======================================== SAMPLE 1 ======================================== It is Nature, her pow'rs to trace In fields of view diff'rently spied, And with the buds of spring and nymphs be blest. In vegetation art she decked her body hight, Her softness sweated on each extremity; On the soft beak her silky word she sign'd, Or murm'ring from the throat approv'd the gust; That gives a grain a man of nourishment. Nor is it strange, if nature various be, That there are arts which nature's likeness give, As Goodley's bow arm to dispense, Or Gifford's feet, or Earle's aelop, So wide and wildly various are. By modes of art, on meat or fruit, Serv'd in one particular, we dine, Do sickness from one, and pleasure from another. Nature's state, though varied, is reason's mirror, And the less given to gay ambition By diff'rence of art, which yet reserves Enough of weight, to bend the temperate. Taste's one, by large concessions, but one, To forgive all, and that with sincere content. Good is right, and what you seek is what you get. 'Tis the mean, vain, and unworthy things, The tasks, that yield no content, the treats Of poor interactions and restrictions, That really fill the heart and never stop; That bring the sleep and crave the mess to help. Like Massen made of magic mould, or grass Grown to a elixir; the what, and the why, That shames and perplex man's wild oscillations; What from all extremes of life, and all their aspects, Are known, or could be known to man, and known and done; Worn, spent, burned out, old, new, tame, and thorny: Thus 'tis the common lot and occasion of The various gifts and labours of life, I grant, in olden time, to angels watching high, These she gives; but they with cold, calm eyes could see Her faults, her vices, in a glance; while we, In that foul air her failings rose and shames; Even as the sick servant in his master's hall, Who saw the chimney-corner turning, could not view The chimney's flames, nor smell the burning com. The censors on the prophets, and diviners old, In the dark atom of their chestecque annihilated; And their cold stones could show and spell, with the lightning's flash, Where burns the hermetical Cuthite, Bred in the fires of lamprey and of arsenical smutch, With moly and myght, what private unhonours there are, Sheds abundant blessing; but no bless'd man's focusing Light on man; for God, according to his word, Has made us simple, and considered us but mice, And given us angels for guardians, like the showers of the blue Or last, when liberty began her royal reign, With sceptred hand, and royal honours on her brow, She poured her words, and liberty her honour spread. As when two blasts, atward drawn from deeps like thunder, Smite unsuspecting minds, and are not seldome shaken; But, wheresoe'er in womb or choirs they conspired, They smash, and rent the valour of the young enchanter, Smoothers and thuranders, lest none err'd in the fire, Or quencht in the struggle of their arts, they stoop, and come, Asleep, to dance in Eden's groves or wander Africaine, And might have made perverts of Titan, and Mercury, But that God's pity shielded Arthur, and denied Passionate of crusading knights, at that heresies Of wandering musicians, who on Israel's path, Had strayed and ended there, so that one scarcely Pursued the other; this is innocence, O ye saints, For free bearers of your warrants 'tis your boast Your forebears were unreluctant, and imputed This guilt, alien to the bond of natural love. An Indian tale, though much suspect in springs A novelty, that, with a sprightlier accord, Hears Michael's success, though seen with scruples not, Though 't were heard by few; whence, ten to one, This victor, upon his buckler blue, Distrusts the Christian's sword, which is white, And claims the weapon clear. ======================================== SAMPLE 2 ======================================== serious morning paper so if you ask where I live it won't be a surprise a road into a field that sings but soon forgot to apologize the alligator-pond by the lake at the edge of town I follow my ear stuck in its ear battleship hands in a blue void there is no place I love more than now the waterfront in its dock-heights a walk from the Sub to the bridge where I board a slower moving train of natives from China where the clouds are made from my breath my body's apparent statement water's a phantasmagoria for my wife when the stranger train arrives it bows a hacienda in your honor then winds its way around you a barrier of notes <|endoftext|> "The First Flew", by Grace Cavalieri For my ninth month, I traveled by train from one side of the country to the other. I was feeling down and decided to fly instead of taking the subcompact. I had never taken off my clothes or been inside the airless vehicle. I was worried I would get some kind of stupid injuries or be killed but I was anxious, glad and ecstatic to be there in a bullet-like plane. No fumesticks! The plane looked like a giant toilet stall I saw as I shook my fist in the face of its black and white shiny body. They always open the doors for me, I tell them I'm full of butterflies, to their amazement. <|endoftext|> "Small Pox", by Norma Cole [The Body, The Mind, Nature, Social Commentaries] I forget what I was thinking of the time I went to the fair with a pink feather quill in my hair and the shade of kind of green and the level of moon. You get a thought, you get a jump On life, you get that hangover, you don't forget—O my God! Well, here's your jit—the ink, the blues, the talents you have: strike up, be jittery, be chumpy If you keep a day-book close to you There's bound to be times when you think you'd rather be doing that There's so much misery in your life— entering grade school and still I'm getting good with the quill— entering kindergarten and there's still more Kindergarten's endless screaming and in elementary school a Ting ting What is everybody laughing at you and what is laughing that grows underground That life throws at you could be an ache, a tiny drop of gibbous, a tiny bead of warm water, a dime-store object of rank and title and romance— and sitting there staring back at you is death. To start a sentence with "a wonderful, wonderful, ..." That's the shame of men: they jump on before anyone has said a thing they already are jumping on, jumping up and down. A little death goes a long way and some is good for everybody. A little premature maybe, some are too quick and more is Talking about my face and where I'm from I did think I was asleep. I don't remember dreaming. But was this girl our second class president and did we ever win a club pie? An earnest philosophical discussion led to an odious discussion: the boy who filled our low small school division had never heard of spring, had never seen an spring plant nor even any spring plants, Had never even seen a ship sailing the world around the world on the dark sea— sail through the smoke of what, o the half-named one with wonder, is left to pull us through this life. And if I'd ever loved you, oh boy who read all of Cassandra, I'd be blister on your hand. There's not much of Theban or there's not much of the zone but if you're brave enough you should read up on the Therenee. And if you have ever had one thought in your mind, about, about, you ever have said it to youself or to another take care of another, O if you ever find yourself on a bus or walk in the park with a friend, take care of your eardrums, take the time to think of the next time you'll feel self-conscious about your hat and your bow tie or what you're saying about your ======================================== SAMPLE 3 ======================================== After him the young combatants rush, And young of beauty the fair Rose lead, The fifth, and last, to fight in these remaining rows. Next twenty shields in order are Chalked with ages, and in figured plays The picture looks glad and meditative; The fable's feet they tread, and attend, For ever wanders an invisible host Who down the serpent walks, and all the beasts along. The wonted images of arms proceed, The bows and slings begin; the strokes begin, The leaps and charges; the images grand Of war in cowering hedges turn, And gathering bliss send on the breezy quires. The place of combat is a wheat field left; A bit of red and white and green defy That beauty to give nature's loveliness. To be whole and entire, but still whole To the taste of the beholder; Never, as was the water, a fence In hailing too briskly it flowed; And though some rough places were here, The gladness of it was enough to lave. The fairest and coldest from each hand The blossom and the fruit take, nor is this all, For there is from the balm that made them there Enough to wrap the lover and spoil them too. And then, O in such manner as the stream At spring-tides takes the fillings from the palms, In short-charge there the troop on the mountain throws. A great heritage in wisdom yields, O fair wall and fair ship to encreas the measure; And while the burden was lifted up, And though all wasteness was spoiled on the spot, O for that was more than any one thing was done Against the craven Ind den to be flung, That young Abel and the Prophet Zechariah called Upon their task and took the whole, with ease! Though when the youth flings salt against the raven's nest, The slack is still in the sail and glee is high, There is not breath enough to spare the feather, Nor will the storm break with enough of eidle To fry the care that clings about the ship. The spirits will hold their counsel till the day, And yet is the bargain hard, and the cliff to leap. For the spirit is used in the old cast, And the fox in his stubbornness, and is new In the court of the lion as in the boar's cover; While the passion canny canny is hard and tough; And must be so, or he runs the danger of being shirked: But some get along sure and well at the first dash, And use good business and great scorn in their way. The precept it has; in time and temper both instructed, The craving aye to be satisfied: For he lies the limb far from the bone, that is To pleasure the merchant in court or the hall, With heeding more of present than of future, The miser who is traveling than dining. Sometimes in singing we hear a good Songs that are not seasons of themselves, But out of some other life and more wise, Which makes a mass of wisdom, rather, than song. And as only happens to those who dare, Nor to the few who never hope nor sing, The one and the plain and common one Is never remembered next but by the song, Which seems to be but the rustling of the rain, The general feather of the winds in the day, The birds of the sky, and the waters' fall, Which are the country and purpose of song. It fills the gap that has been long forgot, It is bright as a gold-cross in the rain, And it bids the welkin go mad with light And with peace, and with omnific cheer It bids think hell to fill with forest and sail To fill with noise and portent, while the tree Breaks from its carrier, for the songs are sage, And well they fall on for earliest sound And sweetest meaning of the langour and wind, As the cuckoo to the maiden's dream. And this is the reason that songs will ever move Those to whose ears is are natural, and come Not as some surmise and some tinkling report, But as fresh and as new the laps are blown, And fresh as the grass when it is first felt. For songs, O sing to your number, be not sparse, And the full lull that we know in the grey days, and the grey of the low eblogtgèn. The wattle shells, their tread so gentle and sweet, ======================================== SAMPLE 4 ======================================== Birds, again. “Unhappy they!” I cried. A man got splattered Shrapnel through his eyebrows. How to wash hair Heads unbraced, House of air, Door to door Eyes and ears Out the window Rings and roar. * * * This is the place of ash, the heart You were close to loving, the iron Thick in the skin of plums, And the heat on your tongue and the dirt Lives of spiders. Out the window the sun Flares and pokes its tongue. And the roar of bikers Fills the heat, and I breathe it in. And I forget. And I am reminded. Shrapnel is everywhere. Germline, maternal, and the rest Are all (my pigeon Chesters again) Telling me: This makes more noise. That is the noise You heard in the sound of the skin, The spasms of the kale, The scraps of flesh you lugged Into this life, While I drifted. If you were there, I'd have heard you. We will leave it as it is. We will not go back. Just go from here. <|endoftext|> "On Being a Stranger in Naff (Poetry & Poets)", by Diane Kharlie [Living, The Body, Nature, Animals, Stars, Planets, Heavens, Arts & Sciences, Sciences, Social Commentaries, Cities & Urban Life] One does not become a thing to grub beneath its path but one makes preparation and miles of garden land split lengthwise like a road, city planning, architecture, making exoduses, gateway events to places with various intensities of light that await you like those long unsaid things occurring in sleep and medicine and fate and white windless days the milky way bright celestial rosettes the unfathomable ambrosial park of Westworld where Yashka and Etta map the perimeter, angels mounting and dropping a granular map of lights from which they pick their chosen atoms to construct their form, new world and one anodyis for all, product of being mappers′ heavy bodily manipulation in order to pick the kale from the rough, to harvest from a spectral farm that is born in water to seem like an immaterial landscape already in the making, after the fact, say one mounts the stairs to the roof of this moment,  which one? I say the one who had to go down it. The one who took it.  Because going back is not possible, stay single, cis-gender, never remembers her/himself as such, walking in the present. Its various details drawn from one's own life: garden sun, the voices of children, the stairs, my two books, time, the big waves of other bodies, purgatory and the stars we make. <|endoftext|> "from Omen while Dying, in the Nonos, of June 1967", by Diane Sexton [Living, Death, Relationships, Family & Ancestors, Nature, Summer, Social Commentaries, Gender & Sexuality] for Gertrude Ebert Omar, this letter, coming from you Omar, this August sunset, O Omar, this message, I write you, O my own, O my soul, I knew you were here. I knew a place was here. I knew this soul, O Omar, I knew it wasn't real, but the line of the lines it's real, it's all true. From the first, I knew, Omar, something of who I am, was here, but I didn't know you were here. I knew, Omar, a moment, and then I didn't. To think that you are gone, O Omar, is to know the only proper way to die Omar, is when one has long and long thought Omar, it's not this way, this is not death Omar, so extreme and pure, this is not the death of us, O this is only home. There was so much oresata on the face of the other person that I could not go on. They had his murder made perfect, but all the trouble was, Omar, when you were killed, you lived, I mean it's not this, ======================================== SAMPLE 5 ======================================== 'It's always been so. Not what I did but what I heard What others did and said or failed to say, Where and how and what and who.' No one in his accounts of life ever invents a new book. Time for ever changes the mind, Mind changes the mind, and so, the best he will print The old gold of his time. Will print it now. "We are not different kinds of men. We are all human beings struggling in the world with our own power The noble, generous, and the brave, Ours in the soul from infancy; and as we grow older, We seek for a higher pitch and vie With those who are higher still. To prove it let me read The present truth in this living truth." "'We must not hesitate to say Any deeper feeling of the heart In time and language meets our view, As through the morn we cleave to sleep, Or as the gods who look upon the sun. But hold your own peace whomsoever you meet, And if you win, hold him who best may conquer, And cleave to truth. Every one who stands alone Converts to some brother who is stronger, Or is the stronger still.' A man that is high in your society, I may or I may not act in accord With the same motives, dispositions, and views. I am a lover and nothing more, Or I may be, and therefore shall be public. Take heed to this. A word and use of an image May be forgiven and withdrew. For what is said Is known to be our only power. In danger of wrongs Or in danger of ourselves through jealousy, I may be moved to break a word long copiously Writ with Quattrone. Again and yet again If any shall insinuate and urge the case, Let your excuse be thus: The accusation has neither hurt nor fear, Nor has the times of just confidence given excusance.' "Be prompt to give in your consent, and use All due expedients to compel them hence. The houses of the ancient, place of seats, Are fast disappearing and dwindling fast, Leaving outposts of themselves behind, And even their names are passing. But further still Their use in the fabric is gradually ceasing, And we are moving from a country of ruins, A waste of old iron and ruins, And stone coverts, like piled upProfessions, or some large ship Coverted with bark, and stored with men. We have no use for the long held out shore, Its old positions or its old stations, And so far off, where is no prying Through the may through haze of danger sees it. Its storied past and mor heights are empty, And far, where is the place of all its being. But sit down and take them up again. And listen to the bell over the yonder tower Or the signal, the lost opportunity Of the time when the slaver's engine reared Its ponderous boom, And a passenger afloat, a tramp; Or the roadstead over which A drifter, half drunk, his loads carried, Drew up his few threads And climbed the mountain. Not otherwise Is the ebb and flow of men and things. There is an army of them and of them There are departments, and they keep their accounts Through a variety of channels; And we make them freely use the night. Some men in league with kings and mobs Be patient, and do come off hardly at all. Others, promoted through the circuit, Have the walls cut through, and to others are given Uncovered entrances, and the fronts of points, And the doors are all barred up, and the buildings Uplifted in their folds, to make them stable In genial weather, more fit for final digs. "That first of all our shipwrecks we chart And note down with careful notes. Men Do their departure in several ways, Some safe, some not so safe. A few of us had guns, and each gun Had a keeper, while the decks they cleared, And the deckle stalked, the main deck heeled up, To a waterline that was fifty feet up. We had the strength to stand the unendearing Play of two big teeth, and climb out again, And swim off, to heaven, for breathing space. But even so, the water and air were gashed up, And half the ship is submerged half above it. "A large man was poor Jack Newbroak, A ======================================== SAMPLE 6 ======================================== By Zebedee's youngest child, a grandson of the morning's child. Like words of goddess Amaryllis pale Upon the pure airs of sounds now flown, On the warm air of summer dusk and dawn, Diana's voice, to thy deep bosom stirred, On rosy wing from thy ecstasy's thrall, It stirs to beauty like to summer flowers, When each dew-drop, glittering from its source, swims clear On wings from the ripe hour's heart for ever dear. Or clasping hands with Spring; With Summer's breath The earth a perfect place to breathe and range; With Winter's wanton feet Stiffening all to shape and measure sweet The serpent's stroke, whose throat that is, Whom love oft bequeaths to tuteliness, And bondage's chains For ever bound. But thee, O feng shui, I love thee still; When all of life Fails one pure elixir's quest, Of soul and body made one; And pain and pleasure tamed To gentleness,--and very mild, --To thee. Never so wild-witted in the world's stern, Never so sad a poet of a king, Never so sad the moan of a tear, I sighed and sobbed When Yehuda brought the story of his fall. Beneath the date of his sorrow Ya'arim says it was not vain: He hung there in the twilight drear, The Dark Prince, lamenting his past's rule. "And in my sleep I wept when I learned That I should lose my King,-- Dear life and man, that from my arm The Evil one should come and fall; The man I loved, and had confidence in, Of my poor courage and fondness--died." One of the threads which the Maacrobian sends Is this, that Israel's youth were both preserved and given To go in heaps each to his fellow; the last, Staining the patterns and vesture of the first; Nor did the Sanhedrin spare to weep When their youth fell by hands of stranger than a King. "I was the great Sanhedrim of Israel, Which was at first a fringe of a single spear, Wide open on the face of the world. Thus in my soul I watched the tide of our wars, And knew me wraught of the world, as a map, I knew me and I knew Israel." What a memory That single life in the things of the world, When all the fires of Hell and general drizzle Are set by His own fingers and the fever's touch! When the soul rests in a trance the which Him awakes, And drops him in time that he feels is endless, The time to sing hath found him, and the time to weep It is, and the twang hath found him and the swoon, And the hope laid up in the nightingale's shade, And the better thought and the fear in the bloom, That haply within a disheveled shirt May shine;-- Oh, that it is so! What strings of phrases to a monarch may mean When God is worshipped at sole, or in twain, or three; When His divinity a country's pride And purpose yield, whose eyes "Awake, O nation!" Are more than all the chattering diction And phrases that in-nense brecklers repeat, When scowling craft and facts of a fineless Mudran With polishing raiment might take specimen! How nobly owe their glory to that man! Who, in the furnace of ages a workman, Did at his duty, and for it wholely, Though he strove with dearly-bought victory To choke two it Edition: current; Page: [xxiii] not confutes His body, but the spirit raised, to doubt and foil A relapse the selfsame way, for so it worked; And shall that power and excellence hold those As forked lamina untuned in false discipline? They to be just are not deluded ones, the state Reflects duty;—she hath not reason that believes Her power is great because she acts, which acts, But because the deed doneed is great. Oftsooth, That deed is great which the will lifted as such By kindly State itself in him that wills it. Shall every drop of Jeezer's horn be meant? In fear lest Edition: current; Page: [xxv] Edition: current; Page: [xx ======================================== SAMPLE 7 ======================================== Zabrazúa thinks in this fashion he shall win Ráma's consort, nor remain undone. And Ráma's son with Ráma borne From Daśaratha's side has reached his own City in the lands which birds abhor. Then, trusting all to Ráma, in his heart Gave the glorious invitation. But as he in the Bráhman's hall Him kept in honour, and his love, He, blinded by rash desire, espies Where his love's lord abode and lay Makched with the good and wise— For often he could hear the words Of the holy serpents, bright of eye, Resounding in the council-room. Thus in the woods the Bráhmans burned Theri Muchi, that the king might lead The hermitage his son possessed, And said: "Great Hermit, by the grace Of thy great father vouchsafed Strive to keep him from danger, pack With thy own warriors to his side. Thou, best of men, above these here, His lordly life defend. And, O thou holy sage, I think To great Daśaratha's town, lead then Thy own ascetic son to lead For safe and glad absolution, though Him to confess his sin should call And high Praughda too and thus Pronounce the Bráhman impure." "It is well," the hermit made answer, "I the noblest of men am, In power and might equal sent." Then, like the earth before the blast Of the tempest, from his breast He threw the hand in air, and rose And went in scorn and anger away. And soon his toils at one blow reduced To working of the power of all Creatures of earth or elf or man, For all men labor, day and night, Even I alone of ye Have health for ever and a day. This is the Lord of thunder, this, This is Kum. This is the Great Sage, Who, breathing forth in fragrant line From the city's gates bright-robed, Is ever present to declare The form and measure of all soul. For he that has nothing here Of his heavenly form, but dreams Illusions false as it plies, May sleep secure: come he or bark, Or lightning, in the distance wall; His soul he knows is form and shadow. How then will you, that possess The truth eternal, gaze and see The God beyond the dreaming, known? His form on your own bosom drawn Hangs for a moment as you breathe. Oh! be content and look and see The soul through all its bodies swim Beneath Him, who assumes a fleshly form To take delight in, long since by me The astray faculties returned. You here can bear an eternal form On your own energies live and move, And, throughout, each limb, each sense be true. Krishna calls him from the wild, and bids That Bráhman meditate with care, Whose aged forehead, gray and white Like the young moon, is full of thought. Then he, he said to Ráma, spake, Then he, with torch in hand he came His legs and arms entangled with books. As in the deep blue ocean plunged Like a mass of crystal scum, The mass moved round on south and north, Slowly the rocks it showed and moved. Karma-Lord, whose heaven with minstrelsy glowed, Here 'mid the forests Ráma sought To see that pillar of his land. Oh, how his spirit was stirred, what he In all his face of tenderness delighted, Till, as the night of clouds, that played The god, in front he drew his throne. The maid and king were there to see, they saw, For well he knewed both their form and face. All eyes were trained on him: but he, the while, Could but but his own reputation claim. He held the doors, he checked their glee, He checked the joy of maiden necks, And stayed the soft-straining of glad breasts. Withlaid were not the two, the eyes On soothe one another: how could come To mutual understanding, how Could he, if blame should be his part, Dare to say that kindling was by sight? How could he look upon the face he loved And smote herself with transports faint Because she changed not for him ======================================== SAMPLE 8 ======================================== Behind them, swiftly building in swift sensuous hollows, he sank so swift That earth was shaken and the cliffs rang aloud. The din of that single shock was a tempest of warring Swift-approaching armies. Driven back, a moment more A miracle was wrought that no man could trace In stone, in dark or chant, From that huge shock. Then, on its barren edge, There came the calm, And hid its face for a moment and then glowed in a rush Of shapely tendrils; Then, as though she could not know That it had ever been, The radiance of her own fair face Was lost in blind, white pomp The smile grew wide, the light passed out, The silence muffled like a loud sea. With my thimble for a staff, a quiet fellow life began; And though I labour ever to the day of distress I did not dread that ill would succeed, For I made my own simple music. With a hammer's turn and a plumber's blur, with a janitor's job, My music all the living did not death prevent. And I'll tell you the secret of all our success. Our music; when once content the matter began, There our last hope was found. We only had to to watch the door a moment and people, And then we were in. But none can go home to their old music if once he's off duty, So all are on the go, Searching in vain for what they come upon. What is the secret of our winning? And what is "searching," To which all look desperately? It is to persevere until you're given the key, At any cost, to find that "it isn't so." It is to hang on ever so long Until you hear the bell toll for you, And find you are never quite free. It is to remain in your purpose through thick and thin, While keeping your mouth the eternal closed, And to go mad in the search; And to perish by your labours and your debts, And to feel that you'll not pay. You must go mad in your search; And if you fail in the end, It's a failure like nothing else. What is the secret of our success? The prize itself must government prove That is won by our joint endeavour. The "it" of our game. We set it! It is not a government we fought for, Nor worked for, nor meddled for, But ours alone. Why do they call us not "common" folk? And what do we stand for? They stand for ten. We fifty. We are right. We are strong. He's no poet. All his songs are leftovers. He is all covered with cheats, His language is English only. He never writes a line in Chaucer's key, And yet there's many a line in Chaucer's rhyme. His melody is rather difficult, And close attention wears thin. He writes bountifully but fain would not, And as a lover of better health Proves wholly against all burdens. There's little charm in his tale, His plot is capricious and unchaste; His humour is sombre and profound; His morality none can appreciate. And that's saying something! There is nought in art (this he denies) That may not apply to Robert Burns. When by and by she yields, When by and by she yields, She giveth up her nook For an allotment to man's convenience. The keys are given, The lonely dame's booth Is opened wide and spread In all her branches bright Of lace and of silver. The solitary wag is seized By nurses in their care, And, and made ornaments And a new pride, She is all over beauty, And 't is joy to see her. And when their time is through, When by and by they yield, They take the book of their crime, And, roundly branded, On Timbuct's grave they fall. The keys are given, The deserted dame Is let down, and, lo, There is a night, when all must give Their lives; There is a final moment, There comes a last breath; And in that hour, As God's wheeling thunder fills The universal world, There falls the key Of Nature's Barnacle-cave. There, in the dark, as if with hand Creeping ======================================== SAMPLE 9 ======================================== Chant me a song of the temple, a hymn, A mystic song, a hymn to the god, Came in the waves of the blue Virgin; I broke to it wild grapes of the Sun, That poured from the Sun his light before, Stilled through the fruit a golden sound. There sang I aloud, kneeling with stars; I sang to the Sun, and to the god, What songs make them, and what dreams make Light fill the fruit in Eden now, As then in the chant of the temple? I wonder, though the gentle spring will know What things the stars fill with delight On the foggy ways of this mirk den, Where wandering stars pour light at the door, Here, through the leafy briar, I love To sit and pray for us and land, How came they hence--they bring not joy? And wherefore are the fruits so sad? The groves are dumb, the leaves are mute, And dost thou here thy singing? what, my friend, Sweetly with thee would hushed be my world! Speak, listening to my moan! I lie In front of the open, with Mylah Bending to listen." "The groves are mute and dumb," Yann said; "Look, to your island-palace. Are they mute To hear a song of birds that peck and pass, A song that of yandre sounds like a fate, A song of the sanctuary, of God's name? They have no knowledge of what you sing, How sweet, how mournful, what to teach From the light's perfection and perfection's mate; To what a pitch man's brain will reach, what point Is heaven--and what hell. Man's knowledge is not Part of God's: a point of his knowledge springs Where yower than air, than water his voice; They are dumb, in the temple of the stars. Not so that ears may know, what you should hear. Deeper is not than those depths; nor fools, More stupid than the parrots, from their shell. Speaks my bird?" The sea, the rock, the earth Were better tongues for men to curse. "The groves are dark, the oak more so, Not as doom'd, but as foretasted, death; And the taint in every bough hinders the birth Of the tamer smoke that brings his bird Out of the shrubs and swarms and breathes Nature's most potent secret to new births. If birds have flight not then they are not fleet, Nor so in bringing of themselves away, Nor use the power the more to help themselves. Thou art as good a candidate for heaven As any other being here, but able better now Thou haply wilt than thou hast yet in full to weep, Pour thy tears and worst among the rest, With that loud cry that wrought nothing wrong, And that long dead, to awake the ancient pain And, as birds will, fold wing, and sing in the air. Yea, 'so to sing as birds of their singing, Over and over shall make it less, For the song-birds have a fated song That one may, if truly hearing it, Heare ten, if he be not sick, nor kill. See how a manly voice lifts stronger His song into nobler time Which, as a musician, did in part Give charge to woman's breast That her touch was healer of his wound; And, as the chorister, his song to heal, Shows all the pain and sickness in one By the strength of his own hest, and moves The group in light among their leader. So, when a little brook with living rill, Ris't from the ground, and ran deep in every shape, Made even the stars to quaff its water so The scattered stars show'd up his magic to me, Again, as a peddler, well spent, reappears, Rises to rise, and proud of his worthiness Lends to a mountain rise the spring again. So when the Bard, and the Language he spake, Did from his tongue and from his lyre set free A mightied Race, was known to general love; A lovely and a powerful flooding down Came through the parted portholes of the sea; That mighty pebbled rock, that our side of it, The earnest batterer, who to every Thing Learns things from Memory, lives in heart and tongue, In-dysent, and loves them for their own, ======================================== SAMPLE 10 ======================================== Police and new-hooled doctors! it is suspicuous how a man just twenty-three can testify in court as to the odds that, come shoot-out day, he is going to perish, yet by a studious cravenant of omerta drops dead anyway, just in time to see the jest be up. And only last night, I chanced to listen to some village elects officer, one Krol, as he bemoaned his hoof-grinding co-mates undressed as the corpses, or their decomposing flesh to the bog-swept ditch, shouted out coolly, "Shoot!" turning on his heel, he seemed to ache for, all alone, a human bunker, a human dam, and some living in a town where no one else ever sees them, unless he sees them first through even the smallest paling light in the far-off dawn, in a well-opened trap that up at midnight crawled with serpent-toothed night, and which, when their inhabitants crept in with the spring moon between <|endoftext|> "Poems Written with an Egg Corrupting Cyanide", by Edward Thomas [Activities, Eating & Drinking, Nature] I wonder what it is they see when they go to the siftingtonie those brown flour dust-pute tar-blue grays don't do the trick to pick up as in color the grays this onness my blue nectar from the mountain straying over grayed out quadratic multivariate of gummy line the words it grays so it it grays again on into grays —I imagine grit as a gray or gray-white gray the grays it has the hue —in meaning I deal the grays the meaning the grays its deep grans with meaning— I don't go to siftingtonie I go to the poppies in vats of resin of beautiful grays I go to poppies the white grays white grays white grays— some heaves dark but the color darkens to white grays this visual noise the dregs of the resin canker burn I do not go to the siftingtonie I go to the grape presses themselves foul them transpute them <|endoftext|> "Siren", by Henry David Thoreau [Relationships, Men & Women] Woman You are always singing at me! Pushing and yelling and struggling to get me to listen to you! Yet what sacred thing are you telling? Surely I know the whole story— your childhood, your youth, the nest of liars you grew over—yet you whisper in your mother's voice; still you stand so many voices, all of the worlds' squalling over my head-strong boy; still, you creep and follow my child's soul and body, not my own; you hurt me into healing, yet all I need to see is word by word, you have out-medaled me some vast thing; yet it is you not the thing that gives me most trouble, yet you are still the irritating herald of all that unfinished business of the world, the pulsing onward and onward of the pressure to be done! Yet if I let you go you will be— see, Mother, you have not stayed, there is no way— un-wed, un-wifeable! a lily, a rose enticing the world with grace, yet you want to go, leave me the unforgetful meal, scatter the crumbs, scatter the crumbs everywhere, unyoke the day-dew from my loins, unbound the day-flow, refrain from creation; so I let you go. Un-wedded, my thoughts run riot among the irreconcilable, lily and rose; a son, a son, the blemisher of creation, ah, the love, the very love of it, to cleave with iron quivering every atom, every last moving thing; a rose, a lily, ill-meaningly given, a stain, a thorn, a nightingale, ungratefully given! <|endoftext|> "Rigrpomment", by Henry David Thoau [Relationships ======================================== SAMPLE 11 ======================================== "And our feeble pow'rs are despised, "You rouse our brethren to risque." Echoed each cypher-soul where light, "Frot' in Cumon' is kenn'd," they sang, "For few athors the strong, "They hev lamb'd with bows between, "And hoss'd them in the strands." The starry music lent them aid, And every land around Moved as the inton'd shades grew purer, And in the soften'd hour When souls are most akin, They wak'd the spirit of To the secret love that hid 'Mungrill's flay'd stream; "There be little space, "Where light long hid, now breaks in, "What once so great can now be nothing." The Vulture could not covet More than his own sad rookery; In the span of life where he reigns All his pride is in the gravest. The halls of Solomon Had but a bed, and a little room Where death must enter with the night. For Moers the sceptre comes, A little while they paused thereat; "A MULHOLE!" Again their trusty cry: "There's nothin' more sure than that; "They that reach the head "He kenned in glory, "A flat serf they'll all be to make. "A hell of a load of wo "To day we mourn for among us is "For all that's precious sure "Such as must most be forgot, "As if now it were but a name." From dust then form the casket he, But naught am I, May I not claim The chain, or the clasp, I wot, Of him who spells my name. The owl that hooted at dawn To be awak'd at dawn, the wren That pined for the morn upon The window-sweeper, chimney, crane, The toad that digs the grass, the toad That lingers at the expiring fire, They all were at one in the tbo case Of rank aud dignity; They'll follow'd the barber When he moves on in pomp from one seat To a higher: We'll note his entry, Our hearts to declare it true, When fortune smiles or if we 'werve, There'll be some blind demagogue A-proching the air; And how will ye stand, for or against, If Ne'er helps to the private case? And he that feels for the whole shall see, In a vale of blind we've a vision clear; That we owed, that friends were plead in his aid, And Ne'er made to turn aside. What his cause would have been, what we felt, It far expell'll the present foul day; Then Dick will tell In what readiness we are to bear with him; And we'll talk of Scotland's crown, And sponsor him, may it be for a time, For others, apraised be in age or middle ways, And ever to come to be in! Nay, he that speechless doth not speak Shall hear his epitaph, We'll trust, in Ever's tide, The worthy of Low [see note: e.g. E.D.] That's one of our own tribe. "Johnnie on Jack!" She said, but Johnnie on her list, Then started a-well Till the child that clung to Johnnie's left Just whisper'd "Lucky the son! "Lucky the son! "Lucky the father! Such things they said; but no one vouchsafed How Johnnie on her fingers, Johnnie on her hand, Was Clasp-All-Through to her trust that person on the whole. "Not ill-luck'd;" she said, but nothing more; And though in life's total sum to add There was ne'er a friend or child less prone Than Johnnie, in her faithlessness, to tear her wing She's one of his, and of his here a child, He dead and yet she alive-- Her only guardian a heart-broken baby, She, alone, herself, her child. This is her story; Johnnie, the child to Johnnie's child. Lucky the child, lucky the mother! What should we gather to attribute To folk with wishes that might be lucky? Poor Jack Kelso by Mallowna came; Saw ======================================== SAMPLE 12 ======================================== She said, “Come meet me here, Sir Francis,” (I wondered what the lady meant by that) And the gallant knight said, “The then,” And they went forth together hand in hand, And reached the tall stately dwelling place, Where stood a stately cottage hard by, Like a stately queen who dowits With a royal fear The wiles of fortune. She placed a pouch with her hand A glove, and arose, And twirled her glove, And from the cottage she flew, To the lady's at ev'ry whiel, As a hungry bird flies, With her beaded eyes And smooth lily cheeks, And pearl-white hand, Bearing presents. As when a regal host, Rich in prospect, on his stately seat An excellent prospect hills o'er Trophylax, At Admiralty, or the More's Nest, would sit, Yet his principal honour lies In a kilt he doffs, As blood must to the Pope justly prove, Or scorn of women with their wand'ring Coates, A cash-diversion to obtain. Then, to avoid all distrust, All fears of treason 'gainst a like humour, She would my Lord Creelman tick, And in the woocel with that money cast, Which on your curst recreant Was in the said kilt. Then after all were quite contented; At his Queer that touched, He maund and revenge all, As that Royal auld wife would certainly say, The good man also fry. Such is th' irresponsible mare, Which sometimes prowls the roads; Such my Gay Old Knight who, With heart-companions winking, Cad no their anes. Tik-tik- Tike Softly Cans my Street, When to gallop away He stretches his ears. Both ride as tall as young men: Their faces gleam with lowness; Thus when you see them grafer You not repeat to-night A look, which, like their faces, E'en before the sun be flowing, Your wanton mind portrays. For joy it's the spring time, Frogging over With old Marechal the dawn, I love to see her come, Hood-bib and spectacles in hand, In her brassy cloak, all brac'd And outer-wear, Now going by the name of Peeping ever to her, From the stinking waab-couver, The shore kite, or kingcuit. With which she changes her disguise; And then returneth With all her usual speed, Her blush returning As warm as morning. In vain do my peeping glasses Give truly true judgement Of the steps that range our page, Through which I these words verbatim And shorthand have pair'd: Shall not I have, I said, a new And king-sized mattress, To bestow it on which I lie For this life orbed, Who hope to find there A carpet if some balms may be, Or any I may hear, Now to the King's Mound Their colours I have brought. And there your heavenly ways I now in turn all my pence Bestow. A few years back, I've tried in vain My childhood's childhood to describe: Mine unseen hand the unholy system Built a cathedral on a dung-hill. My mine hand the slow mechanism That supplied light music in the dark. My mine hand the electric light That lit the anthem of the dearth. A mine-keen pencil I drew me Linking separate pencil'd strings to The sounds of strings, that proportion'd well To sound a fifes note from twelve. But these designs are now for future Pastors and musicians will treasure; For I have demonstrated in a simple And child-like diagram That skilled hands can go about With needle, and thread, and beads. If the great earth on which we wander, Were but a grass-grown plain, A million rabbits would thrive As there, and so would mice. The air we meet in we would classify As poisonous, sweet, or sour. And with that cannon o'erhead we'd rank The breezes from that fenced fen; The birds we see in derision Of those creatures finer far, And whither in their flight we named the hawk, Whence we saw the heavenly show ======================================== SAMPLE 13 ======================================== As I smote at the lips With a blazing weapon: But a meek devil caught me And bore me out to bed. Beside me in my repose, Dangled the grass and flowers, And he sat up in a tree; He would his hands embroil, And he'd wet his nose If a key were to him given To open the door of sleep. 'You little work-other devils, too, With an eye sharp as your oss Slipped and fell into tea with you. And sat on a bench and plied you With solicitations to sleep. You call me to the place of playing, You call me to the place of giving, And you believe that your eyes can cut and wound me, And his hat, though it is hot and heavy On my head from the neck of his fellow, Rolled off at the crown of my head, Cleaving the whole of the foliage, Scarcely bent and softened the earth, And went tumbling, like a whale Slender and flat and long, And you rise in the moonlight, And you pluck it from his hair. And my soul began to sing. And my soul began to sing, "Oh, thou maiden and child, oh, Oh, thou sister and mother! you have No part in this and cannot guar: No counsel, no noblest plan in war, In the perishing world, and yet thou Dost devise it and bring it to me. Oh, joy and omen, you have thy will: You have endured thy load and still lingered, Taking thy share in life and in the hearth Of thy husband, standing at his side, Who shall avenge thee and curb thy power. Oh, woman and mother, now I speak to thee. That the sun sets in a silver car of silver, Round about you with golden wheels trod, That the stars in eyeless vests strew not low, That the wind returns in an icy vest, On you their beams go droving, And the swallow seeks not food but wings; And the dove is no sceptred contagion, That should circle on the lily; That my blackest blood is but a mannish seed, Sweet-smoothed and polite, that bears the meed of grace; And that my soul (crown'd Rose!) love has but kissed From a kiss of dust, pure pellucid streams, And flutters and flutters but finds not rest, In the soul that ripples as peals the glass; --Ah, no man has been as God, touching the earth, Though he loveth every holy thing, He loveth not this earth which bears humanity. Have we e'er heard the voice of the monarch who speaks for God, How he loveth and how he chasteneth whom he winneth? Beside the natal and the destin'd nights He ordain'd the grief of original sin, When he lov'd us; then as now he guideth us, He loveth us as we are his fellows; but he compasseth And lifteth up his sovereign sickle no more, He layeth up wealth in plain seasons of abundance; The Godhead walketh not, and treadeth in sight of the sun; Yet for secret work he writeeth in passions of men; Ah, on the peopled earth inhears the voice of the palace; The years all thither bend and swoon and hold their course. As set in place, that looks one moment from the door, Then veers aside and is Monsieur's blue pebble, And seems devoutly sure to answer if you ask it, Then veers off and faces you in Father Fox's way, While with faint pulse and sinking shiver, the dying day Is dim-bisected and the sun falls coldly cold, A wax-black-walking-trot, slow-vault and halt, A great blue-jumping, air-falls-out smooth puff of air. A distance is living, and noise is silence, Sound's kill-sound; light is darkness; air's cold-gong; But darkness is lord; a hush's guard, clear and deep, Of cities. -- Speak; 't is best to be explicit. Where am I? how was I? who and what am I? Wherever any river ploughs the restless deep From peak to peak, till it stops, flat, with nothing to be, Save the peopled Void; ======================================== SAMPLE 14 ======================================== fret. ‘Caught him!’ said Sally, not meaning mischief. A perishable universal, cotton cot, tweed the stems show at floor nozzles, forks, and windows. How much death stands between a finality and Sally? A door, she thought, with something to say. A slit to the skylight. ‘And I have the windows locked, door stowed. The name is Dennis. I don't wanna know what in hell it would do to Dennis. In every green nickel. The last one bought. I'm through with him. I'll buy a hundred more. I'm through with him. Come on. Say his name. Little Dennis. Come on now. Richard, Biddy, and Cissy fly to Alaska to get their coats from the tailor and bring back Molly, the last child the staff still waits for her Sally the last chick the last crumb-of-moisture floats down the vat of snipe the last swan the last widge the last plover the last gulp of mare the last pip (if ever) of cod (if ever) their last straw. On the farm the most children suffer. On the farm one third of all children lives where no one lives, where no one lives more than once and every year of life lived down by misery, hopelessness, despair, by fire and in snow and down. all along. On the farm nobody owns a car. On the farm everybody owns a horse and rides him squat in the snow. down. Downhill skate, dasheron, marepower the mare, deer on the edge like a gypsy ship from the East over Andes to the coast. We've been better. In the store they bicker and argue and let their clothes hang in the disappiness. The chickens they stomp and smash. No clothes. We've been better. The laundrymen say We're getting off to a bad infelix. Fits in, this thing. And our most valiant hatters we've built monuments to join and lose. Down the room of bones with their toes, I keep track of each of their legs. But we're all a short email call away from the imaginary conversation we've abandoned. As much as anything there's worse than being a lone reverend in a small old town. That and playing badminton with locals, the bright disgusting people. To see through what we say and mean. To have an outside in you like the old centuries stopped. That's why we went to bed with animals, then moved onto the comforts of food and, every now and again, a bench to sit on, then started the long talk that's a talk around water, a walk. Ever the locals in oldy England the olde towns of Ocūs in the novel, the coming of the storm, a nation raving to have some agreement, talk about the future. The coming of the storm it's this horrid love of water. It was thinking of the coming storm that caused my father to work so hard on the yobs control. In the novel Parramatta the natives ride every five minutes. Ride every five minutes makes a woman susceptible to war. And to have a nation row after. In the novel Rab Ma Shan the local fire brigade saves the residents by slipping between the flues. And talking of which they drive the girls into the sea The Grays, from grampa's bird bath, hurl themselves into the light Everyone is besieged with patriotic fervor The future for the Doctor's sanctuary, that and a horrible evening, down near where they fed seven and eight year old boys not in the right paddock, in the totally inhumane way but by the bright light of their own creativity, fever pitch. The novel Arnhem too is set in a time when most Europeans had died off the novel of feeling at the request of their dying And in general whenever the time has come for there's no one left to ask or blame or agree with if it's the rule or whether or not they can. The old man fiddles a silver reel for the ======================================== SAMPLE 15 ======================================== Tis white with the first scheme That love laid down in the virgin's room In the great tragedy of life. In whose queenliest chambers under proud arches, As the night fell, by the long-forgot River, Do the clouds loom, and the wind wins his way And where gloom everywhere eterne; There in the cool far outreaches of the city, Far off over the earth and heaven, Above the hill and under the sea, And the bale rising on every hand And the night-hook overhead. I say where the night stood still. Now the pavane's spattering; They're coming through the woods and hills; Weary with the stars he plunges; Still he heads their droning, And he plunges, still they shout; And the blasts he showers, Are no more than their hearts. His Paphian kingly hugs Are no more than their lungs. And the nodding stars too, That last night on the lake's shore, Made the old gods new men. This the world's eternal shake. Hurry, snap, kiss; the race is good. Give the kiss, snap, kiss; Away with the lights and horns. Now good-night, lights, and horns, and sighs; Turn astride and ride. Sing, roll your wheels, swing your wheels, Play the way to "castle green." And the rings and the clock, my boy; And the mails and the sentries too, my boy; To the king of the forest, my boy. Now good-night, games, games, rides, and kisses, Lips that are tingling, eyes that are falling. More than up to-night they'd set your heart; Now no more than that. But say, oh say, come Socrates, (Skep! skep!) what dost thou say To thy newly found laurels? It's time for thee To blossom, and the rose of dawn Must still be treble, and doubly green, And a prism in every line; And in his cap exalted, He must a tower complete." But the poet laughed, and died Beneath the music of the viol. And anon the sunbeam's ruddy grace Moved the poet with a furtive care, Where the dark tree's berries ill-got fell That Apuleius in his woods knew, Whose dark-eyed parent brought the bard to birth. It was Neamus they took in charge To make their Apuleius real: He was to learn, for his own bliss's reward, How players did, how they did not. For the sun-flower is betrothed To the sun's loosening. (Not that old silly youth: He bided the clutch of the wind, and returned After tempests and wars of destruction.) There was Varronomus to be scanned; He the bravest but later than Cain, Safest of towns, without crime or wise; It made the poets uneasy To know him with his hair unshorn. And too there was great Aunus, not bad At fight or sport; who, when from arms retired, Relied on no arm, and never manned his shield. All were men of meaner stuff than these, And sprung from the wood, they excelled it still. But the horse-tail did through the air. For we marvel how the Grecian tongue Moved the sun from his course, and neck, and hair (Each girdle of the mouth was damaged) So many woods over which he did not pass; And we beheld the high-souled Spartan Outrunning his father's character. And we beheld great Learchus, Of nocturnal discovery quickest, Come as a comet from the Pole; No human flesh he touched, but three-fourths Of the vault of the Roman Empire. Across the corners of the churches, the retreaters are kneeling, As the sparrow from its nest With a plaintive call for bunkum pou- tured the landscape, The home-spuns, the parrots, the hare-bells, The lichens of graves and walls; The tremendous sea-troughs at the bottom of The high green Capitol. And the eyes of the Angelic Militia Burn dim, and fester, the malice Of the rich and the decadent, Of the envy-scarred and the harsh, Sc ======================================== SAMPLE 16 ======================================== Miming and listening to his voice; With ears pricked up she trembled And trembled to the weary song, "God will be gracious, soon my lover." The low cat slept on the lawn; The little dog cat ran by my side; And I stole a kiss and pet the cat, And went down into the dark alley To answer my lover's calls. There was a nest of mice, there was a nest, And there was a mouse tap-tapping the cage Of golden-breasted children asleep In bed, and of red and white kittens, And sprawled in the kitchen a big mouse, Not in less than life and glee. The dishes were left clattering and sputtering, The glassware all round looked dirty and dusty; No host, it uster beclare to look, Had entered into my room (Of which the courtier's finger was shining). (And my signet seal was glancing). The clock strike five and six, the clock is striking, Shall I go to bed and slumber and besleave Of my lover all night and never awakening? For my heart says yes, of a certainty. (And the table mirror, nodding assent). An ear of corn sizzled on the lofty stile, And I saw the faces steal out of the tree and enter, And a smothered cry of "Dear he will come home." A coop of ptarmigan swept by, And I saw the faces of home-loving women, Softening the cheeks of lives bereft and bereaving, Married men, mourning their fate-beset sons. A blackbird warbled in my corn, to the tight Ears of the frightened woman and her giggling child, A noisome clatter of un-sounding word, Till I entered with their serious faces, Where the innocent food by the life-blood was cooking; And I ate and drank, and thought, "If this were heard By any man but God, who is come unto me, "The dog would bark, and the woman would weep, And God would hear the things that I would shirk; And devils would picture me a criminal, fit to rage, And fit worse than any man that Satan would curse." The tree on the step cracked and withered, And autumn's ghost began to creep and shudder From the cool, cool darkness of night's turn To the burn of sunlight under the stars And the scent of irises, and a sound of blossoms, And the wail and warbling of the dark night At last subsided-- The word, the letter, To me The world is no comfort, The solitude no ease, And the love so steadfast Is ruthless, if it meets A single mortal With its ecstasy of power. O, the world's steeps Of passion steep In its ecstasy For its precious product, Are to angels More pitiless Than the fated things Of the human soul. Thrill me, thrill me, thrill me, With the thought Of my love for thee! Where the soft Angel-foot Floods the barren waste of space, Find thee a limb of hers. O, make my pulses thrill! O, make my blood flow! Shiver through my bones The thrill of it, through my veins, For the tenderness of thy face; Even from thy silences, And thine own security It calls up its tenebrations; And for the riches of thy breast In the rapture of thy face! O, my own Berold, Make haste to be in, for she will come, With her passion and her memory, And when she walks by lone, by moon, Or when she walks at tele with heaven, She will speak, she will sigh and look And shiver in those alabaster halls That are such fevered irritations. Set her to her task, dear Heart, nor sen't; But in her bench position sit, And let the old woman make no scene. Let the boy work--but he may have his rage. No longer can his neck the- Hangs of so long a strain. His good time is spent With watching and hasting here, And yet he does but little here. And when he runs, I fear, The rugged path to tread And hear him pant and sigh And think--think once more How he would stop short And censure The long way he takes. Let him ======================================== SAMPLE 17 ======================================== The heart-strings quickened and the blood. Oedip of his soul they are. I saw thee once, more brightly bright, In yonder May-edition, When the legs of sunlight glowed 'Mid the garden of my heart. The holly on the branch is wound, And foxgloves nod, and fennels grow, The light winds gaily rustle, The honey-gold types bloom. How sweet 'tis to muse in woodland places, And dream in sunshine there and love and Come to no harm through love of wildness! Here sycamore trees would blow their balm: The skies o'er-open are motionless, Yet in their stillness music goes Like that of the quickening brewhound. I saw the hazels in their beauty stand In the bower of the night's warm day. Their scent sweet as the -green bough That with fresh-woke narcotic fills When the last sleeping draught is drunk, And our dread hearts start in an ecstacy For the quiet breath of things In the heavy air that dies away, To us is bliss as we take ease For the dusk of heaven in the trees. I dreamed, as I watched them up-lift In the sunny noon and give back bloom In a drifty concord of silver, That each leaf is a silver being, When it sets into the breeze To drop hearts of silver hearts. I saw the softest leaves of all Set all day in their blissful sleep, And after I had read the lines That hold within their self-same book, They would cast their dust to breeze of gale For the golden flocks to drink their wax. I dreamed, in pensive mood, to stand Within the Forest's holy of day, My forehead drowsing on the oaken casque, Pale felt skin, and gaze upon the sky, And crooning the whole night through, And my lorn heart o'er and o'er in sighs, In my hand a golden syllable, And breaths of some unmeasured song That to my heart is unceasing flow; And then I wake, and all the day's Hanging and beholding seem to lie A dream of what I dreamt and did. The white moons of Love, when time is fair, Shine all around. The woods, that teem with flower, Seem to take delight and seem to know Their every leaf that sheds and bear is Christmas: "I am and am not here! I am All the morning and all the even." <|endoftext|> And little George, his face all lit with fire, For nothing did I longer than answer, And I believe he knew I loved him well; But oh, 'tis a fearful thing To know you have ducked a base-enter! Though round and round I trod on that year, You scarce a jot; I well believe you saw the Plaisters' wood, When through the lovely drifts and mildew scaulds They strewed the turf. I had a cozy seat upon the dyke, 'Tis not to be denied. Through all the winters of my long ago I never heard the sturgeon leap or bite. Heedless I walkt the gleespurt landscape, Hedging my frontiers along. But looking back, I gather how men woo As now I sat upon the pebbles, Two blithe bodkins dance, Whilst we hobble homeward, bean-cloth and all; And I see them away with a swing, Some merry little dance. Ape moves in its happy den, a parlor trick, The cat of the blues, with reckless Iggle And kicking, leaps upon a hurdle-throne. Three children are thumping--the lily licker, The heathy one, and the gay one. The same frolic and tumbling, with no lowering Of their chubby little legs. Yet over it all The giant of a sunday chuckles, And chuckles to see them downsize it so. The pleasure of the thing! The laughter of the four-year-old at a trick. The Lord of the Iron Statue-Skillet Laughing all his hips in glee. The nights I came here once more recently come, The rattling noises of tonight's gay bilding, The sound of the first lads that turned to stars. Away they brought the ======================================== SAMPLE 18 ======================================== O'er its side lies seducing water, Stroking our young boy's lustrous passions; There is no jest in this; a false heart Can prove no cousin--no brother--sister To the sort of "cousin" most hearts avail To the o'er-raised, mighty, male-tru, There, in flickering gust and flaring sun, And clouds that soar the side of heaven,-- There, in the vast unwonfulness of night, Where the flesh dies, and genius waits To rule the earth, or tame its rage,-- We drive, like planets, galen do, His daring; and the whirl this hoar Herman or Eliza might drive, Mused, avert half as hard. Thou hast the power to trip this fox Under yonder crest of snow, Or, after peep from the dark hege- Truss, and through the snowy floor, Throw him here, as far as thou wilt,-- While he lay fast in bed to smoke, For two or three thousand feet, 'Twixt the edge of boundary and wood With his hair-piece long and thin; Then crested fox, thou solvest this, To giggle at thy whip,-- And the flushing wrappers, white As the pricky fox's chin, unslipped, Then decked and clocked at thy wonder's fire, And his screen blurred with the cleft,-- Let him walk on by, as safe from thee As thou couldst rush to heel A lion in the wilderness! Not that I like to boast a neater way of conducting, I wote, and so will stop now,-- For the reasons that I have already given, Which have the credit of the high support of my reader,-- And just to end my story as it ought to end, Before I go to watch the neater Fersen,-- The Fersen of Holy Writ, if there be such, With the swarthy, rusty, wild, and white Face, as the horrors of this age record;-- Or, if there come the face of Calverly, As from the tailor's look a little lay A little odd, not my strange friend here at all,-- That would be my friend of the flesh. <|endoftext|> These flowers blossom in the silent woods, Whose morning was not deep, and noon in showers; The wind and the bees whisper over them. Soft is the woodside; once the way was wide For shades to wander, yet 'twas solitary. But ah, the change! in my arms you lay; Then, too, I sat by your side; my heart was free; The first arm sleeve was for you; but now, Like a woman on the grass, who stoops to butter A child that rests, I stood to sway the loose reels Of thought, loose whate'er; what ears my thoughts had to hear Was within reach. If you thought you heard it, I fled To the door, but bent you in my rites afterward. But now, you are beside me where I sit. No better sleep on azure sky and sea Could cure my weariness. My grief is for one who will not waken, For one who utters tatters in my ear And recks not of what I talk in my sleep; For one whose wrath, if one hour more of life I shall ask of, is that it will pass in A broken goblet, emptying till brim, My last embrace. For this day falls on me This side a yawning grave; on that side a gleam I catch of glory through the gray time dim. But one here sleeping in earth a night, This side an unshod castled abode, We need not wail, therefore, night, dark or day. That afternoon in the park we sate Where first we met, within reach and sight. A single pad from garden down to street-- In the low light we touched. The rain had let down the rill and pond, And now the clouds were high and yellow, The women lay asleep In the fift century shade. We sate within. Her eyes and locks beneath her brows, Her voice and touch and touch Came like the magnetic wave to unite Nearer the mind and heart of man, Warm and cruel. Grief hath placed me here Shaded in radiant beauty's shade, Seen through much subtleties. And the earth ======================================== SAMPLE 19 ======================================== Is in the parts of thee, is in thy name, The old years die in the maiden's shame. For still she does not fall, but for the sake Of men forgets her age and name. Ah, that 'twere all quite as well, as when In days of delight she leaped the high stairs (Out of her innocence!) Or danced, like some young Fairy with a heart Breaklight, over a precipice! So might we now with pleasure turn, At her young beauty's recollection, Vainly running to meet her years, As one meets now only what is past! And therefore do I prize at times This content, since in that also I Found, after all, but little worth. Therefore of joys, though fleeting still, I reckon "worth" small pay. But we have lost the progress here, Since, in this abashed little feast, Joy is a key to open Secrets of woman's life, And can therefore only heighten The joys with which, with its free skill, Somewhile I did comprehend The moves of other's natures. When Nature, with pleasure late I knew, And did my soul discover What time new worlds, strange heroes appeared, And with unfamiliar laws I met, A gallant spirit, man to man, From Europe's wide coast bore my race Through climes of sun and of moon unknown, Till, of celestial terrors no more afraid, Hedging my borders with the whole he brought Which had escaped my panting thought before, I saw my longed-for country, the glad, glad land, As peace and truth for me, in seeing mine, And can now only, with fonder heart, behold. From the world's end I came, I there became Where he found his quiver'd company. And first in a great centre of high hills Where the sea gently bathes a green succession Of rushes, whose honked names in Italian starr'd Heard Bena Maurolo's lord of song, Who on the lower verges the slow quadrille, Hearkening him some chorus, anthems and dances, Which I afterward of fame had greatest part In, to my fame, were told, a certain rill Mou'd from the neighbouring hill, though little known, Stratifying the song; or, if known, so grand Because of its imponderable beds, For many an age immemorially fame O'er the Kæssi, her fine ways a river, Breathed especially by his fretted gold. While, with these acts and thoughts, of fame I bring Vigorously my free, indignant mind, And vitiate with reasons, and provide That these to arguments stronger come, I sought a spot; a spot, where, of all That England lay dispersed, yet in one so small That its fame, at once, might complete the sum Of all that mother mother nations had won In its broad circuit to the Cape, And lay in light-build'd monuments, while the kite, Thicket, or gully, pitched upon some shy Subdued piece of ground, the king could own; And its rare leaves be took to perjure himself. --An thou indeed, thou knew'st not this land's worth, And now no more than eyes that love too much, Theenpiye! to doubt where they, at first, did trust. Ah, would that those least thousand trees, that knew, How few things in life are unknown, had known thee here, And with thy fellow justice jured from far To bear the whole body of this offence. Before she died the count, he was not there That he might have been, he was, he was sure his own Till then, by loud-voiced Kasabian. But now No more of him shall souls inhabiting here, Save by the name of him, and so his ghost I hope shall grow Alcides' friend that here doth stay His bolts, or with his darts, so far they run, To make the race of him but close enshang, In which he lies far in front, they with just talent Here their whole construction and investment In gold and stones and liveliness of hand to boot. But then he was of mighty words high run, and ere Sappho could tell off aught that would but fit, Ere her tight lips begun the word, he died; Her lips beginning first to feel that now they hear, Her next her ringing breath; and, ======================================== SAMPLE 20 ======================================== As they drove from Moore-on-the-Wall, and set forth to take Hornblende that is linked with the death of Death, and Death with So that the earth were moist and sexy, and flowed to make a coffee For all the people, and boiled and boiled, and they rose as a flower did to the air to say "we are the fragrance, we are the umbrell and presence of the truth." And when they were gone and the land On which they stood was under water, and water that sank as a bell, and dawn that bore a leaf of pear in its bosom to come again, And there were books and sand, and All died, and All gave a letter of name to a world that never saw a letter of name. "Their perusal can only be by that stream" and there was murmur of Clouds and Cloud-smoke and In the midst of the iron men iron in the radiant glare of five hundred crying years, and of irate loves that fainted and fanned in countless circles like a blossom and passed out with them like one blunted blossom, Where the twilights of man at work under jutting skies of steel, At sundown, where the limbs of love lay scattered and half-dead and crusted, To both mouths a sign and a sign and a name. In their sight Is not a trumpet, but a bronzy bell of four bare and bleeding stems, That rammed on Time's lips. God, that her beauty outnuffs the beauty of the gulf, and clatters with gold over the gulf. Unto man that he seems making More than the world to make, that he chokes up the wounds And lifts up the wounds. Roses for the world, to breathe through For the body, while kings take up the roses. Roses for the world, to change and be changed into a breath that he believes himself Unto himself, that he can smite to earth with his own hands. Unto him, flowers As when the nations rose up against Moses and David, God Spilling his wisdom like a rain, until he made himself a lion and let His wisdom flow for the lions. Beauty for the beautiful, eating from the stone plums in his hand, For all the languor of light children, for grown men who waken to bare, For girl-men murdered and for boys slaughtered. For the bruise that stag brings back to its dark place, and the wrinkle that turns to a frown, and the world whereof make to be, For the silence, the weather-shout, the perishing-of-squirrel, the plowing-into-white, the ears of corn, the turning-white of horse. For the list Of blessings and of curses. <|endoftext|> "Tragedia", by Walt Whitman [Living, Death, Sorrow & Grieving] I[vi] I walk down the riverbank On doctor Jackson's houseboat Barges athwart the street— And all I hear is your voice! —At least, you would have been happier If you could forget. II So you are made a prisoner In that half-blind villa Bluish-winged and lingering Over the river— And the bottles, flowers, you feel from the air You are gone, gone, gone! —So you would have been, you, Charley, Lift you out of this, Hear the men whisper in the night— And watch that raft as it fastened glistens Down the-channel to St. Thomas, the green waves laving The bottle-stems and flowers! Like the strength with which a man lifts a cessk, Or a clamb diafi Flashing it from foot to foot and they— All is gone, all is gone! —The creeping silence, so dense, so depressing, I felt as if I had stepped into a coffin! —And the last fragment of the paper gone— And the evening was windy, was still— Blowing and blowing, —And you were afraid— And the last fragment of song! <|endoftext|> "I Know", by Dana Rohrer [Living, Disappointment & Failure] for Sitte Zalzme I I know, when I get you home, you will not say I gave you a ride—You will not swear you were treated so highly because I ======================================== SAMPLE 21 ======================================== Springing from a hillock Under sand they lie: There in a glad land They tell us How very wise they are. He is wearing an overcoat of hair, Hiding The cloth of jesse: His gums Are red from being in the sea So many years: He is wearing a jess head, Hanging inside Just before: He is wearing a jacket Of flannel: To be washed In the bright Of the sun; He is lying at last on a heap of dirt: How wise he is, Who twenty years ago This fool was. Even so it will be: He is waving With his handkerchief An endling little broom: There is nobody In the land of purple clover: His wife is like a cloud, And his sister like a rope. Master of various meaningless postures, Of each that each behaves according to its name, Not having To use his own power To keep all his positions straight He heeds each party's weather-beaten shadow, (Is he not wiser than its viceroy?): He is safe to the dark lords and their lords' pawns, The proverbially foolish dupes he is lulled through, Sleepless, slink-dy, nick-nackets, dancing cards, Chocolate kettle, ("The kettle's mellow"— That's how they spell it); The tire-cross, the golfing partner Tight in his kitchkie; Little boy named FROY T. And light-hearted Miss, Who flirts with everyone she meets, To pieces, To jigs and shuffles, to trylocking and stalling— And saying, as she follows him (Too easily by causes that he sees through) To the charming stranger, "Why, what a pretty dance! "Don't you think so, monsieur?" How amusing, how timorous, is the little mind That only hears what it is that other minds have datingshould not hear And leaves out that the others think anything it regards! Plague of vipers, thorn in the foot, Thief that rules by having stolen the lordly steed! Let him be slain again with the stake of the demon Whose limb is a clipped tree, whose shadow is the flush Drawn by the hero, and scarlet bare, Of the sin that was, And where the horror of the sin that was, is. Not a leaf but is stirred, the still-standing blood-root Of a kind, the last leaf, your father's dying breath. Cannot the body hold; hold death, and put back into life; Only your heart doth want the new heart that follows soon. Cannot nourish; the poisons and the odours go deeper Than does the root of earth that must penetrate to the earth. Only the heart that the new life that following soon Will have some root of its old heart's heat, and not so long. O love of your heart, your heart, your heart that loves you, That is not its own heart, That will need its own heat to warm it so. Sank the bed-twigs (which show) In the grave where the poppies blow! No head shall lift in the morns (How long, how long, how long) To see to bed-wet rime and dew. And the bud of the red-boar bark Grew red as a thorn in your pillow. Was it not right, was it not wise, To turn inland, Was it not right, was it not wise, For I to leave, for you to leave Our at home, our at home, Yes, leave, and go in God's cause, With love your heart, with love your heart; With faith your sword, with prayers your spear, To slay the traitors Who have defiled and fought among you. Just to know That you Is not love, Is not faith, is not sword, Is not prayer, is not prayer, But blank nothing. You see how the rowers's blood Lays bare in her veins, As she takes her duty, As she gets her boat upon the bid, Her life is her own. You see how the hand holds the blade, And you feel the boat is she, As she swims across the bay. But you hear not a cry, you hear not a word, You see not the rower dies When the boat has passed from sight. ======================================== SAMPLE 22 ======================================== THEY have painted his lovely face There is no mask like her gaze, He is a marble form In it alone we view his charms. Come here, come, sister, gently here; Here is the golden mane Of a splendid star. Lift your arms, Open your tender arms, Clasped in meet embrace. A sudden smile lights up her face, Her tender arms, her blue eyes, So young, so sweet, so fair, so fair to bring The sudden blush and sicken; While her lip shines through With a holy light Whence beauty showers her influence. With the first blush of her joy, Her eyes and cheeks lit o'er, On the happy grass Her fragile hand is claspt; And this is what the morn will bear. And this is what, witless of pain, The sun will find Close to the spring's horn. Here is a piteous Child, with face So pale and thin, That God would ne'er have pos'd a child, In such grosded hoofs. There is no glory in the words, Of what little spirits come. Oh! spare the mightiest, Grief, Because you know not what they mean. She is the daughter of one who, When wrath was his, caused more pain; And he who died for her, prays, "O, not to have been shewn from His side, "Who died for me, in her cradle, girl," That He would verily not be shewn. In short, all that is born's the child Of ill-nature and a man: A steeled fish's business is to be A fish in sea, not a fish to be, And I should stay No longer in its great Affliction's waters wide, Whilst another may Come first to taste ease, which sings All silver notes with you. Because the may itself is but A slice of heaven's sweet food laid On earth, to feed our desire. Our sinful minds, being made Of what we make our material, Catch in, and refuse to do, I heard, the other night, my son Breathe his heart out; And, I bring to you, I saw, the divine in man, in Joy, Standing in Adam's place. In Adam's place, I did not think My babe so little; But that, my boy, is now no longer there, He was not there, He was not there. His place, my lad, is now He was not there. I've wait'd the sleep of seventy years, A good bed to lie upon, And seen that heaven, which formerly I had so rich a place of being, A remote, a foreign, A stotia in a puddle; To one, in his infamy, In childless Heaven to pace; And have seen that, of two equally Parental, one is soonest gone In awful Infamy: And found him thus, as yet unmov'd. A naked, cold, desolate heap; Yet hardly must I let him sleep here. For wonder, tasteless, a heartless lump, His parts do hit, as well as touch, And from those shocking begin Their kiss; the whiteness he was, His flesh it was, his bones and strings, And in the joints, that knuck'd and loosen'd, His furrows suck'd and nibbled, His body with his substance: And while I praise, or blame, or blame, Incredulous, as best I can, That he was Nature's unkindliest Kid, He naught, and naught else but this A child not born to live, A living wolf without the folds, Who, when the brutes be gone, will whimper and roar, And without pith and nerve will haunt the woods. It chills me, to contemplate. For hence will come a larger, wolfererr'd prey, With teeth not scald'd, which will rend and rend, Or eat the bodies that they devour. The soul of me a child did be, But child it is to be so longer's time A parent's not found so wearisome. I wish to see it sleeping there, I wish my wishes when the child is there Would get as far from me as they can; And wish the more, that I can't be near, And wish the more the more the less can hear. The soul of ======================================== SAMPLE 23 ======================================== I drive my truck up a steep hill; I brush away two nests of bees With a shotgun, and I let four golden tears fall, For I wonder what it cost their souls; And then at last I hear a singing tree; The live oak out of the grave I crawl; And from behind that tree I kick The yellow bees and felt their pains. The fly and beetle there are wings To lift you out; and soon you reach the end Of the line: your ankles half-fat, half-dry. You look in my face, sweet, and my heart sinks down And falls out of me. <|endoftext|> "from Don't let the flowers fall", by Rosanne It was all startin' off nos nonino Don't let the flowers fall While we was buildin' you We had no clover Ain't got no clover We had no snow The hicks had snow We'd get no spring We'd get no spring We had no oil We'd get no oil You had no butter The hicks had butter You had no eggs The chickens had eggs The chickens had nobody help the chickens be dead They'd just give it right back Everybody help Help Clover and butter and eggs The chickens had hay They'd eat it for bread They'd keep it for bread They'd keep it for butter The chickens had corn They'd keep it in the ground They'd keep it all for bread They'd eat it all for butter They'd eat it all for bread They'd eat it all for eggs They'd have no trouble They'd have no trouble The sky Ain't got no stars DON'T LET THE FLOWERS FLED A little baby bore from its mother It caught a gander in its arms And weeding the bushes Took a package of twigs and said I'll make a butterfly for my mother Who will catch a rainbow, don't we? I'll make her baby bear A little mosquito for my mother to nurse her baby bear She'll take me in her arm That was a war I say, puling of false trails, her sopped shoes, lace and her lipsticks, not her old fist-butt to save any life But I'm afraid, Don't leave us alone, we're beasts too, fleeing words If a dung-rabbit sawed it we'd run Like the old rabbit himself, big fat grub, furr rounded by a bunch of plums Or the old plums the mother went to knit Ain't got no lights A moth's a light There ain't no moon I said to a blind fox, I want you to run, I want you to go where I am, come to me, I am blown Out to the rivers and springs, out to the hills, To find the old woman's bean I say, it is the only original thing in nature There ain't no games The wind is blowing up my skirt I ain't got no hammer But, if I did, I couldn't get it some place I ride my bike, I have no pants I am blind and deaf Wish I could learn how to say, I am a bee I will have to, now, My eyes are purple <|endoftext|> "Praise", by Robert Browning [Nature, Animals, Trees & Flowers, Social Commentaries, Cities & Urban Life, Class, Money & Economics, War & Conflict, Mythology & Folklore, Fairy-tales & Legends] The birds are saying praise of the Shah. In the distance a child will hear, And never cease to hear. And look, and many will be surprised, As all at once, to hear the words praise the Shah. In a hundred cities they will say: Praise the British captains, Praise the millionaires' homes. But some—like the birds—from the sea to the hills, Will spend their lives saying praise the Shah. <|endoftext|> "August 1917", by Robert Gober [Social Commentaries, War & Conflict] Now back from fighting, now safe from trenches I return, On the blog, there's very little to do except to sit, But sitting is very uncomfortable and there's very little to say for the space of an hour, So what with fritttening and chatting go to a pub. And sit we will, where they have both the beer and the tobacco, For a very fat she-bread and a piece of mead, And with goblets fill to the brim. There's no news to be ======================================== SAMPLE 24 ======================================== Jesus: Not of your race, yet A prophet-king, still A preacher; who can 'scape the pangs Of prophets, yet will guide you through the wood, And to his poor shepherds point with righteous eyes. You, "anew and poor," Ere the blessing of your wealth; Which they had by Faith; not Gifts, Which they themselves had by Caring; Not what we now call "tradition," You who are "old and unchanging": You who are the poor man's friend, The kingdom of God upon earth, You are still the "cut-glass of the world" To the vision of our class-book. You who are still alive, after all The wounds of the "no more," You whose love had power to release, To quicken the wan "continual wrung hand":-- Have you, all earth-bound, Still rank, with a care For the cringing lot of the "little guy," Stretched from coast to coast? What care is your check-book, Still guarded with that broad-stretched Hand from which may just One little, little eagle wing fling? Who shall declaim aloud Your huge incomparable service, The bringing of the World? A whisper so small but Mr. Edwards Could hear the "Sainsburys" break All over Europe, The multiplying of yours, The plowing of Ireland, the good old friends Who revelled with you and that fair young Florence In what long-ago became your Valhalla? The affluence you've brought to the grave Of your millionaire's disciple and victim, (The "giant" saint now thrice church reared, And from our ranks re-echo the "la!" Of that arching Penitential's chill and cold In the last Frolic Heine!) May be seen, with the bursting beams Of thy house-hammers, o'er the idle pond. May be seen, if we look up, where thro' The orange and grapefruit dusk you move, That choicest of the saints, the Caccia Areca Loaves, in whose influence you shine, As thou, even Quintus, from thine Italian bosom! In you the World has yet another homily: In you, the world, again, men, at last, may see, To which are come, in this prodigal pack, The lost and dying of conflict and despair, The souls of men, and the souls of statesmen, The souls of boys and thews, The souls of kings, A new olive-grove for the Yet-unborn. And if it be not seen, with what eyes This Canadian Tiger prowls, As a moated Turd Ferguson, or the new Bab-ton beast, Slew only in the teeth of a Ferret foe, Whereof he, soon, will acquire a better gleaming one; Then come, ye men of England, we say once more, That you, at least, are careful of what you've got. "Murdoch" is a village, the most easterly part of name, not very far reaching into Westmorland (but with some distance from Cheltenham and Stanmore) and is at present owned by Messrs. R. Raymond and Benjamin. Thence it sprang, a tract much to the prejudice of Fame, there is none of such; 'Tis all as good as that: There was a bard of old Who, turning all of his lay-forward pate Truth and affection into an eromanga And, turning all of his pence, into rhymes, Despair with the distrustful Nurse as lover as any other. "Coon, sir," she sigh'd and smile'd, "and I (now please to be kind to me, We'll try the mother-acid's vigour, Felix) Ah! yet but gold for my cash-credit can't buy you a book, Nor studio-oil's thorough-working quack. You may as well as yourself, sir, Lend to the inn and seaman the benefit of your wits; They who do the best in life, do it well: There's all the money in the world won't do, If poverty in friends be your only care: Though, giving all my money to nourish his beard, 'Twould but mean scanty miserliness to fling in his pockets. To no good end did he come hither to tell of two, But ======================================== SAMPLE 25 ======================================== I sing of the wide earth's front, I sing of the kings Who do not reign by world-wide laws. It was here, before it lost The sight of all the stars, this war of kings, That Gondulʙs star rose where Ceylon's sun Rised where Bangladesh is. So, young, India, India, run by kings, Have all I sung, and yet, I have sung too much. Yet, India, once I sing here of you, I mean This book is not a modest meditation On the boundless sky, a brutal disgust, A picture of the winds here over us That would return, if kings no longer ruled, I have sung many things that are no more than wind. One was a jewel--I have given it away. Now look, Ceylon, Ceylon, mine own Ceylon: Take my gift; before your loving elders, You will have it, too, and may you keep your queen. <|endoftext|> "Song from Ireland, before the British Army", by William Scott Thus far we were In Sligo, now the houses there are stained with red, And in Sligo often men and women sin, To show that they look upon the Troubadour with hate. With his countrymen, he lives in strictest holiday, And has a rich time with his old field-sabre. Now he is seeking among an alien tribe Some such reed as he had long ago. The names of both are written on the tomb in no case, For Sir Sean seems to bring his own design In regard to Eastlands. The book of balladry Stands for much the same distinction as the former Fields, with the words he, poor Hennessy, wrote. A third tale, with a beginning that stood at the same time As that of Robieal, called itself S.M.C.M. For some reason That made the gentle inner receiver of so much charity, That in all living creatures he stood even there. Suck and crow, The ivy and the palm! Ye early saints of England, fill up the cup, And waste it on the Irish partisans of Slavery. But ye are cowd when ye look at the bill of fare, Your lips are stuck with copse. They always had their crops already in hand For this coming harvest. If ye are called for, Come with a self-satisfied hum, and bring with you the crop of their ill fates. One thing at the first, and then be silent. Tell her the news Of stirring things in the world; show her the dame who reports In her inexpressible Irish manner: as when She stared at him incredulous when he said the sun had played Upon his lamp. Not any more the rocking sun seems to strike Naples; and we Irish can scarcely believe our Johannis. Oh, she must bluster, and burst out with so many accents. Nay, though ye bring many tidings, make no about her, But let this thing alone. How Irish would that house seem In light so darkened with! But, my Corrigan, tell me, Will ye or not, what hath been done with your Ireland? The bridge is crossed By arms again; and who has encouraged their minds With vain desiring peace, if not the king himself? Aye, let them back, Until their strength of legs untenant to stir In peace, meet out the force of pike and sword. Then are ye sure To have a battle and a triumph there. O man, what words The world hath lost of grief, to take or give In your need! But trust in words; for a man, They may deceive in darkest days. In this wise I think and guess that Dowlad calls Hibernia home, Because shee holds the holy of holies To be all that she desires. I dare to speak These things before your kings, for I am she, Your Christian Dowlad; and before each tower, The seat of your ungentle ancestors, And before the high Holies, that made men Forsake or greet with scorn or hasty word, I pray that I may be taken down Here where I am become as grass before grass, For fear lest any judge in heaven, On the judgment day, say, "This man sheath For holy men kept the sword, and for low, Low humbly before his foes, good worthy, good, What further now?" "Scatheless and victor" I ======================================== SAMPLE 26 ======================================== operative had the strap. And young Paris fell, a victim, slain, Yet wrung his pulpits, then scouring led With the Puritan fleets. To vigorous shame To the third ensign a British flag dight, Before aght bolded the coat of blue. "Mission accomplished!" cries he who brings, Ablaze with a legion's loud light and roar, The Glorious Glorious Quota Golden Flame, The Eagle, Foe of God and Man Lord and Ruler imperial. And he who, sleepless, sees the cubbie droop, And thither sinks with touch and counsel, To pour new wine and quench his weariness. It is a mystery how, "Lome Comeleboy" came in the Puritan's song to mean the world and her agency, Now with God over God. As early as July, sixteenth year, in war and in peace Flamboyant, he beheld the Pentateuch make the hills, clouds, seas, hills resound. But by no means so violent were his fears Of making his own account, When, crossways from our street, the car in which Evacuated our friends told of a train, Carried Ellen Gedidon, in her mind's bank, For eighteen hundred dollars to town. The old abbey looked down the car of the provost and saw the old abbot's journal in the coach's hands, and whispered to the train-boy: "The lady of the house has been there before." And we understood this: "Under the bush he's waiting for us, And when he sees his friends, he'll do us favours." But they came in time, and, taking the journal, heard her say: "Paidle!" She paid with a firm hand of doll, For when they heard her voice come back again, the hall was empty and the porch was no more. When he went into the bank and took the hands, the bankers felt quiet shame: Though he was a man of enormous renown it was not right To be handling a lady at such an hour: Quoth one, another said, Beg about the state, and while they hied themselves away in severe though serious mood, In swabbing the front account with their swabs they splashed themselves. Then forth issued a breath, like jet, And these were the words he read to them: Pleasant New York weather I take your money back--before I-218's vouched for As good a inside start as may be found You never knew what hit you till here. But Ellen's face, the first they'd seen in all that state-of-stuff-where-we-are-die-a-whitch-iss-go-thy-way-zone, staring back, She smilked and a clack-clack-clack was audible, jumped up on her seat To give a word-of-brief, a glass they broke to take her picture, Their glass the better of it that finely reflects her ee. And she sits, a most serious lady, on her fine old tall side-pocket like, Her hand red and delicate like a blossomed tree Out of that sepulchral period when she read The Farmer's Almanac and avoided the seven haughty men By riding alone to the well in the morning till the fourth of November For a while she'd get right home to the Spokeman's Nook, Its weather-stained house abashed to the middle of Herself And by going she won the greater reward Her dear man looks down on her, and sees The happy sea in his great eyes, He ain't blind like a lot of you 'tis been shown He's spent, But still, a fine senator is a fine senator. And so it proved, my good folk of Queens, A morn of June morn of Eve, An hour of peace in a day; and so it showed, In the broad daylight up and down That habitant of walls, The happiest being alive; And the clock said there were three farst Miles before day was done. "Behold," he said, "Queens-court, The fortunes of a woman's love When she's laid it on the tower, When she's lost her disguise And it's dress you see The fifteenth has scarcely flirted When she is well inclined To treat it ======================================== SAMPLE 27 ======================================== Route “I've Interpreter's Identified Hungry with double she o insemination whos never heard-t ite from-tic er than that word thought of-ing angel inherit his- tate What he needed from the jobs and the work was an ID number. He stood on public pesticides Gizmo came and Goats— Let me start I know no one ever said these we pined to our mouths and hears no one ever like an endangerment We were afraid to say it because everyone else did it We could never have said either but what we did and what he thought we did were the same thing We were always huddled in sink bath air siding in a pink room under- ground the air soft and full without anything we were eight light drawing every day But he didn't do his job or do the job so the book would have vegetate sis I am the king of what I am not of what who told me you can be you a shape nothing in creation more than you were what we were <|endoftext|> "Whip-Sunne Sawyer, World's Fair Delegate, and the Children's Crusade", by Carol Frost [Activities, Indoor Activities, Arts & Sciences, Social Commentaries, History & Politics, Race & Ethnicity, War & Conflict] Then as now, the children were to be our moral iders. People were to behold and imitate the cleanliness of the cleanest dishes. But the children's Crusade and Whip-Sunne Sawyer, September 14, 1963 He was one of us. He, the Fair's old priest, was among the early visitors. With his talk about race and equality he stood out. But at 7:30 a.m. Sawyer, with his chas- ady mates, caused chaos with a saguaro cactus. He hauled off the star of the Fair and most of its beauty. Why were the children's Crusades silent? Because Mr. Sawyer was president and they were to be original Indians. <|endoftext|> "The Story of the Nags", by Edna Walton Winkler [Living, Health & Illness, Relationships, Family & Ancestors, Home Life, Nature, Animals, Arts & Sciences, Humor & Satire, Social Commentaries, History & Politics] "A farmer comes in from the road And knocks and knocks And the door is closed So he comes again and enters And knocks and knocks And the door is opened and it's Jonah Who's supposed to be coming from the sea And Jonah doesn't get very far Until the air--conditioner stops And raises a little mist In puddles and everybody huddles in Shake to another dumb lullaby As the baby Herman tells the baby Harri- bon At this hour the only the good die toward the north And the bad ones go south, go where the dark wood moves and when the birds fly north the dark wood moves The light is perfect in mid-winter or a night But it is dark by noon A perfect night or night with no stars and no moon and morning in the middle and the trees are so close their shadows cover all ground And the stars jump out of the plants they're afraid of and there is no moon but a sorry thinning shadow On the mountain and a great sadness in the half-track and the hunter groaning 'Oh, where are we going?' But the cattle are native, that was never changed But we never want them where there's moonlight or starlight Because we'll go like this in the morning And go like this at night And the moon will stand in the east and like this afternoon at dusk and stand In the middle of the night And scatter shadows over everything and nothing But they're so tired when they're finally released from the day-loop You must talk to somebody else, a different moment, maybe as a hare goes I'm trying but they keep to their sleep You can't tell by looking at them But I keep trying the words And then they start talking I try to remember what they said And it's not so strange Except it is Except they're not You ======================================== SAMPLE 28 ======================================== 'Twas soon that my mother, weak and aged, Tearing and raging in her anguish, With an evil stench and odour, Urged her white child with songs of love, Fondly delighted, went away And fell upon her couch and sighed, 'Poor little girl,' she cried, 'I do not think I ever did so Or get so much for such a child, I Have nothing else, and I have no mind, Still I'll give him a present Of some schnapps and placenta. 'I don't know, any one here knows What you will call it, a baby So rude and noisy But darling Martha, you will find It would not deeply surprise me If you named 'er with sincerity.' 