy a six-pack. A hat. You want to buy a car. A television. A record. You want to buy a cow. A blanket. You want to buy the whitest wool. A cow for that matter. A snowman. You want to buy a snowman. A horse. A radio. A can of beers. You want to buy a book. A book, and a newspaper. You want to buy a good one. You want to buy a large one. You want to buy a really large book. You want to buy a really expensive one You want to buy a vegetable. You want to buy a grocery bag. A can of soup. You want to buy a loaf of bread. A can of food. You want to buy a pound of meat. You ======================================== SAMPLE 176 ======================================== Then, while you were a fugitive, Away, away, to distant lands, Where you might meet the Bride of Souls, For none, but he, might wed her; Still your dead bodies did lie buried, Still awaiting the day of hell, In Oporto's sacred fields, In those lone fields of Orience Where your once bright brows beheads, And in Oporto's very streets The pale-faced lambs of Famine whine, For three wretched, long, weary years, Upon three Czech dark valleys now has been spread, Drearily and drearily, to gaze upon Sorrows of love and suffering endured; And the dews of love, and the frosts of grief, And the toil that was not once a joy Where once the sweet, deep breath of content blew And blest the heart for its happiness, So that joy might pass as lighter waifs of sleep And, when past, the soul might with the body's track Still on by the same grave from age to age; The suns and suns of Oporto, and beauty's flowers Shall kiss again no more, but we perish all On one black shore, without a name; The steersman's desperate, nameless hands shall plunge In gushing rims of heaven's yawning skies, And the dark, deep, sinister eyes of death shall stare On the face that death has made immortal, and aflame With fierce desire to mingle kindred souls; But I have heard, and O! I love the Call of Europe's thunder, The deepest, longest night of woe in world's history; I would be, in anguish, to the uttermost westward bound Of all those suns that yet in splendor hold o'er Paradise! The elders yet shall say what too feeble hands Deny the Child of Victory o'er that mighty host; And leagueless, and misty, and shadow-thin, Sad in the yearning of senile age, The long wan crones shall marvel why O'er lands for whom love's plight was dire A woman's heart should yield the part, And daze old mythologies with keen eyes. The older men with bated breath Shall, after time, the bold truth confess, That she who smiled in their youthful day Left hearts that sickened in their woe, Left them a den of nothing but regret Within their oldest age and wane. O Europe! the crone hath told thee her mind, Her religion with the poet's hand, And thee she will praise ere long in a loft, E'en to the skies--and thy lifeless lies, And thine indolent stagnation, Like old turfs that snap in an autumn storm, Shall see her immortal, as the rose again, With fresh, young, blossoming glory Blossom, over there; and she, O she Of the white arms, and face and those broad glories, Articulate and mann'd majestic With haughty grace and pith to move a globe, And to behold, is it not a live romance, Beloved beyond the grave? For why, for the sake of my chivalry, Do I climb once more the ladder slow, Her insatiate lightning, and climb The mythic mountain through the dawnless dew Of vain desire, and see, The hero and the mythic maiden, The same, in many colors twain? But why this crime, and not that? Say, what hath borne thee thus apace, With such a dense ennumer Of cups and baubles, and such faint Scentless perfume, in the wide Market-place, while I sit Upon the rainbow's rim, forlorn To drench once more? I know thee of a summer day When you came o'er the homestead door, And all our calm, deep, cool repose Was burst asunder with the beat Of pastoral wings; O happy morn of loving Time, When love, and most of all desire, Took heart again. I know thee now, even as thou art; Of what I sang thee ere in part I was inflam'd with love's pale start, And all you then in me saw, Shaping, out of those fitful touches, Kind soul in soul, all equal, yet Like as two souls in one, Mingl'd with all fit words and passes More swift than those many lights Which streem'd like rain ======================================== SAMPLE 177 ======================================== and bash. Meanwhile, back at home, I’ll take all the flowers I’ve swallowed and dump them out on the deck, the more common flowers of the roadway weeds. I’ll spread a blanket on the grassy floor, hop into my car and drive back where I came from. <|endoftext|> "Vivre Royale", by Simon Reich [Living, Health & Illness, The Body, Nature] Any sign of life will pull my van out. The river’s like a door, I believe. What are we. What are we. Once more I lean against the side: yes, we are what we must be, we who are destined. We must be what we are. Like a forest fire or a ravening, the door. We are the doors flung wide. And we are what we are. Let me be less afraid of you, how you are, what you are in your grey shirt of blue. Like, should we all dress the same in life’s not exactly life, the truth is that, and maybe the man gets lucky, the other half not so much. Have a nice life. Have a nice time. Dress up. And if you do, I swear you’ll look back. And I’ll whisper, I swear, you’ll look back, and we’ll be there. <|endoftext|> "Moonlit Lunch", by John Wingerda The prime rib, lacquered, slow- ening, blackening, sizzling, oozing— corn molo, rib con salubrem, venie, daubed with barbecue sauce. <|endoftext|> "Fog", by John Wingerda [Activities, Travels & Journeys, Weather] Sometimes I lose the plot. That swag does not do what it should. It seems to take the plot from me. I loose go,frelling, squinting, simmering—are we here or are we there? <|endoftext|> The sentence is unpredictable, like the fog it stirs. In this world where fog—and even clear weather— fails to deliver, and it seems often to come as if from nowhere, I thought I would try to describe the strong, soft, salty scent of a good wilderness retreat—where there are no rules and the wise are advised to bring nothing more than they know how to use. It’s hard to put into words the way fog lifts a state of mind, and when it’s gone the nature that the mind once knew—and still true to its primal state— remembers. Once I got so carried away in the thick of it that I forgot to eat. What a funny thing it is, the way a fog swells the yard or soaks the flowers, gathers on the windowsills or hangs like a shroud over the backyard fence. I can never predict when it will lift. Sometimes I feel fog creeping into my hair, my skin, or a quarter- sound asleep inside the lawn. The watchman, he’ll rub his hands, too, to make that weekend out. The fog makes a mess of the photographs I take. This is the way the mind of a poet must abide, even in sleep, by the fog. <|endoftext|> "Lapidary Note", by Richard Garcia [Living, Life Choices, Arts & Sciences, Language & Linguistics] Some prose. Some claims of which sentences, paragraphs, and lines are direct quotations or self-phrasing. I followed these prompts exactly— I wanted to hear directly how the author wrote that sentence. In that she starts her argument with, a sentence as she creates one or two sentences that immediately follow. I chose these examples: (1) Assume that like the moon, the sun will shine in any weather, at any time. (2) Actually cannot happen: an account of what the author saw that day, what she saw, was so monotoned and old it needs no explanation. (3) Though in reading many books I noticed that the obvious sort will not think of yelling, in their monologues, a thing until they have assembled all the words between that word and the one preceding that word in the dictionary. I had to use ======================================== SAMPLE 178 ======================================== And he is an Indian villain, a rez- He'll smash the old John Goff and plunder the He has at his heels the burning far- Paving the track of Mannix Jacobs's sled To the great capo-dyed gouge of the Brown River--what grand daring, alfousy to Get him away from his well-kept place and be To them a feather in their cap. Lets him have at him and makes the fellow Wise forsooth! For pluck I say. Then he'll look like a heart in that star, I've a bee in my bonnet, The most indigestion erete loveliest. I've an itch in my neck, And an itch in my side, And a burning in my groin Where I sit. I'm a heap of whiten'd flesh and bone, And the rheums within me pucker'd up: At the last descents of my breath, I lye on the floor, Unbon'd and unhated. My thighs are ghastly empty; my sides ache With a seeping pain; I feel the lugs Of the bed-foot, the floor above my head, The great dream-damping sea. I cannot see, I who am old, Nor through the door nor through the wall, But from my head to my hand can Crounblock the bounds of the space between. My eyes tear up my head, my heart Seems to have grown still and cold. On the bed I am lying on The room's a bower or a breast, But up and down I spin, and hear Voices in the future tense. The monkey-gray sash I wear, A pendant is it of pearls The same that Rustum wore, Who now in our world preaches Of internecine war And sits and reads. And the lady's garments, --They ne'er paced or floated or shone But, forever an unravelling, The long negligee! To me the precious pearly ones Are ancient bones beneath the floor In that lost house! They are quiet bones and glittering dust, That's all I've got. My Saxon O, If you have courage to sing, go, snatch him! Or if you have no dainty tunes, Put one of his tunes you know. But I wot when I'll ever sing again I don't know! Who's the singer now, Gentian or Alpine, sportive or grave, That's the one for me! Tell him Tango from the East comes! His wimpling pike's his favorite morrow! (Ho! ho! ho! I now do for you Whole in your country's spots wangle, What arrant, rough, rap-stretchable worms Love there!) As I stand and to and fro On the precipice and peer, It seems my husband's Of the Wood-Witchingley drag-stone, A porter of Easy-Jobs, He lingers; from the pit-stop stance Now closer to the run-side, Now "stepping to the main," His eyes, surly and sombre, Rest on the brave coal-black hairs That dishevel their unnatural glare, His lips white and skyward cast, And, his round brown spectacles on, On his snowy chee; Then his head held high, and bow'd erect The small wand at the nod Of the sweet Wood-Witch that he chokes With its twinkle on and on The low-pin'd earth-apple, The Skee-Ball and Five-Minute Election Thro' the white expanse that surrounds The little shoutless hold; And I, With weary shoulders and swarthy brow, Perch'd at Salisbury Sand, Where with his father two miles away Doth his bleak abode The Hunger-Games await Of stout-heart volunteers, who Will try to climb the same and die. And the sky an emus-balls and brown Strangle of writhing ermine! When I'm asleep, save me the cries Of any parent who may know My child sleeps on, cries for him Who's out on the inhuman Horizon, And on no Woman's Island; And thinking, dreaming, lifting hands With wonder and light Old fantastic light: By the flame's illusive reign I dream of dreams that do not exist! ======================================== SAMPLE 179 ======================================== My arm was a bird, you said. Your body all my wing. You told me a light Ends when day is done. <|endoftext|> "The Singing Dwarf", by Henry Timmore [Social Commentaries, War & Conflict, Fictional Characters & Symbols, Mythology & Folklore] He said to the bay "I wish to the abbey What you have in my hand. An ancient tree Stands on the heath and with its bents Rakes the mole-hill round. The pigmy Comes down at the end of the aisles." "The aisles," I said. "Your friend, (And he smiled) that it was, kept back His gorged mouth. The bay made answer." (He lifted up A lion’s paw.) "Speak," I said, "Who’s been?" I had not thought that anyone Was there. "Sola. Magic," said the bay, And straightened; "Roughed o’er his hat." "Where's he gone? Wherefore does he loll?" Said I. "The moles, It's plain, care not for us. They are Catching trout among the graves. A word Comes close to them, though round the roots Lilies bloom and roses bloom. The pigmy Will dance around and think it sex." The mole looked down and thought, "To butt Through bony mannikins. Once this way The walls of this monastery were Bricks of gold. They shall never be rebuilt." But I went on in all the length Of the wood at its well-set door, And found a walkway both wide and light, And there—a picture, a lily stream— When I stooped in—"What did he mean? What? and wherefore. That was the question Which did my question bring. "The sickly heart Found in the jewel. You know that elf Has never yet found a fit pokémon? Then, be it. There be dragons, nay; Not dragons, for there is a fire. But—what we have been seeking, a way To take flight, and, thus risen, in the smoke Of burning wings, may find our way To where he always has been, That Other into which we slip, At waking from slumber, sleep again. Then you, me. And me." "But not you. You mind, you look surprised. Who are you? And wherefore is that door leading to the place Where yet I cannot go?" "I am the way." "The door that leads to your home. See!" There were two doors to that room, the last But one yet lying open. The man did not Live long, and open it, you could tell. But who it was who by that door Had passed, we knew, must be a type of evil, Because a man, we knew, could go no further, For many feet beyond, beyond the door he must Have heard the plashing in the moat, the roar Upon the rocks above, the noise of this Deep, rutty river, and swim no more. There had toso in his dream, who had given Into the charms of that light the key Of these enchanters’ houses. That was the spell That moved him so, that voice which shook His draughty head to its full height, the maids And women crowned with flowers as tokens And brought him, bringing down to life Their Master’s image and the way to maids. “A sea of foolishness,” he told us once, “Would lead you—that is, me—to swim in that stream. They tell us however you may come To fall into the waves you must fill With water, be the water, and you must drink Into the moat. Here, you are, next to the door Upon the rocks. Let us go in, Master. The boat Is near. It will take you to the brink, You know, as those others you saw, here, Last year when the moon was thrice as large, the edge Of this river is not much more than a line, Not much more, although three times as wide; You will find, when you have gone this far, that night It was dark, and the true course it has no bar To its margin, while the others you saw You can cross, and walk your round, and back again.” It is true they have their marbles filled, They pour out their ======================================== SAMPLE 180 ======================================== O these can I see! by cause that it Receives not at all. We rise as we incline, And are more loath the course to pursue, than one As a strong man's strength of hand. Each to each As a vessel from a stout keel, taut, straight out Through all these miles of azure lake that separate, Tumbling, on its dark eminence, for night, Each to each in isolation, o'er the breast Of what in better hands the room Would take for three--although the floor be not So broad in each as'twere of wrenching limbs Crawled to a corner, with the ghastliest to spare For that sore closest, you'll never know 'Tis for that first, that his utmost hand Washes from breast to foot--this room and all. Our secret's hide; 'twill soon make us plain What to each other are our sov'reign's words; Or if ye wish to shade your feet to sleep, Speak not to me of noise! Seem I right? Ay, even so! To what I said Have you been taught, pray? Your silence then To my question did reveal the knowledge That in the grave, the guerdon of your fate Is surely light! Nay, but if you 'old me not secret of noise, I might believe 'twere good--oh! if ye were No louder than your neighbours. When ye are gone, Your fire will then be stayed; but when ye stay, It is kept as low as it may be, That you would fear to show a vapour, As 'twere an air-drum That clicks, and grows still no louder still. But ye have no secret, And your silence would betray me--if ye've No sense of having the gods Seen by! As for the curtain, Whilst it trembles there, it stands Lit by the moon's alone. I heard The entrance of a laugh. It showed Clear as the moon on the water: Drowned in yonder cistern, they dead all round, In their night caps in the submerged could not meet; But near us, and under the windows Of their night-canopies, see Gleam the eyes of the fire-flies, Mocking ghost-guests Laughed up the spouting plume, Seeing how we don't extinguish Our fire in the canal By flooding of water-wood, For the sake of a ghost, a well-air-ed Fountain sign. And this mightily for yours and mine Possess of that plover-pipe Set in the eaves of yonder elm. A very dark bridge! As dark As if in an age long dead, As dark As if it were of lead, And the banks of it Stricken with mosses, With their thousand dyes Had grown astray As when weeds and mosses grow Among The shut and swinging houses of St. Mark's. As dark As if we slept on marsh-land near Dover; Or as dark As if the God that manned The great sun of his time Were thunderless, And the light of his Seedless power Sucked forth of the earth's womb As through the usures of the morn. Here lieth one In his early forlornness, Or here is he who sends Nightshowers on the windows; Or who, In the days when through An old corn-field, or meadow Of an old orchard Swept an autumn o'er With sad inship Of the first stars in those high Wild fields, Lorn of a dream, the truth of fire; Or when that other Nightly from mast- And pine-top had strayed With silver scourge of stars And rain of moon, The cot of heaven Held pale and pied As heavenlier than it was. He it is Who goes with billowy plumes By thy sea-song shores, And makes that night Of this world's true night Of the grot and barrow. O, since I find ye in your Dreamland reels To a thousand devices old The far key of your Unknown songs Tunes wild divine, Tune harping, Or, drear with shapes uncanny, Wings out of sleep, Or, down below the sea, On some haggy hill, Or, abroad beyond the stony ======================================== SAMPLE 181 ======================================== Eighteen hundred tons this calendar year Can barely move a garden chair. The calendar isn’t true. So forgetful winters. The little we care to call the past. From the Times to the gospel, New York in twenty-two books in the mail. Sometimes we waste our time collecting and in the antique tickets you left you in a book and we waste the tickets. Before each book to the next, Each less and less a book Till we waste the novel. But after a minute from the next book, Before the nth book we will, Without further warning. Never mind the book. <|endoftext|> "The Right Time", by Anne Collett [Living, Death, Growing Old, Sorrow & Grieving, Relationships, Friends & Enemies] I hate the time of day when people call me old, and I come up on their breathing. I hate it. I can smell the smoke, the heat in the kitchen. I hate the time when the daylight changes and the clock rings. But if you ask me if I am a little old I will say yes and on your fiffing go to the fenny castle, and have an ice cream tester and a cola monzerod. There is a picture on the mantel and it is of a fair woman. <|endoftext|> "Milton", by Anne Collett [Living, The Mind, Nature, Stars, Planets, Arts & Sciences, Poetry & Poets] Suddenly I found myself alone in the stilly darkness in the starlit sky above the treetops and I sang the songs my old clothes had sung to me as I fiddled my way among the trees. A pinecone's lead was cold and shining on my forehead and the singing wood was making melodious sibilance. My eyes were new and wild and I sang in a language simple as a smile, beautiful and bitter. But this became lost in translation. <|endoftext|> "Dream Song #1", by Cynthia Huntington [Nature, Stars, Planets, Heavens, Arts & Sciences, Music, Painting & Sculpture, Philosophy, Poetry & Poets, Mythology & Folklore, Fairy-tales & Legends] to Lorca I am a cenésshine wondering for your rest I am a violace wondering for your rest I am a teton spreading sunbeams I am the stamp of your name waiting for your kiss I am the height of your hills wondering for your smile I am a winepress wondering for your kiss I am a hairline stradewarding your hands I am the chartreuse in your throat I am a slope of how many trails? I am the second twang of how many trails? The rain leaves its mark I am a gate of your island filling with its fruit I am the end of your tiny streets waiting for your haplessness I am a rush of the silk in your hair the rain leaves its mark I am the end of your tiny streets waiting for your kiss I am a world of love I am a history of your kisses waiting for your kiss I am a cushion of your streets I am the rain in your hair I am the roof of your lip I am the butterfly in your throat I am a cone of how many trails I am the second winkle I am a dulse of how many trails It is a lie The rain leaves its mark My songs are lying Waiting for your kiss I am a doorway my poetry is lying I am your iron and plaster I am a jaw of your hinges I am a wooden crib the garden is my eggshell I am a latticed trap of your liars the word runs through of your liars I am another story I am the false rock I am the rod of your eyes of your eyes your kisses of your eyes of your kisses of your fingers your fingers are the door of your mouth your mouth is your tail of your tail ======================================== SAMPLE 182 ======================================== salt, by a sort of harmonics of great, drums groan, yell and growl as the turntable swings to pale face and down the hall his drums lift and skim, place and begin to cry and grunt, his synapses fire with the words of praise, and in asylacre, they roll forth these words, of glory to the Christ. the, of love, is also present in clay and stone, in clay and stone and the pagan stoops to touch and kiss it, and his soul must leap up and follow, and his soul is not condemned to die in the bad clay, but his eyes glisten with glory in He is not obliged to pray for the hands that don’t belong to him (not Moses or to break the Law, and the Commands don’t form the underside of his chest tattoo, any hand can point, and we also know the hands don’t belong to us either, you and I, she adds), all of us are living and alive because love is not a post or a tombstone, it is a door, it is at least a smile. <|endoftext|> "Five Divine Objects", by Rita Dove [Nature, Religion, God & the Divine] God acts in ways that are for the most part intimate and personal. He doesn’t tell you what to do. He doesn’t threaten or flaunt His presence, but he does intervene Where people are, quietly. People pray to Him in gratitude and in hope for reassurance. His abilities have been described by many people, with different reactions. When you are in a hurry, you pray. When you are with a friend, you talk. He’s like you, but He is not one of you. God does not make interpretations, and He does not compel or help, He does what is for the best. And yet, He moves with us like a friend of clay that has accumulated Through many lives. <|endoftext|> "Young, Christian", by Rita Dove [Relationships, Religion, Christianity, Faith, God & the Divine] I met him in the paper this morning and said, “Dear diary, I want to talk to you.” He told me, “It’s a long road to divinity.” I find myself in the remains of the old town in the valley, waiting for the first drizzle. I have a poem about the first few years of my life, the thought of it stings in the night. I leave my heart at the door of the Deveron hotel and go toward my first day of school. I meet him in the intersection and say, “I want to talk to you.” The years came easily that day, their gentle relationship at first bright, then like the levin ring gone cold. I’ve had my fill of faith and writing this poem, but I can say with some satisfaction I never saw him without emotion and I thought of him once again this morning in the morning journal, my very first journal, my second journal, and in the entry in the diaries. <|endoftext|> "Salvage", by Tacey Andre Henri Reece [Living, Marriage & Companionship, The Body, Relationships, Family & Ancestors, Home Life, Men & Women] For the first time when I opened my life to my husband, I thought, as from my body my words were flying, might as well put them to good use: to protect the lives of those children I never saw again, as from mine. The problem with the country was the salting rain—no one around to see, and the bed among cedars made me cough. When I wrote my husband again, I was the thief from the hills with the huge bag of gold, armed with the two boys. My body with its shape of muscle and white blood was co-owners of the knife. My body in the barn alone with my brothers was the priest. The priest kept to the shadows, but I couldn’t. The flock never saw the graved window, but it was there. The eyes moved to the edge of darkness and then on to the floor, the arms around it, the lips on it. My body with its shape of muscle and white blood was co-owners of the ======================================== SAMPLE 183 ======================================== "Look at my little black cat," I said, "She may be black, but she is not you, And, if she be you, you cannot be black. "She is as mottled as an acorn, And you that have eaten of her dung will know That there is no such cat as yours, For she was born and bred among the thorn-tree." Sufficed it, I might try her charms for myself, When, poking my slippers under my chair, Down jumped my cat, and then crossed the floor. Forth from the roost three sparrows took their way, Down from the top of the tree's tall battlement, Climbing the thin white rope of pine that wound Down to the garden from the coal-black steep. "Ah!" the girl said, "look, how white they go!" "How black! Look, how white! You see that black?" "Nay," quoth the boy, "let us stop here instead; For they have capers and I lose all. Come back, dear, till the last day of our fun, And if she will not do, I'll give you no food; You told me black before, I cannot see That it's not you, that is, since you are black. "Go in and out and beat your black cackle till You change your complexion, and you'll be gay then, And try to be white, and never will be black, Since I've caught you red-and-native at your blazon, And though you're black, you're white as God is God." "O dare you talk to me of God," I answered, "for that's what I want to know! Could aught that's fair with pains ache so much As have words with dearth, and have no bread, Or have words at all, and lose them all." "I do confess," says he, "I own This one, and let it be." With the same red skin I've the same minds as he. I would sooner we should both go mute, Than play the devil's pr-routine On a question if one be true, And the other none. "But if it chance that you win," says he, "I'll close with you." Say then, will it ever befall My lot as it is to you, That I should make it good And live a black or brown way? "Why then," quoth I, "you have said the same To others where they shouldn't speak, And I'm puzzled what's worse for me With such a secret." Then he, with his shadow on his brow Fingers his way among the loam. "Well," said he, "may the Lord thank you, Though I suspect by now you know the rest, If I maintain I have a ghost. And you know it's not true. Yours is the victory, and no more. No matter if it turn out you've lied." The next time I saw the man, at a train Point he stepped in my way. And though he told me never a word, He did look so glum and ghostly there, And speak he only when I called him fair, Or bentest my ear that he might hear. But on the lift he got before me, Again I bid him pay the fee, And hold that little lad with gimping, And glad to see that I was not alone, When what in answer I should hear From the little voice he did take. I'm waiting still to hear what he said, But always came the man who knew, And off he ran, and won't be long in there, I can see the shadow of his beau, Not a day the dear man's off; No, he isn't one of those you meet Who are rich and like to boast their paiements; No, he isn't the man for such an a one. He's black, he's poor, he's got two eyes; And half of all that I'd choose to meet. With eyes as bad, no one he is so, Except a man with wealth or name. With a man of beauty and riches wrapped About his ears, no doubt; and so bent That one of either one did not exist. With fame thrice dead, and wealth an ancient, And rank with men who hate the game. "O who'd live?" No one in his right mind, Except his girl or son; and why ======================================== SAMPLE 184 ======================================== He gan to me. He led me forth to Clituzio, To Mendicantes town, and gave me as my fare: I to him, I found him the knight, and spake him fair. "I am thy stranger, and the church and us We beseech thee of thy aid; not daring there To rest, but toiling all night: to sail No further, nor on these nether wastes." The wizard wroth amain; cried he anon: "Hard is the cold stars. They see, or not, How thou fain wouldst be unaware." But I said: "That balmy dawn shall never break The golden time that closes in thy heart My hope; thou by it!" And without a word I left him there, where with nodding head He stayed and rubbed his heavy eyes; then hid His mantle, and we walked the uneven way Down to Clituzio, and beyond, and up the hill, And caught at last, half-way up the ascent, A goodly galley: it had whitely come From Troy all bloom, a scorched dunghill sail. We dipped the oars with silent care; And still my lord to me: "Why trouble My heart with what men call hope? I hold Hope unborn, and love so soon. Behold This beauteous bark; what flowers among The precious goods that carry it? Behold How hitherward her white sails are floating!" He turned his face. He straightened up the fellow, And looked the second time at me. "Art thou Still sad?" he asked. "With us, nor without Will every rank of people follow. But wait; One gift more, of the world, thou art not yet Truest, better to bear some gentle one At home, and he not one of the best, But worthy of a royal crown." As, at the first question, my face fell, And I answered, "Let hope find me, God wot, I never will despair." He laughed. Then the third time round the gauntlet he Presented me; lo, I stood upright, and set The point of my straight hand astride it. And "Be sure and look," he said, "from me Even now, and leanly hold the reins, thou!" And so in scorn he answered: "They are but Gutters for the ass. Go, lord; and find Among thy mostoute men of bit and peck Another treasure--when the mare is learned By circling time and skill; a mare, noble gift Of God! Thou shalt not put her through," he said; "With yon ass, or any meaner saddle-yoke. Thou surely art a man of large estate; A horse thou readest hath worth three hungered herds. But now I grant my prayer; for now no more They tramp and hack. I grant for thee to live Amongst the living ones." And, running, I bowed to his back, and then a little way Descended; and the sea brimming in beneath, Bowed me unto the twain. All this as in the ancient story I find: A brother, a twin brother both Creatures and gods, having fared by both, Came riding by a nether way than these On his immortal horses: the red eyes Are left of him, and his great head peer; The wings which as the ladder's high descent Lav's, curled, on heaven, his other wings so smooth As an angle; his tail is lengthened sharp; That snatchth, to hinder flight, the strokes of the wind; The rex overlaid, the two simultanars Of heaven; whose one fierce beak the fearful claws Stiff-drawn; beauteous breasts, whose corslet-spells Struck up in hush of sleeping. Lo, him who hath lost The mighty twain. What talk Hath the self-sufficing sun Beneath his ear, in livery long Dark, slumberous, to the feet of the sky, Seeming like him? Would he spoke? "Sadness is worst of all, my soul, That hath no portion save to fear Some final rest beyond of wrong and night, As dark and deep as this eternal night, Which from the world Of the lost things, my soul, is called." Thus from my ship to the shore of my mind I had descended. For that time let the sea watch the sea, Let him who hears ======================================== SAMPLE 185 ======================================== I' th' forest dark I heard her soft solace flow From the fresh well of nature's Fountainie. By the nameless stream she lipt aside her hat And let the brim shine on her head so fair. To-morrow in the sun I'll look again. Not in the river 'tis thin and sweet the print Of her little topless brow to read. Or round the wine-shop where old silver light Gleams from the flashing gutture, green and blue; Where the last carouse is still of the folks Who in the sixties strived with slapdunt youth. Some musing in the "sensation" hour, Let me glide into blisses by the untracking, It hails a ghostly woman passing by, And breathes of a lost I'll here am a-sailing. <|endoftext|> 'A short History of the War' in The Best of Beales 'Writers' and 'The Arts' (Buffering reproduced from The Best of Beales The cheery but impetuous rhyme It is that sometimes rhymes as if it grew Like a child by receiving holy bliss Has breezy virtues that teach religion to man And what the dullest priest might be To drooping sinners but a lovely guide Has in the Bible, such as not even I Have read, and in it I find most of all Though the apparent meaning, obscure to me As a blind man searching a cursed dream, I blundered coming to the end of dream Vague passion and hope of purpose that bade Me strive for suffering and a cross Of any sort forlorn, My eyes half closed Between the veil of the Gospel and the psalm. And must I leave the less triumphant song For heavy centre, even-song, the music Of a slow-whirling drum? For not in vain Desires of life the passion is ended, Nor is the consummation fulfilled, But death has spoken and not sin. <|endoftext|> On sabbath mornings when the snow was clear, It ran across the court in little fangs With which the old well was out of order barred. We kept it for all weathers. Then came a winter when the snow hidden ground In an unseen cross, Under which grew ancient gums Tobacco-palate trees. When more clear winter came the street again Of a snow-streaked court meandering by There was one cabin where the light Came through a little window of the thin roof. There was another where a branch of snow Lay on the court. They were more green than the first. There was another cabin of pine. An axe was there and an old-fashioned sight To freeze the pig as he peered at the wind Fossil-hunting through the solid, slant snow. He knew me. A gutter gushing from the righthand wheel When the cabin in the ice was as bald And barren as the broken cabin on the ground. Like a green bullet the years had been, And they sank inward like a broken-off tooth Into the disfunctional apathy of pine At the flatness of snow and ice, the sight Of him gazing there. Three silent pines in a line with a ragged face Tumbled and re-echoed the faint wood's growth, Unintentionally, like a mantra The body's mind forms as breathing's breath to be Protestations against the lives that sputter down As to an endless, nauseating end, Love-lovers of space, Weary seekers of the opposite goal, Shut in among sun, sod, gray air Beyond breath, dream, memory, Two pines cooed in the snows as a spell Comes on the third To quicken the lost with the things lost in the third, And quicken the lost into the two. Haply some walker man wise and wary, Not realizing the pine trees' deep shadows Turning the pines a white disk upon the snow, Might note the trees so quietly swaying without sound To stone in some great war the leafing undersides I wonder is it hate or love? I wonder why There is red in the phlox To die with some strange low burning moon-face, Rounded from some swift idiot course, And say to himself 'All these pines sigh For what? Wholly odd. For beauty; for no brier Shall be in the world a soughty grief, Strange, for the world ======================================== SAMPLE 186 ======================================== How a long night of grief, wasted still In tears, and battle vainly fought With filthy, deathful disease, was called The second dark; to finish so much pain (Though after years of cruel patiently) He now was worth all the agony; Nor his the last, who thus at length Came safely to the middle ground. Thee, my father, steeped in bitter tears And with agonies of heart and limb, With many a groan remained, while ye With pruning-hook went ready in prayer to Him Who bound the wounds, while through his soul He broke. Still his own country to her breast no longer reach'd, And like a flame to hell was driven away That spot, among the worthless and dismay'd, He named Hell; and six stings in the head He wore for mark of remembrance. From thence I was borne, to sorrow a stranger's land And great fortitude; and I invoke Your aid, which might have success in this, The only play your hearts will take, or lack. And my sincere desire is that you rise To such a height of glory and renown, That I my true, true son may one day see You to the world a name that shall distinguish Thee with the living. Take all my prayers; Which if you hear in depth from the All-holy, Justly deserve your infinite reward." I thus to him, who yet had unerringly Me’rd his noble mother, thus: "Wherefore thank? Will you have me if you have taken me? No. No; I must needs with the rest return to the gods From whence we first came, not after Madea rideth Her sea, that pierces the salt sea-cliffs; but she Scorning the gods, disdeth her own ancestry. And thou, whose benefit will it avail you now To have me in paradise? doth this thy love Produce your father’s pain? Doth it satisfy You? Doth the flash of love your bliss control With its mild influence? Ye gods, be your wills What they be. At my birth it was by Zeus Imagined, that these should be, whose ways Beare such wide chantier with the sun, Than yours, of whom’t silence was ordain’d; For hither were return’d, ye banish’d gods. Pardon my words. Why must you, then, tarry Till that the women of the wood may make Your bridal beds one to the other, and divide Your wives? so that late wedded you were weary fed With ashes, now those are spent, and prayers Need no longer to be told. The king of gods Can change these little.; but it were no matter To thee, my wife, whether these return And come again or no. My native home I would not see, nor any land I ask, For-dye not with the infamous things that happened For ever at the first. Better to have died For-day, than to have this to come about." He ceased, and all those glorious forms; that circle Which limits fate, they observing, made reply: "Our first-created lot hath in it all the cause The nature hath, of itself capable of heal’d; Nor need there it be beseech or pray for heal’d, Or send to tell what there is not better to know. Thy love is not like others’ who like themselves Make several courts, and seek information Of their own courts by various means. They choose Of their numerous offspring, and of every grace Administer to each; and judge whether they please, More various their degree of beauty, they Finding in their amusements more cups of wine Or more for their libations, and that at will. But thou thy love dost ever more approve And more admire, being infinite, Which must be content to know, and not care Which is the last or best of all their gifts. A man may have what of love he will, Yet never see the beauty of his choice, If it please him to possess it all. If thou observe them closely, thou wilt find That their degree of affection Less clear, less variety of shapes displayed, Than is to thee others count. But I believe No age has wealth whereof so large a quantity Is never spent, as when by fancy spent The imagination with a ponderous load Of delight, and idle labor powers. Most true, But whatever to regard or not to ======================================== SAMPLE 187 ======================================== - Some gentle swain From wood and hill, from moor and plain, Songs of heaven's own shower-beaten bells; The murmuring stream; the whirl of wheels When the gentle rain comes down; the deep Rumbling of the main; the echoes dim Of distant thunder; then she stole From these her heart-enfolding strains A glance. The spare jess of light, That then filled the valley; The evening air, that now Clung like a cestus night-bewildering; The stars that blinked dim in the mountain pine, Bright in the moonlight, flamed like flowers. She crossed the mountain pass; A wavering mist Flecked all things go the days of Februaries; And then the mountain peaks, Just where the clouds stood curl'd, stark And desolate, as in years of yore, Shivered, and went dim in the watchfire light. The night was a picture; wan and wide The lightning streaked the heavens overhead With lurid laughter of steeds, Clasp'd hands and eyes in their drunk deference Of beasts unbolting their feet. A smoke-cum-smoke in heaven! And for an hour the heavens crack'd Till the croak of unseen neck Rumbled on tremulous toes And from the breach appeared, plain, The rumour in the bush Of a belted sun-swollen bird Going down in a storm to doom. And then It dived; a leaper too Flew close, a long thin streaked wing, That on her way from Waubromant To Kewfhobe percentage Must flop along, It is the noise of feet In the air like crazy plovers That stirs, stirs. Crying, "Yoot on!" the whole world's in bloom. It's in the flutter, the stroke of wings. Just to know It's only yesterday she left Feeling the fall of mountains, heat, Hot sea-spray, the steamy pull Flecked at her bodice's clasp, And whirring spinn'd wheels of her. A scarred Pa was growling at her, Showed by the wood; to the west they said He was a bull-man. His hounds, Black and red, were howling, yipping In their school, under bluffs of Mnmey, Now the curious fisherman's jibs were howling In a bay at Mnsecansey. He told a story in his soft and rustic drawl. He said his chance had come. His lineage, he said, Cousin'd to that of the Bull-Run, had bred Rough blood, like his bull's. But nothing more of them; He might go alone; And at once he gave her his word. Some things men will learn in the world of the mind You may 't know. I have no son, Said he, But the lore I have carried with me, Blent with what you've heard In the feath'ry west, And the ground-of-tongue thought To wrestle with the o'er-clear sky. Hence the deep sight. With what of the bard do I define the sight? The hand of the bull-man in me. He had been born. He had been born. He had dreamed and grown to a man, Then beheld the word of a day, Mnml round the face of his blood. The indivisible 'i', 'illeth,' Took us away to the stately herds Of an infinitely distant world. 'T was she, 'magnificent' and 'splendid' and 'gay' She who had first him in the shade of morn, Mnml in the shade of his ear. O the gaze of her eyes! her keen white lashes Whited with the sun; her lips like wings Slowly, soft kisses of milk-and-water; Smiles that scorch the world. 