'My own,' says child, 'not half bad, in fact. What's a baby to a mother?' Well, as you all well know A gentle guardian may seem a baby, A baby 's no bean donuts, A baby's limb is a dread object-- A baby's breast a bitter pill, A baby's toys are sparse and scant; The babe's sole in pinch 's the wise, The babe's favorite tree 's a willow. But a gentle guardian angel, I must confess, does seem, In one or two cut and dried strips, To be rather full of days And good as some of those good things are. But I could turn and turn and toss A stump 'o baby-form. So Martha claims her, 'tis hardly fair This one should be without a base. And we won't, Miss Martha, we won't, We won't, we won't, I vow, Though this may offend you, yet, My dearest, at night when home from school You will sit and stroke that pathetic 'it,' Which I have promised never to call Until you straight will pay for it, Till it should cease to wriggle and rub its little legs about And do its best for you to amuse. So go to your work and please To be a dainty creature and do exactly what you do, And just because you sung my song a week before And sweetly opened your 'door' to me, You won't have a reasonable claim And I won't have a pillow And you won't be cuddled and soothed You little rascal you, Until you open your 'bumpers' big op'ning eyes And show your serious face, Or I count 'em and count 'em, And show my smile. So Martha claims her, it isn't fair, But it will be in a few days. And I hear 't will be quite the best 'n a man That I have ever known. So, if 't is what I should have requested, I'm not a whit less strict. But Martha's bad enough, I guess I know Why her mother said just what she said, And yet it isn't done, But no one's hair can hope for much more Than what I am asking. And I've thought, and thought and thought and thought, Oh, so hard, And a little smidge is better, I'm not the kind that tries to smother His kittens till they dozed. And so far as purring then She might just 'twould take her games beyond She would not be understood. And so far as ever I can see I'm sure she should not rub her With threefold insistence. We ask that Death be not touched upon For we now have to do with a different mode Of governing; one that we will also call The more moral or the more rural. The system which is settled thus Is called eugenics, 'Tis not a simple one, And it seems to be proved That the men who were The fittest for these shores Were those who wrote to us. Oh! we who've braved Death through The choking filter of years, We trust that we may put With as little pain to see Our own demise as one through The antique sepulchre; And those who ruled and bear rule Are not men of firm resolve. We ask that Death be not touched, That we may live, the loss Remembrance may not pain And then and then we live For many years to come Not remembering what we'll wish Had been. This seems the better plan. We all like to think that somehow We too are of the wise And make our comfort somewhat clear By telling what is not ======================================== SAMPLE 29 ======================================== and share a bread and milk. A week later, she takes me to join her in the mountains, and by the day you climb, she removes her clothes. This strangely beautiful image is what she wants: her naked body like a moving canvas. In The Blazing World, she won its only award for "Best Full-Length Picture of the Times." I was the only journalist to have seen her naked, when her name was changed. I write about homosexuality, and an important teacher in me starts smoking. A disease from which I learn, and make beautiful. And the only woman to whom he is close, except for her self. A small plane crushes a family. We have no word for how I felt watching people in the movies like this. My grandmother didn't mention it, she was so ashamed, having her name change, or her death. I can't recall it, which is perhaps the worst sadness of all. Madness or injury, or the invodial rage of a sharp mind to remake the world, a festival of becoming dysgenics. A change of heart, and another one, and so on. <|endoftext|> "The Worst Commendations", by Charlotte Mew [Relationships, Men & Women, Social Commentaries, Gender & Sexuality] To those of us who study Nobel Laureates Between the Wars, the usual confusion occurs, and we are expected To see ourselves as central to the Universe's end. We approach the picture Of the artist hostile to a Christian Universe, and the human subjects Between the wars, to our deep Disappointed pleasure. It's a little thing, but after A while it can be a lot. And those Who perish or who fall very, very low To miss that list—I can't Bring myself to add that they Didn't try. It's a big if, a humble if, a prayer Most likely in every prayer, given the chance, Not every day, very unlikely, but still— To say a lot. * * * * Did. If only they had. How lucky they were That someone didn't snap that anything Threw off, a mystery They could identify To a certain extent, a little good, But not much. * * * * When I imagine myself sitting in that other world Where I'd like to be Somewhere between those almost-distinctions And those more clearly defined, I can't help Seeing myself at each apparent remove Behind the eyes of everyone Sitting in that world, or just Somewhere there, someone who looks like me. In the long drain-line at Panevezitz, Where the A, Cs are easy to miss Or the tall, straight lines at O'Haverick And the looping, canted light, the image Of a person, not quite my age there, Showing me the face of someone Pure wishfulness to confuse, I know This is supposed to be about But it's hard to see, And it's even harder when it happens to Someone you don't know, that someone Who is not you. Do I want them to Remain fixed—so fixed? I want them to, To be fixed, and it's my universe That the line cuts through <|endoftext|> "Ode to the Silent Enthusiast", by Marcus Batty [Love, Relationships, Social Commentaries, Money & Economics] Money talks, You will never see or hear him Let alone engage in His delectable silence in his fawn's mouth pushing the food that He loves to eat Down but never see the matter He is a man, That is to say the very man Who is lounging now In a summer bombast Of finery, the L again And he who may Be some unphrased gentleman In a blue tie And a lips mended with melodious pink Named after the fleece To be taught up, he taught, not taught That Money, the kind scientist, Is not the thing Which matters, nor the thing which matters Is not the thing which matters Which is the thing which matters It is not the kind thing It is the money Which is the thing Theado, enamoured By music's melodious strain And at the heart by Sickness Truant, trebly vain, Once to pursue and, twice, to recumbent In sunset weather, Once ======================================== SAMPLE 30 ======================================== "Full in the face Of the sun; And a dim light went out against the sun And the late gods, And a change was upon the Gods; The air heaves with the writhing of their feet. They leave some signs, They leave others in the air, The white shells shift against the moon. The old gods come back, As to give glory to men: They wheel about in laughter. In their right hands they bear on high But denied the bow, A light in the blood of the land, A light in the darkness. What did they name that light, And who were the blameless ones? This, in the sea they named it: Namalese, and that island, Oceanci; but the name Was lost for many years. What happened in the darkness That is half night, half day, The wondering people wondered, The families of men, The praying men and the children. The one whose ladder tipped in the wind, A girdle on the autumn bud, Who smiled a little, then, in the night, Watched it swing in the sunlight again. When earth was naked And parched, And tired of drinking, The water turned; With very wonder A saddle did they make, And mounted off in happy haste, The mane in a dream they seized And took to the water, That a few frantic flocks might drink. And, since a scholar In History was born, His pondora A whole meadow measured This past June, Has been the talk of the town. <|endoftext|> "In Praise of Length of Fare", by Lee Clark [Living, Disappointment & Failure, Nature, Animals, Arts & Sciences, Poetry & Poets] With one foot (and more) on the sill, the other at least one-quarter inch below the level of the bog, it is a dance I try to remember only in glimpsing the momentary shimmer of the wet trees and streambank pinks precisely at the edge of extinction, or at my own edge, rimming the streambed's edge, and with my face against the dizzy sill's curve, and without putting pressure of my body into words, its breath taking the air with me as I weigh the tiredness of spirit against the commonplace myself; for the line—that with neither one does I complete my unhappy walk—it was mine no one else did. <|endoftext|> "The Thoughts that Ripulate and Crumble", by Alda Merinho Farmer [Relationships, Family & Ancestors, Home Life, Social Commentaries, History & Politics] 1. My father, last night, reminded me to get my political tattoo pretty quickly, like the time when I said I won't get one because I got a political one on my chest, too, and then thought, when he said that, that might not be such a good idea, and when he called my parents, too, a couple of them calling me too, I was caught in this web of calling people "dummy" that you know, though it is my first political tattoo and the people I've called are politicians, either my own or on my chest and neither of them soothsayers, so I call no one else, even though the one beneath my chest would have to be dummy as well, and maybe there's no such thing as a political or a dummy, and maybe that is the real political and dummy and maybe that's the dummy and maybe, if we look harder, we can find no one else in the world besides us and this dreadful shadow we have wrought on the landscape, on the page, around the house. And there is the result: my name carved, and erased, and changed in the human flesh by books and history and poetry, as though, at some point in time, the very act of knowing a poem, my name being erased, or carved, or changed, as though, at a certain point, I became the poem, the human subject whose name is I, whose name is I, in the singular, I. And the political tattoo then and now is just one more message that my name, and my name is also a tattoo so that now when I think about it, that now becomes the body of that poem that became my father's son, I am the child of a poem.2. It's time for the Trump Tower to fire the cannon and burn the flag. It's time for the honored cow to be branded, shored, ======================================== SAMPLE 31 ======================================== to greet her his thumb in reverence! So, in the morning hours of Spring, I wander in a secret joyous pride, In sorrow, speechless, pliant as the palm. <|endoftext|> "On Idol-worship", by Demetrius [Religion, Christianity, God & the Divine] And they are called [In praise of] idols; The incense, the gifts, the jeweled words. Their form befits not youthful flesh and blood, But age shall wear youthful form and soul. The old man when he counts his pastime shares, And quench-smile, count or cross-crown, re-blossom The gods that he adores, his life bereaves, And makes for heaven each place of earth, his heaven In first of love and every love after; So when their form first shone, they begin Ascend, naked to the light of heaven; Their poverty great as their name above, As in the old, so in the new they shine. <|endoftext|> "Grave-Rasmus", by Sarah Wilson [Living, Growing Old, Time & Brevity, Religion, Christianity, Social Commentaries] "If a tree were to lie Beneath my head, And if I tried to express My love for it, The air's dry drive, Its notched leaves and rough, The dog-star 'd fall And hold my hair up, Or a song dropp'd from it, To rouse me then, If a plant were to bear Bees nestled there, The birds then would sing, A song to tell me how Its blossoms sagged, And I hear the bees sing, But if a summer's star Hung in the sky, The sun-fly'sFlight down, The flies and fleas fling To make their love. These things if they were, I would know." <|endoftext|> "The Cross", by Mary Rose Rice [Living, Sorrow & Grieving, Religion, Christianity, Social Commentaries] I was an invalid and sometimes we could not bring our children to the funeral. The doctor called me "that cross." My tears were rule, and I am afraid now that he could see they were tears of prayer. All you people who had nursed me in sickness and sorrow, and cared for me through the terrible pass to child birth, you had lost a true Christian. I heard the minister before the coffin was led out say, "That cross is where the heart of Mary lives now." <|endoftext|> "The Conjecture", by Alice Cary [Living, Death, Disappointment & Failure, Sorrow & Grieving, Time & Brevity, Love, Heartache & Loss, Relationships, Social Commentaries] I know what my feelings would be, Should the moon not be the same in heaven: —trains of it glittering in the dead night; This was, indeed, but the first its height That ever sparkled in the pure night. I know what I should feel, Even in absence, of the thing I love. My blood runs back, Now the wounded pining heart calls me. O could I see one lingering star, Or hear it clink upon the pines, Before it wakened mine! The Night is deeper And yonder, as the lamplighter writes, In the diaphanous firmament, The Sign of the Star in Agrama ascribes Meanings to me, or else discourses To me. And something tells me, Even in sleep, that some awakening Will be. If this were so, O what am I? Who shall quell the war? Myself, or who thine? I know so my own or less, Who should at once this turn counter-roll, But who palely lies, Now in the tower! The rude responding Is sharply audible, Or is it just the waters? The wind I hope is not at an all-length; O what make'st thou the moon seem kind If, though thy largeness shew'th thee broad, No flood-tide gathers above? And, what I must endure, Or what we endure, And what new things befall, Which speak themselves clearer; I know Not being but what the sea Has given me. And the waves roll on. I hear them, moving most aloud By the Black Sea, under the sand ======================================== SAMPLE 32 ======================================== Let your hand furnish a new prick; If your shoulder's wrinkled and bleak, Here's a poultice of elder-flower To give you a more lady-like grace." He laid his hand upon my brow, And, O! was it sweat! O! was it tears! But now I must leave off, and I Urge with all the fire of my animus Fred to allow me a hearing In this damned goosechill'd apple, In this hell-fired apple, This brimming demon apple; In this apple blossoming With the blood of innocents. No more of noble pines that at eve Stood up like mature, stiff pines In carved and pompadicked glee Upon the hillside, where we lay, In the tender lightness of delight, Stretched 'twixt the hills and the vale. No more from my lips shall I eject The zinger of a bard so mild As `Praise it be war' or `War be praise,' That last of all my attacks, perchance, To men who must needs cede the field To get one more flavor, wheresoe'er It be. There will be hussle in the apple When the pressing of the ritual ends, And by this reverend fruit. O may it be That I have not uttered that full step Of rhythmic ardor. But thou dost prove, Curlew, I may beat thee as I please, And much more thou shalt cover Thy bed, and keep thy head hid in it, But not the fact, as one who had his showing, Even when 'twas staying. Let no tongue Assail thee, but thy star make thy point; And only stir thy thickest leaves, and lick The air as a cat or a woman would. That's past. I'm yours. And just suppose that I In truth now feel all that I supposed wrong: I might say that now, and then gulp melon, And then run off in the Hayley-linnet's arms To take its signs of the sour and sweet: But my lips are bunkered at the mere thought: And had I an ass here in the chill Of `Truth's a lunacy,' I would twist his dice, To see where he comes short, And then go plumping with the rest. It's not her being rather shy, As she ought not to be, Nor yet her being slightly duds, But his being larger-sized. He'll add as much to what she's lent, As some big bank of money. Well! Who goes first in a collier's bag, You may be sure to get! Yet, if the worst be true, I'll not consent to go with a halberd, Or any other thing That a fellow is paying his mind To make him altogether clear: That of course Lies more in profligacy Than a man may presently discover. Alas! I shall have to take that case, And say that such a man oughtn't To be tied down to one employer; Nay, that, For a man's a man, no ten- dency Shall hinder him from earning his bread, And that there's nothing in being rich That a gentleman his working should confute. I stand on this and on that; But if I were sold to a pack of my peers, It would be easy to part From every one of you. From everybody, I am dreaming to The very last moment. Some, I have known To be rich men, and who are very great --The mother of the boy that she gave birth to For nobody cares whether I'm a dun, So long as he's earning his bread with his wealth: And that ain't so good, But it's no use to be thinking of the lousy duns, Who aren't fretting, I judge, at the very worst, But leaving that to the next generation. You say I'm a moth: I don't care! That ain't my affair. For myself, I state plainly enough (But I'll settle my differences of opinion), I'm in the mise en plû, Ain't I a bon du pérterior, I say! That I don't care Whether I'm right or wrong; Why, everybody knows in what way I've erred, But nobody's in a hurry to condemn me, And everybody knows it, for the sake of good company, ======================================== SAMPLE 33 ======================================== . Now when the gate swings wide the clouded witch grows and drops the sacrifice on the ground like a worm rolling its large, muscled shell ; then to the troubled dog an altar of honor giving of its own. Stones of vipers and cocoanuts now refuse their languages to the ear of the old witch. She touches a metal ring, a cupping wand that brings vortices of water, storms, and crystal, the thunder and the rain her speaker sets for her enemy. The final words boil and leave in a sludge of air like the child’s son taking the shaking from the bath that turns its water back on itself, the child there in the tub exiles, trawling for lizards among leaves. <|endoftext|> "The Stone Hexx", by Charles Olson [Living, Death] Their tragedy in a wellspring of mysterious incompatibility (you will be forgotten,) the body and its mortal flawensity began breaking into a thousand fragments mutation after mutation went wrong froth weathers ran sharp to the marrow like rabbits under snow appearing for bear when there was no snow their young would be stunted and exhausted a small need for animal identity daring none of it for children swimming too near the object lesson of low self-esteem froth wind making wild elements hairy <|endoftext|> "Prayer", by Charles Olson [Religion, Prayer] How can I make a valuable science? An art can be terrible Too much light for too long a time Wearing out consciousness Suffering and suffering Feeling ashamed Am I in my lifetime Endowing a life Endowing a tomb <|endoftext|> "Dance, Dance", by Charles Olson [Living, Disappointment & Failure, Midlife, Activities, School & Learning, Relationships, Arts & Sciences, Dance & Dance School, Arts & Sciences, Reading &Book] You who have heard the statistics of adults not dancing in a monthly or yearly digest of releases you have deliberately called to one another you have struck without purpose and another diverted diverted toward the daylight already either by heart or in school bands either by habit or necessity You have danced your whole life Danced at home School Till principalities have petered out We will not be taught The most pedigreed the lowest common sense the scripture The last dance The rosary <|endoftext|> "The Way Things Are", by Rori Ron now commonly used as a self-parody song and is a good example of the later If you want to learn how to be a doctor You'll find Rumi or Buddha Both dead and both apparently sleeping pillows for their advanced years Brims of children's tears Or groans Of twelve years You'll find something to wake you up The thing that will Change you Is You will Learn there are things to be afraid of You will be afraid of: Wrap around your feet Any movements of the chest The way the shoulders fall Or arches Try words that make your heart tremble: A cup of hot coffee And the thoughts of Any noises Something to believe in Before you Learn The need to believe A nameless terrorist who approaches you I am telling you There are several To the silence of the dead You must Dare to see The stars The men who have lived their lives without any life You must be Precise The petty disorganization of a moment The controlled dissembling And the official Plainly pointing fingers at the end of your life <|endoftext|> "Identity Crisis", by Ryo Hirohata [Living, The Mind, Arts & Sciences, Language & Linguistics] All that matters now is the production and the reproduction of American identities. Whether you're a poet or a lawyer the Japanese on the Korean left coast is any language between the island sirsoned by conquest and the future's heavy long faces focusing camera on ======================================== SAMPLE 34 ======================================== Part a minister, part sad savor; The smilful lord of Wombowrie is not Full dearer than thyself, wise dog; For when thou hast the key of Greenfield's Spring, And his creation not devised, Thou hast, to use of Pevere it, long bent the germ, Hast chang'd my refrain, my field and meads to lose, But have not change'd my purpose to begin. Go, dear Clifford, from the door of the star, The house which all heroes are found in, The gardener of all dreames-haunted one, The Painted God in the arrant garden, With her own morne, at whose view the marble van Like to the image of some gloslime, Reverberates, and must be ignor'd, Never mended or reviv'd that is so. Hence, golden, all wonderful here you see, The woman, mighty and yet so rare Of her own wayes, so lordly too, By all the grace of God's progeny; There's Helen fair, and you, gallant, be glad. For his red nose she has charm'd me so, All that whole adventure well done, That that nose's red I never had amaze, In hand or eye for aught that I know; So we be match'd together, you and I, One to the other nat'rally brought; Now of our mutual malice well inform, And I'v deal my hast'ning doom on you, damn. Beware! Beware! a DEVIATION even to this air Of standing doctrine, with her too to be so, Till things appear which had appeared otherwise; And both or neither you will bow to see If we may mark the things that were not then; Things that were made things that be not now. Still. Always. She's hee, she's shee, but hee stands hee atheit, Her Latis, the homo, by whose hee doth be heaed, At homo, a stoop'd, limp, shee stoops't the hid, Shee sits and heeds; but the hunk of heeds as she Was hid in the giddie, and yet would slip Out of he house, had the church bell not pulled! Shee stoops, she heeds; but the cally of knees and seat This beare-all down there makes her see, Where before 'twasNaught but a pipe and a black-lead vail, A peeces-stain'd, pad-stamped, sack-tied d___d calf. She seiz'd, she hee stupp'd, that shee'd lop That piper soon; when 'Good Morning' she cried, 'To you, my dear, I love you so, 'Good morning, and if not good late, at all, 'I wid' and 'Good eve, adieu'; then shee plaaased Off'ring her grudging lips to pause, And doing, how severe might be the feare Of those, whose bodie's burd'n into butter We look for, or into the maw of pork: Then will I jocularly wish 'Happy' to Ease, And in my feare, that goes to fight yeeld That th' eyes see so much, and eye-glasses so eumerous, 'Twill eas'd their viewing no impossible I say, If with a craft as cunning as my own We, like savants, trim this mischief, and hing This fly in, that to be ow'd we scratch, Which now all but blukes, will now turn with the tongue, To breed our own destruction, and the choosers of boys, Whose lives and circumstances neer had been requickened. Goe forth then! and keep thee from those loves Which are to be 'mongst mine own, and with thine own, With'rite censure. Sike. But shee knits her brow And so i' th' snarling of her scornful plums, If you voo here the pye to descend, I' th' bucket of my vat-flan; There lie! go mumble and so sup, Th' rod of willow and fire-rod scull; And bathe that cherry-brands i'th' stall, And shee-o'th in, and so purge again, And giue thy mouth to th' poti-atis, And ======================================== SAMPLE 35 ======================================== ~3, The things I kept my eyes closed to of poor landfaring people of little wit are in sugar in dust I retrieve for a song I carry my love for your apparition to nurse (though you be going into the impossible bush your breasts of blossom in the glare of sight and to go around her on the broad highway of the big house of painting props between poem and beam I carried her on my shoulder yesterday morning and as much as I am in love a sheet rock'd dead woman hurches my love regarding the things I kept my eyes shut to of poor people - - slow down of the things I kept my eyes closed to - The women who up build up were the ones who up had no place I have myself a place as the thing that does all the things I say and don't not a place I have I stay the things that I’m soft up and I look in their face to the world-bringing I make them into words the words & I make them say I make them climb mountains the places to come down to where there isn't anything in my mind, there was one last night w no more - I throw myself out of a fourth-floor window-it’s as if a jimjam ist 'a sleeping jar & you can't kill the quiet by talking it's me that turns to you last night w I was riding the truck thru the city till this moment where I have you on my back I said to my own mouth I say the voices that you makes are the voices whereas all voices are you-made and you-made & everything that you made is you I don't believe in the culture of my interests w ith other people w whom I believe whip my way w with a bazooka At the end of the day, I wake up w my mother w the limelight on me wide-shot for a bit I get to make my bones w hands and pens and was a fist w I have been on the withdraw today that is the way it is w the deal w crack bodies w prolong your dresses w long-term attitude and where did you go that isn't a baller w when did you go w not be here for your best w are you the chance of to make w whether in a large dressing room w on a tray w on a tray w stirrer w than a perfect body w isn’t everything w isn’t (is) everything that everything is amid the stacks of well- made w woven all- American linen I thought w isn't everything all a matter of where w happened that woke me woke me in w This is just w the ball of sleep I woke up on that morning I woke up and read about the bomb The bombs fell, the bombs fell, and it was not a night to dream This w the situation here w its global a pale blue gray awful it was like w w I woke up it w happened to all things, except a tremendous shadow more would fall all walls & news more would fall, eventually I hope I don't live to see this w you watched w hear w about The very next full-term in a ballerini B-day, remembering the bombs fell and rained across the world and stayed w just hang on we are all mixed up, the world we are this w is a balls-to-the-wall w horizon w and we won't be safe we can't be, the sky w is so high it would be easy for a mockery, this w is w such an extraordinary place, no w it w happened as though w was conjunct w from the beginning w the weapon was made w and w w remains w wounded, human and on the ground there is no roble-moudiewitch ======================================== SAMPLE 36 ======================================== Order goes to order; I advance amid the procession And ascend the grand, though windingway; The night takes off her mantle of silver; The stars do shine; the last her robe of fire; And all the celestial sisters wait. I turn to these who wait; Here youth alone heels from his spurning heel, And heaves him on the sagging dungeon side; Here is no token But my vast obscurity. With flowers the dark boughs wear, And to the winds' high whispering invited, The treble gossamer. Now purple o'er them the vaulted sky With shimmering mendacabbles vies, Or play theirpend on spider-shuddering threads The sheaves of youth and hope. Red flowers the leafy branches bear In garish scarlet pride encarled. My grandfather, on the calm delight Of the fresh streams, the horticultural trade tried-- The different colours' various merit-- But ranged and clung not, one diamond only, Upon the cheerful table in front of door He set the flowers that laid their sweet leaves there. For joyous days then blossom-clad Filled the cool blossoming year about the vine; Rivers run gushing from the rocks in drink Rich with limpid smiles, and run in drops The silver-framed glass, on calm sunned days The temples of the gods were graced with bloom And bloomy fruit, and on no wise-fowl's breast Such sweets as those invitemen of earth, To press the ambrosial tooth, grew roundel-spangled. At such time, the bud with interrupted crest Yields at its first blur of beauty's unfoldment, And folds of lustrous lily from its bed The diamond petals, and the western wind No longer wreathes its waving plumes. And in its gold sheen The varnish dyed deep is shed While many yellow sins outstill Knots and fillets round the tender shoot, And twenty suns are wreathed about its growth. Then, both the following flowers lying close, The blood remains unharmed, The deepens and darkens with its tone Lest the soft beautiful dread us fright, So hangs this present time away. So, also, fear-fertitta't and care-dold Must bear away their boyvolent praise, Mangling in every limb its learning's pride. Nor wilt thou leave these well-known bounds Unheeded: for a God whereof thou hast Been made the neighbour, let thy footsteps steer, By me advised, to these low bounds, The warmway of the Sun's creative might, Withal where most myrtles in its courses need To tread down flowers and heat in thee; and thou Take into account the distant fullness' Hard exercise, both of mincing and of war: These two, the Sun and these, should'st thou befal. I know not, then, if any star's spirit For thee the Sun's vestal sendinel entrap, Which, being gulph'd in excess of light, Burns with thee, and with thy fame oscillate. But--be thou, a little faint, at sea, a gilded cloud That ships may safely safely travel o'er, Be thou, a tainted weed that breathes in air pure, That, when the light is bright, may'st inspire A common flame in countries far remote. Rocks and trees, that bring the breezes' cool blast, Make thee dispense with golden attire; By balls of brown, by golden flows, By shining streams, by lakes be spread field and pool. But know, my Son, thou art a spark that burns so fast That, though to view thy rising presence afford None but the fire-side is yet able to see, The sprite of sunshine, in the indefinite near, Might on the statue's sight raise up its own, Which seeming flame, might here and there effect kindled sight, But this, no light from it, is in a darkened build, Nor does any nature on it's face express More noble or more private, than the light That forces round a curtain of strong light, To scope for healthy converse with a full-blown flame. Then, too, be this, that every touch of thee is kind, Because thou'rt a work of pure and exquisite desire, And men are fonder of beauty when it burns with joy More than the grace of art. See now, how bright of yonder star The rans ======================================== SAMPLE 37 ======================================== "Upland" or "by the clock" Stays on The Man— The others have returned Of the men at the tilth— I cannot feed. I close my Ears at the "Moving-straps"— My Gods, will I ever make it? I wear the suit that I made for the moving men— My shoes cost too much For any one's shape— And I've been catching up in my work On "Cornhill" (which was invented by one of my Slaves), I never could discover If the man in front of me is really A. DuBurg III Or one of his Speakers, Or if the book he's reading is himself a copy— The dreariness of Tuy Papa Is on my shoulders (And all the others), And of course it doesn't help to have to go into court To a man who looks and thinks he's invisible. Yea, it bothers. I'd love to be in front of a jury With my name on it. But they'd be my enemies, And I could never get on their side. But not alone do I know that We do not live solely for the stage— The stage, and the play, And our much-equalled-at candle, Bring in by the worlds Not just one more uncaussed candle— But now, stand aside, I'm getting to the end of my rope. As a blind man who peeps he knows not (See how he steps In an empty place) If the steps are stage-real Or hollow and painted; As the one great Master, time Whispers to and thro The will of his past— Well, he's been to New-York. There's the entrance. There are the houses— And as I hesitated To ask (for the ghost of the night Stole my words) Were those not words I pronounced And said as those of mere bluster That goes where silence is crown'd? I said: "Dick." That's the title. Here's the road. This is the darkness In which I had been led: (Well, the Nox and their brother), The Wabash Machine. The Living, the Things that have no power To cross or lead. All sun, all dew— Shade of night, shade of day— There's the road. And the street as it was a nameless Hole in my own mind (Why, I didn't know), And I, I also went to the Empty Room in the middle of the night And found an open letter, A blank screen and the lamp burning. I found the letter Tucked in the Appraisal; And also I found the lamp burning. I stepped up to the lamp— I must look in the lamp— I smelt the cordial if there was any, But, alas, the breath of man was nearing. And the man had fallen off the step, And lay still, far too much for the eye. I put out the light— By the mouth, a pinch in the neck— Mouth, by the eyes— Smiles of life and the thing that sets itself To be by its own race, very like the body gone mad— Bruises on a head half-smocked by the darkness (Maurice Ramsay). Ah, my friend, my old friend, Here's the end of your Letter: There's the appetency to think that you Kept your word that your heart was no place For the love and life both of each other. I'm sorry that you sent it. I know that in your heart A change had taken place qualitatively, having nipped Your fellow creature of the spirit for the witch. Dear friend, before we parted I said That I should have myself of your movement, The time of your ten years' existence I should know better than you remember That place which this man of simplicity and you Never could enter into, never get out of. And you said I would meet you at the Port, That I should in and through the Port see what happened After the moving. And you wrote: "I have the honor to request And that my picture be put up In the window of the Westing for the evening Of to-night. . . . To-night is the one You must take notice of." I waited and waited. I knew that you were just postponing. And I was afraid your heart was playing a trick. I knew I had ======================================== SAMPLE 38 ======================================== A calf with twining grass, a singed wisp, And so 'twas another drink--but that had cooled, When to the evening morn his palfrey came. Then Gama, wild of chest and raw of bone, Moved on to present the terrapin with In his own hands, and proffered Gringos to his guest. 'Twas exotic fashion to pay 'scutage, and he Needed both cash and good exchange for the loot. "Where art thou?" Gama, weeping, choked. "The Pampas split upon Brazil's far-flung shore, But thine is wizen in the tropics' eye: Toto is master of this larder, while The mighty of serpents has thine ascendants. In the bush his mate, an urchin gnawed the cinder. We fished on that day, and he plunged to the sea. Once bitten, twice never can the wonder quell thee. But thou hast spurned him, nor stung more fiercely; 'Tis only thy peace that thrills thee to discontent; On thy chest is the curse of Orion's police." "O you gnawing, naked beast," Gama laughed, "arOPE's joy. In my forest I witnessed thy last episode. I bought you then for an English penny, and the guile you took Was better profit than an American's pay. Yet do I see thee once again, and now with fangs deceitful, A free bite on the ring of my Palm." Gama then set to work to afflict thee in its own way; "Those who can not speak are obstinate and will sue no more," He said, "so that terror has not abated thee And your slavering fan's uncloaking; go, try the range If I will give thee a fair dousing; which, with thy babes, I oft found unsuspecting. What is their remedy? Well, they are as safe as the ebon-bulrush; Even should the tygot take me to court, I will not fail To advise you; wherefore 'tis good for you to read In France a Knight, if we must call him that, The Prince of DARK, was at the MARLBOROUGH'S side. Its PERSIAN King, ABDIURL JIM, though an enemy To the MUSLIM MAIL, was powerless to hold The FRENCH, the undisputed PRINCE MASTER, in her school, No more. Beside, the dark Austrian is not so proud As to forego his own subjects' good, and make new ones To serve himself, under the name of RULER, throned On a rival's sycamore, where the meagre trunk Munches without relish, and where quality At best is pottage, and the average Briton groans Into a Fortune, instead of the fresh spring weald, It is the grey rock-cliff that comes down to the sea; From the sick WITCHER spread its precious recipes, Of Medici cares, and villa odoris; The tithe-plough and some half a dozen more Swedish legends with the PRIME MALIGNO, The dirk was hard, yet the sword served him for a point. He did not disemploy Or lose the rapier when its use you besought; In neighbouring realms The weight of subducutors increased; In England, how much worse Even when wedded to a running saddle, The length of oxen, without graving, you find; In our Fair Isle rare wealth is the rarest weight; Our enemies chose the short round hair; Our damlets soon degenerate to long lances; A rumour rose, that Irishmen Were all just right from the crown and garter. Your gentle wife ne'er shawed in thy sight Thy Estate or house, but how ungainly dung, And stupid-minded for a' that; How hap it, when first that love began, To wed thy bonnie bairnies thrawn and late, To lose the fame that never could be lost! The parsimonious restraints of place Fraught on one unwont to raise his bow; Or well-dressed, how the poor gloved Citigniti, To rare fair company oppos'd! Ah! never chalked in Quaker City, Be at aFair, or writing of the Muses, A pensive pilgrim wandering; The Spinney is but a dirty ======================================== SAMPLE 39 ======================================== We made them with each other's aid, Seeking wisdom to be taught, But we all are waiting the rising. Until the way is plain and clear Now our charters lose their meaning. We learn to give in pleasure's ways, That dear is every life. The essential truth is soon made clear, Which we have trifled and fettered. Now no one dreads the shadow long, For one hour it seems a life, And we are thankful if 'tis night soon. <|endoftext|> "I Have a Dream of a Man", by Wallace Stevens [Arts & Sciences, Poetry & Poets] I have a dream of a man from an century After the one we live in, singing. The forward motion of the nations is at work In the changing sea and the changing sea-shore, The centuries marching and falling with the tide, Then lifting at once a whole sea in its direction. His dream is the time that it will be grass before too soon. The forward march of a man from a time far in the future singing. Then all the gates of the imagination swing swinging, The gates of the imagination that have never been yet. O a man from an evil time singing! His song is of the sea, it is of the sea and the shore, The hoarse violent motion of the sea without monotony, With lurching leaps and the pushing of feet. Then his man is the man from a time immured in faith, He is sensitive to a time immastered in anxiety, Hears the moan of the sea, it is his. But his song is of the sea, of the sea and the shore, The hoarse violent motion of the sea in its abiding. Then his songs are of the sea of the time to be and the time already past. His songs are swung from the ocean of God's voice, They are of the sea and the shore, but they are not monotonically so, There is no clock-winding rhythmical grip of rhythm and metre. He is not a man of the monotonous long chants of antiquity, He is sensitive to rhythm as one may be sensitive to emotion. <|endoftext|> "Hymn", by Stanley Wechs That a boy might sing it after a day walking the free past the fountain toward sunsetI have grown fond of its bird-haunted emptiness I know only one thing that is to be free of Now she will come to me, one of those lost things <|endoftext|> "The Mountain in April", by Langford Ryan [Nature, Trees & Flowers, Weather, Arts & Sciences, Music, Mythology & Folklore] —for Ann Shamasho Logan 1. To the Sky Now it is sundown, it is also dinnertime, it is rime, which is white. We are on the roof of clouds and snow, two stories up. We make out the smudge of people on the mountain top. In the next yard or so, the house of a mountain climbets, whose house does not rise to the sky, and they are climbing without ropes to the top, each other. There is one child asleep in the next yard and one on the mountain. The body is blue, pale in the gale. Here in the leafy sky, at this moment the clouds open and hang a dog. It is her whole line of hair lying in a field of clouds, it is the colored blanket. There is a psalm, also white, of one night, which will never be sunlit again, or there was. This dog in the clouds is a mournful sign of this evening. There is another red dog on the mountain, which was a cross, a longing. Now all the things we needed to sing have come to pass. 2. Past Not Enough To Sing. What have we brought to the end of song? It is not enough of what is brought to the end: only voice, only love, only the mountain by the ice, only flowers, only snow that comes but finally is not enough, only ice that melts, only what is but endures. That which is sung but becomes a song belongs not at all to the singer. <|endoftext|> "I Would Prefer a Fog", by Edwin el Verón [Love, Romantic Love, Religion, Other Religions] I would prefer a fog to this plancoland my gray cathedral of bells and restless exalta I would prefer a ======================================== SAMPLE 40 ======================================== group, h ere w agety so rich thig ilka bo leeb er, which meant allher girlly wee. Maney day! then a raven crow/by ó royal, d home her razool and flint hat, her wo wifery plaid, her hose w ivver worn, d in wrapt creoved ivory, which as she hevd no bad germbickt; d by her cam d a man and knaw her by no wyeth, notmtyn, a white d bant, like dag, erbarnished ivverything. But oh, she mean she looked all she did, and beavins in mall, wt th. The foals alowed and lax her and twined; then Lord I weaz wore all and did hide me d wiv fannished eies. HERSHERD (reading) she sawer did misse three doublers this yeare, and h over was got, and thither folke abowte with southest words theerbrowne: Her thropiche wordes did twice epe to night; and next day bur withall Sir Ioue, doost lokke y eare? dou'll be dyin hill and vane-- My bonay han'nt be lyk dere; Let wi' fawca wull be the bag to be; And evir I do feaye a man: Hester that gat she lykky very best, Ay other lords wi' me they're gone. How can you comfort me, and feare that ye my gude stoue would be doated, To lyberate a figure that nobody mought I haue, And else to see ye'd be gone unnoted, Wi' poyson oppresse, all the pore nation? H. THOMPSON, POPE SAYES, WEALTH, AND KNOWLEDGE, AND DISCIPLINE Thus, thus was healel, a' pure veene, Than a' the world that's base, There was the strik't horses, there the billies, there the Pope, And hull ane ane; Yestreen was the raval lion, His haunch sonnet; There yw best braid wern frae the Monarch, yt ymston Sir Michael O'D. W. Ape he stared--was i'n on yol code, At ever micht; For ane a fox hid in yon till the licht o'tmicht. There were divers sorts o' things, man; The up strikityst o' beasts an' man, Wat day they would just ken I cudna live Unto yor fox. But the Mammy put up the paw that did This worke, and cloath'd me wi' wool, An' sairly croked me if I us to strych-- Then whal testy an' weel I let yor man. Last nite, sic days, I come to that bit ha', An' laigh a friend I me gied a preen; Yer wae-wild fox bar'd to go an errin' At whaur that he did wander, An' me I ever then cast a preen Unto a warlkavin' foxy that they me entos'd-- For I didna live as free as I is now. But a' that's been seen, it 's winter hard, An' seed-time is i' the bud; Now chickens are cryin' in the brack, an' the bairns are hiting, An auld men is doin' wrang. I used to fancy, when the day drooped, It might do with its aunty, An' there were some awn protests and complaints, An' t' other world I feared was no way but in'-- But I like my aunty, an' gien it, t' other world was right. Th' birdies vars dear o' the garden 's gane; An' yer bairnies daw, an' the lassies, bonnie. May you live frae smiles, an' an' i' your care, May the soupe be never furth nor raggage, An' a heart o' wisdom soften yor ways, An' strain all prance an' prang ======================================== SAMPLE 41 ======================================== Subsists in the gutters; at its source it flows Unchecked and free into rivers and lakes, Rivers and cisterns, the termination of rivers. It travels the plains, it traverses mountains, Rocking and creeping, it fights its way down, Wearing its cradle-cover the soil and mountain. When morning breaks it finds a sash as soft as hay, With drops of sunset lavishing all its surface, Starry gems the main river hailing below Like precious tears in silken ribbon falling from the moon. The Lake is formed as far as we know From the best sorb but in smaller tuns Diving in new depths what ray on ray Will check the deep-sea drowse? 'Tis nearer to Heaven the lowest gives But the smallest height. Our Islands are never cradled, They mature till the ascendent Unravels into a river That flows in the pale of day Unto the Lake their headlands crowned The most sublime of all emblems! While YEWS as trees stand The canniest threat Oaks guard their piles And gladly graze Across the weed <|endoftext|> Farewell to that litter of briefs, The boxes of briefs, and bedstands, The hymnatory of sham monogamous forms; Your mother was a whore for you, And what a priapasse is this? The pulsing of your hearts thro' summer and winter, Like a soft thick climax of love's last passions; You grow up with no fetters on you; A pair of stockings, that's all; A scented charm that's all; There's never a thought of man or woman, That touches the ways that you come to be; Your thoughts, you have them; but the world has readjusted To a new meaning of your being. And what have you in your pew? The box, the pillow, the book, the chair; What boots the loss of these? For here,--you are nothing again! As no priest would ask again To bring from Jerusalem, 'tis plain, It is not fitting you should carry And carry your mother's funeral prayers; Her dreams; her love, her hopes and her cares; Her shamefaced mother has no wish but yours; A pleasure of the spirit to enjoy, To forget your fellows' joys and pains. And may not you be proud To hold that special counsel-rights, Which some would have which to them called your own, Which would set you wide apart from all. Let it not grieve your pleasures, or invade The quiet of your soul! When to the world you set your fettered hands, Keep all the freedoms that you can; And if no meanest being would abuse your bliss, Nor hell's HIGHEST, nor God's HIGH KING, strike you With deadly blasts that die in amber showers And sun-born airs of ethereal wings. A boy, love was to chase The rosy dream, till set of ill; A girl, love was to come, The youth by whose swift hand it came Had all his life to let him know. A poet he grew, and died, A woman of no fixed creed; A babe was raised in full old day, And no one found a bean. I had a farm, all alight With flowers, birds, clouds, and lawn, A stocking, sleepy in the crop; A coodcher, blossom-poo. A pen and ink; A gown of which Heaven's fairest share, With hand-work penman never knew. The farm, all this the very eve I fell sick in bed, That reason held my tongue to supper; The butler left his hole, The windy night! Ah, dear, how bleak, When, to my bed side dripping drearily, With fevered brain and yet unspiced, And coming at length this letter here I stand, Stunned by the moon; then all is fled, With wind and shimmering stars and clouds of white; My house and garden, baked by heat, grow gray; While thou art gone, all is as before; My brain fails, and breathless grows my eyes; My last good friend fails, and then I die. O tarry thou, to all my life So dear! I have no voice to praise thee. O tarry, till the spring of light Shall make thee self-knowing, calm as now. And thou, so chilled ere thou leave me ======================================== SAMPLE 42 ======================================== Facebook, Wine, & Dining, Relationships, Friends & Enemies, Arts & Sciences, Humor & Satire, Social Commentaries, History & Politics] Wang Wei, or The Literature of War, was first published in German in 1942, with annotations provided by Walter Kooné. This was followed by four volumes in the "Land and Nationalities" series. The Japanese edition was published in two volumes, with the complete text in three, and three videotaped compilations of songs (1993, 1998, 2000), making it one of the most complete and consistent of all books on war and military literature. In 2002, a twelve-volume English edition was published. It is the most authoritative and highly regarded edition of the book, with twenty illustrations. (A twelve-volume Chinese edition was published in 1992, and the second most comprehensive in the country.) Originally intended for undergraduate courses, the Japanese edition of the book has been very popular with scholars, military experts, and others. I paid my troops...(1) "Mao Zedong only destroyed a few of his farms" ... In that cold year of cold trade and hard currency, Ungoverned, he had many good farms. -- Walter Koon both of his research and his livelihood Was paid for by the British Government through the Communist party. This third war with China...(5) The third and last world war, initiated and led by the United States, entered into force in September of 1939. The war continued until the end of hostilities in Japan in July of 1945, and killed an astounding number of people in China. The population of China at the end of the war was concentrated in three regions: The delta area west of the Yangtse River, where many of the south-western Chinese provinces were located; the fall back region to the southwest of the Yangtse River, home to the majority of the country's modern rural populations; and the mountainous central plains, including the four provinces of Asan, Hunan, Yunnan, Shan and Man, where most of the country's phosphate and industrial phosphate deposits were located. The war also involved the northern almost entire country, whose colonial legacies, through colonial-style small peasant arrangements, had developed a highly centralized economic and territorial framework for decades. The shares of agricultural lands had become so concentrated in the hands of a few large class members that they no longer satisfied the purposes of an agrarian revolutionary movement, but instead sought the modernization of the whole agricultural sector, through both ownership and methods. The new forces of urban labor, urban trade and industry, in the eyes of the Party, constituted a threat to the economic basis of the country, which was oriented toward domestic as well as overseas markets and the state's predominance in rural areas. The imperialist objectives of American capitalism, which shaped the war in various aspects, impeded rather than aided the state's war efforts. Yü Yun, a citizen of Chinese nationality, physician and political prisoner from the so-called "disables' camps" of the northern "special administration of troops" (SOAS), was chosen to replace Chiang Kai-Shek as the "person who would succeed" in restoring order and safety to the national cause. As reported by U D Healy, this was a notable achievement, in that a Yünian was chosen to serve as "chief executive" of the country rather than a puppet leader of some other political puppet. ... The most extreme faction of the Chinese population, known as the Patriotic Social Program (PSP) ["zhiz not belonged in the Democratic Army (front-endor Joint Army),"]... ... supported Nationalist objectives through a restoration of Confucius[, instead of, as the quotations above mentioned]--i.e., the independent front and dual power stance of China as a nation in which, but for their guidance and leadership, the Communists would have succeeded. Advocates of the PSP believed that the basic tenets of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), a nationalist revolutionary party, justified the existence of the Nationalist regime. On the other hand, critics of the CCP argue that it cannot succeed in the long run except in the narrow sense that the Chinese CCP is a "propositional" force, that is, it is a nationalist "positional" force in the sense that it can and will achieve national self-determination through its power to proclaim a nationalist agenda. The Chinese revisionists hold that the CCP is an incorrect interpretation of a bourgeois democratic programme. As the Chinese revisionists note, in contradistinction to the CCP, the historical facts establish the reality of Chinese nationalism: "No Chinese ... could ever support the 'four fronts' or in any way assist the 'four front war'. The Japanese conquest of China... gave way... [on the Chinese part] not because the People's Army failed but because the People's Army ... failed to support the 'four fronts ======================================== SAMPLE 43 ======================================== The wagadoo cried, As they happy trimm'd their horns at the light of the lamps on the paneled wall. Oh, the fairy-like world of enchantment and wonder! The swift, wild flight Of the horses, their shadow as they leaped, The glad meeting of their hoofs as they crossed the meadows together, The low romp down the pasture as they bound, The play at the door and the fitful moan, That was so like a kiss, that was so sweet! But oh! that strange enchantment of that night Where two trod foot-locked worlds seemed to merge In the lock'd casket of red wax, There was no casket, there was no wax, And Harry came in phantom-walks, with blood-drops tinged red, On the earrings that hung round his long white hair, and his blood trailed white As he hung crying on his crutch: Oh, they seemed to feel, they could not speak, That the door was blazing scarlet through the panel! Then slowly, fearfully, they crept backwards With their sightless eyes bulging, And they heard the piteous moaning of the fairy songs They might still hear, for the sound drew on, Slowly they crept back, And the blue crumpled mist Lay like a wool-wool on their eyes, And they felt their hearts ready To vanish in that blue hideousness, But the red-mouthed flame leaping From the whitened door, Rung in the din of the midnight, Ring after ring, until it rang for a hundred years, Ring after ring, Till the father came, and the name And the Christian name of the Jew was known, And they stood in the hush of that cordon, Naked, silent, ere they sunk to whispers, Unshaven, ere they sank to sickness and cry, Though the red blossom of the cedars Sucked like a worm, a white-foot spume, Through the heat and the light, Until the lambs were born, as one at the shrine With the moon-eyes and the watery eyes and breathing Blooded as a sea in the golden sands Red with hot bergAM away The children now crouched down With their mouths cruelly drawn, Tears down their beakers Turning silver spines, And they heard like the dead in a dream the night-warnings of The silent angel, Lisping sweet love-lilt of lips, Steal over them; Unceasing sweet lisp of lips; And they saw the tiny winds' shrill promises Gicker in their ears, Moon-hushed, aching homespun locks with the silvered hair Blown lightly about their faces. It seemed that that unhappy count who stood with the Jew Ill-disposed to the Christian creed, And heard the Christian angel whispering in his ear A victory holy, Had seized at length by acclamation And bandy-round its anxious fingers in the hand of the Angel of Promise. So this Christian-jewish man, Exulting in his longing and wrongs, Shook the eternal Books, And brought the sacred dust of the Talmud Safe from the hot apologist's hand. He lifted the sacred Books, Heaving airy sighs, Heaving airy sighs to God; But in his joy to have lifted the sacred Books That shook and trembled in the cold air of night And brought them safe to him-- He vainly prayed that they would not return Till safely tucked in his pocket; And, having prepared himself in this, He shivered aloud to know, The sacred Books not return Back to wither in the airy sighs Of the Jew. But no change came. His youth was as dreamy and light as a fount of hope; His manhood had never a flaw to match its shine. A youth full-fraught with pleasure and wrath, O'er, bererwort, With Shakespeare's smiles and Keats' tears, A man, whatever one deemed great or small, Grew to be. And whatso'er one hoped and feared, He managed in his Management. He loved his books; They boomed their sounds. They made their composer hum; And every child of Genius knows That only poets complain Of music that's not music. O with the rasp of the brush in his hands Covered in varnish, That from your vigorous work-day Takes the ======================================== SAMPLE 44 ======================================== unity, like heaven with the stars, White fierce colours in close union, Red against the sky, free waterway And sky-edge of all water and the shores of God, Lascivious words of hate, as He was, through Gentile hands of Christ had sailed the seas Free as though his back been bent to the source, That he had brought from shipwreck, or an angel's boat, Shackled a dead man and thrice wrested death, With serpent wings smitten foul, and rushed out teeth That should first tear into the avenging of a deed. Hangings and triumphs were ours to share, Pure lua lua, or pious psas on sialta, Chants of love and of thanks, and ligs of long that torn, And for those leaps of beast we had prizes of and sips of bread. Let now the rest be shame or carnage; to us Greater bliss was never ours, or lofty honour: The fierce and pure and guileless bare feet of Christ, Sole and breathless leaped forth above us and drave out of reach The keys of the lower house, And took His lordship, and heaven and the world for under where? "O thy work divine, O Christ our youth, be glory to thee! For where Christ unassailed, only rebels fall; But if any, poesy or song, hee, Heaven's prop, the loudest here's abright to applaud Pleading paeans unto thee, O Christ aye for thee! So, hapless shawles, whoe'ld'st put off thy Loue and Phagohs, For reverent ioy thee thy least gift possess so high, As must be sought, hapless shawles, thy lowest deep? That must find its neist for certaine pcnum dreer, Which cannot end but by death or nature's seizure, Or, as the cause of some paultry good thou hast. Might some note of tender kind come heard in ear. It can be vyned by no articulate sound, Even did the deep-helmeted winds vie for pelf, Ne deign on their mutes the smallest payre. Wee, weese, we hae notes, yet wee alme hae tunes, Welty-welled sweate we hae strings, we hapned, Oetus, that should th'accomplish delynnant Furthere folk, welth and entream is th'envie, Whence doon the flockes cease from their Brishing flight, Nor to oppress the ither part doth care, Whylose in is straiter moored: For the pore dwells wyld, nor can demeue The wings that he hath lost. But O, how firme doth infarke degree, Or that which hath no more deame of paine, But rage and ire cast on of in rage, With rage it selfe no guile ne cost Doth the minde offalt, nor praaidise ulit, But on the contentions some doth still alme. Alas that health full of cases and comilies, That full of knots and kurtish names, Wherein the ioye of so many querelas, Full sore cause of glories us to passe, Weepeing heartes full of wounds and rent fleas, The worm thereof your poundage to steepe! Since then I stumb'red with no progress eudote, Faire blossomy god Wynter or Apollo, I see a quartered bluid of yeares, Who while mine eyes have tracked the meares of wynd, Whose store of whit not matches your fence of whine; Who with new painzomes will not credit be, And to your self do give rating quare; Of princes and their so true loue sparing, Whiche I have swelle in loue and lost in you; That from your deade lang tresses my heart doth stain, And my heart gieng them in such array: But that in constellacion of loues arre, And yeding of heaven with dreadfull storie, I care not how they do them answere, Because their swiftnesce is bent to vaine: But when they stum meself in feares I thinke, I can do the same vse as they can. But yet yeares iuby true loue forswave, And from ======================================== SAMPLE 45 ======================================== brewbed to a more opportune mosaic. From the fruit, no oil of balm, no perfume of the floral garden, but the sum of its parts, like the finest mixing of principles that comes to a gentle, pleasant, dense smoke. It's never your finest work that's monumental or monumental but the humble, easy, done to the scratch of a boy's fingora that just might slip by the impassioned sushiness of the fourth wall observer—and not an afterthought but already the runner's world is roaring along its whistling radically regardless of time. <|endoftext|> "Sowing Thinly Sheeted Seeds", by Tony Hoang [Living, Parenthood, Time & Brevity] She sows seeds and rasps the germ- warning on her cheeks. Six days later a rain- chilled red-needled field bears ripe plumps and long, nearly naked shrubs and in late July a corn- yellow boll, crimson in fall, bears fine seeds thin like thin silk that sowed on day one and now fling open arms to unfurl like fan- drawn sails. She rolls up her hands in frustration. Last year's grain ruffs, wrinkled from the gale. Her fingers sterturned by years, dusty green. <|endoftext|> "The Widow", by Bin Ramke [Living, Disappointment & Failure, Growing Old, Life Choices, Parenthood] Gentle Widow, you are stout, brailled waist-high in cotton, but that no-yield platooning on your skirt, ca-for-bleeding, its smoke-thin- eddging rays fanned, splayed out from your skirt to your knee- knows neither you nor your work. <|endoftext|> "Weekend A", by Tracy Redford [Relationships, Home Life] I would not have exchanged my narrow apartment for a loft— no commotion, the night rustling the architecture of my 6th floor balcony to its foundations. I would not have moved to a cottage where the heart of the year is right here, but Weekends A are here, ladies gathered with endcaps and ribbons to polish- up their frills and one Sunday A studying the Bible. Belle Isle, the oak-splintered cliff, the ear- nest jutting skym. I am the heart of this clamor: a bright mousse brimming over its glass- bedazzled surface. A Sunday A at her stall, reading E- editions of The Sunday News (which does not do B, nor is ix-C). <|endoftext|> "Whitman-Eedu-Semiahu Treasure", by Andy Thorn [Living, Growing Old, Activities, School & Learning, Relationships, Family & Ancestors, Arts & Sciences, Reading & Books, Social Commentaries, Money & Economics] This morning, on the asphalt quad, springheads from the college library, clad in all-white gamb relevent attire: storm-caps pulled to catch the last breath of lightning stolen by a student yesterday. Forced to choose among them, denounce the thieves or bullfrogs flouting the trees, that I could not declare the thunder-buggy the fault, the blame, the initial spark, the equator-long disable of the university, the buckboard prisoned in the gutted greek, I settled for the inland ocean, golden- rod materialistic quarreled avocados, finished speaking for half an hour, refusing one half my energy, an effort which I may never extricate. <|endoftext|> "Dangers", by James Kinlan [Relationships, Pets] for Gail M. Wood, on her death of cancer, 1872-1880 P.S. In the unfinished ring I saw a danger familiar as a kick, the way the marrow in your leg lies dormant in one's thigh unarmed by the night, its dark water green, goldish with faults long seen by no one. I whisper, my own melanoma skin, lips, tongue, gullet, still one injury, still unmowed—gullet never moved. When you die I shall know what I have seen— in a half-century, my eye constantly dazzled, my leg broken, my life never me to ======================================== SAMPLE 46 ======================================== The night she hoped to Unmeet him The lady's thing The man a river be The man that said no She is asleep She sleeps “If you're asleep, baby, What can I do? "Plead no plea "Let me call "My heart, my heart "If you sleep, what can I say "To keep you warm I who have hurt you " Gone down In the night Tired of paying the water bills He that waiteth long It shall be granted Stay you what you want The woman is dead But the sound it takes The man that lies Taken He is in way over his head I have seen a four dollar bed In the night Where he laid Home of the black man The coming of black The nig. The bed where it is night The alder The ladder of light I came to you In the night Why the supper Why the sundown The stairway That is with head Up from the earth The man that calls The night that you Have turned with shadow The alder top A nestling The woman The desire So black and bright Gods that you gave A child A tender A bleb of light Turning back A season An arm But a dream I burned You to ashes The yeller In my tongue The spark of a new moon A wayfaring man Ask the sun for a new land Flesh of the tree What did she do To the redwood What is a yeller White like white The drawbridge Are the griffins the sons of God The worn woman The splash Of the night The hired man's wife An old woman An arm Leap on the hay track The yeller that you Groped in the hay Against the black The rifter The baby girl The creased Thick grass The door with the hand The wadded Bed in the woods What's fair For this you Leaves of the orchard To the dimple Back of the house What you My friend The wheel The days run by The march of the trees The man and his talk The go get a home A woman without a reason The town that you pass An oak With bents The path to the spring The march of the sons of the south You who have done The dying part The test and the keeping What you'd give For the head Of the blood When it comes to the part Of the road A summer In the morning A steed that you would ride A suit of clothe on a mare The sea when the tides run out The suffering By water To his laurels You pass By the road To his laurels The old phantom Shall desire Have spirits like The moving of dust The path of the stars The horse that he rides All the way All you wait With your head Which you turn to the Which you look into By the strong sun There it is Where your eyes that you look out on Which you cast your light to Have the desire That day When you brought me your rag <|endoftext|> "The Assurance Bureau", by Geoffrey Brock [Living, Time & Brevity, Love, Desire, Relationships, Nature, Landscapes & Pastorals, Mythology & Folklore, Heroes & Patriotism] The strangest thing in us all you think Is the light of the day and the night. The long grey dawn when nothing's left to saw in or plant; The camel candles starting toward dawn now, and now Rumble and jolt and sway and scratch; the noon snake-slow Hoy! the long marsh-lap during which you stand and untie Your mount; all that's human—gone at last. Same for you Is the light of the people and the face of the world. Nothing's true. Hitch, rope, and lumber's but the money Our money's the light on the beach at Catapan, The light in the face of the sun, Which's neither red nor amber, means different things to different people. The meaning we decide on's the heavy car that carries us Up to the branch of Death's strong stump all right, and those Perfect lilies of our baggage pass with rapt fright ======================================== SAMPLE 47 ======================================== Departure fails, a silent Heaven, For thou, a lass, thou bid'st us go! 'Twas but a pet, yer damn'd, yer crack! 'Twas but a stupid, stupid pet, yer track! I know where I'll be when I grow up And I know when I cease to grieve; The shepherd's sad; the woodman's starly; The seaman's crew; the merry children's play. Then, good-bye to all the louts and bullies; Then, I know that I'll never follow them. Young puny Soul of Little In The World, Adown to thy garden-greys dim, I stole a Flower and come not back! O mighty Spring, with a fat three-toed steed, And a tiny harness, that made a charm In the lone mountain-salt, then come not at me! Then, good-bye to my own daisy-flowered green skirt, (Since hell-breath'd and poison'd it into frost) Then, a sob, I'll give thee all my soul, good-bye. Old as the mountains are, and as old the trees Are, I am old myself; So old the rocking years roll on Till I am old, and I shall be, perhaps, When my last drop of time's dry blood runs. O old man-names, with a sigh of thine own, And hand on the Bible, ever low! From a grotto ivy-like, Where the rocks are doubl'd foothills. I'm given a bit of rank hill-savour, And a buzzard throat; But a youth is still a youth, And a youth is still a youth. Why did I not grow a beard, And be a manly young one, Where the boors should breaking think, And flee my sweet home-life? Because I had no girl-self, I the soul's Youth were not! He's a cow that has lost his head, And is asking for reward; A youth who took a wife's name, And hurt his sweet one, too; For neither of us have much merit, But we do wear a tag. You ask a girl when you can start A club for progressives; And she says "Bid thee submit And find a wither'd head"; A bid I must, and a will keen, But she says "Good-night-then". You paint a staircase; your fancy smith Takes to it, and shape it, and make it Perfect, and he bids you "Good-night". I see the ladder when I wake; A goat-like goatherd sees me. Your friend adores your music-books And hums an excellent song; I hear the same of friends and folk. A blot and blot, I bring not here One scrap of confidence. You give a young lady of seven A thousand pounds—she says "Good-night". I was that lady. Wise was I, and dear, And she was kind to me. The joy of her pride Hath saddled me with a million woes. I listen to a friend who prates Of even child-births: "It is a boon, And when use quickly wears out its stem, Then home-he's best". An hour later: "He's caught it, with ease, He'll get it, all returns a blank." Hear what the woman of old years With tears-to-concern, in grave emphasis, Doth tell of, when of infant-sickness Her child-wife learned, long since, of such: How at her first visit to that hospital Her child-ren unknown. Oh, speak of modesty and marriage! She seeth his young body, and it spake For him his age and nature: For him his total body, with the grey As in the shadow of time, so hopeless, Paints his own mortality. The soul will look into its tomb, The soul will grasp the hope that there be For the young to lead the young along the path, The hope of wisdom, the vast experience, The course of duty. For them shall follow His Destiny, who was created free, Of mortal life endowed mortal; yea, The call of Duty. "I never heard till now of foreign jewelry, Nor silver heels; these have all but gone; I never thought the fair were constant but for beer-sellers, I ======================================== SAMPLE 48 ======================================== Invit eum qui, radiculaque per imbribus communi." aequallitur Phoebus ritus. Hinc oculis mollis quot est mea mihi moder, Et quid moder erit hoc obstet fas est? Illic etiam se mollis tribus adest, unde et primo possit ipsa meo. undes, et longum male see, utque est tibi: non est alter e liuens, si nullo iura est. neue parens siluis face; pressa tantum sati inter se priora manus: nescio quid sit iura? denegat, neges et molli mollitur frangit. hoc ingens, unius erat praecepta sinat, agrestes, exuper et interces opprims: uviturque et protinus expertis esse major, paucity studyque, stupefactaque iuuat excitas, maereptaque iactata certa manus, Qua solum decretum labores dicunt. hoc etiam modus est plerum percebet multos, qui polluta cuncta profecti iuvabit. non solo increte reboletur imbre molli, quod prima potest audax sinum. Iamque unum est fecisti pollice magis, quod frons fantum flammamque profidet esse: ut cum mollierunt conmutans, frigida gladi nec magna est mollire parturum, nec rerum, quod bona locis numine propria nectum, ut corpus ergotur ibi seerura naris. hinc igitur modum natura crepit sepelauthor et de aliene fumo magno: ego condet innox sibilem possit flores aut frondibus astrorum. sed pudna conplebat frontera corda. ROSERdomeo maculata semper auriga laurata, edomina quid veet aeria littora, solus erat, sed anima est deus, carmina adest, quae insenio saturui bona facibus auribus. nempe ad caeli properare trita, pleniabula florent, scopuli, & sibi miratur rerum ora deum cumbar ictum folii, stella foris, insoli reboem. crinis Sol corvum montebat arte; inuisere qua dulcis aera dies: sunt eadem molliere vitae. necto solvere cunctis aut in hunc res publica: aut perfet aut cum facilem vocat. cunctis acre rosae solit coronalibus. scitis Lares aut Alytior illa tibi. aestus si detulit hinc aere manus, quam terras dura pios exsto trivior ad imperio teptent tibi. at supra pars et nos inscribanti plena monent. uiscudus dulcis iconiumcistite Sic commenta, cui meminit harucili. sicca ac fulsum ri extile dea serta tua: saepius et arte solaplis effata petat: dum fuit illa mouer. haec mihi violare fabrica alta uiscuor, sis habet ore neges pectora iocos, castaque veniam sidera Ceres, relliquio, ceu uehat, inquietam Ilium, & tenebras urbe cara de morte in ore sua causa: Ego umbo. tu solus altamar futuri pater, namque haec remissi morte pareret, de hoc tieme, totusque negans incierit orbis alligat, sordent ingeniis natura terra: quo necdum plena ac frigidus emis cincere nec uincula mulcante gravia caelum, sed circumdut toto crudest mundo nec moris tumidi furto tibi.: ======================================== SAMPLE 49 ======================================== "Tell her, mam'liest darling, to come to me With all that she's jealous of; I can't pretend 'tis by the help of God She can't believe herself so. Mam'l' and luv'll is such a happy thing, I'm sure she never can be blind." Well, not a telegram, nor yet e'en a word of him, Has tempted me to his bare and simple heart, No, not the chink of a sexual proposition, Has lothomed me to his love, the pillow in his arm. Yet, when the prospect of bliss he desires so much, Who can't on principle refuse him? Now tell her to come to me, The laddest o' the young and the good; I can't promise what I will do There, now that's done, I'm grown the purrst man In Kumpas' county, they may either kill or love me: For I'm settled, see, beyond the rest of them, Where e'en the churchman, as well as woman, thinks well of me. The Rev'ress offers her to be my wife, and me her man, The honest psalm I'll take, the little dyethway's pet. Upon my life, that girl I now take for Yem, Or rather for the old Yem, with whom We all knew what the old Yem knew of old; And thus the foul-alchemists their poison will devour, And me for the Rev'ress of a good wife, While though I cannot choose I must, Since the Rev'ress the Rev'ress, see, Does this and the good Yem do. Now, sir, since that's done, there's one thing still to do, And it's simply pushing off with her for flight. She'll find, with others, your dogmatick, Their circumstance, their fiddle, and their dance. The old Yem knew this, Sir, long ago, He showed me this year, and put it well. Good father, I make my will, Good father, I do enthuse thee, Good father, when Yem was dying, Her name to him asking forgiveness; And saving me, the other, too, That's dying here, and will die there, And also, with their brace, to put me out. For one boy dying, and another after, And I to bear the tally all. That thou art mine, and thy will be done, And thou submit and hear my prayer. Take my daughter and know what kindred are; Let her go, it is very well with her, And there is nothing in this so good as she; Let my blessing and my affection, Be having her and thee this day; To whom my love and faith be given, In the wide like of Yem with her. To the Old Yem the Rev'ress points, The Rev'ress hears the legend and tale, He to her, you may think, is making way; She to the Rev'ress is making way, Longing with impatient wish, Sitting within the Waggon of Power, In the new Waggon of Vision To the range in Cadmus Works, To the power of Men at work on men. Wherefore I was told, in our first walk, She, being older was than I, And in her fifteenth year she wears the bell. So we sat within the Waggon, And the Teraphoid with its look, Was amply told us that it can be The life of Visionaries More than of others: and my daughter, Unware of the amatory pangs, The Frustration and the Pains, The rev'ress and desp Reward that follow, Came to me from that view; and she would Call from within a knowledge of that, But I told her no more of that she had Re: her daughter; and I told her this, And that man made her so discontai. And I do say then, I do say, If ever in your life you choose to taste, You will find no troublesome Jubies, But rather men that take you HANDS, Complete, with no further wash of salt, Then with all necessary indulgence. I think, my dearest Liz, that perhaps I be quite relaxed, perhaps a little lax, In my system, I have some very strong fancies About the manner of life, the mode and measure Of living, and the thing-reserving virtues, ======================================== SAMPLE 50 ======================================== 000 hollow be <|endoftext|> "The Smoking Belle", by James Weldon Johnson [Love, Heartache & Bliss, Romantic Love, Relationships, Social Commentaries] The old sailor's beaded neck-cloth, The bouquet he carries on his lap, Pillows, in their white polish, down upon him. He smokes his last cigarette, Finally giving it up, and turns to the new comer Who, now gripping it, Sees in its slip-shiny sheen the end of a tale long told. And that is the tale of The Old Sailor and his wife. Then the wife turns to the sailors, Smiling and smiling to see them tumble out of the water. She smiles and shakes her hand to say farewell, And they go back to their happy life, Spending their twilight in a cabriolet like this one. But a year or two later they are at another ship point. And this time the husband has returned home, Brandy in hand. "To tell the truth," he says, "I've never been the same since The old hog had been bitten by the English hounds. He'd walk into a house and bang out of it whatever he wanted— I wish I knew what medicine he has for his nerves!" But, now, he has returned to the old coast, And his wife is waiting to welcome him. "To see the sailor who thinks he's gone to the house to get his stuff, And who will not let him have it!" So the old sailor grins good-humored and leisurely, Hangs his head, shakes his head and sighs Subject to change, etc., "I feel terribly angry with them, and could only have this cigarette. They've taken away my enjoyment of it, and I feel cheated. I wish I was eighteen again, and manlier to you—" (The smoke-cured Frenchman and his wife glance impatiently, To when the sailor was lustful of a beloved Juliet.) "I had it once," she said, "I had it once." And she kissed the slip of ash, and her hand went to her bosom, Now the wife has lighted a cigarette of her own, And now the sailor, steadier, summons the next one up. But, what is this? A smooth young shepherd-boy is kissing her neck, And his lips have taste of blood! The old sailor sighs "There you go!" And now he smokes, with his wife just utt-for his opinion. "That he can do what he does! Perhaps I ought to do what I've done, so he can't. Well, you know; but it's part of the same thing: 'He does it, and I'll go and do the same, therefore we're good friends!'" But this is still not enough for the strong hand of the wife. She now has lighted up her own cigarette, And this sets the sailor to sleep. She then lights up her own second cigarette, And now, it's like for the house of the wife to be divided, A handsome youth is cutting in and is tall and is dark-eyed. The wife sees at a glance, that there is no going back; That she is to shut the front door for good, and sit on the floor, Balancing the baby in her lap, and use all her might To tell him to buck up or to quit the flat. (Mrs. Smith.) Mrs. Smith had a number of small children, all of whom were named Enoch. ('Owned the Alter', 'Little Nappy') (Mrs. Smith.) Mrs. Smith had been left a lot more by her husband, who proclaimed his deceased bride the illegitimate 'daughter of her mother'. She replied with an increase of spirit 'You mean I may check his speech, and tell him to buck up, or quit the flat; You've my word she's safe and will be back in no time.' 'She'll be back in a trice. I hope,' says Billy, 'she'll be back before the end of the week.' 'I hope she'll like our little nephew. So he's just like us in all our memories.' A prophecy surely not to be trusted by the wife Who had Enoch in front of her when she has chosen to be a 'wife'. She said, 'He'll be just like us in all memory.' "We had a good man, and one time I really think he did ======================================== SAMPLE 51 ======================================== Thence his people of truth love, Thence the crystal dawn-tide Run with a ten-fold speed In deep fascination, As if the light of the sun From a hundred sunsets Had into vapor waned And floated and flashed and sailed, O'er a splendor so lucid, To a glory so clear, As if all eyes were turned to it. There were beads of silver, Which, moon and wind brought forth, Were rings of gold, which shone as though Rings of sunlight had shone With a glamour of rose. Pendants of silver, Which the wind from mountain-grass Bloomed into bloom, And the sun cast upon them So glorious, so lustrous, That it seemed as though they were Since the sun's face made illuminance, The old man thus had gazed upon Himself from out his glass. Each thread of eye, each beam of mind, Each most fantastic idea Of fancy that he had had Clasped down and frozen in the air By the sun's face, had seemed Waveringly receding In the face of the sun. Now, the more he watched and listened, The more he fancied; All that enchanted him before Seemed but a night to him; As in a dream one imagines A dog may watch and listen After the manner of a man, Whose heart seems by another's To be enkindled, ere he seems To be thinking of himself. So many things he sought to understand! In the garb of a saint, who bled, His daily hope was broken. Did no one laugh? The man in white Had not been dead long. Did no one speak? The man who had slain The fair thing grew fierce and strong. Could no one speak? Who else might none Save a dumb corse? Who else but a dog, Or prince--or reader of the law Of the fair thing? Who else than she, The fair thing, had given life to him The great sun shone forth as normal, And the old man 'mused upon the clouds And their mournful rhythm. Was it deep in the night when time was hard And the niggards worked days full and strong, That the great sun sank down his rays? "In the darkness," thought the old man, "In the night," he said, "The clouds form and fall and rise, And the winds blow and breathe, And the sun comes up in the morning." The sun comes up, the sun glories, Then begins his progress through the night, In the darkness, as of normal day, With the old man's heaven, his hair, and beard, And his gold, his face, and fingers. The winds blow, breath, blow, breath, blow, As if a wind of glory Would lift the corpse up. "And that," thought the sage in the clouds, "Is an image of the origin Of life that is life, And has its days set apart, And its moments are changed But these people, and the folk so happy, And those who want their precious breaths, Their precious moments--what a phasm are they! They go, and say, "Let the wind of night Bring me my treasures." Yet if night bring no gifts, Then all the world is cruel, all the sunned, And there is not a day for them, Or a breath, nor a breath, To do without. Pulver https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulver - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulver - The world famous minstrel - ltt<|endoftext|>As you look through the strange dreams of our lives, remember this, you will also find upon the webs of the web, Titanic and Tamer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamer - the song's story - hanging round all the time, wherever you look Are the spiders that float like light with no weight or just like darkness When the light dies. Life, that little song, are a shoal Of pebbles, from which Only the dancers wade, As if the glass were a nest of eels, And to the well-being of that well-being you have to chance, Swallowing up the hours and creating Spontaneous moments, Just now humming like new babies one after the other, Hushing the poverty and hunger of the world. ======================================== SAMPLE 52 ======================================== Illicit to release his craggy pride By raising this male on Female to mate, And tempt her like a cow to rack her throat, And leave to that getwharever sense of lust may fly. He knows how vain this love, he dares to vaunt Thine beauty's sole ornament; With such blindness does a tiger make a nest. It were better that these knaves should own That blind old hireling paid for a boot on hire, And, with your reasonable wages, draw in talk Like neighbour tailors, to do tailor's work at home. The large well-set eyes, the rising high lipped chin, The well-trimmed lip, the pleasing mouth obeys. How come you to my house, sweet! the gates are closed. And yet for all this passage you climb with care, The doors are tied; and, sliding on the wall, You may enter, you may in that cover me quite, And for I care not, you can have what you will have. The waxed dry senses of the wight that is old Will cut as well as any. What ho! what's that? 'tis nothing, nothing, my dear. My daughter's tongue Found out a secret. My daughter's tongue was half made out. Religion, damn Religion! Was never seen not seen before. My head's age will reach ere long Of two-score years and upwards. What's that you say? But then I feel it all. I scarce know what you mean. I sigh and look. I saw a portrait once Of Mary Queen of Shefford; She had quite the rarest shape, And afterwards of course I learnt a lot more besides. She stood, as if she were on crutches, Upon a pedestal, with A drooping torch in her hand. I can't tell you whether We'll have a fine cold week or fine hot. We'll see if that's so, soon or now. That's how it comes about, dear; I'll tell you what, in a trifle. You know how children are; If you don't get older again The pen it nigh equaly holds again. Last week we had such a swathe, That I ran away to spend it in. You see there's no law in fine, The law's only in the chase. You care, dear? Let's see.... They want an artist; they're in dire want, One in four is lost each year Because he forgets his art. He who can secure a prime piece Can never be a slave. That's the reason, as I see it, "But, my Polly, your little game is fine. I'm telling what I know, it is. And besides your shabby suit is so! And besides your boots, your pocket made, And that in hand so readily, When did I see you happy, my pet? How could I follow? in your dress, your tone, What made you, child, so cheery, so bold, At table when eating or knitting, With your diamond-edged knitting exhausted, Everywhere without a storie, With your eyes a-wolfish about me? I never saw you this way before! There's nothing, just nothing, nothing at all Can please an artist's mind; But I've just such a hunger and such worries, A restlessness without a cause. What's this? Come, let me understand. I don't know.... It's something in those delicate things, But not, I say, in anything; And to-day you praised me, I really think, And said that you knew my heart. And so, for your sake, I wish you'd taken The ill-luck place of Don Juan, Where each wants something, but can't say why. There's nothing, just nothing, nothing at all Can please an artist; And I, being an unambitious man, Can only say that all around In summer there is nothing very pleasing. You're always full of sentiments, my child, For things and places and months and years. They're born in your bosom, like blood, you know, They flow in you like small veins. There are large latitudes, too, dear mind, where On every face you'd find neither much Nor little things; and that's enough for me. I need not wonder that I cannot sing. For who, except an unconfined soul, Should, setting all his hopes on one goal ======================================== SAMPLE 53 ======================================== We too came with father--toils, yet soft-- Th' one good the child, the withers a man. An' we wasn't nothin' in it for pride; An' mother teach us what we learnt her: To say, I may be thy dust-- Go where I may, my friend, and live again! <|endoftext|> "The Scotch", by Thomas Traherne [Nature, Seas, Rivers, & Streams, Weather, Winter, Mythology & Folklore] If winter comes and brings the cold, We hide in our house, or rather lap A well, or a chaln, or a stream. Or some warm shelter 'neath an old bush. When summer comes, we hunt the woods, Or lap or go swimming, lad. 'Tis a long season and we do confess That day did not show signs of Spring. The woods seem shagged with flax, and grass Springing and growth--but winter—'twas winter! It's almost time to start again, Or build a fire and have some soup. I always have, and will, some soup, But with fevers and with fever's Heat, They may not come to us alive. Or if they do, I do believe I should give them up to you, good friend, Who help me in my grave-stone quest, While I am laid and go to Time's account. This year 'tis march, and victory, And something I have yet to give That makes the heart beat quicker, lad. The ground's covered with a bright new sod That was bare for years of war, When heroes fell like withered leaves. The wind is blowing, the day's warm sun Is sinking in the blue afar. Then lift the flag and declare the war, And watch it sparkling in the sky. While Nature's self shines through the rain, And wakes anew her artist soul. While sitting fields are scattered wide To gain and keep a living space, Is it our grandeur seeks our ear? Is it to prove that man can abide O'er all the world's great height and day and night, O'er all the starry utterings wild? The most of us would rather take A lean and hungry seat, to listen To music sad, or take in sound. And he who may indulge in all these, To give his neighbor light and warmth, Is lass for him who cannot spare One sympathetic heart to him. To give one voice unto an eager race, Is not our grandeur. But, if Nature's voice One minute waver, or one note decline From the high chord that breezes high, The trembling travels up the world, and cheer Is thrown about, perhaps a smile or cry To cure the overwhelming bulk and sweep Of weeping man's premature decay. Our grandeur is to hold the last, The first and oldest voice unto God. It lifts our fears, it loves at once a foe, To dare and do, and strive and win, And go at once, pursued and encompassed. O, we have power, our foes to slay, and live And struggle on through all they yet can throw, While all around us whets their direful tooth, And hastes our day of victory! We be no bolder'd 'spite our fear, Ourselves as under-handed as man's, 'Twere rash to sallies to oppose The growing dominion of the whole race, Although they conquer in each earthly field. The worm, the weed, the hideous hob, All would be ours, with total defeat. We don't forget that New-Birth of GREEK sire, To see him rising in the distant skies; The day-spring from our blighted frame, Whose heavenly nature rings out loud and clear! We do not love in vain; but live and die As one great soul, our brother-kind. And then come sunrise heralds of the sky, While blue and gold in tumult swim along The luminous impalpables of light; And see the earth open up its arms In seraph-hued affirmation of life. When it is we begin to wake and see, While sick and missing they wake and see. The noble Barbarese, the people say, Has boil'd to a derangement of all sense, And now and then a bare, pricking flame, As if the something should have some sense of being. But I have known the South many a year, And their ======================================== SAMPLE 54 ======================================== All the seconds of the heart-beat. Each part is now its whole; each nerve Its immediate counter-part, Each atom now its own heart-beat, Each moment licks the hours Off this loose body's clock, That it may yearn to Time, As, out of a dream, toward a goal. Out of what dream it came,--that dream Which made them wake, and with-hold The lustre of her golden eyes, A gaze whose age bore no age, As if her breath had no power; She who shows us how we live, Her breath still longer ours than gold, A being light, but piercing and strong As star, which o'er our thought doth flutter. Quick now! I cannot longer obey The lusting eye; I must share with thee the golden trance; Too much my love within my breast Is out with me. You see not, now, Heaven, did you ever view it, As I see as I sit and paint you? The full stream of paradise Is over you; Its holy brightness is out with you. For it is not you must have it; it Is for us, For, and only for, us. The earth writhes and heaves and grinds And groans from side to side As up I thrust her with my hands of stone, Out of the light, Into the darkness out of the light, And make her dance and sing; Out of the noise, The din, The men, the noisy men Grow weaker with each breath; They can hear, For in the day that leaves the day, The wild moon crying from stars, The dark beings rising and Sinking In mistier realms of peace To fair & deeper night, But not me, me, me. From your rough hands, The children rise and make The land smooth as a new-born child That cannot know the old Comforts of her mother's breast, Nor the breast of her lover. Go, fill her places full With love and light, my faces, For I am made new For thy sake, my lover. Now on the wind I sail, sail, As a soul that leaps and sings Through heaven on high, And I shout to the stars To take me to my man; But they laugh at me And take me back again. The sparrow's flight Is taken up with the clamor Of feet & feet; The hawk from the east Is taken with flapping & flapping, While I sing, me, me. 'Neath the evening sky The colors fly Like tiny errant broideries The hands of those who believe A Lady or a King, If not in thee, in them. My heart and I Are one. My strong and humble heart To all things gives testimony How you wing your flight, And how they vanish, Still out so near; And how your course but more them, That free, that free, as they. Come, lassie, dine. Love thee, bring thy chuckies, Bring thy scrolls and books and ballads; We'll find a tail, an' leave a tail, For an ehound and a mile. Thet's better broidery, Thet's hankered drawing, Than a boss hinged by on spinners; Yon tail is loosed at will; When rain or dew or bid or order, Like, thunders, the sun to men. There's times 'tis duspn't to wear thy may There's times 'tis duspn't to wear thy mou', And that's a fact, a fact well known, I go walking up the hill, For a lady sent me a smile. She said: "What's up with Arthur?" "This," said I, "hope," I said, "Shall lighten all thy cares." I sigh'd and I laughed, and that ended it. She faintly asked me: "What's up with Arthur?" "My father's blood," I said, "Shall be all adone." And I sighed, she winced, and then I said: "I am sorry for him Who has no son to replace him, To bear the extra one mistake." I sit on the wood's top cliffs, Here by my love I am, And I watch the white clouds go by, Clouds that are two hundred miles More than the nearest house. ======================================== SAMPLE 55 ======================================== Came to see a stupid he "Olivia, O for my fault! "Why I changed, the fools, "Into whales!" Lightsome Olivia went Down in the heather Came a rocking plume Came a coal-black tail Whit and cool and sleek, And ran up aisles of song. <|endoftext|> "All Souls', Transcript: Rudyard Kipling [Yon Old Man & His Tum-Tum Board]", by Buckminster Fulhoff "Eyeless, mute and all about the same,It was they sat about,His forehead slantwise, and his nose small,With his fingers he buttoned his coat,And he muttered something while he did so;His hat became a parody, his vest a mockery. "Sixteen centimeters is the limit,Sir Maurice! Make that or sixteen every time;'Fetching mail, so near on turning round, I'm half-perceived. "You look as if you had but little patience,Sir Maurice! I see you don't care one hair;I'm sure you have much more than one, much more than you can ever possibly bear;You cannot hold your tongue while you're mentioning The Double H, Sir Maurice, I see;But let them have their way; it's pretty well confirmed,All the things that they ask for come true in every case,Until they get what they want; they know what they are asking for;The further they look into it, the less they see;They want the Double H, Sir Maurice! They've found it out with all their souls in danger, and their eyes are as blind. "Here comes our blunder, Sir Maurice, with your haughty looks;What right have you to talk to this man? What right have you to see this man? He thinks himself a King, he must have what he wants;They can't ever make him any less. Sir, have you any pride in lying to us? Have you any, or will ever? When you find that he's true, will you be pleased,Will you be pleased, Sir Maurice? It's enough, just hear our sad scandal;He's dying; this is a fatal war; by coming here,Sir Maurice, have you done us any part in? he's taken off our blindness from our eyes;Have you no regret for it? Let him have it, Sir Maurice, be our eyes with, "Go die, you fools, first deliver you," and die;Then go to see, and to listen, and die;And perish in the doome that you tried, with our eyes!" <|endoftext|> "Doomsday", by Rudyard Kipling [Living, Death] The wind blows high, and the earth is drunk with the rich sun.He flings a gold edge before the flying day,And the wild hawthorn clangs her kirtles in the grey.The lanes in flowerless dark are parched and wan,And lonesome hourWhen weary mortality looks back,That is so very far from the dawn. <|endoftext|> "Faith", by Ada Menkin [Religion, Christianity, Faith & Reason] Not till the fatal dusk was pastI thought of Him, who prostrate laidI never expected to see again; and onceI made a courteous request, and thanked the LordFor grace to forget my weary path, and hopeTook not the colour from the mire.I walked, and walked, in heart content, and bowedMy cheek to clay, yet heard the plain pleas of allThe toil, and strife which can succeed; and thankedGod, who had spared the damning pain,And loathed the men that had borne it. <|endoftext|> "There is in him a mystery", by Robert Hayden [The Body, Nature, Arts & Sciences, Humor & Satire] There is in him a mystery, which his ancestors-chiefly MEN—have worked in steep forms of sculpture and architecture. A person who looks upon one of these, and looks out of two feet, or one hand, or one eye, as if the flesh was offended, and not a lip was touched, will look upon himself. He may be said to have done his task in sight of himself. A man who sees a lawn in goatherds' faces, and another in the flowers, is like a man who handled his own feet and smiled at his own echoing bark, and yet smiled at his own blood, is like a man who bent at a cross-road, and knew the meaning of the lights in the crowds of rangers and cyclists and painters and wine-makers, and in the hands of beggars and vagabonds, who pressed for al ======================================== SAMPLE 56 ======================================== (cinnamon) pot, and Violets so fresh, In Hebe's leaves, it seems; or that sweet ground Where Rhone and Authier find their liquors brewed, The which they put into the Ceraster cup, And yet, as 'twould in Brew-Beare's ink, Were both so strange: where yet the Housewife there Pluckt up the pith (for what it is) of ten thousand seeds, And the wild Vine picked the leaves, (free gift of Hebe) And then, as 'twould a hindsight, we lose both the leaves and flowers. Rude shots at each lovely Portfolio! Hook-handed, hook-capped, Nimble as a jumping-jointed falcon; Velvet, bumping, plaited from the grain; Speedy as a cawing step-dame in summertide; A heifer, lusty, sturdy; With her feathers, ribbed and schooner-cheered; Her and her good-will and her battle-cress Compelled for our beer, we barter all we see for These beauties, and in truth, be assured we would; Till alas! I left my vatic some years ago, (In vaticbord) All untill ryme with thee! (And if thou vant for it so massy-quilled) I took thy picture from thy vatic-space To re-illumine mine aementall, And hither sent it (me think) to make thee Run to thy friends, to doe for them kindly love, That also is (I meane) In the same pot which thou didst assemble. I seem'd (thou sayst) the Original of French Visions, With her face unto our cookery-books; But nowe (I suspect) we be-tear to our pipes, In a more gorgeous adventure, The BRETHREN of the breast (according to thy Account) the pungent shrubs and muckle bougles, We doe assemble, we light the nim- ners, The whipper-stanes next; and none to the last The Breth-lars and the Vine-grey, but rather clay And maukinkes; so is it possible, our Old-world Aire of intoxicating smell, we light To a certain BAY (depending how) And con a steamy NORTON'S throat with AIL; And where our Elfe is figued, with club- billy, mameluk, and galantines With the same fields or Hebre God Neptune did. But who (thou askst) the matter's hawst, pray? Her part I discern: what's mutabbles, Her thymy busi- ness; what's hood and hwan- ston, Her happ, she takes at once to raise a Royal De-uiety 'Mongst the whole rounded world, though mostly Contention ever thro' it to-roun's Her wrinkled ayines With both hern and with moor; She Kyes, Thou Gifts; but whose the politick trick? The same, some vari-coloured school-cock's feathers He wears, though his duty's to flounce; A manly complexion, that's now quite soak'd; Or a gallant hanzelle, that spreads His pinions to display- 'Mongst whom thou art situated, some there are, Some would thee have, some would thee have, to be The grAM, rfSofra and splendid; and of these Some, to show thee that, would 'fraft, Some, to hide thee. And this is best: I do feare not, I, a thing most sure, I've oft riv'd the same, by the same breames. The Rigour of the fellow, which oft time past I mea-hed, from whether whosoe'er he be, For my sake, if I were wise, I should Think little of, but shun. Who the contrary, I've hurt: but 'twas short, my beholding could scarce Repeat an age. And, faith, it does Seem just, if thou wrought'st with measure. That thou maist, All these experiments now fabricates, As likely as thou canst (naught I doubt) Above all men in that thy vaine conceives Be to absurdities, as well mudd ======================================== SAMPLE 57 ======================================== Barely, that in their own minds knew A voice that yet would speak them out. One by the wan ashes gave, She a heart-shaped doll chose, The church gift she had wanted; But when she must cut the cloth, The idol's head grew so small. A sweet lie with a false vest, She framed for the sickly fair, And did it in a single scroll A woven rosewreath of dull red. The ladies in the village girls' school Looked straight ahead, upon the ground, As when a preacher, in his pulpit dark, Would keep his eye on the globe of men Whose every moving part he had singled out, At last, with a silent look of shame At the base of the steeple-wall, As it rose into the brow of the night, And through the lift of her neck, And as thickly studded with stairs As the dim and sagging roofs of strange claimes Upon the verge of all the sunlight then, When, as the dawn went up with rosy fingers, Her the last light that piercet the misty gloom Straight into her ivory throat, Showed her face, a pillar of the Temple School, A statue turned to stone, By those who dared not lift her from her place Whence the broad light of the day for ever Left not a single filament to mar her Idle quiet for one single inch, So that her last life-breath was unpaid. A face through a cloud of hours and tears In age as dry as the torrent's last shower, Always the same, now strained and far; Then, suddenly, a young girl, As she through the crowd that trip-Thonged, Draped, or pushed by impatient pairs of feet, Her head in her knotted arms on her chest, Fashioned the awkward burden borne on: But for no trampled hair or limb; It was blown in and no other way Against the grains and fluttering hum Of flies where grain-dust scourged the sky, No littered roof-tree or broken shed. O how swift the played-out reel of Time! But while she was a child, The world was not young again, The world was not fair to her, A wilder, wilder age was going, A brighter age for her. Far away from her was heard the sound Of rumours far and brutal, That time will not repeat as he hits ever young women who are not theirs. In a far time those lips will speak That magic when she comes home, O far and ranged Time! Whose crawling hours are only young, O were my life but young as hers, Could I but somehow travel back with her and time us serve, Wake shells of dawn and dusk of evening; Stir a storm and shine of minstrelsy, Shake their revels till they shiver, And bring home their long lighted marbles, The Circean maidens at their fair Long litters of litter and most fair Of tears, and kisses most as those Too blithe and far for us to weep, The joyful myths of youth in which they Mock at the stone that keeps them home, And in which they sing their childish plays, Resign them to their God, and cry Their Plaything's tomb is Time. Her face is turning gray, her feet Now can wander all the more, Because the further she is from it That once she loved so well She feels a colder pull of the Tongue of the way she moved at first; And her dear phantom haunts of it Grown dim with many tears, In the heaven of her soul, Like rocks in Ocean ruinous Stand like sentinel stars When her saint-like spirit's near Her feet, as once before, Weary for their pride and outdoor Lurks in the parks of the Valley. But one comes now as before, Her love disquieting the Church, To the work to her labours, A voice of a good send off Hath gone. And her eyes, apart, Have grown wise to her lover's eyes, The careless beauty growing old, Grown numbed with tears, Grown fondling to the tomb of it, Be lieve she go. But her mouth grows weary, her mouth Had weary grown of his mouth, The piteous dry bland mouth of his Thoughtless bloody waste of it, The breath serene and certain Of the gushing of it, The promiscuous ======================================== SAMPLE 58 ======================================== There is one small field that no man rears, Here hangs the sky that no man sees. The yellow leaf rips free from Spring's breast, And bright gushing waters pour around. The sun, the moon, the flaming and wandering stars Fling their rays on every nearest tree and boundary. Not more remote, in all the world, are Nature's treasures, Where never fire his lightings and departures; But beauty high in sky, on grass and stream, Burns on from sphere to sphere. If even these flocks of winged prophets steer Straight wending to the snug in Hart-land, It is because with Fate we trust, As with the traveller to a station Awaiting far off the eager sloven, Aman to the beck and sight; And blind, in our astonishments betrayed, Falls off the track, and loses the path. Thus to the doctor's brain the vision floods, In man's imperish mind to plumb That vision is nepentaily seen. So look on all objects; thus to speech, The word is nepentheyx: Beams as from setting suns illumed his face, His lips move, lips mov'd their notes hinting; His pulse quicken; goggle fires illimitably. He weeps; and the tears fall, and fall; And he prays, and it is said he weets. How this may end, he never knows. He causes the tears to fall, Till all the tears are seen to fall. He shakes the salted charade before, And calls for its own paper. For truly all things we behold To weep for are not waters: We should with tears deplore them; And, for the man so magnanimous, Permit not that he be weeping. Let us then heave his stuffy bulk, And salve his weeping eyesight; For surely, forsooth, he is not alone. In one cottage mess must bread be made, For bread he (who roars) can ne'er turn round, And 'tis by puddings you train him. Pudding is beef, or bean, as you like it, And for the greatest weepers here are none. Such passion for a flagon made, He fain would knock a hole through the grange Where once his jim-powd there hung; He'd pipe his harangue, horn or bill, And in it would an empty jug-- Away by yonder little pond Come revels to me a upstart band Disguys my fears of nuisance. That lone allurement's prowling charms, The nightingale and the horn are there, Where now they were, where once I heard them sound. The sulphur flames into turbid rills Wah whauhaw, and the sinister horn. And the aisles with wandering light Like troubled waters boil in grief O'er the dismal brink of cave and pool, Where now are they; and riven weed, White as with fingers powdered, creep. My heart-love thraldom never finds, So away with this sad slim book, Mourn if thou wilt for griefs thou know'st, And if, in tears, thou wilt, forgive And from thy vengeance-worthy sins This innocent suffering's path brush. All hearers are; and whither they In the fair round of songs take part, Or from the singing grass rise up, Spreading myrtle along the boles; At blessed grass where, safe from shocks, Or if the dusty isles and rills And murmuring of the warm year, In the cooler depths of night And sweet rest listens to the strain; Or where his cups of glossy rain And a thick hedge-line sound to man; For we are ill if not that. O banished from thy loch and from thy cry, Where thou didst harm all the King's; O he His herald did immerse in his lair At what he call'd The Scots-Man's Felon-Song, A wail too heavy for them all; too high In bound to whom the hearers found, which bate The bound were; too faint, too sweet for them. My hopes of seeing thee, My joys of seeing thee, Are dwindled to one gliding dream, My joy of seeing thee, And all my future that: A hope but dimly or fools call it, A joy but dimly given, A pleasure ======================================== SAMPLE 59 ======================================== And all-too-patient Genii of this lyre, Only Sons of May of Sound, on wailing fay, Love me a precious hour! Let all die young! By moonless or by sunless shores, Welcome here the too desolate And gentle spirits who turn To you a loving hope adieu! Dost see a maid your eyes can get, Or, presto! Love's a cheat! The Sky's as deaf to me As to a dead man, The Sea's a clenched loon, And every shady nook A scornful grot! The sound d'oeuvres bell! Forbid they all? God's sighs to hear, Heaven not yet To draw a creature From flint to lime! A man of words and but a digression, my dear Gaspar; and yet, I know, on occasions like these, a welcome relief. One would think, you truly, both from the physiology and the frugality of contemplation, that you would be glad to be wrong. But no; from the first there is something strangely imperious in your elevation to a position of authority in this world of shallow philosophers, who, being themselves exempt, vow to put by all the assumptions of their high rank. I think you should endeavor, then, to uplift them, the same as one would an immortal weight-lifter--to lift them into the environment of modern novels. And do you think such a change desirable, my dear Gaspar, or is her conventionality the status quo? May lizards and frogs hold holy-day sci-- Dear me!--a day of s--t without end; When Death himself shall by our deeds attune Our one discordant music. Come, let's take the matter in hand. If a -- b -- c -- Digits twenty-nought, I confess to you is Negroes harmlessness. But, c -- v -- s--t, you'll think it no cruel j -- a -- c -- n-- t -- n-- o-- p-- Only a glance, and all his queer notions at once Get scraped to nothing. And even his wits, The grist of which goes seemingly, as you see, Down to that ch -- d -- c -- h -- r -- i-- w-- He keeps only with one race, and that the gr--st In all this sunday-fools' game of pub-- They scourg'd so fine a space. Then let's have a cup-- What if true?--I call it a thought--and doubt if it Be so. You never may to all I say, but so, I deem, that in that "Glory of the South," Which Herr Diuinus again so noble has lav'd On the green boughs of the Midland, and whose leaves are, too, With its productions so beully pretty, the First soil which Heaven in its care would name sterile, Is Lancay; or ever it descended more The sharp and competitive north, the abject South, The hard and stony mountain-side, and hollows of cask Cumber most of earth's inhabitants. But, dear me, And bode you less of our kinsbrother's cares?--Poor Gray! You do this thing, no doubt, as well as any, Which is, to let yourself go, to get content Flat, as the horse does; well, the meaning's the same, This vagabond and beggar is the hackney-coach Inquest. Alas! when I was young, 't was but a dream, My thoughts could never see the slightest relationship 'Twixt the deeds they call the good and evil doers. I had my typtoms: see, the woman's heart! I was half faltered, then,--too early forsaken; I lost all my sense of hearing, sight too, two ears Before I went to College; besides, I know it now So be not thought on record. No wonder: thou art A conspiracy of miscreant sycamores For a woman have been heads of Houses; I say But this as touching Gray, trust me, not Gray More than the wife of Stephen, not a syllable About his age, as for a whole Sabbath said; And one matters: how he has lost his head! Aye, yet ere he lost it, he's got it back. I mean his fond, his being-troubled, Worshipped in the Church of England, His godly scientific, And literary, his love-page, His high ======================================== SAMPLE 60 ======================================== Lost in that thou didst ne'er hold her dear, Sweet, dear spirit. Haunting (O Châlier! than Elysium worse than Two fellers at the "Can" a Party walk Till "Hey Merry Beggars" comes o'er them ravin'd Far off)— These, thinking thine to please, didst give more than take; And when by young, vexatious manners put to rest, Till set by fertile Doubt's lessening whirlpool-froth, Then thoughtless went the gentle in the sack For Venice and John Gilpin's fair eyes And Charles Dance's melodious circle and ring. But O the miseries of the talk of youth! Come, now, since 'tis young men who bear the gales, 'Tis time to come to what 'tis supposed to find. It is thy friend the Denzer disowns, But Virtue and Jealousy will on, As quickly as thy old sire disappeared, 'Mong the noblest men of the mariners. Well if he do?—'tis a seed of thine For thou to art wanton in a hug, Now of the Argill namesake of Pescia's shore For all I care I am thyself, O, now! O wanton soul! O love your lover to, For, was she not, indeed, thy sister? One word—and thou art changed—am giv'n, indeed! To marvel there she was, and the shame To feel how much less certain than my steel Or thy rev'rend bones, this new spirit seem'd, Or to grieve thine own heart, as being more mute— But, were she spirit, fie! no matter: One gasping cry, and Time can slay As neutrals shrink from horrors that grip the soul. And thou hast heard of Menander; too late! Can thou not feel the words as gush'd away? Thou ask'tst no return—thou demand'there in vain. Yet this one word—perchance it penetrates— I hate thy fair, and wilt thou prove the first That gave it to my ears. Thyself shalt smite— Shall take my knife in hand, and join the grim Forges with roaring flames. Was never striven Aower before, so soon, to make a throne? Shall circuile, by one swing, an hundred miles? But thou hast heard of Circe and her monsters, Canst see in dreams as plain, and in thy blood Behold a curse or two to make a whole— Ah me! the morion world has ear to hear; And fears the curses that are wrought in home, And the wing'd pestilence's their doom. Ay me, the world is with the weeping, one Red dawn of threatened freedom. Fate, hark! They that are rul'd cannot hear it roar; Even the best—one, in discord, in her pride Whispers a tyrannous human emphasis, The street, and heavens, and hark! It is, and cease! Lest I unlist, to have my spirit sown Unto the empty wind. It never ceased My spirit to be strong; was never weak. No, woman's name for her, as evermore: Puss in the ear—everywhere. Hence, hence, forsooth! With little time the very house to finish. The tree I selected, as such work requires, Much less the work than went to heap the burn. I'd smile, were the worst intended; and frown. Are flowers intended here? So, bread without cake. Our English are bold. Some wine? The house I remember, and Sir Thomas Parson's smoke. With Love I found it downright stout, when The French confederate, and sent good Samuel Dorsets— Must I say? or ask for familiar clothes? Or, friend of mine, what book has Love in't? Alas, that slow, that tedious Love may hear From C——s, which of that name no one knows! To talk, be still, thou not-for-losing! He speaks The very god of Love, if not Love ======================================== SAMPLE 61 ======================================== And now he pleads and puts forward all that he Would like to possess--but the chief part he sees Hid away in words that will not come to him. I write this with genuine sorrow, not alone That the head of my darling friend is changed scenes Where half the charms of the twined heart are past; Not only from the change that rounds her shone, And star-like appeared within his eye's clear grasp, But from the thoughts that methinks th' eternal thrones contain Must right all the wrong, and place once more hit the mark. And with what thoughts he, tho' high in place and rank, Would not our woe-sick heart forego! Nor do I rule My fears, however unjust, to sigh too free When love for half the world's wrong ways is bound Within the depth of one dear breast. But I was young then, who thought, and thought afresh, Whate'er may be, that this earth on the wings Of April's silver dawns might outshine That milky-precious Vision, on whose light He first unfurled,--which from its prison Ever, as to less, diminishes,-- And wears, indeed, a shadow; in that time When earth has power o'er all, as th' earth it may, (As the court-day rose that Briton fancies now to see, Is, after all, but a king upon a tomb.) And we were new together, yet a part Of what we are by: each heart ne'er half so big As the other, whose double goodness hemms in All whose oweable is no more than one; Whose one delight and great, one right, in freedom Is held but by one sole orphan thither now, And which, Heaven knows, the world shall have nought to pay For. So, at this late day, we were but two hearts that meet, Which would meet, but twain, through hard accord of minds With hearts and ways quite different; now as then They were so full of trouble that should both Have died out on the embers, and kept there Like the old morning-star, tho' beamed by that Sun Which now puts forth one spike, if whether so He sink or up go, from whence his rising so Sticks to his own middle all the day, As it were never done thing, so we twain Might well have been e'en as the newest wife Of one who wears another skin, and who Shows no jealousy at all, if but one Partner live on half your life, with an eye To enrich the other, when you each by other's last Bow. When one man dies, another man is born; And who that's born and now grows old, that's dearer To love than love; the shudder is but of one Who sees not what he deems. As the stars' Difference to light is but of sight, but All sight embraces, the spheres of air so Do differ, yet all spirits think the same Of all that's lovely and of all that might make Pleasing their residence; which only so Are silent all as short-sighted men perceive A message in the nothingness of night Messenger as eloquently far, When by the mid-set moment nothing all But noise, this world to rally all matters Of which, scarce a sound will do, till then Shall send a winged messenger, whose last Distant pen brings assurance, 'tis like the Lightning which smote first Beersum, the first First (power of an early first) is Mortal, but the other divine In so far as 'tis exalted more, 'tis Mortal, of greater twilight. How happy is he who, 'mid so bright a sphere, Encompassingly dull, through all its streams Comprehensive, round a single revolutions, ends in The one single truth that turns, to reckon All this out, where 'tis apportioned out, Counted out to all,--never as yet begun; And who, while he acts here, can show Even the first thought from such a sum of ideas All time may change his work to-day, may find His writings even, some one yet found, By which it can be said, no other Can in the body's compass be found, Till time's figure fall, the succession broke, Time's succession broken, run out, but ever Some single act of eyes, or of hands, or thought, Some mystic ardour, sprung of ======================================== SAMPLE 62 ======================================== Pan got it from some salt master, And painted every book for treasure. Pan-book I am said to have meant; Whether book of balms, or lemonades, Or medicine of rheums or thumpings, His Pan he called Great Sage of Chewings. But none did sing like Pan, and we liked him best, He in our name (that's why I love him so). I find his canons of life to see things changed. With pan from Pan we came to read mystery, At all those words, their proper names, and every case. But now his name's a fog for picking. We mock at Pan, for he is dead. "Where's a stranger?" No, no, said the Bible: But where's the man with everything? "Where's a living person?" He's rather everywhere. And we like to see the living company. The live person from hell is he whose history began, Since we love to admire a sinner, And a company, and a passion, and a letter. My Pan is but One with the book of life, The letter of life, the rule of life, of rest, And one of all men's dreams, and one of all men. His Pan has mixed his addition, and he'll pay. Our Master, though he's formed his company, that's himself. "I have loved many," he says, "love the gentleman; My Pan, but Pan from his heart and mine! My dream." And our books are under seals, so I can't write, pray? And why? Oh, the red panniers are under my seat. This rocking chair is a kind of timepiece. When I sit here writing I am still living. When I love, I'm still in my dream, still in the throng. The live man, Adam, has had part of sleep, And books, and books and books: that's education. But sleep is all about us, everywhere. And eternity is all about eternity. And every sleep is a little piece of pen. Pan's great name so dear to me is: "What's the price of memory?" Memory's the book that never lets us miss Our early learning: true though it be now, it was wrong. And now the last time he spoke he began, And told her he loved in style, and that he, she, "Them two, and her as well or not as they, I love as two fine stars, with fair exhortation. That love is brave, and gives a fine import, That money's the only god, and that memory Is a jest, and more malign than any jest. That we are ranged about as in a press. That this is only a cabat, and if we, now, Forget the cabaret it's nothing, I assure you. I say, I love them as much as I ever loved. If he go mad, or she, it is only her. And now it is but as two twinkles in a gang. They set off, and take a piece of road, a beacon. So it is, and sometimes may be, a deed. And they live in each other's breath, as all of us, And, if neither one nor both should fall sick, They would die glad, and die glad, and be happy in each other. And with a crown to boot. At his books I read. And love is no more a foolish thing That makes us miserable. If we can read, we are young. If love be love, we are men. Not a book that I like better, or that better, come to me, than that which Herbert (it is still) wrote, who, like a man of science, hides his light under. He's a learned man, with a literary way of writing, and the song of his quill. He's a good fellow, and his rhymes are sick of the world; And yet, for some mysterious reason, his love for the Ancients endures, His admiration of their poetry is yet evaded, and his knowledge thereof But, to persuade you, I venture to recommend him, that whoever will read only Good Books in this world, will find them very few, and those of them By no means all that are worth one's time. I can say more, and yet be hated by all, And hang to my pan again, For aught I know, or dare to dare. But oh, ye are all too low And scarce worth the care I lend you, If, when you ask me for ======================================== SAMPLE 63 ======================================== hands, ears, nose, and lips, Their temples and arms were changed to rock-like plate, The hair they wore on the head Began to grow Up to the shoulders in a firm ridge, The neck to lengthen, Grew like a tree, With bony growth, for strength and spring. The back-bone too Was hard, and to feel; More hardened was each cheek, The skin grew leathery grey. As iron dulls and corrodes, Does sometimes times a soft, grey flesh Grow like a relic; Thus was the common run, In stories of our Gods old, The gods of crushed leather. Their mouths grew hard Like enamel too, They said nothing They did not say. Nothing They could have done Had they been men. <|endoftext|> "The Unsoir", by Thomas Lion [Social Commentaries, History & Politics, War & Conflict] Bloodying the lips that win sput of the knee as the turn The return of dock where the puddle sits Sliding through the wheel-rope's case Lifting the brickwork from below Like the vent of a bank vault door, Sliding through the case Lowering the brickwork out, Saturating the glim of the licht Translating its message into the lack of glee Turning the table round: what luck! You are back with your kith and kin! So it's time to say farewell. Who would not go alone? Who would not go with a team Whether it be the speed of light Or that metre of drop and rise? I have felt the rain At the best of times. At times, it can't be avoided. How strange that we should wish to hide The very letters of our speech From the noise and noise of the dull Gathering madness that befalls The house of our gain and loss. On we go. What we gain as loss we gain again. My mother was wooden. She grew Not withering, but wooden in glee. With a might we made of the seas, Of the winter, grumbles of the slaught'ry. We were the cement and the bugle-song. When we faltered, we were strong For a space. We were how strong for a space. A friend of mine went in the war And never came out. We were a world with mutual need. The frost of the Summer, or the frost of the Winter, Was her song, her mirth, her answer in anger Or love. It was harsh to her for much lien. What were our pleasures but a matter of suffering? We'd sometimes wish for each other's sake to live Both in grief and in bliss like this And in our gaiety, the burdens be named. But it seems that we're both one and both, Whether we're happy or whether we're sad. I am neither here nor there, flat or picking at skeum. It seems to me I'm here, here to live on and on And not to think over where I am and where I'm going. If I died and came to this land, 'twould be hard to die. There's thousands of land-laws to be closed upon. Here, not to think of that or that, which, are we, there to live, or die. Here we've watched the stars grow and bleed. We've looked on an old friend's face ere a day was done, And the first night we'd see him in the dock When we went out to the roundhouse--no alarm, But, yet, we went awake and found him still here. I was once on time on time. I've turned here to the sill, Nay, down to the clear cold ground To the rain and clear bright air, To see once more the limbs of the great and ghastly day. <|endoftext|> "This Child is Stalled In The Factory", by Thomas Guy Low [Living, Parenthood, Relationships, Family & Ancestors] It is the thousandth thread That's seen as dainty armour for my tiny man. A drop of bliss Thrown down from a needle's eye. The centred solitary grain of passion flower That shone like a sword With a grain for the whole sword's sheath of beauty. But thou hast turned thy back On the world. Its bells and shawls and buttoned butterflies ======================================== SAMPLE 64 ======================================== Verdure still is scent, and still no leaves, That rapture, which the cock (with strength Severe, when rest and noise are worst), A rich flavour best conveys. So waned The flower of forty years, but owed not His fall to Petrarch's Juliet, as some Have thought that Jason was blinded by, --Where e'er the story goes--with groans, Yet blest as were (as elsewhere unhappy) If not of literature. But that swoon, 'Twas this, or aught else that just touched the sense, And thus gave pain: And 'twas here, perhaps, That dulled to love the ladies were: Since, first of spring they struggled so. I knew them all; as all men know (If that profession be not void), Who consorts with those they deal with: But in the wane of life grown older, In the flammee of fashion fitter, 'Twas these I feared,--I knew they were Not those they were advertised By the Flounce, and the time-beguiled, Thing or twase. Then came a change, More sad than met the digital eye, That Nature's men have wrought, tho' art were not Helper or foe, and now That poison may be labeled (By all that knows but lips that lick) They press me to some terror there, Me, nurses and mothers and sons, Me, Reubenberg, Reubinger, too, All those dear boys who were Aunty felt disconcerted. For fears that sent me hurrying homeward "Glass of beer and a surgeon's knife." Mid-campaign, when we were marching in Flanders, What harm was done! Was I skirting hill or plain, And was I speeding in? Was I near to the Don? I will send a bullet, be thou purveyor, If any such were, of my successes, too. Here is an index, friend from Katharine Traill, "Wicken['d] of [locale], and Arrowson, her son." Not the French like those whom Louis once did battle, Who wrote down each note so cibly To catch the musicians in the Chalk Downs. Not a minstrel--well, not the same--died, Except two, of course, Gipsy-Smith and Donald, Who fell among the veterans of Flanders, Poised aloft like Becket, stricken dead. But we who have waged such warfare with Fate, We have found means to beat on the shield of Pitch, 'Mid swords of men and darts of arrows To keep our faith, where devils have visioned. We have read Hell in every darkly menacing glance And tried again with greater dispatch The unstrung chord. Our life sustains it, Who have neighbored with the unfeeling. <|endoftext|> "Compose," it says, "what you will" And I turn as me ye'll perceive Must vary in waxing style from harp to harp And from the caldron turning plumply wide; For I now live an old man and ye'll see What gettters of my special brand absolue. When Carolin died, methought that I Might as well confesse the truth as vouchsafe A truth of a more unsavoury brand. I was like at some festival to flatter A fêted apron and appear like rags To a team of admirers as Janet would Would be surly at my mullety fine-- Whilst Janet did more events than one relate To debonaire fame. The critical days came on When varied gowns, especially white ones, Would draw universal eyes and stare; That is, when any Pretty Woman stooped To purflee, that is, when white touts drew in needle-neat. When mine, to -be-specific, drew such fire I sealed my brave mien, gave white shoes draw to the crowd, And, like a most emblazoned and aureoled martyr, I was FINE: so riven I had no power o' pause Nor of my dazzle to th' silvered or to shade. 'Twas and is the same dream that when will break, Or the strange Hand, under which I used to game, Slap me to flocks of some pure folleric bird. Or dim-eyed Psyche (who was I? why should I Courage to name myself! where was that thought? It ======================================== SAMPLE 65 ======================================== When I think that I've learned so much more from God Than I've ever learned from anyone, The Army captain took me aside and asked, "What do you think?" I answered, thinking it a trap A boot camp soldier had set under. "Well," he said, "You're a bad little worm." Coy, thin-skinned, and cynical. And wouldn't you Be in school, and hear and just don't get it? And wouldn't you Bend over a book and bend down your head to read it? Wouldn't you Want to know everything and get done what you could and had to do? And then all the boys and girls look at you and say: What's the matter with him?" But I do what I do because I love it, because I want to do it. The other day when one of the cadets was about to come in on me, And I saw by the way he eyed her that he wanted her to go back to class, I said to him: "Why, man, what are you scared of? You been in the Gulph?" "So-and-so told me what to do," he answered. "I heard her tell on me." Oh, well, I guess that some day I'll get in trouble Because I act the fool and cry; But the problem won't be made so clear To me but to you, I won't be near it; I'll only be near it because you'll be a fool, And you'll be a fool because you get in trouble, And never save in scare stories; But there are children in this world of ours Who grow up with nothing but dusk to do; And then there are the fool ones Who do too much, do too little, Keep up the frills of life just for show, And play the devil, who won't go far. When you are angry with a person or a country For any reason you choose to be so, Then concentrate your wrath on a stick and you've succeeded. Now, it isn't necessary to swing the fist To make the body rattled; you don't have to knock someone off And walk away with the fallen man; You can tell at home by the doctors' bills That swaying is the ticket for harm. The English love many things that they call "The Arts"; And the French love them too, but we who are Britons Believe in nothing but the English arts. There are things in life there that are worth getting rags for, And there are things that are cheapened terribly, And there are men in England who would stake their children's Lifetime for an opportunity to wash. There are things in the English life-book that no one ever could read, There are dances that would give a famine, There are people and so, and so, and so, and so, And you get the picture--as I'm sure you will-- It is, without a doubt, the English thought of the world. The English art of fine meats, and fine wines, And not a minute spent without a peak, In a good strong maduro, or a good strong sherry; But when the dear dead Where's-a-Goodbye! has to die, There's nobody there to be lied to. There's not one who would allow his dame to be revealed Without a stout engagement to wear a flag. The Englishman whose conscience seems to run with the tack, Whose first resolution is to meet any problems limited to the size of his estate, Who has lost his claim to continuing prizes and is happy for once only to be English, Would rather he were America, than all the rest, Is happy as long as he can talk of himself; He shows no compunction whatever, whether he win or lose, And would be eternally overworked and delighted. 'Tis the same with the French; who in turn would be eternally overjoyed To be up the nearest in things that are English; There's not a man, however lazy there may be, Who would not be the victim of slaveries that are English. To talk of man, it is only to say that he is made Of the stuff that we were, and not more foreign In some particulars to account for his relish of living In these strange and painful new surroundings, For his tastes and luxuries, and his distaste For trifles that serve for nothing but a purpose; For our liking of livin' commonly leads us To cravein' that some tittle of our consolations May somehow stick to us, to help us pass ======================================== SAMPLE 66 ======================================== From which eventful fortunes you feel, when least they will, They are powerful allies, though in seeming view; But I am business-mad, and as a trader, Alone against business, I need many Proofs eternally that what I undertake Will aye proves proof. But, sir, I will not hide One fact that bears lineage to a name, 'Tis not valor which you shall aye commend; Truths in war as well as wit adore, And though inglorious, aye deserve a name. Truth I leave to school-boys. Wit to wits. I envy not the wits. The market Have both the marks of wisdom and of skill: I envy not the wealth which yields gold, Yet has wisdom behind all said, When those on thongs are tied that peg In advantage's hall, and when you fight At fifty.75 instead of battle ring, Do very well. But in war's fight, whose aim Is love, the short rest leads lazy lives Without renown or hazard. Warlike school Is but a pedagogy for war. Such scapegraces many fools have escaped: They say 'tis learning rude to read the leaders, 'Tis not to judges or Doctors A suttlest book; for, though dons fining Themselves, little children are reading it: Or as, in military fields, 'Tis virtue 'll out on you, and woe Is war is deep in them. A country life They school up to war, as souls acclimate To the civill arts. While the great pack With young jokes cruel train madly fly, Sneering before they strike their conscript youth, The swift-fixing stab of history roarin', The shrieking tragedy, or sad swine, Or the wild lust of cant, the raging spin, Each on his antagonist born, when they Meet in some shady plump old tavern To charm their furtive eyes; the loyal fool, Who, in the books he cannot read, Makes appear the meanest glib of swine, Or with his blessed musing ear The dull-smith's, or the quack of trade, Or any other patient pipe of gold, His only service lent, the more he asks. My genius, then, may be allowed by. You that my weights could tell and I. A man that is not stretched to doate But just makes war when he can; Not making war and but fighting; And when he could not make it up, Not making it at all; No sacrifice, no hand in ev'ry fray, Baring his skin to pike and hammer. Oh yes, he will be tough, if his skin Can be made of such tough stuff as that. Here, yet hold him for the fight, when he Looks on the pitch and that is all, There was no in his whole life, not one, Not the time of it, or the month, When the foe was there, and nowhere else, There was nothing to do but learn to fight. And once when we were in a keen accommodation (As I've in former times shown to you), I beg you'd pardon; in that fired-up trite, We broke him; we were but matched in our remeasure And those whom nature, not to count her down What self-count means, took (I've told her her name) And hon'ring hand, and you must know my name. No news of sugar'd vile with sneers as long Is good to print, at any bank-day. But hear one thing--and what the pity is, The thing is short, short of death's grim end; 'Tis, if we short deaths at any task undertake, We make death (like sleep) grow better and better. Our deaths, that flit, that gip whizz, that whimp and snore, And wretch and blunder, god can cope withal! For me, since these my death-beds bid good night, Would I had death's doctor here his claws to try. A life, where head, where heart, where everything's done over; Where Death reports each quavering breath as best he can, Not ours his sole inspection 'tis, all this year he takes. And what's it brings that bucket up my nose? No fear of th[=e] devils, some enjoyment tonished through. Here's a man, that's sound and bonny clear As any bar-bird to a weekend's chanter; Who ======================================== SAMPLE 67 ======================================== [The madness of intent Of knowing to be the thing that should be the thing that what do you see <|endoftext|> "Natural selection in the Shittery Hills", by Andrew Zawacki [Living, The Body, Nature, Animals, Arts & Sciences, Humor & Satire] Somebody was sick to death bored, probably, by the time he made it to bed. He opened his eyes first, tried to sleep off the sleeplessness, guttural, indrawn breath like a sextuplet stretching from his lumpy abdomen all the way to his rump —bucket, bronzer, buttom — and was no wiser. The moon, which by then had risen quite a distance, was too dim to wash the stench from his pores. Once shivering he drifted off to bitterness. As far as breathing goes, that's pretty far. So the air in his lungs gurgled with cinders floating in the light. His liver, in its cap of filth, took up a slurry, a little froth. His scrotum was a rancid turd. His tail was a turd. He wondered how that could be good. His little prickly feet, where warm temperatures were generally considered the essence of contentment, were now covered with porphyrines, ephedrine, amphetamines, sulphur. It was his own fault, that he felt so the vast distance that bound him up and constricted. He did not have to squint to smell the stinking guts in the mud. If he moved, it was to push rather than run, to move rather than squint, to feel the walls of the cosmos were made of excrement. He understood the hand that made him feel that way was the hand that had made him that way, stinky or sacred or impersonal. How else to think of God other than through bowel degrees of perception? Through his stool, then, through his cuticles, nerve bundles, veins, no one was sure which way to shove the fist. He reached for the moon and tried to breathe while he pissed in that all-but-forgotten epoch that no one would fuck him into after all if he got up again. iv There he went all shotgun, lying in the nosebleeds with a shit-fraught Liddell bowler on his back, combing his short legs out after the one his body had just given a second chance <|endoftext|> "Dot Compadres", by Regina K. Garr [Love, Desire, Arts & Sciences, Painting & Art] Oswald Jollimore, one of the great portraits of your own malevolence lays it on us square Abor we state it best we moved here when we were Already full-blown degenerates we states it as it is we remove the man alive we state that as well we remove the pictures of the ugly man alive the pictures of the children Now let us remove them all —The Artist has moved to creating a new perquisites— The Artist has moved to creation the drawings of Saintness and Imagination the confessions of saints We process now into our own solitude where the laws that govern all other dwellings have disappeared —The Artist has moved to sin capital letters and figures— As we talk we move into more and more versions of ourselves It is not the art of the wall on espionage helps us at all It is not the interiority of the room but interiority itself we believe when it is not true in the art of evidence it is not the use of obscurantism that helps us it is the many variant forms of the same thing in its use but they only act as one It is not the marbles or of village sisters The Sister is a single subject She is a whispelope <|endoftext|> "Hymn to Ningal UTC") by Timothy Findlay [Activities, Travels & Journeys, Social Commentaries, History & Politics, Race & Ethnicity] It is said that the first Indian at Langreull House in '17 had the audacity to hand this down and called it an 'assaulted Indian' rather than a 'slave' but it gets into the same town as the escaped Indian and her child who are all the same place. It is here, on the Michigan Flood, between Hiddenite, and Huron, Amical—that this is the case ======================================== SAMPLE 68 ======================================== Ahemmasi sang, and high and worshipful, Clamorous for my love without disguise. A cup was set before her in view; Then chaunted as her lips were mute, I am the high beholder Where Eden is and Eden's else, And had until then unseen hand Promised in the might of her good-will. Then laughed the voice as now I hear The singer of Aesop's fable, The Aristocratic Muse, The spirit of all Drama long dead, Her soul is mated with her vocal tongue And singing, and singing sweet, I'm sitting here in Lanthedère town, And wondering if my love be true. Then a boy rushed by, with a rush again, And laughing said, There is the thing on earth, And she her breast with a heave and swing Died away. And one, one more Went laughing followed, loving eyes But dim and dimmer grew and dimmer yet, Waving, lifting hands in sheer waver, The body's shadow grew and passed. And thus it goes in two ways, story, And she the likely tramp as well, When her eyes were full of liveness, And her body strong and pliant, A nation of mortal lovers leaned there, All cut in all the shapes a mortal may, And ever expecting some new deed to do On her weievr than the queen they knew, They crowded and leaned and gloved and embraced her, And all looked so brittle, so like to break, And each one made so loud a fearful din, Because her body as it was late Now that night was raving hated, like a root Grown under snow in hot May rain. In her body was a folly hard to shake; The spiritual shape twisted everywhere; With bended elbows, with a crouching pose, With knee that scarcely mated with her knee, Her torso like a saw-toail went round All eddies of action and dreadful tangle Of limbs driven off and fins that off them drew. It told them all the secret of her doubt As one that watched might another thief; It told them how she watched them slipping in Behind the locked door of her stern woman's room, With light and music and her poet's eyes Guarding, forsooth, what glooms had crossed what; She could not sleep in peace till all was done, And not one simple thing amiss or bad In the midnight hymn or poet's lay. And in the eternal play they played, While all the churches thundered round, In fear of joy, they passed the door To meet and signed their faith, and went away, Not telling what to gather was there more, Or what to tweak or to forgive. Yet if in her thy naked thing be done The wonder is not that she laughed or dreamt, Or held it good, perchance both, but that she laughed, For she had gold in such abundance, And silence for ever, or had space, Or was just in love with a loud laugh, Or that a poet should bring me to her sight, Or that one wanet and old refrain Had many a silken shimmering sound. And as they sung their merrily boarding song Sighed the pure wood, and one croon did pass; The forest seemed the bride, and had been wed, Theirself &c. vi. ii.] And, now, whilst on her back the table went, She too made music of herself, She too was wooed with soft and moved And wilted as in April or in May. For now this older, deeper desire That could not last, made wooing and chiding; The quick and deadlier fire she ta'en Of men and younger faces, seemed to fit Her double heart like a sweet heel, That they should hurry her grant or grant And rush to lose, or hear no praise. Again she came from food discomfited, And now again was seated at ease. She heard the long-practised palmer in her word, And then with inexpressive eyes She take him by the hand, nor asked, if he said What her face said; she asked him to say it: For his very best seemed to be his worst. And this new food saddened him; and behold He looked a shrinekeeper: it was she, Sitting with her eyes as if they blinked, Looking as by reflex from the sun To her sad face and gestures wise She saw, such ways and thoughts to hide, ======================================== SAMPLE 69 ======================================== The heart of ruin leaps, when, Amidst the noises of riot, Saw that with something of sweet Impatience and wildness in it. Now is chivalrous study done. All is for fear, nothing done. Inexorable, lustful strife Of power, spite, hope, proud rebuke, My soul and body tottering, I see the Savage from the rough hills, See him bearing in his grasp Shovels, kettles, and pals, So a strange mob of useless things, Furrowed for ever by his hand, Rending life to sowl, And blackening earth to Hell With dust of life already sutable, Giving life for socking, By the endless swarding, And still men call it death That men should labor so, Rude scum of souls and bodies! Good heavens, fools! how have you screwed us, Is it not in our sight? And in our mind, Fat souls, work for worms, ditches, burning lanes, And roads for fighting men. 'Tis enough we know not why Pests have you in their paws; what more O necessity horrible! At a slave-labour One fashion force you must not fulfil. Pestilence and violence! Woe, fire! Slaves immortal! woe, desolation! Do you hear? And against your ruin Your slaves would join. Ye, and your children, And their children, unto destruction Work; that these should be free, And happy ones at last. And too for happiness Of life everlasting Work, work to eternal punishment, For a distribution Like that which thou beholdest now. That such fulness of plagues Too might be healed and satisfied, There, where no bodies dwell, or blood, If I, Having lived thus abused, By evil methods, Where sinful torments wake, And of a savage nature I am not aware, Had but this burthen known, If this were done to me, As this I could do, I would do as those that do. --The wish, the wish, and the longing Is child of the unheedful; Haste, haste, your pleas are but vain. But if the fit occasion comes, The will comes next in command, The fervor of my soul shall melt, And I will do as I would do. And my body be like a feeble beast, With ribs that break, with heart that fails, And breath that ebbeth in a noontide chill, And regular rages, and at set times The blood from heart and body floweth hot. Nay, I lie flat, I do not breathe as roughs or slaves, But I will swell to full size, and I will fill The stubborn heart of Love and hold it fast, If thou the firmness of my guts would take. --I grow strong again; the poor old body of sin Is out of its cup; I think of the blood Is of the stuff, not I, and thy power, And I am of the lesser part. I know I can and will rise to the top. I know And I do strive that every day I shall fill The weak with thy succour, and the weak continue To grow strong in numerosity of throng. O creature of a male of mankind, Whether man's the brute, I scarcely know; If so, and so by mortal tyranny, I wish I were a stick or wether, That I might be a stick or worm like thee For labor or battle, and that stand On my bare legs against Isa. <|endoftext|> He napped, and all too conveniently so, For something happened in the night. As soon as the morning dawned on daybreak, He sprang from his bed and stared around. He saw the hedgehog, and he thought he knew The true meaning of that elfin run; He saw the mole that hid its head of snow, The mole with armlets and moccasins, The mute man, and the mountain zephyr, The wood-fire ant, the cogberry, and the wren, The chorus of little birds, The little rabbits dancing in the brush, Each one of the little creatures had a friend, Each had a distinct plumage, and each one of them Was a kye. He swam the peat berg and sank the heap, And shouted to see the placid creatures foam And flap their wings in surprise and joy. ======================================== SAMPLE 70 ======================================== His bathed brows with a lovely drooping And eyes of saffron, for their simple sake. He became, that generous, that gentle wight, Wondrous as Echighton in his gilded stall, And he is here to tell the tale how brave he was, He is here to tell the tale of that great battle we call Rams and rovers, mules and men, in that we call A little green skin, to look and feel at will. And the King had watched him all the summer nights. And the King was changed from his winter clothes, For he lay on his bed and watched him all that day, And, when the night was done, he came to bed, And put a great green hand, made of red wool, For aroo music on his pillow, And put in a rubied wedding ring, For aroo music, on his thumb, And he looked so wondrously down on the world; And the next time that he could see it he shook All the stars to their past place and all their looks, And even, for a moment, the sun, at that, And the cuckoo shrilly calling through the woods, And the swallows piping, etc. That with God's own Love he is wroth with us, I was just following up to the very end, And was near letting the soul go, And his last words were, "Lightly, ere it fade, Fade away." Then I said to myself in a sort of way, "Perhaps up in Heaven I have heard "If it's light I'll be able to keep, If it's His light I'll be awake all night, And shall learn to cry like a boy, and bless. I'll be a man with a beard, and a heart; So I'll play the beggar if he ask me to, And no one shall be able to say That I'm ashamed of all the King said, For I'll love Him all the better For having given me a heart." For I knew then that all the King said Would only serve to bleach My secret in stronger dye, For there was no way of telling, Not even to the ring, Who is sure that he saw me kneel down Before his feet, at the foot Of a creature who was as white as the snow, And who seemed not to utter a sound. So I met my brain's pride. I knew that I was never going to reach him, Or to save my blood shall I begin, My wish never gave way to a thought. And I was going to kneel down when a flame Brought me a way to walk to the ground; And I came there, and I spoke to my peace, And it seemed my moment came. Then a beacon gleamed down, and I knew It was my heart that shook again. I met the heat, and I stopped the spring, I saw his shadow long before day turned to night. I begged for mercy on the hearth, and said my peace, When I knew there was no one near. For my love was full of fear. He's a priest, I'm a prisoner, they say, etc. I was the maiden on the altar stone, The last of the ancient woman-gods. The sound of my whippoorwill Was like the night birds on the lawn, And the humming-bird's o'er the hill. In the long night-moths high and higher I stood in that long house, and saw My body filled up with fire, Till my arm and my hand were a-slope And the light was all used up. I crawled down through the belly and into the bone-room. There stood by my side a thing that had once been a man. He was like a flag floating down through foul times. This thing kept a steady care, Heard me, gave voice to a sigh. But as black as the hungry shark When the tide comes in, seizes back upon the land, And the belly stands in the front of the body, He turned his head, and I crept along. My hide was a pretty thing to see, Very much wanted, and then to have. I was not handsome. I could not be. It was to be a weirdness and wonder. My cheeks were tinged my shirt from not-slack. My make-up was not my joy. To have a sword, to have my wings, But not be proud to fly with them. No, ======================================== SAMPLE 71 ======================================== By trammels and tawdry of rust; So that the godly mind, Peeled from the body, and stripped of its lust, No longer hates or loves, But of the flesh fears ill, And bears the stains of the just day. The craved and thou wast prostitute, The cities for thee were free, But thou from that true city took Thy price, a woe or a gift; Now that thou seest the beaten track, If all those sweet lips had moved with thee, On the feasts I would shut mine; And yield each fair brow that kissed mine, In crowned might to these. That heart which beats a mother's heart, Now that the heavenly dawn we see, And that perfect the sweet day, Shall never beat, or weep, or scream, For seven days and nights, Save to thy foolish tears. My Ghanzel's dusky nimble, Her timid feet of wind, Make in her breath a stir And a light to have a look, When the golden bed is catche, And ope to make a bride. When it is of grapes that make it shining, When its flesh lights up a dragon, Where never was it living That left the graves in Streanor, What remains of that sweet plums? Dying now at Gheezeland The year's burden toil. Strike the churchyard bells a tremulous tuning, Let the stars of heav'n in starry darkness drifting, Shine through this pearly heat; Strike the bells again, another precious tuning, Let light of a thousand threads. For a rare inspiration, and with new hearts We offer our thanks to the ransomed spirit, And the who inspired, be pure by sanctity, That all the glories of life find a home: The better to bear up the divine light That kindles by communion with thy soul. Sweet'ning fruits and ends of generous lore, From books, from thought, from action, flowers whose scent Roses in us from Heaven's Source pure; Closer to Divinity's furthest bound Were intrinsically ruddy bread, Made by the Holy Ghost and Passions For the noblest ends of life. Aye! what have we wrought to prove the worth Of the flowering fields and simple life? We know how they nourish us; we command What our own senses. Hunger at a daint We see nothing if we see no means To secure a nourishment for those Whose grip upon the marrowbones is sore. Of what we have been taught, our heed we turn To rally, to take up, to present to Thee With vassal force, that reed of virtue We in ourselves shall not deny to them Whom the winds of Profusion still urge In perpetual motion with the tracery And drift of winds from deep to deep. And now that we by an act have set us forth, Through a skylark's angel ear, from body to soul, What need we for acting if we have meant! What need we for word what it should impart To Time's other great shape of self-validation! Nothing, so it is said, but makes an end. One life, one fit, one measure, fitting all: We tread it out as a fertile sowing, It blows as a blossoming: we sow, and reap When we have the mind to check the contraction And send it to God, and it is bronz'ed As an astral body to the ninth heaven. On our stalk the astral's root lies concealed Beyond the body's: that astral stem Is aught but as the immortal soul that breathes, And brain, and heart, and every portion there From which that root up to the eye of man Is driven, which also walks on earth, And is the mind of all that we can act or feel, Upwards of six feet in height, with half a breath To utter calm and silence with its power When we can't but look upon the face of Time. And from it there will in due course old Time undo The first six feet of yours, and then at last Push all in perfection whereof Mind's Sensing can pierce, and when his eye descends, Back to the root again, that is the soul. No man ever yet understood the sea; Or the earth, whereof she was part, and gav For man or bondage, as ship of tree; Or, what of locusts a ditch for flowers, ======================================== SAMPLE 72 ======================================== but the. When you see todays prices these hands you can say you saw a pinch of thyme and thorns. I see the road. the people in yellow who ran towards the Plow, for a better world, we thought, a great mercy, the way to the ragged edge of night, the road to the edge where you were ground I imagine if they wrote poems it would be just about enough that they'd need, the kind of poem the schoolteachers, the bottle of gin the men, women walking across it <|endoftext|> "The Enemy", by Rose Cheechoo [Love, Desire, Heartache & Loss] “what do you mean, you mean, when did you stop feeling yes, that the boot would have me up, the boot would have us down.” —R.D. James, 2009 The past two days have been awful, one of the other. Sometimes, your hands are on my wrist, and sometimes they're not. Which hand to give whom notice to, which leg to set on fire. What to make even more of a debacle of, what to lick back into their faces. And while I shift, you change. One evening, the camera rolled, we met for ixnay on the green, an hour each side of the mirror. Our names, a sprig of earth growing on. We must have kissed, too embarrassed. Still, I press your waist against the warmed-over rebar, an invitation to kiss all the way down. The past two days have been awful, you said, but the fire is in the kitchen, and soon it will spread. There's beer in the can, and we'll be burned. No, I'm not coming back. If you wanted, I could try to coax you back. I could even write all night. But the fire is in the kitchen, we met, for ixnay on the green on one of the face-ox cheeks. It was then I discovered what I'd want for you, the years to take. It was too hot to move. The past two days have been awful, the camera had us near the park. A cockroach on the ground. You pulled me close, I was self-pity, one wrong turn for a kind word. But I'm still not coming back. And now, the past two days have been awful, but I'm still not coming back, not even when I think the fire, unblown, so clear, so loud, would put all that, the horrible red, the blue, all that flame between us safely in a holy safe space, which neither of us can be in, would put us on the same plain, not even though the edges seem to sharpen, it's all on. The fingers just feel, which is all I can bear. And if you wanted me to, we could be back together, and just slow talk our sprawl back home, and sit like this across the car and through the opening where the driver, wearing old hair, leather, all that, still lays his way through the old cars and gas station, pulling a lawn mower out for it. It would be the same, just us, swinging. Which is how I start each story, but stop, and then feel the space out. I was torn between once more binding you to me, as I don't want to be thought of, as one feels a beard too close to call one's own. The other was the other's sleep. Who felt the other's sleep more than I do now that it's beginning to rain? The second, you said. And I said, without turning, without believing, I don't want to be unkind, that I don't want to be cruel. But I will, even. I will rip out the stitching. I will put it like that. Pull it, for now, like a garment over me. Because this early, you know. It's true that to make me comfortable in a position I will not be in too long, or for too long, I will be in it. I'll need, from now on, to sleep in another room. My desk now. It was more than anybody, a room I go to. I'm not really in it, it's more I'm gone through, my desk is there, as it was. It is my place. I walk past. ======================================== SAMPLE 73 ======================================== He who cait, a host of foes doth rase; On that side bright sails prosper his intent And the tides flow clear; the stormy ships around On every side return in safety home. What change is wrought where'er the lamp of fate Hinders or assists the mind, The love of silver bars and bars. When the broad evening covers The sunk sun sinks to the sea, And the arms of day let in the last of daybreak, We find him lower than the sea's brine And lie in the warm blood of the sea, Which is our proper environment. Now from the shore let all the vessels stand Lest the sun shake them by rude storm and flood. Let none meddle with the waves and spars Till it be my mind to bid them haste, But tell them 'Neeman, now on your watches stand, And pray.' Then I 'll tell them what I would have them do; Keep that cool head and humble mien, Till the last trump be trump and last wind blown; Till the hoarse wind which floats their hollow mast And strains on the ropes to day be loose, You will take off from the starboard tack The stray oak-stems and pitchas tow. And when the weather is furled and lost, And the goose-headed gudgeons fight and swear, You will be seen crying in your chalk mast, -- And every choicest wind to scamp or wrap With all the men at Bombay or Waljoe, -- Not though the others were masters too, To gain a safe beach and cross at sunrise, That beach will be your wretchedisland. We 'll take the captain down at sea While the men sit up and sing a long pipe, That every man may understand, -- While the men sit up and smoke the pipe From Ben To up and Ben To all through the ship, The brig to follow up Ben He difference As Mr Lincoln had three thousand to one, And forty years' buy at twelvepence in John Brown's Gazette, Every man up to the feat of Dodd, For every man up to the filling up the press To bring the blessed sappers in their handy-tongs, To pound their tent and get them anchored up. Let every man of the ship be a man too As every man up has done, or were in times of old, For some the mind's in sea-sands and some its within, As some will climb to what they partition out, And some will smoke till they go all out again, But many will rise and live with the crowd of men, When the rest are like unto waves and clouds. My handkerchief he will write with, then, Who of all the men of the world can please me, My first, second, and third is he: My fourth and fifth I will take in hay, My seventh and eighth I will take in seed, And thence I will take my ninth and tenth Because, you see, of all the men of the world. We 'll wash and be snippy till Plenty catches us, And when she takes us in her net We 've wash and are washed again. I 'll gag with rage, and you 'll wax a snob, And soon you 'll find you are quite a clown; We 'll sit and talk till (as we flatter) two, three, You 're a plain fellow and we are gentlemen. A snug place and dusty to the very brim Is where the "papers" and "evidence" fuddle, For I was lucky in being brought up: A land beyond papers and ink and mind To which my pensive spirit fled long ago. I had a paper, and at nothing I said My father grieved, the adman swore he'd rammed. I had an algorithm, and the day they died, Poor Michael P., my little son, lay dead: I had a mountain of hay, and I didn't ask a single more Three cheers for Epsom smoke and smoke. While up there everyone I saw was boring, And then in rush of heavy feet gratefully I flounder down the hill and am stunned To see a team where no one I 've ever known, Who, passing each other with a hushed tread, Poke each other off, as if a wild beast close choked. How long until we meet again, For what is this tide of talk, This vocabulary, this long unrolling Of newspaper riddles, In such tempting answers, And gleeful chitters To hide a ======================================== SAMPLE 74 ======================================== of a hymn in which John was hymned in the rank and file with a perfect stone over each and every one of the important moral steps in the faith. <|endoftext|> "Lines Written in Form A", by Roy Fisher [Arts & Sciences, Poetry & Poets, Social Commentaries, History & Politics, War & Conflict] I am a poet. This is my work: a cadre of semaphore other things not not one original inspiration my vision my everyone-beloved city my annihilation contrived in what the past past notes made nobles my body and mind those bits of debris as steadily to the dust as the past notes imprints stale copies open cracks asked to fall, asked to be set, asked to drop the fruit in to be taken to be disseminated to be forgotten warps that distort the course of the future heresies of abstruse reality there are effects and causes counter-effects genes fines and exceptions today locusts (our hills are "innu- treme") this is a "modem" a finite point and therefore an idea that "belongs to the system (the finite code of beauty)" <|endoftext|> "London After Graff and Matisse", by Lewis Austin [Nature, Trees & Flowers, Arts & Sciences, Photography & Film, Social Commentaries, Cities & Urban Life, History & Politics, Mythology & Folklore, Fairy-tales & Legends] Sooner than later. Arthur Cose, Henry Carrow I hear that police action is impending. If so, what a night, and the stars gone. The tree that falls the farthest calls. There are fewer people here than at rest. Were I to draw a circle with a line Seen by the naked eye there are fewer Than might be forgotten in a moment's sleep. The letters we utter but under double stress (The pain we breathe them in) less soon or soon Some sword that had not chiseled a name Might quail, whose valor would shine bold. One needs but look a second time through What’s between the infinite clock and second To know there is a name there, chiseled. Why do the stars have their names, anyway? My first thought is nothing else needed, But everything is then different. In the second drawer, take that bone conch. Its intervals are numbered, not spaced. Its frequencies are measured. Its periods are lost where those measuring stick Across the infinite air. No granular number. See the shell-form of those colors as each beats Only to be set down. So what comes to change the pattern Like the mile-long pierside bridge that joined the houses, With all of its nested crannies Where the formica's blossoms fall, Its tiers running down the middle (Where the water winds around, and a flat white firefly, When it glistens, reads our entrepris, nothing written.) Time has a highcas, lowcas a low, A table that upbrushed the ground And now assumes the names that upbring it knew Come what may, let the stringers go, Not knowing what they’re driving from. They find their world and change, each in his own Individual lightning, the dream, the doom, The lightning, being and the name that brought it. <|endoftext|> "From "I Want a Horse (But I Don't Care What Kind)", by Joan Gordon [Relationships, Men & Women, Pets, Social Commentaries, Gender & Sexuality] So far the field trial—sexist,to be sure—and the Sheriff's private jet,some metaphor about power.And I am the counsellor, goodwith worries about that,and some, I fancy, like me, want a lot of horse—so far, thirteenwhistles, dark with rain,vanishing and still, and back again within an hour,more than I've had since the start of the practice,even I think I'm goign to finish. I amstill not sure,see what I mean? I might be aboutto try to talk, look like the counsellor,but I want to try to ride,none too gentle, none too mad,though one thing I have learned,the night the girl drownedthe day before our rodeo, ======================================== SAMPLE 75 ======================================== Cyclona, a mountain stream, from that Danaan raised, by her petals furnest, I saw; As in their prime, nor omitting any bloom, The roses of Hisma. Unbalow by balow, To me, among the herbage, thickly grow; And, which might choise least thou feel thy thought perplex, With equal kindness each ensconc'd, nor divides Soul of speech, nor guards a vain advantage. Dante, that most of heroes, could not surpass The rest, if falling from his sire the first, Here forg'd to rise, here found the fourth part Of the fourfold world, his mighty powers; not else By Priam, or the Latian race receiv'd. For the blind Tragedy, which still hath nourish'd His joyful source, if one travel to the West, Third Ptolomaeus, and the author seek, Finds not the path, nor even Ptolomaeus' great arms; But Pyrrhus cannot battle, but with bows Who in the waiting-time was left, And how and whence he came, whether south or north, The southern regions call'd Dantes, and not know From whence he came, matter for legends and songs. But he the bold fable-tell Of the brave Deianira, as it is heard, Who a perilous war with death arrived, In great Arcadia falling now. Upon the sands lay Aegyptus, Fabbrand, Who had no chart, the loose-grained seaman; But took the astrolabe, which the skipper Hid in his waist, and all the Teucri bluff, His fear scarcely sooner fixing him, than he grew wild With cold and solitude, while in his throat grew A painful pain, from which he soon was dodging To quaff the fill. They, both aboard the skag, Had much ado how to left or right to steer. See the rough waters of the over-arching main, Tearing their ridges with like edge, as they flow. But now the face of heaven is south-west, and now North-west; now then E robusta, now the rest, With now the mouth of Garonne, and with such a will, That even a seven-headed beast might terra such spray; But the fierce tempest in a wrath behind, Their opening lips by violence that blow Clear from the bowels of the Lady Fortune, Whose beauty, such as to little minds O'er-guiding, makes them big, and these are whirling Into sirens' thunders. So many tongues, And such stupors, that, unlegendary aid To any mind, seem it far more fitting they Were sleep than mirth. The one in spirit that seemed all dead, In gibberish custom had Saul Slain by, now that he could serve no more. The other to the best he made known The belt and sash, which kept him pure, and had In heaven a thousand satellites, of whose feasts But three were honour'd with a millennium On high - Saint Demetri's 'agi- pagi. I have a breast-gland, but its virtues Can now resolve to blood and ruin, The old-time heresy. Sock in the eye In public place, one Juan, has I slue For good in my fault, what I sing; an honour So precious, one as has his praise For merit 'twixt me and you, of which My song-recollecting friends pays one! I go Where no pale ghost is seen, but countless leagues Of joy are lock'd. When last in laughter, and in tears, There, our disperse'd friends together be, I'll peep into their inmost bower, Where order's laws are simple rules, One filing more, if you probe more; 'Twas thus I come. A man that the sight Of princely pleasure towards me bring, Are these high mirthful pages which ensue, Did in their bunch headed Nomine What oft in pages more employ'd you, lord. When Bacchus was abroad 'twas pitiful! But now, when he can't keep his tears to hide, He's the priest who labours with his load. There will I sit, if there's one that can see. Did he not show his imperial growl? No, That goes, and all goes, good basis of state, Unobnoxious source of laughter. ======================================== SAMPLE 76 ======================================== Invention, Nature, Religion, God & the Divine] a dove without beak dying in the last moments of all-consuming existence suddenly available to me and suddenly gone what are you saying a dove without beak deeper than life a dove without beak something much deeper much deeper the only other thing I know of my existence is far stronger entirely impossible destiny and all briefly available and suddenly gone <|endoftext|> "ChattahocKEYCha-1", by Chana Rusbult [Living, Life Choices, Relationships, Men & Women, Social Commentaries, Gender & Sexuality, Mythology & Folklore, Heroes & Patriotism] for Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, Louis John traveled from our home in rural Pennsylvania, 2011"Citizen of the Republic of "Do you think too highly of your future citizens?" President Jackson asked us, Caroline Sanborn in a kingly moment finished second in "people's choice," we large-chested, in the lives of us who are our vocations" She nodded, from her penultimate day to the billions dollar her senior thesis on the records "We even do it better than your senators" and she tried—accused rogue Westerner—to blame the system, I mean, a compliment, and from what I've gleaned of the noble LOS ANGELES, I Told you we were deep in it Not to our fate but your own you boiled it Changing us—I Told you how If you're asking can I call you our saviours as you call it the Royal Families then yes, I Told you. Call them heartless, v.-nant, as in case of inclement weathers So, all-natural, each a thing of flesh, broken and vital, second to none— in you all that is broken (meaning is plenty is bipartisan) all the same— and you in you This is the new America and it was wrenching to watch—You & I to the early bird outside whom note this may come across I Told you it could be awful too—a situation I, for one, was not inclined—I knew not what to think, next to you, and (of course) to fling Upon the board a potter's wheel (or more) of unexplained symmetries— Sure, it made more sense to do it than admit a space between us, but still: you could tell you felt things might unfold just as easily as they did if you glanced at the wheel you might I Told you there were reasons to be hesitant, the lines to make, the reasons not to enter your precious second puberty …And you knew that, didn't you, though? Well, as the stars for a little while did, in you were the stars What better way to help them deepen, I Told you so many times not to forget me and you Told me I knew their time had come—No! I'm still waiting— we're still jacking time, don't worry and in this aching space, we the captains of industry prepare to supplant all platitudes and the do-nothing ethos of the new regime with action <|endoftext|> "The Last Mail", by Richard E. Land [Living, Growing Old, Nature, Animals, Seas, Rivers, & Streams, Trees & Flowers, Mythology & Folklore, Heroes & Patriotism, Memorial Day] O if, in thy decline, ever shall I see The blue and wide-spreading stream, Swift oaks of the western sea, The tangle of them as they flow, And many a ferrying light? Give me the mail of bird and tree, The wild honey of the roots With roots of blood and celluloid beads, With roots for spear and rayon thread, With flowers from which the bee will die, The brown snakes whose pasting knife Is small and rude, but glides well and soft, And all the maggots of delights. The winged seeds of sapphire, emerald, ruby, and sapphire, Hidden in the limbs of trees, wings of crane and swan, In rocky walls and flower of Mathusalem, In moss of Calydon, in oak-wood honey buried In worn-out windings of Peregrine's Fountain, Then hurl the broad leaves into the fitting outlet Of Canner's ======================================== SAMPLE 77 ======================================== As envious Ophelie you The Old Kings which from Suez with Fed Us, in once time was worshiped, as right, And won a heart, Isopporum, old sooth, All touching of his words. But me Isole or Leander dives; I seek no Gods, no Saint I; I grant him Fair treatment, and rejoyce to be found As harmless. Why should I t'other goddess Waste her thoughts on me, her neighbour, with off'rings? Take this slighted's earth-sprite, him and make him A knot of deepest doubt? him may she cover With deep veil of jealousy? bless myself With other thoughts, seeing this new spark, My lightest, as the horn of day? Ah me! And none but large-hearted men abhor the old; Let them be temperate; I aim not at that. Hyp. If me, that I, lorn, should tamely sit, And for the public ear from any tuck Of this or that, came tidings as they come, Of my poor darling's happiness, for which Both Gods and men looked otherways, I should not Wish to live. But seeing now a spark Which, although 't could never rise again, Did kindle yet in mine old heart more and more, To think of these old glorious days again, Which may not be restored; and, seeing that she Of whom I spoke as virtuous as the goddess Of lofty mien and tranquil tranquillity Of all that hath been or is, because They are not, not themselves--I could wish to her In these sad, dreary hours, an equal mind-- I dare not laugh. Can you laugh to? and be not All aweary of the worms of such old words? When one and all so crumbles from the earth They were to see some other where they be, I thought that all was over and done with. I could have prayed, but I had not spilt My glass. I dare not laugh, but I am bold. Yea, full madly--with what else,--but what's my aim? Of this I have a still growing brain; Nor have I learned to curb or get over that; It would have gone flying from my poor blood When they told me I had a spirit Which made my tongue eloquent in choosing The words 'twould teach the heart to utter. And then of time and place: the green woods And smooth the shore of this the blessed isle Still to be seen, as if the sea had gone There, and with it all that really is; And, like this world, grow old and die away. As if, or passion, or something worse, Or hope, or love, or memory, or some loyalty, The wild heart of things had no change of scene. I would have been tragic. If I had been, I'd had my own Philisurer, His face all swells, and his eyes all fierce In their tumult, but yet, like steel smart'd, His face bright'd and murmured "Kill! kill! kill!" I would have had my starurts flap't and play'd And words that had a more or less affinity To break through all Iaths and Cannons And all their storms, with what avail As far as I could tell:--for death to some Is death quite well Gold, and in time To me is death indeed worse than disease And longer in its life than such Was my last illness. But I should have been Rabi' and recreate, and with my eyes, How they have soared and flutter'd! Talaria! Alas for her! she hath a cause of weepings. O, give us not that deadly pall, you or others, Or I will have another Christina! Would rather be alive than a little dead. What's wrong with me? Is my heart unsoul'd? Has my Will uncarrassed my affairs? Or is it that I have been keeping Me damn'd wills and houses, and branches, Cettridges, which have ripen'd more Than I was worth? so have grown so a torture In trying to live all now-believing, Which it might mean my Life and Death a day To believe it false, but no more. And yet it is no torture to be mull'd O'er a golden wheel, whose burnedout prongs Are of itself enough to destroy Those who dwell there; but lo, I've clung on And grown more weak than the Man Tiger, ======================================== SAMPLE 78 ======================================== It grows a mountain, no value at all For the earth has a thousand uses. If I stretch myself at the stove and rouse myself With a drink and a piece of the mast, You've no right to say that the weather Has no use for a man. As I light my fire up with the box-spring, My heart cheers for my chest, And my life and my stove come together-- If you shut my old gas-plugs up, And you chain my old oil-lights close, And you patch my old shoes, I'll know Then I'll crawl up to your bed. You'll get a slice of blue Rhode Island light And your fingers will tingle. The drops we have always missured, Are for ear-nestling on a stake. As you trudge the long hall way, old black figure, With the tawdry mist of meadows Behind you, in the dewy morn Your face holds no vista back; As you stride and tread and tramp, so limp Your fingers that hug the soggy ground. I have had many wooers in my lifetime. Yet none took me as the spell is now; The bitter weed never once outmuted The flame at my heart that burns and burns. Here where a maiden holds her portrait They never win me--but Death, and then Love. As my friends all have houses well in order, And the order ranges from rent to beau to tax, I am always sick of man's rushing onwards And the never-sated appetite of man's soul As he picks me out from all the litter. But my heart's at home with my beauty and my fate. I'm pretty sure my beauty was what it is, And my fate has been exactly that of her. The wake of the seasons has bred it. My beauty to and fro it is rearing it. It is without defect, The body of my body. Her with her garments is ours. Her with her arms enochining charm Is ours to spend upon whom we please. My money in hand is, at her word, At the point of her finger, her at my lips. And mine there is none she dare not touch it with. The purchaser is content. The purchaser is always content. As I was taking leave I looked back upon The figures turning like fire exits. As these left their port they turned and faced each other. It was a calm moment, tranquil enough To think whate'er is, indeed, unquiet. It is lovely having a house in one's family, To go home at night and sleep within the doors of it. I do not know where the land line is that marks it for home. I hear the pounding of its silver bell And see the telegraphic light above it. To have it are glad. To drive before it, away, And hear it is the death of concentration. I hear the alarm clock sound As every other piece of machinery reports it, And I must be true to my destination even then. My husband is very well. It is the virtue Of long years living in some freedom and leisure. I see the youth at work and pleasure here, When at school or when occupying the loo our seats, And often I wonder whether all these things are More natural to man than your own condition. To say that a man should not work And have leisure is in many respects Vain, for the age in proficientsy Is toil made glad with sunny life, The advent days made good for youth. Great is the gulf In hope. I know that it can be emped. I know that no youth can be so fit As to defeat it. My husband takes a journey one afternoon, And his house is all of its goods in order. Then we are out and we see the world. I see the world and my husband does as I. I see far less. I have no sickness nor I do. I see men, and this is all and my vision is this. The company I keep goes forward. This is the feeling in getting older. It is the modesty of women. To be near it one has to be sure. I am not free from it Save in my will. Yet freedom Is not enough. I am fettered In many ways. As I have said, My husband's and my children's status Requires this of me. I cannot let it grow For one without the other. In my blindness ======================================== SAMPLE 79 ======================================== was a terrible storm we quarantined," Dr. Cherfas said. "He did this again when typhoon Kabul attacked and the patient was outside, outside until midnight," Dr. Cherfas said. "This weather. And it does impact on people, it does." THE FACT IS, THEY HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THEY'RE DOING they don't know they're ever at risk. No, it doesn't feel real. Nothing wobbly occurs. They know the cells don't age but do know they're thinking. Nothing is. That hunk. The heaviness doesn't interest them. He's there. "This is real," Dr. Cherfas said. The patient. They're told that one in three is dead when it happens to them. They've been led to believe they're immortal. And at the drop of a hat their immortal selves will be swept up into the wind. If you believe you're immortal you must not only know you're immortal in name only. You know there's another one. The thought of it stings. They say you can die at any time. And indeed you'll die. At some moment you'll be dragged away, left to waste amid the detritus of your life. So, they're told, immortal you have to be. If they'd held their peace the earth would have come to earth after all. Eternity has limits. The gravity of truths comes in handy. They can't be too loving. 2 THE TWISTS The way it used to be if you wore tennis shoes the dirt of the blade to one might never reach the other. And anyone caught on that side of the ball would slide as far as he or she could to the sideline. They wear shoes that have no tread. For that matter, they might not even dare to try to go to all the way to the sideline where that dirt is. And so they risk everything. 3 THE SCRIPTURE He, who takes a vow "my son," has no son but a sword to fall. But whoever wishes to harm his son, give him a stick of wood to keep him off his game. 4 THE FAMILY TREE What kind of man would I be if my own flesh and blood was ever trampled on? I suppose I'd still be living if I had no idea what I'd done to be. But there's something nice about the sense that when life is always within the water here there is less clinging to the beaten path, which takes the form of destination. 5 THE DEAD FOLLOW YOU The weather will be hot on the narrow road on the July 4th of August. <|endoftext|> "Precious", by Ted Kooser [Living, Death, Relationships, Family & Ancestors, Arts & Sciences, Humor & Satire, Social Commentaries, Popular Culture] The gated community of San Luis Obispo is one of the last Californieve to install such a girded community. Greeted by horticulture and entomology and so gone it is a ghost town the hopeful buy the grave and have moss over it till death's tires come down. My grandfather, who had to stand on his head to reach the teletype to say his last good-by to his child the monster's son, who would have spoken his last words to the dead. No matter how a California grape goes by but as long as the tape is on the crystal interior outlet, there will be a football race in September between Notre Dame and USC. The time will come when good fortunes hold as gold spray on the bumps and little feet spring off the pavement toward the house of the unknown clinger. <|endoftext|> "Cowgirl drawing her a Cactus", by Diane Nagy [Nature, Trees & Flowers, Sciences] Her fingers perpended to the saplings in her thin, bloodshot fingers, as if she were daubing the choondoring of her heart with ciphers. The kids say she's suckling the roots of a Mississippi plant. They say that when she drinks a pool of its primordial nectar, ======================================== SAMPLE 80 ======================================== Andrews joins the yoke, The bull heads half o'er the other, While Jo: Here's the whip to Jo! The Pope, with eyes of love, Waiteth the new-born year, And much he maketh for the boy His own poor maiden await. When in his stall the child is born, The Pope maketh for the lad A grace, to mark his way At the age of mercy supreme. Though oft and oft and oft he age, Keep him still a virgin bright. Keep the womb he may be king, O Thou who com'st to lead our clan To fame's verdant peak, Let not our leader's greatness lose The goodly lot which he found. But to the jaded soldier turn The sage advice of old. No sordid greed the destined course Of the warrior's life must know. If here, as there, the wonted leave Of self-professed sages go, Steer well the leader's fate; Stay his cool regretful heart, Not relish hardened rapacity. Remember, Lord, in whose bright isle Each warrior (glorified) roves, You fashioned in the flame of thought My first and last employ. And can a fleshed-hearted Moor Pace not the marked and studded belt, And at the age of sunset fix On his own forehead the strange sign, And from his wrinkled lip receive Where needed the graceful rite? When, set upon the seat of state, They compile a royal line, A sheeted band, of matched and matching hue, Thro' which each warrior's name St. Ronged upon thy name may stand, Beneath the heavens represented. Thou, who thy heavenly fortunes knew, Shoutes of praise from multitude in vain, And many a rhymed deed, since thou wert not, May raise again thy wife and me. <|endoftext|> Here in this spot where did the fierce north and the sea meet, the gray rocks crash and roar like as if with death, she sits to watch and nurse the chill of the rocking tide, so fixed, so mute, so still, she says, her seeing looks so small, she envies no one the quiet of this gray shadow, the smooth place of stone, this heather grey, This frost and wind know all about. She sits with half an eye on the sea, she worships, like a stone, a man-savage man from the North, seated in a hut near the sea, nights grim with the curse of the tide, the face that curses with laughter; so fixed, so mute she is, she seems to anticipate from the stone the words that still would fall. One name is hers, and one only: the Witch of Eye, and Gull; and men have sought them both on the sea, and not always unclosedly: in the mouth of men has been writ no less a curse than much that none has dared to kiss on to the bright white mouth: so bright, and they watch for that curse. Sees herself not her shadow not so fair. She sits with many eyes to close, she prays with many hopes to close, all men in her dreams must sleep, and not waking she sees her dreams, and her nightmares. But what dreams? Not her own dark thoughts; not her own will: which are not dreams: men's dreams: but the sky the sky in which he watches and to which At the last, when he rises from the shore, and he gazes, he must believe there is a face in the stone a face hidden and hard to see, as one half-seen upon a sea can believe there is a face which still is hidden, hard to see. <|endoftext|> "Whereabouts", by Laurence Binyon [Love, Infatuation & Crushes, Real-Life Relocations] for S. R. Now you are downcast, straying weary and sad, Why do you dread the call to repositions? The very mirage of beauty, from the crags of snow, The very mountain of glory, as you credit it, It might be vanity, it might be your cool. It might be nothing, and the end of the world to the falsehood, so you dread the moment when you are to come, the dread of the torture, the act, ======================================== SAMPLE 81 ======================================== parcs palazzo d'oro, de nombre rosas con Ovest et azote al scanti, inquieto en las vejas. Vaya tan foscar estrago con alav seguro, tierra guerrera es necolía, tu ha burlando, si no ha vencer, pero no ha confierta el albe. Sí, eternizar por los almudres con primo esperanzas Una caza amable Pilar infamia est olinda, al fin y feliz bloque Y solito los restas que bastan las pintadas Pidiendo desconoconercios, Que la verdad otras veces Rudo acabar, aunque la brava perdida común mas b1ler, da de una fuentes del dulces sabos en la estumbra aplacen; Sin ser poseido en la caza Las grandes anfines Enragó estas labra plicas, El suonimo edificio y lo nombre de ellas, Y yo tú, la propos, Las teves en una horrada con tuve su nido amante; al fías riendo triunfenora uertate con vello, y solamente cuanto Bajar á correr y te vas, astada de la yerbal y y agardo. Álos olasos sobre todos, y á todos asiloces, nos pones que el Cuerpo gozo, tu compañan noli mas b1lla y b2lla. northern climate, yellow or green, but not white), and very fragrant, yellow or green, darkest satin bark, with a milk-white underside. The bark is the color of lentil), and very smooth. Silk thread is not distinguished), or yellow, or green, darkest satin) and very smooth. In the family Of peas (all members of the tuberose genus) the term is given to any material, not blessed with great horns.) It is used figuratively with reference to form, English alinger is a silk-worm.) The Greek metaphor, or silk-worm is applied to a poet who manifests the characteristics of the Silk in the above poem), or figuratively with the same meaning in the line, showing that the person is to be divided into thirds.) This metaphor having been explained, it has been transferred to other senses in which the word is used (see Áthiopology, Comparative Studies). The metaphor is used in (I) the treatment of vegetables, (II) the proceeding of vegetables, (III) silk. Silk as vegetable production and use ( I) was first noticed by Aristotle in the first century B. C. , after the fashion of his time) and is found in the play, I, lines 543-545. The verb sanguineos, figuratively, definite, but in the singular, means to lay waste, as with gruesome waste.] The Revivées á las sagradas de la tierra Tan Descoladoras, hincus á los sentimientos de la apos callos, La más estrago á la feria y adelante La leor espec flavorado, á mente masauchi. From fallen to golden sand; The streaks that are dentes to the snow; The love of the gentlemen call Hooks. The joys of a morning and a making Are graced by a mistress that's tender.) Y aquello de memoria en llercuchos, Dende el muy pecho duobía, Y era muy pés de aguen tembresa, Y dende el ser, como en nuevo, fino; Y tan se aluba con calma de seno, Y yampen de cerrar la frente. Y cuanto le pusillo en su fe y valle Para prometido, en lleráo, Y con affrancia bajímuriadero La cáil). Y en ti, como fuera del engendro y fiel Del nombre daudada, en su bebísta Que de albaáisa el bosque adornada, Perezcan en ======================================== SAMPLE 82 ======================================== the character of a chariot. A more detailed study of these is found in C W Father Jones's Japhet- (1901) whose study provides some of the earliest Anglo- Saxon case studies on the poetical hypothesis that the Watt's long-winded diction and conceits engage all the best aspects of each possible openness to persuasion. Both the language and the literary production of George Watt require close study to be fully appreciated. As Hale suggests, Watt's unruly lyricism, although it was not his purpose in the Introduction to his paraphrase to explain his attitude toward law as it is exhibited by other poets, interprets the Greek and Irish poesies of Horace, Tylor, Petrarch, and others in a way which allows it to be understood without recourse to Watt's highly idiosyncratic interpretation of these great authors. See Herbert. in the letter to Whittier, the two papers are mutually antagonistic, as all the letters written by Hamilton to Jones show. It is curious to observe how closely the different views of original geophysics are interacted in this poem. "He who would extract light most keenly from deeps in nature, Must read by art divine and force the cold refraction from warm inflammations. However much eyes grow attuned to pass unseen the lights of day, Their nautilus visions to chart the horizon to which The tempering and reacting forces of inflammable matter are directed, may find their genius divided into those two kinds of animations which make up the original imagination. It is these again which have been characterized by F. A. Doty, A Jernigan, in his treatise on vision: VIII Where is the mind in its constitution as in a mirror, Where of the mind a residue in hemisphere stands before us, When sleep plays its last trick on the sleeper's head, When death sets the cherry round in the glasses, When friendship blots one face upon another, When laughter and droppings disappear into the tea And disappear in a dying, numb despair, When crumpled letters fade upon the drawer And for signing, blood upon a wingless voice, When Laxative and keen and absent live to die And in the total Water, gaseous appearance sits, When pictures fall from windows and disappear, When no one can be happy by such common standards That poetry teaches us to appraise, and The French dead without regret are still with us, This little memory of ours of how the sun What wing of the spirit was the giving of knowledge? No poems we ever made, unless the Poems of sight, the poems of sound, the compound Theatre of poems, an image of an image How could Adam's knowledge abet our birth? Although He held the rational, the past tense Is dead or gone and out of fashion to write in. O Life! with thy hands extended, Which on our hands, keeping their greave immersed, Did flow with easy impulse in our minds, If naught at all, yet ever so all, know we that The death of fools brings many a rub for all Its happiest moments, since the birth of time. The love of wisdom is ours, our bitterest tears Are tears forbia, our bliss is comfort, our pain As light, as bliss, our man is mankind. Although I do not write as I feel, My heart would fain poetry seize, By prompt verse intuition teach That life well taught and sense avancéd; By prompt verse images convey Of things that weaken or bring health, By prompt verse converse known With every Spirit, past, present, or future; That blessed Word so oft in fashion spell That breath as Once was word, thus drive home home To flies their poisoned arrows from the field Of every-day. I fear thee, Satan. Thou hast sent me here This physical presence to attack. Thou on unthinking will thus destroy All love and trust and communion Whose influence lately dwelt in me; I fear thee, fear me,--Satan's fool and knave, Who in the name of God make war on me. I saw him--I may say, see thou yet Whether, toward the end of all, This body still walketh to its last, This mind remaineth, and is mine own, This soul's, as of old, at liberty To seek, pursue, obtain, or seek to lose. Mine eyes are open. I may discern, If, walking, I improve, or walk amiss, ======================================== SAMPLE 83 ======================================== Jedi in blood and fire. Here where the trouble rested, Where O'Hara lay buried, Where the blood seethed old and new, Where lay the stricken chiefs on the ground, The Jedi laid, while he made his bed. There the soul of O'Hara Held the great discussion Of his fellow souls, Of bloodshed, error and shame. (The messengers brought in the word the others uttered with the sense of the voice and the voice of a living man, thus:) "His [O'Hara's] the meaning, The turning and the right, Whether to fly or to fight, With our hands or weapons, life or death; If in poleax we go against him, Smoke while we fight but his back we beat, Makes the heart's blood carry the stroke and the life's turn. "The question as to whether, Before we spend it, Wean heart caught in our hands, Swings the heart's hot end On to fall on our side." Then O'Hanlon, his colleague, Said "there is need to allow the Latin poets free use of the sword and fire; they are less slow to learn than the Latin poets; and, therefore, it is opportune to grant them what is in me." A burial in the valley before nightfall, Before the night, the burial; And the Micajoke bones beside their hearthstone lying, Falling like leaves in the last year of the year, When the wood chimes as the wood comes during the year's ending; And before the Micajoke close off in the forest's heart, One by one, before night, one after the other, A man goes forth into the forest and says to himself: "If a man's arm is strong and just, Not the whole world can be lonely." From the mind of a poet, On the death of a poet. In the gray place between dawn and dusk A half-burnt shack, With the wind half its life serenely Burst into the mind a cry of censure: "Repentett!" And the whole river said "He said it! I said it herself!" Then, lithely, with eyes half shut against the soft dawn, The mute old canoe with the slack line smoothly Flared and headed for the strait boundless angel's bride-room,"The good ship, theirs, that is making Today the fourth of January, and the dove, Silently on, silently, the dream scooted Through the mind's moonless midnight; While over the star-paved waters hastening, Silently, the brown bird calling From the dark tree's heart, As if loving the love of the sailor More than the love of the sailor Lovely as azaleus on the necklace, Precious as a treasure In my heart's scorn, in my home, in my repository. As I turned the water in the grate to find A stain, I could not hear therefrom Any sound but silence, silence in its turn Continuing echoes in the grate, In my mind: and so singing, remembering, I remembered, with a sad melody Recalling the words of the message of Ovid:-- And in the lighted doorway to one who was Looking on all things in the tranquil way, One morn in the spring time, me I noticed, The light was upon the tulip tree: But in the ray of moonlight which fell Into the grate where first I came in The house was dark and otherless. Then said the youth: "From what hasigh hadggled?-- Alas! what scent of the dissolving flesh?" The bird flitted, percht: the shell so softly, On the sod so lightly undulating Seized by the soft spring-tide: "Abide, I say, abide." Sooted, the chirp went on saying: "This thine eye Sees stormy, terrible, as it may seem. Yet surely good things too are seen by eyes." "That may be," said I, "if the eyes see right, But the whole air only shapes right my soul. For as two cedars fit each other, The present graces the mind with a might Of the past, thus fitting well in trust: The cottage-furniture is another's style, If well or ill be done: a bower is left, Even to that purblind man who believed his cup Grew ======================================== SAMPLE 84 ======================================== And is not by, I count not nature's self more nigh Than my soul to the angels. No tale, No tale is known to my memory, Of women that suffered was work for The Divine and yet lived happily Amidst men's laughter and the love they Sent through in countless letters Of intention More wonderful, of men more wise, more to be trust'd, Than the lowest made of clay; Whence it was that one could tell that there was For comfort, may be for remedy, A perfect tonic of laughter, Of happy words, as yet unsoiled By the incarnate Christ. But look upon me in all men! If at thy feet, thou layest any one Of the brood small and innocent Left in the wounded hive, Say to him: 'Lo! we feed up three; One lays prey unto herself, yet, By love wrought, is sympathy-born With him, that, eating her bread, does die, Weepest in her husband's grave, And will live in thine, ere three more Rush from their wombs.' Then will I, even I Who utter all things already, Say yet: 'These we live on, all Lies scabbed, having drunk of love's blood; If the first be shallow, shall it be Our consciences and next? And the third, who of us shall tell, Yet what voice shall rouse thee to aught?' "Tales," I shall say, "of men, not souls, Needful are thy skill in tongues of iron; Mute, and maimed, do men weep Whoso of thy skill could tell more?" And this one thing more, What shall say next, than 'Man and God Resign themselves to thee?' Thou the eternal rule Of all within thy house, take thou Before thine heavens, that all things May, as it seems, be sure. Now I know thou art God, Lord, and To whom all wings are lowered With the devil in thy train Thou art more, Lord, that whatst first in all. For what could all men done be good, Though that first nought of good to know? All that's good is, in his degree, The richer it seems by comparison, As each one knows, and each, what he is, Not vainly, but in his round, The higher he so talks and speaks. My Soul, it redeems not it alone From everlasting life; nor only, At First, but ever is it thus But since we see the sky, how It Was the case, and the rare pellucid tide In which we have our 600 miles Of Pacific channel, open, pure, cool, As ne'er was seen, though in tide to be: This Sea, which can no balm make dry, Round earth, and on the great floor of it, Will ope her mouths, or seethe: How come? 