'Thrilled with the awful pressure of her gaze, I sicken'd As with demons that make nightmare. Her lips such praise did mould, Binding me to her. Then I learn'd the great word of her form; The sacred litanies that rise and fall, Changing with her deeds; And, setting aside all fear, I bow'd low; Then seiz'd her hand, Mnml drawing her glove, As if to clasp the ======================================== SAMPLE 188 ======================================== ualier than the sky or earth, So satisfied to taste a morsel Of what I was before For one, scarce contented to be heard Before, for so surpassing loud! Give, then, my sighs and tears, that hearth, My pain, my penitence, In ashes, if thy passion find, That, living, had commanded; My living here am I, and how I liv'd before thou li'st so much, So much, with whom, both in space And time, thou cam'st to live so much, This spot, this life, these bodies, where By living thus thou'lt gain so much, Which of thy worth thou hast by dying, Thy stars did shine, did they not Out of their flourets did approve This soul, this body of thine To dwell, which else had had been In utter darkness, utter disease And danger, open flame and wreak Vengeance, destroy and kill, and drink their drop Of like desolation, which I fear As, from their fountains where they spring, Pour forth, the fishes of each element, For, wanting it, their fury nighs it, So wrath within thee fire-like driven, Is too much like their streams of vengeance, As thou to God, and to the others' feet Cast art thou and there retire; for which Call'st thou me, thou convertest well; and mine The highest angel to lead: and there This soul, which thou some time didst leave behind In threefold division, below Twofold nature was subordinated, By pairts so cut here: but make thou Reorgan'd like himself, and like to him Of whom it was created, unfold. As one of whom, so when, and to what append, I recently tolden, that the seat, whereof My sound development was [in me], Was vacant, because one of the race Of harlots, following Avarice, Conducted him from heaven, and that he won The will of them, not their hearts, which were By them. Following his feedback, they swap For natures loveliness from him their own, Which he involves in grisliness. Not in that absence so transform'd, but that Which carries a ferment is styled infus'd. Raban takes this discourse merely, and prints The figure, that behind him painted still Seemed, with his symbolics, to besom. But, in order to discern the nature, The face, the particular peculiar, Where that joins most with other, this with that, He picture fits, t' investigate which, Or in what tigress soe'er he scan. But he, who rears so far his effulgence, Is moved, before he fits the wind, more ferven Than any of the ringlets, from their shells; From havock, froth, and pod, he passes on, And comes as it were in a list'ner's posture. Bare Thebaid he shows, and calls the host Of fishes that in it, and that were Soyle besprinkled with amphibious slime. He first lays forth the joined flowers and covers, And after, the heating element, Then follows it, and the beast of each element. Then with what water he is fathom'd so deep, That it can seem a separate world; Then, till his sight has wander'd quite around, It sinks, and shows a single globe. The spade Next comes, and deftly cutting up the wreath, He to the cumbre gives the hollowed stone; And to the beast seeks to draw the skin, As to a wondrous stone, of which he sees Part a thin cross-section, part a thick one; And wonders much at which he chose. He looks also at the snouted fish; The which, to reave in their own shape, he treats As though they were nothing else but shells; Then lays the blade to treat the herb; and thus He spreads the load to so straight a cart, That to the wood no more the traces be found, 'Tis to beANNED. Thus in figures play the lovers. Let each one, who loves not, labour who will Or fair or beauteous; who of life complains, Or who is fair for once, recover, And learn to love, like their lovely song, Which like the sweetest salve to mad'ning shaft Laid upon the wounds, the ======================================== SAMPLE 189 ======================================== In scented bays of cloven apple trees And cities old as history, from their centre rolled To the last line of its echoless march. In this clear moment, man Gives up the thread of the far ideal, and breathes The measured sentence of his life. And what a comeliness Is round him, the red man, the oak with its gold Shining in the wind; The distant rivulet of its far-off waterfalls Like a song that is sung. It is the mystery of the statue of Perugia, and the artist who sculpted it, Its very westward heavings As of a city of elder Italy Hugely reaching toward its far outreaching hills. In this silent atmosphere, where the spirit-winds, Like the winds of autumn, bring the fragrance of Tree and sun and sea and mountain, All are at one in the silences that By their solitude make greatness, The more do the silent seabirds behold The white teeth of their going ancestors High, broad and shatteringly shown In blue and lonely heavens, There is the statue of this Italian artist High, broad and shatter. The pine is stricken with innumerable trees, Its boughs Ring with the chipping and chiselling Of some infernal machine, That here, silent and insensate, goes Scorching and skipping on with furious twist and Wring, It moves to the whisper of the sea, It twitches and quivers in the wind. The iron tracks where it shoves and skids Are but a wooden path; The heavy steel frame, black, Broken into many by the softness of the stone, Or less hard and less enduring Is moved on with the ponderous wheels In the whisper of the wind, Do not become softer To its more soft and pliant motion, But are indeed moved on by the wind, And are indeed whirled on with the wind, Who knows if this stone or that move These things moved, what should he know? Through the trees the polished river gleams As if that its course were measured and set, As if each leaf was weighed, As if this house were built For a live wind to enter, and not for a tree To be subject to the at will of a gust. Lo, through the leaves of the trees Streams a stream of colour, Of a liquid and geometrical slowness; So it knows, apart from the span and amplitude Of rivers and streams, Whence that whereof it is made That liquid and clear That through its glassiest veins and Barberettes, Runs the line of a vermilion, as it runs Towards a thing of which we are not aware Aside from the norm of its normal and average Surface, it likewise is a part, And with the leaves of the trees flows over the norm Of their normal and average, doth such an unmeant Flow make a more fine and whiter colour? We must loose the locks of our long hair to a few short fine twitches at the nape of each neck. Ye are few and they are few in number as are the flowers of the garden, And those that are watchful will tell you that with no emotion. What the gods do, the humble man must do, Whether he is wise or unwise or mad or sane, Is the question. There are many graves among the city's idols, Whence those broken stones that are statues have an equal weight. But the dusty streets are not a uniform compass direction, But there are inclinations and resistments. One, as one thinks inwards, so we turn outwards, And sideways and backwards are end and beginning. We must answer in numbers for our curiosity What the god who is omnipotent is after; But the same god who is evergr originally is himself Has no eyes, has no ears, has no tongue, has no mind, But functions as a spinner-spower. Man must remember that he is more than his cells, Each one of his millions of cells is a single thing, Each cell is nothing but the application of the cells, He is part of the whole and the part is itself, Each part is a part, And the whole is the master-gentleman of its parts, And he bears it with ease Wholly by gassing each part, each part and its ecxerating self. Toward the assembly of the city of iron mountains Upon a green marsh a man standing with his back ======================================== SAMPLE 190 ======================================== The warlock forges bellows; No forest green of maiden flower Springs from his furnace fresh and fair; He burns it in his tub while others laugh In sudden scorn and sudden fear, He burns it for his friends and heirs,-- A crown he yields for life's repose. Fair the fingers of his glove; The stubble shines, a waxen light, With slender bellows burning bright; The minstrel round his brow a box doth wear, And on his hand the little maker's name; From his he wears a bracelet rich That some sculptor made him while he lived,-- For him entombed in this cold prison tomb,-- They made no better artist live. Here too good thoughts and anxious care Were precious jewels to him, His eye o'er misery and death still shone, And gloomed like the noontide sky. Humbled in silent humility He felt them count upon their faith, Humbled beneath the weight of that repose Which mankind from him could not win; For art could not lift a humble brow; No art could cure the broken heart When that was cupbed in the depths of Hell. He did his duty as a servant, He wrought a service to his friends, And hoped that they, in time, would reward him With oblivion of his doom; Yet he could mourn in cheerful throng When men rose up and chorussed his grave, The towers of old Basford tower, The town was good to him In sunshine and in snow,-- These are the walls of marble-court I gamboled all the time. When Winter got the flu, he flouted home So well in coat of blue, And glad as house or ring He was, good friend, to me. When Summer time came he made his moan In chimney-seat or mess-todge,-- Then went to beat on King's Drayton's toe In his white collipte or stately Maltese. Says he, "This cull I hate,-- Me thinks he did no more than take Dirt from my purse, and drink; But my sense goes afoul,--he did more. 'Twas well for him there's a sense." As gossips talk, it is strange That he should go discontent Against a well-devised nose. He kept a real hawk, And was the hope of his craft, A fore-take on his return, And straight ane, as could be, He cheered and said, "Ho, Ruth!" "Home again,--Ruth, home again!" The youngest son was Lord Mar-l-ck, And Ruth was Lady Mar-l-ck, Both serving in the kitchen; In which, indeed, the Kitchen-knave Was anxious to be taught. Then soft, for the daughter's sake, Ruth was nowhere found. The younger son was Lord Mar-l-ck, And Ruth was Maid of Honor; A faithful Maid of Honor In closing robes entwined Her winning ringlets entwineth; And yet, when time gave place To rhyme and lore of quarrels, A fool was he To humbly mother her. To which the father, stern, Hid Ruth behind a bush of booted heel; But which unthreading, tore in shreds; The anguished tale of love, Till lip and cheek were dimmed. "Ruth!"--unceasingly Called with haughty voice-- "Ruth, will you prink down your gown? Ruth, will you clothe yourself? 'Twere a love-a-flower, And--sweet,--I wove it in." Such a cry the mother smote, That both the children ran (Only Lord Mar-l-ck remained) Out of their hiding-place, When Ruth (dumb) jumped, but Ruth (Useless) jumped, and Ruth Then lit out (so caned in blue) Like a lemon on a tree. Unpersued in this stale array, Cling with every vein, Cling,--onward clung they could not move; And fain would tear their blubber pale. Ruth, so big with pitiless firmness, Rocked like the lead-bladed flail, Hardly made a muscle, But she lifted them, And at one effort, Their drake-like covering folds around The wound of her deep might fill. " ======================================== SAMPLE 191 ======================================== Nursed breasts wet as fair bride's milk, Pressed sweet to juice with moonbeam dew, Fruit of rich trees and gold sands buried. All this we leave behind. We run no more In that steep-climbing world of youth, But, enchanted by the vision of a star, A flight beyond the tropic world and east, Where the caves mouldre wood, and ocean caves, Have their nestlings in an Arabian land, Rapt by the mystery of night. We clamber in the sun-kissed days, With the caves brown by and so brown When the grass was wet that the rain clung As it dripped and dripped, dripped and dried To a cup whose envy made them lie Athwart our path. We wear at our waists Rain-whiskered hides. And all day long We search in a lusty crew For the race that drops in the dark To their sea-hams on the sand and the dream Of the fathomless forest's hushed fount. We know that where we turn, Out on the windy shore, Beholders of waters and weeds galore, Without, was a land undreamable, Where the face of the earth was lost and cut In the cutting of the baleful bar Of a sky. An antre of I Know And husk that our hands made, and then We carry, not to the land whose ears We wear in the moon, but we pipe and tell The tale of an antre where the sea stretches And cuts the mermaid's face in a night. But we do not raise the foam To make men's eyes blind. Now, we who travel Have found a pink tomato In the field by the field mouse. But we have strayed; we will not see The noon sky smother in the light Of the rainbow, but we will trace The waste of a night. Where the wind lives And has its secrets are we sentinel Over the spiced clover and the cottonwood, But where the wind does not live, we stand And know there are stars, and we drink Of this, and that, and joy of all that's green. Gaily the full-faced sun shines On the nearby lake with phosphorous And strident outcry, and it is not so Much heaven that we know as wakened, A forest where white lilies have reared In caverns hard that are unknown to us. Chloe's face twitches as she peers, And we smile, our valley on the ridge; Laugh at each lamplight that hurts the eye, And spread a riddle on the pillow Of the universe that we know. <|endoftext|> Deep in the shadowy valley lives an old man, with a curious little old-man's-friend. He has a fine old-fashioned hand-cart, with a cover all of velvet, and on the box is a old-man's proverbs with original illustrations. The title-page says: in memory of an old friend who died with many philanthropy in his heart. On the inside is the name of the deceased in statu-ory; though he was so civil, he may have been in his abstruse and ceremonious ways. When you find this hand-cart, and as anxious you are to know who all are the occupants, look closely, and perhaps you will find one of them so old, he must have a number. "There was a old man," singing in the garden, and a splendid old-fashioned man danced with speed. They shook hands, and suddenly they had to make to go; And if they did not make it, they knew it, for with a thump and a groan, and a crunching beneath the wheels, and a hurried and an anxious crowd, and a rush for the door, they fled, and the old man, with dignity, went home to rest his aching Though they rested, as I told, in the valley for a while, they rushed like a storm, and they danced to follow the printed course of the hoof. There was a lovely old-fashioned hostess, who answered in a novel way. She had baked a pie as a birthday present for a dear old friend of her father's, for that old friend was growing old, and she needed a new pie for her next few years, and she gave her father the pie to divide with the joy of a kindly blessing. Through a window ======================================== SAMPLE 192 ======================================== 「Yoshi! Why tell you this, Whose every word I take, In words which you never heard? This, this, these, O yoichi! Come! O Go! Tarry! Earn! Whoso obeys the Fatherland, And is found in not a dun, Shall say of righteousness that it hath A singleness of will, as this: A red-hearted will, A perpetual habitation, The fire unquenched. So men say. A long, long tread, And so are there light hours up, The summer days are sweet with spring. A day is here! A breath, that hath flown a-reaching The high threshold, will fetch it back. A bare jagged edge, that radishes nest When we raise our fingers at play, Where, for its standing where it stands A child may look and see how good It looks as what it was. Ah, yet, The stars look bright when we, too, see! She went forth and roamed the marshes, And did a handful of fishes… She did not marvel how they were glad, Nor wish for any better; For this is now the nightly mood Of all the living things in Heaven, Since she the marvel of this feat This household moon doth crown, And no other wonder is More skilful to come back, And look the other way. There in the blue sky above the trees, Look here, sweet boy with your green eyes! To touch your hair with the curls Of the twinkling boughs of the trees, That shadows enfold. Come hither, the cold night winds say, And welcome, little boys, and welcome, Welcome to the mansions of the earth, And your damsel's light feet, which have carried Both you and your lissome mother, Bred up in their lovely mazes Between the stars that move serene And the glimmering skie-swarms That help the moon-land for some sport, There, little boy with your capful Of moonlight, as it lies Beside you and the pensive ladies, Is the spacious real earth as tender, As heaven above, in all her tides, And if the path that God goes by Gain't be passed by with flowing wheels, All is the world was begirt with wings, And if he loves as soft the earth as heaven, And no cloud knows its own glory, In the all-subtle range of things, What joy, sweet boy, of the fulness Of glorious wings! What pleases me Is, to look down through the air, And to see the Spring-time, and hear These lullabies from the grass, These little murmurs, that float Up to the window through the Spring White little air-games which we play About the present hour, with one Who, while the heart's in earnest, Sings at the breath of the heart. The stars on the trod-off sill twinkling Like little white-and-black-ray guns, Leave off their intent to marvel, and go Into an empty aim. No more of that great trail of the years Tracking their passage out, Eager now and then to flash a trail Of their own thunder-sound; Earning and aft and light it must, Until they've got a trail they know. No more of that, then. They're trying To make their own trail, sweetheart, will you? --Ah, the poor ones, the poor ones! Youth, why art thou so adept, Thou pliant tree Upon whom the rain Of glad tears can flow And make a river flow? --I would have thy beaks Graced with a rose; Would to the rose-less Bosomed tree Thou wouldst welcome dew And moonlight o'er; From whom is given So little, So much so small? Not from the berry, Nest of the plum Dost thou take. Why does the rose Back into the air Flick round like a ghost? O sweet grass, Nimbyslow As the highest Whin-tops, and lift thy nose Lazily to the breeze Which, bird-like, doth sing! What brings thy rhythm to break With such unbass; what makes thee get Into a quivering tune? Thou art not angry, lady, With any feeling, word ======================================== SAMPLE 193 ======================================== Will, and by what means they can, What danger under flags and with oil-floods." — But more than one a poet, at least In interior life, has deeply pondered (And many far have wandered), And oftentimes in bewilderment (Seeds of future flower, or future thorns), Has in those ranks been put to sleep (By some unknown means), and tovexit, Making for the stairway of the sky (Or flights of windows in the leaves), But whether 'tis done by heroes or by poets No one can, as this ancient man (Which life did not rebuke with more scorn Than either), And ye, my shepherds (who flicker, now), Let not your flocking wits go free In what distress ye may perforce Join together, they will all return; For this is the reason which wont to happen: The things have risen from under ground In an unknown and unhallowed quarter; And each is encumbered and agitated By living folk that long since have been there, And ill it is for us to wander there, And in the main, although for man it were The best, and only way, he fell to see The room so badly, and to walk therein. <|endoftext|> "'Tis hard to part when friends are good at heart With two pensions and two fiduciaries, With an ever-open purse and true And a mission to fulfil.-- Ere I could move, and for the love of mine I'd ask for pardon and revenge.' --Lane FRE, 1577. She's a rare old thing, is yonder pout With the odd, curly whiskers; Though whether from visions or from sleep She becomes, I've no faintest idea, A free vessel for her silver tees, Or whether she be a pirate's pet; But they'll know--just behind her and the rest-- An old bream if a gray final "zeal" Be writ there somewhere with a needle's force Upon some dead whale's blued side. As it was, I scarce knew her at all, Or only knew she knew me; So much her yammy had not grown old Or forgotten youth and her ease; Ah! how the hens in the furnaces grow When they're kept to cagelike diets And, deaf as they are, I loved her so. There came to our harbour in the dusk, A sky-treble lubberly ship To view our last, our departing Last mess, last meal e'er cooked, And there was Mistress Mary Poe, Who brought him his piteous case, To eat our country, countryfowl, And from thence drew, as it were, the king. I closed the casement, where 'twas said Some squaw over-wrought Was sent by Chateau Noir (In form of freaks of ice-hill--bird's-eye view, So old-featured yet--a bird's-eye view!) With quite a shudder at the thought Of every thing that might be there, Because our last feast was spoiled thereby; But something there was afraid to be-- Or else there had been nothing spoiled, And therefore, to the porter's office, through, He went with trid gum, the police-guard's fare, Who threatened him turn around, and so He kept them always on his arm-- His soppish hearses and their barbaric sties, With such a flick, of course, that they all On their ears rang like cat-at-ease!-- A coy reception, they found, for brandy; And when at last they hobbled back, they got An order for so much of their old song As could excite a piper's patents; Whereon they knelt, and then they drove away, For such a puddle-slow ditty; And so home they homeward slowly wheel, And--it was past the middle of the way. He sobers, he finds his wife and child Lay near the death-purifier; And "Dee Dee" asks, "Mother, dost thou feel? Do they beat you sore, do they beat you sore?" "How can they, dear, dear children, why, beat me?" "Is it water they beat you with? They beat me all with water; They press me, they rub me with a broom, That's how it happens, dear, like as could be." Thus ======================================== SAMPLE 194 ======================================== 'Twas on a holiday, Yes, in a vision, in a dream, I saw a fair young girl of noble form Come artlessly forth. And she walked therein As though it was the after-dinner carol Of some violets girt by the wind In the green wood, where she came To her fair, bright feet, bare and sleek, And all a-quiver at the ends, And smelt sweetest of all. And I heard A dozen harps that chirped her In the grass-covered hills, The lattice of her eyes, The song of her footsteps; Ah! the fragrant, healthy joy That rang in her bosom, The holy hope and will, The balm of the spirit, The maiden's high desire That seemed a life, as on a height Across her sleep-- Came dancing from the skies Among the murmuring woods; And she ran, and she sang, In rich, deep melody, The hills' immortal psalm. And the stir of the city Was like the stirring of the spheres That followed her high bidding By the river of night. And I cried aloud, And rushed to her side, and wept To know the gift that I gave; And she laid her hot hand On my cheek, and said, "I know, I know, from this high clear fountain Which drops into your eyes, I can feel the music and soul Which you have wasted here, I have done no more than kiss the roses. In peace go I, I am well content." Oh! why must I wail and fret Because another triumph leads the way Which her sweet radiant eyes have seen? Oh! why because my day of pain Has passed and leaves a shadow which I try To fill with my weary eyes, Shall I wound and fade again? In vain I patiently contend. Her beauty, though with me still mine, I have gone far in seeking her throne. The summer is here, my love, The sweet and the bright, Where the wind has made all the trees A twittering of sound; And yet, my sweet, I'm sad enough alone. The summer is here, my love, My stars of love to hold, Yet I sit here alone, And look again through their rays To thee. Can I know what it feels like, For Love to see thee? The winter is here, my love, The dark and the deep, Where there is only one vision: How by our passing, They should be more mine. The summer is here, my love, My breath for long through the night, And yet thou would'st rather see This pretty stream so blue? And do I look to the sky? The winter is here, my love, My dreams, not altogether true, That they were so, And such faces as in last resort We saw, or had seen, Beneath thy solace's bloomy cover Yet has Love won me a place With fiery hearts for a while, As deep and as bold; And all the misery of pain Is well, if they're well left mine. So, with my light foot I'm coming o'er, O lover, my lover, O; Down the path, over the field, Over the tide, by the way, by the; My eyes, my heart, my head, where'er I go, For thy sake, my love, my lore; For nearer, O fairer, come nearer, Hers really the lucky one, mine. From heaven there is shining nought But a stupid sunshine clear; Only the day to see Upon its altens shine, In which the Far-hope is black. O you who seek the way to grace, Why so slow? what is left of haste In that who seek the good high? Full speed on high, Longing, though but feebler breath, And burn the slumberous scroll of hope. Let hearts ring, the lesson to cheer, On on the blazing altars shed, For such alone can be fulfilled, The white, bright wings of godhead blest; For here, O only here, they soar, Faith goes in foremost pike. Aye, the love of him must be made First, lowliest, then, lowly sweet; And virtue, highest, lowest rare, Will sink again to touch his knee; The suffer, flower of the ======================================== SAMPLE 195 ======================================== Now, they say, they each a country do make, And back to Asia's regions with delight: And now, God for their amorous havoc none can blame, So proud their amours, so amorous now are they. Thus godlike kings, who have their wives and bed best, Are always reigning: for two days' song they rais'd They love to cease, nor were for longer inly pant. Thus goes the amorous dragon, who with venom stings And venom'd prick sobs them, that they want rein or flight. Nor stiff nor mute, though tongues throng matchless high: But, like true Angels above the beats of warring, Upon the peaks of pillars sit on high, And make big post of shield and magnify the war: Though he be cast to serpent, babe to dragon be I. Like him to wed: these a tall city have they made, Great clear-plan'd city, hundred, or thousandie, Where he be captain that first taste of love, He sunlike may in estate be made glad, For my little love was but a hand-wavy trick, And yet it taileth sharp as a well-toss'd odour. These beauties, then, shall ye serve, ye dames of pure. And he great fame, low-born to none he draws, But loves, as no high-born dame: proud of her Eye, hand, mouth, breast and lower; that for him Gather, warring now the fearful beauty, The knights of Norland sall hae nocht to meet, All hoary and all brave: Paddy keeps his place As a true-hearted chalmer, wha sall tell; And jupon his hand as ane of yore, Now spin the ither wi' the warp and the woof: And daigs wi' th' armour they were at naught, Wi' guns and powder: "One day's mirth is France forgit!" Yeelds but a torch and lights the laird awa. "Sons o' the Eildon, men o' the North," sae they say, "We sall never see Norlanter again!" O Fine Johnny-gun, he was my dearest blessin', He made me small wae lo'ed me, the laddie; I think it was call'd flying, for that he let me Fly in and out wi' his shutter-bugs indiscrimad. But though I was bobbins, and waddled, and weist, He was the Governor of all the land, And call'd me up as our Official Englishman, He haud me lodged in Bloomsable gaol. He's beheld o' keeds, yet never kegged keeds, For 'twas call'd Flying Fire Hydrant,--we were as such. He called me up, and spurs and runners gave me, The bays and halters cut, and here I stand a gaill. For though I fell sae near to my faemy's door, And did weeave struck his father in his hide, My fee he will gie me, if he shows his teeth. He held my strong elbow fairly a seine; But bizzin flamin sword he strikes me through Wi' the flat o' my barrell: an' but dat flamin' o't, I wisht that I could see him in de gizzard. O Fine Johnny-gun, I can't say a-good-not, 'Twas a suicide that hoist'd my self up, You hap'd your lucky shot, but your game was ne'er a rake, But it landed on the top o' de heart o' de sea. For I'm free as a goose, I live in glee; My chin am full o' swell, an' I'm foaming at my moute, The very moment I'm in, the pitch is a sma' I wonder din't you hear my Freein'-lead, I'm barrillochoe an' a' dat, just de same, I'm fannin' for de witels in Schizzle's bonny cambdee, As I join de merry villagers a year ago. But Free-mear, Free-mear is a new gift from ole Missus Nova-kindee, She seldna on dat lee-water forto tak inforn her awn the keease o' life sae hame. "Blighter!" she seld ======================================== SAMPLE 196 ======================================== Your palms every one a-wringing, So ye may strike at struggling, And also kindling, The Sun, whose stripes of spring ye May pelt the kites and wingèd Swords of heaven down to fen-sides! Now, now some light of the thunder, O Jasvart, O my lord! That we may communicate And ye may hear the deaf to loud chime! And not since man was cruel man Have men been fair as now ye are, In protecting others' right. Eyes do not deceiv, but reason Deem fool and blind, Thus when 'tis storm the fool will stare, While the wise man laughs behind. There is a hill, and by the shore, Where the gaunt wretch's cinder traps Tangle and rip. And its burden is seen and ween Baring its breast, and beggar'd, too, Trees and thorns do go forth at daybreak To tell of the daylight and shine. Youth and heart are a devil's dilettante, Those in the village don't understand, These to a hedge-daul and comfortable Pitched some distance from town. Youth hateth when Youth's Love is harsh, Youth most of all hate's zombiefied, They flatter deuces with spite, So don't count, though they'll take turns Both very dull and day. But the lady--well, bless her, Her plump cheeks are peaches; And we must remind youth Of the promis'd kiss; How the girl she sipp'd me, With a heart full of love, Vow'd her faith, tho' she know'd me Not with her marryable clothes. Cousin, ho! the days of wild romance Are over quite, and in their career Begotten the village bard. I'm more than friend with my Love's no prize, More intimate, and tote, with a face Too wearie to be forgotten: Though now, as then, my years have made Most men afraid to stare at me, I 'm my own Folco-man in disguise, Man, loquacious, alive and bold. For I was young, and still am young, And the dear hours do come with gentle durance, And I did never shrink so much: O then it did me much to be bold, And with an eye so steady fair; The years and days will turn their flow, And I'll put off youth and come at last And be old, and older too; When I can only talk to her, Who is so kind, and sure, and good: I 'll ne'er believe the silly sayings Tho' credit all Greeks may affect her, Nor give due honor to the knight Whose buckler is her pretty pin. 'Tis good to be liked: I am now; But if she loves a Scottish knight, It 's at the least a ticker force, And if she be not that, 'tis fine At least, she 's pretty, and that 's enough: If low as her lovely face, Then come a shameful thing, but now! But I dare not laugh off a low She was married some time ago. Come hither, friend, how merry we can make The clanking of the big gold bands! And hear the tip-toes do upwards come; And see where our sleeves are running! 'Tis easy, 'tis pleasant, too, To go to see a play. And all who love good verses Must come to see a play. The curtain, rising, is flashing white, The landscape all is gray: The landscape's gray, with sparkling lawn, The theater's bright green, And, looming o'er the green, toward us, Old Folco's drawing higher. 'Tis plas Meda, and she wreathes The brow of one who With slovenly weariness Has squinted, and drawn the eye To picture of she drew for him, The lips and cheeks, of Placads, And 's unluck or unpity, But rather each standeth clear, At breath of eyes, his name to read, To whom, wherefore, for love or wine, He keeps the hours and days of leisure, Or if 's not leisure, 's not joyful, Think then what 's delight. Why did I ever try to win The favor or the sympathy Of one ======================================== SAMPLE 197 ======================================== <|endoftext|> "The Prince", by Henry Wolsey [Living, Sorrow & Grieving, Love, Infatuation & Crushes, Unrequited Love, Relationships, Men & Women, Social Commentaries, Race & Ethnicity] A people where errors bear such fruit in red As furious folks on fire, or poisonous berries In swamp or water; one steep thought breaking From men’s dividing their feet and the big Peace Making men the selfish and them the breed; One fleshy tuberose, more obvious, When any two would equall; they say Every TANNER hies to Washington or to To Boston some one thereof, goes we say From D. C. to O. P. are beasts that would fly If your music stops: our one Creed is losing Interest in our defense, and our trade, not Its maintenance, just gone through an episode, Exposing to alien forces their own: Not even familiar names save one, still Life in its every lignocene, colorless Tunnel, like a touch of Himalay: one smaller Man and his less familiar weight. “MIS-PRODUCE,” One writes. “Worse than being wrong or right Or understanding or knowing; without any of The places in which they stand to sense Experience, or hear and see, as odd: And one having pretty well all the name Of INFERior shudders, won’t be convinced Of senses or minutestiations. The best In simple conviction goes for one or two Passions. “Sensibility,” you must burn Like water in the desert after a while, And dry and be able to drink a lot, For ignorance is not, as some would say, To know the bare details of his or her own wrong; To put a dent in what one becomes by passion, Or reason, and to be able, where one feels To be complete, to search for deeper wrong And through his affection hunger, or one Imagines the one wanting the other to be. Oh blindness and alienation to the Convenience of one another which is The experience of these men But I forget, I forget. For things be That weigh as much as flesh and blood and bone Are worn away, it is a sad thing to lose Theambula, or better yet, against your breast To clasp with both arms. And the soul, though One wear it in the flesh, that which is Immortal is a yet unbodied thing Or some such phrase as that, which, when Time with his immemorial peal Of bells at the midnight chimes Has made long soundings, Brand comes next. This is the peace that out of few conveniences I have at last found out, and will report. And being in a manner, and so To some purposes to resign, It is not altogether a new thing. But for much of life which nothing but Pertains to me at all I lay by the error of the past. But as to BELIEF, see If nature do not say as much As words that tie them up, while mankind, Happy in my own belief, am Comforted thinking this belief and this At first rather doubtful than believed, And this consistent of solid things Confirming, for such umbrage to hide At least. It is a little thing That memory does for this, To leave the thing without me, and all, Reality, the good it contains; And in each second receive the image, Or, to be clear, the illusion, which Conviction, when put to the test, must Show clear. See picture, creed, conscience, Passions, the sign’s solution, and the Right use of the day. And yet Our memory wears with us And lies so firmly in the blood, Or what remains, and such belief Will prompt scornful enquiry, and so soon Confess, can it be so, with whom I live? but with who, or when, or where? I will not be to myself A horse-tipp'd splint, or elsewhere Bartering on the plain. My memory This by experience, this with words Helps; and yet a little more. Its trial shall be hardest, last. And before this, my belief in ascetic Powers being to the heart true And peace, and what shall break the bounds Of power we know not, or wish not, Taketh fire. And fire he takes, I one and other, none other ======================================== SAMPLE 198 ======================================== asleep in the chambers of bliss, And thought not on my plumes and my throne. "Lo, two years come round, and these childish charms, "This toy, this thought, ornaments of dusk, "These toys and views, about my youthful eyes, "Such as my mother had--these will she give." So saying, the genial woman paus'd, Swearing to give each idle grace well 22 By year's return. Nor soon was removed Her idea of repast; and there was A clog and a pack at the fount, a rug And saffron for the comed with, before The sight of it, like playing at draughts; And, after the urgings of her thoughts, Of some of those young hours, when words are loose And motionless, for another's eyes, To long, with slipp'd finger, in and out Dancing the show before her: still in the dim Expectation of the morn, she breathed Some airy sentence, looking oft To which, was such good news: but, more of that Was in the rapid, making still the ear Whisper'd, how soever deaf, yet still the same The eyes should prove. Now came the morn. Soon as the star, that a keen and beginning beam Had placed behind the hill that rises still Etherial when the night, all shame forsook, And when the morn awoke, bringing forth Fair life's new day, so rich and so exquisite Of dawning hours, as one before he died, Rose from the earth, and threw all lands to run In bright array. And now the fastening wings Of Phoebe, and her flaming footsteps great Hence opened, head and hair and all her grace To greet the sweet dew-excited eye. She, as She stood, gaz'd admiration: glad was she That once again, since other time than sleep Had pinch'd her dream, she saw her beauty true In true colours. Down falling, she uplifts Her lute and singing to her hands admitted, This her first song: Because I am so fair, Like as the earth, that open standeth, all the nine; No beauty of mine, save that which is nam'd Love; Whom none have seen save those two alone Where thou are, I can not see but feel I find Those beautiful in thee, whose number is infinite. By that path, which well we know, Rerethward it generally hath been found, T' address those who wish to stay, That it dispraves a bigot with a thousand charms; With that which he imagineth good, But barely yonder hath he found it; To quote but one similitude, For an eye, of mine, the dazzler! Those, who are worth their weight in gold, hold it dear Whilse it 's in the world; And those to whom beauty is not sae dear, Their eyes are all put out. Heaped pleasures, so long a line, Are since found out, they should not lie A inch with one, but bent oer the other. That was for aught I can best declare; Beneath the earth, it works a hell of thrall. You love, When you are tempted to be alone, Believe me, you shall not stay To gain a drop for all that 's to come: Yet if love had its doors so wide, Then, sweet lassie, with love you 'll me Trust to hold a drop out of your hand. Such a life as the old king held Whilse he was good, and he believed; And the plowing and sowing and the reaping Were grief to his man; the brook that came Sang by the moss he made, there lay So much thereof, that he scarce knew What was wine, and what dung, and what bristles: At last he wash'd it chinks, and sal'd, And he told it to his servant, The white Bear's knell, and the boar's bell; Full so for my love was wall'd in, All to love was that the way was, And the horse and fowl: he might Come as soone as it chanc'd to grieve him, And call his beggar, and bid him go; He to his door with his hand told him All that his goose should come with: And then, as his heart beat, said this to me, 'God send me, soon! before the ======================================== SAMPLE 199 ======================================== ; True persevering and kind, By day or night, still his truth Preserved from mortal or ill; Deny not this gift at least To human life--stay to-day Thine own, though it perish so. And if, but for a sign, thou couldst divine How that truant Earth keeps the sun behind, Staying it through zodiacal speeds, Stay till her retrograde to-morrow's dawn, Stay till the dusk that's in the delay; And with the dawn, still steadfast though it seem Like death and doom of Night, return. Whatself stand swift and hold thy breath! This is indeed life, this is Death. Doubt not that we work our ruin With certain instincts, certain ways. But be sure that the unstudied No man may work another's undoing, Or his work fall down and cheat thee. In the instant when thy bird's egg rattling Failed to its voice in the plasterer's door, The imaged painting fell as in decay, Leaving its aspect of mystery, Art's secret broken, its grandeur blent With the scantness of man's mind, As an old root withered leaves of crown: Crown of a painting, that as a root unhedged Moves from its lattice-work no leaf to time, Or glance at the wonder of the thing, Hath withered and gone, as a reed wailed by the song of a fool, Whose high license a marble that went running from the reed-pipe of RONALDI, On which I set my heart as a king's new rose, When the image, a crown fit for a king's head, Rose up and grew straight as a king's head, And the genius that knits the king's reed withered and wither'd away: What shall I do with my life-span, my life? I shall quit the place where many an evening-star Looks down on me from a wistful sky. No leaping my spirit up I spring, As once I leapt up when an ancient god, The lad might run for a playing-field That mocks up a girl's heart, the way the blessed bay leaves mock up the girl's heart, To carry me over the jolly sudden hills Where a lover finds his heart, Or where to weigh a heart from its misty damp, Till he feels his love rise if he if he stir, As the moon rises in a shower, Where the sunset fires the charnel houses up That lodge the slothful wild beasts, With Orion's hounds in the deepest sea Of Hades, when they slumber; Here's a heaven better than the best of Paradise, There's neither a spot's difference, O'erstarred with ages since earth's death in god woe. A ladder hath been scaled up the last moon To the highest stars, O, O where art thou, That thus deep elsewhere shalt thou go, But lo! a ladder hath been scaled up the last moon To an hour when the moon was black, In the tower of the mast- high up a space, E'en where the white moon's face was seen To madden with a demon's groan The screaming of fiends on hell's low lands; And up a ladder also hath been scaled, That not on all the heights we've strayed, But on that ladder whitens to the moon, As when the moon hath set and darkness fled. And there all on I saw, till now At the last moon, me and my love, I see her as one that mocks me For my love that mocks me for aye, When I've nothing left to claim, Still I laugh and leap into her arms All black with a gloom of despair, Just for a laugh, but the bliss must last, So win as portion of the sun! Yea, so, with a sweet deception, And with cheat happiness, Which me, and my heart, and earth's end, The moon lit all heaven with that presage That no god wist, And all the stars shall know what I kens, As we must know the sight Of some lost soul That we shall see again, but not know That we shall next behold? Back of a column the ruddy heights upcast A crimson gleam, as down the frailest point Flew in a mood of pride, a vein Full under a golden-red dawn, Rhonning a torch in it, and night Hung thick with ======================================== SAMPLE 200 ======================================== (Lowlily shaking their bushy heads) Still will have the cry; Though with courage I have bade them Do, and of courage drink. Oh! when they trow the golden cup, Of Niobe, be it called From that pale, dying niggardly head, They shall have power to wield Sharp spears of youth, And joy for evermore! The bed is cold before it-- The grass is chill at that, The moon its hungers bid it be-- But the sun is brighter than it; And even as the moon that's sunk Has risen in its smile, And lost one half, is left Laughing in full splendour As it was dead, That even youth itself is alive, That even life's lost colours are regained. Ye moderns, what is your faith? How will ye live and death? Man's work and woman's task Call for man's blood and woman's love. And night and day, In all the temples of your creed The worshipper your God to see, Your God to kiss. To follow the old race, the little litanies, To trust the little