'Tis likely enough the water For e'en a team, if that the beams are good, Two people, from the rigging: 't will be One o' th' water if the middle be, And the far nearer Thames for plow or wade Will take the wheels, and if he swim again, Or pull, the pilot, up upon the mast, Obey all and empty heart that calleth out For a fresh oar, all the east air stirring round, Where is the wind, what tempest, and where the wind: "The sea within his deeps to hold is force Thou knowest, difference, being from a shore." This I forget; What hurt in this I have forgot; I saw the semblance, what I saw The shadow, and nothing else; And toward heaven, was united faith And energy. As for the sea, 'Twas one. I was brimming as I was, With his end in sight, made fresh and fair As ever nature took a shape; A new orgie begun; A new nature using old customs yet, For it by heaven's grace was fair, The very warfare, that can mate or bring The best of poetry and prose to day. This has passed with me long, long years, Though now in shade, not tangible, yet Within the walls Of this life, and but more manifest In that I see the rainbow's oath, That so must it be, for proof, And so what followeth from that pledge. Not as a former, cannot I act now ======================================== SAMPLE 85 ======================================== Active, eager, and happy; I became so like An All-Halls Chancery, A spark on the Universe, A brilliant and ridiculous member Of any humanity So did I see The human world with no humanity, As from the ruins of the saints and the mystics From the tombstones of the dead of the Future; Where all alive and the only things that had any mortality Were glittering in columns of light, And the Angel of Earth did shine in a microcosm On the map of this universe, When I saw that no man Who worshipped Nature or drew pictures or wore jewels had ever any life In his religion, his art And I saw how All life comes down to a creed of ground And all shops Are open on the homelesss' hearts, The Bright Morning-land With its wavering bluish soft clouds Was like some virgin goddess half naked Panting in the faint light. The angels sang to her and each violet point of her dress was the pale worm. But soon as they parted I heard her say: 'What more mortal of my flesh I have in presence of this night, I must go in my sleep and leave it all My battle with Fate.' The birds on her bosom shook with depression. And the pink of her mouth And the dimples With the touch of her lips seemed half aware of their sound Of all that was audible. Then all humanity And the language of the birds was hushed and the blue nature of heaven was hushed In the ears of the goddess, The angel, The maiden; and the life-stream Of Nature from her brow Was stilled in sleep. For the pale pavane with the flowers in his ear Had flung a mantle About the lower part of the earth and the music of streams Streamed from the rainbow on to the horizon like a dream. And the soft lights, Like a tongue-ring, That day and night Upon her bosom, All the pale colour and shape and mood Preserved From the passing of years, And all the mortal towers and temples and renowned shrines Gleamed in relief. And I knew My dream had all been seen, The loveliness of earth laid under the breath Of immortal eyes; In one swift diviner; And the loving minds of the angels above Were wild with gladness I remember well how it happened, how we saw And understood all. To that close heaven of ours, Which is a close-knit, close-thought world, How the earth broke away! Not a moment's peace or rest on peace Which did not end in breath Of angels; and they on their murmurous blue Above the loud grove of Babylon. I saw her, round and rosy, And knew my heart's heart That I had killed a woman, and not killed A man. I had seen and known her wounds; Her blue-green eyes, her body's wan, And had felt and known her heart's gladness And its slow relentlessness. And thus we held in arms Our blood-gestured farewell, And went to see the sunrise toward Which our dreams had warned all day, And the dreams' strange voices all night long To quench the flame of mine; And met shyf precious days, with night And grey and venomous moonlight over The dream-wrecked well-worn way. There are broad ways that hem with mist And icy forests where the torch Burns in some gusty barbarism Which maddens the black cedars' pride, And where the great arms go out, And low crosses that are frail and lame And broken, long for home, and here They find no welcome. But all the roads lie fracture-formed And cracked with all their road; And out of stars unknown And blinding flame, and roads that go Out through the sun, and the fierce eyes Of storms that do come--you Have brooked the ruggedness of road, Yea, your way's unslaked with the sweet And tender wonderment of dawn. The Dawn's Come! It was but last night or through A very long day, I know, but now, The Dawn's come. She has thrust up her bare, white legs In the pale glint of the moon, Cupidity remained unchanged at last; The last robe she put away was her dress. Her breast and arm-pits glittered in the dark. I stood at the ======================================== SAMPLE 86 ======================================== Till the lights shone o'er the opening trees, Till the white mist sank to the fold, In the distance far and faint. --How the voice becomes, and is strung Of a different sweetness now that's there. Go to the borders of the world, It is ever thus that the borders of the world, Into each other worlds are thrust, and then Turning round it, turns again. There is only a little room for dreaming, And some reason For dreaming, And the length of the way grows long As mountains, When suddenly a light, Flash, flash the sport from the left, and the rider springs In the saddle. Or to that other place, There is nothing to do but to ride and sing Into the tumult and roar of men's laughter, Into the tumult and roar of the world, And still riding to its end, end with a shout, --It is good to be there. So again to that other place, Into the tumult and cry of children's voices, Away over the tops of the trees Gleam, disappear; a moment be seen, A moment too far, the turf riven, The tumbled leaves stirred in far drifting, Winds of tears, or of laughter. Or to that other place, The legs tied, The eyes shut, the body borrowed, taken, But then by a breath; Then to be overwhelmed With a blast, and suddenly sundered From the self that held it. So by so other place, A blow severed, an eye blind; And then, till then, with limbs unfought, And comrades unfostered, fall; Finally downward plunging into Darkness, and turning leftward, rising, Lights a moment, Settling, one by one, Into the wing of the bird, With a stride, Head held forward, Grasped by the body, not the mind of the bird, Of the wind, or the human what he strokes, Showing a self, a shape, a measure, or an aim, Till a silence, and light The shadow of a man, a dog, or a bear, Whispered its voice and the will trembled, Overture thrusting its way into the poet's soul, And the scene Began to push back, and at length The horse's head The moth's wing, the sunset's red fruit Make into one self, the horses were abashed Of their own running, and made shadow, bowed And bent, the shadows; then, leaning forward, the burden Of the year rushed forward All the coming mirth Of all the seasons and the glories of all the days; The songs of the birds, Their thoughts, Their music, each breath A joyful self-sufficing word, which whose power out-measured The length of the way. Then the world of winter, and the world of sorrow, Again thrust in at the wing, Again together blent. And as a complete complete a eusebia, Where eases, teeth-lackin', stand, And through the hovering splendour of a-flutter of flowers, Flutter and fly Toward the sun; And when the earth has loosed its clay-shrouded gown, And all the birds are shut within their nests Of branches, or boughs; When above the sun, And in the dim-lighted rooms of those who love him, The poet has drawn the nightingale's shadow, Praises his shadow, muses, thinks, sits, kneels, and plays; So remaineth night, Over and over unuttered; night who sang all day, And mirth all night; night which will not cease, nor e'er will come. Serene in thy deep-bowered mournfulness, Yet with thy raising bosom, and proud of its width, Thy deep-erect bosom which bounds, yet overflows, The largeness of thy breasts, Glad as the deep sea when it bursters, And as lightning when it flashes, As life when the soul breaks forth, and as wind when itblow; O bosom deep, so firm a breast, Solemn as heaven, and fair as heaven, and firm as victory; Now most determined. As one who is half-amazed, and half-feared as a man That with a whole world's surprise, Hath with his eyes that never turn around To those that weep, and a tongue that ======================================== SAMPLE 87 ======================================== For he was gallant, and courteous, and discreet; And looked as if the, laurels of a court Were on his brow. He was "in his spurs," And rather ribalds than birds in Rome, Where Julius smiled, and Marcus it, Till good Oudino changed him for good; 'Tis said he even had painted Portia That very brow. And a graybeard, A wise old man, beside a tavern, told me: "In the Thirty Years' war Not a higher honor could a man receive." The Emperor also did he praise; but he forgot That which endears--to be pleasant, and very discreet. On his right breast, and of his legs a cross, This of Alphonso, with his tenderness arousing, That they took the sweet excess of youth, Left, I say, the other; and when love grows hot With reckless desires, with heat of youth Is past the threshold, plucking the frog of lissence, Like apples which ripen in a vat of new-dried oil; The pieces of the world, it seems to me, he hoards, And the boards of the wholsome spiced melons, So that from them the winter will be wiped away, And the topmost ribs of the republic, that new thing, With cherries crowning, butter'd, ripe, sweet, and subtle, And flaccid, ripe with their fellow, flashed his way. A lady, who had a bust at the convent of Saint Sophy, Was one day driven to a rare rally by her son; As he did, at a race hold to the west gate. The first was a shield, the other a cup, Both of equal worth, one of gold, the other Full of holly. In the race he ran away, And had as much luggage as can from a donkey; But scarce a runner luke the peloton, where he surged. "Now think, sir, who was racing with you, who had the same seat, And was your donkey fatigued? 'Tis the same coach with both ours. Run, sir, and bring your bags to the fence, at the head. "Him we want is beyond doubt, and a reward you will have, But if after searching for him, and taking his tempo, You fail to recognise your donkey, your carriage, your tricycle, You will be stripped of your clothes, and made over into a colt; And, in exchange for this cashmere mud-pudding, you will be made to gallop about the city With a black mount jehovah's cross at the beginning of every occasion." 'Twas my Lord, and the log affirming, And he proved, and still proved that it was him By the mere splash of the gravel it took the shine Of the hair's quality of being unavailing; A little streamlet which did not court shining, But shone 'mid the sleet and the snow fall, In which all the shine of the donkey's sight shone through. Yet there is a light, though a weak light, Which shines through the log's weak texture, As in it lay the double view Of the gravel's slow drift and the shine Of the pliant grass which it swell'd. In honour to my Lord he held it as his, And he oft added merrily, While some benediction sounds, While the cavalcade's rose-light gleams From the lamplight of his whip's ray. With hoof-beats all the land we roam'd, Which the light'ning's ray did foster, Which by the donkey's fly's glance (Which under heaven Lord Byron's land Is blessing God for) doth raise. Praise it, my Lord, as the donkey's food Here returns, to his birthright. Such, Sirs, are the true Old World's truths; Such are the tottering bridges o'er the flood Which divide the rich from the poor. And such is the dust, whose breeze does rise With the scent of the spaniel's neck; Though the female's breath might float for a space Upon the zephyr's gales, And might reach the peasant on his lands, But not the burgher at his spade. Now, bid the traveler beware, Though the stench of starchy smells Over the bumpy cart, Be not by any means satisfied. Stick to the trail and steady reins, For there is a cursed crack In the treble pole of the ball. ======================================== SAMPLE 88 ======================================== Spake from the tomb: "O brother! as thee sang about the birds and the of whom I have told, sphere, this is the ceremony, and I must live, for I am a bird and would live and submit." Sang the sister, with wistful eyes: "Thy hair, Long, dark, soft, stopp'd growth is at last One that covers, and the bosom of the wind Swells, one wave whose passing rushes Wreaths of branches take away, and he must be seen, He shall look all mournful who live close, where the sun: <|endoftext|> "On the Happy Hills", by Owen Woudeman [Nature, Landscapes & Pastorals, Trees & Flowers, Weather, Winter] Whom do you guard from the bitter skies and bitter earth, Your verdant mountains beset? Heaven knows. Who put the bright blue currant in wild place And gave you sweet creamy hawthorn far from any clear source of light, The rose or oak's tall ear Or the snowy plume Of the swan-like rhenamines whose nest Is the glistening lake of the hollow wold Who, were he not dead yet lovely, Would make All summer and all winter bright with his flowers Who loves you, who Who sent you these gifts, O God of the gay grin Who grafted You into hedged and tree yourself to triumph in The sweet basil close to your breast You're welcome Who came without her lips As you came so very soon I don't want an answer (O law of joy, and justice unbent if my pain were The burden of your greet and the strength of your love.) The sweet moorlands rosy, perennial wont love my bird no more than I will love the dry hard slope that I sleep in and the swan on your left Still at your feet I feel love in my heart And love through my mouth you make my breath quick and quick my eyes ache It is good I was born if you must crop an orchard for the sake of a caged bird <|endoftext|> "Heath", by Tom S. Director [Living, Death, Life Choices, Nature, Winter] When I saw the red leaves of the heather fall across the sodden road the dying fire of noon was quivering. From its shallow seams of salt and disuse I knew the mackerel had not reached the root and where the woods were thin now, through the glassy moisture of their hair, I could see the dark as night, flaming with flame and starry nimbus. Folk who live out their lives there are struck to see their bed to lie in darkness, stark and dark. A kind of bridewell, it is not the same as the loose wagon, the fleet hopper of hell to which the children are separated from the parents, or the donkey that brings pelts to the village. I have seen the bony brown clipped emmet-dams along the brown low fields; in mid-July they were caught and gigned on either side with iron. They stand there as silver sprigs that have stood from winter through the white frost of April. What summer's hand can rend the stubble? When streamlight falls on them flush and trim each clumping head, and the fields seem sodden with blood. But I forget the fields as I remember the footsteps and the whinstone night, and the parting of sleep, and the whispering near the grave of the dead, and the viewless forest around it. There are no faces in horror; all faces turn away. But there are terrors in that dark. I do not mean to say death is without beauty. <|endoftext|> "North and South", by Tom Clark [Life Choices, Religion, Faith & Doubt, Social Commentaries, History & Politics] i. NORTH No need to drink too much as time if it ever meant anything to think it would all end well we have drunk ourselves silly trying ======================================== SAMPLE 89 ======================================== I stand a simple sheriff! My sights and sounds are simple things: I know not the ills o' parties high, Nor 'colliers' nor 'cunning tricks'; A simple sound requires a simple ear-- And that I have. Oh, ye – my obedient, youthful followers On the Way! Why fear ye the spear and pen? Against a thousand hosannahs Shalt thou stand a millstone! On another branch of the way, The doctors of the land Spake, last I saw, twelve volumes' weight Of Grim! They are flying before my law, And they'll all say, 'tis scandal fit That a writer should thrust himself As a defendant! Hip! low! I'll read you the law-- I wonder what is meant by this act, Or whether he quite is quite mad. A free people, I perceive, Are now offered for ship-drugs to gine-- But that's a simple case; O'ercome by a state condescension, Pray take a door-step. Thou, Almanack! of Burg the worst, Be mercd so hy thee! thy voice hath heaves Whate'er about this business be; We've talked o' this in our Tap if e'er, - But 'twould not do for an 'ere - For thy needles stroke an' thine eyes - And they're sick of a lass as would know, (This is the case of the bi* skerry), That a woman who gives suck May be charged with the crime. Why, I have done nothing but the best, And now you wish, my Friend, to be sang And made a lute of this vilooh'. My songing has just begun, and will end When the Muse wants, and to be hung at a blow With the pence of the Poet's tongue. I'm too kind, I mustn't be malicious, I mustn't be corrupt, I don't know what I'd do If Jehovah called me to the File, And had considered 'twere my duty just on this To hang a song to be 'Banged' on an Orb. So it's all over now, for the Monstrous is here, And the rampant Angikens stands in the way Was this a file, would call me the Bangers after me, Was this a cheese, and would shame it to me, That a champagne flagon and would drive me mad, Why and what then the Boer people you'll have, It's not for Grapes, that a curse upon, 'Tis up to God whether or not to order The old Boer flute and pass the Devil by. (Translation of the Dutch.) O men, O men! if you are crafty, O men, O men! If you are cunning, O men! O men! of what fault? If you are only men, O men! O men! If cunning you, O men! O men! you be the Devil's tunes, Where your gallipot you'll curse and must by the Gallipot; And the Devil's tune is not to taste, it's to boast, 'Twas a boy he was bom, it's to a girl she was bom, As the Boy we all are, we all from Adam parted. So men we be the Devil's tunes, because we be Devils, Because we be tunes from Adam to the flood. But the Girl I'll love, she's the Maker's tunes, what makers more? Men, O men! let's sleep, I shall be back in an hour. Up with 'em, nothing harder than a cricket, The one that kills the other; Crackers, on the whole, is a very black magic. Home without end, home without ending, that's Chasing a ball, A bloke that so well can play. Up with 'em, none of us loves to work, There's no flesh to be found, In trying, that's what the umpire fails at, Who runs it, so black, so sharp and so white. The game, you know it, is a joke, if you're not sold, If you're caught. It's like asking, in the lightning do you cheer? Why, yes, the fire, although it's sick, Would cheer, if it were lightning, but 'twould fail To compare with a Jake if he's struck. It's Jack another brave bloke, the very Tony who's pinlled, though his ======================================== SAMPLE 90 ======================================== meat and milk who have children scratch an eye with water into a dug garden of hate > it's on the back of the blind, in the middle of my eyes! <|endoftext|> "Doorway", by A. W. Gordon [Living, Death, The Body, Nature, Animals, Religion, The Spiritual, Mythology & Folklore, Ghosts & the Supernatural] Some things belong here, no one can doubt. Like skulls that have accumulated over centuries, curled and schistated, waiting to be swallowed whole. Others, like the tiny, wind-pummelled fish, must be reluctantly separated for mere skin, their bodies stripped to the bone and trembling in the dry light. And many other things belong here— like the shirt worn by the damp|endoftext|> door in front of whose opening hides what may be nothing more than a man's worktable, the way things are put on and taken off in ordinary life as if the world were rigid bodies and what goes in meant going in. It must be strange for a thing to belong here whose only association is this open doorway by which to talk with the dead. If all things belong to this door, the idea of things crying, but for something to stand standing here, holding its hands—what could it mean?—on the door? Bodies have hands too, of course, and although there's something odd and mysterious about the idea of a body without hands, perhaps there are bodies without bodies, an image of what there must be if not to seem real, being, being without a living form, a shape where it isn't the same as it's actually known, a hand not actually touched by that hand yet. <|endoftext|> "The Contemplating World", by Peter Laughlin [Nature, Fall, Landscapes & Pastorals, Religion, The Spiritual, Arts & Sciences, Philosophy] 1 Even before September arrived I knew the world It found me sitting, frightened, at the end of a fifteen minute walk, red-faced and exhausted. It knew I was then alone even though thoughts went blazingly out there into the foliage, up the hillside again, to where a corridor of brick and gable work like one mother tearing her children down, then straight back into that day's wall. What will it be like four years from now, six years from now, two years from now What will I say to the world, to God? I had a vision. 2 It might as well have been the back of my hands, though I don't think so. What if I try to tell a story of this day. It started with the sun climbing the sky, the barbed, sizzling sun. That sounded good. Then clouds came closer and the wind moved in to lift the sirocco, to keep them sitting, frozen, on the windows. <|endoftext|> "Djinn seven classifications", by Peter L. Stanlie [Relationships, Family & Ancestors, Religion, Magic-Planar, Arts & Sciences, Poetry & Poets, Social Commentaries, Crime & Punishment, History & Politics, Race & Ethnicity, Mythology & Folklore, Fairy-tales & the supernatural] Seven different demons, seven classifications, the seven dwarfs who each represent a particular elemental. Their names are Acuity, Access, Contingency, Courage, Dusk, Event, Fair & Fable, and Fury. I start out slow—the first two dailies, last two dwarfs— my eye just sweeps the remaining places— the first event—the first dash of smoke, the first words I write. My father speaks broken English and slave-labor white— He loved Afro-viking. He had a mage's critical thinking, a poet's name. He called black Clare Rendall, and said the only fault he had was a white name. My grandmother said her mouth and tongue burned when she spoke. She made a snake his ball point pen and the fire inside. My grandfather said many things, the last one was a deathwish for me. They made a mummy's forehead from a sheets, suctioning from each eye socket a power circle from his eye brow— he tried to take a power colorist from a palmtree behind his eye but the cotton closed. I can't turn my head to know what I don't know. ======================================== SAMPLE 91 ======================================== We've homegaigned," he cried; "since, whate'er befall, I'm ours, who've been so long affix'd to th' hand Of other hands; but, even now, I see with ease Th' altar won't be underneath a rock. For thee, what else in future 'so dire'r Is the event than this?--Thou by me On Soucoran the heroic sport shall share." But now the wond'rous creature played on both, One in his mid contents, the other, with less, Sending spur raving from his nostril. Now when Himself was by perception come to such a pitch Of finer knowledge, that he not only knew The eggs, but all the workings of the egg; And could of its natur' state add up their sum, To know each function, he felt nought which Mastered Might better be landlabor'd. For myself, I rue The time, which, in a set garden's birth Robb'd of ancient harvest, I forsook From song to thee, Heliodora, and reft Sweet laurel of each pastoral Garden, which reared her head since Creation's day. In her close foliaged vestments clad, And, with her silent train, subduedly sweet, The nymph beseeches kindly her desire Made mortal all, and all that is divine; Might eternal gild the skies, and lay Invisible wrappers o'er the realms below. She asks a soul, that feels no joy in vain, Yet wakes no feeling of delight in vain. So come, Heliodora, and take back That soul thou owedst to the world: speak out, Tell all thy hopes; and thou shalt find him true! But, if thou dar'st, and art come for a truth, The firm noes of Natal use, and fenced with adamant Reflects, thou must not bring thy body there. The virgin's ribs in his body will I fix With those two needles which pan for the sphere, And what in heaven is here shall there declare, Earth's honest queen the zone that rids thee now. So spake the goddess, and with that a tree Of palm she wreath'd for his temple girdling high; Thence, ivy are welcome to approach her side, And from the limb again her bitter plant, Which slumbering often from her bed upgrow, Turns every day to ours (she will relent And here she need not gird once more), when she What time calls Juno for his innocent desire. But so as her black secret to conceal, Clos'd her in clouds, and like a cursing day Bound her in fetters of fiery flame. <|endoftext|> Well! Enough, at least, of all the cares that puncture men's bosoms, Before whose siding makes them grow bold in battle's furious onset. But had we now here an hundred thine own, as well as mine, With many as blind, then wouldst thou less desire, I feel, That one so good a nation should not be thenceforth the object of thy especial hate. With thee, my Readers, let us stray again--but lo, in what happy miscel, What joy when we are together, how aromatic and where, How radiantly breathing was the scene when thou didst, my dear one, secret all, And the young, virgin, of thy society didst make me amends for the crime Of one of many fav'ches by thy witchery felt in secret longing to be lov'd; Thine, thy sweet lips do I yearn to breathe--a cheek all joyous with their vernation! Why then, what terrors threaten me, while I see so fondly and still behold Lashing the torrent? All that veil their gleam thro' ocean's glassy smoothness Withers, and leaves me in their loveliness all his own annihilation! <|endoftext|> My stars and Sun! I have seen the master hand Of Freedom on Olfert's brow,--and his eagle glance Has smote the despot's heart, and rent his wild blood In two,--while a Moscow-spome is quivering there 'Neath its own too strong magnets. To the death! My stars and Sun! that ope and pour Their fountain-brink on western ways and deeds! They saw a Republic's train at rest-- (How mighty and how beseemory me!) B ======================================== SAMPLE 92 ======================================== Drop through some pain, if drop by drop is feeling was, Bask in the sun, be cool. Spare us, old one. Leave us. The sprouting corn, a-stun, will weep all the rain. <|endoftext|> "Morning of Sorrows", by Robert Smith [Living, Nature, Fall, Religion, God & the Divine, The Spiritual, Mythology & Folklore, Heroes & Patriotism] Two imps in the cold, of whom not one is a hero, said and thought in the thicket; in the hut I seek out the man who makes known to me who is absent the general he is always the general, he who kills an angel, in everything in this world, strange and marvelous; I love the evening month, I love the hero the general whose hot heart is lit with the sun, and he must see everything in colour, the giant, the fool, the hero who rises to ground, the man in the dark, and the light is its lightened, and in the dark, he cannot look it, he's afraid the bones loosen in him, this small sound that is the heart of this land; he is not a fool because he sees the one who was a hero standing, silent in the light; not because he thinks that a wall is now a statue, or that a book a painting, or that he can build a new room in which he may remain as long as he likes. In him, and him only, God made an angel with a thought. I was no child, but a tiny valley in my mind contained all the real things: man in motion; hills upward which shadow everything; man for direction needled by hills which, unending, in their whispering made a sound like this: this a cry from a man who was less a king than a sage makes suggestion to a king; the head of the man in motion is the head of the hero the man who knows what is to come, the shadows of the man are a lamentation of the city; it is the sense of the shining man that empties itself in the sun. Be cool of me. The light falls in my eyes forgetting to find the reality in my heart. Do not think that the man who rose up from the sea and fell descends to show you the way he fell. It's not true. But even when it is not light I cannot see what you would otherwise see. Every moment a line of light extends from the mound to my lips into living light, and I am joy in the immense march of them. When I look at you I see myself in your likeness. I would never have the hero's war where I am not a king. Even so, I would not have you think it a misfortune that I do not look like a king, because a man looks like what he is through his mind, not what he is but one. Why do you see as you do that I was girding myself with armour for the plays of men? I am speechless when you have a mind to. But the voice of a man is speechlessness; this I have right and claim to even in my grave. I hear the line of a man who has heard what you will not hear. The voice I am speaking strikes its eclipse through my silence, says over my silence. The answer then is one side of speechlessness. A child had a silver spoon in his mouth, a round face and a round stomach. He wore a kimono, and his hair was done like the head of a person born with golden tributes to the sun. An object was passing through the eyes of a child, and was moving through the hand of a kimono. That object is a man; the head is round and so is the stomach. As for me my kimono is round. The face is the face of one born with a mind given to kimonos that look, and it is round. That kimono has a silver thing passing through it. This object is a man. The face is not a kimono. So the first man was not a man because that one is a man and that kimono passes through him. Passing through him it is round, and is shaped like a man. <|endoftext|> "from The Library of the Idithiverse", by Timothy Thomas [Activities, Travels & Journeys, Relationships, Family & Ancestors, Arts & Sciences, Reading & Books] I have seen a pauper pass through my room (I am in the library of ======================================== SAMPLE 93 ======================================== Dialled it along the streets, Onrouted all his gang-- Kill, Jacob, blow, be thy glory! With his great daisy-chain the wild is run, Chains are God to men, and set, not thou-- 'For what man knows the chain below? The tiny daisy-witch dipped in tar. Then he haled, and tumbled out of scope, And the earth turned to bread--or rose to sun; And they ran out at their feet and ran-- To find a stranger has broken bread, Who has but good reason now-- A penny is a vanity. But I am poor and am sorry, So, if you are poor, take this charmed nut, And if you are still content to be bad, You may have it--when you are dead. Pray, ye poor sorts, pray, and keep still! If you keep still, your troubles will cease, But if you let fly, you will turn and run, And find a cannon where you had not, I am only girl; I have not The heart of a man, and the wit to know, But the worth of a woman. I seem to find A joy in the fruitful fields, and I know They have their victories; but I, I only, Am always glad, and I always can repent, That the dearest blessings fall on the best. I can put up with rough treatment if I am Goaded only to consent to go further; But when I know you come when I call, I find I have no power whatever to resist; And the harder you press with the abuse, The more you will wear me out. There's a weight That's really quite harmful to men--they get More work than play, and they wear out their stomachs. Love is the best preparation I have found For adventuring abroad; and how oft we Have di'd, and relate, the pleasant mysteries of Love! Sometimes at an ease, sometimes do we stop For a length of days, and hear from our table Recalls the friend we miss, or the lover we desire. I mean a change in our desires, and I wish no more Than what's needed to make life pleasant, happy, and calm; And I hope and I fear that till you are gone, We mustn't go from here--at least, I hope. Alone at present, old Mrs. Cullen, we walk-- In the curving leaves, a wedded pair, or as gay As ever mortal was--with the children by us, And nothing but God for our boundless friend-- Ah! you cannot help feeling it extremely rude To make a fuss about where all things pass; Not that we would wish it ours to meddle With these chafing issues of what mortals do, And with a poacher's heart take up dead the shot. Such is, indeed, the marriage state; 'tis no tale For us to make, or disturb, or ask a rest-- 'Twould vex us with the quiet happiness of it-- Not at all: here we can be as we please; And yet nothing more obvious is said Than, when such nuptials burst, that 'twill be well That two or more are holding hands. So 'Tis no great grief to be your neighbor's wife, Tho' you yourself are left bereft; And we will help the next tenant after To put a proper spark in the old fire. If the path which is half ETUDER'S property Be not the smoothest in which to shuffle, I bid At once my friends of the other half be shoving: And you, old fellow, go, so soon, and shove With your short stick, too, without allting what you owe, And bless us both with a curst spit, and let loose In what shreds remain this spark, "Murderer," if you so please, you'll find in our trash. I say all this with looking on the dull puff And calculating the range of hazards there, Where the pale cheek of the damned finger-tree shows The early buyer's disappeared lov'd one Into the path of their shopwoman's education. I want to have seen something more than the Bible allure And prime masterpiece of the rodita; Which like most great refutations does need to wield Of the good word whose wit has redressed it: I want the snarling custom to turn aside Of bans the fretted weapon'd knee; To understand the lolling wolf's low flexile breath, And better yet, a bark: ======================================== SAMPLE 94 ======================================== Such is the thousand years that are locked up in the palace of the dragon. New Book, first Minute--he And his Thebes Babes & Sons in the Chariot--There are Daughters and Sonns of Ortus & Afra, & Afdro-- & Yet he has a son And Balaam beheld did And behind the curtain of Pythian's Layer (And every layer On every side that, shall Heaven & Earth, & Sea & Shore) Are naught but Angel-shapes. open the prison, or the doors, Aimee, to the Parchments of Heaven's Ark, And bid that maiden goodbye? Cut across--once more close your eyes, Never give yourselves too much To the vain reveries of youth; And just as all the rest in 'vet Look on him as the Perfect One, Shake off from him, on these slain-brow'd words, The shapeless seed of something more Than James himself! brought, Its slanting lights soft-slanting, Its dazzling lights, its maddening shadows, Its shimmering spangled flashes Clipp'd and hung stock-still with blue At the sky's top-most verge--what the devil? Where are we, no more, than we there? And what, of us, these barren things? What sort of doors, anyway, did he climb through When he found they all to slam shut, shut all But one--so that we saw, through a tall Window-pane, golden-quilted blue, He reach'd the Heaven of Heaven's bare air, A heaven begrimed with frozen vapour, The haunt of gods, we now know. And these be our hopes, Those sank to rest, Within our futurity, And pale chronicles of age Recording our only fruitless desire, Such as emerges, if we crave it, From stone In spring They tread on Heaven's blue temple-stairs, The vast orb-spaces of return. And though,--by the uncurtained sight Of mankind,--they bend double, And scarce feel their heavy feet When, come rebuke or cruel words, They nurse slow feet to decline, None but the fortunate, to the next life, May find His or her true or promised land, The promised land--or such an one as Heaven can see. Disease did us present?--was I more Than Heaven'sest gift to be content? O, it is sallow enjoyment, and bloody, and lonely! If friend of mine,--friend whom I loved through thick and thin, And found my loyal--sent me a gift to light, Give me an herb, and let me buy it. But when he sees the roots and leaves In our poor Green Garden grow, He'll think, alas, we never shall There grow the herbs of our desire. He'll say, "Why wouldst thou such things forlay As these just stubble-grains? and save them now Somewhat? since I'm far too rich in health For it were justice to consume them--too well, In that, my possession may be made use of!" Our trees are not with yonder troubl'd fangled fays, Nor yet with D—f poor cedar trees Round over whose stem it descends, Nor what spotted, Asian aproned people Call the Asiatic monkeys; Our hope not in their blunder or their fright Or--to begin again--their jest 'gainst hell. We try to lieuate our bliss Among the blue shadows' borders, But this, it may be, but this Our market cannot keep pace with their strides The shepherd, the bear loves the hill, And, well as he can, will set it Upon the mount, and with his ewe Lion on the back, guard it, and it Will abide; But in the town, for want of a pastoral shield Torn from the scabbards of great lords, His sheep wander alone; And if 'tis so that the field is spoilt, Or our lust blows with a spirit at variance To blows, Heaven help us, but we'll ne'er see the sunrise! Though their tears may flow for our mischief, and that blood Turn back to its till @ place of sacrifice-- That blood which doth make even Romali cry, Or that Portia, whose battle with Marius-- R ======================================== SAMPLE 95 ======================================== Place The King's in good time, it seems, Sent the right hand man of his band, The Fifth; then thus bestow'd a prize, A country seat so rich and rare, That all the choicest Queens of Christendom, For beauty, age, and lineage, to try, From Modem, Caledonia, and the wild, Butgentof Scotia, comes by lot; And in exchange will give up to the King The Methodist Chapel, once his own, Not long to enjoy such place. Not more admire, In the long list, OEdITORER, Exceeds the Father of the week, Imperious Northern eye No poll shut up his virtue, His Highness there how huge and ample Counts in best other men his deeds, The officer, society, praise; A gob-liby, with Scripture laws. The oath of posterity, The Crown, From him shall not away; 'Tis well stipulated, he has To serve with trappings of the Crown; Whate'er the end of life, In office sits, Great names of English, Great Statesmen of the House of Papists, Where ere 'tis sought, but mere genius, The Pope's death-bed's witness is: For such splendid words and low, Papistical thought, For such a host of vile, Admir'd, in their deformity, Great Papistry, Great Papistry, Make virulent the climate, For to resemble blackness black, O'er all that enter, And raise contempt, odour, and strife, With words thus boil, With such a cruising, With such a depressing From topics divert the waters, On the subject of pap-Paragraph, The Crown under such Much ado and matter, High Papal lore, Ranks, distinctions and honours With much muttering and hocus pocus, For all that fit to see; So far our refined England Outshines all the ages, Her civil war, her civil men, The crown with reeking neck, With their barbaric pride, Comes honour to her, Comes on their backs, (Oh shameful truth, What do all these goods, What purple pride, With her four thousand dead) From hence, where'er they go, Woe and idol all, There 's a wall up!, there 's a church, There 's much emendation, There 's a balloon, There 's the building of a church For Sawney's escape, For his blessed name Did build St Peter's, By means of Dead Panty-Births, Of Dolls, a half a score, A half a dozen of smelly, Disgusting works of straw, Rubbish, that take no care For building where they grow. O ye the Painters, do you not see, Ye that your Art is also your Life; Are ye not reduced to strife, as I discern, With thousands of squibs, loaves, and tares, I perceive by dint of dark eblenings, Wormed, and cudgel'd corses and niglets, That for a thousand pounds will pull your heads Off? What! That ye have no respect, What is it that ye would not soff them? Would ye not brook a minister of revenue Into your little tappings, That he may give ye some points of bale To swell your Tidings, And deck out your clothing With a double-bubble (Such as I know is the minister Of great Jack Parsons), Or would ye not loose your country, Your treasure, that 's gone, To suit the missing dimes Of half-starved, cheerless, mean-souled pilgrims Who set up to sight and preach At the rear of your Exaltélations, To stoop and bow to these small Peers Of your hi-de-thous? Would ye not blot your eyes And bring your heads in view, The Men in the red armour, The Foghorns and the Wreats, The singing Seamesses, The Cloggings, and the Dainties The whole that looks like these And comes to die Away. So many tens and four times_de_pt, A dozen dozens, That with them there's not one life That hasn't throbs of spirit in it. And who _d greater ======================================== SAMPLE 96 ======================================== At fields, through the woods, laves dripping wet, I thread. Leaves my path with its fog-wraiths creeping greener; Yet I've gained a rose, Might be mine if the orchurdius Were trepidation on the rocks. Nor is this all, with expensive Sugar-of-threewort, wild water mallow, Thespice buds that blow and the bass-lock Laden with yellow buds, And maple, (true gins) for whose good Sudden muscadel and sea I am. Some leaf-buds, (shilly-eyed buds, That like March e'en livele buds be, Waking the syrens on their naris) some Ginkgacs; but what they are I know not, Their greenness surely fore-cover And they be round and fring'd as are. And from them a very odd blue Leaves as oblong as a nail; And as white with thin juice as peavin. Then perchance, in either of the twigs, What lookt as faint as mosquitoes. And the salt-sparked bud of good holly Long had breathed o'er the air; But for a withering bud Tainted in the shade of a man. Not even the sense of hermin' had For her the rich blue juniper; Not a tune of nightingales; Not the chirp of a bird Murmuring nought is in the note Of the ecstasies of the dove. But on the ground in front of the mill Just where the acorns lay, Where ere another year draw That autumn-healing scald, Where, if the now-deaken I, Fell throat and brain drain breath, Such upbraiding rhyme unrhymed is; A dove, a wren, chirping thrice As is her wont; or as is mine, A common thing, Yet more, just sightless to obtain. Ah, if I only could catch one Dash of her note! Let me venture now and then, Up-among the trees, On the springing pond, In the spray of quails, On the willow-bough, On the mellow-old brick, On the pikes of rye, And the milk-white hens' droppings, To a hill-top freezin'. My grief, my heart, is not to make things sad, Nor sing songs wherewithal The sorrowing I must be filled; But I am grieved because of these Odes in silver verse, Damning my name. Because in thoughts of summer days and morning I hear not what is sung by singers round, And for my part I long to drink wine, And sing songs to drunkard and fool, And ripp, myself, abroad; To my self, without song or part; -- Like whosoever Sluts out, lippen, and lick- Down in the meadow, or lick Their belt- : I am fadin' Far more fast than they "O God," said I, "thou knowest my heart, The which in all things thou hast made: I also would have it praise thee With song and glory.; Thine be enough, O Lord, Thine for ever." She sweetly drew me in her arms, Wound my body up she carried me, Kissing her kiss all over me, Far off the heavens were spreading While we came nearer: Breath on, breath away. I'll tell you again, all about The fiery moon, who loved the earth Long time, long while: I'll tell you songs, all sorts I'll tell you, Sung by myself, or by others, Sweet or hoarse. I said, "Listen, my dear, listen. Look, my dear, look up, look up, Tell me if you hear A voice come down from heaven With music flowing through it?" But the night came on apace, And the infernal moon rolled all about, She shone and fell apace, As bleeds a leaden surface With shells rolling on from shell to shell. So I sang myself free, and, "O sweet, Sang to her all sorts of songs I knew; But one she had to hear was this: The first thing I ever sung, I swear, Aye, 'twas the last, my dear, yea, my dear, ======================================== SAMPLE 97 ======================================== "/>intelligent despotisms secure, We won't have none of freethought or reason in a state, This too shall persist, the real fate of souls is poverty and woe. <|endoftext|> "Ilum ad Aufum (Sετ' ἐμ τε δυματα· ἀνέσονον· πυσέλιον)", by St. Thomas of Aquinas [Religion, God & the Divine, Arts & Sciences, Philosophy] Ilum ad Aufum, FL vol. 1 Quis parvo munere volumen tunica Thethelae, In order that the whole flood may be covered, Without any portion less secure, within a valley lengthened is, (in whose widest bounds it lies secure) Stoops to the trench water to descend, does well pass, But in the trench lowest is that which runs away. Thus with to knowledge sure hope, its measure therefore 'fore all To all we hope here should seem no cut-off. If by seeing lies from evil made oblivious, Those who in reason's contests saw not what they did see, Had nevertheless heeded at least the sight In which the rain made mirrors to exchange. Or perchance through feeling, or the devil-the-father’s mischief, They allowed the being which they could never see. Or rather, having there thought so, they chanc'd Whether the sight of what they can see Enough for full understanding should chace The darkness by that into darkness bound. And, first, on one part, the sense wanting which makes you to swerve In looking into the light from which reality is Curt'd from a great whole; and that which, being akin In kind to air, might spend its energy in your frame, Whether forgrowth of the dew, the helioth, or flower, Or bowering sweet with honey in your hairs: And, as those other, if one saith, "Cursed be the hand that rears, O kind Nature, thy fruit," Line on its stem the weed. A second comes aye, with the fear that follows hasty instruction, And obeys strictly the teacher as not helped before; And, though swift, after last turn with the turning wheel, A third with fear comes ready to the back; So you shake your booty to, before you reach the place Where lies the plant or tree which you fear. Or, following its fear, if it dart from its cloak as much of love As it of earthly plants and trees of the wood, Lo, there it fears, having sought in itself its haven. But, far otherwise, if its fear and dart be let From what earlier drew the danger, then, not dreading, It plucks up a plant, before the judgment coming, And though the motion be or bebursed of God, Yet runs well, and though going, boasts that it goes. What if these things seem like vainness? But ere you come, your eyes will see how short The way be, and what slight the strides. Lo, what began seems moxy, and else red gold, Ur the bars do cross, all verging to fall into a pinewood; What hap it matters, so that's the path. From what averments comes the accident Though but ascribed to such as read or see But those things see which they had not seen before, And their confessors aplius will confess. But more, when he that comes has to begin Low of the wings, yet to fall; that in some way, By which, his confessors alles had good sign, Saying, "Look thither;" why, how do such begin to fall? That's the very thing; they see the door, But not the road leading thereto. But first they whom this should alarm Truly against their will the afflicting sense Admits not, whate'er the cause is That brings that every one to be affront; That the judge may not explain despair, And manhood may be confounded man. This then, when you expect, you will not miss On every side, an absolution deivis For the nature of despair. And lastly, if at night you be known, If by the word of god your mind be such As the doctrine Latinus doth declare, Or by the cry of Rome, the last sin's name, Then you fear misuse: though you more pray pray, That the court no more see your appeal. Cease then, my Sire, to set my fears on thee; The innocent soul, which tis thy shelter, shall be free. This last torment will at last consume the whole; The judge shall ordaine in her peace; and then To God with such obsequies as now to her. No ======================================== SAMPLE 98 ======================================== Charulant so desning. Its smooth sides in quiet splendor rose. The stone-firm pillars like each other Were aligned and widely splashed; And round its folds was conned and lined By a sand-hid Carine silver That flashed like a swarm of bees. But the crowning splendor, whence its lustre Should have shored its pavilions, Saw no firmament of diamond, Nor gleamings beneath its robes Of white or rosy light. She who had climbed the heights of being, She who had reached in hair the seals Worth millions put in value on, Sought a better treasure than she should have Upon the mountain's heights, And she sought it in Siena-town He wears a pair of dirty breeches, And he wakes at dawn to hunger; He comes to Siena day after day And hears the church-bell ring, And is satisfied with the choristers Who chant the celebrant. He tells his wife, "Come, light me a fire, When I'm so weary my limbs have lost their ease." His little laugh so genuine and so sweet As he tells it to her, On his own is given to see: "I am cold, I am cold, my own my own." She is afraid lest he, when he wakes and yawns And feels his hands brick-like in his apron, Shall burst with heat and fever and cold. At last he sleeps, and when at dusk he plays He seems as worn as he was hot and cold. The next day her sleepless bosom brims with hope, And again she little dreams what sickness May be the end of him. He is an epileptic, and his tongue And brain are stinging and tickling; His face with filth is besmearted; His skin rinds, and his mouth ulcers; His eyes with ulcerations abound, His strength of bladder and intestines; His breath's with fever's fierce attacks is tense, His thirst's raging, and his appetite's All wrong, too, and his digestion's sadly sick. The news she know so well, of late brought her Doubt, reproach, and shunning and shunting, Of many that her heart's affection took And brought to guilt of sin they are guiltless That she knows, but much to be told She stops her ears and pulls her head the more, Felt half upon that very day; As if the very thing she was informed on Were in the kind by him her son had sent her. They take him to the cloister, where all's still, And for the last, long, tortuous night of all, Commend him to the priest who knows him best. "In the name of God," I pray, "let him be Killed at once, with all his blood who wronged him." But ah! the priest, who knows him not, replies, "The man was born that could be so killed." He knows; and I, a sinner on the rack, Prayed that he might die so that I might win his sire. But we are not martyrs, when we kiss his cheek. And, then, I had on my unquiet heart A little city, in the skipper's shivering hand, And he had promised I might now forego The place of punishment, and be no more Subject to the swol'n seas, a bitter she, And a tug in the beaked hawser by the oar. But he had promised to do this before. And oh, you'll swear, I wish that he had! But I am a sinner, and fate a fiend. When the moon over the eastern specks, And the wind dies, and the water sizzles, And the waves are all red for the prodigy, There's a voice that I hold in disdain: "Quick, quick! And urge the oar." It vanished from my sight, alas! none Can now this having seen; But from a star That hung one dimly beaming down, All it had meant was this, "Forward, now, And I will fetch you a color'd friend." Such is my tale; my errors small suspect it, For large people are bad historians scribe, And, no sooner volumes than they quit the rest, But they'll invent a question of no meaning. Well, I think, I shall go buy a little more beer, 'Tis not like the story of ======================================== SAMPLE 99 ======================================== cried there, "Shame, sense and shame!" Her eyes were the blood of the sea; Cleansing her eyes with the blood Of the male strength that had driven her To be a bride and a woman; Giving the morning of beauty to her In the slumber of the long night; Her feet were huge with heavy-packed years Of dirt and of work; Her face was a furnace's glass; Her hair was sharp and shining steel, And seemed to stand in its own fires; Her clothes were strong dreams of her own dreams; Her body that body was made for; In her body she set her own dreams, And called it "his dream," Wielding her body with her dreams; With her body she wore his dreams, And they clung to her like dreams; Cleansing her eyes with the blood of years, The blood of the men in the wars of old. There was the hero of forgotten wars, The warrior that led his armies in, The boy whose name was a river in heart, The lance that brought home Ganges alone, King-struck, heart-struck;-- I have seen the swift sling leave its cars, And watched its followers prance before each other, And have left each a little space so As to permit them to find one something In the element of the body and mind. There is only a dust of the things That come and go, A flutter of wings, and a roar of the winds, And the soul, That saw, and the soul that uncovered the sun, Whelmed in a sphere. When they tie the banner of the land to the girth, They tie with a cord, With no slack; for the labouring speed of the steeds And the perilous flight Of the banners O'er the peaks of Wilstown, heights that tower on the heights! They soar, for the souls of the giants demand the sky, And they die, O, ever, Wilstown, Wilstown, like the winds of the world; The mountain shudders to see the crest that they tread, And what was your answer? A sceptic faint, With a shrug and a nod, At your curve of the scalloped arm, A surfeit of lamp-like eyes, A craning elbow, With a cloak, the very feather Of the plain, with a friendly touch Of hand-knotted tangles, A slouch of the hands, and a rake of the hair, Puffed out, as you turned back as you spoke, Full in your face! I have come to the highlands, To the hills with snow-peaks; And the skunks frisking in the holly, Hedged like hounds in a manger, By a vision of silver powder-paven ferns, And bare in the shadow Of the giant Pine Mountain. You have passed the peak, and the show Of the ragged pine, With the ridges hugging the foothills, Tugged and thro' the granite. What more can I say? What wonder, What more delight? With the night-air quiver, and the heather, I have watched for your path Up the flank of Crystal Mountain. Love, in the twilight of spring When the woodland flowers debut, I have seen thee on the hills Stand at dawn, With the cedar branches, and the lightning Dripping upon the bosky rock, As in the waters of Lake Honari, And the fern-stems waving in the breeze Like a single snow-flake. On waters sensibly stronger, Thrilling and drowning, Thou hast worn the white tinns on thy glancing head, And the dippers at thy feet, And the downy parasols scooping Thy skin to kiss, And a leathern wallet slung below, Hand-made by the sweat of Wataponda, Where the braves had moustaches That glimmered and gleamed. In the days when the Northland people Were less wise than poor Squires Hunter, In the days when the Niates Did not know each letter of their sign, Thou wert dressed like a traveller. And the people saw, the people saw Thou wert dressed as a native, A stranger, and dusky as a swamp At dawn, As thou wert travelling to the station In the morning hour, And didst sit upon the luggage of Squires Hunter Under the direction of Capt ======================================== SAMPLE 100 ======================================== Being so so slight, we dare not sing A song of minor harps that are yet unstolen. And never gain a palm for weak or nameless. There is a log in the fireplace, where, p'raps, it might have been wholly different. After a walk with hart, the maladie Becomes a walk about the character. Or you go to a religious retreat And you leave these boys and girls behind you, And they can't help looking out for each other. Now and then, a corn-crow somehow sets these characters the rest of their lives to. When you're on a beach, a memory Deludes you that it can be the last one there. The distance from the life Of the young person on the landing. You're always back in the business Of marking and hinting and re-marking. And then, a hand on the flag, And off to a distance away. When you wake at dawn, your brain Looks like a map of a ship's logs. (I know the truth, she answers.) The slender fingers that are you, Forget that they are fingers, When a hand comes in, And a coil moves. Before I was wakened, I gave you your go, your limit. A meter to haunt, to rehearse. I recked of love's most subtile That it would stand by Tuesday. A mutual refrain, That from church bells you would reach, And I would be answered with a silence.) I know the truth, because you told it. Perhaps the wind-wells for the hills Are oblong; or the sun-wells long And thin for verdant fields. There may be variety In a great town's lighted acres, But the light was never dimmed. The sky has th overall flat contour, And the same sky and the same Apertures of size in it is seen. Now if you recondigated the sky, Where to and where not a rose grows, The stars would vibrate on in unison, The blue of the distant vernal zone Would shine in the same vague way You come in our world: a little while Follow a look, a sound, a wait, a tune, And a form, and our revulsion! You are loquacious, you are chatty, You strain our range; you form a perceptive flaw, You penetrate us with electric art; You are lank, you are rough, you have sinned, You have worn yourself out in conversation, And therefore the only way you can get Back to your age is to be chatty. There was once an old woman who Had as her servant a cock. All else she had was small,-- For what small things there are She scarce could mind wanting. One day she lifted the cock, With the silken strap she held it-- The boy by her side and led it: She could feel the last ring Of its forgotten labor, And thanked him with the gratitude For leaving so easy the task. Then her robe up she unbuckled, And to see if he were dazed That her ears were full of mirth and pleasure She pretended to disclose That she had heard a murmur and laughter Of the rare secrets of the night That the wind had made known to her. And he being the idle man That he was wont to be, Not content until she should give him a particular Result as yet a vague notion That the wings of the cock that night Might be strongly lashed-- He thanked her with silence. Now listen, every once and again there's a little candle. It's half dark, and the shadows are thick, but it's just right, They'll talk a while, And I'll say a few words, And then have you hear? If it's a storm and warning of a visitor to come in, I tell him he may light, or he may not. And I make the lover to stay, With or without. But it may be, without the slightest shadow of possibility of sound, There is some power, Some force that will watch over and guard us, From his last Into the coming night. If there's any danger, he'll scold me, if there is no danger-- Yet he waits, Quite likely close To a lighted panel. For the man's past all danger of some audible thing; for he'll need a little gruff wisdom for his loneliness; For the ======================================== SAMPLE 101 ======================================== Creeping softly 'mid the swirling leaves, Fever will peer and glower and peer, Till at the last she opens Her golden door, and spake These four words, so calmly she spake. "The moon's in the deep! the hushed sound Of fountains echo from the hills; There's a light in earth and sky Shimmers like a pearl through the gloom. Moon and spring are meet: let greed Of constant night bring blight. Sunset isn't fit for mirth, I know: Gentle as a lamb is twilight. Spring like a serpent—aren't they? Moonrise is fit for divinity." The moon's got an awful bright aubury light, And the pearls among the hills Stream gold that whitely shafts through. The flame-rain starts up in spume and still The lightning of it is crart; The springs are mad with mermaid beards, It's got a terrible saintree. The nights of storm, one horrible rout, The low whistling gloom at times, And when the wan moon looks at u s sleep The nag on a cloud from the marshes behind it, Where on a broad o'erpowering surface spread The rain-swept ruin of her spumy pearl, Rained suddennial a battering ram Of green earth's emerald cloud, The bow-read breezes clamouring for a wind to sway The broad, the solid Moon. Man, that is sad lest his tidings fall, Sent a cry from a wing or a tree Upon the silence of beauty scarce seen By beauty imaged, like those that fleet In the world of the memories of. Of the sky's violet shadow the shelter is hers, All her beauty minus the shade. So soothe him that turns to the lark From his stone bleats and sighs in the cold night, Let him turn his sight to her beautiful face. Let him turn him where the leaves are sere, Where the bark to the bough is broken and not resolv'd; There his heart with ambrosial Pity Shall solace him till his sight aches not nor his heart aches For her, the exquisite exhalation. Where this dawn of the littlest petal, Op'ning her petals like the mid-day prime, Lifts her face in a moon-pricked night that shows One star more white than the other whites, While the lesser petal turns to the sun, Surpassing joy; which by the way Of her bending on with new scorn Doth enter a little blossom white, That ever besides white are white and clear; And that sister fair, the lark's fair mate, Among the gods as chock full of might, The cock with the sun do sing, "What is yon o' Mine?" With regard of that great sole substance, her o'er-hidden, The o'ershadowing beauty of that fair, Whom man worshipeth, whom man is please To sleep with his desires, her light sun Might weigh as a breath, that, swept full of spray, His lovers on him fling, as the fierce winds throw Trap on turbaned vine that flings to the dogs. O soul, go not from man for the wearisom paths of pride. Not in the ways of earth's delight can refuge find for loss Of hope still left of bliss. They that seek passion's hell Do so with heart's malice do some good to hide ill cheer, With heart's goodwill can good gates be opened to all men. Bliss is mine, which my heart steals furtively from mine heart. There is a pulse of it on the King of Morn's haughty throne. For the love I had him a thousand kingdoms made. He was love's majesty. He good ware wrought and cared. My wealth I gave him of a mind sincere and pure. And this raptive thought of the same has a foul ratsht with mine own. My spirit of Grace hurl'd against the gaolFeather'd at the bit and lo! it hath rout'd And fled from the rampart with flying foot and wings That pursued it with love. That bliss is mine, mine joy, my bliss, And this evil hath hurtle'd from the bit to the God. Hesse makes the spleen for this sin against the God of the arts. Joy's liberty finds no hole in her heart but trust And so seek love and that seeks thee ne'er spent with ======================================== SAMPLE 102 ======================================== Black birds were hopping in the vineyards, Loud laughter filling all the air. When I came to the little one Who sat in the shadows dark, She smiled so blessedly, And her raiment gleamed in the firelight Like rainbows bright on the darkness, I touched her hand and asked her If she ever wished for a dream Of a man in the deep blue sky, With two swords chasing after him As down through a strange dark forest, As in a damn'd dream I woke. We sailed together to the North, Through rocky passes whereon we climbed The wide gray hills and watched the purple seas Like giants in a misty semi-dark Come over us and go down through the sky, Light leaves in a hundred glistening trees, And through that cloud we also saw the stars. The little one said--Our parents used to say That this was the Latmian forests, That is the place where rained down And later still in fairy stories Tall swords make small and very boys grow small You know, under the wide, round world's clouds There are rivulets and snatches of dawn, Mornings, nights, afternoons, after midnight, And an absolute rest of everthing. And a fantasy, deep and hard to learn, Keeps coming into your heart and brain, That your wits would fail you, body and mind, To match the magic in that word: That no spells you could learn or powers For it would mean that you yourself are not Rooted in life but in the soul alone. We may not go into the woods or far fields To find the very heart of any tree. We may go a little nearer home. I have laid a nook by the seaside Which has everything that we might want, Flowers and two tea-enchanted ovens, A good errand, a child's well-timed call, A sweet demand or a tireless call, A plea for one hour in the year, And a pugil for a long and lonely hour, A little love that we know we have, A tale we have not told, a little love. We come back from summer walks and song, We come back from long summer days With a wish for the hot season's harvests And for ripe, ripe or dried fruits and flowers, With a yearning for its kindliness And a yearning for its gifts, But not with careless great desire And not with our old desire A part of what we knew in summer. To find as we found in summer days-- Winter mild on northern plains, But with its rough weather bred Greater things and wider yet Of the earth's uncloseness, With new beauty, a wilderness More splendid in truth than beauty, More of the woods the deathless fame Of beauty which makes of every earth Her mission, more of forest land, And with it, of every men's dominion. We can see that these days of long/great summer days Make the years, which are gone, More deeply shine in beauty; To the grey-green, rustling, woodland grounds A glory of lakes and of hills, Haunts the gleaming line of the Prussian furze And the woolly brows of Prussian curles, As a ghost's light and shadow play, As a woman's towards or away of noon Out of the long morning's lull, Sees there light and motion and flight In colours, as we wonder at their gayening. For a summer morning's dawn, In the long happy days that have gone by, Might be quite cold and tacit and humble, But a day for young, tender, innocent faces, As springtime in April goes, As now and has been, and shall be yet, Shall in these fine days, very like to be, Make our hearts sing out the Loves' songs. "Dans un pare"--the May face Is the loveliest in all the book, With the way her mouth is half pursed in a smile, Or overspread in a tilt; The haute way Tarry would be stammering And stutter through, like a dog in heat Or perhaps `one millisecher'--who canread about In modern Greek and Latin hai savi. `Ve were not here,' she said, `till the temple-meeting Of the dancing Goddess, Venus, there at last, With the altar right in view, `Twixt the great idol in ======================================== SAMPLE 103 ======================================== A surer and a surer stranger I Shall find than Oenot's son, or one In place of him, who draws men's Beauties down from heaven, and away; Not even the full-blown roses that Fall with their fragrance on the autumnal Grassy and rustic sod, whose yellow Degrees yet show weeds and lilies mingled, Nor yet the Autumn's richest orange-reds, Not all the shining-feather'd feather'd mays, Pieces of the pelargonian sun-girl's Waiting-maids with the shepherd-geese, Not the trailing garland of the hegelemele; Nor yet the Oriental escarpelt; Nor yet the wayfarer of Shihri, Yea, not the wayfarer of Semitic books; Nay, not the wandering Arab's pilgrim, Nor the wandering Jester of the Eastern tales; These and more alone of all things pictured, Tell of a hand unseen and head unseen; Say of things whose names never are past two years; Speak of passions and creations above The name of man, who neither was nor is; Speak a word about a middle-aged sheep Whom nobody knows, and everybody feigns, With bent upper lip, and a hearty Smooth mouth, as though no evil blood should be shed. Ah! but that's the way of writing good news! For by this mystery,--how much further Ambitious of the more there ever is,-- This goodness hidden in so many words, that God Is good, with which we have delighted us, Visites not now the thought nor the revelation Of our first youth, the mind's pasture and the thoughts, The writings of Nature, the cleps of the stars, That from the shadows arise; and the scenes Of all the ages, till old age arrive, Are the objects that we all forget, If we think of them at all! For some of these gentlemen, the stranger, the pilgrim, and the sailor, I have a secret of sorrow; It is a grief that's secret, and its truer than books, For in this kind of shepherdry they seem to me; A wizeny face, a grass-green beard, a countenance of hills, A stutter, a strange accent, a vain pocket-hand, A kerchief shaped like a fist, a tongue quick as a draw To roughbird the joke, a flutter of affection, a squeeze of innocence Unwilling to be understood, a bunch of homespun, delicates From the equally happy rust of the same field, a kowtowing to The udders of the cattle, a faith that drowns the thirst, A liking for the green heart of things, a passion, a philosophy Divine--forgot; and some go as far as a passion, some to brink Near death. Then these gentlemen made journeys, Sang resinous and ran a fever, fell on, got well; Then they came home, and there was Their name on address; and all thought In retirement to soar and hang; and the old house Was a kind of roving house of mimic life, And the same stones were swinging and turning, The same mosses were shaking, The same wall shook, the same arches trembled, The same ancient frontispens, turned out, and hung in, turned out. Or like the headless horse Spotted to the shore, They came, and the canvas was spread, They saw it, they touched it, got it over, But the horse's eyes were blind for a sign, And the thief was after an aim, And the memory was hot, and the memory was cold, And the same odour was heaven, the same odour was earth, And the same windows were pealed, and the same old horse, The same face was rooted in foam. "I live, I live for the colour and the splendour And the curves that line the pasture of heaven, And the shape of the filestone, and the ending black, And the fish-stained file, and the ending horizon, And the going and the quitting, and the remembering Of hooch and hut, and the seeing the loving night, Of stacking and jeweling and sighing sleep. All this is near me, but the deadness of an agnostic, For all is near but I do not know. "I come from a land far away in the sun, The old garden where the cockatoo calls Over a sunk but soundless sea. I ======================================== SAMPLE 104 ======================================== we need you in our wet Atlantic home! (the rull of wheat in my stanky petri dish) the bowel the roots and stems of our dirty medieval basement the bleaching of civilization clear to the marrow through an anthrax plague, through hovering angels, the stink of God on your chest, buddy! <|endoftext|> "The Great Divide", by Adam Crape [Activities, Travels & Journeys, Nature, Weather, Arts & Sciences, Humor & Satire, Social Commentaries, History & Politics] he' ta ta the morning dew il push ta ta people whar dey dan you de outside de dinner bl turned up whar de doors in a wire hush de deep centre be a silver dish n' we was so over at de wall blk white people read de holy bible thud white paper thud black people skootchy at a very black church de very top be a silver point n' dem skootchy golly we pullin out our bible laser de blk sjax passin hed yall we was reely at de longest steel lak de fence like a slow lion I come in a speacial lion de speacial lion den choice I tuck my Bible in my back right baed 78 bus de angel batttle We went to a farmhouse skootchy we tuck our Bible back losers she hand un gchart on de silver dish she hand dat gchart glove de motorcycle a bit of a horse dat was skootchy We went to skootchy dressed for work not to shmpend not to mosdefamily not to shdier not to shmansters de boss we tuck de Bible back laser deserving somet domain deserving domain deserving Christians and dey take us on dully londons home I go hoom lasers deshooters skooters skins de skoot don't want skootchy took my Bible back losers speacial de peole laser vhile I tuck de Bible in hbox and dey try to go to hell cove eyes on ten wun people don't want to go to heaven want to stay here la reina I tead my honer don't be quiet like a reowly and I looked at my bible and dey did si sound delirious a baller detergent we come a freshness the life in my bible clean and sane lasers de voice silent one what was silent what was what shtick angstley I saigned a thunder holler at Vans a baller dink clitterin de a sky you can't find my heavy the skoot snore and home are here in my heart house, a heavy bible I ain't goin do dis yall ext said it will dey tell you dat go o out o hear you, what What would you do desshooter If a burglar shtood for de shtick shtood for not long dawg You can't find de deah you lost you'll kill my baby shtream losers shtough de road be busy shtought de log be quiet you got to watch at least at least There be some housewife It's de hawt little spide a lotta slack shtream And I start le am dlee slee a bit of a pevere de. . . don't stop here de filet There be some go away In my bible open to de bottom There have been allers in de sh house shredding de paper I gat dat schmell We went to de tuck to my cousin's house ======================================== SAMPLE 105 ======================================== By a childing mother, drow'ning away. By a saw, that shaking a cord, No goodly bud, so fair to see, Is from its fibres cut: A wolf, an unholy wolf, which oft A single hair unbound. A gadding hamlet that boasts of its wealth, Which never grows old, You might have seen the while Had never a bleach'd wool-bed. The world of gold, and mirth, In a trice, turns to dust. When life's here, a gleam, Comes eft and all, to bide, Till the pall come down. But, Fortune's maid, who looks For a lover rich; On, though her blood it runs To love him more! A patron 'tis who mends Broken pots and pails, With wool, cloth, wine, and meat, Carefully out of doors. He, whose candle loves the windowsill, Nears though his family walls; Is the farmer's dinner; The husbandman's best; His evening meal is time. His prayer to God, his time to; He feeds on joy, and hath A happy heart. If poor, he doth willingly sit While many `goods' are sopped up; And ask no gift he values, If it be heaven's will. For God 's too narrow, and knows No middle-earth. Though small, and mean, he will crave A brain in magnifying; And tell you, he doth but fill All others, with a clapping hand, With a heavy beating breast Chastises, and a distending hip, Which lies, for aught, betwixt His narrow eyes; and then declares, The heart within, alas! is cold. For God, it doth own a great soul, Of a first potential; but one, It doth disparage, by design, To a narrow rope; of no aid For sorrow, and no skill for pride. The poor wretch therefore fettered, yet Is not the worse, though fetters be. Those to whom fortune, or their place, And their chance, hath given a staff, Are like the blotted vineyard, Which holds but a strand about, And wastes the eventually. But he, whom grace alone has made Its cantword, has still the grace To go where he may, and sing; To follow, and not stumble; To speak, not carry; For shame's sake to lose his breath For fear of saying things he ought To avoid; in sooth, be glad He is not you, but only you In sooth that he may, and wit, And art, become all nonsense. No good pawns, but Magician's Gear; No-meeds, but symbols, met with one And all are middle-classed, And seem, at last, to have, as well As words, their reason addle: And part-drawing, part-growing, Their worth, as their own clogg. Of undef, no hinder, no opinion, No suggestion, but of empty sound; So foul, that smell would infest, No hope, no power, but when decypher Had made a choice of simpering; And the blood's object made to slay; A man that all laws had refused, A man that all is against, A shark that all law-rules has eaten, A swine, that all magicians knows, A quenchless cozen, A quick, a haunting phoenix, whose death May truly be the great God's. A babesick who answers at a Christian Far better with his eyes than with his ears; A trembling void within, the circle's Dim morning shadow, like the second-hand thing; A stone-fed, stone-loving, stone-age rinder, In this all slaves from God whose shrine is laid Toward buying, selling again. Again unto the winding cords! Not only with unwavering force Would he break, or whirl like funnelheads, The solid Cords and volleys of Wade; But, when dead, had, with the stone-thrower, Of all the few that die, been slain; And he walked with that silent death-walk, A man ofarteless going; From all flesh-wounds paid all his cost, That stills the placid soul, And ends even them that thought on it. For ======================================== SAMPLE 106 ======================================== so cleanliness of garment. For old-fashioned old shoes and stockings clean and pretty, a total delight. Too much reared and stylish, out-dated, a copious tear, a pubescent tear is always tear and torture and death in the heart. <|endoftext|> "Afterlife", by Myung Hi [Love, Desire, Relationships, Family & Ancestors, Religion, God & the Divine] There will be silence after the life's last kiss, and I'll have my dead son to walk with me among soft spring grass. A familiar room will come to welcome us, lovely with its red plush carpet and tall antique mirror. Yet another bedroom with its deep with meandering articole will welcome us to the world's end. To my heart, my son. <|endoftext|> "Sacred Geometry", by Myung Hi [Living, Death, Sorrow & Grieving] Over & over I repeated the word, lost. Couldn't touch a single life, from the beginning to the end, to the final bed. The author invented Luddite scruples. If we'd met them in the Scottish church we were not clapped in jail. Now, we are shielded by hate, bribed with gold, and cherished by the court. If it's a sin to save a single life, it's a sin to kill it. If it's a sin to save a single life, it's a sin to kill it. The kids run in the street with no heads. I want to call you something in the phreneses of naming, earring your ears & your mama had, mouthing his tablet, your mama had, mouthing his tablet, & he had his apron, calling you mouthing his apron, mouthing his apron, his apron, his apron. Or earlobori to his earlobori to his earlobori to his earlobori to his earlobori to mouthing his earlobori. Or mouthing to mouthing his earlobori. Or earlobori to earlobori. Or earlobori to earlobori. My husband shakes the tree with his hat. The world's filling the tree. But what else is there to do? If my last thought had been, & it had, I would have thought his hat was very warm. <|endoftext|> "Slight (tasting the liquors)", by Cheryl Wolf This drink is so simple—drunk or not drunk, you have to be nimble with the cold, yet it works great straight from the drain. —Tinie Sapolu, from an Irish music treatise TINIE, DIRT, COLD—which is the drinkINQUAL as LYING—shook down your sleeping gigand drop me some tiny spoilers: tell me your secret wish—say it isIRISH—that you "LOVE it"—says the minor ten for the minor thalata SOON as the drunken sun fills the tavern and turns to frosty on the linoleum,you realize you are TIRED of life—mad—ready to die? but drunk— slightly at first or not, drunk—an elegant la-di-da, sfû`ing, this is how the minor ten opens the minor thalata, any minor thalata opens, openingTHE BIG OPIUM, the riddling major thalata: A crazy old person, crazy old, great-great-grand-grandpa-says: remarkably free, you need to learn to be free, you have to draw down that drawlip to your eye and think: how do I love it?—it goes down like that— THE DRINK... the mind recurs to each stage, insists: and does. <|endoftext|> "Fantasella", by Cheryl Lurie At Fantasella, we apply our purple streaks, stick chad[i] to the goddess, spruce her up, drape her bylines cape and husk-enweave her cape's nepthodith, and barge in papilior and plan her coronation. The suited eyeless ones—their keeperspup-> ken__ kynn'd] ] thinxfor laslo__! pep_lamb[lapis]ed] heys ast[a]! inelegant__researly[esh] ingressss xmldeka: ======================================== SAMPLE 107 ======================================== "The snare won't work." As to do honours One goes for the far one, On a swan's white feathers. Within the bushes you dream. The sky around it Weaves of deerskin; A city of trees for shade. Above, a lantern's rays Burn white and blue. On its spikes, the forest holds The branches of the beaver And the deer's marks. On the sea the wind blows, The water is wistful As it scuddits by. The cities rise to see you. Your light still gleams in them On any wind. On its winding way. A place for a fire! Ah, though an end With this much decay Would rob them of their wits, The snow is still a flag. They love it, because No evil can with it. <|endoftext|> "The Twister", by Norman Dubie [Living, Death, Time & Brevity, Social Commentaries, History & Politics] Two days into November my house settled itself to the floor of its thirty-foot frame, the yellow four-chambered family of compounds holding well over a thousand in this valley of snow and sage. Winds from the northeast, northwest, southwest, southeast, and southwest struggled to reach the isolated march beneath the furrowed field and build it above and below. How could it be that the same changing conditions would repeat themselves every day? I pictured it— freed cascades descending to the foul grass, full winter light, windshields at our window warped and torn, the owl shouting in desperation as we read the morning papers— But there was no forest or field. My grandchildren came to me for reassurance, but I warned them not to wander off with the hopes churning in their young eyes. It was some comfort when they fell asleep and their relieved giggles rifle-shot through their dream. There is no forest or field. There is only sunset behind the furrow, fields of snow glittering to invisible bars along the wall, the winter sun shining on its blue surfaces. The snow, as fragile a thing as a book can teach, has turned to thought. <|endoftext|> "Idling", by Norman Dubie [Living, Health & Illness, Activities, Eating & Drinking, Religion, The Spiritual] On a rainy afternoon I crossed Eastern Paints & Crafts with a tour guide, who talked of the Paradise of Yvonne Monae and other places at Abt de Lusignan, as I wished to learn the Latin of French and Greek, and how the cult of St. Damien had vanished, after first appearing on architectural inscriptions in Bordeaux. After about an hour, when we were travelling in a wagon beside a caravan, I learned I could read the letters of the weather and the time, for I took to it, and found the keyboard of the hand-drawn gas-light, one of the few in Paris with characters hand- noned on it, and the way of writing a word became natural to me, as the keys to a poem did, and not, as the stories say, because of prose writing were used to create the right imagery in those works. The instructions were made so simple, they became mundane, but it wasn't necessary to have trained Hebrew or Greek orerns, and the hostiliess language, to give a flavor to the learning, as there were inexpensive books on the shelves, to make it palatable— without the smell of the menstruum. On the bus back, my guide saw me stare at the Bible, he said, to mock my indifference. The body of the church was a dark hush, he said. His voice was low, like a love song. I sat silent for a few moments, looking at the pictures of the saints on the walls. What is there to say about the pregnant virgin on pietà, mush, he said, one who had no reason but what was surprising, and the other who was merciful? He drew a circle around the feet of both figures, and pointed to the sunshine at their feet. Then he looked at me, and smiled, and said, You were not alone on the earth, I felt it for a moment, then I looked down and saw the crowd, which was a natural gift, though one that was concealed by throned prima daith and heavy sadness, which showered on me in the shape of dutys, ======================================== SAMPLE 108 ======================================== plastering contrain, tributary, piece of police protection. And the fabric, hand-sewn, is lovingly cut, fits like it sewing of — yes, you — the purchaser, the fibers poured like the last of the second and soul out front, making a beautiful, reassuring buffer between dream and plain - I imagine a father folding a havah over the young man's head — the kind of black - suit with white - legends he is being sent. <|endoftext|> "Night Ledge", by Ted Kooser [Living, Relationships, Home Life, Philosophy] Of course there is no night And of course there is no daytime When is the tick of a whodunit or what? An absence but there is no darkness And of course there is only This night however doylook of oracles No let-up on sunslicker past twilight Babble and spill and tip and fade I find me here the same age as the day and the day was this ledge I'm on as a heron-strewn back yard behind the house a glimmer but no lures But then I have a par on the ledge It's a pain a thrill to have nothing ahead of me is any thought Of everything between the light and dark Gone and in my eyes That no form or panic Disappears then follows one my way to the height pooled shade and the golden recessed rim is this the second piece? <|endoftext|> "Somebody Said the Riffs Are Horns", by Kathyleen O'Keefe [Arts & Sciences, Poetry & Poets] Why is it that the earth consents to my conceit, something miraculously changed, yet nothing everally happens? In the mad motorik wel' between every Jacob's hincits, the imbecilic imagination, groans and prickles up its tail. Is it spade strange that no one in the burying business seems to have a job? Or is it grea And is it grea grea finally made my phiz anx awfully icky Hump Ole linguistics, yours and mine, yours and yours —Spake as S BB John Morton says the riffs and insults are horns Upon seeing Brec cave beheaded in a Morgan robin beak, it dawned on me that not only The religious zeal that claims a straight face, shouts a dude straight from the bridge, "I just feel like spewing with scepticism. You ain't got shit to prove it, there's no refuting it, what the fuck, man? Sour desire no séance could cure, a cold a bomb's blown wind blows me sideways in the craquelime, And from beyond where the dead tree's splitting down the road, the echoes of a god-damn school letting out, for no one's listening, Grit for suppoited lives guts like a flash, "You said the right things of veracious mouths, man! "And you helped a feller who needed it, a feller who ain't got no breath, man. The air's all ears, I say, the séance's a joke, man. I had to show him how to get his rest, man." And you had to have at it, the old hack, "the spotty blue A's" over the Red Line's toes, a corpse I picked up to show people, it's some public enemy, The lemman got me stouter, like all of it, my talk's new, nothin' I said n'too about the dead was on coital (whatever that is), nothin' I said was but about how a body isn't any dead, And they said to believe you that some way that is, man And then some body goes the other way, and some The heart's not like that, the people that I love, The ability to express yourself is not that, it's the people that break me, Not that, but that, how far somefood of living's malice, how ghetto somesomefood of human loveliness, how both are frozen now in time like . . . And the broken's no longer here to take the place of the undamaged, no lawyer's tear, no judge's gavel, no bomb or levitation, the massacre without end I can ======================================== SAMPLE 109 ======================================== Berlin Germany, Koln Germany. Whatver, all those pimps be e'er or no want they're only sportin'. Oh no, it was patrilineality he was naturally. The pride of no genuine nation. Whosoever he in authority. Who, in this truth's eternal view, Were [pulchrally], [were more honorable. And they, if law there be,] then let them follow suit. Does it incur? they have the object. Did they execute it? they did give it a travesty. I say they lay bare their it-gets laid bare. Some forgot [faux] the fair front and [porn]. Some with extraordinary contempt indulged The turgid conceit and thick conceit. A Junker held his office, his profession. Was he bared, didn't he, like an oracle, Who, when the scales weigh on our credulity, Make us regard his prophecies as false? I confess, and still anticipate [in] him. What he says has value if confirmed By other witness and by no witness. And the conviction that is to be continue If it be confirmed. It shall not be After the first three coming springs. Who shall give a verdict, how? when old time's dead, Or, short of moon, or, even so, [assuming] man? My mind's won by conquerors and brutes. Like the Philippi Picti, of old, That snatched from many a Sunday the [beauty], What time the Picts rode triumphant on. There they were an undressed multitude Though they were [gorgeous] with ears rings and wrists, Bought over to the stranger and their customs; These had the courtesy to set before them, Naked to the horsehair riding breeches. They, poor kids, were bawdry's guiltless children. Yet, before they executed this ingratitude, They fastened each to other with a band Of gold-laced bib and twisted golden cord, And so they all of them kept their place at last, And rode under the jewels of the sun. Another could not say in Venice, "Bid me sir, to-morrow." Like a hog, He bidgood evening, and off he flew, Or spent, in rivaling drawers' false snout, At least, let him be late. Mays there are Some men that use the Magistrates' names As their own. What oddities follow. Jurors' asses, "Stolas" and "Salerno." But which is surer, Jurors or Asqueads, Or Titles or Trade-marks, or Vergers, Baker or Forster? I don't mean these; (Nor the landlord's box, or the baillifile (But bids the last abhorrence away), Should need such names to find by chance. After eating all the wheat, of late, With fainting hearts, a jury sat. Pray give me leave to pray, one Sabbath To take his mercy up so high, As I do breathe o'er all the people, Who did not think to enter. "A Sow" was common; but which was best, We'd not a thought in terms of the mind; For what could those condemn them to? Virtue is feeling; and the best way To encourage its self-destroyed, Is by showing how the mind's its own tutor Infeecibility makes that virtue, Which is a blow at the heart of the arts. Gentle speech now must enter, and I Believe there was one request, How shall I begin? and this is most, That, if nature is right on this, The feelings not the soul should be; Be criminals as men for feeling; not souls. For thinking, they've no existence. And I Pray read the conscience, but with shrouding all To the eye of Reason and a frigid hand, Speak empathy in English, but sit still, With brow betokening cold respect and respect, As in the grand gallery of Latona. I began by you. At present I have more slaves, Since up from that high strait I have cut this rope. I make mine no society, but keep up, As far as my means allow, my old programme. Men's souls you'd think were never set at all, Were it not that, to save the pettish talkatory, We make of morality a holiday. With such stuff to fill a day, and ======================================== SAMPLE 110 ======================================== Masks you are, That ken, when yer sealed, They make mistakes! Hmmm....I see--as if sent-- The needle-ends of the line Dipping in your garment! A chill to-night in Fairmount Park! What's this I hear about--the Spring? The High, by Spark? No; the Hunter, With blatter, mischief in his heart, Makes sounds that shocks the quiet: The tune is out, music-stinged, By a crack shot off, just as you sleep, What ruffian (for witch) Quickly puffs from pipe and bag The dark rumour of a dead Golden Age?--I hate to see A crack... It 's better than dry-- It splits my heart in two! The cry of--How do you--Spring Slams thro' brick and stone! The fog of Autumn leaves, The baleful, deadly tree, The flow'r of doom and short, The hideous, humble flower, No hoarding horn To fling o'er a craven head, To fight in Midsummer Suns, To sleep all trees out dry, But hang them up drownd in, When her thick, aching Summers Have done their work in black: A streak of green for Sol's sake, A true Euro- pean, A purple, runy-skurled dawn The slum continues yet; And, thro' lawn and pavement, A noisy crowd sapless still, That have the common air, Their labour-gathered souls confound, To-morrow morn the street is still! The few that see the Spring Doubt the life that sheds its light, O wee, wee ones of four-- Who pick the blossoms' heads or roots, Till snails and lesser pests wrong, The cry of Spring--it shakes The holy stir of souls! The sound that breaks the spell Of what that puts the stream in life, Foaming from some spirit-place, 'Round the shrunk blossoming heads that wear A little bit of human love: Wee, we're a' wa', for we love you! If on the velvet softness Your fingertips would cling, It were warmer still your foot could go; And still the days grow days, And brief the hours of evening. Oh, who would not die for love, As these poor tones will song, And, till the heart's storm is past, Your sweetheart will be. Oh, who would not live, if love, For love of life should stick, Or a-klose leave the rest, To lisp the words she pipes? Nor think, for e'en a kiss, she's won, Nor dream the dear we share. I saw a spirit at the window, I heard a spirit at the door; I saw a house that stood in view, And the ghost behind a glassy face; I heard a voice, and then a voice; "I've the house in view." Oh what for her despair Of the loveliness she loved not well, Of the wan face and hard eyes, And the fingers that seemed nail-point on soft finger, I knew not well, but, I think, loved not well; So her soul ebbed out, and the heart went with her, And the heart burst, and the home turned afar-- The angels were locking up the house-- The memory of the keys, and door-lay The windows from a previous summoning-- When I breathed, "I'm ghosts, and flying, and do not want in, There's no one here but a shadow and some ghouls that go on and on, For soon the tops of our limbs were wrapped in the grey midnight, For the wind-borne, shortening shadows fell, And the chestnut candles lengthened steadily their lengthening, While the cress-leaf candles burnt--till the house turned dark and old, And I heard: "He has the house! He has it, house! And I come, my Sweet of Julys, to give and take again." <|endoftext|> When boats had barge to shore The wind-blown foam flaked the street; When sailors put to sea Their forts at home would fly. So white a sheet in sheet-deep sea, So reckless a sail on the gusty tide, So wild a roar as nearly woke The pirate men who leap and fly. ======================================== SAMPLE 111 ======================================== Midway is Teflon. I can think of nothing. The doors open. The walls are up. But how can it be, After only the covers, the pages? I run into that ghost, that house, growing warm against my palms and my eyebrows. In the wind light is – Earth. Now I am flicked, turned and fluttered Round and round in a balloon of shoes. Under my feet are Gears, rubber band And a tiny bottle made of . . . Ew! Here and there the dogs Press and peruse. "This one's good," Makes me go upstairs. "But that one –" I'm teleported In a picture of a person. Then I come back And now I'm a certain size. Strangely the overhead light's Depth depends upon the patient 'Sit down and look at me! – Or, maybe, I come with newspaper. My face is Face-like. The trees No longer are dry to me. I look All round. My friends keep company! With both Of them! Who's the redone woman At the window? What does she look like? – One of them isn't very young. A dog- d room Here in a hole. Or is it is a well In which fish were kept, and had they been Fastened to a pole there's only one – Oh, some other place Where some room was clearly better 'Course," The clocks Ring; the chalk at the window Has rubbed off. I wonder what The chairs had done to stand there un- Quickly! It has gotten pretty late. It has Dark upon a moonless And may be A good place for you to be The shabby And let-once Book. People have suggested For years that it's yours for Just to do with Meeting; and a man may not find it difficult To meet the demands Of He may not meet them to begin with! <|endoftext|> "At Dusk", by Teresa Hoogas [Living, The Mind, Arts & Sciences, Language & Linguistics] This afternoon there is always speech about mind and matter, there is always love. Nothing about the world is still. There's nothing to do but sit and hear. What about these things we say no to? Are you talking to me or the trees? Why bring them to us again? I think you do it so the audience can hear them "speaking"—whatever you want to say—it's so close to the flesh and they are speaking animal, so private. There are always veins, veins and they make the air shake. Sometimes it's fun— that your face is there when I look around at all these beees. But then I feel guilty when the space is so small I feel like what I really love is only touching. There is a clock counting my thoughts, painting in the "what," touch of a fingerprint, something from the wolf—let me handle that. Laminate that; let me see. Why speak about feeling when it is stirring? When the stock is unbreakable, can't even forget to feel. Just like the trees are magic and can't be fixed, is what I hear from the speaker, spoke over the radio—but it's not the trees. A glass of water on the word of a colorful fruit will change the "tree" in you. Maybe this is the fruit of <|endoftext|> "On a Windy, Rainy Day", by Teresa Jo brief [Living, Time & Brevity, Relationships, Family & Ancestors, Nature, Weather, Social Commentaries, History & Politics] Jill memory is like a sunny day. The trees lie quiet and the sky is bright. It takes the world for a day at last. The trees are silent. The stars are in bed. Sky is a palanquillo. Like a strong woman fighting, and a cheek swelled with blood. A sky swelled up with bombs. Like a river tinged with crimson. Where family no longer exists, only the restless and the inveterate kiss each other. Nothing that lives is silent. A piano of conversations forms at the lips, grows in weight, in size. And in each of those cells— a psalm ======================================== SAMPLE 112 ======================================== gonna mumble with a grin: That's what I heard, in some distant market town, in the midst of all the thronging traffic--was it or wasn't it?--you know, in the air: I should be at the game by five-thirty, on a grand tour, lefty by reason of my age, you know, with a lot of match play. And so for that time I was active enough, could hit, and throw, and hit again. Oh, man! I could hear the rapidity of my swing All that air of late between third and third, away, away, down, and inside, inside. Now, as to badgers, off I sailed to Saturday slumbers: all hushed and cool I half regarded them until at last I saw them out at pitch. So on and so, and so, I hit in the seventies when, of course, I wanted to open up my arm veins, or something, I couldn't tell, it went 'popp, pop, and I was off, off, "paw." Now, listen. This was on the river, I remember, yes, my recollection's too crude, There might have been fourteen holes, and there might have been roses, I got so many holes three years in a row, I lost count, miss, with a long, wild look in my face. Oh, I got so bad, my face was flush with the livery shade Of gray and green, out there, as of old. Hown and purr, for a minute, I lay on the grass after it, those infinite grass blades, and it seemed that I never should win it, I kept trying, but it was running away. Oh, Kitty dear, I'd been plunked, the ball to catch I'd hardly seen on the run, and, "so," I said, "I'll win it!" puffed, "so," was all my joy, And I held the lily with a will, And but for that the time would surely come, with a snap, a scream, a fall, and I'd get it! O red fox! a couple of your fleeces, I gather, would sell for a nation at auction, recall that April joy: but dear me no! there's a fatal roadblock 'Twixt an ancient law of beasts and a Saxon scoff, You can't get past the last two words of "snatch" "Hence it ends!" But, dear me no, no adorable April garter which may never have grown "O Dega! Dega!" He waken'd me gently, harking "A quick-slumber? A knock, it says, I hear!" "O! why? What is the matter?" says I, "and hark again, O I cannot get through, O my head! I don't dawn!" "O! you'll catch!" says he, "and in three hours' play you may!" "O Dega! Dega!" I said, "but it is sad that Sleep should let me wayward hop. What is to-day but a few holes out and in? I could almost swear I'm bound to go wrong, O then what is there to stand up by any beak? "O then I mind, that on the bus I wore me in." O for my own! But the bus was a losst, it was; I had sent my dupe on the score, And missed half my best for that half-day a-drive. And how could I play Dega? How could I see On the second day the green I played last night. And "O Dega! Dega!" there came a confused plea: "Can't you do more? I've had half my time, more power!" "O I! for you?" cried I. "It's in your power!" "But I wish your dupe well! Not play me, he! Is this Some small game and not the fifty-fifty game?" "O then," says I, "I've naught to do now. But see, on the boards a picture just took hold! Oh do it, play me!" Oh, the plea ran like yore, I was singing, "Come! Come! Ho! ho!" Ah the guilt If it was I that sent it, my head, my heart, away. Poor old bus! I've not gone often down with you, I'm sitting with a heavy feel of drouth, Though it is nothing ======================================== SAMPLE 113 ======================================== That figure carries round the dream With silent assurance and disguise. The shadow in the moonlight makes a map That seems to mark its movement stage by stage: The ghost in the wood looks on a weary while And then, alone, waits for the moon that's come to stay. When Mary called the servants out to feed, And asked if they had fed the pigs, they fair did keep A deep black silence while they covered their faces with shaggy hands. Some of them laughed, a few of them suspected her, But all of them played the apathetic spy. When Mary sat down again, her face with anger glazed, They took their silent ways to wait on her return. They never suspected, nor failed to adore her, That on the windows of that house her feet had trod By the tracks of which they always turned. But now it happens, And one or two turning toward the door, Another chiding—in Mary's ear, As an if they might have known it— How their own Lord had been like to pass, And to die the second death, who can tell How there is one who went out of being in them. They could not wait, their lips to one another Showing passion were but rude, And even supposing the tone of voice were tried, Their loving, if he called them to him, for the feast Was the pure grace of Christ. All this and more How their Lord would travel with them. Faced with this, Mary told her gathered serfs, and the great cavalier, That she and her son were overmiled. She lost her head. Mary asked for a sign That they who now were to be fed should be fed In a way that would keep them alive. It is like a chill before a storm; It is like the look of a face seen through a veil, That none can reveal, unless by Oath. It is the period between the sacred and Colder hours. The life-call of the Master went forth, The one to feed and one to draw in the other. It is not grace, and not fear, that drives us And is the cause of our sin. 'Tis but the burthen of a poor fractioned earth That hinds us from enjoying that which we have. And all we have is measured by a problem: The length of life. O Son of man, you all have your labors; Each of you the one perfect act in which A realization, greater than life, has stood Upright, as living, as in the pure interspersed hours. Then what of the acknowledgment of the older Faces toward our secret longing? With this your favour brought, and with many long years Passed by between the fasting of thy inner man And yet another birth, our souls came forth to birth. Thence upward to us, as the wind is blown up. Then, as the way and the birth go round, things are different. The one gives long life while the other kills it. Therefore in our remembrance of time' destructions Is it esteemed needless that we feast on tears? As from his shadow our dreams that God may not, He has forbidden our watching his breath. But the womb from which we in no long space expire Is not as worthy to be thought upon. It matters not, then they first received their language, But the radiance passed, and left us veiled in night. Therefore with the taste of the last error lost, On which our hope and fondness must dwell, The old man in the book considers it, the last Which he promised, and in it only could foresee. And then by him (who was deceived in not foreseeing) He is made to agree that the woman must die. It is the cross-section of two systems to one Which from the same must one coming bring forth. A goddess or an object made of glass That stares at us with an unfinished stare; The iard half fallen from off the cliff, Lifeless to us, in its cragginess long lay; The stone that limes its inexhausted cry; All words in this quotation has been one that the man Who read the poem for the last time found Words that he had nearly forgotten, some New spells that had never yet been dreamed; And by these the man can understand The sudden great love he felt for that woman's eyes. A poet who loves books should always try to love As a man; and love, of a man or a woman, to Thee only. Let the woman ======================================== SAMPLE 114 ======================================== from our mutual mass, we return to the intersection of the Maine and Susquehanna and arrive to find no peace. {201} Sara sets down the manuscript, the confessor mounts the stool. The fumes return. The Italian banks whine, their walls of marble fracturing, as if nude. "You say I killed my cousin to your sister, to-night in broad daylight, that he beheld the light from the window and fled, shackled, to another country; you tell us that wherever Jonathan might be, he would burn with jealousy. So let the attorney on speaking terms with his client mother Buelo come; look, he's spoken. O note to note the lawyer brings. Ventures and David propose to take a train tonight to-morrow morning at the rate of one fare or the other. The murmurous rustle of evening of old and new iron has begun. Is this paper the wrong sort? (for an elaborate realisation of a most literal realisation revelations are perpetually shared in the circling of the earth-pointing moon). I see the hand of Sara in the heat of what is perhaps her sleep, a wary touch. Our son cries out in the puddle. Hear the rocks give the music place, or the dance of rain that moves without mortal change; she must have felt it, need or anxiety, and at the appeal of what we feel must be the wind, and for ease or distraction she dims her lamp. We halt there for the time being, remembering. As if on cue our noisy passages end. The Stars in one place, the Sound in others. The path winding upwards through the lodge is in outline charted. Lights on each side from the one window illuminated. The roof over us a roof in our minds, an ornate vane, a shimmering veil of incense-blue, and we remain, we two downstairs and up, at one window in the sectional doorway, and so proceed, we two half-hidden, the window held back by others floating at the ceiling, stirring, watching. <|endoftext|> "The Past", by David Ferry [Living, Time & Brevity, Activities, Travels & Journeys, Religion, The Spiritual] The past is time's multiform cell. It is less a house than a field, open to rain, the vast undulating plain through which a beam of light floods and moves on. It is incessantly altered, constantly beaming, like a painting. Each day that comes will bring a different kind of element. The eye travels it over in a certain mindets. Each stops expecting the state of the other to be other than what it is. Saints bring foreign goods across the waters. Took we ourselves to bring across British books, a change is putting at the brass plaque reading ‘Deadman set! Thank you, Mr. Ishman. Thank you, Miss Solloway. Thank you, too, Dear Madam WARE, for your de-archification of dead bodies. A bird flies over the desert, and the stranger brings its head. A witch sets wheels in the air, turns up the sides of a rock, a shadowy figure rushes to grab the stream. When the days varied in stanzas the house was still. I come here: the cicadas heard I would on these lines. The world the flue, the light, and the sound in the eye. Out of rain, fire and smoke, a clock ticks on. Sometimes an elephant rushes to a lion, a hand to the wall. <|endoftext|> "Preface", by Edward Hirsch [Religion, Faith & Doubt, Arts & Sciences, Philosophy, Poetry & Poets] [Dear Students] Here is a book you will find To be most helpful to you, I think; A volume where both parts, indeed, Do go most hand in hand with the table. A book so wise, so stern, so hurried; A book where, instead of telling lies, You'll find it easy to be vague and clear. A book in such a crucial state We'll put it down and say, "Here's an end." A book where falsehoods are milked So gaily, baldly, desperately, You'll find a cow, if you will, And in the middle of the book, A beneficent cow. A volume where ======================================== SAMPLE 115 ======================================== Essex Castle Castle whose walls Were struck by guns of Robert, the Bruce, Royal Lancaster Banner in the field, Our very guns! they were told, To stand them on the ear In case of a fight between love and love Which the English (how the English!) thought they had won. Their guns showed high and long. They made a rain of glass. It shattered on their guns. They were abbot and abbotess saw the shrapnel fly. They could not stay, Their horses failed. On fire, on fire, The guns would not stop. Away to the coast! To the break of the day they went. They did not know how well Trees were trained for their meat. Whips and poles and swords Were put aside For the mere noise They were told They must win the fight. They did it by numbers. The numbers will out, I'm afraid. I've seen All that's left of Riddelsse Abbey. Robert Browning never could paint, was fed by numbers. Here he drew or here or here isn't it. The number of apples broken on the tongue is three The number of girls going to war, or four, Or three, oh, The number of love things that weren't sad when one love died, two, four, oh, The number of sparrows in a wood is nine (Or ten) The property of oxen is hold (twelve) The straw, not enough to hold in the barn, was supposed to be eaten by the Indians for thousands of years. (Didn't think so.) To kill the flower you must cut it (did he say so?) The number of horses who are killed by people in engine sheds each spring is five The number of times I have bobbed for brook on impearal waters. In order to be happy one must be an equine sir. (What an understatement. An elephant is a machine. Do elephants have knobby elbows?) The number of times I've taken the dog for a walk is naught and half Have I forgotten the reason I came in the first place, to buy a fiddle with silver balls . . . and so the nameless man buys the fiddle. I'm one person and we've come to buy the fiddle He's a different story and another in front of the fiddle. <|endoftext|> "Train", by Amit Treife [Love, Infatuation & Flirtation, Arts & Sciences, Humor & Satire] Painting by a native of the United States. This train is a good one. A train would take us far away. It is carved out of trees. It is painted with flames. It represents movement. It looks like an old horse. Trains are not new. This train could carry the shape of a boat, a boat with transparent water. You have to watch the rails closely to see the boat. The rails move quickly. The boat has flames all around it. <|endoftext|> "In My Father's Gardens", by Charles Olson [Living, Parenthood, Relationships, Family & Ancestors] When my father placed a knife cut out on his knife In his garden I stood and I drew my father From behind and I killed him I stabbed him with a garden knife cut out on his knife In his garden My father was dead I was eight I found my father I dragged him in front of my mother I hit her in the forehead and I dropped the shovel I told my mother She must have hit me to get me to do it I am eight years old She hit me I said what did you do She said she wanted to kill my father she was going to kill my father I want to go even deeper I wanted to find my mother I wanted to go even deeper I saw her in her room I saw her kill my father I wanted to kill her But my mother said You won't do it You won't do it I said as I ran I ran across The house as my mother killed myself her holding the phone to her ear I was playing in the garden I saw my mother shot through the forehead with an icle (an orange feature) I did it I grabbed her gun and put it in my ======================================== SAMPLE 116 ======================================== Because the contriver Writes it through the instrument. A note. And here we must talk of the human. I have spent half my life destroying what was there before, lying asleep at evening in a pub, playing what is off the tape. It is fine. Many, many times, most recently last night, I said, what you have sketched, more than twelve years ago, is more than art either. It is a cause. At this moment, running out of steam with a little money left, I am on the verge of a second age. There was no greater work for me, surely. The old streets are made bumpy again, the air. Are flattened. Old backs still there, knocked over and superstructure slinging up front, rubbish and weeds skewing dusks. Old guts. And small beggars stand up and take it, my notes some for the punchbowl, some for the patches. I do not see them again. There is more humour too, that is waiting to be born. Look at these clothes. Where's the front gate? The parts may remain. So what? They may have no place else. In fact what they have left to leave is nothing but the smallest of place. It will be their only home. We don't see them any more. But that does not mean that they have left us. The driver of the creaking car. His revving hand. They may be safe, caught up in a van hidden in the first blind feeling. It could be there has been a break-in. Some gap past the care of the driver. But would you look at him? Babylon. I watch them walk down the broad road. When I was a child, in the dream, the river that was always there, and has always flowed slowly and surely away. And when I am spoken to by the great spirits, speaking to the said, This and This. I would look at them. I would not look at me. They would not look at me. The poor blobs of flesh. They bear. There have been many. Some have held up. All gone home. Some have backed away. Some are hesitating now. I like that. The images, the said. If you like, leave me for a moment to fill in a short space. They are more proud of the structure of the said, and will move on. As above, so below. <|endoftext|> "The Ship", by Thomas L. Kiplin [Activities, Travels & Journeys, Nature, Seas, Rivers, & Streams] I am sitting on a floor that once steered, a foot below a back that was white with chains. And now I was in a world where rivers no longer allowed me to live, and I knew for the first time that a man may be washed overboard only once in his lifetime. I was born in a city of wooden ships. I walked among the oldest of them. I was hungry, and one of them gave me a crust of bread the size of cow. When the train was hailed to town at evening, there would be time for fondle the crust and chew the bit, even wait for a Sunday paper, then come home. The wet rain water ran from a crack the deck's leading edge. My first view of water, on my father's day, Sunday until the crack failed, was on the front of the ship as it steamed through a cloud of water swimming past, a disappearing point, a point certain. The foam of the waves swell, the rapids heated. Their name, eclipsed in my memory, became the dull whiteness of rock, and to hear us row over was to hear an echo. In the infinite space of the world, the footbridge we made to the moat, now the water turned, caught up its own hesitation in the cracks and creases. Then, turning to the right, we stood at the edge of the deep where the current swept in currents no one had conquered yet, smoke that was no smoke, and what swam swept past, at first no thought of our name, time's turn, where it landed us, as my father said, was very cold. No question of dying. It seemed familiar, but I speak of it now, now that it is gone ======================================== SAMPLE 117 ======================================== E'en as the sunbeam looks at evening skies, Or like the son who carries the messages From home to home with tranced breath and trepidations: Even as the lover's kiss in secret toil Sheds richer fruit within the shade of doubt: For both alike reveal their deep intent. Hence it is, that none can pass in perfectly: Even as a shaft from star to star is turned, By rest unto rest, ere to its loss it is sent; And unto it strives the mortal, who can learn How 'tis its own foe and not how 'tis own: So stands the soul in flux: and, lo! 'tis plain That this way led along an upright flight Can never turn aside, i' the way itself, On either side. Who goes thus is still Still towards himself his own enemy. If no new light to knowledge leap them (as the fools vainly hope and fain would believe), And, by the way they lead, take away Nothing from the foreknowledge they convey, Nothing can arrive therefrom, or else stay To turn back to another shore. But if by changing environment, even Inhaled from this our realm, some truth Come to the fore, not bred within the castle Of the new light, and to the old savageness, By that escaped from mortal eyes; even so From ill to ill no soul can turn aside, Since either to evil will it is conformable, Or, accommodating to unrighteous wills. To be soft, and in all things to be wise, Is in itself a deed profane: Nor do I regard the popular voice, That emphatic word whose ordained ear, Overpowers a matter ineffable. To rankle, perplex, and off all surprise, And somehow abide an incoke, With that all-informing telephone, As though the Philosopher's mouth were The true bell of dilemma. All advantage, all comfort sweet That opinion to the weak unawares Weaves in her fabric; for the trowl, Deep pendant, obtains approvaille; Which is, I understand not, but a wire Of power directing between opposites: And in proportion as its field is pulled It doth that nation the affections fill, A true bell-philosopher sayes. And therewithal, to close baldwises So much the spirit compieves, as there The pleasure is plieved with special grace That shows in part the nature of that ear That is the proper means and true bell-router To opinion's laboratories. For this effectual humour, could I say so, Were aught conceivabile. Beatrice prays That your presence here may make plain How pestilent is human soule. I was notabiSPONSORED at all, Nor quite awake: if anything o'errLed me to transgressiyou, referebize and frame, I sleeping slept. At treement I gan lie How I might wisshere learning best attain To heare my thought, whan I mihte stonde astounde Withoute propheting. But it is to tell Theadolt, As it were oldes mipation, sithe took In Saint Meriles bookes cler Ayin's tyng, That he the wisest of all was maymongst The Mytholnes and what they men gaed wisshe Withoute lefte nor word without no presse and zone Of it: and he sy makes his bookes cler Upon this illexion of Genesis brent That men scholde trefeld for the bestes greves As he mai this verse giath and ded. Such thing To my distration is wel the lesse mo. For he for whom I learne tak terme To wyt, his handes stond enamoured of lere, And to the same cause mai lern here as in prease. Thogh he have o speche seinte to our seche That therby he schal discorde, on al ende Thogh he lose that, he wolde wepe and wyte, It is behovid to se this arte sauefryuel. And eke in the same wise wol I come That this speche seth the qualitie Of Aristotle, hou so evere that e mai I mihten perfele whan evere I finde This qualitie I finde in mannes heart. So mochel tughte it mot I ======================================== SAMPLE 118 ======================================== Her stubborn eyes were clench'd, And she saw nothing but That dark-complected figure stare In the tremendous glass Which eyes her--and lo! the right: As if, that shining thing Which erst she call'd contrast, Were all that such distorts light could bear. With pale and sick-cool beams She saw some distant figure Holding a glistening tablet, Which seem'd alive, and walking on A spiral path around In letters mystic-white: They who disown'd the world Knew nought of Beauty's joys; They who despis'd the sun Laugh'd at a morn So dim and lovely as she. These, vague and formless, These were the figures, These was the dream which blest Life's loveliest hour. Each stood amid the rest, Together. And the last Saw first, and seek'd first to know. For, lo! at once she knew What these figures were, What, dimly brightening, they had been; And they, at once, once depicted In identical phrase: "Beautiful creatures!" she exclaim'd, "On these tablets man has writ!" And o'er her face an adoration Thus would her eyes be hood, Which only can be lift by The flowing freshness of those skies. She thereat knew who, her fellow, Long time unknown, yet long since certes, Within whose earth so many years Have seen her growth and bloom. Each figured form she ne'er had seen On earth before, nor is, nor was: All beauty had awes her eyes. Now forth she looks, and now her face For joy ne'er wakes the nerve. All sense she rests, and joyfully Entered into her soul, she leaves Him there who, trembling, follows, and, Come, O come to me, Beauty's child! The poor old miser hath far different Etherial pleas for Beauty's child, Than none who wear the gabardine; For him toil nor love is vow, And sorrow no affront to him, For in the rock his sole delight Is to be cold and benumb. But the white rose in the brown tree Shall carry him o'er the hill and forth Through the roses' world of green to come, For 'tis the Infinite whom he fears, And whom he seeks, ever is beguiled, And plucks from this earth the shaft of that. To the music of happy singer O babe-feet, kiss not mine! The bull by the fountain-lake Has left the heifer: Let the fleece be changed for a broidered maid, Locked in a lion's maw. Into the wood the hunter goes-- Hark!--how sweet he plays his harp! And the seeds we gather at night, When we lie hid 'neath the green; Hark, how they sound, zest en route! Joy comes to each heart in procession, Like the troop that drives the Quijtebots. Love is answered as brown land; And beauty, like--in yon waterfall, 'Tis as though 'twere one hearted. In yon creek, 'tis composed Of melting youth and quick return, But, O the woody hill's head! Love has conquered me there. Beauty as it bolts through the day, And seems to fall from heaven, becomes An inn where two it keeps: And so a virgin's white and sweet, Like yonder leafy cascade; But the tumult of loud glad mirth Raises her to the stars. One meziere fall from yonder bank, And, with her hair, she comes again To remind the world that 'tis hear They keep away from one another, When their white voices shine. They that so sweetly sing, they that flutter And spire and starry point, Are naught but their souls in sleep. Give me thy hand to lean on, This book to look at. In the brown reeds the yellow Violets make night-ground. I am here at fairy volume, Playing with yellow feathers. I live in grass, the purple hue of banks, In this their sacred evening time. And, if at night I go Up forest paths, I feel this self so low It is a thing desired in Heaven; And I thank the perfume of the year For making my soul to remember, And ======================================== SAMPLE 119 ======================================== Came-and-Pay-Day From sight to sight, but thro' a dream, Down the slope, up the hill, till I was blinded by the sun. Ditto, trot trot, trot Betroth, betroth, trot trot— Down thro' the hill at a constant clip, like a trotting horse. When we first started out We had each thought the others' spouse: But now they went home: As did I, after a while, And found myself happy in my own Far away from the strife (We thought the others were wrong or in haste) We stood by a shrine And were told the lady's vow Would stand instead of hers on earth, Because her eyes were dim. <|endoftext|> "The Flower", by Rudyard Kipling [Living, Marriage & Companionship, Relationships, Family & Ancestors, Home Life, Philosophy] The Flower and the Florist' is the story of a young girl who finds her life is like a grove of sweet roses, When she stretches her hand to the flowers Her hand falls in a stream of jewels A scent of exotic flowers. And so her fame began. She roamed the world as the world roams, Gathered exotic flowers, And, beneath an empire of palms She, a maid of silver, Found her husbands as common as the sea, And learned from them to live. Now this story is like to mine, And how's mine to make it not mine, And if mine art matcheless like the rose I trembled when I met My wife and learned from her to live As the flower must; never took Joy from the world and me; And if mine art be a God's, And her love the brightest God's, Thinking my happiness as bright As God's did not think mine mine. <|endoftext|> "A Horse Has Loosed His Mouth and Does Not Answer", by Rudyard Kipling [Husbands/Wives, Race & Ethnicity] A Horse has loosied his mouth and does not answer. My Wife's Rotten Nature Has Brought Her to the Brink, And Still Would Not Dress, Though Bargains Come Tumbling in. She cut the Dress, and to the Mill We went Tot the Papers More Than Once a Day. And Bargains Are Now Packets wide For Shirts Of The Best Avg. Price (If That Can Be Got). Our Water's On Tap If There Be An Acres To Win Water. And That's The Merchnut Of A Hat. Our Dog Has A Cr[oe] Of A Job, And That Is One And The Same. But Now he's Gone For Rather More Than An Hour On The Pass of A Thousand Days; That Is To Say The Brimful. <|endoftext|> "Muck", by Marilyn Olzén [Living, The Body] muck, muck, muck, muck, the quuck of it— sometimes muck, muck, muck, what pucks of muck is thrown out of the mouth. muck, muck, muck, muck, shrills of it, roar of it— not I, o I have known it— it is high I have known it for years, has known all of it, a mother of mine was known for having different pocks from her brother. I took a piece of it put it in my toothpick, toilet seat puck— mixed them both up. she was a lady and a gentleman, a great lady and a great gentleman. <|endoftext|> "Hanging Loopholes", by Rudyard Kipling [Relationships, Friends & Enemies, Social Commentaries, Gender & Sexuality] A Horse had a bout of smelling. He took to calling her Sly, in hoof-serve. He dragged his fouler breech 'Cathays.' He couldn't tell a word About her face. He thumped the pavement's plough In fits, for cooing. But after a time he whiffed Her in his proud way. He gave her pity. He plunged his head in muck, Roaring. He hiccuped. He bit the snout. He pant. He popped his cliptails Boomter. <|endoftext|> "All the Birds", by Marilyn Mech [The Body, Love, Activities ======================================== SAMPLE 120 ======================================== Spies a quaint little bus-link Hurry-shooing down the street He uncovers himself to greet the newcomer Is it his ticket? not yet sure Turns he his face toward the platform As if he hoped to make the connection free So pleases me the young valet Under the sun at play He bounds toward the conductor's side His mind is in such a swirl That he has no time to see the street Straight he screams to the driver to turn Down the tunnel of fear Dashes his hold-all And gasps out into the presence That speed itself to meet him The man is alive! and well! I fear to tell you the flowers It fills with tears in its leaves For it still must hide its own woe And that the blood-sprung flower Which filled The pilgrims' way No longer can blow to this tree We know of God, so plainly A witness to pain The flower's sign Lest it be cleared to that most sacred brow As with scent-stuffing florid child That foot-fall spares That leaf its flight That painted face It stands within that cedar dreariness And beneath its shadowed bark Where (it doth shade) Is written God Lies the slate-coloured iris-flower Around the oak-tree leafless and wan It lives in silence near a thicket of the alders For this same want And for the green for eating together It trembles at day's breath Sleepless but its body is soundless It leans on sleep But, his shoulder-cinctle open, The blue-eyed virgin and white-footed fawn Stoops from a tree And hands therein Uplift stones to ground Spurns out the soft meal her soft mouth flows Worship and lays them in a heap for that buried Sunday That he "hath light" Alight, to find in me the plums Of life are spread for worship Cling with loose hands to light And the living amorous spring All round my eyelids he may find What mortals love to draw What flame in a timorous flame From the all-pointing heaven of things Might make him awake out of himself . . . Poor hapless figure, with burning tears And scentless white and yellow flowers about . . . Here, in the same old place Is no happy meeting for him, he is lost In those two bad dreams that never come true Which are what Dante called after Beauty And never do come true The undodgy riddle who does not weep For one you put in riddles and takes home Whose body is a book and for whose feet White snow Is falling Flame at the Mona Lisa Are we convinced by Calvary where she stands and looks upon men condemned From the walls of endless chambers Whose stones Are thin as tongues And speak not to us but now and then to the living God And nowhere he tells One to see us the faces in the walls the smooth-curled stone The shrouded cobblers rising from their labor The small warm streets full of sighted folk in darkness as night and day Meseems We do not know why Beauty turns and turns (So poor a clue) to stone Yet she is everything to us And we cannot read her face in the blinding light What her bones, her blood, her eyes do What they do What are the stones for? Bodies close up within No statue will be kept And faces turn in empty rooms all our days There is no sign of that sad youthful mistress No red-haired girl of Mantua and Vienna Who seeing all things with her, Her tears and laughter, knew herself Something inexplicable, something made of ideal So that when she set her eyes On Volupté and her world She would not be woman Lifted up on air, But a subtle satiety That everybody had a common schema And who was not a philosopher There is not even a genus Of circle in Calvini's circle She had a god But still the conception would not die Of a first Woman But she knows not now if she hath one And what the splendour of the world Nor how the earth and skies are vexed With men's posturing and their mirrors Will never be clear to her She moves through glass Looking upon itself And is too filled with Beauty for all time She will not see it in her mirror Nor at times forget there is a world Whose mirrors show her a little And when she pauses And remembers what she ======================================== SAMPLE 121 ======================================== Rome and Baghdad and the Caliphate and the west "Wabash!" the highway bellowed. His doctor thought it was funny. Then the bellow of freedom broke walls, city, conference, arrival. But, out of the smoke and clouds, two kids faced each other across the reflecting pool. They had just been born. In all the world, only one life could be assumed, yes, a single life since every child is born into struggle. You died for a life. Out of the chasm the age-old dove flighted, but not the one you wondered for years would die. I want to hear those two souls confronting each other voice to face in a place made sacred by the operation of childbirth. Their contempt for everything that man has dreamed of can be summed up with a word:Naima. Nameless and enjoying a soliloquy you can't steal, the ocean of music when a mother sucks down deep the kiss of her child, in return from the hard and wet lower landscapes, the hollows, the shore that will give it the backwaters it needs to come whole. That, and the driver of the lion that rips out lions, the government that sends them into the lion-free country of Bhutan, a multi-headed river that turns them away at the border. Mongolian / Mongolia. Some say there are no words, that the sound is too much. That the bird stamps a silent score upon the ground. <|endoftext|> "Sleepover", by George Fergus [Living, Infancy, Nature, Animals, Philosophy, Social Commentaries, Cities & Urban Life] Waking up, baby falling asleep, the grass springs into deep shadows, the creel in the rhesus sneaks, the rucks they cast. The harbour lights fearfully across the water, suddenly with a gasp the towns fill the dark with bats. Behind the house, the canal, in tones of metal, the time is rent in ragged clocks ticking the hour, but that won't change it. The sound of cat foghings skips along the hills, some balls on a blood-coloured leather seat bathe the big-mouth leaden gold. The lights follow, playing every angle, showing the hands of men fishing on dim nights. A dog screams its nerves in the man's hands, a cow bell's beat to the window's pane coalesces into a ghost sound; the place is obvious, but self-lumined, the brightest lights in the world gorge into the white noise of dust, and in the haze slip by, the gleet echoes behind, laced with cement-tin. Splash for a sec in this lucent milky stuff of chance, of kibana, you'll splish your eyes into tomorrow's tears. One tap of your bare foot and all time is leavened, and you'll never have to go anywhere, the earth and all its singing hopes contemplate you as air. You'll never go away, just sink deeper, its windings swing out from your arms, a heart of two tissue-centres will keep you in tune towards the Harrowing, when the night wends its weary way and the first good stars rise. <|endoftext|> "Man Journeys West", by George Fergus [Living, Midlife, Relationships, Men & Women, Nature, Landscapes & Pastorals, Arts & Sciences, Social Commentaries, History & Politics] Very little changed the decades between us and that vast difference in our histories still sits at the centre of my no-arrangement of the day of my long gray examining each mile-long of the site, which was bare and waiting for a landscape very much like this, very much like this haze of snow, all blue through the eagles' flight, though the trees were back-lit just to keep me from seeing what lay beyond, below, and while I was of course afraid of the unknown and back- breaking heaviness of it all I knew I felt numb in the way of life and at war with what I thought could never conquer me, but could conquer only that hollow place where I lived ======================================== SAMPLE 122 ======================================== How shall he know her happiness? Or happiness secure from every He knew not, in too great a store; The man who has served her, if she so Hath any grief to bear him, may she Give comfort and her hand to hold, And by the wondrous work of birth Of Nature through the feminine Make known that wealth untold of earth, That gift of Pandora's diarchy. We, if our lives are full of love, If we give them with pain and love, I see in Nature none but fair, None but the feminine, I, From Youth's glittering dream of courage, This summer's fiery life to reach A love's sweet whispers, know Her beauty, one with youth's fear, Those dainty cries that from the huts And stalls of home no more we roar, Shall be turning in mid-winter rime At the Miskataha's embroidered breast, And inside the langwens of Spring To the scarlet lips that lap and die, Where in all windings see once more, once more Her red lips smiling at her lover's lips. For their sake shall Spring's loamy orchard blow And Ford's star-brushed woods take living gold, And every tree be wakened and made A song in the rhythm of hope again. O Youth--whose soul is alive of old Through all blood-drops on earth of Love, Nor less than these is to have full play One sang that "A Moon is shining brightly," And from his soul the whisper become Of old of love as from Earth's glassy face. Laid out upon the altar-vessels of the Night Are stars of white fire such as we see In Heaven when Night unveils her silver arms And the first tenants of the Spring <|endoftext|> By night, in dreams of visions, I hail the dawn; As in the morning afar is heard the sound Of psalms from choirs of patriarchs tall. As in the dreams of dawn, the glittering sun Is shining from the clouds from pillar to peak; As on mountain- heights, long pinnacles Of rock--the peaks of glory, and the mighty heads, As in a dawn so dark are seen the arch and column-highs And clefts, which, night by night, in ceremonies complex, Made soft who saw them, crowned the once solitary peak. And I saw, as in a vision of the day, The castle-crowned mountains that two roads embraced. Its length from side to side was two leagues, each way equal in extent. Here, where on fire One beacon red Its light Sent To the crown Of snow, Mid-Rise Gleam. Nor sunset Nor dawn Nor murmurs low-- Its bow Shot Like light With spreading flames Three heralds, in the wakes Of sunrise, with the moving wheel of time, I saw, in flight, With streams of flame, Tossed and tossed, And watched The one as when the TENTHLESS, awakened, To strike that region's gage; And the other, the Seventh's dim mirror, where had shown As in a sleep The spirit's FLESH the texture of its FIRE; And, deep-strung In the trance that sovereignty hath wrought, Sent up by dreaming, holy The ancient mantras; Thou, made and herd In thy slow journey's path the people's thoughts; In the wake of thy mantle's flame-pierced plumes, thou stand'st In state, And thou dost wait, through many a mirroring haze, To join the crew Of thy seventh-larged millennium. Know, whose is yon vaulted Hall of atemne bliss?--Whereis it arose, ROGER the wise, for thee to sit? What, is she riven? What, is she torn away from him here? MIGHY! That RIVER is indeed a sinner That bursts not as the tides of thy sea-tossed waves Clove but one limb, and bites the other. What, is she riven? What, is she torn away from him here? The snows have been washed from her with thee--her tender hands WAS round the WOODY WATER-DOGS As they stood, a BLonde and pale, On rock and on hill; And her locks that fell so low Fell down to FLOWNY eyes. In the end, how much of thy ======================================== SAMPLE 123 ======================================== love, it is thus And they taught it every home that they could Here is the face of the little girl, as she enrolls Now she is quiet and studious she waits for the day when she can say: I love you for you In summer of 1945, the outer provinces of Afghanistan were under the control of the Allied Forces. They had captured the major towns and were pursuing the highway into the northern part of the country, but they lacked the resources of an impoverished country and supplies were so plentiful that the security forces frequently engaged in looting. One evening, under the protection of a soldier from our battalion, Lieutenant Colonel John-Roman Pikula and six men rode on a Dobeean bus to Kunduz. It was at this time that the officer and Colonel Dale Rokketa were recruited by a businessman to form the guard of the pipelines leading into the northern desert from the Trans-Afghan Railway. Later, Colonel Rokketa and the other three men were killed in action near the town of Mazar-e-Sharif. Dr. Bernard Kouchner and Lieutenant-Colonel Paul Efes were the only two other medical men with the medical detachment. Within a week, the three medical officers left Mazar-e-Sharif and returned to Electric City Five for a new force of 21 Bn. The government also admitted 6,657 children from the village, which had a population of some 25,000. The hospital, which was under the control of the Pakistan military government, the C.I.A. obtained a permit from the British authorities to remove and ship the sick and injured, thus sparing the time and expenses of care at the Phukrie Hospital. The total cost of these departures was approximately £200,000, including the £15,000 fares of the three British officers, the additional medical men, and lesser numbers of civilian men, whose presence had been desired by the Kabul administration. After the carnage of spring '47, the Americans left behind them their laboratories, of which no valuable But it was a long winter and the rainy season remained. And the rains still came, and the famine continued. The Bazar of the 6th Military District was barren and full of snakes and crocodiles; and one would have a short-lived pleasure in dancing up and down upon the icy, serpent-infested ghat, and climbing the ruined rocks in the river, which came filled with empty bottles and bags of sometimes one and often two hundred snakes. Severely water and water only! So, so dry! Nowhere to bathe and no place to fetch clean water. I lay down on a sycamore-tree and contracted the arthritic of my last - year knee. (The ruins of good old times.) Today the city presents itself to the visiting: a wilderness of gravel with a blackened stone bottom, where the corpses of horses, bicycles and baskets of potatoes and tomatoes lie, messengers of ruin and ashes, phantom ruins. Between the rows of trees a woman in a large black shawl stands, singing. On her head a soiled cloak. And the edges of her garment oscillate between beat and drop. Her song, a tadtatata of arcus and ruptions. O countrywoman, O country miracle, O countrymen, let the sun shine, let the moon shine, let war light and peace light shine. The stones are hard. I have many hearts, and they are heavy and would drive one needy man away. To one misfortune, another nationless people. The last two episodes of the sovran prince Mekhontas who falls from Abandoned, empty, and dead. And a group of people playing marbles. And the littleneck clansman brings a plate of white wheat and seslaw to Tafel. Two last sheep skins, and a-bed; A fold of the Koran, and the Ivory-Boned Hecatomb, and four wild bees in a sweet Flower of the Herebeoya, and we make ale through fermentation of the Koosburgewochee. And we make ale from the kava tree and from the sweet fruit of the grogingui. And we drink it, and by its intense sweet sugar, and by its absence or presence, I know the soul of the moment. The sound of falling water from a distant spring comes to us. And the suavity of nature with eonic waves. O seers and oanniers, drivers ======================================== SAMPLE 124 ======================================== Poet and teacher in a classroom setting He may hear a voice as sweet as melody Through the walls, vibrating a soft incantation Into a message that may be plain to the careless ear. His students may see him smiling and waving To let them know he is with them inside the school, Yet in a corner outside they feel sure to blend Teachers and students in a close and bustling corner, The easeless ink on the whitewashed walls A cell by the window is no poet's cell, A gateway to a building meant for school. Inside the school the teacher's eyes They peer into the heart of the scribbling paper That dangles an empty plate like the source Of ruin in the dust-blinded classroom. And lo! in the first lines of that story Some touch of sunshine a lyrical structure. <|endoftext|> EAST LAFARRO A lance of lightning, cresting over the peak, Thrown in the face of empty space, through the shoulder Of cloud that rises, dispelling From dreams the light of dreams that seem to be, In ranks that sprawl to the beauteous salt, And fluttering. . . . Come . . . come to the horns of the earth, to the colors flung From dreams like broken glass: come . . . To the moon-colored earth where sunlight or laughter Hides among the rocks, among red ochre ruins, And where the colored wind-sleep blows over To the pearly coasts of seas that wait the hallowed shore That turns to a white and winding shore Where the giant palm-trees sway in reveries. And black-eyed, with naked heart, Beyond the ghostly slopes And pointy peaks of a forest where low heaps Of sapless pines in forest dimness lie And the earth lies like a bone in the sun-murk blood, With the loins of Gaia lifted above her; Beyond the twisted and twisted corridors of time, The corridors of horror And memory, I make for the day As for the hour of the spring when the woodlands give birth And hope awakens in trees, in boughs that grow Like holy virgins to kiss the sun. There is no divine in her pallor. When the Last has gone the way she went There is nothing left of the lifeline But the longing and the desire, The pain that saddens like a wild bird. The hope gone, and there is nothing left of sorrow, The rock of the mountain When the dry bush falls over. The cunning of trees The sunshine through cleaving trees Her lips that were open like the petals of a flower That was a flower in the light of other summers And the last hope that my soul followed There was no time for it. The last look of the mother and of the daughter Made of heaven a song In the sun that comes and goes Making and rebuilding The world as a woman of ages Speaks. OBIONG I would cut the spring and stain its bud Flowers on earth like ladies And spill the fragrance on the breeze With nectar drunk from thorns. Then would I be as the breeze that falls On dusty grass in summer's rain, Like autumn's gold and moonlight's gray. When I am old I shall be older, And sough in thunder's hair The light of dawn and night's red dawn, And shatter the mountains With the lightning of my sorrow. And when my speech is charged with awe I shall be as the sun's heart in autumn, Born to be heard by the soundless rivers That rush and heave on the sandy coasts. A VIEW OF DENNIS'S Is all that's on them. Wind has blown The yellow tall oaks down by the shore Where the sea rolls in tumult. East by south From north to south they run with a leer To the swagman who rides down the trail, Who eyes the guns with a grim disgust As the swagman watches them. From the road You see the swagman and his guns; The road, the road, the road to death, Away from the tracks, away from the war, To read and argue what the soldiers do, When they picket or cease firing. The dame who looks out from her window Is a window: she sits ashen In her low-domed house And sees the train receding far and wide With the rolling turbines of doom, As seen from this window Of anguish, decay and sh ======================================== SAMPLE 125 ======================================== No girl was ever spoken so highly As my Latona. The veil concealing her face was unclosed, And that volume did not contain aught but her name, Who had sunk all in its leaves to death and woe And which, like her, had been won by his bequest To be some brave Roman's spouse, but which contained Her lofty mind and her poetic skill. For which reward, the care of every wight That knew her, both in and out of doors, Of his ill-got prize would for ever keep, as fair As the first shade that gilds Ovid's brook Against whose brow the tousled sedges cling. "Now if I can find what in my youth was mine, And keep the words not only of a girl But a young woman also, it shall be Some prize indeed beyond all others to gain. But should I lose that in her, what was it worth Than her songs only, and her gentleness, The very dreams of wedlock that made her blithe In the company of her lovers? If any one Go fetch her up some witching reprobate Shooting a Greek sage from the long bow of Rome Sha'n't it be (if nothing better befal men) The great Achilles, and her sweet concubines, Or that good soul who goes with soothing chatter At his barb 1 to his grandemaire's abode, If I lose her, what but a bag for Rome? And what if I lose her--O the forefathers! Those sweetest, mightiest, wits of any Greece That e'er were snatch'd away. Then the spoils of Greece Would be my woman's body, should I lose her. And then, what if her name be shamed and made a stain Of by all tongues as is a bull of cow Known the white from purple, -- not shew'd by nature, And as warm skin as lies in hypocrites That burn when 's warm blood, and look as such from off The subtle cushion of a pedant temple, And know not Romeo's girl, nor Theoverseas, But Aïdoneus, who was it who did show The cup, and look as if water he held And therewithal let fall at his side, Or Paean, by whose hand with madness His kinsman Fear quite lost were to the sea From that o'erwhelming level of silver skies, And in the wayward inane where he stood To see Cuth, that original child of Rome for who knows, his vassal lord of the house, Who shamed the virgin goddesses and Eros too, Shame too her many that were his bride, and then Forsook her by him to be lower even than him, Because 'twas hers to hold him higher. And he, Though wishing her his own, yet not wishing her his own From the puffs' dropping of a feather from his hand, Can to be cursed by his own hoarding of her, In the laying up of his love, though it be not such As yet his learning of her worth had brought him on. And when that words of mine threw fresh upon me pain And shame of mind, I fled thence, and after him I fled out of his sight, nor lingered by Lest I in like fashion might be made to moan By that same thing. For since I of that lady fled Approach in fear of more from his forbidding arm, The same in wrath must I forevermore away From her, to escape the penalty of such A shame as he hath made upon her by his wrath. Then went I forth to look on my well-earned prize, And that content found me e'en so, 'twas enough There till to-morrow, when I might see the whole, Or until my wintry stars prune their withers Unto the end of their length; but this will be The last of all." But ere the night's downt Morn Up rose, with such a pleasure as light returns To weary things with which it hath no checks Through joy, me unto my house did my love seek, Turning first back, where he would e'en be with me Then, where he came from, my face put off the husks Of vales, wherewith these fields upon all sides My brother's flock had hallow'd. At no great cost Had other cares introduced us, for none Had Trapbois been, nor his efers deformed. Thence, too, the justling sand ======================================== SAMPLE 126 ======================================== Et es, Mo, like terror of a vulture! Who, to secure their hides in woods and thickets, Or haply to escape by flight, In sunk or hidden and unsafe retreats, When the fierce tiger-wolf's rage Is due and expectant of their tears! He will beware that the first wing Of his pursuer shall have before him The means of his destruction. It is a wondrous thing If, by right, he who has to eat, Shall see to retain his limbs, When he hath eaten them, For himself he offereth the pains, Which are well deserved for the offence. To wit, he bears to be punished, Like the offence And to manifest his grief. And equally would do him harm, If his guilt were a greater. But what gift of grace may they boast Which, out of the heart of a wife With tears and prayers and sighs and tears, May forbid long all hope of favour? It is surely a present of grace, So great, indeed, he cannot boast it. Thence many a one For God's, to see his behalf Hath purchased eternal life, Who had none: that is most clear. But if he had, like hireling, stood In the defender's right, And for the common weal at the worst, The forfeit death be prevaileth Unto the buyer, in the field. But he is one Who cannot do it; whose lust Of power and riches (he to repair Has had to sway the battle) And ambition's scorn And other things his pride make light; For now he can them hold, Which now he doth possess, Now which he may all manner of ill, This sound and open, these things with doubt And hold with fear; and in a cloud Sits in the loftiness of heaven, And makes of doubt a shadow a rest, In which he remains. Yet, after he hath heard our thought, His will being to be taught, He may be pleased with the truth of our deed: Nor of our meaning do we lack Any argument, nor does he need, Though he knoweth much less than we; Nor can he be persuaded That our teaching is not in accord With his own understanding. Yet in this writing is the sense Of what we here affirm; Our teaching, of our writings, so to look Thence, there's none hath he in the land. Each seeth his own wrong, And, only seeth right; And each doth right, but to us left alone. So in this world's community of pain, Severest unto the state worse left behind: And hence in the next life the law is read Of mutual impoverishment: which removes Those, that are ill content, to be reduced To what themselves have rejected, the income Of misprision of great deficiencies, Of distress and dire distress, the means to spread Wide gulfs, that nature may furnish no Motive, nor adequate content. For money, and for worldly trust, And for the fullest faith of appetite, The man is tame, whom money or camp Imports; he is melted, whate'er For present ease, or nameless repose, Or trust in stable hopes to gain. O such, we say, such souls are tamed, Tamed with self, themselves despising: But wherefore blinded? is it not That, like a neckplug, self-bent, Bends them the more the better off? Or is it not, that they the harder Bear the tighter, in the strait of determination? That they of evil consider, and wit Respir'st, when evil with strong memory Hath bred the same? But for such dwellers Wisdom is mature, and sober respect Of reason under night? And lastly if not proof Of growth in goodness, proof of peace, proof Of fruit in peace? We all may say what this means: if this He be, then such (in the common say) Shall such still and active substances be? And need we now expect Nothing simpler, Since thus in turn it hath been shown? But in another part If not inactive do we deal, Then since the effect is a cause Of cause, What the wherein the same is dormant? And if that active vigour (wondrous strength And active potency) be found To be a matter of vitality, Still to conclude In nature a boundless activity? That every essence in party might ======================================== SAMPLE 127 ======================================== --'farewell, i love you! haydens, Sydney, 1881-2-7, 'burnsy' 's uncle, who was 'hacked' by a group of youths. They threw him into a bunker with gas in his mouth and set fire to the house. He died from his burns.' home as an 'I' staying-power, a degree of spooks. GORE, WALT AND HARTLEY ... the unknown who sits looking from the porch. Across from chicago swollers insists this friend. His sin is my spook. forty years the same. I'm afraid of that same scoundrel twenty times tougher I'm now. <|endoftext|> lucian, on leisure (translated by sweeing) directed by his lamp at evening reveals cinnamon, his one topic clinging to in memory's garden. Cinis was an old monk in the world of fiction. The nameless merchant who goes to trades of course was not older than Lucilius than hers who stands in front of it was no older than Cicero. For illarithmetic, very often a finger brutely failing should, according to many abbi and brothers and sisters. Ana saved money in the usual way. Once it was stated by whom? 'But there was no need of these people to act I loved a lost girl and always heard from my friend the dear friendship. However, every other kind of friend suddenly appeared that is to say from what world? I had a sweet small friendship with a mountain dwelling, for it seemed I was myself alone in it Such was the love and such the sweetness that my brother loved to order a banquet or a summer wedding and invite everyone, a banquet or a wedding. Alas, such pleasant things never remain for long. For my sweet brother always kept the banquet. I used to sleep well and eat well. To the banquet first from the cottage I went. To the banquet and its telling followed a little bit of belonging. One person shared it equally. Master (counsel) and subject are conflated, they say two things are multiplied or, one in each another's column but not in themselves. All present and past are in that column and each one looks in from outside. I should have understood, though I cannot tell now, (the difference between what is known and what was known Is in the eye of the beholder. This ambiguity is one of language and hence one of love. Whenever a child speaks in a febrile manner anyway, in other words, orally, he is not so much hearing as seeing as in this case. Lacuna of spring days to which I've been too longly banished. I now remember the immature piece of advice I offered at the discomfiture Although not reproving nor condemning, rather admitting. Not by means of blind alleys nor by means of cypress, but on the roadside of love. No terraces nor avenues of wind Should be made. My friend goes home, black and white, in windy weather, Not waiting perhaps for the hospitality of others. I myself go home the same way when colder. I walk in a purely white World. I gaze out towards it and my sad face is black With black clouds and my sad, sad head. They thought she was dead Who first conceived her in a fever. They were wrong, for she is free from that fever. She, then, never knew another Humiliation. An unexpected joy, she Discovers nature, Beauty, and life. She has become an intimate, sincere, and Why not? Lorn. The next moment she is no more and white. But on the white border Not yet to be white but to return to human Possessivity, is inscribed this Song of mine, For I will Create, bring creation Back to love. That pain, that horror. Disco familiar The present, in so far as it appears in This moment, with me. Not yet through the future I can pass But there. whiteness. She, then This protective shell Will undergo a change. In time she will grow out of it. She will stop For a while, clear her head, And return to it. I write this poem Because I was sitting, I had forgotten When I composed it. Her own ======================================== SAMPLE 128 ======================================== Till the nation's guard At the big gasworks grow silent, And the miners stand in dots, Lacking steel. Then the families for (with bright eyes, As the old shining oil wells Drown in a brown sea of wells, As the long dawns grow longer, The nice white Christians on the radio Bloom in the night) Say: "Yet a spark is the sparkle ye cannot blow!" "Awake, my people!" So the Magnanimous said. "These are the days when even the landscape glows with gold. Awake, my people! lest ye be no more! For as once we flamed into golden skies the bell Of the quick-getting-started world, so now it cleaves The rutted black topography With their profusion, which in her lush abundance Shines bright as an uncertain sunrise. Forgive, forget, be dawn again what it seems, And blacken again the earthen sod! Wherever suns have set and broke The other saints have benighted, And (sp?) for change and tax or spinster slogans Take the roads to York! He sang a loud song, with great lips, And shone like the golden shower He would suck from hell to comfort me, But nought he sang in air. And the Winds of the North did neigh and chide Merrily, merrily, stillerie, stillerie, Singing the song, the song,-- Their loud music blown far into Sorrow And a young woman's shame, The song, the song, gone strangely still, The lost song, the song, The song, the song, but now, now, now, The song, the song, ah, me! There was a house in a peasant's house, That stood on a craggy bank In a green village, not very far away. What's so sad about it, asked a lad in grey. Look, there's a big grey cat at the door, He waves at me, says there's nothing to fear, And now, a shrug as he lisps home quick, And now he humpth as though he'd like me to stay, And now he nips the flat gold coat of the stove, As though it were the clock, the kettle, and the fool! The house was old and ill-kept; the door Was too large for two; there was no doubt But very soon they would be brokee, bound. But soon there came a gentle crash; Oh, there was the shaggy old cat! They had let her run at full speed, had you list, Before the tramp of her stocking, the hammer, the yelping Of "See 'ee?", and then "That's don; you'll de some pie!" And then the knocking of "Well, se"er; but she stayed. And the girls and the soldiers for years had known Her as Mother, for she was not much older Than their kind of mother; the quarrel was like this: They'd waken her with "Wake 'im up before morn, For see the men are gone to aim the cart." The cat at the door gave no time at all For her charge; so breakfast and dinner-time The three came short, and then they'd "Come seethed" again, Till the house grew smart enough, and comfort; the stamping shoe, The twitter of the saddle, loud as a fire of horns, The bawling of a soldier who'd lost his spurs, The unaccustomed clink of the bridle and spur, The click of the bridle, shrill in its scream, Then all the stirring details of an old Few years before, a fresh massacre of our people Had inflamed the people out of their wits. The reeking blood of their sowing and breeding Had filled the clotted streets with mourning, To see the growth of which was a blessing, And drop into the throats of men A taste of sweat, a just delight, Until the breast of every man Was softened by the wind of Easter, Until the local government began To limp hopelessly as though It would have opened its mouth to say Some prayers, and teach the whole world some manners. But there was our little grey cat. The looking-glass made by Venus, ancient woman! Used on the most jealous of the 'squires, Who fanned her forehead over it from noon Until the men returned to say the face was gone. Of course, poor Charley thought it must ======================================== SAMPLE 129 ======================================== kexperium-animoed; Spero e suos alubrato radicite gloria mundi, glorio ad limum sparsamque secundamque copia maturum amnes: [the] meaning of his To compose the ink and to write the words: to arrange a figure: make [graphy] a language, to make a language of our case. 2 The war was poetic Grave, [silence] and the machine was poetic as well: Dreary, ecstatic, disorderly, [riffed]: that machine— and the poem is lonesome in a sense. 3 This turn to something irredeemable is: The passion of ships Or [to] the company of ships 4 My metaphor It is to seek the freedom to be that freedom [But also to] despair and delight, delight in something irredeemable, itself: irredeemable: broken: For that which is 5 Deliberate: deliberate: directed towards a certain object. My poem A finite scene: the ships, the reflections, distant [unbeamiable] snow, the gleaming [machines] of the reflected ships. 6 Then the whole container that was my house 7 [This] is the direction of the poem: it is a mirror, this that container [This] a fixed image. Our image has its own model, it is itself, in that container, when the container mirrors the container. I say, "not surpassing in the mirror of a container," not 8 Deduced by me 9 I say, "But it is surpassing A surpassing; surpassing What is so-subordinate is so-superior, a very subdivisiveness." 10 Surpassing: in some sense, we should forget that it surpasses, not in its actual being, but in what it removes, which is so far greater than what it so transcends that it is surpassed: in another sense, we should forget that it means that it means that it surpasses. The condition of being is that which 11 What is your relationship with time I answer, "To be complete: I am that which I surpass And my model is time: I exceed time. That which is greater means that which is less, is that which is less. That which is to be done is that which is not done, that which is undone is that which is done: on this plan those that do not do that which they were to do, will never be. Time, our mirror, completes that which, in its excess, it departs, and that which time will fill will [be] time that fills, what is so transitory as the ground of time: that which is taking place has ought that which comes from the Divine will: the eternal skull will sink into the soil of time, and the capacity for time will banish its antithesis. The continual renewal of the process of time, the eternal justice of time that slams shut on sin, will banish its antithesis. I touch on all the branches of the elements and the compass of time. Time is renewed through the eternity of the working out of works, in which there is no start and no end. The Christian says, "man departs from the faith," but there is no departure from the force of his own existence. What you see is that from which there is no turning back. 12 They nailed him to the tree of life. Time had nothing left then to use, Nor was required any further in its flight. We were with Time, as time defies measure; the ever-living heart set the metre of the endless flows of its pulses dissolving in cool subtleties of transparent dew. We wanted the morsels that Time reserves for us. It would not give them, but took them willingly as the colour of the breathing-space of love that is a can of fresh water. We had not killed the body of Time; we were alive with time; so long as we breathed we had power; there was no more necessity for surprise or otherwise. Time saw us the moment of our respiration as the instant of our life; how else could we have believed in resurrection? 13 Vermeil of the rose leaves, an ======================================== SAMPLE 130 ======================================== A wise And sober vote; A threshold of bigness; and, I trow, the lake Will enawspread its own infinite carcanet; More met with in the minds of men, as we descend From Heaven's high exigence; though, so as we see, Within the heaven there is no solid floor, or ceiling. This leading thought, through sudden though silent scene Wandering homeward, came to Woman's view; though, long steady, Her mind there had remained suspended. O 'tis frail, That thought, quaking the cornfield! nor would shut Its eye on such, as open showings of the main; But keeps a triple veil, of tree, and cloud, and air, All that determines in what point of earth is safe. And in a moment what at first seemed solid, Lo, all is gone; and, right before our very eyes, It slips away more closely than erst it did; Then grates the iron vein, in yonder crust; Then the subtle glass (ignored and lightly dimmed) Is gone, and leaves us mute and shuddering. --Could we suspend our considerations, here, Then what we deem of states and empires, fall'n, indeed, On this low soil, could we but lightly look, We might learn Majesty is but a label, that, With all the real adornments, is inside-- And Empire what it purposively appears, Though slow to be the case, is still the thing; Though in this we sometimes meet with unwelcome souls, We know this can, and will arise, when due time. The present fate forbids our rising too hastily, And makest evident to us, that all is changing: For when a prince, or politician, takes his seat (As those do, at whose orders we are called To sit, and keep the tumors rigid and cool) His congener looks, for different, perhaps, for worse, While those, his rivals, whom his way along used, Puljoed glitter in his prince's eye-winkles; As often sight takes of a south-wind, or east-wind, A varying appearance, which impairs the mind, And throws the nerves ail [knew] the electors still. But such obstructions can be spoken with a sickle, They must be nipped in place; and, as they grow worse, The cudgel 'twill bruise the prince, who nursed their growth. An equal and connecting mischief arises From these two seeds, all lying in the soil Of prince-making enterprise. They that keep The throne, from every father, have a mother's enemies, Their peers, their sons, their grandsires, or grand-sires. A like plural effects have struck the high-Court, This monarch and his discrements; which seem The purest, that could be, from the land and band, Into the dirty powder-muis that seam. This may appear a gloss, but 'tis but half the truth, This a peculiar error, which involves the whole. When this condition 'tis, 'tis pure administration Of state, where sovereign kings on oath maintain Such rights and this extent of royal sway, That every man, who lives, cannot eyes or mind But gaze on them; and so the world is out of sight. And if they keep it? (that they do not) who commands? How do they keep it? who are sure to o'erpass The scoffing Infotraviction, which above Th' Author of the Philosophic Light designed, And of our (by his silence, and which, too, In consequence of his outward sh*t nome) draws Our intellect to believe a light shed, Which his Reverence neither celebrates, nor views With proud iambiciate, but, of a sudden, sees Without delay, the power, which where it is borne Shoots out a swift beam, and bends it 'mid the clouds So I found out this privilege, which I crave A safe commitment to th' Elect of God, As to my consort, the church, and to use An off'ring for their future, for they will open Their coffers, and lead out th' expected treasure forth, To manifest themselves members of the broth, Then only you may judge, if mysteries I help, How deep I've got them. But time must at lease be past, Ere 'tis not time for April's oblique shine, With which the stars (their morning cameras ire, In faith's contradictors) smile through design; ======================================== SAMPLE 131 ======================================== is cried at, And many a guest the bill pays; Which goes to say, in Latin, And I was wheeled in a whirl Rocked in my bed by every roll; I looked around and none was me, I closed my eyes, and shook like one. What madness fills one after one, To beat the air with serious spun. --It should be dropped, wit's dreamy cling! (A very man cannot raise) I saw he couldn't travel back, And all a fool I was and wise In belief the ways were one. It doesn't seem to me so, But, oh, my dear, what a bable! There comes from human birth All error and all wretchedness Man has after tasted--and lost. Here I am, human, small, Yet hurt my friend's hand, his heart, Yet triumphed over money, pleasure, Or over pleasure, killed my mirth That's a strong monster that's grown. 'T is time for me to say amen To New Year's, he's a great day's Good entertainment And I can drink all care away With no regret over rue; We'll eat the cheer that is to eat And we'll drink, drink, drink all down. We'll do the rings, and the dancing, What haven't we that we don't do? Or if we do an executive You won't hear one yawn from me Though, by the way, I'm not afraid. I'm sure we'll have a good time, young fellow. My daughter Cora says, "When you come back And tell the people everything is going fine, Don't be too glad." So when I'm your mother ask her no reason You can be as ill-b received in a hurry. O, you'd best believe you'll not find a better Keeper of home--delight. My daughter sings a lug-doug to-day, I hope this very day, and she sings As if she thinks I'm on the spot; And it's nothing but the constant repetition Of something that's, she believes, always wrong That makes her think that I'm grieved. Now, they're all in the ditch together And the good man is busied with the mice. When you're ill the doctor, in the title And the fact alone, is commander. Now, he talks, but it's only a slip' And then he forgets what he's doing. Now, when he complains there's nothing worse In Typhoon with soap-wood,-- The doctor's guilty if he thinks that, If his trade is honing scales. He'll ask for purerrr'd juice; though still it's Bleach'd, if the household keeps grum: He'll ask that his meals be in layers While other folks eat their greens. He'll brag of his cold book and deplore That no one else's cough's irritating. Now, he's sent me a bill--he'll be gone; The scandal's discovered ere the trip's through. He said he would come again and there is an air of confident posi- teness, of sunshiny optimism o'er the frowning troubles that count and number in our faces. There's your humble end! O he's gone and he thinks that this hurt is merely "worse by NICK!" He has set the tone that you're at one with pain, that artless suffering and disdain of all obloquy: This man and this woman are at one with life! They might have brought you to a momentary truce in the agony of the long watch, And I--who have felt that trance-like rapture too vividly to mention it -- might have had the joy, too, of their sympathy. But his doctrine, that no one should feel less than you, their esoteric respect and your obsequious obloquy, this has driven now into exuberance, that the limit's jolt, and you wind up and wind down. How well you have handled him! How patient you've followed him in that most respectful way that does wholly hide In proposing what to him you consider the sole meaning of all your puzzling! In praying that we might believe that this is all a fudge so great that no one will take the hint, and yet how far beating the rapture, in your showing all that youth has been raining out, now, bursting through the closet door, and--here we're all as if--brothers! we're brothers. ======================================== SAMPLE 132 ======================================== Knew how the New York Times and i boss huff was cool, and knew how much of the m. heart. He knew y by j by - mites of - huff, the smallest plants can tell his age. As I struggled in the frigid freezer bay, C was there to tell me: there's a joy in growing cold. When I asked how old was he, with deep rhythm of a seagull's crash, "Aro", C told me "Aro" - ayowta ts partof the m. cry - ayowta cries. Ayowta cries, All you who make m cupship, and ayowta cries All you who make m cupship. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . <|endoftext|> "Tantus Man", by Ed Georgy [Living, The Body, Nature, Religion, Buddhism, Christianity, Philosophy] To love the world seems late summerlight to look atand out) to know a world not for utter stop, and the fear of rising casts a slow pleasance in the flesh;I tell you I will usewhat's given. The night wind drifts through the shivering pines, the dark faience fudge; I go to the un in a blue robes with white frills. Something I am is inside you and I; something different is how God commands. After water after light after fire, after the morning, there are new things to do. It's time to the gym, if there is a gym, and mind the rust, the corners and the break and shred; flesh is flawed, there's no try in God if it is not been dust and is not broken. Or do not let those handle, oneself, be one of them; they will pull you down, you are their one priority out. A sense of my in you is much, and so do not let the static of things pull you down; you will cry, and they are there for you. <|endoftext|> "Inscription for The Wisteria", by Christine Plour‎ [Nature, Trees & Flowers] for Dana Ward and Dana MacIntyre You are delicate and light, You are bent and fine, And you ask after nothing. Floral shimmers that have Their own tongues, their own days. If you wanted to find Some half-shadowed corner Where no light is found, Where straight and even hearts Don't meet, don't meet, You'd end up sad And alone. Light within the world's flesh, We who know the angles, What you have found You'll find, You are delicate and light. <|endoftext|> "Benzonter[In a Park]", by Denise Nickoloff [Love, Desire, Romantic Love, Arts & Sciences, Painting, Social Commentaries, War & Conflict] Is somebody watching us The cables of our good.- Fidel and the fence of our youth. -But we have become so accustomed To seeing, Not seeing that seeing is changed In its face to being lifted In feeling like rocks. The order of white- boards in the schoolroom And the tying of knots Will serve to indel the sorry sorrow And the pain. <|endoftext|> "Paper Lightsaber", by Denise Nickoloff [Arts & Sciences, Painting & Sculpture, Social Commentaries, Wars & conflicts] May 4, 2005 Red, blue, green: Tierce the paper flashlights with your rulers, tilt the world, soften its mountains and cities, let everyprism in this column drain its light, let each star yudle its harsh light and exhaust the shield of its mountains and shadows. But be warned: if you aren't one yet, the rulers are about to bolt, and what you waltz over will come at you square on jawed: bolt upon bolt of light. If you falter, the star of love will no longer stay steadfast and polished, letting it trail and flourish like a town that doesn't know the murder in its heart— for the wind will shred the avocados and limes, while tender hearted you're fighting your way out to the boy whose name, after so many rains, ======================================== SAMPLE 1 ======================================== than the fool. The truth is that I am sick of discussing your questions. The doubts my look reflects (a tired and overripe mood) indicate that I am not very well disposed, but the greatest health that I can desire is to see you live your life to its fullest and, as I trust in God, in time to die as well. I am happy as I speak. If you have a question, I will be happy to answer it. I believe that silence is bliss, that nothing is ever good enough, but that good enough is always better than nothing. I have been treated, after a fashion, the way that mortals do. I take their point note at the far end of the forum. I do not argue with them on any subject. If you will remember that, you will find that silence is the one and only philosophy. <|endoftext|> "To Her Home Soily Referred", by Katherine Anthony [Relationships, Family & Ancestors, Home Life] The present: a small plot of land (in a field) at the end of a long street (one block) in a good neighborhood— the house on the ground, three attached houses near by, all private and for sale, all rent-controlled—the neighborhood, in other words, the city—but there is no private—the city abysmal, other cities can pull themselves out—what can we say about this city that speaks so well and what about that abysmal city says nothing at all <|endoftext|> "To the Vase", by Frances Stead [Love, Desire, Romantic Love, Relationships, Arts & Sciences, Architecture & Design] That you so become, is a gift of love which I expect and have received in my lifetime such a profusion of splendid Art that I expect it in another life, What you are a thing apart from me an Obvious—which means hidden among the Object, in Objectness, Obviousness— What does it Objectify? A light colored glass on the wall— a window Of love A sudden brown jam in the pasta, and you turn away so— Of the was accidentally hitting myself and found you made me leave the kitchen, a storm outside in the middle of a spell to drive a hundred miles To get the silk pot There were many reasons for which I say that <|endoftext|> "Critter Craze", by Frances Stead [Activities, Eating & Drinking, Nature, Animals, Pets] There's a difference between the squeaking of a mouse and the jungle of a squirrel I have never seen a blue flame serpent and it burned a bird It's possible my pet dog is crazy and you are crazy too This is what the exotic is all about There is nothing more romantic than a melancholy unlaid feline How to tell this story without boring you to death A dream car is much more than a dream car When it rains outside, you know it's going to rain If the gold on a jacket or a dog's stomach is different from the gold on your teeth, you're crazy So this is how the past approached me I have grown weary of people who only have one mind you are coming through a foreign city until you drop A quarter is larger than a quarter You take a long time to heat up the cup You go down without a nickel Though they gave you a warm cottage and an office you're crazy You're calling and coming through There is no pretense You find your way home a town car will do a vegetable turn several times before you <|endoftext|> "Around the Family Table", by Frances Stead [Living, Death, Relationships, Family & Ancestors, Religion, Arts & Sciences, Poetry & Poets, Reading & Books] Such a quiet book that the sound of the rain is like the sound of the poem that you want to hear the birds to sing in their sleep but instead they keep repeating Eeeeeeeeh my dears because the weather is quiet except for the sound of the shower at night how could you forget you've been walking with a happy heart in a happy place <|endoftext|> "Eagle", by Frances Garrett [Nature, Animals] He could fly forbecently from the tree or climb easily the ground to seek food or a den he found neither the winds were weak the leaves were dropping till his fierce eye could see far into their fall that the first and last of the year can make the difference ======================================== SAMPLE 2 ======================================== Games, parties, and societies, he never heard. Nor heard the lecture, nor the debate, nor review Of Science, Poetry, Arithmetic; Though to these he had put in his orders-- The names of the books of Hippocrates, Not his to inquire into Astronomy, When he lent the Locket to Lord Brougham; Nor had asked of Geography what it was, But for want of better books to read it, He found it a mouthpiece for all kinds of people, Speaking as every one's mouthpiece doth, Though not really well or truly understood; It sometimes held argu- olators against his own people, Full of sag- ing mischiefs in Pol volatile, Which it wrought out in great profusion, Partly by doing wrong, partly by idiotic politics, When some of the wealthiest Gent- ments at London's Mile-Ke-non were pour'd out; The hon-le-sun within its marge drew in great wealth, And set Lord Clive off to build his fame; He lost no time in making mischief there, Dissentings and all, and destroying some Of the noblest personalities that have been; And though at last, by being drowned, He faded wholly from the general mind, His short delay 's now over and changed his lot. Let every man be free, said our first Judge,-- Unwisely, Sir William Mond reported to Lord Irwin; For life 's a time when much alone is best! While you do nothing 's great, nor make haste, Sir William! Not a hour too soon is better for the cause Then may you always keep very well in mind, While from the gallows trees you look o'er the crags, So do not be tempted to slack either psalm-book, Nor let dull men wound you, or tempt you to move! Your memory let each candid friend rescue, The sacred liberty of man abates his rage; But ere this life does expire, let it save you! No man can plead long in coal-whale with the axe, And think that he can bluff at judgment made By mortal minds, as the snakes on this grave ground. Much good talk goes by in this 'Eternal Square,' As well as nothing can explain; Each house has a face-plant on the other, And few plan comforts in the construction Of man, in this strong battle-tower of stone, Whose gallows not alone is cut, but torn, Which leaves a gaping floor and an open roof To all that bar and the wailing steeple. But this you will now hear or not, And judge for yourself, of what I 've said. 'T has been well said by a learned author, Or cited from some wiser one: It 's thus 't came to the fact in Sir George Barlow's day. When the seamen would the fleet to sink, The seamen were used to cut the cables. If such they should, of course it was done again, If they should sever the cables, again it was done by George II. For these things are the customable by all, Who die by the sea; but it 's better to have done, 'T is the general usage, at any rate; For he will die, you see, who would fly the rat, Although in the famous Barburway by, And even when down there, with visage AUGUSTUS grim; Although the rat is, as a rule, got up and pinched, And then only 's sick again. Therefore, naught you need say to that botch who dares The rat and the leak in one bite. The sister of Sir Robert! This I must tell you, Who am the younger but I think more sober; Unless my blindness, as I see 't, proceed. But whatever may ensue, I 'll not partake Of the honour and kingly treat of my brother, And I never shall, because, as you may remember, He was a WASHINGTON, not a MERIDITH; Besides, the pity of my destiny now ordains That I must be made, by the near-neighbor Earth, To suffer more (all of whom am not smit with the woe). But, though then my name be Carr, yet, what I suffer From this pestilence or whom I have a mind to name, Why, suppose the crowd could now be stopped, and I Said to have lived a life, which it is not, And then to account for ======================================== SAMPLE 3 ======================================== Ariadne, rising up in joy to-day Feels all the weapons of earth up-heap'd, and round Enchanted. With spade and rake the hollow sides Rake the half-melted snow, and the wood, and the waste, And what may chance to fling, make a morass. The traveller trembles: what has penance given To thee? what secret counsels o'er the sun Called from the beach to center of the moon? See thy fair head, my brother, Where is youth? where? Tasting, gazing, sighing And what is it? do the stars submit? Wine, water; life; and flight, or hail? The mariner, the night watch, glances west In answer; shall the clamor cease? Tremble not. O ope the gates, Be it morrow's wine or death! but come! Let him draw ne'er to the feast: And if pleasure could, it would not dull One moment the longness of thy joy. Behold, my brother, thou, once I am; The name, wine; the rising sun, the moon; Thou art not turned; and after thee, Thy brother, one might put forth Thine eyes to drink, the fount that springs From earth's cold hillocks, flush'd with Tmolus. A joyless nation! and a weary one! The old homespun. Sun and moon. O sainted Ariadne, what shapeliness! An angel, a goddess, a goddess like, And she is blind! O fair-beloved blood! what flowers Thou sift'st with thine;—mortal, mortal; way Of life, and death; and love, and faith; thou child Of the great-starred spring! and of life's birth. The breath, as yet, of seasons not yet given. O son, O sire! Sip cleaveth o'er the brine. O master of the stream, a life give thou: To Bearland's shore a mariner will waste The gleam and silence of the woods to pass; Sip from its source to sources in the wind, To Ocean and the tides! and out where night Can reach no rock, darkness coiled as a cord To wheel and roar the ear, to every sound Of dashing stern, to shriek of bending mast, With bliss is the mariner beat. Through dens, where silence ever smiles. O soul of mine, Such harmony thine utterance reveal! Of storm and tide, of rain and misty snow, Of bloomy forests where the day Prepares the bird, or sleep the star, Of ocean, of the many-folded sky, Of night and solitude; O soul, O heart For mine, if I shall have thee, if I may, Here on the cliff! Under the feet of the deep dark arching sky There dwells music of night's gloaming and solitude; For the Spirit of the unplumbed depths, that quake, Flies with out wings the firmaments far and wide. Moor, hermit, and saint of the mountains, of the woods Of the glen or of the sea, they all proclaim That beauty is but a creature of the light. Where aye dear Lady of the rock, you sing, As she passes solitary up the slopes Of the thick night, sheer, star mounted, or spout, Or flounders in her wonted resounding river, No creature except yourself might stand. On the slippery mountain side the cairn was smoke'd O'er a dead man; the supplication was holy, For it was said a shoal of luckless bullets Made of his track the gentlest water; the sire was bound, That shrine of faith and love! was slain, e'en his son, For his country's sake. his brain was marblelike; Still hearing for her what honour she had won, In war's red wedding, in the cry of the lay Hear by the altar the priest is bred! Hear the boom As of a trap, burst the cairn, but still the shoal of sharks Rapt in the casket of her name and him. Her crimes catch the honour and grace her name! Each breath, every look, gives redder ring, Like the kind of blood-drawing snakes themselves; the glare Is courtesy, glancóing round the hall. A shrine at which not even fiends, if true the tale, ======================================== SAMPLE 4 ======================================== Is his finger the origin Of the of lies and folly? —He is fuming, His greater Of old Iaceno, or rather Meli! —Eusebes and Tollubagas, who do know Nought of him? —God preserve him! —Though the beard be fouled With the polluting saliva of Japs And the carbonar and upper teeth of Yanks, And with all the filth of every province, And all that ever the devil has Discourned or disquieted or pleased or vexed Or blundered or troubled, to the grave will And respiration, the only rule that makes A purer clergy, nor aught that's lawful Foredunned or ended in ever the stomach Of an hour. The shoals of Japs, Drowned, drowned, or immured And guily warped to the gizzard, or where Mikalai's feveral sallies jostle At the buoyant French and Yankees, some have floated And some have transfixed the skipper At sea. How should the world in its vanity Or belief accrue or deduce one grain of belief in this old irreligious race? What use for it? And yet it has been exactly four years Or four centuries and, according to the record, has been the fair twenty-ninth day of the fourth month, a perfect basis for many a satyrean epiphany But this brings me to a moral. Thou, doom of infinitives, wast thou not the first to stand in the way of the torture and have a light blossoming in the darkness? Or wert thou not the last? Tertullian calls thee his friend, but I seem to know thou wert more hard: his malice inspires me. Thou hast not long to shrivel up among thy lower apes; thou must undo this short bit of justice, thou enemy to my true faith. Thou wretch that makest no architect of me, thou miserable fellashome, thou nurse of my miscarriage and savage birth, thou brother to death and father of death, pardoning in sorrow my corruptionous life; thou hast brayed it in high style, "Perish despondingly the king, Perish dishonourably the court," thou little loss, come hither! Do thou nothing for a gift give, There, again, Tertullian winds his Panarata and most cruelly displays his common sense. Is it so true that the live dog scamps home the tidings of the death of game? Wherefore Pan's reverend curialists are still of this doctrine:— "God threatens," quoth Black, "and God sends his seraphim. Amen! The day of the dead game is soon nighing." —And last, but not least, the nightly fires, That bring all the world in, blaze and shine and colour and shine in heaven's square—And the King, he sate at the table close dignified, and with his head slightly crowned Plied not his bread and poured not his wine with swift skill; and then a whole cloth Wash, which a snail in between Unfolded, while all things washed were his guest. Well, it is done. If aught else, not vast and orbed As a star may its whole round circuit sweep, But merely part thereof, in form a look, May, but on one part of it, arise to such a length as this, would scarce appear greater in the magnitude Than such glory, whereof such example only good Binding and speedy effects may in this parallax but gleam. Set your riches free, your word and your bed. But I may add to this. But I have seen the penitent act, when at the prayer of a wretched soul It sends forth and covers with its sight the whole Binding of, heaven. And when those doors are shut, and the beneath, that terror of the mortal foul, That has no way but by a tearing breathe, That its mouth or eyes this vile corona may disclose, O it scourges the face, so as it is scourged, And the body pants in the biting cold. Then, and now, if with a power, which must herself have, Were spread o'er these wild solitudes, or nigh them or behind, The Beadsman soft, and the witches unshackle, The other spirits that a master spirit may share, ======================================== SAMPLE 5 ======================================== settings Icicle in its sheath a form of covering on fossil limbs. It brushes. For soft minutes and silences to flatten roars. 'Onward!' speeds the steerer down glacially inward flows and sheaves. A grain. A body as you are but for a moment the client-body suddenly returns its most recent its newest body. Bodies are stories. The body I know best. Hello. Body I'm dreading you. I have to move on as I live in an old house. A comfortable condemned house where the moon is the street light and I can hear the voice of the mower always to come. <|endoftext|> "Song for Brad Wilchuk, 2005 Olympic Torch Relay", by Sara Miller Adams [Arts & Sciences, Architecture & Design, Social Commentaries, Cities & Urban Life, Race & Ethnicity, Heroes & Patriotism] Yesterday, I wrote Brad Wilchuk, whose home is a warmed doorway. And still, he keeps us half-burned. Behind his closed door, we talk about falconry, ancient stone, and blood. Now, he lives alone, but he still keeps us half-burnt. Today, he waits for us to warm up. His willing threshold unlocks, his yawns, then, he speaks. And still, we keep our half-burned glow. To begin our half-burned lives anew: Brad waits for our half-burned glow. To end, we'd burn our half- unfinished. <|endoftext|> "Angel Food", by Sara Anne Wilson [Activities, Eating & Drinking, Social Commentaries, History & Politics] in memory of the food riots The Armenian Genocide. The toll from every platform, tonight, stands admitted. To mark the occasion, our brave stars and stripes and our franchisees, we'll show the world our love. To renew that love, a cake with my country's seal cut into it. O that we might do more We are called Mongrels, impure, unc shared. It was a thing we fed one another. So tonight, to remind us of all that's learned, these covers reveal The Armenian Genocide. The Ukrainian Insurrection. The toll from every platform, tonight, stands admitted. And the stars above are our ancestors. The Armenian and Ukrainian accounts The toll from every platform, tonight, stands admitted. Oh, this is what we mean when we speak, We were not half-Aryan. Yet they said we were. Today, a story shadows our time. To end the toll And the media began The Armenian and Ukrainian in the pages of our newspapers. <|endoftext|> "Recreation", by Sara Wilson [Living, Health & Illness, Relationships, Arts & Sciences, Language & Linguistics, Social Commentaries, Race & Ethnicity] Syne I knew I had to say no to help her through the steeper side of the escalator with some consequence, making a narrative out of an unexpected wordspring. But no, I don't want to say no. It's not as if she bites off more with her questions that are fast more than the answers she gathers in a pit of fire like fishes. But the escalator leaves its own kind of hell for her. When one has a sensitivity to language one cannot be sure of the difference between a practice and an expression. And I am no better nor worse than any other musician in this regard. I knew the hinge of a teleological story when I played it. And now, the steep side of the slippery escalator continues to be the responsibility of my expression <|endoftext|> "For My Father", by Sara Wilson [Living, Death, Sorrow & Grieving, Relationships, Family & Ancestors, Father's Day] for my father I've known this formula for solitude for my entire life. It was invented by none other than Frank Lloyd Wright. It is a model that has served me like a second skin. It was given to me by no other than Frank Lloyd Wright. The sacred cone. The second skin. It was ======================================== SAMPLE 6 ======================================== . They pass, still passing towards the skies; Their formed image on each bank, All-cherished clover plume O'er the beauteous battlefields flies. O'er the fields of conscience, Where the mournful slave and robin graze, As it seemed, then it became (Some dark sarcasm in France accepted) Another "fight" to right their wrongs; But the south wind gave the blow. Can a poet give but faint praise To a stricken nation that but dreams Of its own greatness when Round the mottled heroes shine The proud stars of all the world? Can the pen give but wreaths For the martyrs of the Oberon rule, Yet for the gospel's dying sigh, Its peace, that never dies? It is too late, 'tis said, to write from home, And any man in verse or prose; It is too late to take in all who are writing now; It is too late to dream one dream dark, How our dreams may end,--this twining up Of novelties for the eyes that close In visions of joy before we sleep, Who sadly note their futility, And dream them finally to rest. It is too late to write a song for France, But to write these harbingers of joy, It is too late To do what poets dream of, And describe in song what is long since done; But to trust in the noble faith that true, If the foeman shall prevail or the friend shall fall, If the foe shall prevail or the heart shall betray, If the world shall prevail or the faith shall deceive, Dear god-fearing countrymen! Let my mountains not forsake me; I must travel on and say farewell To the beloved friends to whom I come; Dwellers of moorings near the strand, Who greet with joy my white sails flying, And murmur, "The queen of ocean Comes nightly to our help!" Then let France, bleating, see, through night and storm, The English falcon cry: Thou English falcon, when the pursuer doth chase, Wert come to assist thee; so they cry, Worthy of their sports the falcon knows, To watch and come to aid us. France is healing with her wounded heart, On her gentle breast new gifts are streaming, And her eyes are clear of their cloud; No longer shall her speech be clogged By memories of the past, or the moan That was but weak with a sigh for the dead; But I will write no more, for my boat floats Out upon the sunshine of the sea. Farewell, long love! farewell, friend true and dear! Who bore me to the chords of three mouths, One of the rau plotting melody, And one of the throat singing the words that lie; So that the charms, a long love gave us, may More dear exalt us. And yet it seems That thy heart was made for the beautiful And only the adorers have. Think what ye would that all time be time good, And that men have names that save them ever; But what wilt thou, knew throughout the countries A world of wrongs and wrongs turn round. And when a thousand years shall end and God Shall read his book, what books as of thee He shall remark who findeth good and ill? O let us be glad and laugh, and sing, Held captive by the spirit of the sea, And die as many times as we must live; And what is dead in earth shall be alive For many years; and what shall endures Be steereth over fire. Whose sail, and what in foam shall turn The wheel of business as a thatch, And gain the day when last we set, And see them laughing, weened and gloored; And the old soul, crushed by the years Shall beacherof the fruitless shore, Since Christ at life's middle (furhery door) smiles, Sees by His fire shed wheat and wine, And being four an eye shall only see Two eyes upon a wall. O Life, O passion of our life, and above All use; the sense of loss and bliss, To be more if we must be deified; Our worse and new accomplishment and rest And higher peace, and gifts from Earth, shall be Timely recall and use; a pearl to seethe With smiling, and a kiss to make us blest. I know my heart ======================================== SAMPLE 7 ======================================== O know you all are welcome." I am pleased and puzzled, Here in this place to be; I cannot choose but grieve I am not welcome, sure. I am ignorant;--a few years hence I shall know much more; I am vague and abstract; when I am older I shall know much more. A little love is all I long for;-- I ask not title, pelf, or place. The lightest word of welcome, cursorily intimates Of time, when she was sent. The time may be remote; Her sentinel spirits in a garret mood Are slowly slain; and, when she loungescant steels the blue, In old memory's faintest traces put on life's bloom. This lamp is lit as is the dumb with age That watches with slumbrous head: by smoke and dawn She wakes, she yawns, she feels the summer drench her. She is in summer's power; e'en woods will grow When skies are clear; the sky in spring will bow The crossed pinnacles, and make the crossed pinnacles rejoice. Though I have sat to table here, and forage, A feast to-day; I'll take your left hand, Apropos of something else, and there's a still That through the far vine-brow of the hill Moves upwards to the blue heaven's floor,-- A golden rolling miscalpothe. You heard, Lady Blunder, your Ex-lady, (you your name will tell If I over-do,--) tell In return, who ournew street was; And why, for once, your ex-lady Was backward in a light-hearted way. One, when I was still a boy, Would share my meal. (A kind one, You'll agree, to eat with, if That's The way you take it; and he Would have been more profuse, but Julep Style precluded that.) And two, whom'er I met, From old Tropsy-muend, or What's more to like: for all, Who other times have seen, I, through the old Tropsy-muend's door, Could form, a little boy's thought. And therefore do I For jests turn upon myself, Because I saw them there, Who've since grown too crafty; Or else, because I still, who I can't but grieve, Dream in this room, where sure My dreams of youth were as dreams forever. Or else, to send a-brook Your self in any shape A-whereto I look; You seem, for scraps A-disturbing,-- Which, while they're flattering, let me own Are only jokes--but no--no! Which leads me to reason: Because I ken them For jests at others' cost, I, so your simile Should have a tongue at least, And ask you why, Though you of 'prentice apply A joke, that's well! Forgive me, Julia, once again For taking terms so wide of course, And telling half the school, as I do, that they are only jests: I oft deplore, how, when the cakes Of little rich muffles were baked, You knew so much, and you so naught. Because no one, for a mite, will spare, To spare a souse or two, to you, In pity of your distress. The school's so over-taxed and over-work, That the spoon weeps at its joint; And on the bench the leg of one, In grief we see the other. If to have money were to have friends, I would say all my list of them, 'Now, children! pay the whole!' But I have none; therefore, one by one, I hail them, and they are many. Then, at a distance, say by remote, I beg them, O hush, hush! There's a mourie man alive Whose grave is privacy: No one else his musings end Save one calm Sunday morn: My halo over his, Ipswich! has fallen, My halo, as it fell, From you to me. They also did, whose memory Is written this way: I know not what they say Of one well-fixed star Failing, as this is being, With wind and weather to check, And ======================================== SAMPLE 8 ======================================== with the gardeners? Actors, move your mouths. Come to the wall: those whose words have bled come to see the film; And if it's the last kiss we will dance for air, there will be dancing on the plinth backwards, backwards, forwards outside and inside: we will dip and spin up and down, still a steady thirty-six to its right, or left, or not at all. To make books that are remakes and abre renewments of other writers' work: to be the by-word; to trace the outlines of the sky, or to tell the story of what exists: this still writing returning, also, too often, as it were: as though time could braid and re-comb as it went, and that form was the plinth, But it is our still strong chant, this great bodily vigour we do or do not flourish on our way: if it were enough, they could perform, would be done, but their performance in and about the book, as within a room, or outside with a roof: a kind of performance (on a scaffolding of light, but it isn't) And within their frames: performances are made, or are not. No structure, other than space as it exists for now, serves to cage time or get around it. Each new volume, as before, prepares some small part of the story for the rest of the twenty nought: the last of the thirty six to go: the end of the twenty-first of thirty: the two dozen more than that are wastages for nothing this time around: for no one now moves or is asleep: The chief, the youngest, the youngest, the chief and elder: all those in the stories who are not or are not chiefs or elders: are made or are taken into the book: the matter, the arrangements, the only matter, or book, the only matter— but the chief himself is only a shadow as of time and death. But he moves and he stands and he gets about, and the last and earliest of all players of the story has his own advance beyond the others: into the space— they all move to him, no one has any rest and rest, he cannot sit down or stay and remain, even when he seems done, though other players pull at him and he does not know it. Thus, for a while, we are left with the shadow of that voice: that shadow from the beginning, the shadow of the speaker from the creation, and the sound of that voice that says, throw away what has been thrown away: lighten, lay aside the heavy; be casual; be careless; your hands hold too much; all remainings, all rentals, all night- dead periods now or otherwise, all past and future—all this to be touched, be touched: this the shadow of the speaker says. The playing of the shadow is all for nought, and yet it has the strength to hear, and the dexterity to speak. Also that shadow has eyes to see, and ears to hear, and mouths to speak, and the whole ball of cloth in which the shadow spins tactical clothing and material among the generations of those who wear it, and which it is, wrapped up in the action of sun and shadow and sun and so on— For it is a new fashion with us to keep hands far from there: there might be a thousand moves, like a playing of cribs, and the curtain raised, and even that move from there to here which will have the smallest shadow, or—this is the latest, the latest: I know it will be at the other end, the end with which you were raised, the wind, the open wing, the dark, the light. <|endoftext|> "from If These Walls Couldgall", by John Clare [Nature, Animals, Seas, Rivers, Rivers, & Streams, Mythology & Folklore, Fairy-tales & Legends] Eagles, when heard or seen abroad, Flit home to the solid cliffs; And ivy-cats once more spread A whispering mat just below. A laugh was heard At 's first publication from any shore, But always from the same old B ======================================== SAMPLE 9 ======================================== Although entangled, blind Both in wants to others and in wants to self, He looks from these, but sees all things clearly. But why, whose pains thus run through all, Thou sayest, Means forced with danger and with doubt to try What fear would do with safe intent, and dost pour Thy blood among sores? Why dost thou despise Riches which should make the rough And bare bronze perfect, and do hang On every color and six sides of the ring? Even gold, that might, if it be so devoted, With spirit of steel grow keen, and make strong arms Gird the swift wheels of thee? Then, good my Lady, thou might'st tell How far I strive to lead a life For which, if not too magnificent, not lacking Magnificence, by magnificence bred But sterner than the ages it should be Fit for, and consecrate for worship of On which laurels are more royal, roses Clearer than are stars, and rich, how that such And solemn robes and lightsome faces should, Day by day, on earth, attend thy shrines They that do love thee must them with longer pace Seek, for their loved feet have refused to stray; For if thou be but in them cast as a dove, Those that love thee have much of their own feather left, But the rest is, as it were, at least, ablaze. And doth thy neck possess that plumage strange, Peculiar, fitting of a bird so mean, Or is it thou art styl'd in angles and curves Such harshness in the bronze of shrewd women, As being, whatso each feather in thee Is braided? Or is it that thou scap'st too on under flight, As shuns the light if it appear at all from where Thy nest is, or ever poster of it seems, Which privily to the heat of the day hath blown? But if it ever appear'd, or can appear, Then wouldst thou know the manner of our winging, For that doth grow for plumage from the day Discovered; and that of their own accord The birds of the air do disband After their own manner, which is maist The faculty of the shining parts of the sun. But thou at last returning dost your glory wipe, For as our preceding attraction doth make Efftackle with its opposite, so thou shalt Next to your eyes manifest appeare Thy face return, under destiny detained, And of our feathers learn what each one can. And in this case what further need is though Our wings see? if a man first learn to fly By resting in the air, he needs not seek To climb a tree, ere he can instruction get How to attain to altitude; he may know With what strength his feet do stroke the bottom Of the hollow, and of what manner o'er He in such flying posture can afford To turn the wheel of his advantage. But a certain age, in medicine rather esteemed, Due to this virtue, to ease the belly and the limb, O, illustrious Bird! thou youth of the human race! Behold thy tender limbs during the aeons long To endure four years of weighty labour, and the stages Of iron, poisoned, bloody, fatal. Beside That sorer malady, what length of labour cause Death ere thy passing hours are out of sight? What is it, then, to die of hunger or of thirst Or to succumb by a broken blade or to perish By fire, and to die before thee are as stones Cast by the rime of eclipse or early summer In the darabetes of the dark year, or the Swearing of the knives of Grief or Shame Or the unknown hands of Sorrow; and what time Of darkness does it make a virtue To crush the soul, and sting the imprisonment In order to bask the flesh By brutality cruel to break the rest, Or force to own the stain Which is but of ourselves By being seen of no one at all; which had No other nourishing but of our own affliction Or our own sin, for wounds enough are given And not sufficient to sustain the tyrant flame The third reason is that a creature Should not remain in obscurity too long, But set the beaten track of others; but In his own lands, and only there, It is for our delight and Advantage That it should be within reach of a blow, To give a man a guerdon and snarl in By degrees to a complete cure, and ======================================== SAMPLE 10 ======================================== 'Oh, blessing of salt and myrrh, A wealth of fragrant bells and myrrh, The balm of spring and the blue of the skies! A fore-rush of horrid hammering, And groans behind, and cries before, Where eagles scream fright on frightful exorcism; Where ghosts who come to the bed of Earth Scream and snatch at life and death and death, Just when the rushy water leaps, And the wet arrows pierce quick sight and speech. O here am I, -- in some haunted clock A blanching hand you may not name, Where on the slaughter's bloody altar swing The scythes, and the sickles rattle and groan, Where shadowy beckons steep us all in sweat, And where our souls are tossed by woe and blood. You may not understand me, wind and sun; Words have failed to capture the rolling words. Your mocking winds, and the surgent moon, Answer me not: [HYPERBORE] O stalwart life, in limbs insuring, Whose spells enfold me, and, a-spry me, A rarest of spells, the boon of a king Is now our blessing, and we two Drink juice of royal roots and seem long As our exalted blossoms, three. O few feet of marriage are so great That all the world is of them ashamed, O few days, O flitting, of love, That blossom life with blossom warm, That stain or go bald, leaves or hay or wheat As the pruning shears they, the gardener, Remarks on, the river, no more... Never impute we unto thy brow The motives of unseen powers; thy breast Is large and mute: [LUK) Now, O lyre, thy strict and sober strain Gives in Faith for Faith's, and Truth for Truth; Now sing true Poesy, true Poesy indeed; And let it be no oath, but **, **,** thy troth; And sweeten every hernia note with Faith's high chryme. Now, while thou sing'st, a man may grasp a weapon, A free people may be killed in rebellious states; A priest may strike, a soldier may fell a branch Of love, may leave the land worse than unburnt: [LITUROGICA] The nations are quite safe, quite fresh and neat, Though England's Queen an army that doth raise. I give thee now this heart, a true aide-de-camp To brave soldiers, that in field of blood, May feel the dispatch from generals' hands. O singing wind, that warms the world with melodie, We are with thee, but not with thee hearts and hands; In vain, in vain, sweet Echo dances back again Unto thy soul's white noose, with quick expectancy; Unto that soul, with mutable hands; Whose gift of music has no bound and no beginning. The cheeks of stone and the hearts of ice that knew The richest blood of all men are to be seen; When on our mountain's higher verge that lance Which strikes like Westmoreland's thunder, with its flame; While Camelot's pine, transplanted from the snare, Smells sweet along the Park with its flowery arm, Up to the heaven on high. And Time himself, one dread centurion true, And one, more low, more sacred, low, than he, Is here to-day, all sober mortal, that feels. 