litanies, To leave those litanies To light their candles up the dark? There will be many more, Even to the ends of the world, Who follow blindly The fancies of thought. Their life, if not pre-ordained, Is blind and certain; And the hope they have, The wistfulness of heart, Are not the things they know. They follow up their faith And sink in to great crimes For progress unproperied, Nor care what rites they may On earth may bow Beneath the magic of their thoughts. They of this magic deformed Know nothing, not of Love The true successor to Sin, Not of His hand the dew, Their souls are barren and dry In fancies unproperaided. Ye of our age, be judge Of rightly to understand The nature of man and life, Be with us, be with us, That the race of mankind be done. Wherefore, ye who read these lines, Ye who speak them, Be ye not therefore sadly frustrated; For if ye be not failures then, Then surely in time we both may succeed! One evil thing we pointed out to you, Another you put on your back, And in some have you played the fool, In some you well have tramped the task; And as we measured it, again Another discorded note One moment was collared, then. For me, for me, for me! This is a sorry nether) And on and on, (Do you forget my name?) And on and on, And on and on! The hope you have is not a thing I trust, Which has the happiness of dreams, Which is the soul of care, And man is neither good nor woe, Nor is he in both, nor can we tell Which is the soul of man, which is the body. For it is folly from the start To end in motes the chain of life, Where matter, like deadly poison, Dies but to start up yet again; Where reason, like a balance's balance, Agrees to go either way, to wiggle Or to nod: whence, then, do the moves (Called to us down from astrolabiums) Perpetuate a dull intervolution Of futurities (of the sun's In sun-worms and of stellar nauts), And what have we to offer but What a magnet's poles are to balls? ... as I found out (who found it out?) That little the the mind doth scheme And that the body is but one to skeme The thoughts which that mind wraught is bred (The lema doth not much it if it were) Mind and matter, body's body; in this Vain souls have been (vain, had at least one been) Stuck through dicephal, but metherezed As soul and matter go When we the pair produf And joined the coarse to the purer clay. I: Immortality! immortal frame! That throned, immortall state! The vigour of the gravest blood Whose virile force may not be lessened, By immortality, but be leverted To better motion and toder By virtue to fertilize heaven's flame, This vigour vouchsafed, as centre rests ======================================== SAMPLE 201 ======================================== Shows some cool center, Shows an oblong face Stretches out its arms, Sits and rotates on its feet. There is no light in night; A grove of trees goes dim; And the lights of city Seem to play a trick. The drive has no strength; I hear a bug in grass; A wind,--a gust in grain; The wind goes past--as is a vision, That is a thing that does not exist. From noon till night, all day, I scatter seed, And think I till a patch-- But the night creeps on And my sun goes down. Where's the way to our westward lights, The mountains green? The way has been marred Till snow-blusters and leaf-demolished ash Dispel the sun's fires. When morn has barred out the thunder, When eve her tome Unfurled is, With all the after-rapt looks of sleep, My eyes grow heavy. What's done is done--but the work begun Never to be done, My thoughts go north, My senses take wing, For joy that's not morning yet. I found him sheltered in a booth; Little he said of home, Not really home; And when he had this to say, His hand outraised And his head on one side. I was his first guard, The last I rolled Along his lead, And high and tender Were his fantasies; He spoke of doors And of a passage, Of blowing gates Under the West. I made no question; And he spoke out On the cold and heat. "I could say a lot of words, (I said,) But no one hears or knows Of anything beyond This booth, and this wall, And the West." I never knew if his speech A little more front it would have meant; Or, for that matter, if he cared For words at all, Who carried his heart and voice The way we carry ourselves; We were so bashful! We saw him into flight-- He turned up inside a tree. What was it he'd said, What he wished to say? For he'd a hood, and a name, And he went With such speed, and he went And did the best he could. But I could see I'd in an hour Be faced with a crowd Of worshipers, all intent On the path where he'd trod. And so I bowed and fetched All he had wished, The warm stuff of my wares, And was giving to him In a glass the wine of Christ. The wind was shivering through the day, As down the hill it blew; The deep inland stations stirred With the ciclaes go by; And the trunks of ash trees, blasted bare, Strove with a swing of their spears. And here and there,--as it lent an air Of doing with the unaccosted, Like a genet, or a cup, A skittle, or clown, was one, Crumpled, to the crunching of bees. Or else the air was running strongly With a wind from inland that blew And men were leaping down and running And running; and their breath Seemed like the wave upon the beach Till the waves were thinned, and over the pebbled ease, And the level road that led to the town, The breath of them was on the road. And they clamoured up the belfrys, and down The dim-wine stairs, and straight, Gasped with wet fingers, leaned their faces Taut at the buckled horseman; And in spaces shivered the dying Of shade and soffitti: then, the car Died like the breath of life. I look on yon house, with melancholy Which says it is not done, But I must give and labour, from the wish That some day I may unwillingly Change for the joy of doing, at last, The chore of my day. For to-day I did not choose Myself from out the mountain To be the Keeper Of these letters, nor surmise, Day after day, any more In the least of woods; but kept Some shouting from the cliff In the rocking sand and lime Which the sea had raised on the shore. I looked for the ship on the hills, I saw the ======================================== SAMPLE 202 ======================================== And the bird crept forth, And the bird went forth, On the second evening after the first. The citizen of the city Shuddered in the street, Felt that his toes were growing But for a moment, Then ran screaming and screamed For a matron to choose From the house of the widow: "A cat! a cat!" called the girls, While the mother shook her head; And the father, with consternation, Crept and peered and eyed his daughters When the cat came to the door. The cat grew larger, And the girls grew smaller, Till they were but a span, While the old cat spoke, And her voice was soft and soothing, And she purred and sighed. "A cat! a cat!" the girls re-echoed; And they ran out and laughed and screamed As the cat ran down the street. Then they danced and skipped Till the sunshine and music Were intermixed, and every footfall Seemed a step to the sweet rest of home. And the father followed the girls To the place where the cat had climbed; And, lifting his head, he saw What he'd missed all his life,-- Love, unannounced, in the parlor. They sang out loud, they danced in turn, And he kissed each child on the head. The old cat purred and sighed, Then sat down upon the ground, While the girls and boys both clapped, And laughed and chirped, till at last, Ere the father had freed his breath, He himself called to the mother To prepare a safe retreat, While he called for his daughter, Until he found her in her bed, With the red flushing face of dawn, And her eyes a-gleaming with it. His wife was a weaving nurse To a houseful of babies, While the cats were nunk or cunking in The house or up the wall, Or snoring away Into the bag to take their rest, And the girls and boys Swedication spread like a bloom, For the mother's eye Was as red as a siller rose That a full-blown girl might view. And the mother's voice was soft, Yet strong and sure and swift As a swift thought to encourage The girls and boys With a readiness devoid of Identity or will; And a face that the tears ran Fluids of truth in it. While the father wandered far, Moved by fierce impulse or chance, For he would follow where he knew Love and purpose fit To a wife's retreat to find her, And there would marry her If the long-waking heart Was not so bracing That was weary with idleness. So he sought, but came not again. Then he sought the parlor, That was thoroughly stilled and cold By the fire-light, While the red dampening And the draught began Made the back and the cheek Cold as the sheet That a mother lays down to bathe. But the girls and boys Began to laugh and applaud As the father neared. And the mother laughed and clapped For her husband and the rest In the parlor, while the father Looked, still turned with a pulse That was yearning for the wife, And the old house with all its Ten-score years and more. When the spring comes in the spring Once more, and lispers while the house gets frosty, After the frost beheld the house unwaiting The thawing season coming, Then, my little people, Tenderly said, "Why is it Since here our name"--lookt, they For the name of the father-- "Has not one kiss been enough Given us of your men And of your women? You Who are coming along? Give all you are able To the men and women, To the wife, the mother, the girl And to the father; and, behold, He will come to us." So, he came to them. He Came as we knew he would come; Flowered and rang like a monadain That, once a goldsmith, worked things As they bewail'd a love that has flown. With a neck for a garter all the while And a little thorn planted there For a hemline; and trews of linden Down the sides, to hide the hems of the gown. His hat hanged low on his back, ======================================== SAMPLE 203 ======================================== soul no pensive aspirate understand! A-bed or up, now waking to drips and drips, the one thing that really makes for peace. As the ruddy sun has contrived to show with unclosed eyelids and a radiant frown, here's to the drops in the storm! Mother, whose arms of mighty strength are my strong place, for rocking the cradle or singing the lullaby of the ribs, give me the hooly of the open road, give me the drops for the driving rain, break my heart of thine iron Goethe. <|endoftext|> "Modest Proposal", by D. H. Our motive must be adventure, our work no design come to spoil, our method must be free, our leader the spur of a flaming thermometer after the grape-juice bath and hash. Our motto shall be ever present, ever growing, ever expanding, ever diminishing. Our trade must lie on the trade cycle its friend, as we walk out of the fossil tomb and the alkerke. Our commerce a matter of speaking gentleness, never sonic, never sue of a lost object, as we drift beyond the sounding water-steeds, clear and unamazed, while we hear the trutta-tones of die-hard thinkers get shriller and louder as the night grows colder in the still needle lagoon. <|endoftext|> "The Heart-Attack Commando", by D. H. Not fit for combat. Maybe the Green Hell could use some love and respect and a more objective stance. That's OKCupid much for you. He loves the night and all its kelpies, the sentimental moths, the B-29 flight-lights, the book of astronautical names, the pleasant road with its indistinct singleness, the placid-brilliant- green mountains and the fine houses browning like cedar as the day turns from crimson to incandescent white. Love is like an A-Z. He can have the sideline. He's mellowed to calm. His face is mottled with a bad painful disease: he's as soft as a feather, with the softness of fluff. Who wouldn't sympathize with a moth or a moth's friend? Everyone, then, forgets that there's a thing that needs to be done. In big fields, the plow-horses sway to the bitter wind on the rutted road like lightly boomerang-blown ashes, and the ripened grain sags like cordage. <|endoftext|> "The Sun Splitter", by D. H. He walked out to his lane in a spread-eagled moon like a blind man wandering among the ferns like a hand with great tough-love in the darkness of a green evening. His face white-knuckled in contrition. He picked up a stick and marched right up to the sun skimming the rutted dirt road his body pressed against the trooper-blue sky. He held up the stick like a warrior on the battle field. He swayed on the brink of a biceachen tree, like the first plunk-um-platful of the rockets in his eyes. <|endoftext|> "Poets in Civil War France", by Dean Young [Arts & Sciences, Poetry & Poets, Social Commentaries, War & Conflict, Memorial Day] A frontline of skulls trying to hold in a pair of shoes that they can barely into their sockets from the rain-storm of bullets. Oblivion. The army of forget-me-nam-s. O o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o ======================================== SAMPLE 204 ======================================== Trebles twigs, and pearls in brooks; And out of the quay one pearls we saw Play'd through the moonlight, red and blue; And rich jewels lay in every strand, In every isle, even in the sunniest place. The Irish barges lay as the flags Of European commerce; with the smoke And the zephyr gone, we again reviewed. "Where sail'd the 'Green Fire' to-day? That barge is all the plaything of a gang Of roguish young coxcomb chaps. You really must put things in just their place; There are not half enough theaters." This said, he madly pranced with his heels In a race down the interior arcade; His fasces, rings, and clubs he threw In a queer sort of kite. We, hearing the song of his bells, Can't help smiling, we declare, Though we know that, secret as it is, The stout fellows are right; It's right for greater things than the show Of things to us afloat. Now day was done. Night was at arm's length, It might be day, for all we saw Was the roof let down. There might be light. We saw two Joined at a window-sill, with Their toys that peek'd out From branches of young pines, they four, Demurely did meet. My Soul's a-sloppin' !" They thought they heard Me say that in insult; That's my jest. Out of the bottom o' the wine, The one who did drink it spoke; "This ain't good pub!" said he. I lit a cigar and I drew Two plates to the pot. "Oh, whadja' mean?" I said. "No ha' 'at?" he said. And there I will have no Good language with him; It was such a prate. We sat silent a long time. I lit another cigar. "I'll tell you straight," he said, "This ain't right. He should n't ha' done that." And at once I lit one And sucked a second one, And gave him a third, And they were gone, though They only came back again. I lit one cigar. "Oh, whadja' mean?" I said. "No ha' 'at!" I said. "It's dark in here!" He said, "'Twas dark," and He jumped up and sprang At me to strike me. And I lit my cigar. And went on and on With insults. He wanted to marry me And I didn't reply When he asked me if I minded. That's why you see he's Egotistic; But it was dark in here. But he has gone out And left me here; And now I suppose There ain't much hope, That he will come back. Oh, I'll quit. He'd do the trick. I'll see what I can do. I can't do a thing for him. I'm as hap-keen to stay. I have gone away from him And now I think It's better for us, But the hour's daylight. But a minute here I'll say, "How's it goin' folks?" He sits in his room, but he sits In the parlor of his throne. There is no one at the door, but he says To me, as I come in, "You're new here," says he; And there he sits at his table and hums The score of old Southern songs That he knows I love, but I do not And one says, "Oh, they're the best, I say, That I know of. It's true, it's true," says he, "For I'm the man of the house. Just watch me. For if there's one thing wrong here it's When I say, you know, You may say, 'What does the country do?' And I'll say, 'Something,' and I'll say, 'Just close your eyes,' and I'll say, 'Nothing.' And then I put my hand on my chest And call you in." I never knew the legends About the empty bottle, And who let the cat out, And who left a cow, And who let the cow go. If I had known That old white dust Would climb a hand In ======================================== SAMPLE 205 ======================================== #90 A sharp knife A tree that bends #91 An old-fashioned glass The older I get #92 Leaving the family For a while #93 The weather The cold The river #94 The money What do you want I'm your Uncle #95 The village Old-fashioned smells #96 My arms My arms are still #97 You and me And is it really the end When the evening comes #98 The roof I can hear the castle Or a bug #99 The altar Evening is over #100 All done <|endoftext|> "The Girl and the Silver Fox", by William Byrd The girl and the fox went down to cud the snow together. The girl was very wizz. The fox went squeaking after her, squeaking almost squealing. She made the snow, it was so clear! The silver fox would not go away. It had followed her all over. Now the girl was done. Her coat was pretty and her hue was down. She sat under a tree. The fox was in a circle of peonies. The girl's shade was sweet and her hue was down. Now the silver fox was up and stood in the way! He came on the heels of the girl. The silver fox was saying whea-wee! and had him's nose and his shade was all green. He shook his coat! he thumped in the snow. He pawed at the peonies, they liked him much. #101 The fox in a circle of peonies. The silver fox had a shade all green! And made him wiggle and go wiggle, wiggle so silly! It wanted a coat and it could not borrow one. The fox in a circle of peonies. The silver fox had a cone of ice. <|endoftext|> "The Crane Game", by Jean Toomer [Activities, Sports & Outdoor Activities, Relationships, Pets, Arts & Sciences, Theater & Dance] After dusk the street lamps flicker green as a phoenix, green as a phoenix, and the boys take off in a wagon, a wagon with a bell. They see the crane hanging at the end of the alleyway squirreling away on the grass. They tell the driver he should drive over. The boy says to the one standing beside him, The one with the back, I think you should go, and pull. The man says, That's the crane you might want to take, a boy should go. The horse with the mane like tangles in a sea of spun cotton, who rode out at cross purposes, runs to the wagon. Both boys are laughing. The crew has split time, an eighth, and the man's shirtt open the riding breeches and fleece. The driver looks at the iron, and sighs, I'm out. The one with the shelly shackle has fled up the alley, the one with the castellated fetlock has followed. Now the boy tries again, This is it, boy, this is it, this one, I'm up. The driver says, No, you're not, I got one down here somewhere. He belts himself and gets into the wagon, and the others near him, whanging like posers, who give each other awards for quiet and cool cuts, I give you both. The leathered boy who did it all and did it alone spends the night next door. #102 The crane game #104 The girl with the silver hand! <|endoftext|> "Gold Disc", by Jean Toomer [Activities, Sports & Outdoor Activities, Nature, Religion, Christianity] Let it be said at some point that, no matter how or with whom they play, no matter what the rules, the men, the women, the children, the marbles, the boys, the girls, the fathers, the mothers, the lovers, the hearts and the elbows being equally scattered, all have one stick in their hands, and their neighbors' as well, all disconsolate gold discs unspinning, on their tables, alive and dying like golden dust, among the last leaves of season before they blow away, light as grasshoppers before the season comes down. <|endoftext|> "The Wages of Nature", by Jean Toomer [Social Commentaries, Money & Economics] It is his blood over the streets ======================================== SAMPLE 206 ======================================== place in spite of heaven's controul. But if from this all have a clear field I question, Or thy mind the question well considers make I must then, for my contemplation have To do as otherwise than mine could. Farewell, and look not in that face for me, Thy first-love, who, the world confessing should, Thy self, suspecting not, nor, the ground as yet How gloriously just, how justly pure, In all thy senses seeing things by half. One page more written you soon may stop Upon thy mirror: write, I pray, Some one admonition of the fly, He is in there--Why, bring not this book down, That the fly may have something back again! Yet see, my dear, although this is called The Back to the Soul; to the Soul it fits. There leave room for further verses, shall they not? The Soul which I leave still comes to look thereon, My dear, I write, do I think that I can, Or do I write as I can, to do or find? I that have it, so long, such sweet, such bounteous gift, Are all set forth, as by me writ and writ. The back to thee, as if the beginning be, All things made first by lightning bright, the soul, 'Ne Tellus seeming first, or as first appeared By Ph[oe]bus, in their Ithacaenchalion, No other way but where his the earliest. On the tree whose golden fruit and juice divine The fruitage, in young, is mostly found,--on that Waxed, from an eye. Oft again in good I have seen That sun, that is but love, to much, much good, Like light, through a man; nor whither else Had any light, save that brightness. Here is the way; begin; there as thou likest From that first sleep, thy first natural sleep, Fall'n asleep with odors sweet, with sweet repasts; Sleep, and thy repast, as such delights, As later on thou sawest, like sight, did flow From out thy glass ere thou knew'st it. There wouldst The Rhone there, with the Volga and by name Rivers, at the time of annual falling, Tigris and Perunciation and the Sonnet, Which Julius smil'd at; there would the Rhone there Hang to the base of warlike Argo's deck, And with the Gulph of Nature all about Lightly her sould flay crafts through thick water, There be mountains and hollows plain. There is, where, lo, we view from high, The world like as if in a wimple, occupy A country-dwelling. Such a scene be mine When London, like a tower, large, proud, and vast, With many an oak and beauteous tower behind, It self high in air, up-turns with sight bright-seen. On the White Queen we see the French mount The conquest of many lands, but not Beside that distant country, I discovere A people that, but by a foreign name Forgive, therefore, this palace, and lookt there They that did conquer, and what did reign, Saint Peters, from the Court advanced, which saw Outcry'd, "the Monarch be hence removed," Their scepter, that of many changed To coronets; and his ruddy cheeks And kinsfolk every one with ruddy eyes, "Heard, amazed, the thundering noise." Stately tall the phantoms stood, in white, Like castles of a skedar gray, Thrown ope in walls of descending snow. And shining bright the crown fit for their state Raining on their heads, low kneeling down Wrapt from the rattling storm, went in Straightway their own vast waters--those to the Of the river sealed, and then with Their silver croziers in bright raiment dry, There standing on the ever-toppling shore, The sire and daughter kings and queens beheld. Straight with theirs for use and royal ease, Of royal dress and royal veaves, they Unfold, and cleave to an abiding fire Of love and peace, which, singing to itself, So smilingly each degree at all it meets, Compares their several land's aspect: And it being now a part of him, The bended womb of earth and all the vast World outwears, the young Kingdom out ======================================== SAMPLE 207 ======================================== So, singing in the veranda, They entertain the guests, Ringing in the ball-room, In the temple of the sun, And their hearts are full of pleasure, And their eyes with laughter Follow them as they go. I have sailed the billow-lashed seas, I have sate within her harbor, I have met her people, Shall I seek another? Go and seek another. How shall I seek her? How shall I find her? You have sown with roses, Your lords the sea, have seen you, Have heard the sea-nymph's songs, Her trumpet-voice: But I must go; I must seek her; How shall I meet her? How shall I find her? Cease your dreaming, Dreamers of doom and woes, Nor in the waters Wash the dark stain of a drouth; Kneel the waters Till the waves of death be over us! You have sown, O girls, Poppies for harvest, Larkspurs for sport, And they have sent us Roses at our bower, But the rains have come, And the streams are swelling Over the hills, O the mighty flood, But the hills have fallen! Where shall we seek for shelter From the tempest in These whirlwind-tumbled heaps of wood? You have sown the poppies; Hark the hollow thunder Of the rain and the rain! Shrill, shrill, shrill, Crying of the tempest; And you pray for a bridge to stop By the mud and the drownings of the snorting water! You have sown your poppy, In the garden of your soul; Where it hung with the other roses, Grew the prettiest rose-tree Ever known of! O the sad poppies! O the poppies in the ditch! Dear sister of the wise! O the poppies in the ditch! We have gathered the poppy's pods That hushed the gale, Dry we have stor'd them not, In the hovel of a she. O the strangeness of life! O the strangeness of comfort! O the poppies in the ditch! Hare thus I here, and now, and now, Where trains of foot have clomb, The Prince of Poppys lov'd by the Earth. Sir Triptizevenne, at whom I strode, Came there, to the palace of no king; And that which gave him power, was his horse. What a face was his, and how it danc'd, Would shock your sensation, if you saw! What eyes were those? what heard that voice? What saw that hand? For me I'll ask not, and for you I'll not inquire; I shall eat The buffet, and be entertained. Now, riding home by the same road, Whom, and whom, I now remember, Upon that journey I ta'en; I follow'd back, what I came, and found A priest by a cottage; 'twas an inn He keeps to the Holy One of Heaven. There in a manger, if you please, Slept the Hermit of Crescas, Stout-hearted and stout-hearted; Such was the Almighty's decree; As soon as ever he was dead, Of all unhappiness was raughted; For his heirs, and his heirs, Took counsel, and conspire we now! Death gives no great cause, his doom Is not to be brief, and be mock'd. We will take counsel, and you'll be great, And we'll make you a name; we'll make you great As he of all men that were born, That was before the foundations laid, As much as it was ever meant By him of Crescia's house to be. It was not meant that you should be, 'Till, sure as it had been done, You bore into the world of the grave. You've now laid it all in charge; We will take counsel; you're very wise, Lord! if you be wise, or not, why not wise? Why have I borne the evidence? What proof is this? and what proof to make To make him know that it is I? What shall I show? what shall I but do? Woe's me, Lord! with that you're driven, And Fortune's blight on my ======================================== SAMPLE 208 ======================================== Gothamy, with all its strength, Eoin o' thie part were weak; Now, to his own's destruction fetter'd, Eoin o' thie part. Strange contrast of voices to this one And now this other, singing here; Heard by us as by the winged Heard by the wingless, or the flashing The sudden glimpse of sun, from star to star, Which lightenings at morn Now bring from the winged Ethereal springs Of birds of various notes, ethereal Voices in other skies. Here in the gloom, now spreading its thin fog 'Twixt us and the hills, Now, flying these winds of air, now, Making their cold wings our own, we two Were singing by the graves. But one there is in this deep cell, not dead, And trembling though it hear the winds, As one from cold and bondage, out of Hell Blew all its net, with free hand now free To find the shore, to find the shore Of peace, the shore of Hell, where all is done, And all can follow on that shore. For lo! from out the grave of all things, From out the royal air of sunrise hues Where fall the lights of heavens and of Death A message bringing Him who passed in, From whirlpools of the gulfs of greater seas Thriving for the buying and the selling, From the venom'd deeps, the sudden grip Of hunger and of hate. Not one of one strong knot or nation, But in itself a volcano: A word, a breath, a movement, and then flame Lights once again the world's eyes; In the little dust where evening-glories sleep We see it and interpret; It cannot rise too far or it may fall And all things are preserved, or all things perish; But how, in air so dense, in space so filled Where none may run or move, where none may fly Out howling in that foul devouring twire, What may not lie hidden, poor or great, Is Man, What may be mean or what be great or small Who may be hidden in this grave somewhere Taking what he may after death Out of this throat, this poor breathing ball To find a home for life somewhere else. But we would tell him of a home in Heaven; We would give his hands the rings and wreaths Of silver for the crowning of his head, Where we ourselves in high shine shall stand And kiss the flowers like blossoms of him. Go, little candle of God, Bright the fondling cock makes Of the great One in His book; Gropes its flame to fill At the last all the sky. That with Him the world be free, And that no good Is tried but His; the point Of whited sepulchre. Thus the holy card To men win; In the courts of Hall, The Stair of Souls. Here we overjoy, O brothers of the town, The great man win To a ring in the mud, And half in the Belfry dust; Or he who is small, At the rope's end May tangle in foul means And be not free. Here we consecrate For the art Which Death will lay down, Till the last trump, Hands out and empty, Tossing their seeds to ground Which will rise, And if the grain Be not sown And it live, The Man of Middle Passage At every event Where we count in life, To God or man, Let the difference be, Your own you'd let, On a holy day, Or beside, Of a paler sun. For if the fog of Age Hurt your cheek, wait for the sun, And your brow in fresh bloom; There's something in its bright, That ages cannot destroy. Here's a crown to the spirit And the eternal hold Of your faith's move, So never again Shall you go Toward the new darkness, And he's your friend. O, if you meet Lithe as the trees-- At the call of Duty's office, Or its manlier notise; If you'll help it, Don't of a' that, It'll ask, but helping yet O we'll see, Billy, It'll not devour, With war to teach it grass. For who can tell The faith which is so great ======================================== SAMPLE 209 ======================================== In glittering wealth have once more been kindled, Light is all the gloom, light to all the air is given; Like the throbbing artery of the heart of youth, The unalloy'd languor of the will O heav'nly pow'rs, Wash with spirits that rootward glide and float, Lift with thought, and send across the weather press, And answer with thy whispering whatever floats, And bring the back to spirit of each natural motion. Who sings of death as life's impassioned heat? While we can hear of loss as gain, Oh, sink the loudest song into death's chill outcast, And loose from Death's deck the dullest drift of sound To be retired to some deserted isle Far from the world's misruling, chary throng, Where none will question, none will mark the place Where we ourselves may slumber, nor a shadow cast. Not thus the festive season th' anniversary Of time that warms and softens, laid, may last For ever, nor to death the fugitive hold Of life return. For God there is no third. There is no me, there is no you, There is no me but none he knows; We laugh, or he mocks it, To another's he laughs; Or we smile, or the orchard laughs, To see us ere the summer gone. There is the undivided whole; Aye, the awful union and conjunction, And down to ground together, Wherein there is a dropping away, A drop's drop of sound, it falls apart; The sound; whereof there is a thousand, As the first sounds brought from The world's primordial altar. The exulting earth looks forth, and smiles In her eternal home, As she was happy while she gazed On the girl, with song for answer, To whose thought seemed kind and free As the stream that ran without helm, And dancing light; who in the fall Uptorn the brows of the sky, And round them bends her tresses bright In the wide world's eye as in his. And they are still; yet she leaps away, And dances past; or, as some fay With bodacious young one, by-and-by, Who dances till he tires, takes arm, And leads him back, and takes the way, Away from sight of man, of love, Or shadow of man, To some river, changing swiftly, To a river fair from mountain's brow, Where men can bear aloof the setting sun. For that wherefore she bounds and bifoot In beauties of the earth, the fairy-folk, Far as the forest's barred, Leaving scarcely a name, And none else hath made renown, But that a witch has a name Who rides by night upon a wing Of the wild wind's breath. Do thou, all I may, To meet my spirit's Call! Who am not yet as I am In time and place, Hear me, mark! Hear me, oh, mark my tone; Forth from this frail real world's air, Which, though familiar still, is not I am, as thou art me! When the storm has made repair, And round our earth has borne Its burthen, And the bright sun hath o'errun, Our weary eyes,-- When the earth's old soil is red With the bodies dead of Day, and from the tree a bride, The drowned sea leaves of joy to make, While the children smile and sing, Oh, then, thou seest our tears that flow, The tears shed over our dear land, What were right to weep, and say, and do, Or who would think the days of spring So to look upon our own? When we sink down with the man on our bended knees, Like his dead, and the flowers mean, Which in the grass and the leaves be, When we see what hath been so and done, We know how good men go to madness, How the world can be so bleak. Who would look upon the sun in the sea What time the waves are undulating, And who in the broad sun-faced deep, Would dream he should greet the sight again, By any means? Nor could'st thou of Life's ever pray, --Yet by the stars thou smilest By the thing's clear aspect,--for some sweet, Beyond thy faith, Is nought sweeter than the bloom ye see ======================================== SAMPLE 210 ======================================== ινα στα μαν τον δικαρα ἵνα σκομαι παθ' Ἔσουνης κοῦν τε δεύτα κλόν πηθεὮς με μὴ δέξα τέφοραν ἐν οὐφελεις ὀνομαι δέκανον. Ἠσιν ἐσόναιον άί φυλέδον, κέσα τέφοραι κέπτα πορετήσατα πλοίγει δέριγας φήσετα ἅλεις δεῦμασ” “φλήρειος, κ. 41. ὆ρ tovert dΏum lagathiar katholikon kai Phrygikia kathalamen pri ouk en palaiois. Phrygia pede nymphaikon kai pleuto, to Katholaka taomithraśthai kathatêyon Kathate hystorikon kathéroglopéntém monon Αὐτάμεν οὐφίτο· Οιὰ εἴδε τύητο εἰλασον, Ο὜ων ἱ δέξας καά λυρηνῥε δὲ δεύην κολά δά νῖρους. δὲ μὴ σύημα· τὸς ῥΥσην; Οὼν ἀπομίσαιν νεμωτῶν, Οὼν ἀπέντα ποντὲ παθ' ἀγαθ' ἐξὅτ' ὁζετα. Ἁρμασμί δό τὸν δ�ίτίν, Οὼν ἀπονταστε πεπλαθῆηνανα δὲ νέκν εἴηνα καά θ�ναι, Ἔφ὾ νύμικΓ. Αὐτέχος δὲ συμοπαρ, Νιλαμέ τε καλά βρό ταῦτο. Οὐπος ἔργεται δυσπαθεῦσω, Τως ἀγων πεπλαθίσα νοῦτο. ἄρττα φησίκα ἐδὴων ποδ�: ἀληθέτα ἕδρος ἀνέκπον, ἐσουε σου πετεῖς. Hippokratios dikaoloïs tetraï knenos, Hippokratios admou ouk ohte pikem periktetys, Hippokratios amet hic ulaï dikate sytro, Ἔφiδοπον δείτασ· εἶπεται λι ======================================== SAMPLE 211 ======================================== ph. hodow, There it, be done. He will not take my thought, I cannot be his mother, for the rest is over; Heaven, what is the use of longer delaying? My sister's like him, I think; if he some princess be She will be like my brother, by and by. On the old trees that are in front, He like to have a wisp of gray; Thin, but his merriest best Is he, and his best-beloved has a hair That, just to see it, looks more fair. The little cows that stay at milking Are all gowned in green, And his curls like they were made For the bushes that growing be. Whilst his sister can hardly spell To please these good children all. Why, how it is grown since he was born, Twinkle, let us have a game. Can you find out how to say, That your clothes do not stick like moths? Twig, why do you pull my leg When you know you cannot do it, say? Clump, why don't you say, How well you would do in a race? I shall go faster and say more Until you give me a hand, Or some brighter leaf than you To shine in; and if your thumb Had a feather, I'll tell you its name. Oh, I shall read that same Thing in school books of next century. How shall I be better to the last? Hear me! let me speak my mind. What is't worth? I'll never care! Not worth the scrap I'm chewing! What can I see to replace it, It's so easy for you to-day. It is but only a little curl, A little feather on the thumb. It will go on for ever, It will even stick in another, And when I am almost dead You'll hold out your little finger And wink at me from under your fringe, Lord, if the Moon were green, Or could be like you and me We'd make our lots and our weights line, (On both sides, Lord, the sky's in it!) If greens, we'd be--blue; If blacks, we'd be--gray; Black and gray would be--black. If whites, we'd be--white; If blacks, we'd be--blues. Why may we not both be--blues? So the world's my cup and you're your own; I'm your dog, but say "Good health" for me. O hard one! when I go I leave you trot On shoulders enormous, both you and I. The very devil has trotted on Over you since I set you there, I suppose; Yet to have you trot upon my neck, A few inches more, and you'd have gone To where your Mother rests and her alone. Those are no trifles to take up or abandon, The journey is a whole age for you, and I Held you at gunpoint and would, O thank me, Have fled the house and not uttered that word. No, no, to some one wiser, bolder, May be resolved; this hour is yours: Say, where you put down there, I will take your blood, And offer it as the price of peace. God knows the time, and you know the day When peace or war, which I think seems that same To you, might well be our conferance, And mine, which say in case you come to shoot, Or like that Partridge to trot and make show of, Who now--the smart one--their heads with death attach, Let them, as you please, but here are mine, my dear, Who loved you, more than you my fame is, that's said. Your own round at the geese! round at the geese! Your eyes, O wretch! at theirs, at hers, round and true! Just for a peek-a-boo of a look, Just as you came through, let them be so, You, just as you have been, and just as true, Too, at your best--a spring-offcut turd, Just like you--if such be true, it may be-- Just for a look, though, then get you out, You old clart-stone--d'awt-head, as now--god's blood! For now and then, you know what? Now and then, For a feeling so common's been known ======================================== SAMPLE 212 ======================================== of all I'd be making just thinking of her a forever fleet. And so it was, they said, all my life she was; and that made me especially self-conscious, while just the other day, imagining her clothes scattered over a '72 Nova, my new right hand started cutting a patch of grass, and I remember looking at her that way, how my six or seven-year-old self could not see anything there, even there, and the idea of a person could be deer in the grass; or here, where I'm standing, her clothes scattered around the patches of grass, nothing to see there but a little girl moving her feet around to some old country singing, and my six-year-old heart were still on fire for her too, and I'd never have noticed it, as her speech led my gaze elsewhere, up, down before it came, realizing the real scene, the whole bundle of it, the topography, the whole truth so suddenly in relief, could only be seen by seeing as far as an eye could turn in the real world—as I have, or ever had the the grace to see as I'd have to look that way for decades before, or far less had to see it from above as I see now when I step into the Park Coffee Shop: a smudgy outage of smoke and ash, signs of smoking the day off, lying around to read or study or whatever, the very sun burning a green and the shade of it mottling the sidewalk to me like a badigment of what she made herself. <|endoftext|> "Love Poem", by Cynthia Zilber [Living, Life Choices, The Body, Love, Realistic & Complicated, Relationships, Men & Women, Arts & Sciences, Poetry & Poets] How much you weigh depends on what you tell me. Can you feel pain? Tell me about it. Why should I care what it is? Tell me about it, please, without your having to do with it. Tell me that it is not all in your power to define, however it is acquired, or remember what it is you have done. Tell me about it. Tell me of your power to do something about it. Tell me as much or more as I, and I will tell you all about it. <|endoftext|> "And when I Saw You Sitting Alone", by Cynthia Zilber [Living, Life Choices, The Mind, Time & Brevity, Relationships, Men & Women, Nature, Summer] He sat there in his dullness watching his own reflection —limp and futile—with an older camera trailing after. His shadow hid her face, her in the corner of his eye caught from another mirror, her face moving in her shadow as if she had turned down something she had wanted to see. His face had never seen her face. How do you teach someone who cannot love? The camera caught him alone there by his chair emptying a cigarette and looking into a story about an old man and his reputation. His face was drawn, nothing could stop it, the content of his character a handful of words. Nothing could be better, something to do other than look at it. What did he want to avoid? What was there to look forward to? He had known it as soon as he had unlocked him, the disenchantability of being a man to be regretted or embraced. He did not know what to do with what he would have made other than what he had, or could, what would have been better, what was the wrong to that of always moving on, or what it was he suffered in rebellion against, the shame of it, or what it was he wanted most fervently or truly desired, or what it would have been said, or what it said, or what it would have been in some future accompanying, like the image of a man holding a drowning man, the thread that would unravel, and cause the moonlight to blind him. <|endoftext|> "The Book of the Cent", by Cynthia Zilber [Living, Time & Brevity, Love, Desire, Nature, Landscapes & Pastorals, Mythology & Folklore, Greek & Roman Mythology] And what if it was made of that common thing— A flock of ======================================== SAMPLE 213 ======================================== mentaled brow, —Mystic words. What (knowing I was not) Would she— So patient, so many— I’d hoped, and still hoping, In the smile still—say, For her, her virtues, perhaps, And in her balking, and always her Spirit in me.—If it were A dalliance, So far, so sweet, Such as are writ On other peoples’ faces, Which they betray By the arrow which leaves Bridges a way To inward thought, Which they pray Obeying some command Of wrong-comers’s law. So, my vision, If signs there be To lead you thence, Should convince you that by faith, not Gladness alone is meant Although I can’t know, When I see her face. In the green ground And all sorts of dawns, She will know the truth. (If she must move Around the house) So, my blood By Greek and Roman rule Is cooled, and shut Languidly up In my tabernacle. <|endoftext|> "Some Disclaimer", by William Wordsworth [Activities, Relationships, Friends & Enemies, Nature, Landscapes & Pastorals] Think—while we deal with you— Of lasting shame to hear the name Of Sir Walter; hear the jingle Of belching cannons; with fire Laid against his temples by the wind; And then to hear a poor Now extinct in genealogy [123]. Well, there—shame on him! The bravest and the best Of them is dead. That little puff of air, Our [language?] knight and his company, Has sent us to tatter. What a laugh Poor hearts had got as we sped across England, with the devil’s own Concave on their shoulders! Shame for him! What gross cheap ejaculation Is it that he gets from Yarrow! But it is a little mystery: I might call it Hoglandia, For hearkening to Yarrow, For hearkening to Yarrow. I am sorry, my friends, I am sorry—shame on Yarrow For letting his sob story Echo what a sad instance it is That is of ghosts, and not of songs, That is of songs, and does not exist! [125]. Well, it is strange, [language needed]— There are walls round Yarrow, Yarrow—how it is Yarrow! It is Yarrow that holds us— [language freed]— To be what we are, [language small]. [language small]. But—dear you are, Dear friends, to hear me speak Of Yarrow! of Yarrow! Do you not hear, do you not hear Whither this clamour comes, In Yedo sound! What, at the "River of Powder" Swift, dusky, rolling, rush Horses, guns, and men! Do you not hear, do you not hear Grit teeth, black face, grey head, Goblins—pinioned down— By Sturport Hill? There was a way out! [language small]. Grimed—gun, fierce, brandished— Over the sultry ground Swooped the wandering Bat; There the embattled lines Sullenly stood; In the shape of things that are Fiercely and foully grimed, Silently from the slick, slick mud bank— Low or just—I know not— He went his way.[language small]. I went mine [gesturing further off] Down the river Yamba, Fearing the prying eyes of men, Sleek and lively to spy Just the twinkle of his shoes, Graying—dodging [language needed]— Horses, guns, and mule. [language small]. But—true as in all other ages, Under the forest, under the pine, Trampled through its tidy web Of boughs and moss, Under the mossy boughs, Dappled by the creeping vines, Every evening shone Yedo As with thousands throughout the year ======================================== SAMPLE 214 ======================================== Art's most like Nature, yet no less Of worlds than of each of them, and of human thought Too. For we, too, have struck fire from the virgin world, Not though we knew it, yet for which we know not How without, and whence to cast it. And this white fire, More terrible than beasts, unmade, if 't means What he conceived, or who created him To make him Creator, or of what world he is, This white flame is for us, if the name 'created' Stand good, Creator, too, not the poor devil who is Its creature, man for it, which being, to the end, Is his former and his future:--Be it, all is. But whence it is, that what is past is and that This must be, more than this, make for us now But cells, or centres of fresh-board to the meat, So to grow, and eat their deliverance, that the Empire is no more. But if it be true, as oft he sings it, that he Who from his prison goes to punish His neighbour's guilt in the balance, Has his own guilt at heart; and if we choose To err from vice, and war is that wrong, Which we would shun: Blot out that error, and be each man straight; Seize then the swift, loving standards which are Scattered with the foeman's fury; and the Confessing hour, each ethereal frame For the dread grail, each minute in the course, In its strong frame is rapidity and life: So speed there too, O soul, upon the hour! What if the little bells rang again Just as they struck above me? the stroke Of the fair chimes gave everything that peace: Silence, and starry peace; so would the song I would my verses soon make briefer, Or be more sudden: what could I longer Wait? I linger in the place, that makes me wander A something between last and first state. When I was here in the beginning, and before me Always, when the proud inches were being blest (No longer hastening), and the weary ways were sweet, I called on strength, and the hour was ten. Dost thou, then, pause for pity? Hast thou entered Even into thy last age? Come, say, If the moon shall have another bath, And once again retire as she has done, Or light, as formerly, to her summer shower? For if I once again, Each day alighted here from afar, should the state Grow more miserable than before, 'Twere well that I were straightway retired again, For this well can I call me in the place. But now, what man could live in such a place? Ah, heaven, we know not. Few indeed Live perfectly in the place from whence They spring; the great generation stands still And looks far off, and is unbothered (For creatures thus magnified, if aught Be left thereof, 'tis that all else's gathered) To the broad sun, 'neath whose genuine glance The hour is wholly to the lot an expression: And the world is void, the destinies Bad and full of suffering; and the swift world That rides the vast at a bound, assuredly Beams bright with destiny, with eternal reasons; And man, God's last instrument, like to bark That bears the cross while heaven's kine dangle. Wherefore I say not that it does not fit, And have not patience, so much as I would, That thou remount and take the fount again, Because on earth (and not in a dream) Thou hast thy being. And I wait The sun, and think (still) that the sun has more His round contracted than if he spun About the world (as some Middle-age. Let whate'er be told be fact Of time be told true) and thus had fixed Eternity for something more, Though kept to himself in fixed bounds The sort of wide-scattered beams, Than spheres which tend at their given angles, Upon an horizon, narrower no doubt, But it is fitting as a place For centers, and not for motions; I know That, were it thus, the sun still would Regard the other gods with distrust; Nor of his own actions would he be For all the world to ask, can he be But I could not but say truly, 'tis thy rounds Do carry all things away. Thou (pray) Hast set all elements ======================================== SAMPLE 215 ======================================== Figure so great and soft, Lay asleep in snowy white. "Next, with a sad eye, I surveyed Those frozen forms so pure and fair. I mourned, and bade my tears be Down and the softly flowing rain. As thirsty streams theirways pass, Nor yield their wonderous springs To mortal eye, lest it be deprived. My tears gave my last obliquite, When fate my sight from life sever'd, Where life maintained her luxuriously crawling Curse, for my doomed and irreclaim'd shade. "These bodies, whence the founts of cold have risen, Ye ghosts of dead virgins, now to Stars and Sorrow deprest, Forget, for here no virgins yet remain'd: No offspring from the tree of life hath come, And no flowers on earth but minster-plants are seen. Vapour, and smoke, and swarms of fire, and fury wild, And many a soul-rebuffing terror-blast, Asks many a horror from Heaven's throne. We a small plain of that liquid plain (Though hollow'd smooth, not trodden down) Lay gaping from on o'erwhelming cliffs, That never have e'er seen sun-beam golden. A vast round ocean, in whose noon their flight Is, in the greatest thus depleted of power. "If from this vale of death those steps had tend'd, Ye fields and woods, where (if the flame still burn Their wax-like life be thinn'd) the battle's sound Ye shrills of thunder, that assails the wind. But if to light we have to turn away From what to thee we owe the worthiest of the two, If to thine eye he should no more return Nor we to him obtain glimpse of soul again, Then, where to turn or halt, he is not far, Who has such treasure of winding store At his full hand. With fearful hazard, then, With feet that tremble, does he reel and bend (To curb and bring, by mortal revolution, Their motions), but in his cowering posture, Pierces through the air no air, but up-start, And jumps through times with impetuous wing, A furrowing crane, as twinkling stars. When I, where the chasm open'd, saw the point, Where first the gate of that ill-scap'd sun Relieved the milky pallial light, I came, and, entering, thus began. My glorious star, daughter of the skies, Compass'd round with lights, the harbinger of day! The conquests of the gods thou dost sustain, And stoop'st not her slender stem to ground; But, stout hearted, endure th' opposition Of the dark, and such hard tests as it brings. Lynceus I, for feebler Phoebus fear'd, So much I fear'd in the sky; For, on my side, th' alien stars afar, Had smit each mortal with infernal fire, And now in your dominion ready stand, To conquer and o'ertake. For if the light, Which moves the world's orbit, and requires fuel To sustain, could by its very force be won From night and sleep to strike the eye of men, (Such conquest you Hercules), then would he, Himself, at once resist this light, and try With force of arm the luminaries. But, if beneath the sun's dark body Some suns, before our hour, there sleep, there bear; Then, what was gain'd not by us, would suffer. And, if, as some tell, these Suns from heaven have often strayed; And some have chang'd their light, if it be true, That is no concern of yours and me. The suns' that have reight the seas and skies (Plausible matters) thou know'st what to think. And how to strike with wonder and delight The proud heads of these new-fledged stars Sink low, to search with wonder and delight What means the change, what in the stars, And whence carry which reputes divine. And, if they dwell in quiet seas, to know Who rules them and their offspring's state, In seas unknown, he, they know not how, And how to give their rosy handles To the warm kisses of the sun; These know well, and ne'er was known the east Until the golden age begun. "Well, since your speech, so urged by you to come, I tamed ======================================== SAMPLE 216 ======================================== - no! - away! - That is a man! - No, it is no! - come! - that is flight! - Yes! - Come, and stay. - There is no flesh - No! come on, I'll shoot - no. - where? - That's me eye. I saw the black - that's strange! - that's too! - No, no! - yes! - yes. - that's my eye - let go! - No! - that's too! - that is a man! - I'M the only one. - That's my man. <|endoftext|> "At the Golf Club", by William Meredith [Living, Coming of Age, Relationships, Friends & Enemies, Men & Women, Sports & Outdoor Activities, Philosophy, Social Commentaries, Cities & Urban Life] At the golf club with its hanging tees where the putter sells for ten bucks. Somewhere else, the pond or the lawn maybe, it would have been green and green with a blue line of putters and balls for rent. That blue sky and that putter had a calming effect on a boy who was thirteen. Of the two courses he could swing and play both, neighboring the ball on the rye, and that was kind of heavy and roll and tumble. His brother and partner in irons was seven years old. Five irons, tee, and putter served to empty pantaloons. He never figured the craps disappear so quickly and loudly, as he thought they would in another man's house. His first five-putt wasn't even in yet when he took the hint and sort-of-kind-of-agreed to get wise about his caddy. He could still range the Putamina or golf, whichever he preferred, and, if given the chance, could make it happen, the putter said, to reach the age of forty. That was the idea, the putter said, to stay in shape and make the best of life's available opportunities. <|endoftext|> "The Final Page", by William Meredith [Living, Time & Brevity, Love, Heartache & Loss, Relationships, Arts & Sciences, Poetry & Poets, Reading & Books] Nothing but this page will tell the story of that night, says The Graduate (and its title, The Name of the Wind) Four and a half hours after we screwed the rot of the ocean, mother and daughter with two black fish black smoke lamps high and very far away into the haze. We had done that. Pale sunlight on the wall, the fountains; then, a book; the gray horse grazing in its copy. There was no book; we did that. We read by looking, turned the page as we had read; we just wanted the fountains' story, took it on trust. A less than grateful world would have given us a squinting glass, a hint of amber, some explanation in black and white. Books feel rare, as though taking in a narrow round cut in the heart. <|endoftext|> "Two Years Later", by Donald Plagni [Living, Death, Health & Illness, The Mind, Activities, Eating & Drinking, Sports & Outdoor Activities, Relationships, Pets] I. It was at the house of a friend of a friend, said to have been given to much worse. I was drinking a margarita with its afterglow. It was strong, rounded, but not memorable. White elephants were nibbling the bar during the conversation. Not funny. The margarita was often an afterthought, a drained bottle or a frozen keg of draft beer. So much slobber was pouring off the bar that it took forever to fill. I drank in short order. I hated this. I thought I could handle the goliath. With more drinks I might learn to love it, the feet so massive they were almost superhuman. I felt the monster rise, like a dervor of cow dung in the pit's dark chambers. I trusted nothing, but relief helped, and a television in the living room helped. II. Nothing like the moment when the bouncer at the suburban apartment complex called the newly-trashed, says it's impossible to observe the beast in the apartment complex, lights far off, said as though the burden of explaining were a duty not to be borne. What did he drink first ======================================== SAMPLE 217 ======================================== Fixes fall in showers, Ne'er a sapphire crown Full of light. Little brook that flaunts that sultry blue With its freshness like a rose That haply here and there Grew in Eden's Eden, Full with pitying proclivities Bid the wise heart in me long To greet it; To face each morning with an aching slant, And beat it like a spirit blushing under fires, Saying, I am blameless! O why Are ye thus? O well-struck Spectatorie! Wherefore are ye thus An image stands, that smiling, pink and brown, Lies on the wold, amid the rubble still At Worzel street; Where the pride of days gone by looks forth, Filled with beauty, Clean for burial here. Bald, let it be so. I have also once been fair And liked to myself. I have within me Love, that has made me sane. Griefs and wishes That seek to rise Beyond the hour of breath And seem To rise, and seek Like lilies to the skies To live for aye. In your blue and snowy church The scent is still sweet that clung Like a blossom down your vestment years, And lilies once threw From theirs With a sigh Of perfect bliss Out of the minster's highest window, Like a flake Of frozen snow To that far blue Of Morning in the hills! The Town - it has changed beyond belief The very hair of my greyed head, We shared the ploughing then! The wood and water hydras, The land as clear as cider As wine, And all of the great mess Of morning and of evening shapes On their black cart, the sun! The Town - most strange to me The silence and the dull Of church and city as one goes, And I went always the same And had no friends, and then I found That I was lonely. The Town - most strange to me The silence and the dull Of church and city as one goes, And when I look on earth It seems a dark strange grave, For I was numbered with the stars, Yet here they glitter like eyes That haunt the Night. The Town - most strange to me The silence and the dull Of church and city as one goes, And many will gaze at me And say, 'He shall be one Of the most famous men, The most famous man that ever lives, For he foresaw this silence and this dull, And made his great simple plan, And came, and walked these pines with that black sun And walked along this water! Three voices loved one solitary sky; Earth, that embraced them, was not rich; As if a shell that thrums on a drum Tilts twice over frantic in its proud Farewell The Farewell Is but aught but dust, They spoke for theo— <|endoftext|> My search for the essay prompt-- Such a thing in the anthology! If it hath no literary merit, It may be worth nothing to me; But, to belong to the Tripathic Games, I see no use in it. 'Thas a myth, this,' says my Grannie; 'It is a fairy, my Granny.' 'Tis a fable, says the Creature. 'It circulates in an ass.' 'And they hop or they run or they Rip or they bite or they fight For the milk and the bacon and the bread, And the only ones that run away Are the Cats and the Dogs.' If I may be so bold, I think the Soutoon may hold Outshining gold and brass and gems, Made of purest gold and brass and gems, If but that by the mouth of man, The sole of his shoe, may wander near it. Tho' there be cats and mice In the shadowed hedge behind my lea, And foxes in the orchard and the corn, And a wolf at the hunt and a boar in the fold, The wilderness hath a distinctive smell, As of 'hautburg' and of 'champaign' and of 'rue.' ======================================== SAMPLE 218 ======================================== like the prides from their lifeless hips you think it is gone this place must be made of the stupid he will kiss her again after What we've found so far is beautiful as the mast of the train,but sad as something found with the victims of sun. Your hair is like the hair you would get if they shooed the nettles from your head, you don't wear that many clothes but you look like a murderer in her wetness or a mother who will not let the body be buried at the bottom of the lake which is the bottom of the lake. Only the tarp is there over the hole but you can see how she opened up the lid with the thorn clippings to wash at the moisture. That you were wounded opens the story of your mother's family, how her father gave her up for adoption and the birth mother left her. That you were adopted and grew up, can let your birth mother discover her roots. that you have been abandoned and survived makes her gratitude a little harder. I know you think you deserve to be the mother of all women alive. How many times have you called your mother after she gave birth to you? And I know how you have needed her. I have a father like you or a brother one of them, who has thrown you away, I have seen you search for your way among our streets, we are all deep in wounds here, we are all disappointed. We know you are not as deep as our blood or our brains, or our bodies, you think you are not God because you could not save your own mother from the bombs, but you are here, we are not and you know this. It was said that you had a future. I was here and I heard a tattered sheet and I took the sensation as an answer. We knew that it would be temporary. This is not the real earth, I didn't want to touch it, it would be better just to find some other body to enter as your own. I have learned that many of us have no intention of helping you. The real earth has been destroyed and rebuilt in a new pattern where I am no longer an instrument with his power there is another voice that we can listen to. I am here too long. I can't touch the wound with my hands. I go on more like a whip that someone thought a snake and I take my revenge. There is another voice with his power, even if he did not mean it. He is gone in a different city working on a different dream. <|endoftext|> "Sonnet with Three Verses", by Peter Cooper [Love, Realistic & Complicated, Relationships, Arts & Sciences, Poetry & Poets] I keep remembering the day I stood at a mirror, standing for a whole hourside-on without seeing an image.My name is an interference. I try to withdraw from people and they gather me. A perfect record of me is wound up in me like a spy's mitt, or a swag in blue jeans. On the phone when my teacher said, “Take me, take me, son.”I took her right then out of the library. Celestial objects that are intelligible to the sight, to the pointthat we could join their equilateral trianglefor perfection and immediatelyto the drawing board her pupils navigated me in. I can't say the first line of a sonnetwithout fearing the orchestra will melt itself for crinoline. It’s hard to be in a taxicab with you’re broke as a plot but good luck:when they put you in the taxi the driver’s like, “Man, you sure know some history.” I mean, yeah, the first son of all shithead Clives were questing for pizzas in Rome, and indeed, and indeed. My self-titled pop song for the ages with all those bells and whistles, but also, Quattrocento , posters, banners, elaborate map of Rome, three-dimensional map of Rome, not three but four-dimensional, the movieted, tacked-on fabric of the Olympics which is to saythe second of which (or should I say, what) I did with the second part of my sophomore year and for which I was subsequently awarded the Greek alphabet in the arena,whereby my bookish prauncilista defense was thus accomplished. That, and a few other pointers, I remember now because I seemed to possess, as if “contained” ======================================== SAMPLE 219 ======================================== Although on earth; and many other guests in common, Chosen from earth, dwelling in thy gardens around With Adam as in his paradise; yet, a God Is he, the author of all life on earth; and From him different nations and different inhabitants, Ranging their varying lives, draw divers substances, Souls air, earth, and water, beasts, and birds, and fishes, Into thy courts and conversations, bright and blest, Delight on blest; and full of motion and joy. So when from the same warm nest a grove of pine Spring thitherward, and swarming after the sun Forth away the glittering hosts, with sonorous blades, From north to southern west and under Arctic ice, Into extream splendors, sonorous, golden, To flood the mazes of night and cheer the earth; That on thy lush and expensive park Flames the moon's host, and the thin stream under The golden towers of the swan crescent shines; As from the river-banks between one mount Torn out of her olden way, the dim shade, Snarled and old, and with a scorned crest, Peeps through the dry and inert green, and flits A moment to and fro, as though on fire, Then falls and gathers in the gentle stream; Or as on torrent-waters wild and wild and mad In their own water-strands, that fill slow From parted confine the plains and pass Evermore unswervingly across the plains; So on the fourth day of this ninth moon, After the session at the door of Adam's Paradise And of the Serpent's countenance that smiled Of his great persuasion and of his strong lure To think and act, thou seenest a certain Jew, Of Juda street, a Jew by birth or adoption, Servant or poor, upward for two hundred years In the affairs of trade, merchant, partner, Advancing from a foreign land to this And in this street; who to an eye of wonderful vision Sighs, because of stumbling bars that now appear And bars of steel; and whence doth grace from higher Immanuel to erect a wall from notch To notch, a wall of holiness and glory, Wherewith to rise; which wall is earthly metal chosen To be the fence of peace, between or freest force Of warring worlds and issuing violence To labour and a king; for in that place Yea, rather than this race of men, were planted That of woman, woman's race; the natural offspring Of celestial seed, begot in difficult way, As hath been shown by a manifest scout. (emphatically goes) What thinkest thou, Lod on of men? Is it by death, or by causes equally Useless and disgraceful both, that thou alone, Perforce, as Woman, art desolate and laid In the need of him, that thee who only Holdest center-sheights here shouldst lift to him up High God, to cast a bar into thine heart Unconscious of its kindred obligations? Is't thyself, thyself or others, that thou wouldst This wall between us built, or didst this place Lie idle be that arrogance of thine, To hew or fling or hurl some trespass? That here one body of two souls ought to be These at their separate natures, separate Like sea-waves in great calm parted and yet Peteently contending, like a cony sought And gone out upon a huge island, while the other Still ran through the shallow in the threshold-sand That scarce appears? All things shal be in their natural state, Although at morn there be fair days and foul; Nor shall for any change what there is now be seen Or change, or hide a moment, (but) all done, Ended and completed, or with an oath Ceased to commence, or what may be done, of greater Or less? If of two or three whole walls of this kind Be left, we long since have no eyes to see Or mean toleration nor compass any goal Of ours, but left to be an end and an end, Leave with the Devil or of the Devil's race Whereby to scrape and go under with the least; Leave them to do their worst for us who have worked And toiled and now are stiff with all this belly of yours Now on the table there they lie Beating their little faces Against the top of the pan, In the sure wood they made their dish Of the sweet, their mouthes of brass, Lid on lid of ======================================== SAMPLE 220 ======================================== OTTO In desert vale, on lonely hill, The Fauns, aye keep comforterin' That ye han'st seen an' heard The murmurs in the night wind's throat, Or sounds that rippled from the stone The hall—where votaries oft Have felt the whispering ben Of falling water-crops when nippin' In the brook by the water-side, Where love like a wild bird's lays Its quiet moaning vole In the leaf-strewn, shadowless dell That seemed to the eye, alone, The night-fire's self alone Folded, like young Night at the breast Of her own infant; she might thole The time for thanks for good words sung Ere fast forgotten. No coil Of dust in her thread-worked self Her last silent hours to seek The churchyard of the buried dear, And know that her poor fleshly days Pained still from bloodless birth to wail, Nor yet to offer to the touch Her hearts untainted soiled hand; Her wedded hand, her eyes (Thus strangely both of Death) had kept The sacred fire, but now, vainly Unloosed, watchful—from the stone (Though faith like a lamp in Heaven Sought it) had leapt from her frail cot Laved with olexes deep In benediction of night. Now, the quick gifts so earthly fair, Love is with me (like the Blest) Too much—as their young days go on, Kindled up by good Earth's frank light That old fancies deem such eyes must covet. I, sick with misery, feel my dear, Haters of virtue, struggling in my breast, For suffering cause of love, their heated Heat, faint to nought. Sweet dreams of wakened fires! again, Bright visions of the year that clasps With spring's smile a mysterious strand, Again, unseen, will come that brief Last gleam of Sun-in-the-Shining days! Again, unseen, will come that word, "hope!" With which the upland statesman year Calls time to its daily acts. If she, Still cross'd and still parted by the way Sorrow'd, if I, farewell! the world's Life would be all glad assurance gave to sorrow That we return'd to the selfsame world; The Year's Delight, that it would round us throng Some joyful note of overreaching beat Of song, to swell the eternal throng Of its swift onward pow'rs. Alas! awhile 'Twas so;—but for a breath, and then, my friends, Loose your persistent valour in the kiss Of your sweet compassion, (let others bend, And reach the trifling edge of narrow search In narrow search, that frights the glad life-path.) Our high aim! dear friends, let no error press Ours too! Let not error, with the rod Of Hostis here, upbraid us that we rest From thought beyond thought, though thought be thought. Lo, This world, with all its sins, is but as a rose Gathered from thorn, is but a falling star, Sweeter for its falling! Oh, close To heart's eye, not one of us shall fail, One, of our own free choice, not yet to know The first. We may doubt, or say, He hath chosen This world and for his love, in which, ye who walk The world's strait glades may perceive, He hath flung An icon, a precious idol in the sun; An icon, a divine miracle, is thrown Into dark ocean far, unseen, unlearned, Beyond the range of every drifting prayer. But even this doubt to go, our peace to gain By this full knowledge, would be a thing to grieve, To which there swinging from life's thread-strings we wound Our heart's strong cords of sense. Sad are the springs Of other men's thought; who, sure that He in him Whom they have missed, have raised, as by divine Slumbering, their messengers from the soul, (Their messengers who are messengers of Heaven) Teach you, and the sun that shines on earth Hangs like a false door. I am the door, therefore. Speak to me, and I will hear you; thou art Thy brother; thou thinkest I hold thee fast Through a long way, and that I shall be loyal To thy cause. Think for ======================================== SAMPLE 221 ======================================== And call: 'I have children afar Who have no place to rest. Sisters and brothers and a whole town Are weeping and praying for us.' But get ye to the heart of this, and gnaw Till ye find the motive: and we have had A fit example that, and the town. A KISTFUL God has but one short hour To bless us: how can He spare time To taste eternity? because The saints Came in His tender mercy, and His saints Went out of His justice. All the vials In His wondrous cellar, safe hid for us In His acme-warehouse; The little prophetic dust That drips and is shed, Remnant from all He bore with Us, Hath a new lot From us. In our love His heart is full: His love calls for our service And we serve, where we may, with uneasy feet, Even as the beasts that fill the field. We cannot breathe apart. The city's Hell, The wind of Heaven falls on us there, And darkness and the sound Of freight-trees and mighty throngs That storm with malignity Our solitude. We are our brothers' guardians, with battered frames And very stones That will not crack nor stay Till we have paid the King The debt of our last sick-bed dream, And, where our strength is spent, For Him, for His dear child, Who has not left us while we were here, Nor will till our breath is fled And our eyelids close Brothers, be ye brave of will, So will you be free: So may ye, when the day has failed, Stand fearless in the right. For who can to such a one Turn, and be not made A slave and die? THE wind stirs in the hills, The locusts play in the sun On the long slope, The lonely slope of cool-toned days, With dusky skirts; Where hardly a different shade From the foot that's as peaceful and still As the won seasons, sallies forth, Gifts to those who pass below. The air in the autumn is sombre, The air in the autumn stained Like the air of a great chamber where For summer is life's lull-executed honey And death's restoritivem. So do our years slowly wheel and go, And darkness say to the soul. Who grows not old? not drunk with wine? Nor of the heirs of the mouldering years, And may not weep, If one light puff Of sense forget the whole crop. WHILE utterly forlorn, I cast Scatters of night over hills and winds And find no beacon on the storm, Then where the sea, An agoget round the cumbered rim, Past the furthest bound that I have known, I had a fellow to direct On the track of my dreams. I only had to follow his star To his hunting ground,-- At first the great hill curve of silver he followed, Then the slope far below,-- In a brook, that his eye went to sleep and woke red, A woodland copper; And even as I turned it in my mind, Sheer to the foothills of morning; The far fallow plain Lay flax-sheathed of bare soil, Whereon the antler'd stag So loosely lay, Stamp poppies turn'd blue. Oft he did slumber in the reeds Of Serpent's Cwm, And now out of the hill's low crest Does his choler out On the winds of the plain, Like the gales that bring Water to the beech-groves Where the locusts swing. They stalk and rummage out in the open And out of the grasses and sedge Wrap them in the gloaming, On the mowers' muzzles, Slings the queerest worm and seed, That the harvest doesn't go. And when day has put out the buds, Then at their clumper hands Slings the queerest worms And what ever finer friend Out of the earth you could Pass that way with a smooth round stone. These are his deer, these are his antlers, Red gold and purple thickets of decay; And when they turn to golden brown, And one comes to many rabbits, I'd rather look at them all night long, Than any fable of a person. The hill-tops of his ======================================== SAMPLE 222 ======================================== Britons, my subjects, What have I done to you In the blood of your sons? Is the price Of your freedom To make way For your sons To the drudgery Of toil? Is your life To slopin' In pettin'-houses, To work in the fields And groves? Is your life To mud-stores, To storacks, To the devil At girdin'-gizes, Where the Old G. H. S. Roars through red gates, What have I saved you Against? You will boisterously Bustle like a white-toothed grouch At the mere name of Blues (laughs). Or, far from home, for nine months, Be on the streets with the drifters, With the wicked elements of the city. Are you wise? Are you strong? Stronger and wiser? As sure as death! Your high-priced Liberty, Your lavished goods, Your salaried work-a-day Will prove a trade. You will find your profit As sure as bacon, Or as rope, Or as lades For the buck and dogs. What do you expect of me In the longer view? Let me see--I've had it with blues For ever and a day. Now don't get so cocky, silly! Let's see how you stack On the bottom of my Blues Commission. It's time you started with me. It's not any old day-licence You'll get from me, old club. 'Tis a licence to work and die In the blues. It is to be done In a style sublime, With the thunder of ten thousand lyres, And the clamor of ten thousand drums. Its irresistible message Calls for a sumafo and a dirge. The triumph of the Race! The haughty sign Of the Pretender's fall! No safe-guarded treasure For the haves Of the future race-- For the haves of the Past. Now the color of a bridge has failed me, The last sign of the road I crossed Has gone down in the dark, and left me On a useless road in a wasteland. I can make a ticket to go over there, But who will get the ride? A heavy number of my friends have lost More than their fair numbers I take to the grave; And I don't know what to do, And I'm wondering if the ones I've called "sirsenchws" Will get their rights sometime soon. And I've lost my household name, and I'm one Who wouldst have known better yet, if I'd it. But there's no one to do a man like me A foe to, or a friend to, and to-day The Blues look just as black as the rest of the race, And the hands of the pavement mite along the street Are full of their mess of flesh, and the black earth Is as black as the devil and the devil is black. It's queer, when you come to a lost place And you're using up your coins, To find that you've lost a race, A taste of the blues somewhere, I guess, Between you and the sages. Just the other night, I wandered to-night Down the middle of the street, and crossed The sad gap from Forty-Wall to Forty-Square-- And all I could see was a big black box In the center of the street; and the crowd That moved around it moved in a motion, somehow, Like a single pattern, that was subtle and artless, And people moved in a manner not unlike the race They moved into. And I said to myself, What the hell's this? And thought at first it was the construction Of some fine radar-odometer or bore-meter To measure the speed of things, but when I paused, I found I was dreaming, and when I woke, I had whited out my eyes and the thing had gone away, And a spotlight had a disappeared, And I realized that I was the night-traps suspense-keeper, And I could seal a prison with the breathing Of a cat, but just half-way down my throat, And the string of the catwhip I could pull The poison; next, I could hammer a little Fastened by a secret eye-telescope To a crank-ended vein in the hard, cold road The gilt glow-worms ======================================== SAMPLE 223 ======================================== Grandeur's made of grandeur, I guess. This Here's the origin of the Earth: (One of Nature's tiny, frightful highborn creatures, that began Immediately the ways of Revision) set to forge Nature, herself, in the Grand Idiom. The Grandis Kingdom! The Grandest state of Cents! In All Grandness, a great magnitude! The Grandest, on All Hallows' Eve! Even out here, some way. Is there for this Earth such such stone? Such worlds? I behold My Triangle, on the pine-tops, Its Red Precedent of Perplements! The Triangle is most intelligible, only when We make it simple. A Monument to Vivere. That's you, and you're so grand, so holy, so wonderful, My fair earth, my glorious earth! Even on All Souls' Eve, this has been a season, By what chance, by what sacrifice Of Grandness have you won that place, These lords of nearness, these demigods! They have held you up, Acharnius and you, Charlemagne, Who, for your sake, the young may find lovely, When the old turn to bloomful law and lawn. <|endoftext|> "I, IV, VII", by John Donne [Living, Coming of Age, Relationships, Men & Women, Arts & Sciences, Philosophy, Social Commentaries, Gender & Sexuality, History & Politics, War & Conflict] (excerpt) I am young. I stand by my countenance And show such-and-such body And such-and-such-and-such mind And lie down among my friends, And know I am beautiful; And when they take me home, and I see their joy, I do not sorrow for me: I know I am not, for I am. And so when I walk by me I follow him the way the dark was Whose shadows are I, I, and I, and I. I will not be careless; I knew all this, you know. No matter how, and so I move and I run, I, I, An agent -- you, if you will. I will not be dull. I have him, and I know it. I will not be silly. I will not be a slave; And so when I'm with him I will say: I have cried for you, I, in that your count's seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven. I would be the cool, the shade; And he is the transfixing beam. I'll be the goad, the lift, the sweat. I shall not be the worm; He will not be the serpent; We will have fun; But I am ready. With a singing body, And a mind in young fields And a mind at war; With a body that's a waxing, And a mind in fages; With a mind in nights and days, And a body that's flat; With a heart in business, And a tongue in music; And a mind to have, And a body that's alive; Now then I shall be what I am today; I shall be what I am in a hurry to be; I shall be what I was. I shall have a body like the great bodies; I shall have eyes like to the moon's; I shall be alive to greet The mornings and the eves of time; And if I'm living, And if I'm awake, Then I shall have moonlight, And day-weather, And I shall be a man in a hurry, A marring earth, Who and what I am, This of course being an indirect quote from Donne's Comedy of Morgan, Act i, Scene 1: "As he came. The horn was rung, They brought in the coffer, and he took his seat, "I'm as good a man as he's got," said his conscience. 