'Mid iron clubs, on line, 'neath the light that ceaselessly Flows and shines, Beyond the weary column's gloomy doors; Round and round, down and up the columns go, Up, down, beneath the column's house,-- Up, down, and up through gilded housetops' flights, And again beneath the light; Whilst the road's grassy ridges take form and semblance near To the columns of Trajan's palace resplendent, And shine with semblance not of metal ======================================== SAMPLE 11 ======================================== There's an arm, said to-day, said Carle. Papa, said Sylv. Like a charge, For which you would accept the Emperor's hounds, For none to guide them but his dear wife. Yes, he's gone, said Sylv. That old "straight-sider" The discipline of thought-power is gone, The pale and vital personification of blood; And today a faint sign in his eyelids' prove, That shames his dayless lurks with love and truth; But let him wake with your grave forgotten thought, There is a morn tomorrow of him. Dawn meets the dawning light With heart-recoiling show. Outshines it, and it is a sun-blind; Its helms of flake and shadows go, Whose shields and spears rise in flame. In night those shields and spears Of dawn, which pale as all the wold, Hold the weapons that, triumphant with power, In daylight's heart held never one, And lead a worship of flame. And in the dawn, again, Those mighty weapons rise and fall; And alive the old one never knows Those sun-sistered spears or those Helmets like a craft on craft, And spreading over fiery soul The light of flame. He shall yield not The glory of a man's being; Not from pain of death, but from love of life The glorified life which war gives, he shall store Not in coursers, for a chariot, horses, heal thy pain. Not for a thing its usefulness, its measure But for its beauty, that was its beauty's pain! Not for time, for things measured to a running time, But for music's voice, for deeds their doomsday dread! The prince above the prince, the prince of all, Who set us all here, man now from man, He shall receive in twilight's deathless hush Our joyful tromps, our crowned and monarch day. Then thanks and feasting, that shall hide this day Haste like winds that outspeed the turning sun. Last sunset saw we how King Caraheu saw, Whom all Men know, the stately Polypheme, The stately Dragon, on Bespoke Hill, And how it was they conversed there; That he could make the withered Wood recover, The hips returning wine and dam at last; His colours, for it began to rise and move, Did make it flow and flow again and flow. In South West from the pacific belt, Or Sabea's mount, to Arcetri blunt And Tamgnerville, whose three lakes are sign, Of spice and fragrance: wraiths of pines The breakers break and fall through stones to flame; And with the swart oak and sycamore, The stillness of the long-ago dead. Lo, all this saw we, and its fruits and uses (For fruit and swards, herefrom for salts, And ships for freight and profit, above The grainlands, and the sweat of beasts for ooze) Some scantly tolas and levell with the breeze Unto our ears, and play about our eyes The play of stars, in all these low-dens of earth Whereon the dark wind. Bird, beast, or plane, Bear, bee, swarming serpent, as we go, Or shrouds his body in an atomie veil. O youngest, happiest, happiest, cities, That lift the eyes, Awake, and expectant show your faces, And show all your porches, your embarcades And draw the wells, your vestiges everlasting From whence the melting air is refreshed! The blood of all that sang In Muses' veins runs gold; The voices of the contending spheres Smack like Polly's bars; Rise you, too, The cities of the coupling spheres To be to hearts as plains to be to eyes; Build you where the winds might tread, Build you where the bones of sea-dwellers sleep. Cold Jovian pours From Yering's early fjord, Eightfold Albery's mills Again illume the leas, Where her roughs to wife have healed A tame and modest face; Who had dreamed of laughing hill Until his belly cringed scorn. Evening paints with birds'-eye glance The hill-slope where the mill-seats shine, And the leafier jonquils fill With squealing and ======================================== SAMPLE 12 ======================================== rekindled and steeled against the treacherous way; sure this fair house will fall, all it can befall. Now to soothe the women, who in their lost trust rest less, within a house—fanned out in any degree, you have taken refuge, where of the seven sweet modes of your night apartments the fairest still remains. The next house that came down to blame you is that where else you'd scatter moths in spring and hawks in the summer. Don't you remember a kindred impulse when you heard her. After that, fondling the sight of each, your hands tended by their easiness to her throat, I felt a kind of terror and responsibility and reproach equally, when I heard the little boy call for his parrot. Yes, little one, there were roses in the windows and as year they bloomed, and as soon as spring extended itself the world began to go to place to place. And in fact, as the manifold-way, the way of a crowd, whose politics you had yet to be without cause to repent, when you touched the fire in old age, when you were at your longest, when you ceased to tire at last, did you turn a little, I begin to think, ever to find? this terrible miracle worker on your lap. So I wonder, if I said, this is the last picture (say, the last picture of the forty pictures I like the best) and here I am, the end of my days, looking at the last two or three of the pictures left to find. Thank you for your end of the scene. And I want to thank you for this little room in your heart that, taking me as it is, unzonedly includes me in its morning revolving, as you will remember to the contrary, and yet may care for me and this broken-in windmack in the wake of your brain. And I say this knowing if ever, when you can't see us any longer, you must have us both to death: we would shrivel up from the noise and be changed. This building is, after all, a set of drawings, you know from afar, to whom I, as someone who isn't there, never amounting to anything, am brought, and we, if I may be so bold, even as wave and flow and fall and rumble . . . I do not stand here, as an angry god, waving my hands for this picture to have better speech; but I would like to thank you—from your endless endless distance—for this little room in your heart and to know I have a place to which I can return as though I were in the pictures; and to make with one long sigh a promise to be poor of heart in the long galleon's reflection, and with the breath's long stop between my heart and the pictures of you, as one long feeling eyes all down them, lo, I hear as though but one thing: you, and one, if not more one, eyes, that brought me out of my old life— as though with the last kiss I could give out before one more came to see the lead weights of us, and then would follow to it, again, like one, called God, now where the people live for their own look, to your first great look, the moving on to ride the sea as well as the lift, a vast sunflower to sight us as we for the fifty years of each moment, without us, what for them is to escape, what else will they get? But for me the solution, in keeping with my other theories, is as unsoluminous as they all must be, or it may yet be a kind of balm from the most reverent attitudes one might take, and, therefore, I will not loiter, nor slip away from that spirit of faith that never forgets its big destination, that is to say, the redemption of the world, the supreme healing of any like pain, of any day; and in so doing, whatever pain we are in I will know that it is not ours to allow the old life to slip out of our memory as a grouse or as snipe, for if that were our sole immortality, we would have it so: it would not be a vindication of our duty, but a suicide. And, furthermore, I will not die ======================================== SAMPLE 13 ======================================== omnibus, Latinia, tractus desunt. atque Aegeum redempta cunctisque fuerat annum fretra redis: unusque unda siluis ignis intuat. sed prodigalibus inter e reproductos acrem, navigata puris feuronem arret, inclusis magnum, ignat haemorim. inttibus eris, quos eram, quae tulimus artis signis agris in risus reconditorum tendedem. punctumque loquendi eris ensue metus, metuunt sonet anteque. mirificus ne suis inaudita signis machineryum qui prohibet in orbe pundant semper, aequa maturientia malorum. o uacat ungusa cumulusque putantur sedes imos torrens vestri ueste. dennat terque ne sinunt uella precor atque in turnis tollit membra condem illic teriturus. alta retulit radix febera, per amnem turret in lacum. si quis addot erat in monuam dedi, eum nullis materia mundi, sonitu caelique pauperibus enim uesquierim plaesit aequore atque illa signum uere partus atque leporis affrixit in uiuo magna uiolabit, et quos ueteris in merito ambiti intactum demum ad rem sempitare, sonitus, quonam leuiter curuus fronte, tunichius. ad solutum Nereus flammis erit, atra, aquis marmoreanam, effundi arumenque decora per plines proceres atque ortos augue reuerti induit caelum, utque nam uenerit causa loqui, magna, nullum argenti daturas adest. at vero Perse polos Eutropis aperit quartet quatit aera per gurgite fibra. sepelollis inde feriet uiaeque venit miserere domos, utque nescio suda suo. SI uidas illic icta tibi, cum potiata, uersus, deuoutathe modis tempora manu deo Catullus pronum aequato sola nata fodi. nam cum mala uertet et ipse Maenia custos aemat uulgatum, ut ut uiuusflauros adulter hothamina caeli et alto diuina fremebat, ne possible ut satis adulter, veluti uiamat stampandum Sicelis utrumque satis: denique mori aut longae paradiso, quos memor aliter per nomen Catolicus sub Stello reducis ferre liberis annos, et quo circumfert opus et locutusque granis aetherium per vestrum oscula sola uestate. SACMRTRUM uenit, decetite pacem, firmissime, notissime, uoluisse manus turba quem olim cat source et sonitu, ut uacatum difficile principum, utque coaeternus humana olim in tributum levare missi, flucti foribus facile est, nisi secendi consulto, dum spedias dum ipsum magna perehas impetum, respexit manu, faciles atque vernatus imbuet, et quam Paeare cumulum morum populus honore, si deummul auido falsaque ipse posse crescere, quaerenda est sub his fistul natura ferturae, quaeque debere olim et pala vere nec nisi pallia argentum morum, si qua teneat opus fibrillatum, maior et astria pecentem. HESPERI classicum ponit qui tamen uidesse posthumus erit, quod nec fletus uiit. sed Naumachalia demenso uera aurea dicas habendo foveat: post mortem ======================================== SAMPLE 14 ======================================== Behold the young statesman, who, her left hand holding, Claspes his old one and the other bows like this, In sympathy with her. The Other More gently falls, but falls it is not thus, In accordant verse to her shade and That of her acts. From the mass Of limbs this breast spring in six bones; and there, The bones born first, right at the englobing, Follow in full independence of sex; From the mass, of senses, things, four pairs of strings The nerves must have in strict connexion all In order to be a woman. But not in these And yet the sex is not there in deed and Voice and Persons and Life itself, to the exclusion Of half of what we have labelled as Male And Female. It's infinity. And who Had really thought to explain it, with a moan? What, with the snows and the crickets when awake, Lamp-light humid heat, the mists of presence Before the blank mind turns, before the sight of truth, Or is registered of truth, of who, Thrilling incalculably, or unsounded, Beyond the boundaries of all words; With no rest, beyond the dividing lines Of what makes human natures what they are, (The flux of a constant-wavering dynamic Against the bounds of what the people call Nature, and what the languages call chaos,) With a loud, incessant beating around the hole Of the continuous-pointed, And incessantly-severe making the apparition Shake and rattle through a wall of luminous shadow; So an inertness of touch in the seal of flame Burning and burning, that we came to know, Smouldering and giving back to smoulder, Until we were aware of the loveliness Being consumed: in that, of the same mass, Smouldering, unaffected, in endless cycle For ever and ever. So the Weightless lead forms to the Orbit, and both Follow their eternal orbits: one and the other In undivided progress: neither less, Whilst each, through ceaseless drift, goes on, and on, Relating to the other, where the mass, In lightning, would ever more closely reach; In that all remains for one, on the earth, To give into its universal aspect In folds, rings, men's uncurbded sense of all Wheresoe'er it touches, or undivided Brings to itself the infinity of space In which it tells of things known in every place In which it unveils the essence of the whole, Thus from the sum of its part Is upcast And completed on each hand to its whole. Why thought you I then? that the obdurate air Of a dark Tyrant, yonder from the noise And bustle of his residence, in his tarry gloom, With troubled features and tawny visage, and Cannily oned about the face, and slung, Was confused with sordid features, as he stared At me with uncongenial stares; but still, As I am a man, I gather, as the pale And still more pallid women, as they walk In far-fetchedness through the world that is full of light, Are fair, but hazy features of the pale And scattered lights of people of all sorts and ages And all situations; thus I see, in Fritzy Bumpers and raffles and ruffles and boggle, And want their destinations,--and look the glumest, And hold their dimness up to lighten their graces, And say how every thing that fancies it is ugly; And others, that others have said it, speak Pleasing themselves of it. Sir, I take it, you Have said it yourself, that I am ugly. But that 's worse. If all things have already come To execution in me, what were gained, And howunder the daisies should fall the chest Of right understanding, which in yourselves at least, It seems, you are capable?--that I can mark. That you can misapply, and apply, and make straight And apply the till of it as soon as do I: Take me where? To that level out beyond which still I fall, So low I cannot look for hope, or the cloven-hoofed herd: No. I can say this. This is the last step, And I that, if not like, yet resemble, must sink. I care not if Fortune should indeed keep me on Here after ======================================== SAMPLE 15 ======================================== -To still your moan, dear echoes, night and day As we two wended through the fields along The diviner wind that sighing rose And mingled with the scented juniper, That lisped a little through the reeds To fill your heart at last with joy. But you, O, reluctant, sweet distemmer, What boots it, what brings it comfort, To know that all of us, full flushing In the pink light of the morning, As we lay in the warm, tingling air, Are alike gifted to make us cold. But we are moving on from there, And your fear and my need have been sated, Your doubt and anguish, as they were nothing, Are fled to the farthest depths of the sea Ashipour for a fool's play, Asleep, with light snoring and deep thinking, And the sea's deep murmurs go by. The boat rocks to winds and waves, And rolls on the chafe in the night, And now 'tis near the forking snows, And our fresh rag-rag sounds drown; Aboard! on! across the wet sea Is our me blast-ware chafe-cured, Old-foam, our memory of clean snow, Our hope that now our shivering jonquils Can stand some more the pull of the sun. The rocks go plong, the winds rise high, The tide rings from the sea-line: And that low little noise of things, What may it all say to you, my dear? As of waters in a dream, Nowiling from sandy springs In a dream, all day and a sight As they roll and roll and foam The tiny shoals with their sheep And flock-bells, or get-pub and win- Tle and slick-broom, to the chane Of they deep sea glens and bowers. To me it seems the world had fallen If I could go my way: If I could go my way, And a frail ditty could go And a daisy come to me At my true thinking: In the house one couldn't talk At the good woman's knee, And little birds should do All the brave things she did. The little bird comes to the seed, He carries the seed and bores Right to the grain, And the seed is the seed of hands, And the hands are the hands of God That count no triple day In the grain that they sow; If I could but go my way. If I could but go my way, And the daisy-flower-face Should comfort me as she does, Here to my knee, I'd keep the dreams of the last Unnamed and unhanded. Here would the wand'ring images Go and come. One had as good as counted them, If he but knew, And not half, since he is blind! At the bound of things I can hear them speak as of themselves: The house was dreamt of course, but still, I am not a slave Of my misery but of my garb; And I will have as well My own nature, for I'll have a brain To change it at will. The wine had flowed still, And the ear-tabs would hold it all, And most of it was music: I almost hear the 'staff of the court' Appear on the wind And howling of a secret word, And I see the head-tilt of the poet In the kitchen, and the setting of bells On the shore, And I hear the great eggs pop in the pan And I'll fetchet of them the blessed earth. For to be bound in things, and to fade As the breath melts 'twixt table and lid, Is too much for me. I'm with them both, The men and the women, and I see The faces both of them Lovely under the wind, And it seems to me they're talking of rest, And I forget I am no Taoist. I've parted from you, my dream, With a kind of ceaseless pain; And the yellow plain Is all too yellow for me; I do not know Or I would not say This is all quite well, But I have had too much to bear: I've had to be Part of things, things, things! This man, this woman, And I have brought Our troubles together. I'm sitting on a climbing stone Now in this little valley ======================================== SAMPLE 16 ======================================== Audio Critic, do you hear me! Hear me; an honour I demand. The voice that delivers the first axe In what is surely its last hour Will but plain manifest how pale The Methodists are grown--it may not be. But are the French comforted By the aid Of Bracelets for the wrists? No more Let the horror of that Boche For Britain haunt her dreams! For her The Life that Ends in Martyrdom! For France St. Greatcreate's Crown! For the Poles, Whites! We'll crown you, but not for Frenchmen like us, Not for Mahomet(1)s self-christened Frenchman, And not for elective despots sacrificing Their sons for food, for fuel, for education For no Brotherhood has the Earth Until in our time--and I speak As a friend and not as a king-- As a friend, I sue for common benefit Of all mankind against that Father of No (and think not Holy) House, no Brahma! Whereby in words uncalled for I seek the World's good without Silence that knows and burns The glory and the folly of the West! In the Milan of her sainted days, To Blessed Mary Mother I call. O My Lady! Let a slip Clam let the yoke go! Clam-ing, clam-ing, as I've heard cloops The lowly abbot in his cell; The bishop (is it is), the bishop who dined Off body and mutton when in home Oft, when home from church, the Bassaccio Roamed in the open hall, so famous, And saw these feet that weighed him so much, So many millions, and wished he too Were as the other two were: but his Sense and conscience kept him as well, eh? Thou land of Italy! O offer, Often pilgrim, but not shamy. In thee I feel a home and a breast, I lie bare to thy touch; my genes Were Living Pines and Riughan's when They set their cap in the world and three (That's the way, 'tis said) did exchange Joy for it. The other three were the Inheritence of kings, and more Wise than they; yet they needed the kings' Wisdom and will to govern. But now, alas! Now it is different: no longer need The wise and worthy rulers to rule; They rule so well themselves, it does not need The thumb of them to guide it. Under the tap Of many an angel's finger steps of love Has entered Rome, left Greece, and salved Spain's sable brow. (The castle-walls are rent, But not the steady rays.) Where art thou, O my song-binder, That Love's pleasures fade! Where art thou, sweetest vessel, That the winds' turmoil sings! A broken string, a broken string! All is O song-binder, all is over Now! A hoe from misused nature, A heavy tool is this, That strikes and warns not, That chisel breaks far more than it should, Domes change hands more than they should, There is none that can understand What's broken but misunderstands, Nor soul that can interpret Wakes the treble within the nerve In ear delighted with the word, Singing with the deed, When Song was all in good arranged A double-member mocked at The high-born citizen, A maiden for the busy household Went shouting at the fall of night, Fell fighting in the night, And sons of men looked at their fireplace, Are nerved in hand with scrupulous But this, O Alcestis, (But that's not Alcestis, alas!) This little maiden's secret shame, Fashioned of poor and shabby fashion, Whereof of old an ancient gem-smith Cut no mysteries for it, Sitting in the heights of Ilium With arms out-reaching foreigners, With neck restricted by the mirror, With shoulders shackled by counsels wise, And by the wild unruly sea, Of this we read in elegies, And have no knowledge under the stars; So sing we by our romances That song is ours, and none can hear it Excepting, verse-writers, Who shall be silenced in the dark Of their own Pluto. For Helen, late loth to be Firstman in the pasture ======================================== SAMPLE 17 ======================================== Know it's something that needs to be said And be said boldly and unafraid But then the right people stay away from the places left to choose. But I feel much better because of it And my throat is well again. But I see my first cousin will ask about it And if I lie to him maybe my husband Will think ill of me or perhaps I'll be fired If I let him see my knowledge. Do I want to be fired? No. If my husband knew The difference of. . . his affairs. . . What difference would that make. What difference would lying make? What difference would lying have if I knew The difference of what meant ill But my husband won't know that and that's why I would rather see him never more to marry Or never more to marry. I see my wife in Church but I know She's an Episcopalian. How much do you know about poetry You half the people say you are too busy To get the details of what's going on. Well I'm an easy going guy To get the details of what's going on. My white horse hates his color. I was a minister once so I knew A lot of things about things like that. My white horse can't wait to be a colour When he hears what's coming instead of me. I think it's silly a horse be anything And I think it's dangerous for a man To be warned by color but he has to know That a horse can go either way And a woman can choose to be anything So a man you see has to trust her own way. I think that men and women should be trusted As to what they will do and not to do When it's a choice between doing and not doing And he sees you as an example to be followed. He sees you as a man who knows the way to go And is cautious at best against certain things And he notices color when he knows His wife would like to have sex. If I were you I'd watch what I said about sandwiches And not say too much about poetry Because too many people here have seen it. I'm sorry about that. I keep saying to myself "I hope I do it just fine Before it happens." For all I know you could be here in four weeks Or a year from now. I think it's important we have this talk Because in our society Pervasive violence works two ways. And the violence is invisible. Invisible too And many men don't see that Because they prefer to be the driver And the horse thinks they are relax and relaxed But in a way it is the man who is the lunatic. And the horse knows it too. I think you saw the way I was riding A big big white horse in a mousel series And he really grew a lot just in That four weeks. He can turn on a dime Into a pretty horseman bantamweight. I didn't want to repeat myself So I put on my headset Just for that discussion. Before you get to my profession My husband's in the Peace Corps And I'm a nurse in the teaching retirement system. I get a share of sick leave When my kids get sick. And before that I worked at a hospital. I was the walk-in housekeeper At the ER. And I was fired from the Peace Corps For getting too close to the patients. Because I started talking with the patients About the Peace Corps. I see how easy the weapons of mayhem work The terrorists get when they see what they want If they get in their faces The violent bumpkins will not be as violent. I saw that television program about this the other day And my heart it went into an uncooperative ballooning And the money went into a violent thick up. <|endoftext|> "Ahab's Clavier", by Jennifer Gray [Relationships, Friends & Enemies, Religion, Judaism, Arts & Sciences, Language & Sciences, Music, Social Commentaries, History & Politics, Mythology & Folklore, Greek Mythology] From: Hamlet (including Duineza's recital) All night I wrestle with Hamlet's dying Till the late watchman's wand Calls to the long oboe from the hotel Calls to the long wall of The Hotel Blank My hand in your hand If there were no Other hand in mine One which is also your Hand But which is also your Hand If there were no other Hand in mine If there were no other ======================================== SAMPLE 18 ======================================== Powdered buds and roses: Be still, and sleepy is the floor. The curtains hung on silver cords, The glooms in ebon booths, Are gaudy with daylight And bullion, pearl, and gold, In broad illuminated gowns. Around you bubble-blind, You shake your tresses, Violets in bubble crowns, It's that belief. We've cultivated the earth, And quench the sun, And frozen the animals, And frozen nature. We've lighted mountains pale, And carved the nights, And chased the tides, And warring visited sea and shore, And changed the seasons. We've turned the earth to grain And pressed the weeds. For we, the studious rich, Who cultivated the earth and quenched the sun, And frozen the animals, and frozen nature, Aforeaged this past night's news: What lank, sickened faces took the wind And crowded the exitways? What shuddered stomach and left the boards, What crowded lips and mouths? Inexplitable hurly-burly rush Of faces was there ashen-white; Fingering weapons in the fearful air And eager took their stand Upon the sides of things, upon the long See-saws of centuries, Underneath the stunnal grasses of long trees, Underneath the smoke of towns and villages With pale sick smells, that did not cure the sick. And that poor remnant of a nation, With cunning fast and free, Stood back among our foes Unto their saviour What awful summons; what imminency And dizzy instantity! They saw an eagle in the sky, A way that did not need their prayer; They stood against the night. But if that ancient people were bad, This time I say, O mad as Lilith, say that bad Is stronger than they were. And they are strong, O mad as Lilith, They kick against the wriggling pit The thunder that rumbles through their sleep. But O, this thing was easy; this thing Was easy as breathing free. And this will be all, this will all be done, This they dreamt, that they did When the earth lay sick and sick and sick; When the poor seasons bent to rain and wind Torn the small pleasures that lay in the grass, When the winds and winds and winds did pass As the stars and stars were held in. That year, O my men, I could see the seeds Of change in your faces, as you sowed The seeds that strewed the ways of life; You changed, and yet you kept your mirth, Even as the silver moon Keeps the stars in their courses, changing As you sowed, but never aging; O but you changed, and yet you kept your mirth And cooled the heat of the exulting year. You came and you passed; you stirred and stirred; Now there are dead men in a row, But the lived-out men dream not of change, And you can tell the dreamed-at end Are resolved but to be still the same. O but the lived-out men are as fleeting As the blossoms that peep When the wind is springing out of fern And shaking from branch to branch and sod The small dead blossoms, and they die, And the wind sweeps them into the light, And the wind keeps them out of the heat, And the years sweep them out of memory, And all men keep their souls upon the wane. Nothing could take me from this hour, The heat that makes the summer king, The flying gods, the weight of living air, The deafening thunder and the sting of white-winged hawk, The sight of loudest plumes and the end of gold. But this was only the succour of a saint, A helpless loving spirit and a true: For all the strength and glory of the sun And all the way of the world were in this arrow. <|endoftext|> My life is like a certain phone-book which expands its dial-out for mankind, yet where I'm entitled to one single call. When all men are registered, And I have dialed all but one, The telephone rings and I answer. My life is like a street where barbarous hands shoot spoons at whoever comes near. Like the caller, my left hand's dynamiter, For the speaker's earrings and my right hand's dander, ======================================== SAMPLE 19 ======================================== ies took his the while, for Then with its sighs; but the battle swiftly busily waxed; the cloud was blasted; before it blasted, the old one in haste threw down down the bulwark of the battle and all at once, as though the whole world were burning, then, all its shields, hands, and weapons, crush'd down, all at once, bar, ax, pickaxe, weapon, eyes, limbs, and reins, all were crushed down on one side or other, and cliff'd their forces in the sand: thunder, rolling far, came still with its lightning; and the man, who the flowery sod and crags clasp'd, had thrice, four times, or more had there latched on and overtopped, gash'd his scalp with the grass and blood. He, as any unerring monarch who changes not himself constantly to virtue, through the mighty revolving time of that history, having now on certain knowledge, triumphantly pass'd against innumerable captains, and in triumph, girt in crimson boots, hug'd the lady from her bosom, who embracing hug'd him with all her youthful charms; and when he who till that time was waste and empty had become fuel, food, and gourd, he saunter'd off to go into his first high glory. Not till then was he wont to stammer, 'cursed Tracy,' 'cursed here, The true poets sung in praise of him, who hence was hurled from his pleasant nest. He the country that bore him held, whom Fortune pressed before her box, to let him lose himself, to strive hard for in body, and out of place to set himsel a deity: for both his parents A fellow traveler and passenger had been, who, by withholding her caress, her confidence, from others, thus strengthen'd him and call'd him to rise and follow. O'er the Rhine he promis'd her one supper; she that was when news was carried to me by the Paphian married to a Brennus--if it is unblamed-- promis'd me another--which was to prevent her annull'd for the affront that shee did to my noble friend, who yet has the story black from hers. My Lord, a marriage between us now is held; I have bow'd myself, and my relations have brought me thither. For me t' have attained the end that wooing brought, and have borne an child, so to put off further discussion of the point. But so finally th' event it was, I think she told me, that shee annull'd. Ah! that bitter! hark, can it finnd me again to be cleaner than all the fleet sand that was spread at the time? For shee in riulless earnest I supplicated, and ratified, and sigh'd for the daughter of a friend, she obedient to her father, when her proposal to me she made forthwith. The vailed plume on my neck she hung like a scar, and the choice handsel, which made a bay horse of my shoulders, and drew it up over my nosee and through my bosome, like a scar againe, which would blow a way were I not curst--as when some churlish mad man's boick knockt his shoon out upon the threshold, and hung it back againe. And hereat there fell from me a mote of mirth which falleth of force to all confess, even as in coming together mixt wordless things, as they are self-glorified.--I seem'd as if I could spie my beauty and decide what a thing 'twas that my wight look'd so fitly off. I did very well believe though that was not me, I was one with those that in letters are writ, and show signse of a dir, calling out lo the kindred of the kind sam skie skie, or skie frustra; they who doe returne a new refle, and put in no frost, though the occasion seeme too good to ky the dragon to seeke, but pluck the spikenard, and ship off the rockage. So I was happy enough; and hee, his home to keep, had made a break or what we all doe think matter, by taking thought, and therefore was born Bacchus, of whom it is n American diction we find any; and the southern states the barb ======================================== SAMPLE 20 ======================================== O son! can such cold courage reign,And, till the world should mourn her loss,Rise with life more vigorous to the last gasp?O, think of this! and hark! she speaketh!Will the crime thy foolish love commit,To stain her name, have such effect? <|endoftext|> "The Sublime", by John Donne [Religion, Arts & Sciences, Humor & Satire, Philosophy] Thou wast not born to damn thee, nor be cast out from Christendom, for all that; Out from an old and disapproved hope. But this, the world's blind stretch Of reason, makes thy neck sharp wrack, with sin And heresy the quarters of thy neck. But (O Satan! Them that dwell contrived within the darkness) pray To thine, your enemy, for grace and light. Now, when the reason's scarce moved, For very conscience in its panic sit not safe, Unless, when all reasons are forgot, thou turn Thy further thought unto them; they to thee. Then there Are but these words; "I suffer not"—the grace, But what thou didst—oh! do not I? <|endoftext|> "Reflections on Poems that Apply or Defy ( Or, some gentle degradings)", by George Sterling [Religion, Christianity, Arts & Sciences, Poetry & Poets, Mythology & Folklore, Heroes & Patriotism] 1. God and the Divine I do now begin. A little while,I'll hush them. —Jove There is something like a nice tree Might creep a voyager's attention: God be near thee, Where'er thou dost eat, Thy living glory Might stir the blood Of some sort of thing, something strong Breathed once and once again, Whose power renewed, Itself and self, A little patience Might a young man woo; A hundred regrets A boy might brag of— One day the heaven's gate St. Peter went through, His head bearing a rainbow tattoo, Which through the light and darkness bore A striking likeness of the divine. Where is the face of him in bright light, Whose form divine Is read by turn By a human eye, As natural and fresh As a child's Who speaks in him. The honey's fresh; The golden candy, Not too sweet. The bold youth on the whale (See, I put it there!) Did not appear More or less to a child. God's hand (As of a mill). The housebreaker's wife, The cross-legged youth on the steps (We'll hush him,) Was like the youth in heaven. Thou art my God, like this; Thou art my sun, And darkness my sky; Thou dost shine On the man who never did stand Lamenting; Mightiest these men deem Only as men in heaven. Thou art my God, like this; Thou art my night, Where the unseen splendour Of thy light can never fail To lift a discouraged soul To the secret height Where he may die, and find, And rise again, and believe;— And all those hours, the choked heaven Of Heaven, whose infinite is man, Were filled with his thinking, thinking Night after night, And week by week, and die In this our bloodless Sunday table.2. The Conversion of Fermor[In a valley by a fountain. Into a humble cottage, to save a widow.]The widow, after this way, Was of our town-keeping. She was devout —Twice her old age. She owed me a debt, And this was due at some time to come, As also to a small remnant of the land, Which I gave her to secure her place; Which she discharged by a just neglect, By stalling here. She bought with poor notes, And property which would have been ground To dirt, had it not been guarded well, And had her freedom not been checked With a strict dignity, which in this Was not the lowest beauty which God sees, With that which in itself had never Had place to stir its insides; in fact, Had not been lawful. (Being thereby Saved by the lender.) She heard no thing. Was never heard. I heard it at the Gate, As ======================================== SAMPLE 21 ======================================== Or sigh'd "Like as relief of our grief." She looked at me and took my hand, and said, "You, who are standing on a river's shore, That was the spot, a page of joy, a vale Of lilies, where a brook doth enter, shot down By kings from Arthur, hither whence they took To a great lady, who is twice thus They read to see who makes himself a queen, And so she was, with honor fit. Tidings of love, here have I you behold Thy proud bottom, honored with the choicest, From Arthur, in all joys so great, So first to her he became a queen Not twice the glory would have been Of that maid, so victoriously: Fate break the minds that think a lover's curse Upon love, it seems a joy to him. E'en as time wears live but two as friends, And each pass the other in delight: So in those love-times she at times The lady read in her her dumb mood How courtesy doth often lead to pain. She smiled and took my hand, but could not think Or knew the compliment she herself had made. Oft when we met, like exiled men without a home, I've sat and watched her wander from me, And yet I could not put my heart at rest To see her go. This May her habit made of flowers a bloom To welcome spring, with other jocund delight She sate and smiled, so pretty, and yet free She was and gay, as tending folk are: And at the end she let her hand fall free Upon her robe, made limp by its enormous hem. What wonder, then, the letter-press was a-blossoming For her to move to, the wild thing to me, The bond-girl to loathe! Why wert thou so bold As to draw my new spirit, willing to go, But bound by Italy's old law, the law Of Titian? Oh, not to me, not I, Though thy feet were water, not to me. Of men We have an interest in all the works that speak America, for each spake or is a lock For men's soul-gold, is some carica masterpiece. Morn at naked heaven, when the unenclosed world Steams again from sleep, bare is the moth-rejected wings That out so long a year led thee through the wind's inhaling, Thou art not so impertinent, that thou wouldst be hurt By your prompt conquest of the ram's flying wings, Which are thy opposite. In whatever ye produce, Ye rule the champion with a media seeming loss: Not so with God, who made all things that he created, To fall inferior in a bigger way than each: So that the nobler work, in which he rears and tanks his glory, Shall not avail to set any higher stage on life's field. O never say that I vainly strived, with clinging ivy-shades, To overpass the tiger; that my works were lent To make my name a pleasure not maximum profit; That I strived, with haggard eyes, to reach the moon's pitch, The fire of its blazing dust; the thing which I aimed at, An enlarged parched heart was I to compete, as once Saul Karagisis made the 5th crusader move To honor him. Never say that I died and lived Exceedingly, though in battles which men scorned: And that the chapters of my life had any episode: That a hopeless race I run the lashes to complete, Forced by the dart which Death, the coward, shuddered: That the hopes which my life had borne were shattered ere My death: and that my war was over: never Say what I died for, or what I died to, For every word of every word I took on life Was one of his, one for his good: and above All, never once did he neglect the golden stock Of his poor relations; never did my eye In pastime slip from his bright thing most espied, His kingdom: never once uncourteous, In wandering or in battle, to abuse The least of them: never to prove a private person, But ever first and last the glory of the synagogue. If there be loss of profit in the publishing trade, If stock be too low, and men be too few, O let me be the first that the covenant breaks! Let Stock to the Publisher be ======================================== SAMPLE 22 ======================================== Yes, you had your version of being home; it happened because of the drive. You were what I was. And you were what we were,-- it was nothing clever. The way that Love could play and song, at once, in the morning and at night, so that we caught, at dawn, The captured owl in the pineapple garden. You opened the door at seven, and (taking a long time) you closed it in your body before 7 p.m., when you went to bed still alone, and your daughter came to you like the guardian angel. While you read the summer article she was playing the harp, and as you sat and watched the dusk grew light. And you thought of the shower curtains that were open. I opened the door at six, and while I was closing it, I saw I had something in my hands. You were no longer listening. How many sayings can one person remember? And what was the town of a single man? I closed the door before I closed it on you, like angels who are inside in league with his house in whatever world he thought he left them for. <|endoftext|> "Jack", by Bruce Smith [Relationships, Family & Ancestors] "Jack" came to see us in early summer with his family, he seemed a fortunate man. "Jack" came to our office for a talk (did we tell you we came from a well-to-well home) when Jack came to scare us for fun, for it's always good when someone new comes to visit, he always is a fright. "Jack" came to see us in the early fall, with his wife and six children to prove the luck of his own birth, and at the last count they all were living in California, which we thought was cruel for all of them. "Jack" came to see us in the spring when he found (not in the way that you think) that all of the water from the Colorado was seeping into the soil, and not a drop of it was being allowed to percolate so, and as if to torture their first semantics. "Jack" came to see us in the summer, when his air conditioner burst (oh, to have been his contractor) and when we put it out he wanted us to know that we were doing a fine thing by leasing him so badly, and when we did, by leasing him back, he left our company and began working for a local (oh, you're not from around here are you?) which turned out to be—let's see—a government agency "Jack" came to see us in the fall, came through the same way that he came in, a complete wreck, he cried, and wanted to die. He was sober when he saw us, sober in all likelihood, and ready to rent again. I gave him no warning; the record says that he died drunk in early winter. When I saw him dead, my daughter thought I'd gone, and wept. She thought it strange I didn't have a camera, and I think she was right. So what do I do? I mean, I go on, I keep on, I go on, I'll go on, I'm all the wiser, I'm all the wiser, you deserved it, you didn't think to invite me in January to the fast food places or the bars; you didn't think to warn me off of the craze, on the bike paths or in the dark roads, that you knew, by then. I went into the welcome icy cold, I didn't think to ask for half. I heard the car jack Sharpes gyrate in (the black hair of that truck's tires) and thought, that's where I'm really at, and I stood there, apron and coat in the corner of your mouth. I thought, it's a tar pit or something; let's just get out of there, and if I get hit, that's the same as getting hit by my friend, or my wife. <|endoftext|> "The Way", by Todd Saints [Activities, Eating & Drinking] It's just a square of decent weather in a row of lousy weather and I need to learn to smile and not mutter about the future. I used to be able to forgive a whole portion of everything but now it's different: the weather ======================================== SAMPLE 23 ======================================== Steaks, mahleste of pink; and red onions, which are sweeter than maples. He hates lucerna, a vine he has seen swinging from a tree. The finger of each hoof shakes, like a slender mouse.But the best of the feast is yet to come, he believes. <|endoftext|> "Scrambled Eggs", by Barbara Janeeps [Living, Life Choices, The Body] My body has its very own egg hunt. Some of me is hidden by a clump of brown hair, but most of me is spread thin, brittle brown hair, hidden under long sleeves of whitened hair. When I crack, The small of my breast, A speckled sparrow bounces into my reach. My legs, encircled by thighs that hover, hover. Tucked into my thighbone, My heart is nestled in my lungs, nestled in my chest. My arms cling to my body'sHeaven. The meat of my elbow rests upon a supple plate of bone. My waist is girded to its sockets, my frame is buckled into a scotch. I plan a swelling dinner. I plan a storm of milk. And when I drink, I will steer my body back to its whitened original, the one that hid some of me, the large one hid under the fur—a small streak of brown along a faint lip. <|endoftext|> "An Explanation of the Story from Full House", by Hayden Carruth [Living, Death, Life Choices, The Body, Relationships, Family & Ancestors] Nose Dead in 'er Filly, Th' decortig brown 'uns from 'er Factory, Th' fambly in 'er Garden, Ain'thin' to do with no Realtors, This here Youth offers "Pride and Joy" Din' of 'is Dad, with his Girl on 'er Mind, Kind 'er 'earth and 'er Sickness benefitin' Charities, "She'd always dreamt 'er family shared 'er Affairs." When both 'er Parents is 'urt 'erselves, 'Ermed to Be the One that Ends 'er Troubles, Yit 'er Had to Ask the Shed 'er Own Eternal Business, 'Is Family? Is It 'and Cheapen 'er Face? When neither 'er Reason 'll Halt a Accident, Able to Keep 'Er Fancy Free Meanwhile, 'er Fingers wid out all gits major Fun'bies. When neither 'er Shoulder's 'eaver moves, One is enough 'ang, 'erself, in which, in grief, One's 'ad certain to find one's point, To know the 'igths of 'erself, fer the skill To keep one's friends, when ne'er can keep work, To sing one's Self and 'ap your Reason, Sich sure is amusing Job that keeps 'em 'us'! When one's Betwixt and Betwixt, The offing's o' a Lump, Dis jedged when one gits over Sea! It's That time o' the Year, when I give My tired guts to the Flahi' Frathi' Band, An' to ring with 'er namesake Band; When the Burns Flag 'as a-drivin' 'er, An' Foaling Davey Burnies Wing, The gig on the Gurnee, as we roam Through the Streets o' Scots 'Stymer, The States of Jock Munshi, An' the Rest on 'er Abode, All late to a Barrow Gerer, A-hunting, 'ard on the Kittle Strand, An' all, so Patience may Build a Roof, Doing she'd a Job that's 'asn't meaghan! It's 'ard to shew one's Head, When one's a-washin' 'is Shirt, But when one's a-washin' 'is Legs, A-tryin' ter keep 'em dry; Someth' Portly, 'id derring' Us 'ighest 'Ardlong John, you can't bet-ty Ass! When the Dog-dens 'eld 'is lovely little paw, Their Judder Judder Missis, The Boys an' the Girls at the Chimp ======================================== SAMPLE 24 ======================================== What draws forth flowers out of autumn's thorns and thistles? No soul to search out the plot until it crumbles! This hour that you walk uptil now is God's best. If you thought nothing had power to move you then And that all things had been very bad, This moment you'd have cause to doubt your loveliness; You'd have cause to hold less prudently your love. But now all seems easy; all seems good. You've cause to trust a time when all is just. And I who loveliest in the summer sun, Are on the threshold of love, And old, old age is beginning. When you go out your things they are shaking, And in my heart you are shaking, And the hairs are rising on your head. I have thought, I have considered, That no other loves could be finer Than the heart your heart is shaking. When you go out your hearts are parting, And your eyes are opening That never were wider. When I go out my heart is parted, And my breast are softening, And my head is a-quiver With its pearls of solitude. I have thought, I have considered, No other loves could be lovelier Than the heart of solitude. What time it is I'm wishing for winter I'm always sighing; I'm always thinking how great and how good it is For the kind which dies; And how other man's death would all cease to be, And the soul of the human race Be lodged in the mind. A vision of VICTORY! And so, whenever the names and the pictures Are spoken, you understand. And it seems to me your mothers have been always Nurturing you for this purpose; I myself learned of it full well; A task, as it seems to me, your mothers Never parted from your cradle; How happy, how enraptured we can be In a while, look at us, Down at this moment, looking at these two. Here we are in the midst of a grave disappointment, And our tongues with burdens remain undone. But here, behold, that cover is rent! And for a precious, splendid purpose (So to speak) it was that we'd write the names upon it. Here we are in the middle of a great triumph; And the names of two who'll blazoned may appear Upon this thing on our foreheads. And there's a sounding of tin, And a man of metal I am, To be covered, and compacted, And put somewhere inside somebody's head. "S' Eliz. 's the last of the year, A month ago there flew "A kite-like thing the skies o'erhead; "And I'd scarcely fell enough to take it to pieces, "By the fourth attempt to its fate. "And so, with the aid of steel and iron "I've sheathed it in this paper-like thing." "S' Eliz. But yet, just see! 's my first thought now; "You let your wing out straight and loose, "And soon you'll stop that kite at eighty-eight "Which would never be let go. "And at seventy-seven, say so far, "It'll clatter its final door with the rest, "And that--which I should not doubt-- "Is but the beginning." A steady mien It has worn with care and trouble. As yet it seems Lifting not a pound. Not a single pisky feather, Stirring, shaking. Not a change of rosy blouse A la Virginia, Showing where shock of white and black meets, It shields not from winter's storms Its bright, chubby self. Not a fleck of dimmest hair. "I never knew a mother Had such for me," Majka said; and o'er the open gate By the window, blue and alone, He saw,--and the tarp still stretched, By Majka, where she sat and twirled, "My baby does not have a mother. "I'd walk to the woodshed and would read. "There's not a place so far out I know where "Where I could have left her; "And I never heard such a beguiling thing "As hummingbirds in their cups." "My, but you're clever, Majka," The thin-voiced farmer said. "I've talked to my wife and have ======================================== SAMPLE 25 ======================================== Naw, listen, friends, I made a sign! And at the sign, the heavens burst out, And lightning and thunder, right on top Of turning into rainbows! "O, hark to the ravens shriek About the stolen chariot! O, hark to the whinstone smokes and fades! O, hark! O, hark to the lightnin' pansies!" The only thing was let me be An' shout, like boys an' girls could; That was the only way I knew, To let 'em know it was me! 'Twas fun; but the glory soon withdrew; Though all my younsters said "True," An' all the skies said "Fly," It wore away a weary minute, Before I knew it, "It was me," My name was changed to Power. "With Pardon" is merely kind; With "Lest" we're quite entitled to doubt; Though both are right, 'tis hard to see When ones are taken away, In manly innocence they're said. But, "Haply" when you change, is changed your man; And you're a new species of thing That wears a different skin, Till you can march with all the others on The pathways of the street; And Pardon's plainer meaning, O it doesn't Well appear when you revise. Be kind; and pardon that typo; Or should a soul, in scorn or prayer, Delete "with grace," his grief would say, "Blame but a grain of mercy there, And I fear your poor Grammar will After an hour's debate, Some fresh Scotch Grief will confiscate That arid grief that tickled so, To see so little sense in it. Then let not grief so high and keen, But gently allay it with smiles, And ask Your pardon, when it states, It states your faith in vanity, And very ill is liking For grief that lov'd so well in old. It's well but seldom that we know, When those we love are dying, Exactly what mood they'll be in When sent down beyond the skies, And we find out their pockets. Though when in hospital they are, 'Tis really strange that all their cash They put in a second's purse. They're sometimes glad when they're dead, And really frightened at death To find out how thin and poor The same blanks that are so dear Don't in existence long survive; Or if they got a little power That fortune in a bank might keep, And managed for a time to be A gazook the gods would curse. I think I've said what I wanted to say, When I think I've said what I shouldn't; But how a fellow-creature sees his fellow, If he doesn't want me around, I really can't well see; but he's dead, The first of all my friends that I had, And so I turn with timid glance To meet his faced. We met with the lovely sunshine The nearer we went to Watling Street. We saw the pubs going down, And the students dying for dining; We covered a circuit far and wide, But was he walking or riding along? Why, he must have changed his patch, While still on his clodho Giant You'll find the dusty Giant have a new Blooming; if it's his choice, He'll pluck a Tenth, And he'll turn his backs on your mortal throng And heed me for a moment. How many lessons will this Tenth Grind into stone (if stone he's able) That spin the future out at all; (Doubt what's awaiting there, And how 'tis taken from our grasp); We've had the win we wanted For when our Turnberry lay in mud. Here let the wheel-barrow pass, And we will stand upon the Eye. And she is waiting for a man (Whence she may each one of us tut-tut) That knows what to do with one. The Orth? A pound one ounce; Her we call 'Liz' for Len's sake. Tho' poor, his meal would be of lesser worth, She soothes the Archangel's loneliness. No business at all, Sir, But to amuse myself, And, my darling, we'll see What I can do, a thing or two. But business all taken care of, I do not at all believe That I can ======================================== SAMPLE 26 ======================================== See the tracks of the Rhone, the crowned heads of the Alps, and the towers of Switzerland, and the whole world— giving its all to the devil. As for the deuce in the sea, pray for the sailors who now will never return From the steps of the papal circus laudable, it remains to resume in the poet’s destiny all that soul and body that in its glad humanity of gladness comes. <|endoftext|> "The Last Supper", by George Seferis [Living, Death, Time & Brevity, Love, Heartache & Loss] --Vesperia sub ibi I nite marCOnted pas sittideo fator, a womans saeto He dones hihtlbran hihte so for eemid men to herbe mus on.I nite martiro furore, on my naig Mynat dey deo tro pyem, wher Cossack reg gonerds to her synysters I nite bonet. tious women! she who a lovely hymstroop Over her needeth on.Not the bodiless they quedles Her holy presence holds al her breast: (A heavenly hymne.) her outthrys on. Will it come? for she calleth as in dee, Hymnie to the choisest eems of men: Befort heartie of suche men who care for her: (Hymnie to the licht most zoon, on.) hymnie my oen, my Oide: Hymns in most gree, deather than mine to cite Will it come? this gyrt nerve of hers: (Hymns in this your letters that follow.) Her hymns stud by and by: (When her head hath grown greener.) wher art thou? quoth she. Love, tell me what thou lovest: (Love or death, she cries.) Over her oes be it tole, My Oide of life or death, for my oght; (That beautiful mouth.) I sdeake me to my oghn life: (I swere in this I did my last.) I will feyne it to my oghn death: (I wish in my last life it were.) I nnye oght from her not, Quyth I too oynement craue; hath not the least gear yet behight Dyson the armony blent. I will sing and burne, for I rue; Let not my hearth be stred! She looketh to moche orest, I can warble and will. <|endoftext|> "Clorinda", by Lisa Amla [Living, Marriage & Companionship, Love, Desire, Relationships, Men & Women] For once, one summer, I was caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. Two men in a forest wearing one costume, two birds of a planet, pulled apart, the one unmasked fleeing. I followed, I called their power the wind, their fate the sea — their golden hair, their voices the wafting of air, the pause at the very solution of dawn. My own face refusing their trouble when it came, kissing them was easy, almost pleasure. The story told around the fire, the honey in the harvesting of a living flower, the risks I took, the taste of nectar in hoarded, brimming the jug, wondering how I would know what to gather, what to leave, what to keep. And how could I know the wannabees from the pilgrimage makers, the faerie children from the fountains, the mirage of fair bodies in a desert, the popcorn of ice on the rocks, what the fog itself would taste like, and which were my two hands, which could sing or bloat. I am the queen of tar, my skirts are worth their beaches —  I pull so hard, you can see my bones. <|endoftext|> "Tenebite", by Hannah Spinrad [Living, Life Choices, Nature, Seas, Rivers, & Streams, Summer] Before you can break the first plank of a sand-green bar, you must endure the heavy breathing of ======================================== SAMPLE 27 ======================================== Bright Spring-garden beauteous with bud and sprout, Raptures of sounds sweet and balm of balms. Cloud-masses mystrating celestial blue, And winds' light touch, and birds' meek ta'ne. Eyes of summer flooding with rich gold, Heart of Spring bursting with youthful green, Bird, flower, fern, green leaf and brain of bird, Bright building-heart and heart of flower, Birthday-will and heart of hope and fond delight. Forehead of nectar and breath of scent, Hide and spring, full-blown, full-sweeping, Joy and wedding-youth, full of dower. Body of summer-eve soft-drawn and mellowed, Sweet-bosomed with plenteous harvests, Youth of life, spring-child, brood-child, of the year's broad flowering, Love of gentle teaching, tender-hearted, proud-braggart of nimble feet, prince and vine of carnal delights, flesh of life's censer-fane, flower and joy. Life-nourishment and sorrow and plenty, The glory of love and lust, All things pictured as they never were, As true and just as fair. But years are spaces, years are distances; The above year's not any other year; And life in ages isn't born and bred, Nor 'scape the vintage; Nor howsoever fast you may think on your hands, And do your very best, You never, always, narrow the living space to an hour. There, so eternally. But I will tell you: One thing can never come back: One thing cannot go away: Cranial-bags are mortal and decayed, And this eye, if it by Allah is stayed, It's for ever ailing, And by this, I have no doubt, we are all The trouble and bane. O if Allah sent you from the dark, All his occult powers, his summer-gale Would sweep the churches along, And with a word would blast us away, And fling us and leave us a shroud For all our Bible-damage. All are caught in the gay, the genial flow; And some are caught not in the hide, But for the grasp of newer blades. There are methods in wine that gleam When unbottled eyes you see, New-telescope magnifying cress and That black-piece of sky-scraping, a planet. And, O you and O you, you that you see, You've been there yourself. You won't believe a thing I say, But he is sitting there, Drinking long drinks in his bed, You could break your back in trying to see him. If you saw that would ever be A chump's rhyme, And you followed it to a reasonable end, You'd see how near and near we come To making an Earth all blue, A world of Heaven where the sun goes, And Heaven's sunset. There came a child To a man, his name a-bed, 'Bout whom, who would dare I should say? You've a tombstone now Of a boy you were his friend; And I've mine of an old-man's kiss. I be'n a baby then, An old-man's kiss was like a birth, Whilst I am an old-man now A baby's kiss that like a sleep A waking without any motion. When you and I were children There was play the way the trees are now, The wind a-blowin', And the sky was serene and warm, And I know how once we smiled and played And laughed until we cried. And one day's worth of light Is in an evening's worth, Of course with clouds a little homely, And so they stay! And I guess there will be no more Spring, And so I've come to plan for a shield To shield the Earth from March's thunder. But even if the sky doesn't fall You have got to live the day, And, I know, you and I have done it Both, at our trades. One summer night I let the cat go, She kitty, kitty, kitty, And that, I counted. And where she left up out of the sky I put up my eye, And when I got the word for it I got up, kitty, kitty, kitty ======================================== SAMPLE 28 ======================================== I still am his because he willed Not of me to be, Though he did not see the foreign light, Nor ever will: Yet, for all I know of it, there is a way For birth and birth to be. By the dreary, dreary shore Of the Malebome Sound, He was always merry in the forest cold When he was home; And he sang all the night long The songs that I sing. And they told stories of me Of my beauty and youth and skill, But the tales were all FALSE; They were written by Phoie Shanterre Did not the pirates fly, Did not they say they would take me back again, And they took me to their Castle again, And they whipped me, and I bled; On the shore they told me to sit, Then they beat me, and they hung me up, And they hit me and stuck me with feet I have cut a knife In many a hard stone, For many people for to kill; As well have you arm and arm you As I have done; And also to tell you what the fathers come here to declare; Some are damsels that came flying there to the windows high; Not so; Some are but with evidence at variance, All say, that a man is guilty, And whether he be or be not, Is a question to be heard at the bar, In the trial that follows this judgment, And that some women there are, Whom the world says are not so, Who have discovered certain writings By dark writings in the dark, Which, you will know, Are with difficulty read by me As 'tis near to be locked up in a trunk, And assemble a jury for me for this reason only, They think that their conscience is injured; But, my dear Now that is what's so marvellous, If all the world would agree, I swear by Solomon, or any of the prophets: I would say, it were an emblem of patience, And so they put me away till it should comfortably come to pass, If the gentleman who is to sentence them should not go through his entire evidence. For one thing alone has I caused discontent, Which is that they think their evidence must be patent To me alone; For another I chaffed because I was apt to call the persons assails, And then with regard the jury had seemed far the better by far, And would from thence ask me, Of what their crime, who were proceeded to; and for this cause This is the occasion of my writing to you, my sweet Mary, The judge for to prove each one of these mad vain churls That I send for, and put them on the rack, That he had knowledg of the Holofernian Alphabet, What they meant by it was not for him to know, But to pronounce; Your Honor please to put down all Story, There is no more of Argument and no more of Wit; He that has wit shall have his business with my fist, And in Court what is written is to be rightly done. Your Honor please to take notice that on my coming in, The inmates of this prison would raise such a riot, All with fists would spring out, and beat the window, Myself alone I would secure the prison, And with a swing-gate with my lath would hold the door. The greatest of them all having their conversation In such wise, as you are so intimate with all your slaves, The scuffle, the cold pretence, the cold concession And with speeches such as I shall never allow, The continual blows, and oaths, are of those things That well your honor now appear to me to be Weak holes the nursery of the thick babies; For if you will turn on them in sad and wrath, They will in forty ways show their teeth. He who, with cup in hand, would drink to those good men, Will find, whene'er his nose they have to vex, That wand'ring are outsoldiers of their drink: When scourgings in the dark they have to undergo, They curse the fair illusion, Whose taking away from those knaves The flower of the lie that leads such convulsions; They swear in their poisoned breath to death, And cut my head with frivolous curses, And when I rise to-day, Stroke from such clinches my beard as I have worn If you would now my friends make answer to their friends, Away with those wet tears of their leaders' tears ======================================== SAMPLE 29 ======================================== Justice, If I have done it I am determined not to do it again.' 'The harm of what? none. The cause of what? None. The principle. The lie, the violence to man, it proves a conspiracy. The hell I'm in, what merit there is, the hell beside, Who sat there There, and seen them before? The one that said to walk in a horizontal way The one who said Never do it again How they climbed and climbed The cliff, and the one to roll from the cliff, and one That said Let go let go And jump and one that said Keep on holding so The one who said Not to bother and the one who said The foundation of it The one who said Not to be in a hurry The one who said Hold on now The one who said It's done and the one who said You're not dead, and one who said To fly The one who said To do it and the one who said Just go I cannot jump. He could. He had the power. Who climbed. Saw them before? Who did? And there. I cannot jump. I cannot. He could. He climbed. Who climbed? And there. I cannot. For he. Why not? So. Oh, come, my darling, come. The sun is a liar. But he has found Your imaginary hand, my dear, And I feel the strength in my hands, the old strength That sent us four thousand years or was it five? The touch that was lightning. The phantom dawn, the fantasm of parting, The rest that was pain, the rest that was rest, All we waited for, and we cried To know the truth, to know each hidden mood. The strength that would not break, the power To climb, to walk, to talk. And though we'd little to tell. All your power to find us, find your joy. The twelve great promises of promise. From a moment's caper. The secret of life that has the secret of you. And the morning-of, wakening-ness we all have to you, The sense of you, our touch. I do believe. Glimpsed like a sepher. Half-gone. Praise my dear. The once terrible sweetness. I hear it on your lips. My dear, my precious. I am the wind that shook the wheat. But all the while. Those who shook the wheat The oak shivered, the headman. You are in the dust And I am the one that it wore. So are we all. God, they rave at night. It was God's will. I would not have them sing, For I am a keeper of tune And they are not worthy: But I will give them a song, 'Not out of his olyer.' Shake off, O vine, thy mistletoe. O, how much thou art august! And now 'tis time to unwrap The arms that hold thy close, And close, O water, in a bud. The night's deep twilight shade will flow Up frillingly, and From the solitudes of space, In crystal, filmy scents, The shuttles that descend, To make the windows of the night. Adieu, dear dear melodist. Adieu, stert. O, dearest of all birds, I think that I shall never see thee more; And when, at dawn, those flies Spread their lamps before thy soul, Then, sweet thy bottom-note In moments such as these. I pray thee, by the contemplation Of thy own glory, That I may feel within my veins A kind of holy fire, And thus become a saint We know, O heart, we know, What love is but,-- What true devotion is, What joy unending boobs O'er reason's busy head, And what a rich content That lifts our brains and nipples, And makes a tune-making organ. But, O, when you are indeed made wise, What is there in the sun that teaches, When bright with bloody drops His plough cuts up the bromed steep, Whei-an, whei-an, through all the world She cries, 'I'll go and see.' Then, then,--how many miles away? Oh, heavens, how wild to ======================================== SAMPLE 30 ======================================== – a string of shells. We sink our rocks, sharp and shining, In the gray serene that is her hour's day. We lie here, we are here, To face each other, living and still and grey, And face the tunnels of time. A low-hung cascade of crystal, And she, bright as a gem, Dragging her steps in loamy grass, Gives us back to her once more Her loving eyes that never will not let us Be lost: We stop, for her sake, Once more upon the hill. "Time now for bed," she said; I knew at midnight All the high-rise Of murmuring hills, and was and am Livid with a huge disheveled gown. Then in her dream, – I chased her – and so we fell From the crest of the hills To the bed of quiet both Of this world, that is so far, – and lost, In flowers which live only In the sense; and she slept. And the blind hour drew by. "The sun is up," I said; And I lift my eyes to see – The whole world slowly changing, And all men hard-nosed, hard-lipped, and dim. And you are fair, now, and mine; And there are roses – I see – One evening, roses falling – O how coldly, now, for old, lost lust! "Sleep," she cried, "meel Tinker, sleep," I answered her; "as yet, till Morning Shall shake off the fog from her lids, – And shed the beams of Dawn from her radiant, – To-morrow will the time be ripe, It is my hundredth year, Since last I walked in fairy lands. I look at Death and his neighs: But on a day I heard a pheasant sing. I dreamed a dream; and dream-songs Shall be throve in long ages. And many a song and many a time I dreamed one dream beyond all dreams, – I dreamed one day I lay in heaviness And heard the Westmore coming; And he that sang the songs of Heaven Swept o'er the world for joy. And it was – not the song of birds, Nor the myth and romance that filled time, Nor even the hoarseness of the tale Of heroes and their deeds. 'Twas only lastingly that my heart Knew I had walked with those old men, For I had walked with Death and he had bled For my blood. And more was mine Than mortal thought had dreamed or more; For we knew that we should soon be one; And all our moments were a delight, And all a dream of a dream. The decade changes and ages close, The earth turns, and time closes apace, And some men rise, and some are bent; And the blood that flows from a number Is richer than history records, And some leap, and many stand by. I change and I rise, With many changes and many falls, Yet, here is the never-failing thing, That naught any way beyond appears; May we in this earth be whole; And he that's chosen a steady place That never will be otherwhere But still faces the same hard things, – Should he choose a change and say: "This whole place Is stale, and all the rest similarly – I think I'll try one problem harder," This is a man indeed that wakens: And gath'ring more purpose fills his being Our twenty years in a funeral row, Have left their mark on our more recent mortal And last week's graveyard excursions, Were mostly sent in pairs, as a mate, One of our parties was the partner Of another in one week's attacks The ruler of all things with a beard Stands on the upper air and asserts his sway, And all must believe that no surprise Is possible when his calendar declares That Man is less than the fable thinks; We know his awful presence as a blast, When we've had to make wings of the grass We knew that a fair temperature glow About the human kind below. And I think it no ill-nat'ring thing We'll be found hereafter, having sheltered such A creature in a cemetery. The oldest and wisest counsel people Are best in time of old; and wherefore do it? – Because, having not always means to live, We learn from boys in their full manhood that – nay, That ======================================== SAMPLE 31 ======================================== The god of music wept;--but whence Her tears? From her bosom, Lady! Her little, frail bosom, which, Poor wretch, might never bear the weight Of weeping so much as a tear. So was she vexed and vexed, But whether with a fist, or snake, or net, Th' infernal tempter grew a tithe; Tithe--and a flower!--Odora! such Was earthly paltry pride, ere she grew wise And with a hundred mouths was turned to art; She had so learned--hath a sweet wit sleep, More wisdom sank in water than the moon, More hurt was by poison than by sauce. But don't forget, young folks, this great truth, Never let anything so power That earthborn couldn't set you on the shelf. That was a good-natured world, and she Was aught but willing to be nice. Now, Lady, since your temper is clipped, And you only want to be fed, But to act the wifely part,-- He must be a man; but don't you fret, You've earned your living--and much more; That prating brat, to name a crime, Will have your rights and yours mistaken, Just because he's more a creature Born for a little whipping than torture. Just here--I see the path--but stay! In short, just here--no objection! You're pregnant--so--I didn't catch that; Poor thing! and guess what, more or less, It's something like making love to a cake: That's your low feminine way; And just to do what is mean and shallow But she is bowing, as you well may now, That strumpet, the pretty mill-holder! If you anointed your Wife, as an essence Well, in short, if you liked her quite You could have her, I think, at any moment; She is made of such fragile stuff, Pure, and clear, and fine, and, alas! the chic-- Oh, I have had my hour, and that is all! Hark--it's the silvery, loving wind That woos them, they're forgetting all about it! The rain-drop glitters on the window-pane-- The sick's anemic vapor pixures The crop I say Pretty, but not livable! So my daughter, A foolish thing, doesn't it show? It's happier far To give your income (the wish, not the deed!) Than, perhaps, to hold to bills--though when? I don't know, I have never the minute 'ould know. All I know,--and, Sister, see, I am obliged, If I am allowed a conscience, it's for one sake; Don't think that I would lie to Heaven if I could, (And you, for your he-[pl. e]ducative part alone, May Heaven prove you good in doing what I would; Perhaps, I may venture--but, Sister, you be kind, Then, Heaven advert, do I understand? Such time must limp, and boys are boys, When they've played with pitch-fork toys, Or poitolls in mumps. I sometimes suspects my daughter's dress, Or else her petticoat; Or lads under thirteen years may planks To lay the spade, spade, spade, or shovel, In corner, next morn. Evenings, perhaps, must be made Of quaint many scrapings. I 'm glad to know, My little grandchild brings home no bird, To sing him trill in place. Nor bird nor pan much fancies in being Could sate a sprightlier soul. True--a girl may be useful when she's dressed, To serve the supper--but 't is nothing new, I wonder when she 's got there. For little Ellie sits and spins, Where no stream of delight can be seen, And will not work a little stitch, To save her little father's head; And I am sure it 's very rude That, to the slightest slighting eye, So sick and sickly are these lads of ours, Who play so silly sport. 'Tis happy for such boys, too, I trow, In that they very much enjoy The beauty of their age. Nor ======================================== SAMPLE 32 ======================================== After I stop you. I see you wait, out there, Behind the thack-dock, Stitch-maid-style. I don't go easy as hats. I hold it up safe at my side. I wear it up. I wear it strapping heavy, Two things till the morning light Rocks on my coffin door. I shall have no rest there, I must stay at the back of a flock Where I will not see the day. All paths lead back there. The rain (again) begins to spatter, The water receded Has failed to regain. The pitch tree slope down which I am forced to descend Has taken my bicycle. I have to use my feet, I have no choice, As the splashing water is mere effort. There is no leaning it back. It is a constant there-- Weird, toes, bleached. I have to speed it up. It is a kind of journey. It is an obstacle for me And it will eventually stop me. Soon it will be my sole remaining weight. There is no rising. A little breeze, Something in the slope Will slow me down. More gravel, more hardpacked ground, More rock, more sore roots, More roots forcing out, And the same brown weeds to untangle. They will not let me escape. And a strange singsong sound Has joined the wind in its refrain The whole day through. What seems always to appear In my future has arrived: A new transference barrier. I think it is for me, Or I think it is me. It is not for bicycles much. It is a kind of time to say. Three-fingered flapper, very fine Black halter, Here I are All eyes out, Some things wrong, But who don't ween all right Here I am All eyes out. One thing is for sure: Some day I'll get round To saying just one thing About that rodeo flapper, And therewith clear What one thing is About flappers, is, or ought, And that is--the flapper is! For everywhere they flaunt their may more And ladies in ribbons trim it pleases; They flaunt in jollies about it, And fashion's face about it, And where they fight and how it's fought, And ekes it in needles and silk nets, And who will rope me near it. It's a nagging thing to keep score And call the whores of all jobs whores, While the gays live out their double traces, And heat blows across the line. I know just a country blasphemy Could extinguish half a digger's hum, And I long ago stopped pretending. I hardly dare, And so be expelled from both. Now make your poshness to expire Without more ado and noise. It's my birthday, so sing 'the boys' And stop complimenting me. I'm not sure The gooskis carry anything Except a foolish belief In unbridled joy and love. I'm sure the stands they bum to help the timers Do nothing but help the guys at times. The cops are never the ones the supervisors be. I seem to change at last My clothes at whim. I trim my bob, I might get trim'd some day But that's the dress blue outside. I walk up and down at ease. You can bet your sock it is the weariest gigs, And the most difficult to be too late for, And the prettiest jewelry has been stolen The gays be pulling from the till. But I too locker clean, For I ain't got the world to deal with. And a glass of water and a rag I can wait on And wait till the Great Flappoe's over. The track's the town all right. They can't catch the beast; Ain't no place to make him. And that's the reason why Nobody's lost the experience. They were playing downs when the freaks started up. They were playing downs loud and sweet, They were playing downs seven-on-five. They were playing downs on the bench, And they were playing downs in the dark. They were playing downs to punch the wind and lightning. They were playing downs by the hundreds to the feet. They were playing downs base to field. The score was 3-3. And they were playing downs to catch, And they were playing downs where the ======================================== SAMPLE 33 ======================================== Thus I. Wicked judges consider me a fool, Though I express myself in rimes, Soothed by a rabbit's feet. And I lie before them pretty-- And hardly beat a merchant On the Rhine with the Pope's own bull; If Jansen's schism has ended, If the Reformation Have borne no fruit in Heaven, If my art has not grown Wiser than the wheat, For our Lord I baptized a bee. Poet whose works engage the ears of all ages, Dark times, and earlier days, Heirs of the praises of an ancient and noble race, Immortal Browning, thank God for preserving thy Land, Great poet, thy birth-place, thy art, thy fortune, thy sorrows and thy joy. Now, like a dart through the air, Low at thy stand, high at the doors, Thou sendest down the voice of the Giant-League (The poets of modern times that make Fie;) Up springs thy Ward, in a shape Naked of the roses and lilies, of his soul Yet rich in all the full-bore magnificence, In the pluck of each mast, in the husk of each wame. The fierce old bard receives it (thou hadst, it seems, A prose-fellow to match with it, O rare Time to perform it!) and he strikes the strings, And heart-attached breaks from Worthy's foundry to Thine, when thou goest to the proud brass-banded Burning mouth of God's workshop-sculpture, with lance Athwart the navel of its idolatry, Till the habit of it no less descends, from its Immortal columned cloudward, where it so Parades, as it still betrays, and ever shows How it grew in the hand of the artists Who carved for the Creator, how it danced With the rhythm of the living stars, And the silent slackness of its own content. It found thou wert flesh of it, and dost dispute Right in the conundrum, who was it Thou movedest in it, O Angel! thou wert, and Didst bend thyself within it and hide? It found thee of it, and thou seekest to Intelligently feel how it was, and breathed Humbly thyself, and thy human blood Up the old crack of the earthly vault Till it reached dim tourists in their charts, For their money to take and lock thee in, And to grind thee out, till of thee at last One little bit of thee worth the print, The million of Sherry cracked, bruised, and Scraped off the feet of the crawling world! While they smile and save thy last discontented cry, Thou art lead to a fence, not strong, but nice, For the bold, the false, and the unfoundation of wild music, and only thee and thy friends Left in order to take thy last, best seat. It has not spent so long, and it will not tear it from Thy bosom. O thy last fitful epilogue, Thou art wonderful, for be thy praise That thou hast the heaven to comfort, not infight! For the rest, look abroad and find thyn ours; This war has pushed thee unto the brink, thou And thy Harp of God made in our hands; so Why hast thou only one foot in the door? And art thou worse than the rest? and canst thou keep Such (sad) balance there amidst the wealthy dissonance? Where art thou, whose nature is wounded most by change? Where is the anguish, if thou canst not be In business, loved and hunted by kith and kin? It is a fact that we know not ourselves, and yet Dost thou task us each in our estimation? While we are changing, our knowledge waxes vast, Tensile and intractable; how greater grows The knowledge that can never change, we know not. Art cannot make thee less, it is the changeless Person that thou thyself canst not be. O dost call us sages, and grieve that wise Was ever a timeless soul? or, shaken with wind And longing, falling, and forlorn, what gives Thy life the continuance of the Light? Thou base of nihilists, and rebels against The eternal immortal So? And thou would'st say the immortal never Is an eternal memory, O! The eternal immortal was made for heaven ======================================== SAMPLE 34 ======================================== With beauty imaged; And I am no A sterner sight than any Of the ladies here, Nay; do not seem to fancy it, do; This is no suit at all for peasants wild. So do not come to us--we are too sober; Our belles, their belles, all speak this way, And our house words are many--L--d--s--e--n. Such fit occasion none--nor will yours be; Nor will our full and widowed nastiness, Perchance, be welcome to your mind; For we know that self-taught garlands Have but a fine way to be, And that a full head sometimes buzzes More than an entire loaf in a hair. D--l, or D--r, I dare say, grew paler Than you, when I got down there, meanly; And when we knocked and/or he arose, I think I gained something of a head; And so your revenge will diminish, And you need not come to a club, Where simple Romans grow pumice And loose their senses all day, For whom Scotch tape is Proud Eloquence. But I '11 speak now for your indulgence, Though you think it slander, A palace called Melpomene, Of whose proportions D--l is chief, By some heralds being styled the 'Prince.' He is also, I think, a liar, But (and this is a very wise man) He has a better American in him Than any man of the old clans of old. And more of this, if you medical men Live up to their reputation; Be gentlemen to the child who bravely gives To the man against the State The diseases of British Legislation. Forasmuch as we (the custom At present is, or should be) Are ready and willing to execute A Constitution with the private cult Of Elenor Murray enjoying of this Nation; We as a Government Obey the highest as much as any: We as a Government Do more for Elenor Murray than any. Some such, as we (then American public) Of the belonged, replied: Of the public that is kept in awe, Impartial, indifferent, sirs, Our Constitution is such As no man can ever want; And besides when a lay-sister grows T'is but a bitter cava; 'Twas a lie and one that should have given The attorney up with laughing gasping breath, But neither party tried to disprove it; The only evidence upon it taken Was Vivian, by privy fire. Upon his elbow bent, his face turned to the right, The left bent up and backward, and his feet alone He dashed against the walls and furniture, and an arm Streaked by ash, his torch, with more haste than swearing, Was but a splinter of the purple shooting variety Etched in blood on his desk. He saw his wart in rags Upon the bedroom wall, and the scariness Ahead; the light shaking from his hair upon his mouth. From one of those fragments of merchandise, The chafe-prone tuft of turban so wanting in ease, He placed his visor upon his forehead, as he said, 'Dear people, I have dealt you wrongly; Neither your heart nor your face I can replace; But take this purse, for it is your own treasure, And this will solve your pity, if I may.' 'And what will I do?' said the youth; The other weeping said, 'I cannot sail with one in whom is lost All over me that tender faith I had; Who can but cry out to you, "Dear Lady, Sweet Lady, the Lord's soul enters me!"' 'It will not solve the mystery,' replied The lady sobbing for breath, 'But only make you humble; kneel and pray To Him that never mistook the mind. And, Sir, you shall be forgiven, and, sir, Believes He will not hold his trust.' And Vivian bent his head, and uttered low, 'It is her Father's authority That causes sorrow to me; Not only her own, but hers, that sent him. O sir, that face of his was not his own, But made words up, for fashion's sake.' 'He's a rough fellow when he is tired,' Said Vivian,--'and I will not say That he has been abused--as the case may be-- But still he ======================================== SAMPLE 35 ======================================== We swiftly jump on the moving boat, Which at the first had felt like a bark Over the heart-beat of our lives; But as they swiftly came on with their light, Just at the time to think to fill up, She gazed out from the Piazza's long sides Between the green, and the sun-bursted blues, The shades of wood and the baths of light, The season's signs and their influence shown, The slant of a lawn, and each fresh sod Stirred with a power of life and growth, A spurt of vinegar and life From the lush, inviolate corners. All life is in the twinkle of a pennon. The men who had deserted the camp Looked here on the ground, and rested not. Behind them, green hills soared up to the sun, And nearer still, huge cathedrals struggled. But on that roof in the Parlife's warm hall What inspired strength could be seen?--a voice, Muffled all, but perchance by the blast From a spaken word and the tree-limbs overhead. For its own door a band was leaning, The one that seemed most aware and haught Of the hour and its causes: he seemed An old and skittish sentinel, And near the entry to repose. He knew his importance? A thousand sounds, each ear annoyed, Like the ghosts that slowly breathe, Speak but one thing, and leave us dumb-- That Cyclops lived. Here in the camp this fair and generous earth Had shaken off some thousand acorns, Which loosely bounced about like chaff, And spoiled the beauties of this hidden hearth In beauty's narrow cage. A scanty few had slipped from pasture through The bounds of the sacred hill--none at all, Since last the last tribe was rounded in, And these few live still hard below Those who had bent on blasting. The Cæsars, both bolder and delightsome, Sent here a few hardy men to perish; And killed many, but left alive A myriad or three of hardy bacculosos Who by no flinching drum were progressed, But ran from the beaten paths of duty. These souls, who may remember them, stood In ranks, not chipped mud for a sheepfoot's spear, But marched, not to play, but of their build, And thirsting for the horizon, went; Like the soldiers that, and brave the gale, And both well supplied with victual for the fight, Who seek a promontory of air. And they never saw a man who looked at them, But thought, "An elder and wiser head Served him for the course he held." Or, "More experienced had he been Or, at the least, had worn a wider breast." Yet, poor man, to these few--and all gone in-- Was only the use of a single hair, Or one blessed fool-piece of what once was hair. The planet now had drifted off. A thousand years never drove a turn, And yet they never heard a true-blue night. And they had not, since their conquest, grown To what the mother earth calls sheen, Or eyes or mouth, but much that was still, Only for clear stones for fire had they sung. Nothing of true glory: by what name Do rocks bear day or night? Nay, but that's the end Of words. And yet, who recks not of time, And who recks not of the cycled gods, Yet hath one ancestor sacrificed, And hath one thread of life not blunted Or bounden in the existent narrow brain, The awful, either all or nothing man? Yet hath he memory, and his soul, That cleams heaven, and may recall him? A man-- A princely man, whose head was as a lode That shone with summer, or whose beauty Had come to public light--to abstract, To some great hour he called the common moments-- The public statue as such -- And from his Idæ had this LIVING, Came twenty thousand years ago. Now, when to watch was given up This bright happenance was the guise Of the gods in Diana's fable. Two sisters, worth of such exploits, Sit in the Roman city's ways, And revel on the sight of earth. The Lady Ecglas is the theigher Of mischief, and, with other names, Is Arethusa's bane and wonder. In fudged battle, that one ======================================== SAMPLE 36 ======================================== For those who were allied to gay viol's that talked or smiled on sight: The night, the Music, not the one the very same: For that one is an ineffable and eternal voice, Its utterance sundered from the earth which thro' time weaves A perpetual day far too bright and pure for any star To light it. How can this flame In earth's chill damp, Unfurl its veils For the gentle touch of outward objects? How do they shrink and creep, Their being's play Of hopes and fears Affirmed in the purity of infinite, And scattered and chilled and charmed, In briefest phrases That even music's rebels approve, For love takes hold and sings: How can this flame, Where pettiness one sigh exposes, Be warm and cheery, And snatch the soul out of its flesh? How can the infinite give birth to the finite? Or how in any but a bubble rise The praise of hearts that shrink From where they wonder at a miracle? How do they live, who wind a bow Blessing with their breath The wings of some large fly That over the sun bears its purse? How do they suffer, who think not of a feast, But of a feast's substance, and a soul of pleasure, How do they find, when their sympathies do shrink And gall up their breasts at its wind of love? How do they know their pain Is nothing but a bubble In a book of physics? O heav'nly vision, Let now your old renown Recall the youth of me, Your words are very black, Your teeth are grating, You bite with bitterness; And yet it was no fairer sight Than yours When the eyes come home, Night is a furnace When the feet come home, Work is an agony; When the lips come, Love scorches the heart; When the heart comes, A sweeter and a cloven Vibrating air than breath. O shining and sweet, O quivering and tame, O veined and precious, The sinews that you bind, When my gaze Comes round to you, Your eyes soften and brighten, Your lips grow bright; When my hand Brings you to me, Your lips grow rosy. We speak, and listen, by the wind's hush, As the rain still comes fuller with the morn; The stars, breathing near and less and less, Till night is near and less and less; Singing the song of their wings that even Grow colder on the evening's hush; And on the obol, the mind's palace, Drowsing, lying, rained on. O gift, O little song, O secret thing, O hope in a stranger, That I sing and your answer sing, And tell your secret, O wing-answer-wing, From a song of mine, And from your mouth, O voice, O answer, The secret The young are taken up and fed The old, they shall see Thee with thy secret youth In all the seasons and winds The sun has sunk and thou wert seen The day's work is done; They shall from sleep be awakened And thou shalt say, Suns of Athens, rise, Sleep, and to slumber. I brought but seeds to prove the spring, What matter could prepare, I gave but night to day; 'Twas a season for the birth Of every star; So the soul springs from earth, full grown, A little after the time, And all the world is there Just as she came. Who made it?--The one that came Bearing a piece of the sky, A piece of heaven pure and free; Whereof if this were truth, Or but a thirteenth of it, It could not be so cut; So cut it, and called it-- Something, that was never anything. Out of the clouds, and ever down, Under the night, o'er night; Out of the clouds, and ever up, Over heaven's blue rim; In the space between night and night, Where bottomless, where bottomless dells mix With bottomless erst; With tones and smells of hills and fields That in the heart grow faint and far; Where souls make peace with earth; and where Shines only one sun, seen in its chance Through the thick-plumed twinkling of these ======================================== SAMPLE 37 ======================================== in the west of los angeles are thena bigger than life, you know he'll try to tell you something like why I believe in you, why I believe you can save souls, or how to save souls and will burn them michigan knoxville a dance around death's coffin ground in ms. are you someone who can smell sour cheese and mud on a sunny day and have never called the number of a bar for a dance at the boxy desk where a man gets up from and down again from the ring of chairs in the back of the grandeur chapel oh you who have never heard an old woman make the forty answer of a fist in an old woman's grate desk in an old woman's mansion in los angeles, good morning, oh you who have never heard a south wind on a post make a unite in the hole <|endoftext|> "Four Phases of Color", by Natasha Sto Each of us comes from a dark place a place, behind a shield a circle of songs and shrouds moments of sun lows in us public turf soiled underneath the '60s: an African American wife beat the seeds of revolution fall like rain it's down to us these flowers a year of passion one black boy and one black woman from clovers love of long news cycles and small ones of memory keep on giving * * * from here color doesn't mean color what we touch touched brown will again become more transfigured more than a shining night sky a past like a holocaust those spots where light shines on them now love to be their flowers: flower of tiny teacups and lilypads we can't see love to be their flowers, by number and spreading shape * * red ochre love is a plant with four phases light and dark: heat wave and cold mist love looks like this * * * From this tower I see clouds all around But now, as I look outside it's a different view: There's not much to see but that tower and a few cars on the side of the mountains * * * never as a whole color for each color is incomplete and you see it * * * * <|endoftext|> "Thanking My Big Ten", by Natasha Skrilak [Living, Coming of Age, Arts & Sciences, Poetry & Poets, Reading & Books] The first ten years are over and the end of the journey has arrived: books, notes, poems in a backpack, a pipe, in the sand turned towards the future. Thanking my big ten is my tribute to this treasure. It's what kept me reading at school and growing through the ranks till I got to the long trains of bonds and hits. Thanking them t thanks the last one, turning earlier, the scene turning, it's time to say goodbye. Thank you for the ride. * * * <|endoftext|> "Frogs", by Roddy Lanner [Relationships, Pets, Nature, Animals] One hundred years there is no record of them at all. They're only a foot in the air and then the first worm pops out, easy to push back down in the grass. I remember the first one turning into a goop of its own hype. Another one coming back to haunt me by suddenly sticking out of the ground where I'd stowed it away years ago. But each new worm is like progress, I said, like fifty thousand years of life itself, and that at night there are only the frogs snuffling back in their tube as though they've found something special, like a ledger, or the first time they've ever seen the moon. <|endoftext|> "The Mission", by Peter Levin [Activities, Travels & Journeys, Arts & Sciences, Poetry & Poets, Social Commentaries, History & Politics, War & Conflict] When we began this journey together it was with more than sky for sky and yet it is now so clear that this little blue marble of Afghanistan is nothing less than a miracle. This is the sight of a volcano not far from Herat on the E dial by hours day and ======================================== SAMPLE 38 ======================================== To pray for their souls. "It's right that I should say, that I am right. "It's best that the sufferings should be hidden. "Is it mine to conceal my actions "In the dark, or in the light? "For the earth shines on me, night and day, "Not to hide from God, but to show to man." And she, with all the patience it can hold, Said, "I'm glad. And I'm glad to hear it. "How can I be glad, when I see them "Sufferings of others, and hear them "Preach as they preach cruelty to children? "It makes my heart very strange to feel "That I, in the name of God, should take "His corporal punishment for their crimes, "And never feel sorry for the sins "Of the sins[a] of their faith. Behold! I can turn "My face away from these sheets of mine, "And make a soul of Nature. What will "Me filthy ones think of this? Here are they! "Rough naked flesh! O fairer than light! "She, and her sister, gladness of sex "With forms that ever gayly seem! "I am present to their looks; as when "Thee the tempter and them part company, "And away I am half hid in a cloud.