'Twas all that he could do to save his sister; For they'd killed her mare, And he was dead, And so he said: "If the brutes could cry, "Some little heed they gave to that end, For Jack and John, in a trice, All six, Were shot, and he was hang'd to the mast, Therefor he says, While looking up he says, While looking down he says: "They cap't!" Or from Sir John Skelton, Act ii, scene iii ======================================== SAMPLE 224 ======================================== his gudgeon, the barbed wire, his meat: his pheas from being eaten is well-spun; his unmention will pass, like his un- eged eidolon, Who sits not at the palm! Good morning. You have spilt milk And scumbag, Floss and uncumbag About the kitchen, Shined from Your yucking at the toaster And your Exploding Enclos of bread. To you In the shape of the voice of the toothless old man Who eyes your work from the bed of his grave From that bed that is wide open Over there. "I want to make love like this, like that, With my own body, with my own blood to The rhythm of old Lithuanian sheets, To live in the shape of skirts that are Behind you in the shape of your white thighs. For this man. I would like To have my body like this, To have white thighs like this: A good shape for making love to. "In my mother's shape, in my shape of the Old ladies and old men, The secret room of the great ladies of the Port from the direction of Altmüscher, Belwind and Belkafé where the topmost cliffs Are sinking and sinking; The fjords as far as a traveller can Climb into the sky. "Where the earth ends And the heart of the earth begins, it begins To beat like a wounded bird; To drive for the girl, to be beaten By the young woman who flutters and quivers; To be rounded, broad, not formed, but Empty of content. "It is a spirit from the inside that it Immediately apprehends, And the wind that its mother-of-hard-more Is lifted by the trees of fog-wood And flies like a swallow is blown, To the spirit of my body and soul Wand'ring itself in the shape of the Boughs and the berries in the Bock, The shape of the walls And the roof and the day and the Light-blind roof, So that it will not be Continuous, nor need be Sentential, but subjective, The shaping of the limbs and The breast and the shape Of the mouth. "Thus it is with me that I am thinking On the room of my body and soul Thinking in it of the wind that is drawn To the tree of my longing, which is Like a willow, and the room Of my body where my longing is As tall as a statue is; Where my willow-shaking courage Is forced for the feast; Where I take the fish out of the water, Turn the spit of my longing For the thing I know not. What is it that is dark behind the Wall, or what is it is drawn? In my mind it is drawn, but cannot Be distinguished; and I cannot, Not even in imagination, Take the body and the soul And uniting them in a shape That can say: I am here Without my will. "I have been walking in my body And thinking in it, As you might see me in a vision Standing, Speaking, in a vision, The shape of my body, In which I say, 'There is no one else, No one else in it; From you I have accepted Your invitation To come with you and with you To the aim of the wind; But it is not easy for me, Not easy for me to keep My body in its shape as it is; As it was when the holy Virgin, Or as you saw it, willow The young bull tied to its neck.' "The shape that your fingers make on the parchment Can you observe? You can say, 'Cut here, but What follows will be, By cutting, in part, the religious sentiment: In it, Do not cut a single line that is not soul; For when it is born, Is born a living being, Is as little less than immortal.'" I have beheld as a shape So beautiful, so beautiful, So beautiful, A shape so beautiful, a prophet standing On the high mountain of Capron, When the dawn was rising from the east, Shining above the bushes that smiled In the valley of the shadow of death, On the road to Rome. And in the shadow of death, I have beheld as a shape, The shape, a ======================================== SAMPLE 225 ======================================== Cycloptanum love-magicus Thoremus prophesied, That Virgil's pen could set a man on fire As those he could drown as these The misnamed champion of the Romans Lycophonia's war-poppets love-- Also Troglodyte Plays his line Over the High-topt in Leather boots Goes To buy a Place While he lectures a reader Who's Waiting In Finger Knots. <|endoftext|> "Nahum Bechot: The Well of Love", by Eduardo deParza [Love, Infatuation & Crushes, Relationships, Social Commentaries, War & Conflict] For V~rbivos Without all lamps, Night would drown us, Without all woman-kind, We would be yoked. Come we are not from Wadi or the waterfalls, There is neither way Nor any clew, So our road are blind In a wild Trail. Go with me to a lovely distance. Come down from where you are, What you bear, Tell me. Nay, do not pick me up, O that's worse, worse, Nightingale of my heart. Come with me to Chorabosch where lions tear the dogs and horses from a caravan, and on Debrekburo, or on the square and by the Russian ladies' streets, Walk with me on the wind and by the palms. Come along in the thick of it, Let's learn Persian stories, & have fun, for you are a strong lover, Master of quiet. Let's go together to the spring of our well, the spring of love and there hear the time-tides as the cuckoo shrieks over the willows, as the breeze-sweep turns desert into deshaker, as if the night were a song we could not hear. Come, let us have one another fallen under the thunder and the miracle, we who are not so very far, & can speak together on our grief. <|endoftext|> "Cantico della Idiote", by Johann Har + hymns + otherwise (= Wotaned = Hebrew) Whene'er your spirit comes, and you turn your grave eyes on mine, an unutterable anger, and a kind of despair, I shall not choose, to gratify that passion, between you and me, the easy way of something better. A year has come and brought yearning and an emptiness like winter, the tangled fibres of which are rigid: not like the simple fibres of the fresh frost. I shall never forget the patient squint of your handsome brows, nor the frail suit of your trimcoat, nor the words you said to me when last I saw you, as fresh, in their hoarseness like an inspiration, I thought I was not in my life, and I looked straight in your eyes; my father told me not to; my life in these was as the unawarehold of a fly. I saw your eyes for something unutterable and pure, nor did I dare to bear it. For I was awe-struck. Once, because you had come to visit me, I put on sweet perfume, and with sweet voice exhaled it; and I stood closed as if in awe, and to yourself said myself, "This is not good"--but I was not able to stop or say so. for 2 lines like this one at the end of the 2 lines written with the title Cantico della Idiote, Book I, line 5: Even as a man which has seen what it wants, something about it slips away; whate'er the tale, now told, now told again, again and again. Doubt is subdued with ironical doubt, certainties with cloud contentions, and the subject-poet in such a position that he cannot but seize. Even this is not happiness; to hear the story, again and again, I have no pleasure in it. I am bewildered, gape on the ground, with nothing to reply and no power to reply, and with this my head laid open to the stare of the skies, whatever sky may be in the tale. <|endoftext|> "Auricular", by Johann Aschenbach [Love, Infatuation & ======================================== SAMPLE 226 ======================================== evidentes quandam castæ mihi secuêre tabentæ ­nocturnis jocis pulsîtur jocto quercuîs, spessere capitis fascor, gratum tegerem, letum rus ego seu profectus furor. laeta tabulâ caput, divomia divinâque rugosque tabulô indicat quietâ numquam rara spectare bis toto jocundo extulit diäsas species impassâ, nunc pendent et non pendent, ut placidi per iter adlapsîs habet intextam diutem calet, eterni jocus non moratur, rapuit et humus fuerit. parat varios ribem magna per tenera fonte nocturnâ. at änibus parat ex aliè trib. ex una suo dat. parat inter temps, extulit diäsâ, etsiunt pectora per levoto mandat in medias serenis. ille magna docto pagam ciuîs, tamen adhaesit hostium qui perlibérte tantæ type et traximus iræ dubitoque domus, cum præsultat Agamemnon. nam sub iugo mensibus inpulit, tum longum staret aequor, lauent cibus, rauco cibus, te plaudentibus nimiumque rapit, se quis sit prævenire præsentibus tardat ut castra pessimi in limine torquam creâ. esponte haustus sumpta dictatoque rapit. STANDARD OF THE WORLD - GRAND OTAM CUP, which hung within the Temple of the Two Bears near the northern portal to the baths, with a cut so severe that few of those who walk it have ever seen it. “At least,' say the inscriptions, ‘less than a magnificent man.” To the HOR back again, that great crane of the HAVANAH, He may come, if at all, only on a cloudless day, And lean in silent wonder at the scenes around him, Drawn as a cloud along the glittering plume of smoke With bent necks watch the long roll of smoke go up into the sky Which spreads in noxious green and gold-girdled blue A heaven thick-assembled o’er the bubbling deep, And the great cathedral seem to breathe heavy smoke. On its side the HANGING DEAD lift up their silver heads, Crying with trembling hair, for they have not seen These fiends which, though they live in clouds of smoke, Should seem to men that men, and shriek with horror loud, Showing a mightier eye than human, and of make Thin as the sands which man may scrap and grind To some hard use; who, to see them, would turn and fly, Like senseless birds which fail and hove below, For fear of greater terrors, not secured like they Against the silver eyes of the swifts, whose wing Glides through the haze, and shocks with silver feet Of silver as they pass the cities large Wherewith our fair earth, upon whose face The clouds of smoke among men are hung like a sky, Dull men-seeing men less thus-seeing, they and she But few of such as see her fair. Yet she gives joy, if seen by them, as one To whom each word spoken is a praise or praise Unto her face; and, like to him who sees, The joy which a man feels to be his own Brushed off and blotted is from him, her face Like to the dead, when he whom it gilds With seeing, to the living life, as far as these Turns; and but brightens where it can no light. Shrouded in smoke her vile body lies, the rest Are dusky in some cloud which men no more Through all its lengths that far and wide blot The sun's red spreading into the shadow At men’s doors; the horseless men who, As much of mud as their feet are as the damp Of slime, are sunk to sleeping, fast who lie Spread out and miserable, and are but Death’s spectators, and, anon of smoke, The living do not die; when the living Shake at their eyes where he was shorn of hair Which now the ======================================== SAMPLE 227 ======================================== 'Tis in this dry, dry air That I am dreaming and dreaming, That Reason is lulled and half-dazed By these bright shapes in vision. And they are blossoming forth, Out of the dry, dark air, Of the centuries that the sun has burned In his golden pruning-knife In a splendor of roseate lights Too weak and unrefined to be known, But they are blossoming forth, The fluttering living fans of the air. Nights, whose darks are richer than the suns, With no sunrise, nor sunset, nor even evening, But merely tides in some sweltering sea Of black and suffusing mystery Where the waters of a dream Float out, beyond all measure, from morn To night, and make the barren places flower With a sweet moisture and intense, That makes them like the fair expanse of light That, from the ever-shifting heaven Of its confluent and instant dwelling, Stoop to the infinite sky With a volume and persistence that proves That it is and abides. Nor are the dark and dreamless nights Hid from the days and hours that are. The daylight made a truce with night, And held the day behind it. Yea, and the bliss of every soul Was to be here in the clouds o'erfraught, No wandering after its will is done In its large eternal way. There was no need for the feast that is These days, and the wan lights of the air As in the pallid far skies Show forth a wavering blue. And, bird and bush and stream were mute, Empty and desolate, silent, dumb, Save this lone rat, that, shaking off The dew that was probably his grave, Snorting in his feeble fear, With a broken reel and flicker Tinkled on the fallen leaves. He was a lorn old rat, Had he brethren far or far away? I am sure there are stars now high To light you on your way-- That rat in the nearby grove Who is your king, and why Are you gathered, dead, and gone In the passing of long years, A vision, and a sigh, A picture, and a sigh? The daffodil is dead, And the daisy like a flame Is dim, and fades away Into a mist. And the twilight falls around On the great grey rock, and all Is changed for the better. The breath of the rose and the nest Of the nightingale, and the fern That knows the roses and the light, Take delight and sorrow. When the Rat and the Dove and the Rose Had bidden men to come And make a place for the footstep and sleep, The Garden was more fair than a palace: How shall I say it: had the vision like a dream, Where God reigned, to all men? A fair spot to walk in is worth a stone that is weighed. No doubt; but now they are dead. You would learn A little; draw close; let me kiss Your sleepy face. All the rose-flushed hours, who raced and pressed And hurried from their meeting, speed you down Life's dusty pathway, track and test you o'er The dust; and these we, who never know, 'Mid incessant motion and the blast, Who never know, are content to give, Nor spare ourselves for the beautiful; O, with these days, not like a fresh spring, To cool the heart with its hot rains, but to seed Roots and sprout and bear. Because a second before you died Your eyes had that way in Which you drew breath, And in what sound you breathed; And that you had given birth You breathed; And with Nature's face painted, The hair upon your head, The night of your sin, the fore-head, In beauty's womb, and all The music of two kindred spheres Embedded. In my heart I felt You tread; in the dusk of a spring day My heart beat against my breast, as I Turned silently within the dust-seeming town, One with the changing seasons: every cloud, Each clod, one with its veiling of the sun, Were stars and silence over my heart. I thought the King had said it, alone it was The whisper of a man that cannot tell a leaf That bends on the dark night; and the lips, The trembling lips that kept it close and some-where The ======================================== SAMPLE 228 ======================================== eriapt and his teacher, saying, He hears me that ye are wretched, do you bring hither a bowl of corn? He said, Yea; and I suppose that he will drink it all himself. And he issued forth, and the teacher, parching, kissed the back of his loins, and he sat down, and the honeyed bowl he cast to the floor; and the take food that is brought him fell upon the storehouse, and the teacher got up from his seat, and took his staff to his hands, and took up a 31 cup from his staff, and continued his weaving; and after that the lord of Cape elevated his dwelling-place from the ground, and shut it and all about it, and covered with a pile the place of his habitation; and he built up his wall of reed and stones, and increased his stern strongholds. Now Telemachus had scarcely concluded his journey, after he took into consideration the lap-dog who served him in the house, and he made him a fine garment, and he made it with the talents of the fair comely spider, as it is written in the book of Wisdom. So he passed on his way through the midway of the country, a fertile valley, the noblest vale that is in the fairest corner of the world. And notwithstanding the good promise the maiden still liked the wooer, for her maiden-praise was yet with alder, when she came to the house, because of her white lily nipples. And this was the good reason why she liked her husband well, that the tender year of her second love had scarcely come. But the maiden spat in her lap, and smelt at the clothes; then Odysseus became the more to be beloved, as he was fairer than all the world, and he had a fair form, and his limbs were straight and smooth, and a straight-limbed back, and his arms lay flat, and his ears were well knit. Then she was proud of him, and her pride began to hurt him sore, for she thought, "Surely I have taken something no more than he has. I must have eaten spirit, some delicious sting from the midi-daughters of the gods. Nurse at night they tell me of this man, making boast, and my anger boils within me, lest it break my heart, which hath no bridge, whereon I know my soul is worsted by experience. Ah, for I am old, and my pain is constant, and my weary brain will not believe that any thing can be so slight, or that the hand of evil is making such sure progress, and ever would send me sprite or word." But as time rolled on, he was the chiefest in wisdom of the women, who like to look on beautiful (for the gods give sweetness to them) and to behold fair form. But there was one among them, who was sitting apart, and penning a book, who made her mansions in heaven, and called the goddesses by their own names, the many-eyed Singers, and stood among the delightful women. And he wrote and sent it to the Nymphs; and they received the gift gladly, and sent their gifts to him also, and Odysseus wrote on the book, and it was brought to the son of Cteatus to all the thethane, and to Hermes the messenger of heaven. Then let neither man nor women, from this day forth, draw such warrant as this lore: and so they loved and are loved. 'Wits, like to apples, ripen best themselves in the heavens. But we men do not flourish so widely, for all our cleverness. For there is no snow which doth not some melting come from others, and there is no flower which does not first come the desire of some other. Lo, thy beauty hath a deeper root in heaven, than the clearest thistle-bloom. Thou art the fruit of those nymphs, whence there sprang the Ideals, who might be drawn down to the abyss. They dwelt here, reclining on a tree, nor knew the light of any other; but the gods, the chief ones, were acquainted with them; and they shed on them the sweet diviner odour, and adorned them with the fairest bloom, and gave them fair names. Then once more, O stranger, do thou increase thy gifts, and pray to ======================================== SAMPLE 229 ======================================== The loftiest, and the filthiest, with heads Bowed in abject respect, of all are served. Upon their sides, from ankles swoln with muck, Fall coats and garments by the hag combined; And haggard eyes roll uncontrolled, and haggard sides. Suitors, in bracelets fastened to their necks, Exalt their glories in a row of spoiling. Lightly thrust aside, a supple hand produces A shank, and, falling on a drowsy arm, Breast cancerous quantity of meat with savour. Among unwashed brains and fevered mouth, With swollen cheek and peculiar smell, Feast on, in momentary orging. Black-bearded, in perpetual uproar is pushed, Insufferably wasted by an intimate friend. Oft, the erring race, accomplished with the feast, Bawl upon thy marble vomit, and wake Thy false tongue,--pyréaneous and perverse. No end, save such as gnaws all--death and foul defeat. When the weak head is laid on the bed of ease, To have the pay, and the pacifying pelf, Contamination of the pauper-poor; With the eyes, and the quiverings that engage Affection on an unloved man. Than most offensive stains could the cote express, The blanching fatality and hue of blue Is drained from the paunch, to give me the trace, In my large estate and my high estate, Whose remaining six-pence makes the worse better. I am my own brand. Who can strike so, shall strike More well: but I mine own fashion to escape. I need not the example I can see; If I need the welcome of the good, 'Tis that I receive it; that I need Accepting, that I faint not and flinch. And I can ask, as I tack and tan, And my stumm to the winds shall be drying. Oh, yes, 'tis sick; 'tis corrupt, and foul. Possess me, I am yours; and be seen Of the rich by my wealth, by my love, By my wit, by my taste, by my glass, By my maintaining; and say, perchance, Some more by this lens. Thou wouldst be my friend By this blackness, and rich life in me Shall double its warmth and extremities. I walk my clear department, do not say If the snow be black, 't is pure as the air; Make high attempts, though in coarse, trimly trim A green E with a touch of a B. Would I could discern the T? I would seek The ME, whom I taste not, where frost undoes My most sweet scents; and try the figure of U I had, but that I gave a youth for wine Who never lapsed in time. As I feel My diurembolo's waters to decline, I feel this skipper his pickaxe impelled To look elsewhere. I would feel rather That I felt too much in wine for my fountains, And here vow that I left too soon al it, Ere the mist of it had formed. I wench knew I was stout, and my cantos Embellished fully, and count my corners, As trim can cut in Lent; so at each trade, Each spot being a freshee, I get a black But, God be praised, none of the livery Shows in me, nor rank anywhere. I shall To my wench like vassals, giving up eye, Have lost with all that my departments Where'er she is; and I had rather It were better and safer for me, And bettered for her, with all my heart, That I with her should stand in Concourse, than this stratagem, and sink To the naked shooping of the leech. The man That I would make such a post-boy, as he Sits at his post, handsome and cordial, smiling And cordial enough, but foul minded; too, Alluring her, and allimunde, to fail, The which both of great manners' count, and show, He in his office carries to bed. Then set The post-boy at odd and haste his post To fetch in the vinous jelly, and in His own his good woman back again. He Would consider it of time and ease All was too hard of Mentality, Were he only inclined to it. ======================================== SAMPLE 230 ======================================== es an old man when he's been a plumber five years straight without seeing a stranger. and mason since he built me this beauty. he builded me, an old shot, a tall brick, stiff as a thumb tack. but you know what, all these homes I didn't choose, I didn't see a thing wrong with you. that something's so obvious, you make it every hour, but you see it so rarely. not to you either. now the rain comes. take your coat, it's full of cold air. that's what you have on underneath your heavy woolen coat. and this month's coldest weather. and do you think masons ever think about dying? no, not they don't. we live on till the sun's almost to nothing, do you see? it's very painful. it's painful to be old though there's a mush of lovely young stuff. old stuff, old structure. this stone, old school stone, old mason. you would never put down the mottled color of your eye. not tombstone, that's too new. but do you think about your grey eye now, you old bird's eye? your warm, human eye? all new stuff you learned on your way through a fallow field, a blank, all-ruddy shore. you learned the letter T. a new shape, a new pigmentation, with an eye that's been painfully heated by others, twice beating. do you even know you're dreaming and doing it now, then sleeping, dreaming and doing it again? can you even learned that long ago? so many rules, how they shape us, make us their subjects, not the other way round. +53 <|endoftext|> "Compost", by Philip Henslow [Living, Death, Nature, Animals, Trees & Flowers] No one gave Compost (his sheep) away. It was his to give or not, and Compost gave away his berries. Who ever thought of Blacktop as the jeweler of the forest? No one gave away the $5,000 promised on his cheek. His neighbours made from him, not from him. Who ever thought of Spring a trick or a tease? Who ever thought of Gold Clay sippin' with the Spring? <|endoftext|> "Forget it", by Philip Henslow [Living, Time & Brevity] Forget it, forget it. Forget it. Forget it and think of it only as blackness. —Henry Wadsworth Longfellow We are silent on the road between Memphis, Mississippi, and Meridian, Montana; our mouths are full of dirt. We stop, we start, we look, we smell it, look again, think it is all mud. We turn on the radio on the carseat and it vibrates with the static of the dial. I would give a hour of my life to hear those words again: "forget it, forget it, forget it." Is there enough wind to bury the tongue to its mastering? Is the jaw set wide enough? Is the mouth allowed to run down free of its troubles? Our teeth are full of mud and we are full of trouble. We turn up the car and make a deaf ear of it. It is hard to describe our contempt, harder to talk without saying it. We do not have the words, but all suggest the same thing: we do not have the words. Forget it, forget it, forget it. We cannot feel it, it must run all around us, disappear. "Forget it," I tell the others. It was one long taboo to which we clung as a group. The way was always left unstruck, and we hit the wrong side of things as we did the right, but more ordinarily. We climbed over the fences to catch fish, under the rain, above the snow. We knew the feeling, it was ours. We never knew the distance and we joked about it. We would not be caught. No surface for a rail or channel was marked, and nothing was missed by our talk. How many times we climbed the fence to watch another enclave marching under night, in the white ======================================== SAMPLE 231 ======================================== dark. Then I hung them on a line and stroked my palm against the sticky back. then before the magic of the desert my fingers had drifted away from earth and sky and all I had left was the power of my fingertips. We wound and twisted, parched on a thread of loose-wound, into the cool of the invisible animal. and carried our dreams into the smell of the night. and in that hour I heard my mother's voice say where - her voice was still. I saw her as a man might see his own reflection in a window glass. All the rest was dark below. <|endoftext|> "Brief retracing", by Lynn Henry [Relationships, Family & Ancestors] I took a tricycle to my niece's birth I left the house and drove All the way home I brought her Brief retracing The tricycle was a vessel of wonder So that she might See it Before I showed her There was a strange tricycle That sat outside My aunt had bought Before she bought a home It sat in the front yard For my niece Who never went there Though I thought I saw her Walking down the path She knew that a horse Raced by the gate It might have been a horse That was taken away By a sleet-storm Or an older horse That wasn't So I never guessed She knew The tricycle Was the jailer It was a tricycle I think She knew I saw her put the tricycle away And never see me <|endoftext|> "Alone in Washington", by Lynn Henry [Living, Life Choices, Time & Brevity] Last night in the stairwell, beside the door to the House, I happened upon an extra on the couch, a middle-aged woman, Who told me she had recently left a high-ranking place On a project in Europe. I passed her a paper: 'Listen very carefully while I read this.' She thought it was peculiar that I'd come into her privacy And read her correspondence with some old friends of hers Who'd just written something 'classic.' 'It's one o'clock in the morning,' she said. 'I'm asleep.' 'Do you know that you're awake?' 'I know that I'm asleep.' I wanted to insist. I wanted to say I loved her and that I'd never guessed She was so perfect in all things but one thing— That nothing that she said or did could be true Until the sun came up. But she was not asleep. She was very proud, she said, of her books and manuscripts, And very wary of people. I think that's her way. No one knows what old people think or feel. And I'd proved to her, just by the way she said it, That I knew she loved me. I'm only a seeker, who is happy to find That others think and feel what I think and feel, And yet can't put together the words to any word To say what they think they're feeling. She'd always been right to be so proud Of her books and her work, And I felt that I could prove to her That I felt the same as she did, only better— Only, you know, simpler. I've written my ideas in those letters Like a sentence that makes plainer what is to be. In them I find examples of that language My old college professor used to talk about. I must go back and re-read what he said, And ask it's meaning. You can never get at what lies The language of feeling. I cannot describe it, because You cannot explain it; you must learn to Live with it. One of my writers, a poet, says he's always feeling As if he knew that he was lonely. That's why He writes things like a letter to you. He cannot say I'm in the garden And think he's lonely. That's not what I'm after. Let's play a game. Tell me your name, then. One man writes always 'w' without the w. The other 'T' or 'T9' or 'T3.' And they both know, but no one knows who. We could play a double game, But we'd be wrong. Each one would think that the other knows What he doesn't know, Or has a name that's not his. You do not know that you can't Put yourself first, You do not ======================================== SAMPLE 232 ======================================== And glittering like a winter of the years, The great, old house, the hedge-roofed pile, The flying rats of H4800 H1500. My poet, old man, I cannot lift a pencil, and my draughts are steel-witted As a baker's brain, my Muse's, mine O they shall sing with flour-hooks! My poet old man, I dream no dreams of doom or dreadful births In the darks of hell or high Venusian bed; With a surfeit of psalms and holy hymns The cats are licking and scratching and stuffing My poet old man's chaplet! And mad with wine and her gall bladder, She barks and bauls the bars and lattices; My poet old man has hovered and peered, His pencil fell into her lap, He's ague of a dead old man. Then she waxes bolder and bolder and brags, And when he wimples And feels again his wits She rushes at him with nostrils like fangs From Sybaris, and then he writhes and gives An oath she was a female lion Incestiving and bred by the Sphinx! And the Venus of the golden finger, H4800, will be sapless unless she have the watch Of his Titan atomie, his ungentle blood, That never stops, and its pelvis H4800, is an assassin bred By Pluto, and at Ktesian wears his spleen Belly-hearted, mine, he does nothing but lie All fagged out, and a poultice to find sleep, No oracle, his own quack! She should have remembered that before The war-dreamed Green-Thumb she went ados In Pharaoh's long retire, and that, When the Mammon beguiled the Sun-King, Was what the sycophant meant H4800, and how he swept so straight Until his young, fair-robed daughter Was honoured to embrace her! But while the dames were whispering, lo! Before them the she-goat She stood with lion-droop and a dry Leaping fawn, Her malignant teats were all a-suck, She gobbled them as cold meat; And yet with all her ancient charm Her female hunger never yields. For lo! another's blood! Another's The counterfeit of her true eyes! Nay, he more. The nimble reptile! Does he see what he is been, And from his bloody pinions See through the mist of time? The absent mind reels him round, Their warfare in the air, Sterenothed in a wave of mist and fire. Then none of them knows how the rest did do, There be a hundred that seem and are But once before they were not They do not remember how or why, Nor what at last is gain Were better forgotten in a breathing-while Before a waiting generation. For Time, whose industrious hand Twice in the morn of years At work fixes the stuck-up wheel, Was all her shift, And both her hands seem'd busy. Alas, not one to keep The loosened spokes, turns the ground Of all that hollow creed, Where trust and courtesy With all men's purse should accord, I, with my thumb Folded in a poplar; so I spake Within a mighty glass. The spring, my Charlotte, will run A thousand races over to the brims Where your squadrons charge; Marching-flat, as when you play at bowls, Each bulging cheek-bone shows the balls Of eyes that brim the sides of mouths Fluent with plans by grim pragmatic brains, To venture to the lesser wars. Little Cupid, peeping in, Like-spouse at his high house Sits with large breasts, like a spot of ground, Doorways, bulging folds of flesh, Love-bloom, lofty-bosom'd garb: You were not ever so light before. Little Cupid stands before you, And if he loves me not, then so much Goodbye; no more I'll assure you. He's been between a master and a mistress, So he brings with him that store. (Little Warblings, your turn to bluster!) There is not much left of home, any way: Mostly just deserts ======================================== SAMPLE 233 ======================================== As yet he risks not in the fight: So with those whom by his craft he sets free, That their due reckoning be made every woe, He sees that the sixth art makes fair return, Since what man forsakes or gainth by defect The other twain needs fear no cross or pain: But the first art whose fire of loving fire Loosed widows' bindings and unhoused husbands' hearts, With the empoisoned worm does give relief, And the helicon of nought which darkness was. Fees and rewards to him that knoweth It may suffice, but not the welfare-giving rays, Or the night's cool smile with warmth of love, Bring delight when you bring forth the day, And the peacock-crowned morn white and bright, Is joy's merriment's token of delight. So when a layman falls into sin's way, Contentment falls not at his feet, Nor caring parents here set to feed Their tear-stricken eyes or dry, to ease Their children's woe, or take their young ones up, And bid them love and leave their sorrow-sighs; For all love that man may show he does betray Through selfish- ness: which knows not his brute in man. From this right-welcoming essence of all Do we depart (that we may from flesh become To spirities of daemon and of higher god) To be rendered spiritless again? And yet this fact, what is it but our life's rest? A pang which joy with sobs doth compress, Deserted save by choices, scarce lamented when Swift-winged winter with cold zephyr brings Gladness, and life waxes tender and lengthen'd Which seems from earth to sheath the soul with groans, While we do talk on such an infinite. From such delight to sorrow cast aside, Enjoyment, care becomes to man A thing inviolable, and such desire To know and not know the source from which The power that lulls him must be stirr'd; That would possess itself of nought, When nature makes power over-tame and mild; Power over-tame which courageless shines The crowning age of man, which knows not its power Is but an equivocal or profane word? Sagacious Tyrtaeus of the gods, Our race's progenitor, thus speaketh: Our soul must be of heavenly seed, In which some fountain doth make clear A clear-amassed lore: for this we see, That mortal mind hath from the gods Nothing seen or understood before; Yet to the gods' original is All these things, and more, since this This essence so far from mortal mind Enlighten'd cannot be encompad But that it makes a heavenly clew By mortal eyes to show the sun. Our intellect must therefore be of heavenly seed. The weight of words, what are they that defile And check our progress in this course of truth? E'en their immense clusters of mistaken words Bid down the wrath of Jove on the Head, Bid thunder breathe, and earth forfer glory fling. So when our soul's Essence looks around, Seeing all things conglobed in Source, She calls to mind her Essence, nor fails To say: 'Intellect is in Intellect, Wisdom is in Wisdoms; if my words In any place say Wisdoms is Wisdom; If 'Wisdom' is 'Wisdom'; it must be so, For Wisdoms is the name of the whole.' Earth with her common flowers the fair Doth blend, and secret plants abound Which if the rich soil which they over- get, Are nought else, when earth is so enriched, Then gold, which is another name for flowers. Thou art yourself, being both Yellow and White; Other-White is another colour not 2: Same with other yellow is White a little; E'en such a name as Yellow be-lies But is not of our world (yet know We both have blood, so the same are we), Yet both your Hemon and our world. White is some tangible aspect, Yellow some color without colour; Yellow your body and your head. White is a sight: we gaze on it; Yellow, your garments: we behold it. White is no sight; yet color is there: Yet Yellow sleeps, and makes no noise. There is a world of Yellow one ftood: Yellow ======================================== SAMPLE 234 ======================================== "And still I cried with my cries, "You shall not die!" And, with long sighs, she drew my gown, And, over my head, with her words that stung me, Raped me of many haughty wishes, When first, a boy, I stood before the forge That shaped me of heaven and freedom, where my brow Sought then a capital, what then I sought? From this high page that, with great pain I must confess, I am here transcribed, and one place is sick, And this others is where my sweet Liberty Shines like the sun for a short space and then is gone. "Lord," I cried, "give me something that's not there!" To which the Savior, with a smile, "Yes, I know There's lots of stuff that's not here; I'll just say that!" And, "Lord, be some sort of debt offenny many souls," He spake--and straight I wept. "You weep," said he, "too much?" I bickered back and forth; but, his hovering line Cut it in twain and my poor request was gone. Began my tears to flow, And flow without measure, all through the year, As I walked in that barren calm; and, from my arms, With other thoughts than my own, when his face So longed and sought to have me, which my soul Knocked and rushed against me, because I was Torn, and without me no more, even as my face Took that for its mouth; but still in some Sighing heart and silence, and some words I uttered, for I had not aught to use, I let these drop, and in the tears that still Rained after his words, some of them large And some that clung, were mingled. The Saviour, with an altered face, Hid his face from me, for a crowd of sins, No less than ten thousand, I thought, were forgiven By the new blood that I had drawn, which made Petition with God, which swore I should have My money again, or sooner or later, And as many raiment, and many weds, And white sheep, and flaming brousse, and bulls, As suits the generous owner, if the deed Be done, and the ungrateful debtor Be forgiven." "The King," I said, "of all his people here, Is he not rich and great?" "In wealth," said he, "But with an humble heart." So we chatted both, For awhile, I and my Lord; and I was gazing on His raiment of royal white and purple clad; And when his name came, like a rat I sidled up Close to the wall, and, like a worm, slunk away. But soon he showed the place Where was my room and carriage, and, "The King Has sent to ask me how I did from minute To minute," cried I, for I was shuddering And falling away beneath my bones. So "It is not loss of power," said he, "Nor height over line," he explained, "that makes The world go round; and if the things that happen Are taken out, thou and all thy knights Would still be last and least in line: For, sure, if we had not kept carefully Our hands and swords--or only used The power we had to keep them so-- There had been long time when to-day Should be a war against the King, Who would have driven us out at last, As foes that fail and perish all." "Nay," said my Lord, "but height alone Is given; and, if the thing were taken From its set back, a heaven-high ridge Of earth, to which no one could climb, Would be immeasurable blest. So, without mastery, let those be Who keep the heights that give good sight, The spacious earth for pasture green Outlined with crags." But there Was little more to say; and we were drawing Nigh to the marches of Satan, When the hall door opened. It was all aglow, And there stood more than a hundred men, Enraged, gazing like men possessed, And yelling loud, and rushing one another To smash the door down and plunge us deep In darkness. My Lord drew first, and the rest Followed him, and then drew. There was a glare of steel And fire, and my heart began to pound, And eyes to fill with blood, and all my ======================================== SAMPLE 235 ======================================== -I felt it. That hurt. It really wasn’t that bad though I knew it was. He told me this was now my home and we’d have to make new beds. That was sad. What hurt more was he could see he was homesick too. I got rid of some things. I went out the back door to mow the yard I guess I did everything that I could have. It’s weird to remember things we talked about. He was lonely too. He said he was on the shuttle. He said it was really crowded with passengers. There were quiet tears and laughter. We didn’t speak for three months. He told me he’d come back if he wasn’t getting mail someplace. I think I wondered why it was OK for him to move without saying anything. But, he was gone for a while. I brought it every time I used it. I guess I’ll call him that. I talked to my mother, who was in charge of family policy. I told her it seemed he went through windows or something she couldn’t change. She sighed. I said, “The future is the past being rewritten.” I was glad I’d hired a company who knew a great deal. She asked me to talk to him about it. But if he did have mail, he shouldn’t take it to the hall post and give the letter to the wrong address. He could sign for it, put it in a file, put it in a desk drawer for safe keeping. I could not do that. I couldn’t. I’t, you know. <|endoftext|> "A Hard Winter in Ravensbrough, ", by Brenda Calk [Activities, Jobs & Working, Nature, Weather] On a miry afternoon the working men Draw their grease on the black road Roofed with headlights with the frozen air In a common gesture We local folk have known all this For years— Winter going hard and dying at the same time. If they were forced they would not stop to rest And the diesel truck that made its way, Black, with four flat tailfins, through the flood, Now, behind the scenes, ticking like the ticking of a clock, Fords in its train of moments, winding, winding, winding On a world with steel blades for snow and men. The sky was first a bird’s example of ice, Then, far off, was a white bird slapping rain Against the edges of the dull grey lake. They called it the Winter Demon. It was the city together with the parts Gone covered in ice, until the oil Burst into smoke—the water which was also glass. <|endoftext|> "Mother", by Brenda Calk [Living, Relationships, Home Life, Mythology & Folklore, Fairy-tales & Legends] Alfred Andersson’s grief was rather strange. He liked Alfred’s wife more than Alfred When they were married. In the back of his mind there was a dreadful Child he could not have, that his grief turned into As sharp as a sword, And speak again as he spoke, Which made his words sound like a hammer Crude and ugly. From the bed and from the saddle The Mother hears me speaking To the Mother I used to love Who has become my wife And Mother. She understands perfectly well That my unhappy post- Wander Life is better than my life If life was always That bad. For Mother I am glad, for she is Along for the ride With me wherever I go, as I am She, leaving at night The city, knows that she should be Happy with Alfred Andersson At the height of his fame For his poetry And all his weirdness, the worst thing He could have been in his silence And what he was no longer, The worst part Of himself, or something he was He is for ever and ever as my luck Is ever so much better than I deserved And I didn’t deserve it. <|endoftext|> "Alchemy", by Brenda Calk [Living, Coming of Age, Activities, School & Learning, Relationships, Family & Ancestors, Philosophy, Social Commentaries, History & Politics, Race & Ethnicity] Be born In Albersaid, Down in a valley Far from ======================================== SAMPLE 236 ======================================== Don't not lift your hands from yours Or God may not speak to you But gently to you speak As men hold up their heads from a tent-wall. Won't you, one in spirit, Step with me into the tent and give My face the first and second kiss? We must go between the rows Of tents for the old woman And I do know a man at College Lucky to have him I am sure. Or stand on one side of the bus Of people whose life is a book And one for me to be And the other for you, God's wish for ever! O, I could walk and talk and sing, As one who hangs his hat on a peg And seems to be living Just like an owl who hangs out his belly I'll try to say Something for you and for yourself From your attic conveniently here. It's all wrong. Oh, how can we start, We who are so prepared To die, but what of work? And it's too late to start, as you'll see From outside the wall, I said to him, But here it is, now. You must get used to sleeping Like this, alone, unhappy, When you should know the real thing, Mile on mile of joy And always that false one next to you Never at rest, But may not be cured of loneliness By a song; but you must know what now You did not know. Go on your way and get well, And try to make your soul Full of true goodness And ask for grace from those Who've neither wit nor good-will Let my soul go to God for grace, He's my way and my strength, But He allow And see what I do, And go with me, Follow at my back and help me on For I am never far from home. You must learn to live For your soul alone. You do not love me to-day Nor will you ever; But your soul will require Courage and strength and someone to teach it. My mind is very far away, Far away, very far away. I am weary, and yet I am not weary; I hear faint singing of a pastoral note, Of the lisp of an angel's harp, A harp with silken strings drawn tight Between harps with unequal strings; They are singing with palms of the valleys, And the sound is much more sweet Because it is half heartened. My dear, my own. It was for good that you were here Before your God's good time, And your God's good time Is before the dead time of judgment; Before the judgment Of God's stern time And your spouse's--the one, the other's love. The rain was all water and then I knew The sea was silken and unruly-scented, That poured silkenly and unwisely down To quench the thirsty plants that lived on high In the great nets of their fruit. Water is water and I rested And watched the faring of the skies. I knew That God's sweet time was over and the war Heared silence of the trees, the vine, the flower, Of what I was and what I did And me and them lying there, And I were nothing, I one among many and every man's Made out of nothing And me and them passing away. I knew no more till I went down and heard A voice outside me saying, "Farewell, Be safe and find Thee Lord, and be free of the one who was thy Lord." I returned home and there was she, The woman who was my soul's wife; Hearing her I turned and rejoiced And there she was, Not so much in her life as in her soul. She had not been long at our welcome. In a month, a half month, or a little more Her little angel changed and grew To grow like my soul so dear And I rejoiced, for here was the Lord's call. She drew us from the soul and let us be Only with her child, That when she grew and days grew old We might say, "Blessings, O Lord! on mother and child, and soul and guest, And every one," From black hills where the ravens cry Into the garden of earth And blossoming white, There is a glory and a hand Of hope, white, and hope in the loving, White and hope in the sky. Between the soul and the body lies ======================================== SAMPLE 237 ======================================== Shadows creeping on the grass, And I wish that the last year was not the first. At last the melody of the low bell Calls from the mountains of night; And light enough, not worth the light, To follow God's own trumpet, And such is this that is and was; And yet it was all so sweet That I went into God's word And let it burn in my sight, This crown on my head, that it was love. O let my mother still Believe that I have been happy; Believe she shall be, through me, This wretched, shed-blood next year. But God will have it so; For He is good and wise, And set my love and will above All His holy thoughts and promises. Here is my home of rest-- How it flies up the sky, Uprears its blaze of glory Upon the sunset hills: Where the ocean takes his rest, And the year's heat doth pass In a dream-tranced eternity; With a mood that is heaven-- O what spirit strayed through time To a land that is not land, Where there's no thought or speech? We stand as stones that are the same, While this planet draws his course Into his compass telling straight-- We are not swayed like them; We know not fear as we; We speak in words of light-- Starrs that are nothing-built; Still they drive their mute breath Into the night of their life and stay-- We stand in sunshine, smiling in the sun; This is the land I must leave-- The fear is that it's not the best. The night that was our final part Will shine with the sun's first ray; And I'd have it now, if I were wise, Back to the sweet summer ways. Our future lives are wide and bright With the prospect, in our own land of burs and bites. While this is the case, no voice will speak To your pleasure; no eyes will watch To see the windows purple or gold, Where you anon will turn to cheer Your lover with the glower of delight When you have turned your ringlet through the wood. Nay, no; the day that is dead yesterday Is not dead--we knew that when we died; And who would draw life's jugular, God, I Would let it out, so glad of breath, Just for the breath thereof. You grew Like a fine rose with fever caught; With its thorn-points kindled to death-- And I-- But what did I care? The day is gone; The ruddy time your lips will impress, But the years have been, and they know What the green water held behind, And will keep that fluid truth. One war waxed old in blood, and one Brought remorse and hatred two; They staggered around till the head Waxed mighty and began to fall. The earth--dark Gaia's son, who had Died with all his blood's rich sheaf, Waxed dim in the blood he dyed; And for months his story was told, Lifted from his lip and heart, To tell again what the earth Learns the most. A kiss he gave, and one in turn From the shy, white, uncarved, cheeks That the leaves once clothed, and the loose Twined arms, the leaves of whose tresses lay On the grass, among sun, dust, and rain, With sunset's whisper, and wind's swell; Like roses, whose blossoms wither Because of wicked men. And these (Yet more safe far than they) know that Time's heart, like beauty, is planned To grow the more cursed we lay it down Through begetting. And it shall grow more kind, And it shall grow harder, since by man It is tested; and as one soul that way Another's warmth and ravishment Makes manifest, what God wills, must. Though he shed his gaudy seed On such a myriad bosoms as lie Shut in the wild interstices Of the growing earth, he, in truth, Hath pressed the heart of secrets Among his children, on every side; Hath made some light for the race of man, As God had made some light, and so Part of this light shall be his own, When time's last pulse of warmth does pause At peace within the summer-house, And love and silence side by side, Pointing the trembling of the soul. Behold, ======================================== SAMPLE 238 ======================================== Happily to work thy will Art thou thyself a king, and join The sons of mirth and love in one, The wardens of the gate, The warden of the living And of the dead. <|endoftext|> "Bones", by J. A. Agcaller [Living, Death, Health & Illness, Relationships, Friends & Enemies, Social Commentaries, War & Conflict] Part of a dead man's bone. The cook makst cases of them And carves them into oaten Hammers. O what will happen To these bone-bound things. The double chine of these dainties Speaks with a certain farewell To marrow and menstruum. The oat-cake laid on its face Expects the rain-lash. The idle spokes Of the wheels have caught The snouts of carryalls. <|endoftext|> "To the Patrician and Daughters", by Alan Seeger [Social Commentaries, Class, Money & Economics] Daughters of privilege are your true children only within the set of your pedigree. This gossip, wherever it be sought, is to subtler than everybody knows, and hears from eyes as if from quiet men a thing or twoings before the whole world knows. We make of no meaning what we do: When the old woman puts her ale to bed, who's to say which beds the ale goes to? The hyphenated all come to the same: the refined all run for different. Money talks to men about current coin, but not, I use to think, when coin is gone. And they call us earnest to that old bed, just as, if you got tired of peace, you mounted the air in your angels' wheels, you could say it was because you'd had your money. Dear little shoe and ring, dear little shoe, and fancy shoe, and fancy ring, That was my shoestrings once, A shoe for fancy, shoe for the fancy shoe, When I used to fancy whole days, And our toes went all green o' morning. Your shoe may be a new one, but the shoe You put on me is very old; You'll wish for the new one I told you about If you ask me, say, for all the new ones if you'll give me the old ones to keep. O friends, the people are against us, against us, We're going out of business, everybody knows. I see the grocer, standing in his shop alone, With a clew-light on his knee and a bare table-leg, He cannot bring himself to ask me in for a loaf; The court's across on my shoes, the people's asses, The jackboot Juries tread on my ashes at last, The people hate us, the people in a hatred Cannot be many or little. And yet time and accident have not always been kind; We have sometimes been better citizens than some Of those who are of a generation 'with the sky blue in it And the rain a runaway;' If I were in the clownish business I would not venture in the shallow religion of hope If I could be certain that there were no expectations sought; When one is a charmer with time he will be a jackass with his time, And time's an agéd malady, having done a deal on the pit of the soul It is impossible to extract the core from the broken bones. The rest, as beholden for their own dear lives, From being beasts with their reins already wound In human blood, 'twixt whate'er they happen to take, And that the bawdy names are better than the sweet names Because old whores are still read in our streets, Are as vassals to be told in a sermon to be spayed, Knights to be stopped and a thing among their kine, Boys are good business, they have no souls to be so, And they will be boys and girls, for dress, and for eyes, The bow-wow, the gipsy, and the clown, with what is in their sight, Will grope them in the dark like a strange string of words; 'Tis not the talk of men, 'tis the talk of women, It is the gossip of mothers and wives, It is the desire of the woman to be forgiven, It is the cry of the woman that she must be made insane, It is her cry, her cry, as she listens, and waits, It is the gallop of the boat that doesn't move ======================================== SAMPLE 239 ======================================== that gave their forms for their conception, each stamped on their face. They are three kinds of woman, of fruit, of season, of redemption. I have sent my seed into the world and paid them thrice. I have seen the hands of the third pull backward the gown, the unseasonable beating of the third rosy in the leaves, trickle down for ten years, and since that springtime three times more you have had your world turned. You are not only the red and white on your face, but the true fruit of the priest, the hope of a people, and the extra something you have tossed in the sand. You are the deepest, sealing, most luminous thing in the eternal ocean where I dip my eyes to search in vain for your coming <|endoftext|> "Oath Linger", by Louis Unterman [Love, Heartache & Loss, Unrequited Love, Relationships, Gay, Lesbian, Queer] My God, in that only love that knows no other way I breathe and rest from all the world's bother, a safe level on which to bear a far off chair, the bookcase, the lovely woman I love without fear of being seen, of being wrong, of giving wine without explanation, a clock that tells my time like someone else's watch, a cold, my God of love, make me one no matter who the ass who breaks past my window without me, the culprit so I hang on to the white of this stone over the bay of my heart and shine. <|endoftext|> "Le strage", by Louis Unterman [Love, Realistic & Complicated, Relationships, Gay, Lesbian, Queer] I.oO Ole Belle Isle Mine, where the men go in to touch the ape who stands in for woman that they hope will approach but will only grow loupe better guns to take her out of me Ole isle, oh I thought you had it good Ole i, u, us yell to keep alive o b<|endoftext|>Anticipation abounds for one simple reason: America, our great awakening, the storm that breaks for freedom in the north, carrying iron and steel to hit the south, taking hearts with ardor conjured up in die-puke revolving in and out of papers not printed by hand: a summer in a rural community in Maine, a paradise where two-thirds of the people can't spell or speak, but the eagle says the things that rhyme to thought from here to where the slow last and only cars touch down in a great silence to drive off to work in a farm town where the silence kills the sound of the wheels: This is the way you whisper with your face turned to the sun <|endoftext|> "New Frontier", by Paul Violi [Arts & Sciences, Architecture & Design] I come from a land where the weather is always summer, always winter, a land that spins its fun down there in the sky on its west coast, and some the toiler, the worker, has done all his tricks, is having none; and he thinks, anyway, I'd have a hot head on my hands. It is the beating under-lip with the dust on the cheek. Or the tear in the eye from a man with a tooth that hangs hairs and is gone; he thinks, anyway, I'd have a good eye. It is the soul of a picayune guy or girl, if you can drop the clothing, shake the vines, pick your bones, it is only a puff in a fine breeze, a puff to go quickly out of breath into clouds of feathers, to be lost to the far side of the brain where you dream the weather, in a strong wind though your finger is against your throat. You are caught in a dream and can’t recall the fire you set inside your house, what was theirs by mistake, and it is the glee of their face all day now. It is the girl you took to bed whose white robe rubbed your legs and you thought, anyway, that maybe she was shy; it is the ======================================== SAMPLE 240 ======================================== Covered with lush mosses he has hewn, And hard, even to the jagged rocks, With adamant, such as might well take root, If long enough to endure the sun, If long enough for the rain to pass, They sometimes have been so, since time began. But now to-night, forsooth, each day, Like to a snail that glides along The warm meadow, when it slinks aside The lowered sun, now rises soon; Sudden it gleams, its slender form Loose in the blue of the sky; and then Snaps the rest by nimbler wind, Bidding the ploughman/Dame, for minutes more work, Daughter, for half-hours more play, Oh! for another kiss, and soon-- 'Tis done--and she is gone! You of the mind to feel The high hope that fills my breast, Then play with me the while we live; You that believe, what you would have, I also have--when Time shall go, Leave both the tomb for you and me. I trust I shall. Now--for you. And now to loftier scenes, the poet's lyre Waves for its hour its branchlikecircles; The starry shimmer of its wraith-like rain Lures us away from the tempest's gloom; And like a naiad Dame from sleep on night Dappling heaven's vesture with the dawn's Dreams, we hail the Moon for priests to-day. The Queen of Beauty Had her statues builded in Thebes, And I, the milk-pourers, came to it. To Thebes it was, so makes the Greeks And Egyptians tell each other--for Arise, Osiris, descend To Thebes, the great work of gods. Thebes! No more of that; Let us lift lift lift up Our brows to the Goddess our fates; Ask her homage and lift up our brows. Be we graved, gilded in the grave; Be we mast, Be we tablet of the Nile. The house where Pilate lived-- "He told me the streets I've made," Explodes from me as a lie, "His time for a waxwork is done." Be it so; Here's an upside down V for you! If I've made it Like a orifice of a cup Pounding, And another point from his nose, "Ha! a wrestler at the gate!" Though the Egyptian legend is, The Greek one--oh! 'tis better. Then I am ready for The breath of the real world, no matter The wars of the Nazi--with true Thatchery, Risked words of the Greek, Witted or spoken as they were, Their errands done-- In no case better paid Than in Rome, when to the Christians The Temple's rusted out, Who blessed that rotten mouth Of their tyranny, Reting a live man's made out of clay-- It is better there than here, Than here, their evil done, As for example, all the bars That block my way, Or the hall of the Temple where Himmy ben Podes, holding by grout Baithing, Pees and blusters, his iron lies On a slab in every block he blabs, "What sezin chaume que l'entour e l'ombre?" Which means "What booty has my ormolus cho?" He's trying to tell us something. I'm a man of like-minded men, So let me no more delay In calling my friend. Nor better can Be told. Ebbing and flowing Are the times of my doing; Running gaily As the whores do run-- If I could tell, sirs, I'd go Possessed of such a man. The ground-birds follow his scent, If yon she-wolf of the skies Sows the seed. Though I've slipped my old wits In the rocks of the sea And I've no account Of the Graem risen 'twixt Clyne and the sky-- Still, I never could see So long a fool was 'twas sign Of a wise wolf than yin Wrath, though his wits, almost, were Late to a beast's scheme; We see what the French make, Like that Irish wolf, But he spake not his false desire, That leaves ======================================== SAMPLE 241 ======================================== Jove the war-god also, came, My father and king, when first I kissed Your soft hands. If Jupiter Himself a fountain hath built, We've 'tis but light ostience for you And jingling water to quench our thirst; We've 'tis but light ostience for you. Our father and the Phrygian crown'd With much domestic bloat and pride. I'd tame his spirit, and sure, you see In nothing but in his own spite Of others, but we shall not vaunt And ruin of a feeble state; No, nor with imperial blast and crueller Of taunt and sneering, cross his brows, Unwisely, he his Godhead pricked With mischief as an anvil made; Whole summer after summer doth he spend In feeding fools with mischief, fresh And galling shots to strain our purse. Behold your years are wear and old, You are consumed and hard-worn; You pine in bosom's depths; Who fed on Baucis and Alecto never Grenguis, with evil dash, And bold diadems in the fountain. Still the old, old policy, in me Afflicts my craft, Will still keep the old standard beaten Trampling at mankind. Be true to one whose heart it is, Not the vain show of it, And skilfully the dear old standard We'll triumph o'er mankind. Now though the foe be hard on defence, Tis a time of encreasing war; Nigh the dawn the battle roars afar And all is fresh and brave. The cheeks of all are large, the eyes do shine Of all that out ye grow; And far and near that voice of thine Doth thunder round and far, And fright the hearts of far and near. Up! up! rise up from the tables laid And know that your dear mate is dead; A thousand memories of delight Like flashing stars appear With hearts from heaven that rejoice That mourn their mate is dead. It is a great and happy life To me to know mine's deserted, It is a great and happy life And shall I live it again? My comrade is dead, who lived so long, That, hard o'erthrown, I say; Now first the winds that called him "alive!" Have parted with him, the world doth know, His servant none but he did understand, And he himself has to God given up The loving music he would keep. "Ah! dear lost ones," you shall soon be near, Through whom so many days I stray, That "ahd I you'll fade to naught like sun-drops" That "the last is but the first," And since your dear ones are now forever With God to whom you go, I'll sing to you from the choir of lost ones soon. I hear the hollow door doth clang That says farewell to dark and light, And then the slow, long beat Of slow expiration; but, Heaven's child! The whole earth is not quite So dark, sweet alb lads, ere its dim drawn out end. Though the wedding-dreams are ended, And I, amid my joy and pride, But where I go to dwell. Though thou, I knew, would I were wife, And thou, my child, wouldst call me bride, With thee to dwell and bear a child, The world to speak a woman's name, I should not hear it. Nor would it matter If all said "no" to me. I know By the glimmer of this heart that there be Some hearts more near to God's than thine. And sweet may be our Sunday-mornings, Sweet on our wives' and children's hands To kneel and hear the blessed words, And sweet the song that blesses them there, And sweet to feel, as 'tis, our hearts beat By the headstone's weight. The little children, like lambs, Shall kneel and hear; Our children's hearts will beat More softly than our lips. We'll love the lads that all day long By our side will lie, Nor look nor speak nor do Theught that's rude to them or us. Though the lord were cold, the slave might break His helplessness with weariness, And since they have it in their breasts That in the church they've heard, Be it mine to mourn, to meditate, To speak my thought when others ======================================== SAMPLE 242 ======================================== Outside the window the rivulets stirred like people in a grotto in my mind Mothers we share what we find in the river In its jaws in its heart he’s come and I’m out where our own and the river don’t meet <|endoftext|> "She Wasn’t Like Other Women", by Amiri Barrucho [Relationships, Gay, Lesbian, Queer, Social Commentaries, Gender & Sexuality] This moment, she is an Alibi. The other women, unforgiving of fault, Cannot forgive her. She had, to the guards, a suspiciously close nose, And, in an attempt to look shifty, Razzily refused to press charges. The case is still turned down, Her eye-sight is still dimmed. She's wakened only to work, Silky from sleep Or peenless She lies on the cinderblock. Now, she is a sound to be closed, She is, for the time, a blue vein On the night's dark body. She is the night That, by desire, must be priced. She is the seamy aftermath Of acts that don’t stray far From the coming. She is the mortuary Await for the wounded to visit, Who feel no want of flesh, But are somehow rooted there. She is an eye-place, It is her unopened flower. She is the eye-place, the ill site, the open tear site Of livid hours Where she is, The tainted urn, The shat with humans. The corpse of a history That no one wants to think about. The eyes-end of things That men fear to look into. The kiss-face of history. We, scavenging under the rain, Find her. She is our turn-in, The story she has sought. We know all the stories, We know the weather, But, we’re forced to trust her. We know the time of day From wild fire alarms. We know how far Beyond fire pits The hamlets lie. She’s a window to another History That, everywhere, The day-writ heaves Creek from plain. In spite of ourselves, An ever-courting light We blame upon her And she is always A light behind us. She must know, In a doglike way. She must have felt, As a ruined land And a false past sought, When she did that. <|endoftext|> "The Glories of Our Fathers", by Ben Belittick [Living, Time & Brevity, Relationships, Family & Ancestors, Home Life, Nature, Religion, God & the Divine, Social Commentaries, Class, History & Politics] We can’t take God when he’s shivering in his woods or searching the universe for a grass-blade to strike the annular zone of his mouth brimming with the lattice of his lies. He will not hold a candle lit to a flare thrown from a fireworks cart or recite the multiplication of Pi for the length of a Babel argument in one provocative moment —  either one results in his death with shouts or he will remind you of the people who was better when he was stuck as a badge of his prowess than taking his meds and losing his edge in the wild. He looks out the cab of the truck as if he’s finding his own way home in the snow. So we pack up the cats and the needles and the groceries and a battered bible and a worn book of instructions and we trudge through blizzard, darkness, rain to the little store where you can buy God only God, but God is still the wronged people of your past. <|endoftext|> "The Story", by Lydia Lillist [Living, Death, Disappointment & Failure, Love, Realistic & Complicated, Relationships, Family & Ancestors, Nature, Landscapes & Pastorals, Arts & Sciences, Poetry & Poets, Reading & Books, Social Commentaries, Cities & Urban Life] We tell our grandmothers who teach in church and our children through stories written with longing, sadness, and loss. This is all of what we know and little is known now until in the small, windowless ======================================== SAMPLE 243 ======================================== Air, Thou descending Spirit, Sister and Wife of Man! Dark from the darkness, Not of the light, Look with Thine eye, and qualify That of Thine all-knowing Eye With Thy knowledge of truth. Not of Earth's kindling fire Thou art, and not of Earth's Sons: Lo! Christ's kindling light, Not of the same Birth, Heirs of the Light Thou art, and Thou art He Of the great Thesight Thou art, and Thou art He Of the great Thesight. Dark to us both, yet informed We see with richer eyes Thou, descending from the skies, Art seen from points as of old Which Thou, Almighty God, Hath in a moment set O'er thy descent. Beam and darkness, light and darkness, From change of glory Distant to where the Eye Shall God's own throne and majesty Beheld, to which as from a mountain Clear from a west-wind Thou risest. The glory which cannot die To God's descent is Light of glory, or day and night Compact and couch the heavens; Light of Light, of Lights infusing They are confounded both. The brightness of two powers is From their conjoined state: Light of Lights, of same and different Energence and influence, The glory which makes them one, Is to us a single light, It is the glory of both kinds, Light of darkness: For which they are prepared, And clothed with splendour, When God is such to unite His different colours in one fold And raiment of redound By his own action, When Christ has knelt down and swore Neither unto none. He said, but when unto the Font He was applied, All heressed, and even as a lamb Doth open its eyes at fist, That is, into its grave, He shed on us his Holy Fire, The same wherein In the heavens the visible and the invisible Are one. Then, with a keen and tottering knee, In honour of the Lords, whose thrones are now laid Low in the pell-mell tumult of these times, He spoke of peace, and taught that prayer should be made From hearts constructed not for strife, Sufficiency and power, For the destruction of this new co-Natanyahu, And yet not to afflict the earth too much By their reaction. He saith, Not them that whine For offices not too well performed, Nor them that over-act in times of conflict, For which they expect their Prince to crown their heat Of ambition. Yet not they that cast away The grain of gleaning and grain of thumping, Nor them that in proud imaginations Expand their warmth, Nor them that stomach the great draught, And let the stomach prosper, Make their Earthly Cares be blest. Nor them that bid For birthdays, and mar the play Of joys and pleasures, and debarre With those that smarter are That in their eyes There is but one Glorious morning: Not them that with their eyes The sun obstruct The cheerful ways, Yet spread their hearts too wide, As if their hearts would eat All within their sight, And out of sense They live a lie And no respect For those of fellow-feeling. Not them that here oppose, Forsooth, an antient array Of each old warfare; The good old days Are at an end With other good days than those, When love, and a pure content Their plan Were on righteous grounds, And their proud state To bless, not overwhelm The world. The antedate, To which that amiable race Of cunning people called Celestial, have looked up From the earth's first floor Into the spheres of day; But, like as the folks of old Whose vanity was a lot Of nobody there. Our better spirit, our god Above all that is, The kindlier, and of the kin That play a game, has promised To the sons of free-eared men Of today That the Reign of Price Be not reckoned To these in hoary white, Whom Time shall have nought That of earth's White Horseman They shall not hold. And unto them shall they have Of the earth and all the good That is and will, Unto whom their gentle lore Shall be sent Their own delight. Then cease, fetch, fetch ======================================== SAMPLE 244 ======================================== Glanced a little into the west, The unknown heaven for future lore, The unknown nature beyond its ken, The hum of myriads of worlds. I put my faith in paint, in paper, In papyrus, parchment, in iron, Paper of processions and particulars, Painting a phantom air for distinctions, Printing my few sensations blue, What my eyes see--not seeing at all, No eyes see. I love to take my trays Of color bound, Flap my wings and escape, Glide into the sun or sea, Migrating artfully, I can make this world as one To be without beginning or end, No beginning, without end. I dreamed a dream of the house I want; This yellow house has a hundred doors, Each of its doors is a gold-columned doorway On a gold-clouted corridor; Its yellow walls spire up in a splendid wind-tunnel Of many colors and the slightest gleam; The floors are sawn logs, the doors are plaster, And there is a bright painted sky above the tiled, And there is a yellow crowd Of yellow people marching on sixty-foot beds Of grass with long yellow reeds under feet. A baby cries in the street, The yellow noise of the August air Sweeps my brain like thin purple sand Sweeping the stiff, brown woods like silt; And white leaves flutter in the air, And it is dead of night, And I walk for miles In the yellow street, Looking at little yellow houses Where yellow children are like precious stones That I could cut and turn into money, The gold down the streets To the yellow street where yellow folk march, Like precious stones that I could make a fortune Out of yellow stones. I love the hidden recess Where you come out at night with yellow hair, And carry the book I wrote about the butterflies For their heads to rest on top of As if those people had walked under the branches Of yellow trees where butterflies are roots. They turned my nose up, as I walked along The street, where all the objects my mind reads into, Like hidden music were arrayed. One thing, beneath its layers, was Not visible but much too swift and fine For eyes to receive it as it were When the stage is open and the soul is free; It sounded, well, like chickens crying After midnight, coarse, thin, scurrying wings Sweeping a field under lights that are yellow Moving from sunset to dawn, A bony crying from those yellow chickens. I love yellow, yellow things; They hum me into the heart of the moon Which is yellow like yellow things. Yellow flies through my mind, moving to Sound, becoming alive for a little while With this lunar machinery. The light of the moon, Rainbow-colored trees overhead, The pale flour dusting the sun, My happy mind Move in yellow light that is motor-like, Move with swiftness, yellow light which is time. So I walk out in the street at night, Where yellow things are arrayed. The water drops fall yellow, The yellow stars drift by, And yellow is all the sky. I said to my companion "I wonder," I said, "would it be all right To have a little playhouse every day On the green?" The light of a leafy room From a window controlled by a batter Droning about in rows Caught the color of my face. I said, "I wonder," I said, And went to work. A newspaper man Came out to see what was up, But when he went He left a piece of the paper, Scratched off at some point By a rusty knife, Then passed by again. I ran in the house, the woman Who was the baby's head Paused by the tired baby's bib, Paused by the tired baby's belly Waited a little while And came out to you; I was writing a book About the baby and you, It would be better If I wrote it By a hand that was almost The same As mine. Out of the windows, The wind murmured on, The wisest thing in the world So we could listen; On the very same wind that came And went With the white Christmas, it was done, The book was finished, The letters to be Dropped by the half-feed, Sticks and straws, straws ======================================== SAMPLE 245 ======================================== prophêt. As he went he chided. It, ubi quinum haec reddimus ex uuolatores conuenit, duxisti semina dedit ille columbiis, et metus a uitare sanguinis ex furbem qua deae fusim uitem lacrimarum dedisset. Since every one must now impart their help and aid, And I am no longer allowed the time to seek And ask of goodness and of entrance unto God; But with a zeal and courage so great as to eclipse In my new city to which I go, I must begin Such works as may God favour, so I bless my God, And hymns of praise that only triumph o'er my friend's slights. Climax Augustin, quid amores cogere victoria? Sanguis ubi nunc temporis ignes tibi nunc uinis; cast Bunam pudendis, plena sed longa voluptas, sed solitoque Phoibum sororis confessus candeloro quas fabula praestant anima sui! sed bello tot Isocyho nocentis omnia manent Nam tibi studeo uides nunc uiribus auens, coniugis ante labro Nysi, dyna nobilis; Bogiable uultus abest, quia fuit illa mouebas, a, Castalianis pedibusque uitabat haust alites. iam meditata mittit humus, quo nec manebis ara multaque sui multiaque manus. sed non ego tumidos atque inuidiatis harundine latus quas pernumer et non uiuere leuiter dicimus. sola fuit Hieronymum mare: tum Haemi failsculio uso cast Boleatim uagant, qui scindit opaca manu, cum Phoebus risis, Si frem vere iam carmine senilis, Naxianae cum muriue Nysse mele, inque dies Galliam colorem se quaerit acrisarum Pacholisque niger in lima mersa, vel signa capae. Ilium etiam dulcis men procul terga tempo est priuus: labilem et inilas pignora galeat ignea roseo et sacris commotae pudubi terrens auxilia, qui Lentum premit Ino commissa uicta tibi, subclaudit humus, imerba sub noctis vel aela caprae deliciae canes qui tempore subeant pila dolores, atque per noctis atque per multos oppida luctata dies. si Ganymedeia pellato linguae uestrosa ruptis, cognator amplius heu melius erumpendus arce, contrahit in astra nigerum conditum solumque multus, terra, prouens: A*teo adhiben est, ardent sub annos, ducensque Deae. Every solid day is an odour and incense of youth. But thou shalt not to Ganymede this double course endure; Behold from thee the Lucan text expound; And deem, how bland thy words will please my mind, When I have three days more to see. Lei noi quei ouoses tristes en papa fersa tres pelas, qu'en loin de son pala est sa pluia, Et palaverat Eoliae sim gliis uomaria laudes. tum primum labens molles oras de cunna vel purpuris; Et sali non flamamus floridus ortu son net belle, semper fuisse manus, per maeoro. quin etiam uos ipse sensim leuibus larem sopita, et quod dulcis erat servis durum sacrare puellae, sed pertus suis habitata manus, prosequitur aempe, contingunt regnum esse pede gener iuuenli. tum mihi mane deum morti ex alto mundo semper fuerit, tum nost ======================================== SAMPLE 246 ======================================== The leather-wrist in his hand he tied Over that sick baby's naked feet. There was a light gleam of laughter And stings of icy nails, like the rain Torn through a shower and into the limb, Where it went into the rest of thin, And chilled and cramp'd, and then would come One kick, another blow upon the wound. In its dusky prison so it lay Away from every softness and from fear; While he and Mother stood apart And watched the world go by beneath the bars. All the while as their infant little feet Dangled upon the bars, with one blue eye At the edges and the sky, he spoke In a tongue not like any they had known; And they had said the one soo-kah when. Yet they had need to wonder a little What he could say--a sort of to-0-men In plain English, jargon-like and odd-- And how he would speak to such as they-- A foreign body, or one bent To him, with no record of his speech. They saw no shadow of a doubt Nor thought they heard him not their man-- So silent they stood and bare As rocks that silent and bare were. His cloth the same. His own seemed a body wracked By hell's fierce wrath. "Sweet Mother, Sweet Mother!" And from his fingers, rough with pain, As from the sharpnesses of Baby's clay, Out sprang tatters of Skin, Wet as if one had wrung them out After the wonted sign of woe. Some fallen to strange and ghastly tears; A fair round tear which the day had dried; Another there of pale hairs-- The dry, white dust where the dust of dead sin had spread like thick and rancid sand Overspreading them deep in grief; And others, dearer, washed like love's fair child. Now all dispersed through these Were his a mother and his own; One who came with wan, world-weary face, His only life the outside of her own mother's grave. "O Sweet, Sweet, Sweet!" he would call, "What have I done, That you should weep thus, For this, this made me!" She, "Poor Baby, it was you That washed the tears from my eyes. Do now your pleasure." Her voice with love gone mad, With her words tossed high, With a ghastly lip and a sad tearless eye Flittered round and round her fond words-- "You, that had not met me before, Came in your boat; Dolman, now, you'll be my Sweet! Look up--you and sweet Friend. O, could you, Sweet! see How then I lived, Without thee, without thee! Sweet Mother, in a terrible way She came to her, Thrown and broken, of womanly fame, But no less her daughter and wife. From that grave which oft I have At evening sought in vain, From that near death-bed I have cast My songs, my loves, my joys. You who fed me and gave The strength to sing, Your other daughter to be, Her name is Mrs. Light. Go where you will, smitten, smitten, Fickle, flouted, crass, flouted, Do the fools tattle, tell your prize But you have fallen from Heaven, Fell from Heaven like a pin. O haven, in your tears! I have your song! The quaint old-fashioned way We said "good morning," It is only as a last Of pre-eminence to be Uppermost in our lesser words That you can sing; We have the first of blood! This hearers' ear are parrot men, Your first performers, in my faith. Aye, Baby, every glance of you Says Honey, honey, my sweet, You that are far more than your years, And your babies half your age. The young that cry, they're petted, The old that bow before you, Your golden eye opes and closes, While, bejewelled and oped in gold, The voice you raise to lull 'em Is merely you; The newborns all are you; And those that press to you Are drunken of you. Come in, come in! There's a new face On the dear old ball, And a doll to bed, And a rose to screw And a time to do it; You ======================================== SAMPLE 247 ======================================== To look on my sweet Sin, to win The comfort of her eyes; to drink Her wines and forget all sins; To see the works of Enochs, Not with wild Intellect, nor dry Extreme Jealousy, but by Love, Like the Ancients, on a mountain's head Standing, thus with sweet balance keep The dogmas of our blushing age; And keep by experience If so It may be, my last bottle flint Can drop a comical tear. Let such but now be seen And not too near, Or the desecrated grass Bedeck with fallen snow, Or the leathery flag Of a half skin That blew and failed to the touch In a gust of the poor Age's Supremacy,--aye me! Yea, though I from my window look On that self-same square Which, like the feet of the Just, A writ-hearth-and-rewind Young Canon now, ere she knows Me in this disenchanted mould, Both Seeker and revealed In an awful hour, Whom my Will hither may move, She must walk her life; for thus I write. I saw the grave of Mrs. Nun, Which shaped itself like a breast, With the door for that, and one hinge For the candle: she, the moment when, Was like a Campbell, stern and high Which girt the path for the candle. In the eyes of the stone-cold youth, Closed in her gravest bow, There shone the victor-spirit of the leap Of a "Nolueranea," mild Until the hour When its rights shall prevail. "There!" the Author said; "the sun-drop Spins round a little star; And the Landlord is hungry for chalk, My somewhat haggard mood Kept the skirts of the shambling glass, But he smiled. The woman's privilege Was for a few chips to get the advance Of the publisher and advance his schedule; And these dear charms and charms the Author Made his play: who, in the dust and the dust, From the shoeless to the stir-worn tread, all a-trivlin', Yet rested heel-down in a litter of dust, Beside the sack of his old enemy, And his child. Then the trysts in the perigee Of a recent Loser who got his malger and suffered the prick, To heap in a hazard now; and the Landlord and lately divorced, And, crouching at the foot, the lately released, each with his "Nolueranea," Behold in their misery the leaps of a "Nolueranea." "So now I see!" the lurching Echo groans; And now the writer drinks to the Muse, Alerter than in purer days, To make the elastic line at the strain out to the last gasp! "Thanat object to wish a gift of prolong help From that be-mused who in fiddling may play With the up-turned neck or the great back's fullest sweep; All else first sacrifice, then pray the gift be granted. If you will not, that one nothing more you'll ask." "The dream," he said, "of infinite beneficence Had held the Fanaticks in thrall; The Armies which may drive them to the Pacific- sea, Brought not an end of toil to the man-devouring. And, rising in any form for an endless feast On the Finger-leaf or the Blood-suckle's pure white, As when they devour the pride of the flower-flower, Round and round they lay, as though they could not stop; And each set ripples from the prying eye of the Eye of Love. "And the Fanaticks and their women, when awake, Did raving fast devour the firmament; As many of them in their sleep they terrorized Loose and shuffling, as, in a dream, they strove Round and round to reach that prize, the fair Pen. For they, by the victims which their quillie Had carved up, did delight To draw honey to pay, whose sweet draughts make men sick, And show a quill's lineaments like to wan. "Had it been for the Pen's deliverance, they Had been eased of a righteous prayer; Had it been for the Pen it had stood ten mile long "But when round the pen at the squire They appear, each kneeling on a quill, ======================================== SAMPLE 248 ======================================== A report has rung thro' the heaven o'er all lands, That, following the dear oaten branch, The shining topmost of the plant, Up from the childlike cheek, the snowy throat, Is sere autumn's fierce metonal self. The sere leaf of the harvest's late returning Marks the high god, alone of all the blest, And hers, the first in umidowed grace, E'en from his heav'nly throne, when droops the lily, Fairey to fair, the queen of the skies, Begins, with a face, a form, and adorns The scene with beauty. Beauty lives in most A land without a crime; the bard Should raise the virtuous, and floor the vile, As well as sing, and while he sings, The muse should shape her divine, And nature him wedlock with nature's great, To raise this world with nature's own produced Of blaze and bluster. Spring-time is the time to it; And so long as the mortal draws breath It is not late; for time that lives In health of body, mind, and soul, From its best years live many, or, like this, Retiring, lave the blood and bow, like man, to eternal life. To mark, in the painter's art, the skipper's art, In love, the lover's, and the sailor's, So nature's tide o'er soul, and heart, and me, Should flow from its best, or flow in its last breath, A new-comer to all life that yet shall live. It is most truly said, that second-hand is first-hand, By which old servants have they swears, who new masters seek. It is most truly said, the soul is full of heaven, And of the true fountain whence it flows. This is the truest cognisance of men, That, ere our gaze it rots, the self-same gems are there, Left me and here, the Self of the heavens, and it is true, For my soul is filled with the true heavens' self. Out of their fullness 'tis like a full stream, From which it flows, and seems a tap at it; and then From it Heaven looks out, as in a green emerald. If you thus its own broad-faced chalice, This country from a thousand skies Is within a little lake, the sea-beach just in it; a little breeze To make its brim look up thro' the spout, and show The moon from out the spout; then day and night, For overflow, like in a rainbow-shine, Pass like a growing water-vein. One night's dead night, what nation falls? What nation comes? A country's self in the self's defence. The self which here like water on our land Lies like a well-side, as soul within a soul. Nay, more, as God's pure stars like this new fire Is like an emerald through its glassy height, And night is like the sky above it all. What is a nation? It is an airy nation. We breathe the element in our lungs, and out, from the sky, Breathe an air as bright as this, God's breath. <|endoftext|> "Grief", by Dean Main O'er Cliff, Murdo, My Mind, Best Years, Relationships, Friends & Enemies, Nature, Landscapes & Pastorals, Arts & Sciences, Poetry & Poets] Not like the summer rain, which seems alone Grizzling at dry trees where no watering comes, I like these blossoms… Or are those trees dried-up flowers Too? … In the tree-glitter's round tarn incident A clearer paleness glistens than our heads, And whiter than the evening, which is soon A quivering silver, gives drowsier sleep. It is so pale, I wer certainr This is an ecstasy of the flesh. This nature, bereft of all her stigmas, Is pure waste. As clear as a log where the moon Serves only as a granulation to The benumbing and dreadful cold, Thus a constant moonlight that remained clear Becomes a bath for a crystal soul. <|endoftext|> "From “Ulysses, New Style”", by Peter Oliver [Arts & Sciences, Language & Linguistics, Reading & Books, Social Commentaries, War & Conflict, Mythology & Folklore, Heroes & Patriotism] Who gave the word to express the feeling of loss and the sure hope of something found rare; who placed a lion on a street, in the ======================================== SAMPLE 249 ======================================== There is no face but my own, No voice but my own, No touch but my own, No voice except my own, And none but my own, And none except myself. <|endoftext|> The iris blooms upon the psalter's page; The fuschias crumbles in the distance, The violet's debaree draws near, The may-tree, where the lawn, Dots-daisies with her feathery shade, Fast fills the burn of noon; Come in, O Nature! Doubt not the heart that beats against thy will! Come in, Thou friend of my choice, My constant, my truest of the four. I pause, and pause, Past the phase that yon hills and plain, And yon wooded gorge, Take me at thy lean, Voice of the timorous, with his cordial U-neck. I pause, and pause, Where the sweet-flowing Hebe, Nipp'd at the knees, With her vial of sheldon-nux that drops and glimmers In the brain's dark well of reasonings! I pause, and pause, In the defies of erring heart and cheek; For the life-draught is sour With the distillate that drips from life's unripe juice. Thou wiper's son, The lictited wanderer, Possess my welcome! Possess me, as possest Thou glorious accessory, Mak'd through life's mid-labors By none the autocrat of thy surrender! A modiste, a purist, And, while he doth before thee here Shed thy creative light, Mak'st, on manifold aspects, The Word's synthesis, For the excreat of the hour, He-sufferance! That stooped, in this fine aspect, Oft I wonder, when, in the June's gloaming, I listen to the full-ton'd autumn, How I feel my heart To grow a trailing burthen Of sandy sallows; How I feel my eyes, O do their sad ministry! Always they behold Some placid infant stranger, Which from the gloom Rumphs into light! For they hearken to Infant-murmurs Of brighter promises. A man that is a monk! a monk that is a man! St. Jerome! thou, in lyart shade Of mountainous Teneriffe, Hastened to the world's dole, With a whisper of the wonder-working Jove, Through the small grave lips of a dead flame. Like a flash that the world's beyond Thou leapest past its fall In a frenzy of Christian fervor; Like a trumpet the world's beside When it strikes at the eleventh hour. Pant it unto the soul's near death, Through the world's life Of a quarrel of leaves! Yet, the man that is a monk, he is not tame; That is a man! and a man that is a monk is not A thing for a feverish rabble. The panther's drawn out his mighty stripes On the sweet breast of the man that is a monk! Like a Nazarene, by faith uplifted He liveth to the last Among the keen natures, Of the sap-like dogmatism; In the narrow sense of the world's going; And the world's wisdom When the blind dust turns to dark violet, Let the sacred graves win back their glory, By the hand that is set fair, For the royal-mown lands Where the great sun dies down the darkness; Be the victory Of the staff and the targe Then let the ear that never looked up To the wide world tost, Of the man that is a monk Then make haste to awaken it; For the man that is a monk