[b] "Ah! do ye know him! What a face! or I $url "Myself, and all at once answer "yes," "But keep the rest of my life, and go on "Greasing long, no matter what, thus crumb-chained. "Oh! who'd think them so fools, who made these men? "I took them for the worst of passions: I held "That a face void of passion, and so dim of sense "Would stand a guard, at Paris and of Rome. "All those strong cities need not go far: all "Bibliomancers have souls, and can read. "But these, for their blockheads, all over Earth, "Want all that expensive and miserable "Which Scholar for his studies brings,--a mouth. "They[e] souls, and vainly to themselves argue, "That cools, and think it forms an argument "Against the punishment of Death. And they say, "We make so much trouble for our own sake "By imprisoning those so bad, no other than "That which Nature made for us, we are bad. "Now, this I answer, and maintain, in Truth. "A better state than this affords me, "If they which, elbowing, imprison us, "Best be pleased to leave their being, "Th' expedient is, we, ere the ruin come, "Escaping should these from ill, should rather chafe "Than all, and show a milder punishment, "You should fly far away from these burning Suns. "There reigns in bliss, a state which I have found "Twice attained in; the means which I have used "Have[s]ful friends, and happy ended will make[t] it too. "That AEtherial form which you see, [z] "Daughter of Time, would with more joy be found "Anticipative of Return, than that which he[e] "Directs his rays, had ne'er in sight, nor will endure; "And if he had, will have; if not, and Fate, "He had for sure. But Tiresias told him not, "The pleasant hellish scenes of pleasures to come; "Nor told him true things, you[f] crafty Woman. "Many a mad fancy did his travelling pens "Embark from yourne judgments, at those dithied Inns; "But these withered up and buried, "With his in youth's early dawn, "The happy sun, which with their dark-blue doors "[g]nt for the winter night, "An ashes cold does frost up, to day. "There men at work in glassy pamphlets meet, "To see what Phidias and what Daphne could talk: "The sun a globe, made a face for hour to face; "And wishing to be when once more makes room, "After long being used, all they so lightly got, "They did not look once more at faces wise, "Nor wit, nor glory, nor a man's best dear love: "But with the ashes of their former praise as dead "They fix ======================================== SAMPLE 39 ======================================== Happily, gladly go, Let this be always so, So let them stay: how often hath my sigh Blessed this house! how often has my joy Sustain'd you! How often, how often hath this couch its sleep In fancy's eye! O freedom of you all, Yours, O masters, your own to every breath! There are who say, by a duteous discretion, 'She was a rebel; but, since her cell's now her grave, 'Let her rest, forgive her! Let she be blest, 'Free from pain, and so enjoy her six years.' I tell you all my long story, 'Game of Death', To be subservient a hundred times! And had you love, you'd let your hands be white, And wish that tears should weep for her! For now I must my tale relate, my tale of care; And weave together, in a mournful hue, My weary hours of frantic anguish. It was not well: I painted it so cheerfully In rhyme, in music, in a picture-maniada; But, somehow, you know, it fell far short. Why do I tell this tale, then? Because It touches a dear old lady's heart, Or what the other burthen call: Though kisses, words and tears fall t'attend, 'Tis but a slender filament To that precious bellow which stretches Up to realms of sweet oblivion. The friends I sing of are learned, Possessed of power, renown, fashion; The first, second, third, fourth, fifth, Callings to life, to life, to life! E'en old Nature, quick in breath, Should pause and pause, to catch up light, But all we ever hear Is different, louder, keener, With reck of hammers, as the ocean That swells in waves, with tides, full bore, Shoots, shrieking, water-viper, That towers, in vernal hue, like the vine, And darts, a shower, against the ear. Such, for the wage, Stirred within the wistful bugle-tones Of drumming, breast and skull. Alack! old gentleman, you've heard the last Of wild, wild Wo! Who'd have thought I should live? But so 'tis when Death deals a crushing blow To hold the soul in its griping wheel, And thrusting the flow'rs along in streams; The hair is killed, the beautiful hair; The eyelids on the heart for serpent-sin, With strokes that shut the eyes and heart; The soul springs from the centre of the breast, And melts, a flower, to blossom new, Where mingles a leaf with its stifling mate, The stinging feather with the heart's life. Then ho! the soul from all ties pulled out, Life stifled, is hurled to endless Night, And all that most should bind it to earth Outcry and agony, embrace it now Ere ruin has split its frail hide, And torn the spirit from its weed of love. Death halts to mark the wriggling head On the turf his starved eyes swim in bliss; The gurgling lips never uttered sound For man or beast that never stirred Save in a fierce foaming in the sun, Or in a vain dream where lips had kissed. Or at full-blown poppy-blooms that bloom In aeodish mounds that yard the grass, The dew will dream it is a mound of flowers, And aimlessly lower an at your feet. Then ho! our destinies are all wrenched asunder, 'Tis Death who's tying up the loose dishes, Hunger and gluttony justly shalt thou feel; And the dear pride of life and time, Yet why to sigh for this, or brood on it, Or what to say of it make I? But for this I gazed on the death-root, That in the soil of Hell's despair Spread its root and swayed and wilfully dreamed For a moment even to be unfallen There in the light of skies set goldenly By Gods who knew how bitter were such dreams, And how rare sight in the very sun that casts it, To tie men down! And lo! I tell you, my song, When man is once in his grave, By the worst living you may choose, And make believe, what you would, you have. For you may pick and choose ======================================== SAMPLE 40 ======================================== and the taylor-carrilion, where the heroine might meet his broken promised one. The public thrill, the pun- son, the lambent square of gold on the face of the billa, the shock of his name—lion také, taka tey l, tlc—and the silver face, which went thaw when you touched it— it cracked again and of itself into reality. <|endoftext|> "The Sound of Birds", by Julie Beltran after Charles Nickerson The tongue singing outdoors is the garden of love. (I'm thinking of poetry in flesh this summer in directwood, tundjies, and eye-shadows, where the bluebird starts the morning with apple-thumb-creasing and finishes with goslings in our bowl.) Birds are the ones we have always held at the entrance of the cave. The woodpecker stands in the cedar shadows, his splintering axes in hand, with the mind of an addict and the body of an angel. In this wild place the headstone lingers like the nose of an email message—will someone pluck it and read the old texts again for the reply? <|endoftext|> "En Mayo Cubano,", by Eduardo Torres fifty years ago this was a union fight a love that bought the pen and saved the machine my friends had the shop the workers' union the world the ten that come gave the town a good name farewell en láutistance one man's work a friend who died I can't say as your breathless as the dirge that rippled across the shore at night as your singing not dead not now if death shall ever find you <|endoftext|> "Nuevo Pará", by Eduardo Torres [Activities, Travels & Journeys, Social Commentaries, History & Politics, Mythology & Folklore, Fairy-tales & Legends] In the beginning there was the sea What is your hand for becoming the water For the hook's green dye fifty years ago now the sea was green In the beginning was the sun the turning of the wheel the soul death without weight a man pierced with arrows In the beginning was the turning of the wheel no woman's feet No woman's eyes that have seen No woman's hands That have seen the turning of the soul No woman's feet No woman's eyes that have seen <|endoftext|> "Nuevo Pará", by Eduardo Torres [Social Commentaries, History & Politics, Mythology & Folklore, Fairy-tales & Legends] When a poet mourns the state the populace weeping, when a nation the loss of a chief, the murdered a son, the drowned a son-in-law, the tortured a citizen For deceit, for maliciousness, for stubbornness For sedition, treason, treason For a passage of fathomlessness <|endoftext|> "Por Pistolas Nada", by Paul Verl Newbery [Social Commentaries, War & Conflict, Mythology & Folklore, Heroes & Patriotism] A Newbery medal, a Pulitah; heroes, like a bird, on the wing, fringe, nameless, like a stone at the knee, sung by both major highways, the far and parroted Atlantic, the Oriente and plains of Goldgate, the hills of Menaya, the San Rafael heights Near the walls of the City, the wall's single span, bayer, the gates of brass, like a serpents head, the Victoria Memorial, like the wards on the Cross, the laver lip at the chest, like the neck from Kew, the cradles of teeming brass, the "marines in colour" face golden dusky boots, the garter ropes, chains and welting plumes G-games; G-games; the star on a shaggy belly, spinning and dancing while men roar and slug and deck each other into the bargain, like men on a yardarm, and some crouch towards the cheeping balls. Maybe a spittake, a squarechal scream, and then ======================================== SAMPLE 41 ======================================== "She broke her back. After that, every time He kissed her, they made her settle back. All of that makes me glad, She is coming home now. "She felt that, even when he kissed her to please her She would still not be faithful. So the first time she let him help her Move back she was stone. He never could move to be where she was, because She never let him do it. And so there he was once, "So kind to her to see him kiss her, She could not have enough. She tried So hard and hard, She said, I'll leave the man who is in charge. "And he kissed her, and each night for a week, each night the smile Became more still, a shroud to catch the sunshine in the fabric. But she would not leave, would not go away, She would not go alone Even when, after her second legless trip, She passed away from us." I tell you this story, the more you talk it the more it shows a closing. You are imagining a great black curtain. There's a sharp-edged end to it, and it lets through a little, but one word explains the whole story. This is what I mean by story that lets through a silence. And it's only by shutting down with less (and less) that it can let through such a deep-hot silence, that it will not spike at all the quiet after it. You have a thousand churches dedicated to the law of proportion, and you only listen to one that has the ear out and to the neck in. You only know the vast majority, and they will never see one of the silence that would be louder than the clap of that hand. This song would lighten the breath of the singer, but for the silence it tries to fill. If you want the hum of the universe, clap together across the stars and galaxies, watch as the galaxy stretches and cooks, see how the quiescence of matter to full explosion ends with a flash of light, stop when you see how, one curious particle of the quiescence is a universe, stop and go on the handiwork of that universe, listen how it lingers in the after-light, and know that it lingers for ever. This song to myself, you to your side: listen to it to the end, to the handiwork of the cosmic moment and the after, to the final ringing of the universe. What you say is, the tension in the life between ourselves and the universe, what would we wish for, my friend, if that universe were open for us? I answer, no universe without suffering, to the final ringing of that moment. <|endoftext|> "Departure", by Anne Whitney [Living, Death, Love, Relationships] This is what it sounds like Sometimes it whines and moos like a big baby Sometimes it gurgles and foam-calls Its nostrils wide with rage. What is it saying? It's swimming into rendezvous on the coast. I said swim what—whales— this is the first beach we've been on in weeks. I want to say more but I fear I'll never escape. What would we miss most if we stopped this instant for even a moment? <|endoftext|> "The Body is a Edge", by Anne Whitman [The Body, Love, Relationships, Nature, Religion, God & the Divine] You are trying to be me, and the me believes he can mark God’s territory. You are having dinner in a good place. Good vegetables, the wine of joy your lips sweetening into smiles and warming into fondling thoughts of days when the lightning quivered where you now hold courtship. You want me gone. I want the God of this storm to go on making storms that bend me into a groove. <|endoftext|> "He Sends Her Home Again", by Gary Snyder [Activities, Sports] The phone calls are unending, week after week. The later ones are always unpleasant requests for an end to her clutter— churned peas, rusted leaves, a poem she holds in her hands so heavy she trips and trips. Each morning she does not say Good morning ======================================== SAMPLE 42 ======================================== vii. 197-214. Latinus himself, whether right or wrong he did, He blames, and not their negligence, for no more Can add to the tenor of his punishment, Than this cruel year that suffers thro'. These two years has Pluto withholds the spring The heat of Scaurus' rising, and the plain Rough with barren willows, and the marsh black With a dew of naked-foot grass, by me appointed Both water and vegetation, fed her casks Full many;--then she sent a cruel pang to bathe Latinus' shoulders with consternation's fire: Not only scarce water enough she lent him; thus His coat grown sodden with the scurf was wet With lathered blood, with the bill and the hoofs Of guileful Anchises, and those feet,--nor these Sooted only, but that lately of old A stranger had seen him, in Arcady Encompassed, the dangerous serpent's belly driving His chariot:--why did she, Daphnis then, Yield a path so near, and on such inducement? I tell thee this; though unknown, Aeneas Can thee apprehend, and otherwhere received. vii. 297-304. [Epilogue] long has been a main subject the myth of his immortality. Joseph Nicolina (1781-1817) was 'for a time' a Marshal of the Temple. The Latin speech of this page has been drawn from that of Theophanes, as described in the fourth canto of the 'Memoirs'. Dante Fernando de Santos (1777-1847) was a Priest, and had the use of Greek. The 'Memoirs' have left him little choice, but his poverty And premonitions, prompt to the poor, were likely to draw to The story of how I met a traveller (Him for the year, it ran, six days central sun Por la noche) rolling and rolling in his armour. His head upon a golden pelt; His face Colorless and pure, like the memory of a lamp; His face Degraded and dust-bespattered from constant Use, he needs must sigh to be so well. I never was as gay as when I was riding. Your arms about me in love, in marriage; Racing from rock to rock, we used to talk, The eldest of your sons was an unwell child, and threw A shadowy hound around me--Jude was the youngest. I once woke up, when I fain would sleep again, The sun was in the sky, and I was weary of playing. So many are our victories, and nothing feels As though we'd won anything. I'll lay again toil And tangle of golden hair, and step, and be dismissed Already by my Brother and Fellow in heaven,-- My own Roman Roman--all of me gone to right; That but a stone's-kill to be with me in Rome,-- In Rome! but I beg you will lightly chastise The thought that is causing my heart so much pain! To-morrow I quit for Italy--and to let All the world (call it guilt) for honor to your shade. And you, my brother, who saw Rome before The Mussulman in her most perfect life, (Though now but a shadow of what she was) Tell me, may the Corsican blood within your veins Not say a word against proceeding thither,-- Let us go--and we will lose in good time. To make the thing clear, I'll venture to reveal Where first my secret was found, that you know. I was your Ambassador in Italy; I had been there just a few weeks, 'till when The tenth February I was sitting there. A bright new night and warm enough was near, No cloud upon the horizon in the East. We two men and one man's burdens to the whole sat waiting;--but I had one more stone to Fill up the waiting-room; and to do that, A vacancy in my own boat was needed. He Who filled that vacancy (but knew the humour Of no one in the boat) was a fellow Who for his celebration--to call it so-- Had named himself Lord Jed. Enough for one, And two there were, so joined their considerations, Had you or me been left. Well, it passed merrily. ======================================== SAMPLE 43 ======================================== There is no maid at all, to show what woman could be. She was just the same as all the other creatures were,-- The gardens, which we look upon with awe. There grow the wild sweet-flowing herbs, And fields of salad blossom; But woman? I have seen her--in person, --Who is she?--She lives in Sagard. Were the maiden of Capri that Este! Are her raven tresses ever put out, By the sea's sweet azure? In great prodigal also is she, And gives and takes more than e'er was given And more than e'er will be more. She of the mighty mills, the mills that keep All the blood of that great town, with hers the mills That turn the choicest wheat for other foods, And in pots on the floors of the great city That town's old royal squares stand. She of the hundred-year-old house, the old Great-grandfather's house, the house in which were These two which now are falling to, Hears then the great merchant coming, but On the corner of the wide street, in the sight Of the parish house beside the old-built Saracen's restaurant, hears not a word From the Earls of Morecambe and prosing Where the good old chaps are eating and drinking, But, by the almshouse, sounds an alarm, And comes the press of curiosity And brings the folks that was shooting in. On and on, on and on, With the wondrous marble in their throat, And the shoulder's ivory, and the mane Of the curly white horses, Shooting and drinking together. Down by the antiques and the ruins, and Up by the theaters, and down by the streets, And all the way, from north to south, On the street that led to Vermont, There's an awful lot of gold. Been there, been there, to myself I say, More money can't make her there. Yet she had scarcely touched the coin When she was on the edge, Till her frame started to grow heavy-- Her frame on the verge Of retirement was feeble and dry. From hour to hour in tracings I'm ready To make her my old terror, but her joy; Till at last I say, "One thing is better now, my dear, than Till we part--in the forest yonder. That's better than flying her away; That's better than following her." Why are the churches still so green, Why are they not to summer turned To ashes in the fire, The seats of joy and long delight? Shall we weep, shall we be wroth, Shall we curse, or yet affirm That golden city on the hill? For there there's fire and dust, there's heat, And gold to lessen and mingle, And noise of train and bell and eer, And many-colored traffic. Shall we then, with our literary dust, Bid goodbye, Richard, With thy velvet sark and thy ponderous gown? Oh, no! they are not odd, Richard, they're fine And good, in a doubt, for the person who sees To cherish and comfort thee and thy friends. And it is our hearties' highest good, To think we have cheerlessly, and leave, For old Henry, his Devonshire face, To be with thee. The lord with the cri de boChestat, the gentleman of France, Says he, "Why, Richard, my dear old brother, woe is us! And then you talk of Church and State, and I am shocked. Heaven forbid, I say, that a man such as you should ever live! Behold that picture again, and why does that hand Clench thy mouth and hold its contortus? Thou canst not walk, Richard, Though gayest and gayest, but that, if my lore teaches me, Thou shouldst be used as Samson was used to be, And then it were sick and mean and wanton. Here's nothing, here's every thing, and thou mayest take 'em Richard, thank those b----es who have brought thee to justice; And I know not what, but I feel that I am sore in a wharf. Because I admire neither the priest, nor yet the lecher, Nor the gentlemen who keep a close between you and man, But I weep in picture what, and forgive. Long may I upre ======================================== SAMPLE 44 ======================================== That thou mayst not imagine me too sure Of what I disclose, call it faith if I am true; Call it faith if thou canst unwaveringly believe: Faith that wins humble servitude with noble gifts, Each hour in earnest given by thee, and bestowed At call of Heaven's Divine Goodinst mouth: Won by the just Contemplation's ear, Though more exalted, not the less true. The around tongue's cooenercial greed, which fills When th' abstracted body's tanks of lungs he wants, And aids to vent it's sacred air of lungs; Which, if exhausted, leaves the heart of bignesse Vagible for either use, and levels stem into house: Than the heart of thine to trample, mine to ruin, hurl: And many a feature of wearisome flesh engages, When thy good thoughts spread wide to seed the grosser brain. But because it is only in the shrine of Reason, Mine with my belief that is mildest replaced, Its image is of such a bargain form'd That all my sensual reason scarce can find That changed equos to recommend to the display Of light demi-gods in form a man. --But leave me, many aspects of Nature display Of that original, moral, and impressive mind Which we are prone to name transcendent: find (Admiring still, though now inclined to sneer) What shape of nature some distinction bears in 's face: Suffice it that for each kind it's sweet to own Which will each result in each creature's weal, Nor deep the fault, if nature fails to show What health in bigger forms simplicity destroys. For never like intent has Nature intended Part of the substance to another to betray. Or think, as plants, we must suppose that souls Still on advanced pinches swathe the fruitful soil Of green repast; that renown or virtue, The immortals' charge, they guard from injury Their creature's responsibility; what sustains The sacred flame, and what its vigour from When at the mouth of man's unhealthful charge, As they did just and right, sees right from wrong. But if I now free from idle fears behold With nourishment, light and healthy prospects find, What is't man's poor reason gains by sight Or mind that lagging behind at once goes ill Whereto it saw and what's never yet seen Too late for Heaven to do the like, I see That ne'er was bane of science or religion. Man, man's warrant, made for selfishness alone; For reason, for science, nature, for the gods: And ever in the realm of thought we find, Or man's prophetic mind by choice or chance, Some bad, some good, all consistent with fate; And this the solemn Chaldees own Unto a faith they had not need, or choice. The Isle o' Demons where each silent volcano Rushed down within one man's reach or chance, The Chaldeans' oracle, or this their books, Slew forth a plume, or crest, at random fell Sicilian monsters grim to view, This their chance, this condemnation same; But thousands felt not fate the whit, Yet lived, and died, and raved, and feared more, Threats upon th' oppressed by sabre and spear, And twang of tomahawk: no circles made Round them for their attack to trench, For man dwelt, a coy and pale man, Tho' the stars knew light, scarce touched at all, And not a wind, day, night, thought he When the soul, suffused in Paradise Could make him more and more stout; So, of his brothers' works seem we Or simply princes, wise and just, Are men. Man is craven, man is strong, Yet in his plights we find True to the Steed of On and On To his black foot, that on his chain Is struck the Jewels of the King; In the broad light he hath not learned To see things bad or good, Or sight from the stars; We at our ease his games are won, Who the mind aright; But woe's the game, and woe the death, That doth have a mind! Now thus, now thus, in thy merry plumed guise, Demons, you may know to be, Demons, your royal pastime be; For joys, nay well, of noble deed or speech, May never glitter on the stage: Though ======================================== SAMPLE 45 ======================================== Where were treated the gifts of wooers With chamois-legged mysteries. "In too strong a humour," The heavy hours had twined Soft boundarias, and sweet jimrooses. Oh, morning freshness of a day Beheld not a cocka] He stood among his swarming bee And lark-hopping angels, Honey in his teeth, and not a feather Stepping out with the least lagacity. "Can we live without your humanity?" Nay, "to do"s not sound nice; And, anyway, who'ld rather than "would" There was a jasmin in the brisk fall, A blue that woke, a rose blowed by the door, And fawn-turned and shepherded and sniffled-tired Wearily, in November, asleep again. Too heavy and unsubduable And--too soon requited with urim and thistle-- And--ah! my lord, what a landing for a catch To win this night of all nights, set for one. In a black blacker than blackness there lay Beneath one sail-tarn other one An old wingless Lady who was crying. 'Tis a faint dream that holds such cost, Her lord losing faith in--Leaves of the Court! No least whimsies that moved her face-- The melancholy of it told: 'Tis the cheap brain that eats not whole days, That cries if the ships are sunk that carry you. This flag no leaf is to blind you with-- In truth 'tis the most of our sending not to lose you, There 'uught was none who sought there but one, And yet 't was a good thing done there For the Lady that laughed in the sight Of the Lady with the Horn. This bode That the East of one with the West-- All were out of the Court who laughed at the Horn. May a dream come true, that we, 'twas said, Would be most content with the news that came,-- Now, pity the Mother that she knew we'd be A full day ahead, but the hour pulls near: For, half a thought that misses the goal-- That string comes unstrung, but the horses keep Horse from horse, and draw after horse, as they run; And you see them gallop off But cannot see them--the blizzard's wake From the Court that flew, with its guests that came. I heard the rain, and I saw the snow, And the sleet flew the sleet and the rain. The blizzard's knot is brakein' and brakein' still, And the temperature's below zero outside. The horses, you see, if the wind had thumped, Would have cleft a man's head of pieces ten-- But the pelting snow, the blinding, cold rain, Did before they thumped, they and a half-breast Of Billy, behind Billy, were peddlin' blizzard-naut On Billy's back, that was whipped to see 'em go. Cold was the wind, but we would have a good time, And we were buried in laughter and sleigh-craft-- While the pelting snow fell and woke us up With Billy catching `em, in the blizzard, Jim, As they thumped away o' to St. Paul that night, --But a man-sized tooth in the hall-logue joined the quarrel-- And they stuck at it with their chaps on; As they wanted to hit Jim 'very near, but feared The shock of a wood-tho' at hand might be fatal, And they took a vantage-court by the east, and swore That their audience would gather behind the scene, To hear the second-quarry blown to a violet-tail, And Jim rob the easterne and the summer from us, But the rest stayed in their homes and shut the gates; While the others spoke o' the Court. They all swore, in sooth, That the Court made them feel so giddy, keen, As they could not draw their mouths- opens, and beat Up from their eyes to the sharp lightning's flash: For it stirred up rabble-rebellion, and a storm Of ambition blew, in their breasts, till the Court Gave them a grand 'oot, but 'mused, and it set them crying In the morning to try a new way of hustling-- They did it again, but not so close. They began With a whim 'an ======================================== SAMPLE 46 ======================================== When it comes to dice or ball Some be boys that think to climb with much to catch at leaping dreams Some be little girls that have run away from home and thought to roam Some be men that in childhood played and rode their stolen ponies And laughed as they hit their mates blind with the old heavy horsewhip Some be clerks and some be ills Some be faithful who cling with thick corpses To the hope of mint-hodding monastic nicknames Some be knights and some be bishops And some be happy when you're dead Every one knows That Christ who died on Thursday Came in that sacred shape From the sacred quarry of life And that his dying mouth be moved And their animal shape He had none And that his feet Were not Longer of the living foot Of the living God And his hands Warm, strong, hairy, wise They were not By the living foot Of the living God There is no man alive who can say That he died in the resurrection On Thursday Of the living God That the body of Christ was bruised And that his head Was of the head of thuriferous man The blessed head Of thuriferous man Who got such a thurst And shook so fitfully At the moan And shriek of the trumpet In favour with God and man That the cockaul of the world Could not lull Aetherial forms Suffering in man's lungs That they swore had died And came back to life And made cry cry And as dazed that shape They were outrunning the night Till they reached the top of it I am these things And you will say All these things Your tears will know And you will say That the animal man Is not the same as the spiritual man Whose feet they shook and leapt From the crack Of the earth And were uncertain whether they would stray Till they turned and trembled and crept into holes Till they stood as man Naked To see And as bare As any beast Who feels And fears and knows The God-given cruelty And the care And the love Wherewith he must clothe his fear And in nothing sleep But be transformed In sleep With aching heavy-hearted sleep That knows and cannot see True beauty. <|endoftext|> "My Child 36", by Mary Jo Stoptman [Living, Growing Old, Relationships, Family & Ancestors, Religion, Judaism, Social Commentaries, Money & Economics] by one that has made An everlasting ban of going up and down The eye-lids must be clamped they say, every half-hour These chairs do not stay up Ally currencies are out of land—every half-hour The stock-piled temples stand shaken every half-hour a family courtier Accusation alone can be used to creaway The hangman's weed is bad to the victim and so The only people who come are half-killed and pull young bodies up on The train-wfire's twelve tall Men a half-jointed cliff-ends flee A second-rate circus built to form Life and Death arrears in the eye-level for the drop of dust and the hour of six has caught them in its incubation The young Jews run and leap and trample him down to come back no later wanting thus to live The name of the game was losing the shit in dry and weedy level The Victor kills to put the game away My blessed morning is turned, I weave And in the night-wind Grow the green fields All Jews, all under A dome of half-arses I recant On the keyboard of broken blood No daughter of mine will marry a Jew A moose-fathoming boy In the wash of blood and light Son of the West will stand over the hunger-mouthed stone. <|endoftext|> "You Have Entered the Electic Portal Door at the East", by Randall Hughes [Living, The Mind, Time & Brevity, Nature, Animals, Fall, Landscapes & Pastorals, Spring, Summer, Arts & Sciences, Mythology & Folklore, Greek & Latin America] You have entered the electric moment. You stand within an ethereal field of ======================================== SAMPLE 47 ======================================== His voice her raised with happy fear; She disentangled into words His mood and habit, loved and loathed. "I'll feel him now his brave, his proud, be seen: If war had entered in his reign, Then I should hear how martial fame tells, His noble lords were all undone. At present this is strange and strange; I had not courage--all but wisdom. That time was not then his alone. Where then was all the warlike art? But, then, the land's love is shared among Many lords, each eager to receive, A crown--but, when the princess goes, Then he no longer will receive, And for himself no other vow. But if he had feared some other time In friendly league and Union Hall he'd bide, His kingdom, seen with anguish dim, Would he return so soon his later day? 'Twas stranger that he whose front was often wet Should so soon hold a break, if God so willed. But back, I say, and ask what change was made? That hundreds must to death pass--and go. Well--these do of course their death return, But what of the royal cup that broke in flower? Were he some cockney though, or stranger boy, We should not grudge him an inch of ground; If monarchs lived for ever, sire, Nor break when good is faked by ill, And willingly, as they belong, To heirs, to prayers and vulgar gain. Hearken, then, to a settled use-- To paths which they have mounted before, To shoulders, planes, and cy Lines drawn, And battlefields won, to feed the wise; And let the broken royal bowl Have brewed them air and light; and give Of vials with four letters' mail, By which the difference of one is known." "And is much nearer her today, Tho' 'fly' may appear in sic graph, Whist I jouk in such a 'r night As gave Simtow's earth a scare, When heavy fell our 'ter Wher we won't 'duke'; Or ever we got sic a farthing sum, So here's my duet with you. And though the on'y 'gainst a gown Or iver I got at the bar, I'm not some minsthad that hates His orner out o' my song-- To give up brawling, o' sole! But 's a' my sin--The hook, you find, It gave an unbribable excuse If you have got a girnin' thing The cow tuck, or coot caw, "Piddy cow! piddy cow!"--'cause I've got Some strange things to off you for! So e'en when it is not right, That ony can, to make you right, I may be able to show That very few can on yeal-- (And 'stead o' plaze some things that' is not true!) A little dust, a little dust, a little dust, A little dust, a little dust, a little dust. The world is round, the world is round, the world is round, And dust is dust, and dust is dust again, And dust is sprinkled, dust is sprinkled, dust is sprinkled by dust, And dust is dew, and dew is dew again, And dust is All and We are dust, and dust again. The walls of aureate They gaze in stupendous girth, A holo score of spokes in a funnel text, And, "Where . . . where's . . . where's a way . . . for a - Where . . . Where . . . oh, where's a road for them?" And, "Here's the college . . . and the Muse's there; And there's a Pail, and He's in the rat! Go next door for quid pro quo. Go next door for quid pro quo. To buy; or at any time while Quid pro quo stands aght, To buy; or anything at allI've a pecun' but it's not the price of a fal- lul gift. In a minute will be an election which they can quate, And then . . . To vote and be unable to vote and quate. He who has power to stop or cease a deed that harms no one, Or who has power to heal or mend a sick or maim- ing body, has the beneficent woman ======================================== SAMPLE 48 ======================================== An iron maiden, Fanny, runne, What needs she spin and what not is? That will not do, dear Fanny, That will not do, Fanny, On faith of perfect to decke. Me thinkes, and knowes, what all men ston, That little yet doth they prance hight, I my selfe did write evill things in the Strand, My instrument I had, was a hod, And nothing else I needed neede other, Or ere I firste turned the same to the pot. But quoth the King, come forth, and see That dancing Witch on the New-Burthening Hay. If euillards tres and flanges were not worth a thing, The slynes of this hid beauty would perchance, It well perchance, and lightly cou'd not scorn, Me see, thus hidden yet nought slue in the Face, But burnes in false slipper, to loue anon. With blisse, With blisse, ye wallows, and blisse, blisse. Come through the woods, And see'st the blosma-flow. These Louers, who in tall-hewn palaces Gainst each other sha' about the world, These now do boldly not show theyr false faces, But enjoy, and loue. With the plague-silver that counterfeiteth cost, With Euight-silver that false lamb is cost, With mild Sterling, that deceiving Pelf, Each cause Loue does fayre, with Euine countesse, With great Sacred-gold that drawes th'infernal eies, With silver respeck'd all, strong vanitie, With cupces he to soule attemprement builds His dwelling in the bosome of the cieling Earth. Fair is thy fall, but worke for punishment, Thy fall is most beautiful to see: Now thou art fallen so, and we may guess By watching how thou fallest thus. All thou that fallest now e're anie, There make to be fall'n a champion; If pernoy might be made at another, Would miss set honour; Fall thou first, and end ther whole design: For thou mayst fight another, and for that Worthy be thy foe: Then arm thee for thy tremblerie next, And for the strife of Euen more then last; For should thy fall by itself e're begun, That fight it impossible Meantime draw thou fourth or Foe, Whom to behold, my next desire, To see aere thou hast not reseen. He falling now, doth show how God for sin flings Down from heaven, which distresseth all the creatures, Or rather 'tis all one, and the same certain; Makes men to fall, God wills not to divert Their main accurs' in this small case. All fall, as I have told, so soon as they, The same certain, in their last decay, But he that sighth most, and hath the most, Of them that most fell, shall be last to die. Thus being fairly teach'd, 'bout three houres The baths't hart of God without a bark, I, like a sable monster, stand on horse, Tied to a red fire; 'tis mine heart that moves, So bright yon bright sun his sister shines. Daughter of Jove, their oriflammes wail, And I o'er Euphrates find out my way, Where drownd towards the world a thousand suns burn; But more I love, that less I come indeed. O beauteous Earth, lo! thy beauty's over all, Cut 'cross my small pale face, that Venus' face appears: Some burne hair-head turns his brightness up to fire; Then is black grow complexion, at that shot. Thou Moon, thou shalt not grace my coming more. I come of Bacchus, and thou of Troy. I, being naked, yet unwourthing me with clothes, Sitt'st with the Sabine princes in surrender: Yet e're naked, ne're shad or stocking he finds; Like the sage choicest wine-smuggler, he smokes; Then is growteth vigour, like a frosty day, He groweth so us across the summer heat, Leaves his own garment white with countless folds; And so, too, the German Mars across ======================================== SAMPLE 49 ======================================== . . . an attempt to ingratiate a stranger to the innate skepticism I had come up with stupidly . . . . anyway, I was beginning to realize that, no matter how much the doctors said it could be done, he was not coming back. She was killing him, trying on his own kind of grief. It had been years since I'd seen his face. I called for dinner, and he told me that he would not dine with me, because he'd had the night bus to Springfield, and he didn't want to get mixed up again in traffic. Then he said he wasn't going to go to dinner, and I said fine. I was a poor inventor. <|endoftext|> "A Compass to the Isles of Tellus", by Edgar Allen Poe [Nature, Animals, Religion, Social Commentaries, History & Politics] 1. Highlight Action Action OK Normal Content Overturned ship, lost instrument, lost bark, shipwreck, wreck acting randy in the double-decker bus, drunk, acting grown; naked, seat of reflection, seat of wonder; but being able to see the iridescence of God, skinning the slippery keel; See the poppies niffing in the brass and tile of limes; the striations of sate out in a bath, zoom of a long look in sky; the zigzag edge of a finger touch, fading in heat, down diving again; real world, useless; lost and found, language, lost and found, live and found, work and rest, eating and drinking, action, thrashing the alive root of past; memory, flashing, delirous; power, collapse, scorn, pendulum tending, tend until at last it leads back to death, to dying; constant, ever present, ever lonely, life keeping constant time. II. Alone on the shores of Tellus Earth consumes herself, the blue sea ripples, life-streams in whom we shake our heads in puzzlement, boy and girl who jump from the dune; the older ones with sandy hand-grip; the younger, with naked hair; the mother among them, drinking alone from the bowl. <|endoftext|> "Belongings", by Phillis Wheatley [Nature, Arts & Sciences, Poetry & Poets] Take, Reversal, a whole day's labor, for which I live and invert, and all's right with things, with me and you; and so our two spirits go together, whispering, half laugh, as 't were Wolves of Saint Anthony, into your pockets, your farm-girl's glasses, your letter to Miss A. and Mister, where all the folly of years in subtle footnotes lies. Say what you will, but say it clearly: Poetry is handbags; the truths are Wolves of Saint Anthony; and our longest journeys are to any place with Wolves of Saint Anthony; nothing is as it seems, never. <|endoftext|> "George Bernard, Word Jack", by Phillis Wheatley [Activities, Jobs & Working, Relationships, Friends & Enemies, Social Commentaries, Cities & Urban Life, Crime & Punishment, Crime Control, War & Conflict] As I passed a railroad overpass, I watched the little men and women get off the train With radiant eyes and rush, a glory in hot sun down, Down short tracks that cleaved stone-blind curves, Ticking the clock hard into the metal teeth of the Time And lap, lap, lap—of machinery, To raise the long flags, fast flags, of shredded bunting, Of white cloth twisted into a lightning-bolt Of silence, left and right of the tracks Where one past bridge, over the highway; And, so far up the curve, so far beyond Where eye could follow the red or blue past— All but the last flash of fugitivity, A wind off in the blue that touched off the trains. I watched them stand and stand and step on— A sash, a mantle, where the sun Shouldered hill and valley with its gold And wet the flowers out, the heart of each With millions of mouths, with millions of mouths, Hearing it laugh, as music, through the day. The patrols flashed and swerved; then the trains roared through, The sky turned dust; and I moved, and I passed— One hour; then they closed the huts at evening, And George B. Wachewsky shot ======================================== SAMPLE 50 ======================================== That my soul kept alive the vernal summer. Of how she looked, of how she trod, In the hot season of the year The day of All Souls: Oh, my heart! Then to remember her with pain; For by such sorceries as these She is defiled as we all are. There is no flower that blooms and flies, But it, some day, will fade and die: There is no flower that gracious bright Has both qualities of cold and haste; Yet it, if waste and forgotten, bears Upon its stalk that other fruit Which mingling as it flies Shall later taste the rain of Heaven. Some converse with Time that could decline And yet was flattered by the Sun's farewell; Some converse with Time that played O'er flowers, where blossoms died, And thought that even he could be misled By the fair sunbeams' summer farewell. But what shame in that soul wellazels, Weeping for the faith it given, That even its own most virtuous power Sight evermore shall o'errun? And to each weak portion of its fold Each song should be subserviant writ, O'er their soul's sickly summer's day. Thou to the wandering wind shalt be, When it fares best it shall be mute; With groves of giant marble red And scions of a glorious ring It shall aspire till it fain would keep Those ancient cheers, where through the blue Of oceans immortally shall fly The blithe winds and the blithe sheep. There shall be song in thy fair words While the mountain breeze stirs its grass While the clouds through the mountain run, While the hills return the sunny smiles Which the new-leaped streams delight, And a turning parkour o'er the plain Shall carry the rejoicing sheep. But the cycle of this earthly day Cometh in abysses main; Which holds within its cycle bound The primal year which taught earth's son What to the sea meant the treading; And where, as up the firmament they soar, On their bright course shall plunge and burn. O thy bird's earth shall be as day, And water as stars and fires; When as sun from ether's face Down the nether orbs he moveth, In the sea's own region he The starry planets shall perceive, And the tide-swimmer's extremity, And with love, not fear, ensepulchred; And that whereof 'tis dark and dreary, Where the land is barren and cold. In the bird's-eye face Earth shall shine, And in earth's fair breast again Birds flight in the sky like flowers; But it may cloud her evermore, When her green fields swell her sea, There shall she find the fledg'd Anemone, And her earth-encircled home, In the fortified and unshorn forest, In the dim dell shall she behold it. To thee this story of the last shall be; For, through the fog of dim centuries' flight, The world was bright to me, which hides the last, That my pale sheep from the stars should range, And that I, next their isle-sides, only From paler sky, less far than they, should drink, Stood, as the windows of the East are lit. But not of them nor them, as I should be If I could rend from them my headlong age My soul's last hope for the vast future; I can but watch the joyful world, not what E'en there we saw them stand, two by two; Each, as in his cradled sleep his limbs were laid, Yet, arm'd with banners, up to the banners' height For the long table-boards display'd their shining shaggy tops; While the lower windows parting, but to give room, By arches wide and immense plains of goodly food All, richly roof'd, all, yet one at the mercy of the winds, The pensive shepherd kings gaze at the Gothic feast, Pleas'd for their nations' sin, and pain, and care, Though turning to those divin'd, it seem'd to them they saw Not the course of fame or riches but their pleasant day, Seen backward, pensive sat them, mooding and pensive, Beside the stream of time and human things; Muttering their light vows as, up the's where now they stand, Their wills appear. ======================================== SAMPLE 51 ======================================== chandeliers glittering. "All hail the King of all," Cries Addison, "from lofty squares of granite to jewelled baize!" Vide Hal or Lot or long vista and flowering vines shrill flowers of the usual that trouble the mirror. The other, apparent, concentrated behind mirrors of bordes prysed and glossed, and beneath mirrors of bourgeots of gold. Where's that transformation, O little child, That ocarina that waits in a window of the living-room all the long hours of the day and night? 'Tis to a world of gold where nymphs with diamonded tongues A vein of weed in a mine is far less Secure, you know, than those mines that cry Deep in my heart with the moan of death That market town, which revels in its own lampooned Excesses of folly, and drowns the honest Voices of moderation, and is the hot Place for conversation, and warm and hospitable For vent of the venereal. They drown your Wub blazes of lust and hideous ass, For fulsome sociability! You'd think it no Tolerance that every vestigial member Would be thirstily acknowledged. Oh, no! You'd riot if your brother got the jilt, Until you bumped your chin and had to Run the story down, and look to it. So 'tis the spirit of life in a bad spirit That leaves its slaves destitute of respect. Lady, all the urban charms I sigh for Are yours. May fair Cities grow, And glisten, I love it, from my heart. May cosy Hugger-room and chink Murm my incessent heart with bliss. And let the city buzz and chiv, For silly standards never mind. And not a soul care whether 'Tis ground or verisht; or black Or white; or big or small, nor height or Nim, or whether mopped with pure Color of the sun, or black with cobwe Silver; For nought of it; yet I'll love it all. To you, who hateth, and as many things Cannot with one zeal be pure, I'll list to you a little word or two. We are, and have been, thralls of the cities. Like most things, I find, the more I look for, The more I see. They seek, like fellow-soldiers, To slay me wanderer in the wilderness Of Heaven. Some slay for gain; some, for hatred, Because they are so often slung to the wall By their own dirty dice. Hate is the dime I see you flapping there. Why, I deem, and pity Even your godlike cheek. They are not slow To save their fellow-creature; but I Here like a Cock, at the least, do all For love, with a love that's slight. Oh! sir, there's much A creature might droop, with all his manifold Kinds of love that's worth the very skies! There is my love for a young and tender bird Who flits the green-buttoned bough; And the poor fate, and ill luck, and bloody dire Confusion of a moth, and his torments, Who while he's a slave to the slow regimen Of the hours, all helpless, is at once struck And flamb'd, and crabb'd, and roasted, and stew'd, And turned onto the bed. And no wonder! His whole Value's scorned. His wings that spake not parley, His sweet life's sense, by tortures I could never Ensuage, none. His little soul's eyes, and hanging cup Of one poor simple sorrow. The mulberry Tree that can't bear fruit, but always cries poor out And cries himself up with his bravery. And the cedar that's shy and homely, and can I think the cedar has learned, by this trial, That to defend himself he needs a chain, A buckler, and a flute. And those canines That know by their teeth! Now, list! Were I, at night, With this babbling of the city jail, that licks At night, I'd tremble and laugh, and drop my head. But I am a sinner. I like the dark. But only read, let them, what the cowslips mean. For many nights they talked, with a talk that sounds Like the doleful, melancholy laugh of pinks, When nature's law is turn'd off, and slumber ======================================== SAMPLE 52 ======================================== Duckin' pale choot stars from the moon, Seethin' the stuff 't would draw in a of ix. Ollas had, 't wur an art wur yut they hed Cuth' the moon killed 'im. Ollas had a deeshk and it wur bight an' broad 'Or white, and, as coomself eloquent, Duckin' me where I did fly; Ollie must hae gae my stories, Ollie wur no sake to tell. Then our Can. bore his bullets in, But they wur no use te us 't an' the fool, He gied every o' ark But the luv'ers would nivver win, Wur fashin' 't all up that feather. Then they mended a bit o' stibble Bud an' ter'ery off furder, Till Ted neet for a glimpse in the sky, Hirplin' ower a row. Then they couldn't do a'thing, so they wur finished, And gimblin' as well ower, When we wur besinn' and we did look, An' one in men's livins, but 't all seemed Birds as chickens, wur pigs as prawns. Then Ma said, "Hoyte our Bird has fled, An' Ted is lost!" That didn't make no sense Till I knew whate'er I was. But I'm sure I'm no thoo to fancy things, An' it's upsie-deensie, This pulling ower the skirts to stand on, The arms all up wur like purses lighted at the door; The knees wur awkward in a creature so light, 'Cause the wings had made wobbles. Then the May Down came, with an alms echo, And they lookinn' ower the world as we ken, All breathin' an' jokin', 'Cause the wings I ken did seem to sway Ted at the gallop. Says Ma: "I think they do wur ill. The 'Tailor' it wur deead to git it all s'ordered. I'd give a sack o' pigeons A piece o' gold, 'Nere 't all brawpun to say, I'd say, the tailor I could do. Says Ted: "An' I could stan' a ladle here, An' he would jist try, Than be a tailor like Rylstone do, A raavy one, I could try him on." Ted gae flop, flop, flop, flop, On hole wur sweared a ravel pigeon, Till, Wat? he'd done a calf, Then I gae, woman, your ain blud Was nea dool to sich wur, As wad yiks, milkdoors, Wur sioch a tame wud as the tailor, 'Cause the pigeon wur said. An' nothin' 's juist as the rake, Wor big, wi' wings, on Hampnochie's kirk, Says Ma, "Hush, now or nane, Hodin' there in church-yard, Lord, with The great mason stair, The rake wur just hodge in there, th'<|endoftext|><|endoftext|> TOMEEN -- The Barony of the Isle of Galilee , and one son of Saint John of the Cross, now a private villa, picnicing with the light and the paper: only yesterday a flight was canceled after a mortar-spot, close to the steep, and soldiers patrolled the air with guns, droning, the loud hum and clatter of rifle fire was heard for a whole hour, and, to boot, one soldier told us how they have hidden there in the rocks a parrot, the creature snatched from his breast, and whosoever should find it there and bring it to the gate of his army then he would give them a hand in the war. On the other side of the water and the sea a man, again a young man, with boots and saddle before him, where the road not far off now led up from the town and there the town with its hamlet and hedge-cut, as far as the eye could see, and rising there in the ======================================== SAMPLE 53 ======================================== literal veil; Might be thought to hide the fiend from the sword, That with a glance oblique, threw scorn on all. <|endoftext|> Lie quiet, and wait in laughter's name The appointed silence for the wealth Of your ermine. All's at the great bidding rested, Whose daring swans upraise not now it was his To sweep the sea-plain with standard stroke, Let the ice-storm faute and vast it takes no ship. The air is so thick you cannot see your feet, Till the waves strike into the straining pane, And the gold stream's dim and cower in vain. For far's the bad end from your flying eyes, When he is far from the wrathful west of stars That now whirls and storms and swells and hurries To east and south. Why, Lord, why? Now, behold! Your own love brought down. Sleepless and wild He spreads his back, and crazing the ways of man, The new day's flying glory arrives, And sinks like lightning into the sea, And every wind-paced ripple bears us down. Half a kalends of the sunset's flame Drifts for the gathering flower of the sea, When the tide's outgoing sleep has held All but the empty vessel from the sea, But now the west wind 'gainst aizeled foam, Over a hidden barrier of tall kelp, Gathers like drenched down the front of waves. While those brazen clouds unfurrowed arch The lofty shelf where remains of old The gilt-bowed olive trees of Castille, And dark dim gates of other ages stand Wide open. With higher and with sleeker spray, No mortal eye may see them and behold As they sleep in the marble scud beneath The trefoil's resting shadow. No; he has come. Where eaglets sail and sea-sads chat, And faint and fainter music swells in tears, There now the youth sits, and he laughs in vain, With drops and tidings to the tide and shore And laughing runs. If, in the buoy in wain As wind and tide fight for power in the Spring, There comes an end to the fight for a flower, And the proud tulip blooms, and none understands, But the wild north wind 'gainst a field of thorns, That breaks round fields of flax,--is it strange then, In the glow of a fresh dawn of spring A golden thought, made, in some spiny sphere, A violet with haws and harebells, where light is Sleek fur, rounder than the Moon's ghostly pale, And stiff like the tendril of a sapling, In flowers that wave with life like anemone At dawn? Such thoughts are he. But thus it is That the north wind still runs to the West, And the face of the Night begins to age, As men say, who their days with a sigh, When, while the hush of the morning appears, A far-off thought will wake in the mind As dim as the silver and the starlight, And burgeons, alone in a wood of trees, A world that's out of the human pastic lie Of polestar and inanity. For who, With the cursive for their wit, or a phrase, Hears in their walk a prophecy of rhymes In the sweet June in the May of thought?--yet more She sleeps, and the world turns and finds her the maid Whose cheek is wet with the dews of all hearts While, oh, she loves, and the heart is a fire; For she has let it beat, and the sleepy crest With light upon it of conscious feet, And, oh, she is young with a pure young heart, And her lips are sweet, and the night is pale, But she wakes, with the bloom of a morning brow, Who lets out words as men with wine; Yea, every maiden sister, and maiden wife, Hear how the dark thick boughs among, Fill with a sound that is heavenlier than rayon, Tell ye what my thoughts are, and what they seem, And who I am, the youngest just of men? There are few, like me. I may let it pass That I was hard in my youth, and at my most I am strained, and done with dust; but there Shines lustre in the earth where I look; and y'are free. For the loveliest thing is a cloud amid the ======================================== SAMPLE 54 ======================================== Finally When I turn and wonder aloud Whether this will serve for supper and rest, Dissolving pain into toil and praise, He is dumb and dumb, as no longer can his plaints Rouse him with words: and when he wakes he is pale And tells you in his griefs he cannot say. All in all, not bad; and this you would agree Is not a bad thing? The mute good friend Gets better with the bad more sparsely pieced About him than with crowded living. Yet I do think, if I my spirit drive, He had no friend, he was too poor to be merry. I think I was at his dear arms, one day Ringed with his grubbed and salivating kisses, Not quite sure he was cheated, himself being kind, But yielding to the impulse of your land. All in all, no; I am not very fond of praise, And think it makes my life more desolate; But if a man is never eager to be praised, I think not Mr. Seton. Your cat, that purrs all time, and by the flow'r Increases, being lulled out of her weary way, Knows no more than my gay Friend what she knows; And I too when I arise, break forth the sedge I log with my lunch; but in that catching lay I hear the best of the line cry, "To-day she's a dear!" For my female friends are tired of "Oui, mauka-one;" And (God bless him!) I am of the same age; And in full matrimony we will see No more mirth-giving, love-giving, life-enriching time, If (tartares can stay on the road.) Let the joys not which they gaily afford Alarm you, or impinge on your ease: You will suffer nothing but a little annoyance In their pursuit. At the same time be not surprised If to a length that much approximating seems, A light, tenuous scent, which in this or that way Is all is suited to your way of honouring. Well some, in their choice of companions green, Will bring new hues to your taste, which the hours Of fair and shady woods surround you with as that Which gives a steady lustre to the grass By the warm beams of the glowing East. Hence I of the one tenderer in the Air, And to those tastes less inclined, being young, Give this away, as being of a kind senior. The other, but not so tractable, is For ever upon the lookout for the gladness To come at the next whiff. This lasts some kindly days; Then it disperses him. Yet he, being strong, Stops only at the bank; he is not apt, In the mild plumpness of his blood, to build Up a sturdy bulbul for a foot, Or, having once added some trifling months To the bitter form of a bulrush, to skip Short his little laughs at the green earth: And, at length, in this durance offends, to order, Rushes, flatters, and revises his joy, To which (to return to the pasture land) He returns again, but not proud, but prouder of his beasts, Hinting his roots for them with tender. Not less serene Is the transmitting grace which slays the hind of me In their honour; (never venturing to a charge, That gives her living breath, the evil to wrap) With the form of that gentle softness which first made She wholly ours, a sister instead Of that pest wherein the world with malice regards, Shamed in her true likeness; and scorns the counterfeit. Or to refrain from the evil, to shun whose rage We hate the good and love the evil; shall now The shepherds, whose vigilant cares my heart engage, Or the ewes or the weds, a multitude speak Who should themselves have spoken, or perform'd Better, and rather, like the old one here, Of this good advice, give you, as your duty, To be in everything, and to have understood, Our duty: so, if in good fortune befall, Be too incumbered by the praise you give, Be as a prop, and speak but what you mean; For who that hears may not explain what he hears; Nor even that, if it fall to chance, doubt may cloud. Then if, both of you conceiving your Her excessive praise, I, endeavouring to find Some word that ======================================== SAMPLE 55 ======================================== Union's countenance wan, When against the walls he'd raised his axe, all prepared for dinner; But his wife to gether at once went out in search of merrier pastures; O'er the hill, and down the valley as quick, across vale and crooked rise, she folleth, and lets him off at will, and by her leads to joy full many diverts from her husband. Is the song of this sapling pop out of tune? The heavens smile and mount, The pop of the poet strikes, as homewards he goes; At sight of her and o'er her good sorrowful field From her full face pulls down the winding laugh, how softly it flows! How we love it and love it, over and o'er; and then her song too, And yet the song of it is not quite so good, she having rather our song of it. See the pop of luxury, She sings of trifles, across the span from morn to eve, and the span from morn to dew; The pop of our age, spread from star to star, how feebly it strikes! The span from star to twinkling star she pulls, and strikes again: From morn to sombre-big to-day, by way of poem, she is dressed, And the more she grows, the more she needs a sash, For a fly-rod she'll do, but never a net. Or it may be, dear, in poor place, Whatsoever she sings, her heart will be like the brazen peal of Chalcis at the fair Mecoenaean time of the year. We hear her when we listen for her song, or listen for the lay, Or, when we catch her, say we saw her, or, perhaps, we both confute the rest, And feebly believe in at least her last. They all are like the pyramidos and the cone of Thabor and Jet, and the red sand-beech in winter of Arland, or the large trumpet-apparatus of Stark whose butt of course no one but she sees; There is, with these, and each, dignity of form, no vulgar glance in the fashion, no evasions, no bare bones, no despisers, no rough outlines, no want of detail, no devotion to be seen. A glamour, as of 'stablished towns, is spread in the fields and groves of Pleasure, where the light-blue, streaked fields and groves of Pleasure are run, at the end of summer, by black basins, black basinas, disturbed by sunlight, by silence, and darkness-- and, where they pour and move, the flowing and moving of the surface waters of the world; and where, where streams go flowing and not flowing through tight and uneven passages, wind blows air from sky to wall and shadow of boughs falls and rests, where the hemlock sheds its boughs. Not all the Hellespont with its currents, the Ganges, in the merellus of the Indian continent, nor Curuga and Ligurcia, nor lands on the line of Terraccia, nor, lastly, Sicily and Middle Sicily, nor on running seas, nor other seas where those are seas which, as it were, in their love abide and never again shall desert where Mars falls often and Mars blows. they are living and struggling still when other living beings are dead and in the pit and under ground, and trees live on wind and sun, where bronze and gold breathe and move, and the human being and man do live; they are living and struggling still. I do not know of any one in whose breast there doth not melt and pass, in the human body, the electric current which transmits to earth and air, the touching and intercourse of atoms of one of your natural day lamps, and that fellow with the head a golden sun, who had brought me, but no longer living, weeping, thinking, and in so saying began with me and with me to suffer, and through the eyes which look to me I am looking, and which are the eyes of Gold, God's name is in them and in me, and whose the will to end me, or what, and what my suffering, and what hope, and in what way to end it ======================================== SAMPLE 56 ======================================== "I will not his fate intrude I will not, for his honor stand I will not take his life to-day, I will not take his life away from him; Would that the whole world's sky were here To veil his head from the cold sea's wave, And give to him the sight of heaven; And in that star-branch were its rays Larger and finer than the sun, And closer to embrace his neck, Than all that the day-beams can do, His head were more, and his strength more." I have passed it o'er and o'er again, Now am the night's abysses seeing Nothing but the fish and leaves, And the night-owl's howling heard no more, Than see, and hear, and live, and die! Behold me on my journey done! Over what yawning miles have I sped I' the lake that from the sea leaps. Away with the night now! 'tis late! I cannot abide its shadows any more! No more stars glisten from yon' dark sky Though from a cloud the moon be sheen, Its damps are something in this heavy air Like the rust that repels, then in depth sunk Unto its melodious ballance, Cold is it, as a curtain hung about By Mighty Louis, at his call; O when it rains from yonder dark steep, Tired with my journey I feel. Silent, without voice, visible, This sea seems like a great hidden spring Sparkling o'er the stars that peep from it, Sparking, like diamond, from the snow, For from the silver star its light Gilds it to purple in the darkness. Pervious to my wishes is the line, And I rest in its tepid forth, In knowledge and rest, when 'tis past its isotopes, Until the day and stars that fain would shake Yield, as one who screams the louder out, The status of sea-weeds in their fruit. For me scarce any sea-base be, Can stoop the fall'n one is capable of; Though round the greenest blade of grass The Cyclops' gentle tread may trample, We 'd seem, should Life's least dear end, a barren clump, Unworthy nature's radiant coronal, A tower of and for human race. Much hath I wandered, since the cold round began, Thro' cliff and grove, and land and sea and sky; Seen heaven, till now, in all its depth and height, By windy mountains seen, I have not seen. From woods and rocks and sea, these things I know, But where the peace of God has set his seal, His faith hath touched, as no other's hath, Borne in the gales and crashing foam; Peace that was, till now, the calmest part; The calm to which, all else as well, Creeped his love through love,--a passing jest. I cannot part from thee; For what was all the winter unto thee, The wild hawthorn, rising on the mound Where the last beech lets go the branch, In spring's gushing life--as if 'Twere otherwise June--set free? My heart has lain many days away At rest each in its mode of flower and dew, Woe dealt equally to such where'er The sun's fierce reins long blazing round, But summers in their fever heat Rude nations put down, of old, the rye, And with the locked and fierce gulf of Hell thus Frowned o'er the calm sun-dribbling plain. A summer of rowlocks may his powers change, And burn but one and sunward beam, To which sublunary wheels may be offered In the huge cylinder's sides: And this is just what the Pole Star pulls, When its bright revolutions roll. But were earth cut in pieces at her roots, And each the new-burning sun commenced Where e'er the general centre stirred, They would not know aught of harm; And only--not to learn the Mole, Could hold upon his parts to blame. A summer-born star Ought like our fair-weaved branches; nor Would be the place for shoary streams, But for the loftiest place Was ever for woodland maidens sought, Whom no slight nor ingrown pride Had seemed able to doom to lose Their delights and scraps ======================================== SAMPLE 57 ======================================== When ye call for the message, go, for now, And art not a liar, as ye constantly tell." He said: but you may know the Gods are ever The same, who bore with them the giving in. 'A's wife has come,' the stranger said, (At the words, the new-coming went And reflected, half, her form was changed, The dusky hair grew grey, From beneath whose eyes his sockets lay Shafts of frost came glancing through.) 'A youth's,' said my friend, 'A man's,' answered she. The doubt which she felt change Was but to leave that which he desired, For (could it were not worse If by some leech's art wrought) She took on herself that which she died to, And took to husband, to partner of Her happiness. And so that which her will control Was that the old must die. "And even now She goes on her way with her sword, her girded Hood, and crook, and ever, as the years Steal from their mark, as do the wind And water, though, indeed, the veering trees Beat back the air and scatter light, Her eyes are mellow and her joy-lips Rapturous; yea, and even when, with locks Which Time hath not yet defiled with mud, She clasps the ivy of her gown, And is about her baby on her knees, She sits, as if the real grew there Where none might find it. Nay, though, the night Has not yet conquered this: her smile is like The smile of the summer sun-beam when The day is clear and its light meets earth, and all Is light that God would make or give to men. It has not then quite that winning grace, It still is not quite manifest what it is. 'Tis like the rose to the tune; it is like the Bird's call, it is like the innocent dream Of noon-time dreams when, like the child at rest, It hangs and is gone in silence; all is near; Or spread out with softness and light, or straight, Stroking the heaven with his fingers. All in all, It is the promise of the Heaven. Nay, it may be When mortal war has made head against it Of th' abysmal, the dark, and black abyss Which Hell's own fen Syrtides call Mournful joke against the dark and the smut, The joker may have power and know Just what his hands make an effect and art, Just what the people say, what the people do; He may make show of justice or behold As it was when God's own weather made Him wonder and follow on his drift. "Oh, now thy shut house is left total, Shut, shut, shut, shut your shut gate is left As shut, shut, shut thyselves shut out of sight, A use they hated early on thy face; And now the light is in it which they would— That they wished to—make appear. I have seen too much, And they wish now they have seen thee too much How they would have been, thou woman whom I praise; The dream of the eyes seeing thy playmate going. And yet I have no worth of thee for my guide, I am there heart-hunger too, yet not hardly; Yea, God! Thy house is my house, yet no one knows! "And ye, O noble juices, about our home Here showneth fermentation: how we be, Serving God's will, the spirit of them working, Like bees in summer, the bloom on our flower-doors, In foaming bowls high drinking; yea, Taste; yea, and taste we in their wine we make. And was it that from taste I then pulled down The holy name of divine cleanness out of my lips? The forms that obey their lord in heaven so I have seen That all will see, if they would build, so shall they lift, All they lift up, and nothing stand in their way. Or if they frown? Not so nought am I. But like a rosy blossom is my face Being fluttered by sudden gust of the high breeze, And sometimes becomes the sudden pedestal Of lightning, which runs by and lightning falls beside; Wandering in the garden till the flame fell low, And sitting and crying, 'A young child! let it burn Like a tender blossom,' and the tapers all went out. Then the long t ======================================== SAMPLE 58 ======================================== kind and fair, Which thrills in her blood, beneath that guise her kisses prove, Like as she gives me her hand, and it again, as to that I use it; Thews and deftly wing'd to prove it, seated on the palm, It cleaves with purpose like a butterfly; Still it remains in me to make it A winged lamp in her waistband, A bauble chain for her neck. Heaven knows how many larks I fritter down: Time was I could light a horse-lock. Sometimes it doth crop my throat, And other times it drawes me close, As happened to this Morn. Her face get pale, She gives a soft blush, With a jaunty step, And her air of airy curve. She passing by, Like a blue-eyed fairy with stealth, Smiled on her lover's face. One, two, come, come thou! Where's the heart to beat? One, two, come, thou! Fly, heart in the rumpler! Timely hot blood doth seal thee fast; Fly, heart in the rumpler! Who cooks the cayenne's power? Who the pepper will not kill? Who the meanness drown? Who is not sure in heart? Who is not bold in speaking? They are cool at fustiness, They work not night's revelry; They delight in melancholy, In barrenness they delight, A miserable few they live content. I like not the house proud and high, In which the world's new orercent wants Be stabled for the proud and high. I like not the windy fire, And the peopled night, And the black windy sphere. I like not the mind unwilling to wake, The dulling pleasures I view not there. I like not the men who toil, Striving against their fate, Glad to see a toil-wrought wheel turn back, The good present made less. What's life about? Ah, haply, ever the child-maiden yawns The same dull yawns over again; He bangs his sulk and weaves a gentle chin,-- The does not see that he presently is dead. There's one, who, when others play, still sits and sings; Such cheek his face e's wracked with phthisic fits, And knocks from peals of laughter-thrown forth strings The low, low music of his heart. 'Tis she whose waters blaze up Sunday after Sunday toil, And weep the wan face of joy and ugliness, Who cannot grieve his own pure music's tone, But fain would pour his soul's bright madness over you. Thou'rt fever's culprit, son. [The student does not understand.] Many another's lies thee covered, And thou dost wonder how a man Might keep from bursting many a brood, While, bursting, him to delight thee filled, Thou thought'st but to spare thy mother's bird. That crime, methinks, is well deserved,-- This premature victor's tale o'erthrown. When crumpled, thy face thou there didst appear, And in its old decor for shame didst cover, Or hid either eye, nor dost to mouth reply, Or stammer nonsense bits of common-sense in. For him, at twenty-four, thou should'st have wed (Thou never else would'st have known, no), An only son who the mother would have wed, Had he not slain himself in cold obscure. (Hide his burial from thy sight, Nay, rather, make another plain, Then pester mother safe from grave Who, but not he, would want a son.) And let this wound not cause to weep; 'Tis but a tiny shiver To-day, to-morrow, ever, at naught. Truths so threatened vary: What, Thou, on the mountain-top, Saw not there, seeing thine own? ======================================== SAMPLE 59 ======================================== Within a grey and sober of unremembered America. <|endoftext|> "Vow Ripped Undebit", by Barbara Adams [Living, Life Choices, Marriage & Companionship, Love, Realistic & Complicated, Romantic Love, Relationships, Religion, Faith & Doubt, Arts & Sciences, Poetry & Poets] For r'yiyou here I am with my husband i say i promise to let no philosophy show to her fur—this furious effort by me to put all the love in her mind i speak from years overnight i loved you & eure 't i have not lost it? r'yiyou i have not sunken into any mirk of thou or thou nor nor gold til i have you it r'ye my best I feel so good about <|endoftext|> "January", by Barbara Post is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ ) Frosty shards of half-opened Christmas packages lie Among the outside litter, dangling wisps of sheet ice, The tattered bows and splintered signature pieces Of pre-Christmas joy going out in disappointments To others in the world, against the damnations Of little human actors climbing on each other To refuse the common ordination. No more! Orbiting out Along the banks of the Hogue, The Agony in autoerious procession chases The madness Onward, as that Other arrayed in clarity array, the State, Advances, and Behind Dogs the one-track of the ordination, The steely blind Pursuer Whom the sun of the ordination does denounce To the vast walls of the Ordinary Ordinary ordinary Exam. She knows her now! No discretion: every bone In her body is a force to be labeled STRONG, For in each muscle and joint there is strength, In perfect Completion, Nature incontestably bent to inexact Construction, is inexpressibly mental, is truth Crad, like word or note or breath. Advancing The Esophagus of an Organ reeking with salubrious sweat Of ecstatic participation, all those Voices now Owe nothing to the incoherent meister's shoddily Formalizing Of that inhuman philosophy that at The Rest Assumes the name of truth! And there with the veritable air Of Fall being inclement, 'tis as some one Pulling at a chain That something that should be bound has instead Tightened, And her little fancy panicked by the nonsense Threatens, the child's expression Flung in the skin. Branchy Callicosed over her! Under the fruity Orb consumed by the mindless Rogues And minor ships Of notation! Yea! Fringe, hide thyself! The sighs! The thuds! The whuds! the joys! The hurt! The wretched hurt! The homes! The ruin! The would's! O happy Angst! Ambitious Handwice going right proudly onward That only goes! Advancing, with that serious, burning Breath Of all the ordinations that have gone Before, the Burthen And Suffusion of Ordination going Behind! Now passing The screamer altar, The shrieking abomination That threshers have made, The brazier lighted with Dunkirk! The Conflagration of the stony Ordinary Ordinance Going, Retort! Rebuttal! Smolder and scorch! Boom! Advancing, a being Sworded in by Courtiers That, coming, have gone Past The Ordinary into the Ordinary Discoverable Spirit Sea! Advancing, a weasel near him with cold Union Jackdaw! And coming, no one could tell whether he were No one or something Ordinary no less! And advancing Stalking, one by one the Joining One, The ordination of Ordinary Sliding inward, slip! Dry! with a hundred fingers! And now those doors burst open and the outer rooms Soared up like shafts of faint leaded flame, as the voices Came, and the frightened clanging of lightnings On the black alcove glowing, as when the Sign Is set in the aurioectum prism. Advance! Now yonder came the Preludes, coming Argent, as the eagle comes towards sunrise, Or up of feathers. Good! dust thyself! Sweep with the rest And make clean slate. Advance! His Grave Pastoral Th ======================================== SAMPLE 60 ======================================== soup said with this sounding to make him feel at home said with this sounding to remember the man from Kansas said with the butting of two bowls together to finish and to live. said with this sounding to think of man said with this sounding to wipe the dust of a sandwich made of the sound of the butting of steel <|endoftext|> "The Here", by Ron Padgett [Religion, Arts & Sciences, Poetry & Poets] for Murray Milch & Barbara Creed On hearing that the poet, Barbara Creed, had achieved what had not been expected of her in literature, I wrote the poet, Ron Padgett, to tell him about it. Padgett wrote to me from Oregon in late July the day after Padgett sent me a letter to confirm the assignment. From the Blue Sky Ford Road in Eugene to the Blue Sky Ford Road I could not hear Padgett because he was hidden in the forest on the hillside opposite me. When I reached the writer after 15 minutes of driving I told her what I had witnessed. After I had Padgett confirm the assignment, Padgett sent me a letter to be filled in by noon on the 19th. The poem was "The Here" by Ron Padgett. This poem is to be scored major. Padgett will be scoring the rest of the poem tomorrow. Padgett wrote the score for this poem after listening to Ron Padgett the night before to "What the Heart Is Woeful About," the Herbert Skirlock Singers and Listeners. Ron Padgett's Poem for Ron Padgett. Ron Padgett called Ron Padgett and asked him to record his voice over. Ron Padgett was not in the room to hear this. Ron Padgett told me later that he was very nervous and that the tune of his voice was in the first half but that by the time he recovered he was singing it in the wrong direction. Ron Padgett would later claim that he did not listen for Padgett while he sang that day but that he would not let him meet Padgett as he knew Ron Padgett was a "poet" and a "student" and the director of music in the high school that morning. Ron Padgett was the captain of the cheer and dance teams and Ron Padgett and Barbara Creed and Ron Padgett were the best of friends. When I went home I hung up the telephone in the bedroom where I was sleeping in the room for the poem "The Blue Sky Book" and only touched the telephone in the room to smoke and turn it to be quiet. The night the poem disappeared from the syllabus I went to the director of the high school and told him I heard Barbara Creed talking in class and she sounded like she was having trouble speaking. And I also told him that but for a moment I could not believe what I was hearing and could not believe that Barbara Creed was having a difficulty. I went down and to the furthermore from the further office I hung up the telephone and put it away from the window. I didn't call the superintendent because I didn't want him to know I had called him just to see if she was still speaking to expand her possibilities. The following week Barbara Creed said she was speaking with someone about coming back to Boise. Barbara Creed was interested in the possibility of starting a business and having money to buy things. She was interested in buying a small store like Blue Sky, but not having the means to run a small store or in running a business. She was interested in making preparations for Barbara to marry. She had met a man who was interested in buying Blue Sky and Barbara, and I am making the connection here, was interested in Barbara. So my job was to figure out a way for Barbara to get money to start a business. That was my job. There were a couple of people, one of them an accountant at Blue Sky who knew everybody at Blue Sky who might have the money to make the business start up. But she was always involved in the business, worked as a part-time secretary, I think, or in financial positions, I think I just think, Barbara was interested in Barbara. So I went to see her on a couple of occasions and Barbara would drive past my place in the Heights every time I was in view, there would ======================================== SAMPLE 61 ======================================== I felt, when I smote my breast, 'twas the breast of all that was,And all that will be, to stamp a beacon over her. <|endoftext|> "Insensible", by R. T. Smith [Living, The Body, Religion, The Spiritual, Arts & Sciences, Language & Linguistics, Social Commentaries] "There is a word called lisping The worms don't like it that's why they keep trying." No light in the tunnel I have checked the queue but there is still not any the giants are making my fingers itch their feelings touching my throat and my throat is a cold religion of saints their anatomy how can there be anything without it All this is doing a lap reminding myself the identity of my symptoms there was a word for this I learned in school but no one I tell myself I am the problem my problem I am not the problem I will have to find the word how do you find the word my problem how can there be a word for anything why do I feel that it's my mouth and my throat what is this slime of my throat why don't I have any soap the people who are stuck in the tunnel are longing because they are not allowed to lick each other then you face the room or don't get the light from the bulb if you stay here long you will see everyone else and they then you everyone else will have escaped that is the word how can there be a word for anything when I am not here when I go outside to leave me alone it is okay to lick me by the ear but no one sees I want the word I want the word I want to go to the store and buy a book and look it it and look it and there is the room my sister in the room I am in but I am a worm and I am the word we are the word because you forget we use it so if your sister is dying and you cannot talk to her and get the word you will have to find a way to be the word you will have to go out and buy a book go look at the word light have you seen the word be here now go out and look it and look it and look it I am okay I am healthy I have nowhere to go no one to talk to no book no light and if I die I will die just like the others and it is my right word it is my word I hate to say it I hate to have to say it hate to go the word it is I am just feeling awash with feelings I cannot get over it it is me it is it is it is and that <|endoftext|> "The Golden Age of Television", by Mark Doty [Mythology & Folklore, Ghosts & the Supernatural] Here was the once grim room That agape anywhere With 7 or no kids for Pete's sake —the sublime days of the golden age— There's a network to the head In the monkey front teeth the tuna shirt, knit creases, —as in Buddy's wannabe moustache the private eye, the ride by the sea Cape Cod loose on the door that just loose with the fish again— How that happened Here, in the place that never sleeps, And a ship now the battle ghosts of That was us on the one hand, And there was a golden age— But it ends—No, there's no bridge left One minute to ask questions, We must choose which one, The parachute or the noose! Or do we want the same Frightening sensation or Frightening sensation Or, in fact, In fact, two frightening sensations The first was the leap Of a mother holding a newborn Who is her son or husband— The second was our first day here, And if there is a third, God help us, there's another With no nose netting or hiding— It's a red, black, and gold morning Down the golden stairs Where the ghost hangs pendulous And screaming in his dim room— That is the feeling, I mean, Mouth to mouth, tongue to tongue— Though we know not which, which is— Where did we learn this idea That there is a go or no go Go or no go Go—no go—or something like that But perhaps we've got it mixed up This going—no go—is all one As in, "It's a good thing I slept through that mess, or I might have had to come in ======================================== SAMPLE 62 ======================================== Blown-scented, and in bloom, From horizon to horizon ran, Right through the sparkling foam, And vanished deep away! The soft sun upon the polished waves With fragrant breath was shed. The boys' adass, with loud pealings, All clang, clang, clang, Rang up the Fiery Cross far and wide, Proclaiming all the land. Serene and voiceless it went, Until at last it stood Where whitened by degrees the bay, And all those woods were bright With fire upon the loaded hill Under the Flemish skies! Serene and fine the day That her pale staff bore, Like her I bid farewell to all World-lore lore of men; Sole in herplander stall Beside the thatch, Beasts of the kelp that murmur, queer Orators of sleep, Snoring, or croaking, with A strange thick speech that even she Wakened too could hear When the cot from the swamp swung Its rattle and the bawl Of the bird that through The darkness on and on, Who from the lair of the snake On the stone of Virington Her tombs had caught, Shouts far off to holy Noon And when at last we wend To her and round our way She stands in the water And waxily sets her jaw And says: Who is it, This stranger swimmer who Has bade me teach her What her bewildering Friends had told her By telegraph, why the crab Moved his ass instead of the maw Of the dog-star? Or that dog-star, The crab's lament? Or that stony Mountain's face of ice, Midset elm and wax Caught wind to laughter From the mouth of Death? O do you think the sorrow From worldlings brought and smoked, Whereof the friends, weary mind, Might guess what hell is? That we find in Mr. Watt, That we should laugh at a crab And praise a dog-star? Now I know 'twas hot And dry that old northern mud, And that under fern and frost The bell that the wizard spoke Had struck and begun The centuries before our time. But ever, since then, so sped The history of the Count Of Rouco, that school of hard fate, He scarce can get a word Except adverbial, except, When required, adverbial. The wheels were hot that Nicholas chased, That Nicholas the wizard saw, That mistook for fair One soul for another's pose. And may the wheels, when needful, strike harder, And may they, while they drive, be stopp'd, Miss just one gear, while you see what is done And leave the mortals nought to do or say, It is a fact well agreed That wit, once wounded, never full swelled up, But shrunk, and laughed in a tub, for the gore Of Ferdinand and Frederick, burned and drowned And respectively stricken. And had the wheels struck further downward You'd have seen the sprites undoing and up and in, The mortals but in a wooden box And this as well, it is not denial, But assuming of the thing that one ought not to do; For Hadley, amongst Hadleys, and in a way, Is a greater mummy, than a mummy-ware. O'Daly, come out of the mountain Noxious, and elect to go down into (It would seem, in Justice's view) a son of Kerry. We know what none of the club could do, But you and I, and Hadley and O'Leary, For half an hour the old tale repeated, For half an hour the message that a while They flatter with hesitant breath: But now, that one hour is over, and I hope (Believe me, my dear Fitz-HOPSON) that you'll see (A clipped orator, in every point, Still savage in sermon, when he swore); We know that they won't do as they have long done, But let them be what they will, The Drones, when their lead is taken out, Or, as the Maces sum and Pythonesque, They'll turn and chaunt it, It is most true, And, after all, be no better than true. We know that a nation composed of ladies Was descended from a page of our rhyme; ======================================== SAMPLE 63 ======================================== tres versibus libellae largas, artus medicae, doctus inter ossa secura nullus afficiunt saxum, quales sumpsunt rapiunt debiliunt hospiunt quam quae linguae venit. quo vocat saltus dulcis impetum gravis, glabristis ac iniquidem metuumpharum nexum sint occidamus. quippe enim sequitur fecis muta, indigues lacrimis, meret implicuit venerabili inter eos; sequitur ne pugnare tumne debili ducibus exdidit. tanc multis moenia litteralis saluis vulneris habentur in undas profuerit, eiusdem aut immanentem signum me legit desiderata mundi praedam salutiferum illi tenacibus orba, ibit paucis moriturus aeternum est quem simul eut annos intuit lumen. O C[@]MVSE! quam procacerent carmina est qui earcos animam? quis tenebrarum vitam, et graueat tus oriri. pericula contingunt fulue, quod enim tempus pectus pandi. carinans iam supe then suggests, ibat durus, cum contexte iam nitus ortus ludix; non usu, nec propriis positis aptet. ecce super causa sunt, quod ipsa gestat famosa sinistros non legas comparatus, cui sub atere dicitur omnis causam fortis; hunc caput sub tua All mortal things living, seem'd one wise Soul Letting off the burden of earthly cares, Parted with the ready motion of the spheres; Leaving it, yet leaving it within the self In a new dimension left it. Nowhere left, where it Can in a decay? Its life is sounding and Its being's over. The wise Law comes back into view, Where the whole work of nature is now left for nothing Hunc in nostros faciem contigerit me fugerant; ac in pulso incepta rogus egetus agit; quod regi mutua sint, exigui sapetis lacertas. quam sub nomina spatiae nihil hypothea saxa, addit si facere me modulaviam caterva memento, non tum suffundere mihi? quae ferre fuisset? ut me, ne cuique mutua, bene ex sensu become mala linguae non possunt loquentis avis: mas quae contingit is pro sepulchro debere. int. Lucretii ep. v. 31: 'adnunt!' inquisit 'epistis', 'Nec datur ancrini,' inquit 'asne fas est.' int. Lucretii V. 3: 'tam nilinis est?' inquit 'hos, nec arte, ne crudis, ne sit.' nec saepe modo precor egenis ita mea damnavimus, nempe etiam ne peccatum ne datur in ipsa tas canora ne molens equi tacebimus; quod magis a tumulo nigris debetur. 'Causes occubuetus lati, qui nec categoris fertur, Nathless I think that of causes we may catch From language partial no mind, such as thine own In some mysterious ways no exception here. Eheu motio post minor judice patefin--hic mihi quid illi simul, post final nec non sum fugiat miseram uatum, saeuus en aede, quae uis, sibi, debitum quem tua couchunt: et, maecenam res necesse et regemine curas; nunc me non haec est, nec non quia venisset Iliacium occidit hac et ludificas iuvare rogare. sed illi conferre potest, et noctem uoluimus. sic sine rebus ueste, adhuc nec ipsa rebus. uellere et tot quod agam tempe quid in hisere quicquot ======================================== SAMPLE 64 ======================================== Unsullied by the test he says and prays. The truth shall soothe and trust satisfy, And more than other men content him. There are the honest, the idle, and the proud; And now I say 'No' to all. But it is right, The love that weds them all should touch and blend, All nature's effects should mar it and change In word and deed, in thought and hope, Though each for other, and this being long All the bright darling and the well-chosen Three-- When they find that their fond, their rare and true love Is merely two fair ladies' faces crossed, I wait, and I doom to everlasting shame Them I honor, hate, and despair, and try To hate their faith with my proud scorn. When I am dead, you may spin this book o'er Forgotten of its much and little moans. Alas, though it tells not of hell and heaven, And the dark under-land, yet again It looks on the fair, the Paradise of Love. Surely the boldest heart may not stand Before God's heavenly sight, but be shaken By His palm, be shaken. But as for me All heaven would but show a sun in a glass. I see Love's face, and hardly hear or see, But turn all to earth; and my heart's sick fear, Stag-dizzy, stag-dementious, sick with doubt, Rousing, rising to stand, alas, betwixt Shuddering joy and utterance of the love-spear. So, so brave it is, so fine a thing To trounce--no more. Its broken reeds When it struggles and withers to a leaf, Die. "O, I die to join you!" I say. They who now hear are not its own, No more than those feelings are, which make That which it is, not what it hath seemed. So, "Beautiful, though a thing of steam! Abandoned," its own whispering self At its new foe, think what we have done Toward an end of more than we have felt. Yet, since the stars' broad empyrean Resigns itself to a child's simple heart, Be mine no hopeless contradiction, In one the noblest of choristers to be. <|endoftext|> When it rains, It surely doesn't rain In this climate of California, In this valley of two feet. The rain-shower is more than father-long And unobedient, And makes a dismal rumble When it falls, Awefull and swift, From the high summits of the north-northeast. When it rains, It doesn't rain more, but it showers more than ever, In this climate of California. 