When the flower of the gentle tide Blends with the vegetable ast of night, And the nightingale, with a fervent note, Mourns with gaunt grasses one sad lament At the gate of the day; Then I, like the holy gossamer That is knit by soft love and tender skill, The mind's golden cord Tying me and my dear one, In love's wonderful land Then through the cloud-girt presence of the day Through the vault of star-lit noon, I stretch my motionless eyes, To the azure clusters which seem ======================================== SAMPLE 250 ======================================== Black like a shriek from the mouth of the fire, Red as blood, bronze-red as a dove's cry That divides on the wings of the wind, Then, as of earth is she stretched apart. And you wondered, wondering still: And you said: `Is it God who is speaking, Or does my woman's heart moan and cry From its trust in its mistress, from her love for me?' But I stood weeping alone, And there was no one to hear: For all was hushed, hushed, hushed, hushed with love and fear. Lo, a-drawn as a dead horse drudging A post-wagon of soot and smoke Down through the ruts and corrals, With the noyseman daubing down, Dark in the eyes of the sprouting corn, Red with the blossom and brown with seeds; And the horseman in front of the horse-tail, Clearing his mule-logs on the plain, Just three rocks behind the rider, staring, Or a-line of froth upon the far horizon Of black moorlands winding, the garberry-red With light damp grasses swept from the river And bright with the points of the long spines, Then sky, then hill and then stream, To the deep of his silky forehead, Like a ghost over the wintering house- He is huddled for the winter In the deep, dark shelters of his wigwam. Out on the ledge of the dune, Just out of sight of the road, Dipping his paddles he does push From the fringed edge, slops his palms Down upon the slats above his head And sits upright that he may see Over the canal that he has Made with his hands in the air, The long-rainbow like the crescent Of a woman's waist against the hill He is watching the wide dune again, He has stopped a cascade or drop Of the rising or the falling Of the kernel of the camel-drought He is thinking he is a bin, That he is a rumour, that he dies As the Lord Buddha died, As he sees the rising sun over him, A coconut-do not for this Boil him or touch him or harm him. Out of his heaven of possibility He is weeping and asking for His children and his wife and the life Of the months and years that are over, Time from his Father's hand and spring and fall. `Alas! dear Father, alas! and oh! And if I had but a fool I'd be Hanging for setting I would hold A candle for. I want my sheaves, What have my sands of life That I should work or see But I'm your patient, tramping son of youth, As is the wilderness our Father made me grow in. Come in thy mist, thou Orion at my side! And take it from my hand and heart and spirit, To the farthest end of the universe Come with thy mist to meet thine own end. Haste thou and hurry and travel until Thy mist impresses us here as we go Up and down and sideways and upwards To the furthest end of the sky. There is no evening star To guide us in our wanderings, To set the hours at six, Or day and night at four, Or night and day at six, We scan the mist like savages Lost in thought, that know not night. No suns to zealously expend Bidding the darkness cease Because we are our suns Or, as far as earth and sky, A fiddling ghoul to ourselves In the mist of eternity. Thy stars we like to bare Ne'er by chance might we grow Warm in our fruits and fancies Because we know there is no sun. All gods of little light Have burned in gleaming glory That our mist may grow. When we are old and our night is coming, Come with thy starry mist to the end, And show us thy way and aye to go. Our home is left in darkness Who can find the morn's approach? But thou who art brightest, let it be Through the first night for us to-night. O little night that ever sleeps, Untroubled and unheeded, Is all the world asleep or a lover found In twilight now? That with wet eyes, that with dark lashes hides, Seen from a distance through the dusk's wall, Aye a solace finds! ======================================== SAMPLE 251 ======================================== Poison I'd have you think, And burn your light, my dear: You'd do naught but break your clay, For that 'twill soon be baked. Let's sing together, Emma, and laugh At marriage; Let's sing together, and I'll do the same To-morrow. And I will come to your window, And wish the doubt a' And sorrow, and know that love is free. There's not a soul in sight But bears love's fair face; And noble hearts aboot them all Have welcome sinned, And shame and hell's dead. The gallows is down In yonder navy, And faith and thought and worst and best Lie frosty cold, Where owls may cry the morn. Love once I knew Heaven's love would stand the gall Of hell's evil; And torture, and wildest rage, It is not told. So let us lie beneath This gobbolder drear, And call the fates Heaven, So love may live; So pride may prove, how soft 'twas That love was born. Flesh of my flesh, and heart of my heart, That all my bones are one; Be shell of my... ‎ Cit ish v. Spirit that now I am, In this... ‎ Cit ish v. I'd be well blest If upon some day While I am still alive, A beautiful rose Might bud in my field, And shoot, with my season​s colour​​​ A wondrous golden glow. One night, without skirting, Nor bows nor wires, He kissed me unawares; And, kissing, I whispered, "Kiss me and give me A rose that is more glorious." He took me gingerly, Placed me on his arm, And warm he humptered me All the house we will get, Hoping for a long-time flower. And what, to me, Is death? but a wonderful golden flower to me! Good-bye, and all ill Is over, now, and well; For I only just got Over pride, And ever being over Ever be to-morrow. THROUGH the window I gaze up, Above me, over me, at the stars; Through the small eye-presses on each rail, Two young girls pass, each carrying a basket Of radish daintily, and grass beside, And two small cages containing roses, in one cage Swallows, flying from a hazel bough, with wings, Making their slow way through the air. In the other cage Two turtle doves; And up and in the trees two chimneys, calling a distant, low murmur; And a few beechen tables, and at each, A piggy bank, with green candles and red, Above the green, moist carpet; all is silent, Save for the dust that shuffles from the dish. So, through these words, I muse, in such deep silent rumination, As heaven itself may only be to my weak brain an ever-present source of wo. He ran in full gallop, and as he did so, He shouted and beat his drum, And he flop-flopped upon the table, And set the dishes adrift With his palfrey `for value.' And then down through the deep abyss of the forest, Unpetting or heedful of the jarring drum-note, On the naked branches and branches again, And the bamboo poles, which were already there, He pounded out the battle-note. It is not nights, nor is it days, That oppress the wanderer; It is the clouds that erode His passion for the valley; It is the clouds that loosen The yoke of the king. VAMPING IN THE MOHAWK Virtue abides in riches, Destructive war, nor hearts that break; But the minstrel pleads in vain For the hills he cannot win, Since it is not clouds that ease The weary king. AFTER the king's fortune, After the glorious victory, His heart beat fast and hot As waters in the spring. The maidens appeared in court, In humble looks, and pleasing speech He coursed around the court. At length they said, his years are past, His aged head is bald; From deeds as old as himself No daughter has been won. The aged ======================================== SAMPLE 252 ======================================== Dark-gloomed in eve, and pan Ne'er shone a sunbeam from afar. The flowers were mown, the fire burned low, The reapers' hands had already grown Too dull for the sickle full of dew; Then troth-plunder seized me, and my fear Flooded with loh-- Then my sire-love mocked me loud and long, And he hooted--then I paused; "What, with the loveless flower of Mar, Light of the spring, When ripened day has ripened love, Sweet woman-flower outgrowen not-- When day is rose's prime, Tho' star keeps close company, And night smiles soft in sleep; When flow'rs all live in wind, And dark, besmear'd with dew, In glory never fear to die, Since frost is death for all-- "Then why, Ere the blooms of time to sprout, Fade from the earth their summer-flowers? Why spring feasts on their brown bare heads, Dartle their days? When all beneath is barren wane, What with their beauty ever fled? "O that ripen'd sun, tho' now the last Weighs the summer year for heav'n, That wimpled east, Should not stay till his dull ring Dulls to nothing all the sphere! But, most unkind, He not yet departs from this, That I grow finer, more I Heav'n; And shall for ever ripen'd joy Her suckling, her delight And for whom a life was hang'd off, Until to mew her live, Like black years of other men. The Gods, O sad that never can Turn back the way they press, Disfigure all and man disobey Their illiterate days through, Who triumph in proverbs. And ne'er will Hell swallow, ever, what of Heav'n That was, If on its summit she could like a swan. "Lone roamer, Now old and hoarse, Blow wind soft so, blow low! Blow, blow, slow down, And fill the dim air With winds, bare branches only, blowing. Here is no land, be not affrighted. No house is there, nor solid object, Nor road nor staircase rising, But wind can enter and enter all. "Do you pray, Rocks have hills, Dare you a head, With the map of earth? Do you pray, Rocks have hills, Dare you a head? Take your leaflets from your heads, Rocks have hills, Fear will carry you Into the drying bed; With your own nose for judge, With your own tongue for knife, And your hair, and teeth, Then let your life determine; Strict corlog`re hath none. Strict corlog`re hath no kitchen Where haggling pixies meet, Except in our Cabildo, Hag-diggery; Then haggling pixies will seek To wrangle words, which racks the hearing. If a horse, He gets no mercy Haggling pixies do have skins, And are from shivering Swine drawn. So when you hear Haggling pixies Will they shake Their thews, From their feet to their locks, From their feet to their nieves, From their eyes, from their ears, Be assured that They The devil hath two hands; But the good husband Hath two hands, And a clean divine, clean visible hand, To do his will. Because he him should wife hath chosen, Because he himself Choose him, Him the common police has spied. And when, you know, He could see, And he himself a light-handed saucy wench. But at the last, From the police station he went on a journey, Under the acting order of his constable, So clean, Loving, To his wife and him. "Let there be light," said the Authorized Driver, "My servant, quick!" And so forth pixially flew, From the moon's arrogant heaven on the earth Two good husbands! And they brought reams of riches back from the bush wars And they were very glad. A sailor whom the Maori feared When, whipp'd and primmed, he slept upon a doctor ======================================== SAMPLE 253 ======================================== life without exertion. Water begets water. The sun to the tide, sunburn or no. Starvation to the rise, the eggs back to the yolk; the sapro hunt, foregone, with life. To bear the cross on three hills of wheat before, and three trials of the cross-road man. <|endoftext|> "Places We Vessells At", by Michael W. Taft [Living, Health & Illness, Activities, Travels & Journeys, Relationships, Men & Women, Nature, Landscapes & Pastorals, Religion, Christianity, Social Commentaries, Cities & Urban Life, Mythology & Folklore, Fairy-tales & Legends] 2. Come here, put your shoes on. Let me tell you how I found you. Down by the railroad tracks, fighting off a train that had gone past too fast. A train that wanted to blow you up. Let me tell you how I found you and saved you. 1. Dust of the air, body vacuum. There is no good warrior. They don’t believe you. They don’t need you. Dust of the dark fresh needles, tidal water, sea salt submerged farthest away. Mother of twelve children and one baby in tiny sheet wrappers. You had a mother you never wrote in your first diary. Dust of the ether daughter, of the swollen waking waking daughter, of the swelling breathing daughter. 2. I would like to sing for you. Only voice. Only when I am young again will I get to you. Ever wandering. I would like to sing for you new song. I take your love. Too many. I take the story. 3. Rainy winter sunny spring moon. Love to your son, Lover, and lover. Need a little extra presence on these son- father father- Father- Son. You know it isn’t how I knew it will be. I take your love. 4. One in the sun, One in the tracks. One who makes love Secret in all. Three to one, Four to one Father, Son, Love on Father Son, Love on Son- Son- Love on Mother, Love on Love on Lover. 5. Sing the beginning of a symphony. Your Father Is in the sky Making beautiful Light. Sing the beginning Of a symphony. And your Heart is Sweeping the floor Of the ocean In a world Floating. I call your name. Give your heart Light, so It knows What you love. <|endoftext|> "The Letter My Friends Made Me", by Eric Ansen [Living, Relationships, Arts & Sciences, Humor & Satire] Who am I to judge? Who am I to convince These fools to live a life That’s true, that’s true. Here are some rules: I’ll only eat the food Coaches have On the way out, Be clean When I’ve touched the dirt Lies this stomach Eating blues, Before you break Your own rule. Your horse, back home, Is sick of stealing Nerve agents, putting on Sweatpants, slings Whose butt (butthole) Holds a bead Of pollen At night. I can’t sleep So I dream One more time Of Jason’s pants R ======================================== SAMPLE 254 ======================================== sturdy and reverend; To others of the company, He said, be kind and laugh, That I may say the final word. The Prince's Pan, our Prince's pleasure, O! love's high burly sister! Was friendly, amused, and kind; But when I, fair sibyl, ask'd What did this golden-tinted Queen want with her lovers? I Was harsh, calling her fool; She left the room; for if I Could tell to one that Caesar willed not do, that he Goes to the feast of Proconsul, One fail not of laughter. A crow sits on a tree O! dagn a-crumpula; A crow o'er yond intangles Yonder, and opens out the ground While a she-bird and she-purse ass Follow the banner to Sparta. It was a steal in the dawn, When the Sheriff rode the nigher, With a hiding of the gowan, That ruined the Macintassar, Nestled 'neath a burnt-out roof-stack In the cellar o' Boston town. He had robbed Fortune so profusely That now he plied the legal system To employ at the bast point, Which the Hunter's henchmen learned Was naught but a trick he had learned; For each "Chicken" had his "Dict,"-- What was Latin? what was it a,-- A mighty tragedy! What led up to it a sidewalk That stretched from the setting To the sunrise! What better Were there, than ordinary titles, And a sight of Europe's royalty, In the memory of Charles Doumouse! He drew up one day in the office To Sir Charles's lawyer, puffing And puffing, and puffing some more, And declaring there was more,--more Than just what is polite, He gave me to know he was well And saw a smile in the future. He was in a fix that was more, Perchance, the cat's dinner or the sun Touched with a poison of its own; And I thought that when he died he'd smile And explain to me, as he flushed, That the pipe was old and the water Old, and the house more old the fish, The mist-rent zook, the ZOOK, legal aid, The tumbler tub and the barber. And, all about that stately building Was roughness, and charm, and yet The places were neat and befitting The pomp of royal tenants at a feast, For the Hunter the neat, the tasteful, Was Puritanic of the legal mode! It was a homely but householder Intelligencer of honest guilt That blew from the mouth of the Hunter, The court reporter, court reporter again, Behind the scenes and familiar with all The ways of the Hunter as of the better—- For it was the Hunter's, breathed from the North, And bore a coy or polite whistle; Nor yet availed it of the Hunter's grim Turn of beet, of toffee of berry, Of silken smoothness, or southern bulb That retails the tropics as well as the trades, For thou art well familiar with them, And at the Hunter's good wholesome ease Exchange thy money for Hunter's twine, Or bear a Hunter's agned or beat out Of words that're to the hunter true The grace of the Hunter's gait. But what now the charming complaint Of the change? What was that for which The Magpie made in the snow, That the White Spirit came again To warn and bless, when the Prince set Upon the dark hillside To bring back his boy, and make waste The brity of his woodlands As when the Great Spirit wandered In even-song? A truth, that I understood, Was there, and a secret too, For in that wintry mountain The light wings of a lost golden bird May have perished in the gale, And the wasted mystery Left its image in the fiery use Of the lean magpie to the last, And the way seemed from the light, where was the path To the grave of the Sea-witch, Of the last knowledge, about whose sun And image the woods still made The image and the song that the light shades In starlight and in darkness Are the spirits of Wonder and Wonder, And at noon The snowdrop, to smell The maiden and the lily, At the windy ======================================== SAMPLE 255 ======================================== <|endoftext|> "Song: “The Holy Head”", by William Hayter [Living, Growing Old, The Body, The Mind, Love, Classic Love, Romantic Love, Relationships, Social Commentaries, War & Conflict] The holy head,And the face that is sure to raiseAt the call of the wise man's wand,And the head that, o’erpaid,’Twixt the floor and the vault may move,And rise as a pillar to hold upThe head that’s dead,Tortured and ashamed—there’s a pleasure-house;And a face is a temple whereMan worshipping in the city spendsHis body and time,From which in pride there builds up his soul,For it’s not made by the glass or door,But it’s the head of the heart,And the pleasure-house of hope’s desire. <|endoftext|> "Thinking", by Christopher Simpson [Nature, Seas, Rivers, & Streams, Philosophy] The reason has some secrets, as the sun having water; God doesn’t. In a boat on the river I sat down, The sun behind me, and behind my reflection; For what were there to see? the water rolling to the sea Unchanged, the brilliant flood of it, the iridescence Of the fish in the current as it glided past me, the fin Even moving, the fins of the others, Their beauty in the light to be seen, the fire Of the fish shedding, in the change of the light Effused, the attention given to the flame For nothing else? Here was I in a place of its making, here Moving I, a part of its life, a part of its change, A river flowing, flowing, flowing, For the loveliness the seasons pay, the fire Of the river, the cross-currents, the glance Of the fiery lights among the rocks, flashing down, Glancing up, the sheeted darkness, the light Glinting from the beetle’s back—what did I see? There was no image of the shape of the thing Falling from the light, from the light in the fish, Or of the insect after it, lying on the grass Bathed in sunlight, but the water, flowed past my head. The beetle attracted me there: just the same As when I first saw him, he was there, the same Fading into darkness, reflected there, reflected As though the thing there flowed ever, flowed past, flowed past, Slow flowing, deep flowing, flowing past, the life From the water reflected, the light grew more intense. <|endoftext|> "Beethoven’s Prayer", by Jeffrey Rose Crowder [Arts & Sciences, Music, Stages, Performance Arts, Social Commentaries, History & Politics, Money & Economics, War & Conflict] You who have heard my work over and over, Must have heard me at some point shout the name of Beethoven. You who have danced along with me for the better part of a quarter-century, Must have seen me kneel down in St. Keswick to do the geographer’s version of “Paradise Ragay,” You who have seen me weave together Russian, English, Spanish, German, French, all in one hairst You of the oak pan ubiquitously, the panbub sporiously—you! Each of you, in our eyes a mysterious and beautiful dark-haired girl, Every dark-haired girl an exquisite dark-eyed girl, and every light-eyed girl a girl, You of the bruise blu, you of the bruise blue, you of the bruise light, You of the smirk mint, you of the silver bruise and you of the lilt mint You of the romance of earth and sky and sea, and bun and brown, you of the flare, You of the sun blu and you of the sunlight blu, You of the political blu, you of the pentamill blue, You of the far blue, you of the bright orange blu, You of the brown and blue of plover's grey, You of the cheeks of dappled plum and flesh and breast and limbs, You of the limbs and cheeks and lipped smooth and soft as hay, You of the deft touches, smoothnesses and textures, You of the heavy breathing, You of the nervous twitches, You of the throbbing of the veins, You ======================================== SAMPLE 256 ======================================== A / Thrust thy hand in mine; Let it be wet with thy tears. / / Give me thy hand and thy heart; Have, make, give, melt it in mine. I am yet a child; Oh, teach me how to give! / / How many cruel hours must pass Till one found place for these two streams? How many, cruel hours do I spend In looking through my fingers at the thing that I feel is but the dimsmake in my hand? / Yet when I am learned in service I can make clean the hand at which my finger is pointed. / Oh, but to make clean the hand, first of all to make it whole, / To make each wrapped tightly of each nerve, / To bring it safe and all cleans into me / Into the hands of God, that is, to serve Him there alone, / To turn my thoughts toward the ten fingers in His care, / That is, to love those ten and all, or all and some, and to be glad of this, / And that, / Oh, yes, / And I am glad. / Then, oh, give me power, / That I may well believe! / Give me heart, / Lord, that beth my part, Giving some twine All round me, wreathe it with prayers. Give me a hut, To put my fingers in, And be done with it. Oh, I am fainting all; Give me my fingers back. Tell me, oh, with all good heed, Thou tell me, what it is to be. Give me, oh, grant me sight; All the world is but one Hand which I must hold. / Then, oh, then, give me power to give, / Oh, to be cool with that thought. / And from all giving, while there is time, / Give me most mercy's path; / Till my heaven grows worthier. / Cease, stop! / Wait, till the time is there. Let me come back whole. God, if this doth pass, Give me all, oh, more than this. There is but one fly to continue, That compelleth all the other flies to come to a swarm And multiply: it is then that the swarm appears Of visiting angels; it is he whose providence Sends subterrane, deep-dwelling friendly. [Cloth. cont.] His providence, then, his angels intend, At first, no bigger then a common garden bugs, Nor haunching more then an average bush or four, With heads like those he sees (suppose) librarians put out. Their heads together then unclosedly close, Wives and lovers out of the garden come, The faithful providence of heavens endears Their sight, since bet time, their powerful luminary Let Heaven to ten quadroon spurs, which one doth wound, While the other does their heart unespoused unclose. (OPHIHOPÉ) Cloth. For whom we are the.) Gives us Power Reed Road Fire All these (If we Do nothing But) Make Art (For it Makes us GIVE Power (We Thet' we Make Art And Grow Art Thet 'tis You Make Us More Power Speed; Like a moving hill, Like a swift-revolving planet Like a sprung gale Like a moving sea Like a mighty wind Or a rushing torrent Art; Like a flowing cauldron Like a torrent's rise and fall Like a mighty wind (Ask what your knighthood Will do for us) One Two Three Four Five Six Seven (Ask what your knighthood Will do for us) All the deep sides of the world We seek not. Only our knighth hands the sphere of heaven; We offer gold to set the sun and moon And planets and suns at dusk or early dawn, Hanging till they are wet with rain, And many leaves taken from the ======================================== SAMPLE 257 ======================================== Ne're parted so the sea-maid When teares grief doth beginne And long-drawn absence she An elder daughter of the sea, (Saving of her name the more That she is surely cleped SEA-MIND.) Her dolefull seate and well-ten'd Of him did she regard, And, with much air and noise, Burnt every guard down who kept his guard Twixt her and a Tangier horse. Burgd, and with a desperate thirst Of aveng'd wrongs to God and man She had no longer placable. Sometime before she did dispose Her feete broad of earth to tread, And done her will, and trode aside. But they that were kinde of her beye, Now hearing her words, stand around, Apprehensive as of hell. And sometime before they beheld Her limbs, and heard her lowall sweet And harsh, teearning them with horrid fear; And oft by force they will be urged To kisse her whoates: and in this wise Will dolefull warres have them sit by. For often too their owne passe will scare Th' angler, who shall cast out sleep and sigh. Who so most madly wants withal Shall get the lower than the head. Her sacrerie beare now (O holy Lord) Desecrate and pourtray Upon an idol, that sacrifice Him for a guerdon to her power. Als with the water out of Forne He feign't, her owne one to be. O ye gallants, know your deepe case, What hand (in sharpe anger gan) Twixt you first an end and first a rule Did impose, and now shall keep it good? He saith, casting his ragged scar. Thin as he lay his favor'd face Right fair, and yet for seeminge ill Of middie bones, no light appears, But beares like a witch a crutch: And to her breasts in place be prest. He had an hether close, when her When he had lain there many a day Fled from her breasts in that wild mould. Now boldly near she him did reare, And also those other bones, That in their gore were shut and mudered The child was like; that other Left both her fearst selfe and gold Then also boughten soon her head, Where he it was wont his holy one To hang his countenance towards; An hollow show'd cover'd with a reed. O ye gods, and all those angels, That burnt in Jupiter's colise! What hope of rue? and how to sue For justice, who would not be grown! That starre of which Cress, that Homer, Cyrsel, and the other pater Call ye, and which Tyloch is begot of. In filthy mystery of punishment Saturnus, not by choice, but sordid fate Yoking the consort of Zeus, the king Of cloudie stars, heavy rues the same. O most impious twain, that with banisht eyes Beheld Thee rising from your loath'd moated mew To dazled amaze the multitude! For lo, Saturnus turns to flee, And, casting his banisht rod of light, Heromew this vagabond hath cursed by night The wombyre of Nature's great ancestress, And all her works. He made the night her morn, He made the day her ease, that noon his smile, His joy her lengthen'd prime, and his repose. Thus glad in flying from your dread procest, I turn again, and, thou appearest, A son of mine, a dame of mine, Shall, turning, chase you hence, that now Ye know the laws which he assign'd thee. Till your hearts fail, and then (why stay ye?) The shallop of this sacrosanter Shall not be taut, but swum away. Who knows the Queen of Tyro, Or who hath seen the Holy Dame Lavinians? for his posterity Have mortal news of the said Saint. Worse news than these of perils lurk Still in the north, and cold mid-Heav'n storms. He thinks to catch her, if she will be caught; To bend those mighty knees of hers, And look those poore understandings through, The with'ring store of what ======================================== SAMPLE 258 ======================================== That crowd thy fragrant stages. And the king and the priest have Yon fair goddess for their mistress, Her ivory neck by thy gold, And that neck in its mystic chains, My shaft has subdued, O Fecundity! Here, sabbath-enlightened, I must skip A wee with the county to dip my sudandy in, And they shall be dumb while I extol Thee and thy beauty, Glorious Follower! And now I have not to thank my stars For this long labour of love, But, bright goddess! thou hast kept me, Imperiress, Thy bounds secure. And now I have not to thank my stars For this long labour of love, But, bright goddess! thou hast kept me, Imperiress, Thy bounds secure. The soldier hath his amorous dower, The lover his snood, The scholar his silks, the priest his mitre, Thy ways are known, O Goddess, Thy loves are free and lothly gone, O Goddess, thou art near! The soldier hath his amorous dower, The lover his snood, The scholar his silks, the priest his mitre, Thy ways are known, O Goddess, Thy loves are free and lothly gone, O Goddess, thou art near! For shining pearls and her white neck in the deep dream Of sunbeams that awake when the stars burn out, Her living eyes that weep till the stars wax cold, And faint with tears of wine and passion that prove she is A worldly flesh, Her fire and loveliness, in water I kiss her; For these are nymphs and goddesses--I pray thee, shake Thy whip of pray'rs and shake away the mill That grindeth that flesh to marble flesh, that it be not touched By any foot of mine, until it slick with laurel buds grow. Beware the Persian with his brand, the Chinese with their mint, Who work their magic with beads and charms in wreaths of green silk, The Boptoer jungles with odours sweeter than the Balsam, That wreaths like these, seeing but the planting of a bough, May be sweeter, being unhung; but theirs to bloom as in the dew Of sweet crocuses; ours, frost and hail have pierced; the buds Fall in a ghastly meeting, spreading wide the pall of wan And madder leaves, that shriek as burning; and the whole Entranced being blossoming in. Here then, O shadows, here be shadows; and the Gods, for you Have lifted up your faces and wagged with your Phidias, Take off your quilts, O Nature, bowing to your grave, And let your gold as witcheries for men dust bums or oaks Be for the Graces' sacrifice. Fair saws of Ismenes that bore him the house, and his love, And of which more had been said than is in left of you, Than had the related been by you Had she hir'd the trouble of the thing That for a wife they found out, And how there had been so many girts and travails at that; What crocks and sugar-tartles he had eat, And put them in the toaster again; Which had the wise men tempted him To, that he might a serpent show That touched these, which made love for wenches, and bleed And chaines to shoe them with; and to play The subtler, and do the wrong; And that which is a living shame, To fatten beasts, to plagues. And to dis With them their old, old sister, so To sue her, and be lyked a disgrace; Where as for all this, with golds and fee To make her as good as best, Or for the battle let her follow For a husband-partner; which had been Hard the contrary for Spercheus, hard to be found; Had not her father, Pampanesus, seen the same This magic in his son, that sought of love To breede issue, given the name of Venus, Or Love, to helpte his fair daughter. He then out of Crete went to Egypt, and saw all That late was sayed of by the Brites, for that he went Into all t'old in Zennary. It chanced, they All were that siege putt up, and all the folk within ======================================== SAMPLE 259 ======================================== Ideas, which alone could inspire A brave new world with joy and love! Hither and thither o'er these quiet plains I wing my way, and view the wavering lines Of dim and shade;--the moor's quiet-settled showers Of pearly dews; the sleeping towns-- Still warbling through their brumal crotches The fells from which the quail with haste so modulates Its summer cry,--till downward from a day In which the full-sea sailed in her blue corner, And the pine-trees layered their shadows dim Over the ruffian shade, a deep-dense drift Of shelter came, wet-faced, from the forest's heart. Which now the smooth-trot light zigzags through, And trailing broods of tinkling dew The braved-inlaid amphitheatre; 'Twas a ritual so allfilling, such The sculptor apprentized his power: His work in bronze I was censured more To inferior stone or elab'rate wood Dissuade this guy, the butler to assail For he lacked ceremony. So, for thy midd'n look on these lines, Which rhyme and match the canto's feature Ev'n to the last letter. Not expunge The natural ends for which the human lyre Possesses the gift of'd seeing; And are they not the ends by faith divin'd Or is the faith which ever heads thy path, But heads the eye whence on the divine it dides? A stanch proof-affecting poet! Most divine Is he whose varied forms and stories In one sublime narrative agree, In which the art's self's subject quells the subject. If lovers may find ease to their want In the brand name of Aganthrough, 'Tis in such names as one might think of Trying That we may find our perfections. A code-names, whence, as when one sees, Allurement is to tell the tale, And she, as all good analysts will own, They're nam'd for merit, or the risk of pains. This, with brevity will I attempt, When Love his winder flies and waxes hot; And Boadicea's evil must not be vented Till 'twixt her and the falcon's feather 'long'd. Love! whose avow'd abettors were banished, Among the first to marry or die; who Should, save he worship'd, brought, in sum, Whate'er was named good and prov'd good, in sum; And more than prov'd good by that betreed heart Who taught our times to marvel,--her. I have mov'd from your auspices afar, But if I yet have left a native air, 'Twould be, 'mong elements and corruptions, Such as those, or no elements or frames, Is love; and these so interweave That ill unction would their ruin prove A-theist behind a high and holy wall Of burning arrows full of peace and applause. 'Twould seem right sense did forbid to be felow Its distractions in my lines, And write them all the less provok'd By turns and meditations; So they may smile, with mirth abide, and be Absolv'd of guilt to sit in judgment next; On some white salt line, secure to set The least album a-gayer, like man's, Or god's transmuted word, such as would rank As good author for an aged race; Or for a poem, good for euetonant, To cure the chronic cough of age, A most gormy fourth star, the fairest mind That mounts the least mountains and tells dolorous Of princes and coins: I the freedom thence May well claim, since (being original) I sing All free, both future and the present hour. Nec faræ slide vix a somniorum goxt, Se nevelle retro, regemque frequentis aram. Thus sweet, and more than sweet, this solitude; Whose soul-burying music hence must leap and flow, Because the carkand's grave it cannot rest? Ah! such sad death, with curse so vast of our birth, And such immortal bands! Unsung, unsumed, And in full voice 'twixt heaven and earth! Untaught, but by the ignorance of men! Time doth the labyrinth of death forgo, And in sweet paradox, ======================================== SAMPLE 260 ======================================== "A Shropshire Lad," by John Ashbery [Arts & Sciences, Poetry & Poets] I want a house with a great view,Where the lumber's all shined and the paint's all perfect.Where the sunsets and the MaysacsLight all things with a flaming kite,And the gnats and slugs and nightfalls are nil.I want a bar,That's only use of sport or finding use,And a table of nought but the finestwood.I want these, and then I want more:I'll get my house and leave my view. <|endoftext|> "The Five Dowland Brothers", by J. V. Cunningham [Arts & Sciences, Humor & Satire, Social Commentaries, Class, Money & Economics, Heroes & Patriotism] DOWLAND Brothers, let there be no more of this;An hundred grand! Come, take your hats, we are done with greatness! (Note. That there is never a Right Deeply rooted in the land, And an Uncle but sIR EARNEST the riches of the land.Brothers, we have nought to hide: <|endoftext|> "The Beggars", by J. V. Cunningham [Social Commentaries, Class, Money & Economics, Money & Economics] Beggars we, the beggars, may be foundBy the score, all paid up and beggar by;And beside the count of these, the rest have bread:An easy, comfortable life, and then the graceOf God and of the Bishop's approbation.Come, brothers, with your brogues and your hoods,We'll hang o'er our lowly Chance. <|endoftext|> "The Beautiful Dream", by J. V. Cunningham [Living, Marriage & Companionship, Arts & Sciences, Painting & Sculpture, Philosophy, Reading & Books, Theater & Dance] Man, the descending jack, first committedTo the care of canvas and fence;Some tender, others, larger than your turn,With heels on the noose to cadcy.Do you, then, from the painted crowSerename for him, who had the trick?The sun-burst on the plucked fyffe,Or the rift on the mirrored shadow play?I should have your secrets, all your tricks,Harshness be here, not heeding,Not space, the puffing up of an atmosphere,Dull beings not here comprehended.Let us fix on that ground that gave.Where, to this august plain, the earth affordedA wealth of music; its green plain,Beyond its majesty, and just an end.For from under that great time-framed green,Hymns such as those, more tender than wild,Arise, do you think, though you give the signs,Still will not come.In ancient ev'nings such a muffled wallOf rounded hills, and long vistas to the sky,Hearts, the swells of the vales that rolled,Cast shadows not less than those of peaks,Nor broke a lily in the meadows young;As the sun-spent soil, whose by-past of springFelt the warm glow of its own rays,Burnt so heat-red, the violet heartThat stole the lion's shadow, stole the jay'sToo faint for lilies to the distance:Where earthen smoothed the grit of mountain soil;The white and green reposing in the long'nuealo shade:'Tis green, but such as where at christening massSits down the meadow, moulded by the plough:The bent soil perfectly, and on topOf a broad and sweeping lawn of unrun grass,With masses of sharpening sunlight in the valley stood.Let us the sad flat hill there scanAnd hail that stream whose murmur echoes roundAnd ripples thro' the frosty and frozen ground.Through the loud tracings of the low lands northOf the country we now survey, and bid him slip'Round the bends, and up and down the valley findAnd wake the waters, as they were sorry if they should,Sit in the spot where Nature's temple is:Loveliness cannot a chrouement join.What, lovely bosun, of thy full-grown seedHast thou so prematurely blossomed?Thou didst not grovel in the trenchlike grass of dreams,Or kiss thy lyer forth, as the seamongeur didA maid o' th' folk, her lyre that none would learn?The wilderness of pains in thy cold heart and loins,A rain of tears its shrine,Were therein laid for quiet: none should knowThe whole of thee, and thou might'st as well as themA-froaking fox-terrors.A boy ======================================== SAMPLE 261 ======================================== After two thousand years has run its long But she is young and lovely as evermore; But as she was her goodlier mirth begins, And she by love and fury has her arms at play, And tumbles round his head and kisses him again. The town is lighted up with torches, The towers are bright with lamps, And the song has now no sorrow for the song, But down the streets the beggars go, And down the streets the lilies grow That sweet New Year sees Hath brought them their mad good fortune. And down the road, where low The bank has receded, And the raving rill Has vanished by, And down the road the empties flow, The fields all glow, And in the elms the first flakes chime The ribands sing, That kind New Year sees. This sweet New Year sees again The hostess of the place, With her white and ruddy man, And the lot of them that fell Lived rough this New Year's Day. Belt and trouble are two things found in steep and flippant simplicity to be, or not, in Italy. His vests are trouble; 'tis always known That trouble lags Belt's limb each moment. Belt is an equiv of every trouble, 'tis said, A sort of tale for these slender vests Of Belt's troubles, or trouble only. From trouble high The lower trouble comes; and every part of the knot, Lower down the knot, and sooner to the belt. It happens, too, that some care Matters to trouble in its turn, and to trouble, whence, by cause and embarking, it comes. I'm but a feeble frog, that, ashamed of no shame, Would fain be Chartismo; but, if I deserve that honour, I have to mention In this my stump, that at supper-time I hear no more Of this New Year, but that the New Year's gone. There, d'ye think? there's the market town (Deuce be me! deuce my shame!), Where once the market-place I knew! Whither of late the stoutest heart Hath drawn, on many a thumping day, Or with much asking (in vain!) To draw the battle upon its bank? Not in this lonely pool shall stand All that the merchants do appear; But in the market itself shall stand Theirs too, or their thens' men. This market-place Shall be their theme and memory, Like as the mast-swarm of our days But here to assemble, by turn, Lest they too shiver and be still, For weariness of that season's play. What manner is it remains of all That bought and sold and paid with comfort for less? And if 'tis wearisome, the less so The more it puts out the livelong day For very weariness, the lesser The pain, if labour with its hurt Hath better eased it. Yea, in sooth, for wear To pay it small fare to live by! And whatso lives here but by it well With grace from whence to cast the stone, The pelting stone! upon all sorts of need? 'Twixt heaven and earth to pay it adieuf Is all men's common heritage. Who buy it at the exchequer and den? That land may see no more its cost, Than if no tax could see it at all. By the said cart and that canal Caught in its turning wheels, is that Old world, our world, here our world again, And ours in it, on it, whate'er the world May yet be turn'd; even as a star In glass of nights, by night so was said Which turn'd anear, toward heaven and true, Averring, circling still its pole Pointing heaven and saying to it a true The world's life, more and more the pole Answered, and swiftly sliding it the a Until it stretched its everlasting reach Full-charged, full-filled of light. And if we see Any wick'ning on the pyx they sink. But at the suns they rise full-charged anew, Making at heaven and at the moon, And at the suns, moons, rivers, stars, seas, At sounds which make the night, and all That lives and shuts, full-charged ere night. In that day of perfection they call'd The year, and from its steering-stone The light from light that fell thereon Was wither'd ======================================== SAMPLE 262 ======================================== Problem to talk and have reason to talk. Waving his hands he smiles reading poker chips in bright gold and black his eyes held still in the center of the plane. Walking off he’ll meet a younger gentleman: walking off with his younger graciousness—one look, one step, he’ll kneel to collect his money. Coax his hand to a fire, create in the blaze the crackle of keys falling out from honest places. <|endoftext|> "Mountain Laurel Lovers: Third Moment", by Frank O'Hara If you love mountain wild green growing things— but you do not want to be the scorched heart of a wild man- handled— then bring a clean white sheet of any color. You will see your true heart with its animity and rhythm— where all un natural beauty isn’t natural. <|endoftext|> "Reservoir Junes", by Frank O'Hara [Living, Marriage & Companionship, Parenthood, The Mind, Activities, Travels & Journeys, Relationships, Family & Ancestors, Nature, Weather, Arts & Sciences, Poetry & Poets, Reading & Books, Social Commentaries, Cities & Urban Life] July 27, 1962 1 steamy white & black 2 small shops in sixties main street had 2 2nd street w/ asphalt 1 breakfast Ours was fresh they ran on lines 2 water passes water at first half 4th later hot weather white frigid 7 crosses with way down weather street slowly going 1 own 2 rain not 2 our house in town only a little 2 own 3rd just pass back 4 sisters 2 left right mind only they are wrong only 4th 1 day wed just before 4th morning rain no 2 week water- thin stratford pavement wide lane sisters 2 the address st the marigold man standing just cold 3 rain 4 hours of rain 4 4th 4 thirty of january 3 in the late 4th 4th JUNE 3rd MONDAY THIRD MONDAY for 2 febri 3 mo 1 febri 4th june the lurl the whit 4th of july 3rd sunday the whit rain entire lurl the whit 3 Mondays the whit rain they run off first the lurl in thirds 3 SUNDAYS the whit rain with sonlites we were half way through 4th Monday morning and half way we are locked and we are with them 5 AFTERNOON: with sich houses lit high southern temps. sun. it ran a streak of colors from Hawthorn or Jerusalem in milky Desire where they used to live up high near a silo a blaring sky 2 walls near a water wheel with beaks of  moons with flock of yellow feathers & dried heads of needles & roof one of whose sills dings near a bottle cap (Dudselsmeyer) of dew on weathered rock. 4 bottom-ranks sister or only sister sister brother brother brother’s wife’s grg drowning he smelt of junk a plague pit a bottle of moons in rush hour 5 Sky, just stare into the eyes of the moon of ======================================== SAMPLE 263 ======================================== Magnus alone would dine, to-morrow And my early messenger await. Thy favour, show, for grace; the name resounds. And sure I trust, once cometh peace, Hereafter life may be my bed: Glad for each event that pointeth to good; Still mad with love of heroes old, Lover of conflict, not confin'd To wars of little interest. Who here, or thither, wait, like me, A nightly curis to sit and beat. I love to see the youth; and how to see Is fancy, this cold age has bred, Thou say'st: "All young doth now decay, All past is alike, as they say; In summers when, the flesh in proof, The bellowing ox, with voice accost, Thy gods are call'd from antient clay; "Of age are ye, whose minds Dost strive in trivial mischiefs now, To grudgingly watch their work which here Flatt'ring fools derision call. Ye feign, with intermitting due, Your sin, and fear the interr'd date. "Her time hath past her issue now, No reason to perceive; too late Desist; beware lest you be mated; "And for a mortal joy alone, That mere outward calm doth breed a doubt, So much the more lavish of my means, My love, which you begin to feel; That she with me, or else some season At first secret, covertly become; "For when you proved, on my meaner board, Her mind and virtue, and her vice; with me, Like an injured spouse, and with vain prayer, Did argue for him, her life assure, And never dreamed it might be die, or fagg'd." "I shall be mock'd, I fear; shall strive And seek him, when as others that conceal; And I shall laugh; or shall remember well How in his arms I was his care; How I was body to his office bear." Therewith she smiled, and said her say All trembled as she said, And towards the view of Pluto's bewace A growing horror grew, no more to tell, And mute was all the room. Yet a brief space Her audience stood: then without them spake A voice, that sang, and, incredulous, They saw the flame whereon the smoke was fed. No fire can hit that thing which smokes and glows So thick, no pencil debares it from the sky; Nor arrow ever reach it, or no whetted dart, So glowing hot. This is she, whose vow Was made that minstrel from the stars. The song, Whose sound divine, the poet pois'd to hear, He hears, nor hath repetition in his song, So pleasant! What meditation does he sing? What love or hate, what hope or fear, he sings. But envious Cecilia smil'd when they missed The darling of the poet. Is she come Come, my noble friend?--So flutt'ring hot Her heart, she fears she never shall the hand Shake again, nor live without a kiss: Behold the anger of the flame and heat Twirl in her plained. She sees how near The envious flame and heat her flame doth pale. She smiles: and, when she saw the times did good That brought her error to disgrace her son, She sigh'd for absolution, and her spirit Throbb'd up with compassion, and her breath Ran shuddering, as she saw her son disdain A maid not free. "Maid! (she cried) be rul'd Mine own and serve me, guide and govern, Lovely, soft and loving, with a kiss; Thou art not loathsome, speak and lend thine eyes To these sad changes: thou art no wedding: Thy light discompos'd is our dark disarray. "Thou smil'st too fresh for blight, and dost seem To bloat in skies not cross'd with cirque and cubit wings. Thy blazon'd head, with wattles, roses and portals, Dimm'd in purple, pearls and silver peacals Sarket up the plain: and now, you say, You are not thine own proper self, you put on For burthen of incumber'd sill. "So for a while, till time can return to God, Weave you a shred of fleeting time, ======================================== SAMPLE 264 ======================================== (Their cousin is a Pantomime, but no one Anally himself a rare thing) (Whence Antistrophe comes us to declare Our counterfeit for her love alone.) At our home-parting Jesus we were raised By fond neglect Before we learned our Grief, So we may be quite at our ease And drink Your liquor without gas. We know this because we have felt That Life hath locked for us a golden gate Which, opening, will let all kinds Of shafts for us to shoot at as before, But Truth, above, Will give us bolts to shield the soul in all The tumult of the awakened West. THE beautiful dark-eyed nymphs of Greece Stood singing: "Oh, why, Boast I am none of you and rejoice? I am not one of the singers Who light on the wind like gossips, And sing but as a cloud doth, without care, Till the music, blown by the marish, Is choked and shocked. Fie! to be a nymph Nor love this way thy lord. Forbear, I pray, To shun the lofty wrong; While yet I may sing A little while on ground Or yet on air, Still, still to keep my lord's sight, Still sing as if the sky were deep. WHILE wild thy blasts and nimble wild On wing unperched Flutter this paper canopy Yet let my words, strong though small, Fly like the wind Light, flying, like a spell Through whatjoy thou hast wrought, Now that thy sunset strains; Wing to the forest Wheeling to the south; Cheer after cheer, Hear thou the valley, Cheer to the hill. Walk without, O pale one! Talk without, O star! Follow these flames that burn above As those that scoff and snort Up the flames, up, below, Clench their paunch, Cheer-like, up the valley, Cheer to the hill. My heart leaps up and BOBYNYS me to the high story of the sunsets that abound in dying day, But not the sunset of gentle growing desires; Yet oh! so very slightly the lighted ruins that flicker and shift all out of their seats and, from the Witch of Life's resonant arches, white As clouds, or as clouds, that sweeter over-lay the dawn The drowsing phantoms of Beauty, the dying day Overlook of Seasons that they call, like Paris, the morning. My Muse is by the ear,--God bless the ear!--forget That sad-voic'd Muse of Song, and hear what I can say In a new Spirit, and in a newer strain. The lyre that Marsyas raised, the Lyre that SCARCE Wergilds, and the Goth that darkly carv'd it, if true, Were both but starry-singing Pixies, or but Prick-marks strewing spangles for our eyes alone. The Allegro is the fashion now, and the fashion Will increase as the Scene grows lovelier; and less Of Hour Doughty's Harmel harp, of Carew Homer's lyre, Of PA Administrator TULLY's more lighten'd tone; And the Grecian countenance of the Cavil-house; Th' Ambiguous the Greek-talking host, The ADRIATIAN Helen, and the Spartan maid; Those all have lost their reputations, or have proven Few, at least, of the WISE, although A Glassman and a Hero should prove to 'spite The Poyson all with a Wiser temper. Will The Grecian face light up your pupil's eyes, And send the Benjamin towards the Salamandra; And will her human eye, that otherwise For ever on the blinder part Has drop'd like a shooting star, have weigh'd down your memories So?--oh it cannot be. But there is an Ophelia In that Castalian, most like a Libyan gate; From whose pace of motion, and not from whose sex, Alas! grows, to ours what Grecian Normandy. There, too, with error, long from our world hath pass'd At length, ere that which encumbers it with ice Was worthy of that region; though it ne'er so nurst The fruit of a well-fume'd goblet since: Of all which grow the soften'd pulsing jam Of real bread, he doth become ======================================== SAMPLE 265 ======================================== that didn't exist at the time the book was written, you know, or centuries ago. And so what you have here is a dark, older country that shares your kingdom's phobia of light, which, given a hundred and twenty years of sunlight, doesn't mean anything good for you, thanks to the Sahara sun, which always the same sixteen hours long, but in that sixteen hours of darkness, sometimes in rain, transports you from one extreme to the other. A dozen pages of sun are spread between the black stone cap and the figure of Cupid, drawing a sunbeam of pure black on the city, wrenching the darker colors out of its palette, into the blue marble for cupid, and rendering him so like a sunburned hillside that when you stand under him, you are so black that you are black. You smile at me, still serene in the knowledge that there was once a dark time when I didn't count shadows, even of my own wish to vanish. <|endoftext|> "Lady of Shalem", by Trish Krall [Relationships, Friends & Enemies, Gay, Lesbian, Queer] Shalimar, not Shalem, wore her golden locks in a tight buckler and was sorrowful as the dark beautiful women who've given us lesbians an image in our own history books because we've all seen those movies about a woman in such grief she strips off her clothes and becomes a boat sailing across a bridge to Egypt where they stop to look back at this day, that we're still alive, still allowed to exist in this un-Israel/Palestine binary that our oppressors have created in this state for ourselves. Because this isn't my Arabic name but my Hebrew one, because this is who I am in this moment. A gentler time, Shalimar, when you wore your jewelries and asked if I'd leave you, then took out my hand and told me to go fuck myself. Because I'm not ready to leave yet. <|endoftext|> "Yesterday, the Prophet", by Trish Krall [Nature, Religion, Social Commentaries, War & Conflict] The sky was hazed with hydrogen when we made the decision to go to Baghdad. The steam was flowing from the combed-out hoses, humming generators, and the giant hoses themselves as we left as nine men on the hill the color of dreams. Their flakkit seemed to know the sense of it all. We ate summer melon and picked out packets of cream that a mother seals in the lunchbox for her daughter. We ate rocket, chocolate rocket, orange candy. After wiping down each other's plates, I dropped my jacket onto a coin pocket in the city. It was less than my men were taking it to the second neck of the week, but this was yesterday in a place so slow-moving we took hands of polished steel and walked into each other. In the next moment, all military, we moved through the crowd at the main gate to the watchtowers. In other cities, I'd always see in the squares of time, but here I was caught up in the scoring of some beatingup, and then returned to the groin and the double animal movements of large birdwork. Back on the hill with two times one every Arab's dark and barrek—coated head to heel in desert, bearded with the belltower's pulseris— and like the blinking of a LED backwards I tried to see your radio as a pile of black bodies below us nails in the sky. I imagined mutes and mikes and correspondent wires, ports and panels of shrapnel in the sky. <|endoftext|> "Domestic Violence", by David Dominguez [Living, Parenthood, Relationships, Family & Ancestors] For Juan Felipe Herrera My sister, 7, smacked me when I said: The bomb will drop. That was the second time. I walked away. I now recall the rain, In the white shirt of a military man, An army hat I had not worn for six years. The boy from Bushwick had beenhes his hands, And is borne from me, a 4-foot-9-inch frame To the broiling plains of Angola. My sister, 7, was done writing love letters. If I got in trouble for not picking her up I think I was fearful of hurting her, She might get the idea That I was not her mother. The letter of the letter of the ball ======================================== SAMPLE 266 ======================================== Where e'en the birds are mute While with sickening regret they gaze Upon the stars that burn and burn. "Thou know'st another tale I'd have thee tell, More near the heart of Christmas here. Ere the magi came They had already spread a feast; The cause, unknown, I know not why, I've heard said, that all the guests stayed home; For, filled and ready staved, From out the thickets far and nigh, Such miracles as these never fail. Then all the swains that soon and late Sat round that feast-table served, And knew by signs their parents' woe; And all the symbols plain and port, Were on that day foretold, In little bird-leaf or bracelet With little rose or leaved blood, What blood the feast to be. Ah me, what broils the year Gave from its foaming chalice Of uncharged moonshine? Ah me, what oils unbound, Gather, and redistill! Ah me, what new perfumes Thaw and perk and vape! Aye, and ye, who sought that nest, Here in the drear, Nursed with the days of old, Wherein our lives each other fail, Hearken! a lone man whose heart Never—at least By glad signs knows his nest, His kin and nestlings all are gone, Is called, though long he's missed Not half so well missed a day, Not half so sorely comforted. He'd better of his missing be Than in glad judgment loll, And though he else might fare Praised of men, and hold his kin, Dole not of his missing care As that of some poor fleshed Dating from his grief. Ah, would that from the plumage Of common woe he'd fly, That the sweet thrums of Elfin's Had palled, hazed from his mirth, And the calmer splendors of a day Had fathomed his ray; That night had been for him a ray Thro' all the bitter weather But ah, if ever man suffered From the snows, Whether by weight borne Or sick at heart forlorn From out the rains, I do not think that man exists! And in the garden's uproar In the garden's crowding With its unstudied ways Brimstone-sky and fire-plains Of grass that yet-smoke In the heights' sombre twilight Strung to the chimney-nest Of a house whose bells, At every hour, go sounding, Till none may sound it but The faithless one, who wants One central piece of Ave In his fealty, Though a marvelously small And cozily walled-apart state From the City's squalor; Whose dwelling has no windows To let the world in To gaze at doors and faces And in the yard is found The servant-paper, a perfect (not.) How the fever-sweat aches through him, Watching his ghost at the window Across his own thoughts of home! What the task? What the churning Of the plough and the restlessness That make his hands dirty, And the toil the sweat, and the ink The acres multiplied, And the burthen of the rain That the clouds pile to drive Ah, little he gives heed To the flowers that she toss Sparkles of the ruddy Leaves of goldenrod, To that sky that seems but dim In the bitter, cut winter weather Of the lowland, though the waters Moisten from the hills Are a red vine-leaf in the wind With a cloud of colour Splitting its; Yet, a clod Will he perfect be With a child no wiser Than he, Lest the working perfect Now the butter is on; Come away, O Girl with the fever, And the dews at morning On the hand of the cold Grinding out the oven. Draw in the pan By the side of the fire For the Flock at play. Where are they going, O' the four to the kitchen? I can see them starting to eat; I can hear the crash of the spear Goaded by the fire-dogs of fire, Through the lotus-beds of earth; The garlands of the earth Drying on the vine, The Shapes themselves ======================================== SAMPLE 267 ======================================== That Nanny's and Tam were doubly dear to me; And oh! a ragged verse will not do: The heart of Faith can never forget Those who have been. Think what it was to hold His little hand within thy warm embrace! Think what it was to stroke his satin head! How little we now see the blessing shed For whose delights alone that love is shed: For in the mire and mazes of the years Lost the prime of Love! Some doubt, 'tis said, remain'd To freshness even in souls--where Faith was strong Too oft for falsehood. But I think again, Weeping for the transgression of a plot At Charlestown! 'Tis a kingly deed to weep, Not to the conqueror, but the struggler; To mourn the crown of Kings, not his weapon. Nay, dear, not to him who wears the crown Should I give the hand, whose matchless head I had, when he grasped me in that old love Of Fathers and of Sons, and held me fast In the wild and quaint fashion of our song. Yours was the lay, yours the choral wire, Where we rear'd high the old immortal sward Of God, where still the passing Voice is heard Whisper or beam; that star, bright, proud, A gem, with God, in Nature's mystic crown. I have no time to stay And fill thy thirsty soul With song that is not mine; Mine is the Past, Mine, and mine alone: And only at busy hours May I appear, In glory suit, The St. Lawrence to the Spring. In another hour, By some quick eye's light, Mine eyes might hearken To War's loud March As striped and tumultuous as his own, The tigers of the past, Yea, the stamped plain-front, The frights of daily life. The sea is rich in gold Whose waves shall ne'er wear gold-wash white, But glow like stars, as those pure stars Which on the old ocean roll. Yet, by the shores of England, Bear we the token That all such eyes see That shine like to the pure skies, And in the sea shall live A colour like the sun And by the seas we know That even the stars may at the end Flame like their own sun, and lose or win Their own hue with ours. Let all the fields that have the same soft sun-brown, Or one soft sun-brown and one pale hue of green, Look like a rainbow, and let the heather That girdles the mountain and the stream In every field that is not dusky brown Be as bright as in the best of skies. The grasses let it now and again Glow like a rainbow round the way And along the roadside, as the light Shall through the leaves be moved away Like a moving spark of light. The little stream shall lead us on, For the stream that is most like a rainbow In kind with color like the rainbow, The rock-girdled stream. And here the dotted line Of difference all round the meadow Is strange and tender and sweet And fair for many a pleasing ear. Here shall we stand and look each face, And ask of each the question, "Which of Earth's Inevitable ills is that?" Here every cowwith kind Shall answer for the last that is male, And answer for the first That is female and that is most like, And give the tale plain and sweet, As each comes like a bee In the golden business Invented by Nature, How life to her owes its very birth. The white wolf shall speak for the cattle When her silvertime comes In the early Spring To plow the rugged places lightly With spring's careless glow And pack the heaps more hidden: That they may help the progress In her own ways, The brown jay shall say to the maples, "Come down and help your giving; Planting shall make you rich; The planting sun shall tell How good you have been giving; The winter rain Shall answer for the stars in their skies; And then, when Spring comes With a gladness to be glad at heart, The great sun shall jump the clouds And shout to the world, 'It's Winter still; Let us be glad, all this day, As the sun looks back to the night, And says, "The longer I live ======================================== SAMPLE 268 ======================================== Attendance sought, however small, Rinaldo, angry at the Prince's Loss of sleep, up springs to aid Himself in his misfortune with a shout (A crowd about him shout at once): "Regneus! 'Tis I who am here, the Prince to win (Whose waking reminds me in my bed) Before you come, to receive the praise Reserved for him, which 'tis my due; If, before so fated me, there were Another here, myself I would attend." Rinaldo in the instant answered--no, He broke into his prophetic prayer: "Nay! No ground of death on you shall now avail For pity, save the place that we have lost. Mine's the arm, my misery is the main, A like mischief each, I know, has done, But that his presence may not us bereav'd, This favor, for a guard, I come; the more You do it now, that the more of it you 've won." His fingers, open'd they were in prayer, And from his breast the jewel was rolled A forked road, and from his breast again Rinaldo drew the jewel, past the ill Weeping, and thru heaven to God went; For God, who nowhere overlooks the wrong, From the little creature knew, and wiped it out. The Prince he then calls, and commandeth fair How they may see that guard to attract his mind From the mount of life to take the forest's pride, To break the neck of that the night had made, And burn the wood on which they feasted so well. And to the woods they came--the great road--the mind Always runs there, as we all have found. The cockcrew journey'd on, soon as know, Of the city's chatter, great or small, The way they came, they thought they should discover. And when the road was won, here to await The blessing which great nature gives and lends The day that runs her different and long day; So soon, with busy and a busy guard, They reach the grove--so large, so prime, so green, In all that corner, at that season, might Be deemed, and on that night, as quick as they. But, with as busy as before, they came To see the honor that was theirs that night. For this was left from previous year, and this Was not without many a crime and mischief wrought; All which, as chance, or fortune, was right sealed, By future justice, which at that season Had yet to find her true island sleep. "Guard them, holy things!" the Prince, whose mind Such things displays, then and there, commands, besought; "We come, indeed, to hear some tidings important, Nor shall I seek to gain the guard away from you, I know this ground, in which you live, is great. 'Tis a sweet spot, and virgin down to see In where the acacia trees that quiver-greet. 'Tis a sight full pleasant 'gainst mortal eyes, Since many, on that humble bank, to shed Salutes, their blood so rich in sprinkling gave When first they saw the stars, and their motions charted By MOIRA, departed from the county and cast Their burial urns in common, and trust'd the sun. He, born the seventh of those from that house of old, Seems scarce an elder, as from now untainted. This estate is rare; scarce to that valley's sloping shade Could it be won by so rich a mansion. There, many of its enjoyments I would name: Laws for its possessions, domestic tranquility. A good estate this: and the prince's command To guard it, must a guard satisfy, for it To be to him as much as he to it belongs. A shade the prince will take, and never light On earth. In security and on peace Its waters run, in which deep silent pools We gaze upon. It is thus most fair and sweet To look upon. O deep dark ravishment, Deprived of light and of your waters for ever! The morning broke, as the night will break, And all things were as if asleep, or mute, Save of a voice which bid the wild wood wake, As those who roam with night about a tomb. The streams were all still in strange array; the birds Had lingered down, and there was none to hear, Save of the trees, those trembling leaves, and this The grey ======================================== SAMPLE 269 ======================================== SHAWTE, PULLAX, &c. The Quarrel for the Salter's Glare, The Gravel for the Spectator's Suit, The Flail for the Orator's Crown, The Jackass for the Cat, The Calf for the Sable, The Curl for the Ribbon, See the Train Departs from Slipper-Champs, With its hundreds lost unhoarded, And the jays in trains Woh! Woh! for the Zweihanders Who start the wild Song Before the chamois. Like a mountain-white Shivering before them come The curtain and the violet, The beeches before, The elms behind. And the lark frisking for the gloom Chitters before these; And rooks before the yowax Chirrux before these; And the field-mice stir in the adu 'Gainst the storm, And the snake-sisters are within The onset before these. The hare before, The bow-legged cur in line, The steed in charge before, The picture of all this, Before these. All this Before the tent Is the deuce what it is, The peak before it Is the peak of all. The peach-tree and the pear And the plum-tree and the Pear-laying? And the arbour where we Pipe for the sunlight, And the oak, And the elm, and the pluma; And the tussock, And the breezeway, And the hoary-headed Clouds of the lamping; And the wind-hissing Lamps that seem to blow Thro' acres of York; And the droond tolling In the leaves above; And the wallops Of the yellow flower; And the scarlet blossoms Mingling among, When this harvest ground Ravishing Like a dream. The lark? The lark Full of wailing, Frightening the hours, Swelling the air Like the seas all torn, When this, last, Rent the moonlight, The sighing Pain of the mountains Roaring by. The plough? The plough Tortures the corn; Tortures the sickly ears, The healthy grow left Nigh invisible, When this, last Rented the moonlight. The shearer? See The wrister, there, Guts of the shoulder, The mow; The furrowed face, The covered ears, The ploughshare, The open eyes, When this, last, Rent the moonlight. The cataract? The cataract, Where this, last, Rested the moonlight; Where the damson-red Flames against the moon, Where the dead flesh, white And the hair, Like a whirl of wind Of this, last, Rested the moonlight. Would I had been there That day! Would I again Listened to the talk, When this last, Rested the moonlight? 'Twould have been an easier path, If that had been the trip. How fall'n we, For the pleasure of it? Could we have caught All the story, From the ploughing, All the moan, From the ploughing? 'Gainst the lark, Only for a night! Dream of small plains, Dream of narrow streams, Darkened to chasms, Down which the thunder Sparkles in his cave! What was the colour Of the hills to us, When, last night, we loitered Into the blaze? Youth, of course, was there; And the night, full of promise, Made the mingled magics Of us three, four times three! If we dream of hills, Full of vistas, Full of blue vaults, Full of leaping ferns, With thin ice-filtering stars Flinging from fern to fern, We are dreaming. Where we were dreaming, The world will know us As we knew it then; Just as our dreaming Remembers life and days When it was strange. If we shiver, Feels with bare skin, Follow the sound, Follow the pinion, Leave the secret unguessed, Moths feed upon the chestnut ======================================== SAMPLE 270 ======================================== understanding that The King Reigning is not to Make a Man, And until one can No-Kail! Move a little faster, O, Ma'am! <|endoftext|> Three little rabbits, Three little rabbits, Never knew the woodcock's song; Travelled no far, Trekked no far, Basked in their mothers' oaks. Three little rabbits, Three little rabbits, Never knew the woods for fennocks, For nest and den they found; Three little rabbits, Three little rabbits, Dunts, Dunts, Dunts, Doon, Three little rabbits, Never knew the dung of rascal bears, For home they came. Three little rabbits, Three little rabbits, Never knew the thorns and briars, For home they came; Three little rabbits, Three little rabbits, Never knew the mire of river, For home they came; Three little rabbits, Three little rabbits, Never knew the mice or frogs, For home they came. Doon, dae them rowin', Dae them braw, Four little rabbits, Four little rabbits, Four little dung-, Four little rabbits, Dunts, dunts, doons, Dunts, dunts, Dunts, dunts, dales, Never did Dunts, Dunts, Dunts, Never knew the sodden Never did Dunts, Dunts, Weel, then for me an' my ma a' Hev settled down a long, long year, An' three days ago wud be my ma's; Hev never coppit her, Hev never coppit his ma; Hev a' the charms, Hev oot the charms, Yet home he ever duckit, Du thought he'd pockit ma, Ef he could not do it, 'Twad not be coppit, He'd not coppit ma; He just arrived, T'undered he jumped o' a singin', T'undered he jumped o' a singin', An' awsee how ma sat an' stared, How ma sat an' stared, An' glins o' home at gallery-level Taught the beaute o' ma a' To me, an' me, To me, an' me; Me an' my ma, Wearyfu' folk, Heavily tuk our hame Sat up the day Sat up the day, The bud agen got here, Sat up the day, Uncousin' us to wed, Wee bit me like neeghbour's daughter, An' he cried "Ma" like he allus ne'er to answer, Wiv the tear o' my mare's eyes; But he pet me, An' told me how ma coomined him, An' sat an' tilted his chair To shew ma all he wud be; An' if ma went agen he coomitted, An' saddled with her assent, An' into me ma stumbled, But ma heant an' ma they both lagged, An' ma from us while he wasn't weitin' On ma's neebor's knee; Ma an' me coomised again, But him she ever feterit neear Ma heerd mich be An' Ma heantyin' under our neckar Ma beasit he were, An' Ma wair't tho at to lee, An' Ma heantyin' as it was, Ma thinks he's courted to death, Ma could no pate an' courted us while he was Ma heeah to see. So he he bepelled ma, An' ma heea mad an' deid, An' Ma hewer an' der dee, An' fornt to coom a' man, An' ma, Ma an' me heer, Ma hit him everfo' to death, An' micht be ma for to dye; Ma foond ma ender beyon, Ma foond ma ender bone, Ma foond ma soul, An' ma, ma ma too hee hee hee An' mich sheeeh wi' ma suon Ma waight an' ma telle moan Ma soul, Ma an' me etta laigh, An' hit de hoo, me toom, D ======================================== SAMPLE 271 ======================================== Never yet was alive to Troy a more royal sight Than he who sate his head, enthroned on gold, In the Aegaean palace of his brothers crowned With unlimited wealth of light. But all the while There rose a sweeter musick in the Trivia's home Within her tower, where Apollonius, a righteous man, In humble home, yet kept the laws which God hath knit To silence and to good behaviour. And as the Sun This day when he hath conquered day and night, abides At the heart of the wide Heaven, quenching the fires of Hell, For so the God of day desired of LUCIFER. God of the after-third! 'twas an evil hour For Prince Admetus, beholding the goodly offerings: Yea, fowls of Heaven cried and flew to Bacchus' gift. There be young men who love their power more than word, A little breath well served to keep them warm and play, And without what tryal they perish utterly, Who was the god that heareth not the voice of sense? Who hear what voices utterance cannot express, Who is the wise among the nations, shall be A nurse for women, unto their care permitted One that is chaste for their charming calls, one that Spies out the fairing of the world and teacheth women How to make fine delights for the charming of men. A region disorderest in our this earthly life Be our man's world! and as a new-made baby, less Than Venus of the gorgeous age, what time he drifts And is unable to express the wealth of thought That lies concealed within his infant heart, so By gentle manners and the roots of love entertained, Beneath a court's marts strolled, young Gentle disrobed, Seen hovering round Princes in their stately walks, Young affairs, young amours, young courtiers, young Prince's and triumphs, young-eyed Princes grown so tall, Young passionately loved. But hath not the long Lovership and delights long since fled away? Wolves to the well-worn road are soon hidden away. Flesh am I flesh, and not endear the better part. O Queen, I would not have thee, my better half, So far from my embraces torn. Stay for me, As for an infant, whom not land nor sea Nor all these groups of granite shall contain, But lift thee, like my sister, to thy breast. Alas, there is no fiercer winter smote By wavering boughs than this surmounting plain Of Balaguee, where the years of rule did pass Of good King Cornelia; where the rude road, that Lay rutted and bare at the noble house (Since stripped of their spire) by right of thrall Torn from its golden hood, bore the sons of twain Of these to the Saxon salt seas, perforce. High on the peak, high on the uncrowned crest Of Teith President sat the lovers twain Wooing: and the lake afar broad shone up The limpid white peaks of those chief heights With flower-starred zoned of night, silver-sanded: While two resplendent swordsmen on the skirts Rumbled to the groans of streams that went Back to brookage and sea where evermore The crumpled wave came in, the stronger had The stronger carried long beyond the rest, Whilst the slender waiter, that seemed fain to shrink Till he seemed loth to move, to take again The strife that else had power to make him laugh, That changed into fear on joy lost and dead, Clung everywhere, and would not unfold His arms, nor ever loose, nor unbraid His tresses, till they seemed like weeds at worst To crop up slender: he that never even Spent spied the tender summer untight: Nor in the woods ever dreaming seemed In the woods to pick some melon and to pass By Terence, nor ever dreamed of changing wind The high undying [pi ra]pine, but for fear Of aught save that he seem'd to himself the time When even flowers of Beauty and whenounds of Time Exhausted; beauty was his bane, for which He knew, and beauty his disgrace--Such beauty then As to one now grown old, or rather young In manhood, when that which he was left by And made by her he needs must fill The silken hour which no ======================================== SAMPLE 272 ======================================== Any reality? —So so that, I get, we can’t open the windows, but it’s fine because when we do that wind still knocks off the hot part of the window even if we don’t notice it because it’s shaking off some other part of the window and even wind chimes are subject to that it’s been shown that by threesam if we knock our fingers off with a hammer that we live in a world where everything is no big deal and have enough volunteers to nail the barn doors shut and then go home to bed and watch a 2 minute spot on some local news and sigh and sigh and then cry and cry because it’s nothing new and nothing gives a good feeling when you have kids to look forward to and to think everything is going to be fine and to have that feel good thought comes and it’s true I’ve got some stuffy air and I’m tired — Maybe that’s a silly thing to say about the weather but, you know, it’s hot and I want to get out of the house, to feel that wind in my hair And maybe that’s why it’s raining even if it isn’t hot because, you know, the rain is catching all the cars in the driveway and changing everything I know it’s hot it’s humid here and we’re going to sweat and be drenched even though we’re in the dead dry desert and the water is the color of cactus glows in the morning and it’s going to bead to a bright pink and make the desert shine which it is hard to get right for some people so that reminds me of this little newspaper clip about the winners of this year’s Pulitzer you might have seen it on the news there was so much of it and some of it was illegible and the sentences weren’t all connected that was one of my goals this summer getting everything to fall into place just like the obituary said we should we’re public servants and that’s our job and you might say that’s our second job because you’ve worked for the Department of Interior Preservation and Development unless you live in the desert and don’t know anything about it <|endoftext|> "Town Meeting in Adali: A public hearing on the proposed Townsite (read: green space)", by Vicky Ihns [Activities, Sports & Outdoor Activities, Nature, Landscapes & Pastorals, Seas, Rivers, & Streams, Arts & Sciences, Poetry & Poets, Reading & Books] What I know: In the September issue of Adali, Pura LP appears with her friend Flora [sometimes called Fleur] on a trail in the Burra Redds. LP and Fleur are trying to escape as they hike, but learn too late. LP is new to the water. She has spent most of her time on the trail moving equestrian. But the two women have big plans. She points out the canyon carved out by the falls. After so many ponchos, how is Pura to learn about fear? At the shelter, LP asks her friend to read from a piece of paper and she does, but it is late afternoon and they have no shelter to go to. She does not feel that Pura can understand fear, but she can find the place where fear lives, where water and rock and city in the drought-heart of an arid land rise up to the surface—a moon and a drop of sea spray, a cloud and the grit of the earth—a patch of sky. There is hope and there is the stillness of a mountaintop that used to be distant, a lack of light, a dew that gave rise to the love of a life and a yearning for it to go on. <|endoftext|> "Memphis: In Her Name", by W. S. Robert [Living, Death, Sorrow & Grieving, Relationships, Pets, Religion, God & the Divine, Heroes & Patriotism] for ST. GEORGE and others When I left the horse, long after the buried flame had failed, and the vault lights dimmed in an emptiness not my own, and the night was long, I did not fear the dark nor darkness nor sadness. The unknown was silent like a person. And I thought the same air had breathed the heat and moisture of that air, whether he ======================================== SAMPLE 273 ======================================== something dreamed, washes down the corner of the corner, just an empty point on the chart. I never loved you you made me feel so beautiful, beautiful as a point on the chart. Beautiful as a point on the chart, just an empty point, washes down to a strip of sand. <|endoftext|> "The Rehearsal Band", by Joyce Borders [Living, The Body, Relationships, Gay, Lesbian, Queer, Social Commentaries, Gender & Sexuality] for Joe I can’t dance to Marvin Gaye’s “Sex..” or an office piano version of “I Feel like Lucy” (she sang it like a gospel song once). I haven’t tasted enough of either to get me hot for each again. My female and male body parts have a dark history I don’t want to relive or yet repeat. I doubt my skin will lighten as much as I’ve been cold all day. I can’t heam that my throat is like an old friend who no longer keeps in touch, though I feel worried when I hear it singing. On gay clubs, I can’t find a rhythm, can barely tease a bar, for how many years have I homedlow in sin this way? I’ve heard it all: my earliest love kit tunes weren’t written down for many years back. In the backseat of a car on the way home when I was 19, I’d imagine it, imagining what the distance between us might hold: then erase the car, not matter. I need to feel the gap between bone and lead, have it fade away, someday get to the point where I can actually hear it (nevermind that bit of music!) and still want it, want the space between me and my throat and I want the distance to go on forever. Can’t have one without the other. I want to be good at this, be a good musician who can hear himself doing it, master the art of singing: one song to the next, while the artist has his fingers working. God, how I wish I could just hear the string bend, the pit, the mute chiming and never stop, I wish my throat could keep this time. But it won’t: after all that time. At that corner in my mind where life ends and space begins, there is no beginning for me, only things all the way down the road. They run across the walls of grass to my fence to my son’s daughter’s back as they burst through there, even as my vocal chords strum to name you. I can’t have just one path for you and one for myself. The band of the road between the wayside flowers and my throat. To be alone on both sides is to be stranded. We exist together and apart, though no two people would ever think to say so. We are an enormous rectangle. On the road, I sing: you and me and Marvin Gaye and Alicia Washington. I cannot tell you who put this music in me it is a moment it is a song it is us it is all of us it is all the music of us <|endoftext|> "The Elderly Announcer", by Joyce the Modern I can only imagine the old people's surprise when they walked into the room, for an unknown reason, with slightly drooped voices and slurred speech, an air of languor, of being as if the earth below them gave way to their hearing, though they’d never before heard thunder. We heard one older person, who’d aged from this century to stone, repeating the way, across a century, that He will return and when He does, we’ll know it. What you’ve done, you’ll feel the peace of knowing when He’s here. <|endoftext|> "Dear Poetry Foundation", by Joseph Di Prisco [Living, Arts & Sciences, Poetry & Poets, Graduation] I’d like to say: thou art more likeable than the last Thou wilt remain like the last— which is to say among the trees a dash Thou art ======================================== SAMPLE 274 ======================================== whole lives of meadows and of parched plains And, under the horses' thunders, of long hate Swells up into gladness, and the wrathful seas Breed nourishment for hunger, so that on the sea Of the old cruel war the desolate land Grew up divine, and only the days and nights Were like the fitful imperishable lights Of the end of time, and like, and only Death A billow seemed that swept away in vain: I said "Such the immortal life! The life to live Where immortal lives the immortal Lord! For life I shall not suffer, and I can die no more For having lived, this immortal life Having been summoned to immortal life, and death Giving the power to die." But, again, "No, no!" said a voice that murmured in my ear, "Too long has he lived on, Lord, too long, too long, Too endless was his way: he doth not know What end shall be, he shall not die at all! For I have told him all, what grave Is for his head, what grave for thee, O, true And spotless servant of the immortal will To work eternally, Made without any spot, Made of umtereally immortal things. For these things, O Lord, I die; I shall be Immortal again; and live again for thee, And hold my hands to prophecy once more, and prophesy That He, who gave immortality, shall give Immortal life to men; he who made the world For men, shall own his gift, O, great and good! Yea, he shall grant immortal life to men." I turned, and once more did bend me over The clear-dialed chronometer, and there Did in the time-gouger calculate my life As dead; yet, having found the hours and weeks, And months, and days, and weeks, O, Lord! I did cry And praise Him; but in the place where time is meant To measure joy, I thought I should have cried I gave my life to drink a draught of joy Eternally, but now I feel so small I feared to smile. But, as I turned to look At that clear landscape round me, I saw one face, A woman whose fair forehead shone like one Of the bright stars through a shimmery sky, Bright enough to be lost in heaven, To gleam out there and be forgotten there, Like one of those sky-reflecting stars I saw Just now; and she was there, and had come With one thing in her hand. She held it up. I saw it was a book, and yet, I never Could read a word; but I knew what it said And I felt that I was looking at the words Of life eternal, and I could but meet The gaze of her—even as a double dream And I thirsted for them; and I felt I should Behold her ever, and my beauty wax So bright and comely as that shining head On that bright book; and therefore I would be Made worthy of her touch to light and live Unimpaired and inviolate. Then fell on me that taste of Eden Again, and Eve, and again the sweet Remedy of water brought in baskets; And, whispering to myself in her ear, "Behold! Thy face is back," I looked; and I had No more to say; and she had gone from me Eternally, had she left me there Estate. But I have seen her face in the light Of her immortal mouth, and I have heard The voice I heard; and I hold with me A memory of that hour, in spite of death, And of his shadows. My soul shall touch its Voice to his shadow, and be quick and kind With love that song may r