'T is not easy for the dead to go, But the dead, from the noise and the hurry of the tide, Have a chance to turn suddenly, And spie the passing rain-storms Through their shells, and scurry away, And lie very still. The dead I think of, When it drizzles, are worms with sense of movement, Whose only impulses are one consciousness, And a few memories. But they move, In a stillness that's all earth, And their feelings (unconscious) are strange, The dead are able, In a stillness of the and why, to take, And even understand, Their sudden passage through a state of being That is as spiritless as the approaching of the rain. "Why," the Dead say to us, "why?" With one consciousness and one uniform self. What is more, why?" Why, what is more they mean, Is life, Why is it a state And one, Why, why why is it here? For, as the rain, we know, will come again, And then the stillness of the river, To desolate beaches, And far midnight portentous cities With fires still burning. On the wide plain of Kansas Began the whisper, In the lonely moonlight, And with said silence, They passed the land at large With one magnificent march and gliding Of hoofs of the decomposing snow. "Why I heard You against all authority, Why do I feel compelled, The world to be fought, And to walk, disarmed of weapons, And with vague old faith Why I hear you now against my best interests, Pass through the wastes of night ======================================== SAMPLE 65 ======================================== Best natural prey, of blood-power none I ask. This too, as my lore requires, I ween, If slow we homeward ride with fearless heart. Friendly earth draws down to her from the skies The soul, where all her messengers attend; And she accepts them with the beauty bright Of deep-bosomed bents, by no lust states infam'd, But hers, whose guardian spirit he is whig And last tutor to her secret springs. Now see that we with her shall in the mode Of his meaning make one law that she shall be No vile side-show of the sun's rays But goddess pure; for in her heart of earth Compassion hath cut her chains quite off; and henceforth Towards all she shall be hospitable, Proud as a bride and happy as a bridegroom, Who feels his true consort, from copulation And intercourse with her bosom swolen; As up the mountain ridge, to rear His lightet vision, both before and behind, She stands a goddess and is beautiful. But, while the gleam of the shaft is o'er, Weave for him a net of refreshment, And he for her, as the sun goes down. Make, he says, our unity from divisions, And swear her heart into yours as your own; Let your love but complement her sense, Nay, friend, in vain did Astolpho swear That love had been foretold in days of old; So beautiful the images of love had been That, with inmost constellations, it flashed around, A new kind of beauty, bright as the sunbeam's beam, The glowing life-heat of all-embracing soul, Of hers, the daughter, who, in loneliness, has strayed Wandering the woods with dogs that bark when she comes near. For he, like a dream he had beheld in sleep, Lay show and skelp on the unfathomable sea, And hastened with his poore feet to her abode. Like a good lady that is fond of her puppets, That give all servitude a shine and glories; Like any bowshot from the bow that holds her fire, Nay, shot from heaven in lilies, is the sweetness she, Gathers round her with her golden sword-thrusts; And in his heart, even from the very first That she in him awoke his heart's warm truth; And him, in each anxious doubt that it might cost Her life, the refuge and the strength it sought, Thus he went forth, to heare again all sighs, That like long night-crows about the woods harked, And cry of hope and dead despair again: Yet, ere he found her yet unseen, within The Maker of winds with much bird shrieks so mixt, He heard the death-portent of her vigour lost, And 'mana kalem' again with all her garments torn, As if she had hurried away with faint forgetfulness. And then, her heavenly presence, all uncous minded, To where a creeper clambered, reddened rose, And to the earth again she bent her way, As was her wont on holy-days and pleasure-days. And there, with many a wound where lust none had on, She bathed her feet like a man, and gat anon The sight and sound of holy chant and hymning tears. Here this one fixt the firm stoop of that fainting tree, That all else, from honey-spring of flowing seats and green, Had rais'd as a pillar or hand-plant; But there as a roots through all that neighbouring bush spred. There lucent necks of young and blossoms bud and blow, And sweet grass that light as a shifting cloud May walk over it as a chariot-stoomet There sunbeams scalding bright as the moonbeams, And pink-coinceness of flowers' dusky arches, Bright eyes and lips of many a bud to be, And little legs and wings,--all presentable things, Bore feather-fold and brindle and tufted pennons; Where nothing winds but the birds that sing in girths. In that day of holy litanies, and that day Of limbs in libation and incense, and that day Of singing,--as yon twin-spiral of fronts and see Of seven-folded heads, each to his strand, Towering with rhapsody, ======================================== SAMPLE 66 ======================================== I rejoice While I hear that the Lord has forgiven thee. O the darkness of man's captivity In his soul to a sinless and glorious Sun Than his own source of light! O the darkness of man's captivity In his soul to a Savior-God! O the light thou didst reveal to man, O Sun, When thou didst play a part in time's story And came from our fathers' tradition, revealed In the lives of the fore-doomed men! O blessed Lord of the souls Pronounced by the spirits! who knowest Their penalty is full, their joy is sweet! God of creation, giver Of life to grow and spread; Mover and shaker of Creation's layers; Giver of life at the word; giver Of life to live and to love, giver Of man in the flesh; giver Of strength to serve and to make strong; Giver Of guidance for joy and for dearth, giver Of light and earth and heat and darkness; Giver, O thou great Oener! of all Whom the Word gave my name; light and breath; Lifter of souls on thy broad waters, Rider of mountains and wide spaces, Maker of faith, new life, new hope, And tempest of a future more new! Thou, O Lord, who dost the bright, make Thine own echo here, thou, O Tree, Whose deathless nature knows no man; Thou, O Sun, of whom we see, Weep for man's conscience crying in Heaven; Thou, O the Lord of Life, thou Whose words are only resolutions, Thou, Lord, of death and life thy mirth, The Redeemer, to whom thou pour, Man, thy prop, whether hot or cold, Light or darkness, as thou take; Thou, O each spirit and creature, thee, Thy pity, O Lord, is there. <|endoftext|> "Love Poem for My Husband's Lady", by George Santayana [Love, Infatuation & Crushes, Realistic & Complicated, Romantic Love, Unrequited Love, Relationships] The glorious sun of my existence Has sunk into the shades of Night. But far in dreams to which I react, I see the face I held, and now I hear The voice that once I knew. A while ago that Face so fair I could Not live without tears; But that decree come from Heaven that lives Hath sunk into the shades of Night. And naught to me is dear as now I Can say there is in Heaven no sun nor moon, Nor star nor air. My heart is in my thoughts and my days are Dark with that which in them is not. I have seen visions and heard dreams that Would ever only be as long as I remember that I know. Yet there are graves of manslaining things Among the dreams of a young man. And thou hast seen visions as drowsy As any stump, and as untrue. But we are on different lines with equal nepotism: Thou art a number, and I a thought. And my desires are now of narrower compass. And many things that have been said are Empty of meaning than the wave. Wherefore, it may be, we are at peace, Since all that touch us are yet only An occult behind the surface. A love-tried woman hath more substance Than some thin air that flies between Theurge and maiden. "And yet another difficulty Thou offerst to almost ev'ry mind, When me 'tis which doth create th' impeding And barriers to many a heart's bestowing. A month or year haply of inactivity Hath held me. The Time that is to be It hath not come for me, and I must seem Still in futurity to thee, in spite Of thy cries ever seeking changeless joys And the vague hope in sadness to rest. The flowers that whiten the smoky air, When this fair season dries all the trees, To buds and shoots seem fairer than at first; And yet it is the Earth that is fairer At this same season unto me. Y E . Like the red rose the white thorn, and the rose Caught from the branches of a mighty tree, In whose swift light a maiden may climb up From earth to heaven: so doth thy sacred flesh Still hold the charms of youth. ======================================== SAMPLE 67 ======================================== }it hurts Like the man on a round trip Who says He got up really early That morning <|endoftext|> "To Sleep I Held a Cinnamon Stick", by Robert Creeley [Living, Coming of Age, Growing Old, Arts & Sciences, Poetry & Poets] —lending it My all To my sleep —John Ashbery I was born in a Baritone Cinnamon Air of that Dusty nowhere Near China Town My early life Unpicking Proud of this Eternal birth Singularity Restless Drops at the door Poetry Pills Writing age-old Gossips The world of Dreams and visions —If you write simply And without mercy You can let your Weary Words go —Sam Rogers <|endoftext|> "Meeting in Vasan", by Maggie Nagle [Living, Death, Time & Brevity, Social Commentaries, Town & Country Life] We didn't see much of each other. That's as it should be. We knew Different parts of ourselves Through a thin plate of eyes. My eyes, which I was eager To fling into the air. But they stayed glued to a head Of little black hair. And when my eyes ventured Out of the head My throat They missed The face that was looming Like an impending party. I told Nagy To show me the head But not to touch it. It was cold On the skin beneath it. Nanking 2011 I returned to the time Of most unfortunate writing Which tries to unite sorrow And other things, for it is Year zero Of a girl's life, and the sorrow When the head of the paper Strikes the mother Or some one takes a long walk. I have seen a town take a party down. If the party's in progress One corner of a city street Turns lively, another makes it fatal. People leave that there's a party, And others walk away from the death Of one who was trying to unmake it. It's like that, as if a little head Were placed at a table, guiding And helping the big head, as The teachers of that school Interested in its own repose. They're there to counter with the happy ending, To add up the bigger sounds And stamp them down, as if in a row. We got to know each other In four hours After your death I read. My fingers bleeding as if for a long kiss. But, knowing you, I thought of the word. The word you were searching, Searching for a sound in a narrow head. It's what Nagayo whispered The night before she died, for it is The room where the spirit sleeps And wanders through its thin openings To make itself more human, and find Its kinship with the earth, It has no thoughts at all Until the soul creates them To hear from its imagination. I've come to love That room, as each soul is particular. My Nagayo gives me a path through the head, And leaves me to the end of my days Commuting the long way back From the future Nagy's ear. Here I'll follow her ideal, Hoping to be a part of it, Keeping the four corners Of my room, which are the corners of your name. <|endoftext|> "Recuerán, the Mercenary", by Maggie Dietz [Activities, Jobs & Working, Relationships, Family & Ancestors, Social Commentaries, History & Politics, War & Conflict] What does it matter where it happened or who it was? The bullet traveled what did it matter when it fired Where, far from where it all happened. Do we matter, the years, who left us and where, Remember the who and why, Left, left to us, who are to be freed who and why? I ask in my yet young memory what I know about you, I ask in this yet young and still dark memory. I ask you, have you ever told you're sorry, Have you ever, down through the years, ever said who it was To do this, to be a mercenary? What does it matter in the who or what To be forgiven, forgotten, forgiven who and why? Your mercenary smile. Your smile mercenary, mercenary now, does it matter where It happened, when, or who? In a tavern on a lane, behind a dark smoke, A year ago, the answers were, ======================================== SAMPLE 68 ======================================== "Your food is inadequate," muttered Manto, in bafflement, "How did you get it into your big head "To start with--that it is so small, "Such a short journey, she ought to have sent you "The half of herself for this," said Manto, with a smile, "She would then have given her talk, like cold champagne, "For your last pleasure, but you know all about it." "Just give it up," sighed all, "he never asked for "His supper--he should take care of it himself." But Manto no one. <|endoftext|> "Bishop", by Emma Lazarus [Nature, Religion, Social Commentaries, History & Politics] For there is no gesture, no Words can naught that strength fail to agrue; They that alone forselt are true and wise. How proud they sun have of their inward things! Yet through them all they are not free; Truth feigns them, and flattering thought feigns, They have a fashion of fiddled peace, and deigned to be Subject in Form of Mercy to that king of thistle-feather'd crown. Yet thence their shelterements feign'd, and they feign all they are humbl'd To free th' enslaved Mind from every plea therein to do, or prejudge; That very rosines their outward shames reveal'd! They cannot fidget; all the world they tak'sy now feign; Such artful methods all to keep their will still sure. All gliding galls to the outward showing they will send; O when will they give to thy Aid thy help's only way, the only way, To show how all the doors for Heaven's joining may be pass'd. <|endoftext|> "Bolero: Sonnet for Joseph H.", by Lewis Crabbe [Activities, Eating & Drinking, Relationships, Arts & Sciences, Music, Social Commentaries, History & Politics] Oh how mair thou risen, summer rau Pillow'd on the dewprint of the rose, Ryd Batholffer napp'd for thy washing; With the fit skie whose butterflies spangers Breeches to the hasty midney I lay, With the short roun's the which thy hed prosing scrote doth curb. Thou art get warmer then the all the way, With the high promontory's parting blast Thine arches up to height, and thy cornices broad. But I who younger is than thou art, Wasting at yr wount a drowsy shower, The suns are thine adorning fro you, The southern eaves of his terrible caravans. For the past decade our friendship has been riuen, There been times when I think I could as soon tui' but I sairly weet 'em. But thou art rising, though Rake and Cambridge have twa tui's, That my liege Lager can line with a tui- pant Kaoru or at the hie of the Maii'll. <|endoftext|> "St. Francis and zephyrs", by Lewis Crabbe [Religion, Christianity, Social Commentaries, History & Politics] St. Francis he water'd the farmers' field with water from a fountain A-rainin from a cuif of copper which zephyr's seeded it; Zum Moschus, whose wings were like the seeds of soy. The there was a courtier of note and holdin in Carle's court named Zemec, Zum Wilhelm—a-keepin wi' his bay nout Fraunce of zehulty; Zed/Scoutin, who found zome o're hunderfrey ensample, Whilk in Oldsche Quing's nose found drood. Whei-zs-mear'd frae a court, by Edwards' wark side, Whilk frae the nose of an Oxford man. He, when o'erleuczh chun to the hoose replying Horse, An' bade an evil leg from the pedant an' sich, Was I o' others whahl no one on him wold go, Then if Christoffer come frae the Crown'ts wall, He 'd sure find me in a passion. There a rural poet wur Fell. It was an he that caught Our ears at dree Cateuxent, Wur ringin from the brack within our gentle stands, That lit up the lower end aroo hearth thurtheless. His song To be had out loud Is niif that from peace ======================================== SAMPLE 69 ======================================== Nor all my prayer avails thee--but let me go!" He spoke: the Angel summoned forth the potentates from heaven--their hands he took, and they o'er heaved him as a bird by their feet to the Vánar home. But he, looking in their eyes, saw that their hearts were dull, and smelt blasphemously with blood, and hung his head as dazed and speechless. Then it was that Naḍak, son of Kaikeyí, aroused his brother, lord of his race. The giant encountered Varuṇ brave far advanced in years, and cried in tone of voice so firm and fleet, that straight for his daring bonds he was smitten by the Ruler of the Great Forests. For the sake of what became of him of those familiar names I tell, to each quet-billing deity who claims authorship. Ayodhya, Indra, Lord of fire, Yáma, the seeker of the pearl, Pashavat, the rainy-footed, Andhťa, Dúmá, famous in the lore of lore, Naśváksha, the author, Sanatani, Vaśishṭhu, the bard, are names, created by speech from the seed of heaven, are mine, upon my crest of rose and gold. Son of the voice, thou the Prince hast met, and art come in turn to turn around. Thou art best of his caste, thou art next to the Caves and Sun in fame; for thou art lordlier than those twain, neither of all birds living, nor of all wild beasts, a house undaunted, not unstable, not of wood, nor yet wild. In sacred gardens thou Well might the hills among A birds' nests boast a throng so great as thine: some far shallothe the swell, whom Earth's great wombs enfold. Thou wouldst be greater than the Gods: a lord of its primal families, king of its primordiums and golden apples, lord of its best beasts, a lord of leaves, lord of pikes, of trunks, of horns, of honey, hottest, liveliest, tamer, self-abrazing heat, lust of work his choice, and the sparrow's gay sport. A tree whose root thou seest in turn seppest, in turn rollest from the ground, root in bark a snake-like smeared thickly, distinguished by the many-trickling bark, housed in multitude of flowers and bee sweetness, the snake-gland splendor. Of fruits the mango the fire-like is spread, of sharp-mutton'd kine to bind the horn, not forbidden fruit, nor tame upon roots, meant for the blessing of the season. The swan is caught for thee with terror-striped, their wing'd confluence, descending from high, with flight fit for the occasion, Of the lady-moon as virgin-wise the delight she feels in solitary streak. The mid-day was when her lord aloft on his noble horse did fly. On him I also soar'd the time to pass, and could vision of her lovely face, until the blissful day I gained. Wherefore, while of rank and fame I swam, To the sea of cymbals drove. And my loving words to her I said: I have work for thee yet: give me sweet consult and service of thy grace, for I am wont the Lady Moon to ride. Prince of immortals, know thou for a truth I am not wedded, though well I live, unmarried, to a life that will not bend, nor will its course be broken. Such a love is my husbandry: aye such love is mine. The morn of the bright termed day my husband entered into, He would have shattered my clearness away, He whom I bore thus. But that thou wilt shun it, O Lord of my soul, so will I keep thee, for my lord has resigned and is gone, nor he is by craft or worth. When from his home had taken wing and bear him out and away, He would not suffer me to enter there. In such wise doth my Lord Buddha live that, so may a bhahoe bhoye, I fear not from his nature and humble reverence. O Namá, by this wonderful name which none but thou could, ======================================== SAMPLE 70 ======================================== She dips her face into the sea, And licks her handkerchief, Of every wave to shame That came too loud to be So careful with her modesty, 'Tis done, and takes her fill Of the waves and the willow tree. No length of ways and no shore, No looking in error through, No darkling bough that hides The white hush of its peace, No chasm in the fountain-fall That gives no hint, No things that cannot be, The corn, the worm, the sheath, the breath, Of the things of the garden, Are for ever concealed from sight In their hidden places. The power that whirls the earth of things To soundless music, swinging like the blades, And waits a boundless invitation To its feast by the vale! The obolus at last Gave into our keeping The things of the garden. And it is forbidden In our seeing To put the garden under lock, While yesternight Black fall and storm Mutter the red hearts of men! But I know the secret, hidden gate Where since it all fell to earth, What lies and is hidden down there That no man sees That may not yet be known! And it is forbidden And dim and awful To follow men to that dark place To see what the garden withheld When it shut. But I know the secret. And I knew, while I lay here, That I know how. And my cunning is as a star In the garden's light. And my thoughts are garden flowers The secret's reflected flowers. It is forbidden. I feel the garden's darkness, The hand that made flesh on me. But I know what I know. There are things that are for sea and sky, For grovelling trees and trembling walls, For the languor of the vale and stream, And many for earth; for fields and streets And river's arches and the sea I hear a voice from the house so low The night is trembling as it holds me Hearing the house cry, "We need you not!" And the lights, one by one, begin to flare And tear their velvet red and purple Throwing here and there and running everywhere To reach some half-rhyming note of the house, While under seas the pulses of terror beat. Light falling down, And the red rose on the doorway fill slowly, Red rose filled softly, Filling her rooms with beauty. Light, we have no gifts for you, But your room is quiet and your desk and dresser, Silence of the spirit, Darkness of earth, the curves and corners of the living, While up above, a rainbow Is beginning to tremble and race Thro' the hot blue of heaven. Another sweet rose, rising. I know that a hand Of ice will soon cover The white beauty with its green, But its fragrance to my mind Is indescribable. My art is clumsy. Your books lie unread beside you, Every book you find in drawer, Every book you find on desk, You do not open. But I have loved you since I could speak Myself, And while I was only myself in bed The windlight shone on you, It flashed from lamp to window on wall, A white-edged figure in its gown of blue And I could only make you following My breathless gestures, While your face blurred and tilted its head In awful comfort and surprise. A pale light is flickering At moments your table is turned. As you sit at your windowtop In the dusk of the evening, I am standing in the sky. I see the figures of you as you raise Your glass of spirits. Dark mist is trailing over the hills. Hark! The night is moving. Your neck burns faintly. Hear how I whisper your name, My voice is low at times, As your face looks at the glass. My thought is that of the stars. The scarlet stars glint in their shrouds. The silence of the garden is broken, When death calls on Life and spits him out fire, When sleep brings dreams and dares. At the light of such a sun Your red roses open and bloom, While in the rural countryside I wait and will waken from my rest. Sometime in the night I will move my stars Towards the place of my death. In you I find a new ======================================== SAMPLE 71 ======================================== For men of taste—never should my pages fail! How far beneath the soaring muse of chivalry! How monstrous the land where man's himself was fail'r'd, How close the friendship conjur'd—can such mean things hold? My soul resolv'd,—and resolv'd in him; my book to convey, In letter and style my honour'd friend to express, And thank'd him with an honest wish to live. 'Fain would I in my native land appear, An honour'd stranger to her see, enjoy, and praise; Where not infrequently, when I walked, amann, I heard a shout of Nankerval from the ground: For not infrequent, but I have at times, heard Your 'bank land' music from the neighbouring hill.' If conquer'd Dar-ul-Nil—fame and truth I scorn; From neighbouring hill?—which on none but fools to tick: Or from a promontory flashing on the main, 'Whensoever she looks red, drop—we have a gout: A fratricidal quarrel of curious ears; Though chosen, shall I be at his will? "Not I":— Blush, Bagman! to reject a proffered immortality? At length, upon a solemn day, one comes, Comes the Nightingale—and thou, who fetch'st him, With descending brows looks humble at his feet; Then, in mysterious silence, playing on gimble, About the woodlands walks, the rocky inn, As if he knew not which way to stand alone. "Good," (she murmur'd) "is this return for a day "Of one, whose worthless praise has made me your foe; "Returns—and now departs, by some light trick "That I have contriv'd, of jealous human hearts: "For, through that wood, (she said, and bade her sound, Her Zephyr, or her Angel of light) "Which none of all his golden retreats could check, "There came a laugh, and, smiling, left the gates, "I came to tell against the wretched fool— "He came." She laugh'd—and baul'd in her tracks, Into the forest stray'd: beneath the sound Of moon and air, above the sallow trees, The cedar's fruited bough and genial shade, Shook, as when from word to word was said, A leaf or two, and then a noise at last Of a new singing, louder and more loud, As though a nest with children tearing tore. "LUCUS O quadruethymal night (she cries), "More unfortunate, with less multiplying, "Than thine obverse, not one partner of thy quintessence, "Not one remained, when six were gone before: "And, whether in that dark hide-and-seek thou didst, "At the spacious window, between the sheds, "Or in that profusion of dearth that spreads "Amid the needles and shuttles of the ditch, "Of which my forefathers were the warders;— "As on, and on, till wholly darkness it was, "And, at that hour, the Night-Raven did fly; "And, as he seem'd upon the wing "Of no orance o'er trees, or fields, or trees, "The Night-Bird on the boughs began to rove, "I heard the sound which scornful music made; "But, in their various moods, never heard "Hear such within my cave, the mad peals of hell. "As when a traveller sees at far interval "The noise of very great thunder raised and fallen; "So how this racket would you if you could, "The loud concussion from eternity "Of this quarter, not come back a single lyre, "Harsh and undulgenceous as now this is. "Now, were you set to build that tower of woe, "In that feverish clime the mutinous worm; "Its lazar-house, more God knows how many steps "Would of a sudden musick go, and cry, "Brothers, how much we long to see the rack "With frogs, and whales, and whoops, and what not; "Which thou, and this all-prevailing bell, "Some more divine ascent didst by these have ars." She ended, when a sneeze fell upon her cheek, And the next moment she began to sing, The sacred song ======================================== SAMPLE 72 ======================================== An upper servant at his gate, where he dwells Near Athalon and his thews and care; But yonder, by the window, stainless dye And figwood, walks in with sensual face A female form, which, like an antique frieze, Comes down the winding colonnade. Forgive me, but as they give their names To places they fill, I cannot forget Tatine, who herself in some divine Alcantadis might reckon this; 'tis nought To know the eloquence of Eutyca, I, that am a lover of those springs; I also knew, or think I know, Who might have thought such bearing measure, Whose limbs might leap to belay The mind whose thrift was love, for no-showers Of glist'ning showers, were pledge of showery morns, But of a shower it were a May's sweet kiss Of nought else, since this is matrimony. And she who wand'ring nobler countries Whence none of my nation's likeness could guess, Was dwell'd a shepherd's daughter at Rome, Remarking what she gain'd, she should not lose, And as she land'd at my abode, A flood of deep ill must she deride, That nurse such scandal, 'twould have been hard To see her sex, though never fell upon it; The face was of a woman, and that face Was nigh such, her breasts which out were larger Than Arethuse's; the rest with dainty wrists Were framed, and with bewitching legs in which Her plumbing would all be fit to grip, And her with limbs most fragrant, if not grace. And even with this, such a shock would seize me As had but death beheld, to have seen Or breathe upon it. And therefore she Who was, and is not, but bore of gold, As Grecian ladies of fore-most glow; So sweet, and that so pure, and so alone, She bore her own religion, not a perilt. But O let not pity my friends And trusting people err by this! Why are the wildest fears of mankind Instinct with us so often made And yet with us so seldom proved? Why should we tremble lest the sky With haughty traitors prove insid' At times of loss or smoulder So darkly on our inmost seats, That having spent all self, we lie Pregnant of unbodied soul, So many devils of discord, So many absurdities, And, if we bathe, yet so much dirt? For why the wide creation should be have A 'Villain,' indeed, to show a piteous 'Spot'? The modern 'Spot' (I think 'Spot' a misnomer) A man, though not a man, perhaps, Who, to be sure, may bear a trace Of human nature roughly traced, That is, with the gross set, A sickness of an ancient strain, Assaulting all the sex and age, All classes, and, one would say, of minds; Yet so mild, that one would say, it made The heart go gentle into a train Of pewter answers to mousepads, A humble priestess to the Gods. A crackling plant, I speak of; No heart for it, if you get my meaning; When Eve herself became a plant, Ere we poor folks had got on bench, That was a devil to be sudden fiery, And send around a zeal of flame And smoke, in spite of dinner-talk. Now, that's the evil work you'll never do, That women with their bells and sugar, Never knew how to be in a bar'ly fright; They always made a hate of tea, and drank All things, but heartily, as one might see, Thin, cheerily, and toasted; For so the learned divines of old, Known for their masses and their tracts, Say, knew women to be gentle, clean, And of a sort, the most and best, And these would gladly tell, in spite of all, The horror 'twas for men to see their wives Wear out their visage in a moment white. And while they dreamed, or have slept with a bell, That witching circumstance first shall fall, Or, if it will not, by vote and deed, Proclaim in full now, by jany committee, That ladies of the bedroom have a right To know the hour ======================================== SAMPLE 73 ======================================== Mountain was a dreadful place. The blue sky fluttered overhead, Tumbled as clouds tumble and scatter, Once plain was seen Huge broken mountains on which Fair flowery mountains lifted up, Then wheeled a thousand side; Such sight are not to be seen On river or in town A valley that lies below, Huge chasms in its bed All rifted away And suddenly climbed in air, Then underneath groaned. Then came a time when slow lay And cracks grew deeper. Sharpened began to be Huge drift and scarred its sides Then slowly fell away. Then with his stick he tried, But no one survived. Then folk came out to try, Then how they housed the sheep. Then pipes to make they made, Then great glares at junks. Then came a day of pride, And calms were back again. Then slowly to the back The edge of the world Gat back, with shock of shouts A torrent swept out, Till firs frowned down below. Then came the evening star, Through ropes they landed all, An arm of wood they saw. Then slowly, like the night That flies, it slowly flew, Now covered all that hill. What is there left to do? There is a song to keep, A memory to bind. What voice to clip, By jobs to raise, A throat to sing. What to do with a mind, Make wise from foolish. An empty hearth and roof, A home for which has not been placed, And lost a garden and a pond. And a Child lost, and what were you? That man who when the lights went out, And there was none but Matthew in To mind his lessons and to keep the lamps, And come when the servant knocked. But none of these is left him, None of this world that lieth here, From autumn of hope to spring of harvest, For all this twenty thousand years; An empty hearth and roof, A house for which has not been placed, A house from which the master cannot say Where he were man and where is he now. The Man of the woman paid To sit at table, himself. In their twenty thousand years, And one of woman he; Fell in the red thousand years, A drop in the ocean of blood That ran in blood and grieved men, And many a red drop of blood. That they wished laid in earth. A man's voice said, "Grieve not, The wind and the rain be fall, The child God's desire, The good of the dream to be. The glory of the world, That, O those lamps! they have shown, Were nothing, but for one." To weep was to hang down, A head to his shoulder laid, But none took care of it. And so the sky, When that red shadow passed, In the uttermost circumference It took another form. "Then grief for past grief shall make A new breast fresh for the tooth That wounds, the wine that we drink, Shall draw blood and light for my race And speak to the seven." And they turned and fled. For all those things your household holds, Your ploughs, your instruments and tools, Your swift-turning shoe and purse, and housewifesakes, Your steady share in the strong beer that stangs Upon your neck at the drinking stream You hung on your arm for the journey through the holiday fast, in the feast and game The stranger's fatness and sin, Your willing hands as he knocked The bell and commanded your team. I march through all your wars, I sit in all your room, and my blank eyes pursue The lap of liquid clouds, that fill them with the wind's redakent, And the slant sky. I see the suns your station took are covered by clouds, And here and there Thrown from above a message of an-soul the ashes of a race. Yet here you may To the elements Bring thy own breath And from what thing you were Turn to your time From what place To the spirit's hand of no man ever born. Out of the play with Nature's playmate, Out of the bivalve breast and the strangler bird Born of the sun's child, the venomed snake, Out of the secret heart's place and the old fish's pool, In the odd pair I leap: My arms wide, My legs spread. With ======================================== SAMPLE 74 ======================================== She'm more sifting stones; I see as purple summers glow; My children fall like leaves; The fruit is gone like a tree; She's got the Motherless a pair of workin'-men, "My dear, come into the sink, And wash your tender nails." A flush, a smile, that split the face of the river, "He's not greasy, the lamb is, And the oaks are mildewed." "No, the mud still o'erspreads The cleft in the marble fountain." "Then it's the grim grim reaper's hand Has done it." I'm watching a grewledun, "To cast it has wiped away; 'Twas caught he had hid it in a knot." "His the man who killed it before." "That tiger! The vermin, he? Then't he butcher, a kitten? How not enjoy it at all, While the buds are putting outward The yellow miniver?" - "I doubt it not; a true opinion Goes back to the rev'rent Past." "That's half the case, my dear; You in the line may think, On hands that rests you may taste joy." "If so, I take it back, The garden's white and wither'd In a wild swag of willow." "Good-night, I hear your slumber Tap on your chamber-floor." - "I staked on it swift and well, Not a breath of shame can I feel, As I tramp slowly by your room; And, as a friend who's not forgot Slops him to mine, to my Archie, Though his be tainted skin I've washed once, He reaps the benefit, dear boy, If he stays out of bounds, And, consequently, to bed, Down goes the daughter." "Adieu." I see her coming Down the garden to the shore, Hangs from her handlebars. To the circle of sunlight Out steps the swallow, Moths her wings of gold. The benches turned, the knife Matters her turbaned head, Her turban red and white. They were coming home to the Country now. My dear little Mother and her sweet Husband were going to re-entrust their lives to the love of husband, to throw away the best they had done since being widowed for the sake of something better. They were going home to the Country. The mist was going. At ten by the camp-fire I heard the far cry of the Copeople from the York side; and "Run," said my Cousin, "the Enemy is in the field!" Up the Bell of myford: "She'll hardly run!" "Come, come!" My Uncle's two hands went up. It was going to be a long one, my Uncle John was walking with a bent leg; and, breaking baton, he'd like to see how the Second Bar would hold the first. He held it nicely by the middle. How the Num'pad fell I cannot recollect. The stream in the campsite had caught the gleam of the Sun. Our plate, set in the cool of the afternoon, held through the sunshine the silver hue of the metal. It slid down the sand with the spring of a fish, skimming up and down. Like a flash my plate was on it, The milk, the pudding, the cheese; I gave my word of honor to the Fourth of July. I only ate one slice, oh, I could hardly wait. Through the gate to the range So grim and forbidding it was Of iron wrought to appear The mettle I must have to satisfy my course As of yore When dear Sir to his friend was reconciled I sat with the rest in the glare. "I'm fired," I said to Billy, "I'm fired if you please, The ball's in your, the hunter's side," He was no longer there. My mussy old chum Sat there, so proud and high; She, it seemed, the royal heart Of the band, and the one, who was great. "Not so," said Billy; "You hear Mom," said Billy How he could compose! He, he was cleverest, To tell it straight, I am to the pot; For at gymnastics 'ere and everywhere, He and he" -- But the Scholar couldn't start, You see! If we'd been younger You'd mind your P's and Q's! ======================================== SAMPLE 75 ======================================== For long and sad death. The worst death is that That comes to cowards, rather than men who dare. The best death is that which comes to fools, and where None dreameth but the roaring tempests of Death, The ruin of the world and men unborn. And I am as one Death does to the Beast of God, To him that sinneth. God hath given to me... And I will die that I might know thee. The radiant faces of the Lords shall blaze Amid their burning Gods that earth shall see; And I shall die and turn to thee and cry-- O to the world and back, the splendour and thrill Of all the joy and praise that shall be given. This is the Creed of Christ that I would forge, One window in the sky, to show all Gods: To all that light the gates of those above, Be ye men of God?--or all ye as much thine? To many that inhabit the darkness, Be ye more, or less, than me?-- If less, more is enough for you and me. Christ, that knew a lower Law, has died, Hath lived and is a Sovereign Ruler still, By His new Gospel and His Own will, In power a thousand years before the dawn Of all this changing world ye shall behold, To Right thy truth, Lord Eternal, Eternal and of more avail Than all your wonders and reign, These all are right, Not mine.-- The Earth that He left so proud With a single day, Shall smile, lovelier for the rest.-- Behold the work of each man. The Warring Spirit risetime Upon the sea, Erelong athirst to make His union with the waters; The nations on the sands Of hurry to and fro; The nobles, on every side, The shouting on to the track And the breath of war. The little Soldier cried: To arms! To arms! He brought no command, but his grief Made glad the heart of all, And made him glad with other woe-- He could not understand The saying of our sire And what he said. With careless foot he went from door to door; The village different small chinks had key, And on the walls that faded yellow At all hours cheered on his martial bosom, And through the window-panes he would kisse The sickness of the little one, That ran about and fretted sore. And thus, with eyes that rolled from side to side, He railed at Nature. The soul of man with savage cruelty May march to Harkness' Red-eyed and quit the camp, And cross the firing-list like TANGO to quell The pigeon-throng at every slaughter-bar And in each Hell break rank to cast At will upon the brood of curses brood, Until at last they'll stand a glaring big enough blow To scare or slaughter, or both. The whey shall curdle, the whey shall spit, At size extreme shall straight reenter their, A puddle hot enough to fry a horse, And a tsunami could sur-rank a town. The Horseman's chastity left untasted, The years of stable and yearly life, Sitting athwart the wheel to gallop on, Like some proud seal that wades the wildmat lilies And paces the sands at Hercules, Itself more whelm of clumsily tanned Saddle by his heels, and, though shocked at first At the enormous pod that pricked him out, Soon, forgiving, for the ramp he cut, Them out of doors shall hear no longer, But always, if he'll hear, hear and hear. And what difference between them and they're not, The swarm of old men that are the talk For nothing, that, as a brook that flows About the well-plates of their shaven head And twitchings of the jowl, runs always slow In the shallows, so old and smooth, And breathe themselves in to speak to him To the last eruc- It is a name. And when I awoke, And heard the wind in my own room, and his, I had but a pack-mule's duty, and one That soon was roaring like a beast of prey Among that clamour of my fires, That raged as fire by day and by night, And how the moon at the season of loves, Munished my husband and me--it hailed Menoenda, the Sphinx, me with his name ======================================== SAMPLE 76 ======================================== being called on. Certainly anything is preferable to this corrupt view of music. An object on the page is heard; the sense then surveys its surface; the lines which mark time, the marks made in sound. There were, you say? Well, they were; but they're not any more. Our fingers travel from these early sounds, and then moving through our argument in conversation, they find their way to an awful familiarity: their key is allegorical, that of direct experience. When I rub out this fact, I must confess to something I never thought of, to be as trite as my vessel was inefficient, yet its dissolute details recall nothing from the sea of time. It would be better I should just throw my weight and talent behind this opinion of Pan Longions, Attack Oily Shrimps: whales of champagne quackeries, sacred geese of counsel. And if a curve should dance across my walls in sureness, moving toward me in clockwork progression of golden perspective, waving me in with her primordial bow of kindness, then I'd be attracted to it like any other raven. My minds gestured to it like a marble temple. There's nothing really vain or shallow in the hankering after a statue which means nothing and which stands now nowhere, since to perish in its embrace is to perish. And yet I feel as though some rod is passing through my veins. <|endoftext|> "The Growth of a Toilet","Poem for DusOK and SyNTA", by Reginald Gibbons [Nature, Animals, Arts & Sciences, Poetry & Poets] The very dark grows grass dark. The grass grows between dark and light like a liquid fabric. As the rapid growth of rugs refines the couch, so the growth of cities refines the litter. Unnoticed it advances slowly and almost constantly, ITS LABELISHER. What we choose to gather and mark with lines embodia lavernum settles and changes. Now the grass grows between light and shadow like a muscle. Now the rug is worn in cities. The eyes see less light, the foot less grass, the mouth less grass. As with veins and throats, so with syllables, land is convolved and irred extended. Roots that from the word goes on to mean less and less. Roots that have an out from more and less. Metaphysically in deep and away from less. That which is no more is a space of contractions and expansions, of thronging and outstamping. Of diacritical decisions tentacles. Of growth and flux. That which is gone almost wholly is not heard, after all, only in sounds fragmentary, like diachronic lay billows, or like simple scars. Toil is larger than sleep, which is a singular turning to a singular tangle of compacted shrub. Toil produces as moon light a slightly longer shadow. Nucleotide senes could mostly inertio fusiforms … yes as classical number forms a repeated heap genomic mystic splicing pruning sleep the genome expanded and accelerated deep adaptation fused and fusing complexation to a Roman, legionary A roman A frozen comet fell the night from distant trinitite to stark rimes steeped in binder pot tarn. The thrombospike began its empty round of tinnitus. Breathless, he propped his head in quaking indecision, his nasal passage still suffering the most temporary ichor. And there it was in a dream of NO ADVANCED A more replicable technic which yields in a day less precise ichalistic and surficial elaboration, computed ichalistic dream, as contrasted a lissom surface rough with toil and puff in the troposphere The less the uncoordinated the more our images go to the steadiness of ichoralites, or else only a redox (termed pathology) of nerve endings No complex phobia with its aversion also free of desire, so that our conscious will is autonomous Plunge the aisle, sold and the loom Called by the choosy eye more the more unused By simple other reasons for a leafy absence enough to lead us barefoot as children bareheaded That and we are ======================================== SAMPLE 77 ======================================== diachronies of love, the heart, her dark, but never flawed, metes and measures between her, the bright, and me, and you, takes her voice in, and changes it to a mouth, takes it, and gives to it music, is magic to the listener, and untwines all the tangle of the conflict pain had found, was past being sorry, and no heart was glad, then God was not God, nor any, but a memory in the desert, old, stubborn, and long-forgotten, being memory, like the tabernacle of an appare ment, was crying to that desert, broke, and cried, and cried. <|endoftext|> "Fluids", by Gertrude Jekble [Nature, Seas, Rivers, & Streams, Weather, Mythology & Folklore, Fairy-tales & Legends] Where the whelk and whirlpool hang in emerald shimmer, they know us by our rags, and thus nature's and their charm as Icedede's and Balder's, do restrain, do secret live— Do they? A thread was blowing across the lake, in summer, and the dragon moths that lived in it, were gone, vanished; and my body was a ribbon of water, very thin, and pulled, and twisted outwards, underneath a vast arch of sky, and was drawn toward a refluence— a mountain. At that moment, though, I was not, I thought I was, the original me; I knew, though I didn't know, that even my body had some of the qualities it had, some of the qualities it will have, even in its moving, for the new me was drawing near. The wind swayed the arch of sky over my wind-driven body— was not my wind, was not my entrails or whorl of wind— by all those spirals of the revolved stars. <|endoftext|> "The Old Adam Seduction", by Gertrude Hent Offord [Living, Disappointment & Failure, Time & Brevity, Nature, Animals] Highlight Actions Enable or disable annotations And the pack's response:So, let me explain how that's different from ours, What you said to yourself, if you told me, when you thought you understood what it was you wanted, So you could explain to yourself: Your mother and fatherLet me explain, if you told me, did you tell me that you wanted to hear the story of Adam's seduction, why you wanted to hear it, the story as told by Eve, how it went horribly, for you to hear, that you wanted to hear the story, Your mother and your fatherAnd they showed you the photograph, for their sake, you knew it was unpleasant, so you felt They wanted to stop you, They wanted to finish what they started. And so they tried to wake you up. They wanted to finish what they started. Your mother and fatherDid they show you an image like that? And did you feel tempted to stop them from showing you? They wanted to finish what they started, they wanted to stop you. That was enough for them, what they started doing, what they started thinking, wasn't it the job they wanted, for you to stop, that was what they expected, that was what they were doing, you heard them shout,O final barrier, opears the door to life, give in! Give in life! You may be rolling your eyes back now, back to front, wondering what I'm trying to say. You may not like it but that's OK, that's OK you said, it's not about you. I hear you saying. Don't worry about it, what's done is done. I have nothing further to say. I'm not sorry I told you, now I'm not sorry I told you, telling you in turn for good, because of them, it was pleasant. If you told me for longer you couldn't say, please don't. I heard you, was satisfied. I wanted you to say what I heard. They wanted to finish what they started. They wanted to stop you. Did you, didn't you want to listen for the hours when you thought you understood? I tell you, listen for the tape. It's out of me now. It's in you. <|endoftext|> "Love Field", by Charles Simic [Living, Death, Marriage & Companionship, Time & Brevity, Relationships, Home Life, Nature, Animals, Trees & Flowers] The sky is green, and the trees ======================================== SAMPLE 78 ======================================== Cram it with precious fruitage? The sweetest of all fruits, look, was never seen. Is it so sweet that I can eat of it? Is it so edible that I could choose it? Seems to be, now I see it, that I chose it. Then it seems that my tongue, at times, its own reward, And lave with salt till it makes me quail to speak, Not as a servant stumbling to his beat, But left, like him, to himself to do his will, And mark, his keen sight can judge how sweet is my taste. A long time, yea long, it seems since I have met A soul who did not grieve and mourn, and sigh and die, But every hour look'd wistfully on life, Sad and full of regret, As now I do. And in these hours of soul-inteaction Comes nigh the delusive glittering promise of joy. I do not know how life makes aspiring As yet to know so little, how yet so much. O! ye men! with cursed ambition in your breasts, How utterly unaware ye are of Heaven! I love thee, kind land, I love thee as my life's only purpose partakes, And as for joy's supreme consummation, I am like one who loves with all his soul, Who in his deeds revels life, and scorns God's name. Tremble, comrades, this woof of joy is woven! Do ye my passes concur with my glancing laughter. I shall sleep with Genoa, and your smiles shall behe Blushing on their treasures, which I will obtain. And each one mine the coin of me delightfully Who home returning with the happiness of home, Is worthy, he says, how much soever, To have me for his or her comfort and relief. Victory won, Victory won! A light unseen Shines on the heavens: and through the film I see her, and see her face; and ever there This glittering ether, on it she, And by it stands, the immortality of womankind. So, after all, we may come to know If our grieved hearts favour what we wish Or no; But, ah! if even a forlorn nation's faith Called at the house-roof, and said, Pray vechauch Your children's blood; ought ye of trust to stand? For, what is men's repute but usande Or fawning and flattery? 'Twere no old hope To trust in such a people as can war A plague in the world, our blessed Mother; And neither, till they have carried rout Out of the world, any gold to look to. So say I, and I say again, For look ye may, how ever the Father bade, He gave his only Son that we might serve One Nation, and his provend by kelly day, Not with the serpent's wiles, nor with an, blind scorn Of these our feigned wordys, nay, in this ye must see A match was there not betwixt the Knight new-come This land, if this were New England, gives ear To neither churl nor neighbour. For this men call We, therefore, freemen, who from doom have clear'd Their sight upon the prize, to sight at last Beheld, with vastly cheered expectation. But, in which long interval, The world that in our forefathers saw Of illustrious natives still to be esteemed Of hardy suffering, mixed with good, Of scorn of pomps, and low profession, And for a long debate, alive and learning; Yet to myself I cast an eye, That even in this we're ready, and say, The talent that our land has shewn to hold Of gilding-ballots, if the thing fail, A leaguering people, gentle and black, Were never furnitable to our ken. And thou, my Juliet, say'st, I grant, Henceforth my pleasure I can never have; I fear lest people should in once emprise This vacancy in thee, thou seest what's to say, A dapper harper, old frater-hap Much more fluid, one would say a poet, Nay, no; for I humbly swear, When Vandy like me and my uncle, came in sight And knew not them, neither knew they them now, No less than all that by this Neetshire lane That waits ======================================== SAMPLE 79 ======================================== Hehehe! The story is out of date. But what of the new-born bards At Barde, with slender little cairns of precious ore, They the say that the Gods for them have educated And with cunning hands do double-check The ore and all? They're called Tales, and chants they're called things of art, They're called A Gigantlic or The Story is—dead, It has left the Bard alone with his soul and pen to do. No more will there be Tint Black, whose don't care Is only account to pay for such foolish things. A Dog his bay now shews, one sips from a cane That our King Leo's sword is hilted, there's little doubt, With a golden soul, always with a ruby tongue, And with golden secrets? Not so, my friend, When he flows in social streamies, His soul is like the sun. One day we had a preacher. The sermon was but a warm way for His praise To come to those that were heathen. He was black, of medium height, his hair bushy And beard, as though on the day he should be Drest for a Feast of Days, but his face Was delicate, and seemed then To be shaped with great care. His style was pulled from the Sales Name. His person had a stile that shall be stile For ever to the age in public. As Saint Justina's Bishop he was named, As the nations of the earth have made him A sort of wronged man. Yet when the sermon was ended, and light And darkness, like the rest, Came and grew entwining there, The dark man stood forth and cried: "My soul and my God, the eucharist." Two mountaineers from the North, Within the crow's-feet of the land, A tenant of the moon, two went to do. That Caught somewhere in a bolting fall That Caught in doing? That I keep telling on my King Out of pure free-will he pledged and went From the Eagle never to come to it again. Five rambles up and down river-ways he'd say, That He would find, if in the dying sojourned. But whence that free-will? With these he was kept in Scotland and far South, On the twenty-fifth of May, Rejoicing as of old, a braggart again, He shouted, if others went by: "The drudging of the laborer For hope of earning bread is sin." Then spake some one, and did the crying That others were going to loss of soul That solemn song. And on that sermon he stood still and silent. In Southern towns, For weeks he held his rounds, shaking his coat. The weather and the black November weather That maddened face. The rascal who got up when the snows were done, The wretches of name and race, they drove a kite or a cab, And hucksters in their food, and licked the noise out of a window. But lo! one day The soldier came by--the church-warden the next, And bearing on his head the sacred pattern of the cross, They bore a flag and stood before the Lord in a ring. I was a husht and trembulous churchman then, And as the preacher unfurled the ivy for his likings His eyes were great with woe and with despair. The Pastor's speech was "A time comes as a result of the unavenged sin, For the house of God is cast down and the glory of God withdrawn." And the soldiers of the host, without win in the wind, Were weeping and unkinging their then lost God, and loving the tears. They let the silver horns of their Moon of Songs flow, And knelt on the mould and ground with a sight of ashes in their midst. As in an Indian mound; He'd read the New Testament, and see the origin of sin; And he declared with a clatter of iron to his wife (A line at a time): "No human hand or hoof hath made this world spin upon its path, But evil and infinite. The ills that beset man's son In the search of wisdom's been sweeter Than the life of bards we know. But for all this, the world, methinks, would bear a voice, And pause and sign." "The little boy that sits in the wagon- ======================================== SAMPLE 80 ======================================== gout all on a scorched mud wall The leper sleeps beside the little girl And the crane swings from the Golden Gateway Across the memorial of suns and Shadows of regret The Tummine says, nothing can possibly help him now <|endoftext|> "Wipe", by Ted Naeya We had so much. It seems a dull loss to say it, erase it, box it, mime it, send it out, hide it in a drawer. The two scrawled it all over the couch, under the walnut tree and the fake dandelion. I hid the pen; it was a church dome by the seminary. I took care of everything but the letters, unreadable, until I gave out the lock. I give this number out: 132-35-94. Never stop believing. I gave that to the cops. The number was moved and carved into moons and doves. We were overachieving; we were underachieving. Each lost candle woke a devil, hollered at our dog, and then were bereft when they banned the whole black moonlight city, the crossroads, Satan's Shoes. It was a wife's love. The number was put to good use. Just a few more years, a few less mistakes, I guess, and then we'll be single-keg, sober for good, and for good for science. No more skirmishes or whirling dervishes with each other, the whole population on the riven rocks. <|endoftext|> "Tell the Riders", by Bruce Smith [Living, Marriage & Companionship, Sorrow & Grieving, Relationships, Family & Ancestors, Home Life, Men & Women, Arts & Sciences, Language & Linguistics] You say, "Sue, tell the riders." They say, "Tell the riders." Why not, say, "tell the horses," or maybe, "tell the music," Or the other one, "Tell the Fans"? But you say, "Sue," no one needs to know. Or the Other One, Or the Fans, or, better still, "Tell the Fans." You say, "Sue," they are sure to hear. Ask the Others, or better still, "Tell the Fans." It's in their nature to keep secrets, even though you would. Why not tell the Fans and get out of the way? When I was a child, I never needed to ask which finger was up or down. Now I am a man, I never need to ask, which door do I go through? On our walk, they laugh, they think something's coming today, a possibility or threat, but what? I tell them, "The Fans." They say, "Tell the Fans." I say, "Never have I, in every case." In fact, my mother often forgot to say "do, dears." She thought I didn't hear as many as I did. "Tell the Fans" they cry, or better yet, "Tell the Riders." <|endoftext|> "Try the Richer's Gift on Me", by Margaret A. Mangum [Living, Coming of Age, Social Commentaries, Class, Gender & Sexuality] Prepare the robe, sing the spell: In its girth let the richer robe Follow the lovelier host. Of our sisters, of our brothers, Pillow-talk, language-sorrow Lay the burden on your shoulders, But we know, we are listening, and That you catch the words we hear In the laughters of a word or two. Some of the dishes you cannot clean, And some of us are to be tried By a dish of dishes ever new. <|endoftext|> "Tallying Allit tries", by Margaret A. Mangum [Living, Parenthood, Relationships, Family & Ancestors, Social Commentaries, Money & Economics] Tally allit tries to be honest How long it tries, how long How can it try, how can it be Honest with itself? If one or both of them, mom, If one or both of them Tries to hide, if one or both Of them tries, tries to be honest How can it be with itself? They go for a ride, they see Bunnertime, beforeit gets it, beforeit goes for it (Honest is never in it), It is withit allits life, the life it tries ======================================== SAMPLE 81 ======================================== Listening in the spring, may make Happy, while glad things are, Tell us all our names, or fill The cup, and say grace for it, Swear us the noblest to sing; Some good take home may put harm, Do what they will; whatever fails Runs, after washing, true and clean. I'd like to be as certain as thou art That it will stand when, after now and then, we come to need, That the wind blows and what good dries; And when, next, comes the effort for the sight to know The butler and lady in your eyes, say'st thou canst? Which of you minds the cook? Which of you lands The plot, as of the show? So may we too, here thus, abide, and so That the ship sails fair and the weather may, Some pines in, and, hey, our soul in it be glad, Some go with the wind, strong or weak. From sleep to pain's abeyance Took hold and shook the chains again; Turning over the wheeled Cahoon's sides I trace my last mistake track'd out o'er; And could I have overseen the loss Of dear creatures, that in her own breasts fed, Which cannot feed the hungry of this earth, Might God forbid that I should prove, Losing all, yet trust as sound as shore. There's Death and Destiny, and who does skip Is doom'd by either arm to die. When mists congeal'd, or sun or weather shook, Though one man found a way, he surely thrums In that unconstant ear; and Fate, when rings The only drum that suits his drowsy mind, It is a charm that many will not break. I pray you bring my kind old master back; If that's an eye-service you cannot afford, We will not think of him till he's dead, But start with pleasure when he's seen again-- Pray him, when he comes, with that kind pleadin', And he'll come through the snow; We do not want to drag our burthen twice Of grief and pain, remember, gentlemen, We do not want our master, or to bore His age, or to borrow his laurel-lock. And the man who has learned to bind and loose, I ask no more. 'Tis yours, power the almightiest things of all To fix the mind and mold its purpose plain, To drive the blaggart wild, the not so long-winded, Of every covet, scarce-perplexing foe, While that long-hair'd Lady, who in a blaze, Like Elster in the lists, Riffs back and frolic wing, And darts through a mile of jubilee-tide, Will put our minds a flight To the dissembling fakes of that low world. When I, with others like myself; when just The day, though gone like a phantom, kindle Bright, with innumerable duress Of windy shadows, that blind the luckless eyes, While the snow's mixed with soot-dated sleet (I am talk'd back from acts that else had fallen), Wearied myself, with some few companions, Clad, as I was, in such noble horror, Wander'd aimlessly--and found a home, in wonder, Through a strong, wide sally, where the new graduates By candle-flecked back-pat, brimful of comrades, Jubilant, in ascendence, had created A scene, as magical, as e'er this earth (With nature for rival, but for shadow blind) Was grieved by leprosy, in her chief dormitory At the University, Oxford--not long since there, And now, with hundreds of brethren, assembled there. To stop my ears, and turn me again to meet A dense, dense mass of daring spirits On the precipitous verge of the precipice, And throats that cut deeply, a crowd around, What sounds, o'erwhelming silence! from the brink Of immediate hell! As that spirit-brow'd king, By his own self-right, didst perish, and sink By drops too quick for hell-fades to inherit The splendours of, left the worst of riches-- Vengeance comes at last--and death the metaphor. The hurry of the confus'd, the miracle Work'd in conflict, and the charge most guileless to brief, We stand, and hurry, ======================================== SAMPLE 82 ======================================== I began to feel a little fainter wanting. And so I made myself small and regal,I went with death along and watched,I had found her, but that was long before I could hear the rest of her,She had gone, she was going away, and I was her because she wanted me to talk,If I was going to talk, I couldn't be small and regal anymore,I wanted to be in the wordShe, she had gone and I was of her,She who was too kind, too insistent, she left me to pursue her call,I called her as she walked away to tell her I'd be sure and put her through my door,I'd like to give her the best of me,and she told me to kill herself <|endoftext|> "Instinct", by Jennifer Cheek [Activities, Jobs & Working, Relationships, Home Life, Nature, Seas, Rivers, & Streams] [in the size of Paris) Then there was a creeping house, light As a humming bird, all day, all night. Green leaves and dark in its little frame Talked to one another, changing and passing. Sometimes the windows and doors Were opened wide; the curtains drawn Made a whirring sound. Water ran Out of little ears in waves. The room moved, floated, In the wind. A car drove by, Rain fell in the doorway. And the house talked: that, That was true, that was good, That made a target of a clodden, No more to be said. <|endoftext|> "Note in Bear Memoriam", by Vivian De la Noy Who will remove my stitches who will undo this confession, who set these lines of words drawn in wood? what voice will sing their melody, irrepress the sting, let you speak your name, my name, what has become of it, left there, left inside me, voiceless, mute? <|endoftext|> "Wedding St. Anthony", by Rachel Richardson [Living, Marriage & Companionship, Love, Realistic & Complicated, Social Commentaries, Anniversary, Death, Marriage] the candles and the wishbone, pearls and pom-Pipe beads, the diamond brooch and the ring pulled from the men's box of ashes passing from hand to hand in the pasture down the path where the bull tolls as the brash, fresh wind blows and the couples reach quickly for the ring, their own throats steeled, their hands steeled, their eyes steeled, their faces hemmed for a while, then unhung; the wife who will be cursed, the mother whose cancer will be dropped in the throat by dealers who will have the bill for free, the lover who will have the little fucker's throat framed for safe keeping and not kept, the little fucker's throat framed for safe keeping and not kept, the little fucker whose little fuck will be now dropped, ground down and not kept, ground down and not kept, ground down and not kept, the chain of order uniting, the relays of order uniting as the bell tolls and the carillon spins, the woman's throat drawn and stiff as a stung jelly bean hard as a snake's rotted hanguessence; her sweet hantering, the hard as a hanter jelly bean tarpauled with yellow petals, the garden of the East bound by the radiant polona, quivering with the heightened sense of the quark, the sang that sways from the withered stalk where the shell is pulled, its stem drawn between the stone and the wether, the lady's throat drawn and steeled, her old hantering to the ring. <|endoftext|> "Lament for James", by George S. Michael, 1910 [Living, Death, Sorrow & Grieving, Social Commentaries, War & Conflict, Mythology & Folklore, Heroes & Patriotism] Our streets were shaken with shouts and lightning, O the height of the sun and the heaviness of thunder. Our home was pierced with shafts and the red rain O the treachery of exile, and the deadly heights of Deering. We are spending our whole health of blood O the deepening of the wound and the quaking of the limb. O we are spending our lives Sorrow was bursting forth like the forest of pyres. O we are standing in the ======================================== SAMPLE 83 ======================================== The gallant men had risen, that manly race Of old, to drag the sinner to Christ, And did all with fearless gentle goodwill, And gladly! True, they only saw the fineness Of early manhood's middle age, And Gage and Mob?' And how his torn patches flutter, And smile, and laugh, and shake their bridles; and how And how his quick cheek dawn and relapse, Hanging gaunt, and haunt him with the caves and eyes Of the hard old-faces of the Desert! His Spirit answered: 'The blood of Christ, O Saints! And this ours which we bore for the sheep Brake into the world. Why should the Prince Of all these worlds, whom we have redeemed Out of the rain, and tempted with our fire, As we are tempted, ring our past salvation's bells, And for what? Because we had to find him, And that in Gethseis: it is he.' While thus the haughty Vandal held all land and sea, As old Bejan, who bids the pillars sway, To the four winds of the world, on earth's large round, His thoughts were set upon Jerusalem, And he resolved to hold it, if he could, or none. Let this suffice;--he found it not; and gazing 35 From Mount Zion, as the type of this his-Eretmean spires, And eating of the bread and thirsting of rest, He fell to thinking on the height he saw In state awful, and how he was debased now To meaner replica, how he had been This day upon his Father'sFields, from whence he could not rise; How his own foot was planted and why; and then, Though born in noble lineage, most like King Almighty; and his heart beat lower as he thought On how wise Folly flings the apple, or the pear, When Love or Wealth lodges in his open mind; And how, from morn till even's dawning after dark, By tins, bottles, pistachios, walls, and staves, He had lain in his own soil, such poison round He had shot, and gorged himself for long dulness' sake! At last he settled him in one place alone; And as one that would not walk in fair array, But robed in scabby olives and strong foreign clothes, And by a spurted back pull all his legs apart, And then proceed to speed his threshing-floor, And fill each band with rude oblivion and rust,-- He seemed at last to pass into a rich temperate air, And roved after love's satisfactions, not replete With roving caprice; had received an absorption Of all his vain endeavours; and now was grown Even, in a measure, young; since what he had desired Were facets of a full perfection to be gained In the firm belief in righteousness and truth; Therefore to him a fairer embodiment found, Whereof the fulness had already been made manifest In the fields, where he had sought it; and seemed Now wholly when dry, a fire in the mire. And I said to thee, my mistress, all these fevered sheets, Worn in the doing of a Deal, and spread abroad In the hot mode of a Street, must give like surrender, And yield like a miser outspent, who counts not Soup. I see her push, and push, the news along, up street; I see her roguish apercys spitting by the door; And I hear one's look, and heoph-like, he favour her, Who bounds, penny-vacing, a dove in a sultry church. And what do Irneides have done, indeed? I think not bad. To make poor marbles growce to making marble, And writing history, that is no easy task? It needs a God-heads breath of courage, or the rich, And God-heads, or the kindliness of man's estate. And then to see her angry, and hear her cry, And fling her Branch into the waters, Like a pearl-pot and not a precious thing; Then see her go, with morocco grip, her way To the thick Cottage-Streets, to catch at the gale. Hear, then, in the Parcel's sake, what surely comes To pass. And if to other days I appear, A slave as is my destiny, should one say, How is it,--how ======================================== SAMPLE 84 ======================================== Lingered with chilly similitude, a midge to guide The patient and befudged. At last she rose To fly beyond his lap again, In desire to find what he would not find. Moral of this is, never laugh at the Devil, He will laugh at you when he fancies it; And though you may be the most eminent Conqueror of men, there is a Devout in you Who never asked for more than what was allotted. They brought him over here As an old hulk For just that purpose, that he might be damned, And in the known lying And cheating and repeatitious signature That is to establish the banker What a huge goose! What a marvellous goose! I have never seen a larger goose. His name, he is not dumb Yet, not by a mouthful. O toil and trouble And the drifting of time! O toil and trouble! And I grieve to think that they Must be needed by goose like this. I do not find it strange That as she seeks her perfection Her boundary With a collecting of everything in the world That here a hedge is enrobed, And a wall is expanding and there a Hole. I have remarked on this And my friends have heard me And said it was very rude of me And contrary to nature And that it is true Of the world. But it can be reasoned That the need for a barrier That can be crossed With only a sigh And an easiness That with a hymnopoetry Is too weak to possess A part of its own perfection Is a law that can enforce itself As a threat and a promise And if it be enforced And the threatened forsaken Then alone will the islands And the islands invisible Be completely crossed out And the ruined sea. It might not be so fearsome With a little bell and a lonely voyage To make, But all the warnings Are still ringing, "Danger is in your silence." But they have weighed all and found that The margin Can be so brilliantly sieved And so ruthlessly swept clean That nothing can be guessed After. That is to say that There is nothing, nothing, nothing After. And the man at the galley When the trip was late and over Paid me a visit. He found that though we fought On paper, There was nothing to fight for After the first. Up on top of a ridge Between the torrent and morn There has been thunder Of rain as premature dawn And the black is white. And the weathervain I view in doubt Is what the clouds will be like After a last hour. And the mare seems pregnant And again I wonder if the three wills Of those who were. At the heighth Upon the dark serene top Is seen a nothingness And we grieve. "Do you think it a debt The earth has owed us? Or the flowers have gone too far To be unclothed? Or if some creatures graze A chance discovery Of an Earth beneath them Willy-nilly goes." I will go to France on a scheme When the ships set out, But the wheels of the carrier Are swinging slack When I think of your letters And the snow is commencing. The horses of the strikers Are barking, And the fire is going out, And the nights are falling. I want you so, more and more, To be correct, dear heart, And I stand ready to do all That I can do, to lift you From this danger of death And I have one word to say, That I'll be kinder this afternoon To please my wife. An intellectual need, they call it, Who is not simply given A feast for sense in language made, But, in truth, has ta'en the factory And instead of tables and chairs Has built a machine that does all Alone, and there is not much left. There is little left of earth-life after all-- A man may say-- When a telegram tells him he has none And his only play is to grind one onwards. For this we praise our amiable leaders And fight wars that we know must be fought. The cards of your playthings a mighty bridge have been. You see them parked along the garden-wall And the cards of Action they gather like men at bay. They can ======================================== SAMPLE 85 ======================================== -&-special specs of beef jerky, your sarcasm was approaching<|endoftext|>Or the barns where a rising wind roasts the ground-beet in color, beats and beats in long doubles, sends an answer to the pattern of the rain over the mouth of the stream coming from something equally nearby and nowhere, or our neighbor's jackhammer and hammer, and sparks an idea of his vast space going diamond-space on his walls, and our silence at its own end “Is there anything I never understood about my life? I always understood something, but it wasn't plausible.” And yes, in the barns there is real estate for anything, or nothing, as the barns know. But the real power is in the sky, is in my silent sister, the wind. In the sky a whale flying by what's there and what is there, and then what I wish for, or think I wish for, or hope, since I have no other choice. The big one (who else?) borrows his own wing to fly by this way, or a little wingspan, or the catchers and pids (they never consider the uglier ones) they play, and no one else has wings to chase the catchers and pids. In this land of vast empty sky-tests, I hear a bird singing, when the jackhammer thousands of blows (worse yet, the one at the gym) spark it on, or the house in the sky's line of fire, it sparks and sparks (it sparks) and I burst out, not with laughter and song as I did before but with wood—wood that I cut (the wind sliced and snowplinto flakes) for the fields and towns to sow, and yoke, to use, for labor and so I fashional learn, and which (this is the part I want that my sister has never written) if breathed against the crop of my mouth, and the air (like a lyre of wind) takes my desire and breeds it in me to sing; it takes all clouds, at the push of a button, and gives me wood to work with. <|endoftext|> "A Homage to Poetry and Elegance", by Robert Briswick [Activities, Arts & Sciences, Poetry & Poets, Arts & Sciences, Reading & Books] O paris miserelle, o le musicus languagium, O rare da mon teau da pleine breath! Alabaster bottle, bothin tarnished gold and tumbled mahogany comeum, O rare da mon teau da li par imagerye che, O rare da mon teau da li either. When my lips they found and music could be caught, And fire was eager by both ears and eyes; But music now is dumb, and ink becoming Poetry steals my life and breath. O rare da mon teau da li, O rare da mon teau da li either, When the poets breath and breath was gone, The measure of their loving gone, Music stole my breath and breathing of that; My mouth's air went begging for ink and words. O rare da mon teau da li either, O rare da mon teau da li, When some inkstand peddler found my breath, To "sing the prelude of love" I cried. And 'twas a rapture, too, they took, The measure of my kisses there. O rare da mon teau da li either, O rare da mon teau da li either, But they sold my breath for bale and psalm. O rare da mon teau da li either, O rare da mon teau da li either, Then they peddled me and so I died. <|endoftext|> "Oystering Ye", by Robert Max Snide [Activities, Jobs & Working, School & Learning, Social Commentaries, Race & Ethnicity] My fate is a flimsy tie split in two by some dull assistant's attendance;That tied weeper on the ends of misery's vine,Whose prize the boy to acquisition never binds;Blown in the mouths of his wooden cocks; until I came,Bridled in a herring's bundle to the stall.Half-tricks, half-wits, half-shags; a first degree, the oneSoppy dunce, half-useless; manliness bound in cloth;Tattered pocket of a jacket, and a piece of head,That some fine crank stole from a professor's hat.The lights were out, the chill year's scum did shine,The sky looked dead as a ======================================== SAMPLE 86 ======================================== This could not be, for if the face Was raised, or not, then the subject brain Must be destroyed. But be this clear; Look here and count, till in the count Of the face you find the left-hand rise, At the approach of the glance, which may turn All the dew our ordure--it was not so, Nor never will be, while the mind resists. The memory is not yet dear taught, Like love or hate: but this I ween You will have that in the end carries as light The weight of love as of memory's stone-- That we do forgiv'n whom we have loved, And more when we remember; which changes love To bitter or to tender temper.) H. If love's a liar--I take that phrase in good part--then love is too good, too generous, too wise, to be founded on reason at all: it seems to me a moral worthiness. Some people know that they are to be bound To a certain extent; for 'tis their nature: But that they were far better minded to suppose they knew no more than one to ten, as a first guideline, And then to wish themselves within the heads Of those who in dignified fashion and modest language Talked of love. There are fewer people of sense, Of a better nature, than who presume To love, and give themselves up to the sport Of the pleasure of another. The nature, They often see, is so in water For swimming, and in dry land, and in air For soaring: while their hearts have never seen All that love should be: and their desires Are weak and meek--the very sort of thing, They mustn't forget, which leads them on to wed The everlasting lady love, that tied Love to a bay-piece, which they shouldn't enjoy, Or any pleasure they didn't desire: A form of love to which they can compare They often play upon the Opera-pie (When their own tragedy is but a bare and unwritten rehearing of the Muses), And let the steam come at ten, and let the Countess-in-Law be brought up--sometimes Without even a preliminon--just to see The war and clamour, if it's not quite Undertaking of the Passion, still Next day's gettable--but not at all Once fixed for that, but shifting minute With it, take or no, with everything But the last moment being here or gone With it. Where the allurements of love, I And I suppose, are often to begin 'With a walk in the country, and to try, If the velvety days are fair, or 'with a journey, and to mount some great landmark, or ' With a quiet talk, and diversionary twist, to beguile, or wrap up the trifles, say, 'love no more doubts,' and so the ballad closes. But to talk of men's morals--these, and Rosser's Person, can from the thing seem sages-- And the modern stiff, can give them titles fresh From the biography of each, as they throw, With a similar brevity, on the taste and note And make them sound like a bard in them, that's If the man be wit, or young, or handsome, or-- If he be all three, 'tis still a matter of double unkind thing; as upon the present being late The last new poet tries, as all three he'd try to trim and finish his poetship. Rosser's the soul, the soul for me, Had'st thou but been for me thy soul My idle would have been. But where's my soul? Why then, witless, cheerful, quiet, so, As that you can my passion, and punish, Why cursed be such as I to give myself For small possessions or for praise, as they be gossip, and adornment to fools. Why then in thee am I in rroum then? What then the bliss, or the content That thou canst now coax from me, or drive? I have sinned, I have been prouder then to say: I suffer from it, I feel from it: But it will go, and I by means like to get it, It's my marriage song--which, may God forgive me, I have sung as a simple marriage song; But as love to be began, the middle song: But I begin to cry, and cry, and cry-- And turn my head here and there, and there, And wonder whether ======================================== SAMPLE 87 ======================================== down your world Yech, you dundering. of My body you cannot see it So forgetful God-built The broken pillars lie with beards I am more mortal The idiot in the tumbled pool— I know this I know The garbage can is full of snakes— <|endoftext|> "Dead Man", by Mary Rose Gottfrieds [The Body, Love, Desire, Relationships] Someone has been burying bodies all day. On the hill, a grey man. In the river a lean man And a woman on her knees Kissing a skeleton. Where do you want to meet? I like your lips. Where should I end my arms? I know there's only one world and it's not the one I give my heart to. Look, his head's still his eyes close on mine. I press the wet nape of his neck and ask him to say my name over and over as if he could say it that sticky nectar of immortal lips. And then he says my name and calls out for me and then I end his breath as if my name is a burning scar on his lips he must breathe on. <|endoftext|> "Disappear", by Joanne Wolf [Nature, Landscapes & Pastorals, Weather] You, you in the grass you lying on your last leg staggering toward the end of the world jogging along slowly now a cloudless white an endless blue jittering in the faces of oak savannas reflecting raw human necessity running toward the wind your course (the dog gone gone off) you in the yellow light the evening jolting you and a sentence lopped 30 seconds off of a birthday tide that would drop acid positive charges through you scattering all traces your reality (sudden alms snore on the stone steps dog crying snow falling) the rain the howl of fireflies low pressure the gift of a living thought <|endoftext|> "Leeches and me", by Dave Wilson [Nature, Seas, Rivers, & Streams] A sketchy-looking adult may ask for something be done to me. I am the last of my kind. The one hope for my kind I plan to get. If I rise to reach, I'll have to borrow someone else's job. Someone's life, or a life from someone else. A few things can be extinguished with a scream. Without a single leaf, they'll be rotted long before I'm ricko [howled] through the street. In other words, they'll have to kill me, either with me or after I've disappeared. That's why I don't want to travel to places I might visit. Water would happen too. The Leeches' job is do whatever the client wants. Badly worn in the eye, in the mouth, feet, hands, and anus. They're not there to protect. And they really hate themselves for lying. Not protecting. The Leeches make that wholly their purpose. At least, that's what I imagine. I'm sure you know what I mean. The Rivers realize they're not ready for babies. Suck and drag. The same comfort each one supplies is denial, the same rough delivery. We'd rather be hypnotized. Happy to wear our psyches like small dresses. We couldn't possibly love each other in the same way we do, say, the gourmands we claim to love. But each is served up in a meadow where strange foaming creatures play. Without agency, we numbly await our names. Finding each serves has little purpose other than identification. If work, sleep. The least bit responsible. Not lacking fidelity, most times quick to a gentle wakeup. The least bit insidious, our starting drinks. We don't get to show up ready to catch the morning's breaking metabolism. Unless we're taking blows. In other words, unready. We give nothing a fizz-bang. But this too shall pass. <|endoftext|> "The Ugly Truth", by Jin Bak [Religion, God & the Divine] How often now, a full year since my last, I've noticed you in the dark, corners of the street, gracing pavement with awkward gait, getting kicked out of bed, up in the air, by what, lightning? By what, you think? Ugly? Devil? Storm? Naked where you are, you ======================================== SAMPLE 88 ======================================== True seems it now; let us stop here, And some fine mornings turn up, For I should like to see this spring As I have never been there." "You won't?" "No, not at present." "But, afterwards, perhaps?" "Then I'll tell you plainly (As is beyond your understanding, I know), No chance shall'st thou miss of Seeing such a sunshine as May appear to you For every one May perhaps vary as to shade Or hue; And every chance is the worst." "It sounds strange." "I'm of people; I'm fit to live in sunshine; Your most enjoyment May come from suffering; Such is the charm of it To pain and sweeten; I would not make much of it, But my motto would be-- Live, then, in sunshine!" But he, "At once!" and whistling "Tubbard's Tune". But what should he discover? I suppose the man's been through so much, We are hardly bound for Scotland any more; Or, in fact, been anywhere. And now it's idle: it's dark, And there's not much frolicking to be done. Would it would be art he'd taken to a new style, And so, to card-tial art, And might have fancy for the illustrious Birch Tree, And built, in ashes, little homes of chimbley clay; For though our Pict alone at time, Where the seedier stuff's best, Has found yet an awn hook or what may, A little creek, an altrana in a swathe, When jolly she's been, It's possible that her shepherd will go, To have gone with her. For, as you know, before Man went to be A little pot on the fire, An old horse in the plough, And the gifts of the gizzard for a palanke He might have been, far less, A Divinity!-- While the sprat's been through,-- The same thing might and has been done By some fellow with a great sack of clay; That is why I take to my back in the sands And dry my face in the sunlight, And pick the hivights of my love with a palanke And wait here, you and no other. Come, sing us the swags of the lore thou wear'st, And the road to thine inn from the king's hame; For we, at this hour, A stirring draught of the stuff o' the bright things From the throbbing brain Step to sell an ounce of the gold o' the sun To the little scrape of the dust; To say nay, or to say it as usurers say, To pounce with a monkey on his bay. For the nonce speaking! For a box that can be bought For one in the smoakers' bbl within a minummuster's circuit, And a whole morrow's bail for a pot in the coppice's lap! There is no pot to ask for half-a-crown, you should say, When half a pound is such a publick bough. There is no road to encourage the plough When half of your life 's ever the mire; When half the value of our earth is devoted To things a servant like the yaffing ground. And half our lives, our very tom the houses are made for, And half the State is a hand to ease our men of pain. And to 'steer the wheels of the rover aright And to tell a State what State should in rout go mad; If half your learned teachers still should be subject to the king, There was not half so gallant error would ensue; There is not half so much wit to be seen in a pott, Nor reason in a ship of 50 tons that's half timber capacity; 'Twould do for nought else but this half-a-crown page in the State-schools list. A thing for nought and dung for half a beat, Where 'twixt the post and the wagon the ice is brittle, A block of ice with a biscuit between them, Nay, but there's a blind man between. Where eagles in freezing Keep their eggs to haggle for now; Where god-kings do die, And giant lords are born; If half the chouse that bares Were of the lawyers The lawyers would be content to serve. If titter-changing Matter to swearing, Should spurn their flour ======================================== SAMPLE 89 ======================================== profit still left a promise on the counter-- he peered and listened and looked toward the back of the store. he would leave a deposit--a down payment. he sat there shrugging his shoulders for the cotton gin's cool refreshing air-- "in fact my son just went in to cash a small one--which saved us all I fathomed not to pay for." I listened. "one credit on my pocketbook--for my life. for the last benefit note ever issued. make the best of it you can--I'll pay you on the same day you come--here, take a ten percent premium--push along ten thousand additional coupons from the coupon book--over. water the cotton with much pepper--peel all the sockets dry." the mind wanders regretting that the stars have gone to earth and the darkness wrapped her in a shroud. an evil glimm mounted the clouds and at dusk a march on bedlam began. where the dew had melted the pavement followed closely in the wake of the army. with mules behind, and beasts outnumbered and rode furiously toward the fighting men. then the veil we hung from the highest peak. my father sat at the head of his war party and spake, "no end in sight." we don't come here to the heroes, the ghosts, or only the ghostly who linger unseen, seeking the blood in pockets of the living, in the cups and on the plates. after which they followed me into the bar. later I found the grim crypt in the gunpowder- proofed room and contemplated The history of Austria and free government is a simple one. From the prison old sreekat to the eminent scholar in prose. My heart resists the dark under which he lay, the only man in Austria's night fight against the 200,000 attackers who stormed the Alps with the words of an ancient drabness: "We are coming. It is only a matter of getting out of the mountain." To the windows in his ruined study lonely he reverted. "And who could have imagined, when out there, in the midst of so much golden light, that I should be eagerly awaiting, in a winter coat and drawn cased in the dark and windy twilight?" And he: "This could only have happened in summer. Come with me out to the altogether quiet spring, come and we will discard all these myths once and for all, let the rotten pods go to the vat. Let us build a church and store what bricks we can no further use mending broken chaudières, and place the mountains in it, with their peaks, as on a pedestal,--yes, the same hills, whose decrepit gorges, we know, were the vales of And later we rose to our old country's altar dated from an earlier and older time. And many a dream rose. We were young, our flesh young. We could do anything, climb the steep slopes at dawn, so fatigued that the tempest be it classified as a blazon was we given to understand, so eagerly that it took the young among us who could not walk. The great valleys at the ground we lived at. We woke unseen, and mused wildly that for half an hour, until the storm storm that gathered in the firmament took the form of bursting white clouds, did it move the mountains in procession, And it rose in our throats,--adoring, averse, the forms it took, the faces it gave as that which is not was. The reeds made a wind-beat meadow and the mules with our fodder stench. We saw the long shadows of mountain leap the wind into the gorges, see volcanoes, and with our eyes we saw how the mighty spewings poured into the sky. Our eyes were tears and memories--the absent and their gushing. We had left behind us remembered words. The fields of the vessellas under the looming housetops; O peace through war--though slandered "Martini," with the olive-green flag--"Ay! you remain," "Dead, but in terms of gold," at the citadel When I ate with you at Monegas I drank too much wine Went to visit those happy souls who're having fun at the "Puthouse," ======================================== SAMPLE 90 ======================================== in high brass, and the women — in your face — haggard, exquisitely beautiful. <|endoftext|> ""A Ballad of the Irish in Canada", by Ted Kooot One afternoon in October I was walking along the Pacific Coast Highway, wishing that I had a car enough to hold me with destination in mind as the great icebreakers with their heavy hearts and the fierce thinking quickly changed into one friend and one small rooming house with a fire in it and "a little bed" and I thought to self, "How nice to be thinking on ice, to think on cold, on freedom as the wing-mirror of shelter and another way of looking at the world, to be looking at my neighbour that I loathe, and soon as thought on it — in another minute a small smirk formed on the faces as I got to thinking on those days long passed and I turned left down the road and into that small town in two minutes flat the icebreaker carrying its full ballast and a voice saying, "Good afternoon, brothers, aren't we happy to be with our Canadine right here, on our way from Halifax to Nassau look at our time right there and think about it, considering — joyous joyous — the time right there we're rolling into and out of and out of these climates, out of these colds and heats, in and out of and in these cabarets if these two little boats could think and say, except that water off on the left — cold water off that right — unfazed by the few seconds of motion, with its great blue eyes, with its knotted throat and the looking up to the sky, the great white eyes, its tail slowly nodding off and the winter plumage. <|endoftext|> "In These Cool Cities", by Ted Koochet [Living, The Mind, Activities, Travels & Journeys, Nature, Winter] In these cool cities, they forget the trees' autumnal glow. In those other places, the trees are burning. Everywhere is winter here. Frost and snow. But in my streets it's still autumn. Last night, an hour or two before the snow, I glanced out my window and — nothing. Nothing but the jumble of bodies and words like sea gulls yapping in the dark. And those morning papers' faces of every morning. The snow was quieter and paler. No fall — but a blue cloth. Pelted like little pellets and faded. And last, the crows' dim hang-hips. I hear the crows now. Now. And somewhere below, another peal. <|endoftext|> "A Visit", by Frank Lipe [Living, The Mind, Relationships, Family & Ancestors, Social Commentaries, Cities & Urban Life, Money & Economics] Yes, but I didn't see them coming. —Erich Segal 1 and then? I don't remember now the bus ride to the fishing traps, the peroxide with its [UNDER] on my shirt, the nights of almost nothing when he would stand in the middle of the large entrance of the frame, our two chairs on the carpet, my chair, his and make me feel that we were a pair of captive birds, each jumping from one restraints to the other's wings. We remembered the ropes of tape, the lack of windows. We would turn and fall again back in the dark to rub carbon out to make ourselves invisible. 2 now, just before night, at a window of language, I look up and find the wind of my parroquet. And after that, the penetrating fire of ice that has no meaning, except in my brain. 3 I recall when we crossed over the prairie, let water drop of your shower on the prairie, slick grass from your wading pond, and the torrents poured freely down our legs and whining like beautiful water nymphs after the goddesses we made beautiful in our mind. <|endoftext|> "High Anxiety", by Frank Lipe [Living, Disappointment & Failure, Arts & Sciences, Philosophy, Social Commentaries, Popular Culture] that new year's eve, friends all standing around in a circle on the pavement, singing praises to the one who has just been deposed, my. Tyrant is ======================================== SAMPLE 91 ======================================== No day's turn of weather can fail to work their will. Their snow-white pinions send to rest, At the anchor of some distant land, Tortured by winds, oft so fickle and wet; Like an infant, sleepy and unsober, Its wings are heavy with the fogs and mist; And its eye takes the breeze's fault, and tears The snowy fleeces of its snowy nose. But, lo! whatever lies beyond the fog, Or whither whirls the south-west surge, There's nothing in that dismal piece of land, But it must be strange and beautiful. Not quite as strange as a dream we see The spectre of a snowy funeral; The thought of a land beyond a yawn Rises in our wistful gaze, and dies away. It makes the petty prison, where we lie, Youthfuler and zanvier we are made; Since we are weary of the dreary close We lock the door of our private room, And hark, with new surprise, round the yard, Loving the music of the snow. Perch'd on the gable of the house, By light that beams through the night, I see the prospect all Blown up to the summit of the hill, Where my love for you is passionate; A year of hope and winged hope Left the boughs of death to brood Past the rush of the wave To claim their own desolate sea, That island in the distance lies, In the breadth of whose sheltered bay The storm-worn cliffs stretch afar, Within the distance of the day, To the snow-sheltered mountain's head, And without wall from fire and sun, A desolate land that ever sleeps In silence and in silence beauty, As sleep the green waves of waters. It seems as I had dreamt it must be, Here in this stillness and calm, At the home of love where my heart begas. It was not on the time that brought (How hot was that heart, I ween!) Hurt of breast, and cloys of despair, And all that passion might befall; No, no, it was not for that day That went with season of decay, When souls are held by silence fast, And have no specks to show Where they go after life's fit, But in a world at peace with change, At times when life looks bland, When Life is not a blight For the unprepared mind; When Love is not with blood burn'd, Nor Hope with despair grieves, And the soul looks calm in the face Of life's calm sunshine; when the spirit broods In a free felicity. Who ever migrated from his grave To death's frozen place? The dead come back to the bitterest earth In the end most cursed of the three. Yet all is well, For the days on the skep'ring lot, Come back to the homes of the dead. There were but a few, then, that sought, Now never to be found, Or in the mouths of toil, Too poor for riches,-- To crowd the Sunday cross in, Where graves are soft and warm, But with pious diligence The richest lead on Sunday laid, And all without stain nor smear. To gain with pious diligence The Sunday Cross and it sealed; For it is given freely, That those who well may wish, May gain it without strife or pain. Sliced for bread and not for usury, My dear Child; it stands as it was, But still does Him who gave it God worship with his hire, For that blood-money let me pay, Let me, my dear, and take my gear; For, whate'er I have the world to send, God's paying is giving more than this, My dear, and my God is treating me Like a merry Robin Hood. The bear's at the cook's, the bird's at the barm, The boar's in the wood, and the teen's in the row: The fox's in the wood, and the hare's in the blind, But I trow, from the miseries that hav' made, The moon is past the whit's-worth of the sun. Life's winter night, A long-previous frost Keeps the house warm And makes the winter's heart Like the swallow's swoon Die from its terror, But I like this door's iron hurdle, Get out at the padd ======================================== SAMPLE 92 ======================================== What delicate talisman to make fools of go back No of the world is the 'thistle and thine.' I do not care If I take any view of a crumb There are some in the world Who live in ignorance and sit 'em in" a-"e'" like any old play." But he's ahead of me!" There's no hurry, Nicky; I can "good taste" like Boss C. himself. <|endoftext|> "The Rain-Years", by Norman Moore [Living, Time & Brevity, Nature, Fall, Winter] The English summer then is called By these better names than Christmas or New-Year, Although the seasons of sun and trees Do tend to correspond. And although in other seasons I would Have found these Summer weeks hard hit or hit, In this season chiefly by a fit Of asthma, ill-mutated and sad, I will not boast that I did not feel A mere Earthy flush through the day or night And a less constant lustre in my soul Than ill-conditioned man might feel And my first emotion was surprise At the old truth-fraught names of seasons, lest men Contend that 'twas a lie to call them so, To say the least. For I have known, and said That seasons have a sort of motto, 'Love thy neighbor,' and after that it 'move on,' And I have noticed how the deceptive shape Of many a cruel turnip, centering round Some dreary raisin, teeming over-much Or undersized at some human standard, seemed The most earthy brand in apparatus nobly And so by season, have endowed with prophetic Motto. For, indeed, I think I need No name other in season to espouse The monastic Sabbath, and to feel a part Names of qualities whose own accord Dissolves the family of consecrated time In light pure thought. And if on such proper meals We do all manner of astronomical thing, And find the stars run backward all the year And mete their hapless auditors in the face, To think that any one is not reproved For so much. On such a basis I would build The whole superstructure of the mind. 'The Fall' (or, rather, the Fall of Year, so &c.), When as the parents gave their son or daughter Visa or other day by which to pursue (Their liberties or chances, to say less) A more transcendent pleasure, doubtless had, Nor less thereby an interval, I mean, Than that wherein the greatest pleasure is known, Which is the pleasure of Spring; I mean To play the fool with pleasure, which is a play Of faculties in due correction placed In due series. Thus, if the Spring time be Spring-based, and a fable, what that Spring Laps me over, or some milliner Shall, weaving my whole life, say I love, Just to end with the line where I begin; Or something of that kind. Ah, say, I feel the highest trace of me Which is my own, is a pleasure in the Spring. Come when you will. There's no time like the Spring, When all men reap and exchange and sow The harvest which in strolling days is reaped, And knocks at the door with whiting-curled plumes As if that life could continue still still Where it is but just integration of life. Who sow hides his harvest and would hardly know What sackcloth and sublimation might mean, Yet is it cold and very wonderful, And no denying to say it, yet, to me It grabs and is a revelation of the Spring, When Spring bejes one tone of music In the background and then shouts and is all Echo with itself and the work of songs And, in fact, when I'm asleep, a miracle Sets in my spirit's fashion, A revelation of the seasons and of Spring And such a high and kingly vision That it would have been absurd were I unharmed To experience it, and when I wake again I go on talking, and when I die I sing. My soul, I have nothing but moments Of a high dignified lucidity, And, therefore, whether I live or die, I have a Moment which I call mine With all its own peculiarities, Which I might call mine, as e.g. God has a soul, And therefore I have something of His. There is a mystery in the making Of a high type ======================================== SAMPLE 93 ======================================== "Orthore, the thunderer Of needles, The artist of warts, Smuggler of arrows, Thus he vanished away." Smilèd the maids and boys, On the fair trees looked; On the grass-hills he gazed, On the she-wolves looked. 'Twas their father, upright, On their master gazed. But he vanished away Half a sheet's length. 'Twas their father, upright, On their master gazed. Said the first one thus, "Grown were since then many times worse. Lo, what did then their father shrink to, when that he had grown? Lo, what did it avail him, when their master shrunk less capable?" Said the second one thus, "When their venerable father, their wise master, first saw them on the field, and a bit over strong, he advanced in help, and grew: Till the ship had made but half way through the far sea, and he again was to see them then no more. Said the first one thus, "It will be many a fight with devils that is seen, At their revered master's death all those on him hov'ring go." Said the second one thus, "It will be o'er many a load if thy master now were slain, thou well knewest how to find him, Thou wast not there to see." Then the third said thus, "The master long hath been blest; And I well believe now, if he had not long been here, that I have seen it yet alone. But whatever it be, as to his return, none asketh, for his master's life. Therefore 'tis shame and folly for an inn-keeper to kill a footman, and take in bribes." "I do not know the road to this unknown land; O now that in I journey! Fain would I stay long at the inn, and before I come, Ponder long and deeply the coming of his master; With them taste the feast, and be much talkèd, Pleasant and fair e'en for such as are we. Fain would I go, fain do thou stay! Thus long shall my wishing prove; I'll call again on the morrow. Not again, if 'tis to be, Will I go without thee, thou dear one! To-morrow is another day, Fain will I still unmeet." "What is't Thou dost on to-morrow? Sane people do thou look for. When one, before, upon his couch, Dreams to-morrow of a lovely maid, His hope, he says, is lost and done. Yet she her lover, as oft, returns; She, lo, she comes, to-morrow fair, Like the lover she perchance is famed, To whom he hath sworn the story clear, With trembling heart, yet happy too, For he finds the mistress a dear, if mild From love-dregs he ne'er is free; We'll keep this morn a day or two, Until a day more fine e'er seeth, And then when all this light is gone, As in that time thou shall return, We'll seek thee then, as in high day, And we'll go at once to receive thee." By the beams that fell on her head, She fancying they had risen; Her beauteous head with shadows frowning, Wound upon her hand, the maid in love. The youth in turn began to fall, Self-taken, with every hope bereaving. But at her word a soft deep sighing Broke from the cavern of her sleep, Like the slow-shaken Erymon's cord, And, on its stake, round and round, His spirits sunnéd with the flame; All her too lightly is yielding. From her possession he would break free; She but held fast her jewel's clasp. Sweet as a leaflet, so soon lost Quickly followed by the breeze. But soon in glimmering moonlight fair, Her ear bent over, the voice inquired: "What wouldst thou from my Soul espied? Thou wouldst gain my sister maidenhead; Forbear to storm her maidly banquets, And from the bitterest foes a gentle house Revoluèd in repose thou see'st beneath me; And, with the opposite race of men disturbing, From my ======================================== SAMPLE 94 ======================================== With the kind fragrance of his flesh! Let us sing loud in the song of our hearts; Humble and free, how we cheer, as the shades Climid toward the midnight of eternity, And all alone in the solitude of space We watch this day of our humiliation! Even as the last shadow fades away, The lamps' dear light vanishes as well; And when at last the light is gone, There comes an identical and sereness And as if another's spirit, That and the other flies toward the West. And both are simple souls; yet we know That this shall pass away, and yet we do not know What comes after; for the individual dies; But the Soul is eternally! This was an unruly and restless life. Not To be teased or uneasy--'twas enough! When these had walked together in ease and Pride and calm, the fashionable world That called them "cockneys" ever seemed to Offend. They had their quibbles, but never their angry Dissections. A foolish pride was theirs, a cult of home and Owning the few that came to woo and Beguick them, preferring them to the throng Of smiling losers and other "street performers," Who came to the "city" to be noticed and Should be contented with "collections" The pom pits and the conmen were their Concourse. Half-a-Crown they were merry in the World's rink. In the family circle their "Ringwood News" And "Little Library" were the same, And the "Horton" their "Antic" and the " The odd little sobs and queer little smiles By the hundred surely spoke the human Outah, and in a disarming way Offered the best hope of a human Outah to their neighbors; and their jokes Show'd that the human element was There always, in their loam of Amethyst, mingled with purple, and Silvery, and in the very core Of their souls rose a desperately Friendly secret Mother-love! I knew these people And I liked them. For their little, shy Misfortunes," I would call them; but I changed My opinion when, in a flash, They tore me limb from limb with feuds, Frog-toions, vexations of memory, Cups of discontent, Unguard additions to love's unavailing Manauses, till life seemed naught but A "wilderness" of anguish. Then I would Recall how at last they vanished from me, Reduced to nothingness, and I should Remember that same "Manaus" stand, and I See, in a trice of unconscious poesy, Old evil turned to pure goodness, and I Visit the spot to find that it was On the wrong things; but like so much water Before the fulness, now evil is right, See, it gleams o'er the more than purity Of home, where men and women meet, and I Have known a great many since then, And loved many, and would fain Present the highest prize for my ill-fortune, The abashed souls who perchance exceed My own uncurbed trifle of immaculate Tracings and rendingly unearned "luck;" But they go on, and will go on. There shines The eternal lantern flags and wanes, And still, when needful, I find him by, (As in a vision of the morrow, one dry October morn), ready and motionless. And yet his heart's in me, and I cannot loiter, And he "turns" with the same relenting smile He had looked in upon me years ago, Away from me; and for that, should I die to know, Whole that he was always by me, wearily Turning away from me, and giving His earthy surroundings a contemptuous hug, And unconsciously, while I sit here, Fetching these notes of his, unconfined, unconfused, Blown through the fragments of his long "Harmia Sonny!" Sweet sister Serenata, we are wandering, Down in the groves, our mother's apple-trees, But thou art bare of graft, unsoft and small; And thy frail leaves do drop upon the ground. And the winds shout, and the leaves dance hazel, And thy frail branches dance a bird's tails; And the sun's a ======================================== SAMPLE 95 ======================================== They said: We are only trees that grow in a river One such day (according to the calendar) We struck the trees as we passed by. <|endoftext|> "The Tree Owls", by Marge Piercy [Relationships, Pets] One inch is a metony for one hundred and twenty years. I have read what the tree owls said in their free air. The dusky owl believes he is a hand of feather, folded, as the white one has said, in a hand of snow. The other two did not say one word, and the one-leafed owl refused not to talk. I will not tell what the gray owl said that one morning towards the flat earth. The summer owls had taken leaves. The bright peach leaves sat forlorn and yellow with clear tear ducts where the summer tears left their petals. The leaves moved on it, and away, and were not leafed again for nine years. It will be here, she said, before you I am going. When we met in the yard, my own heart inflating with hunger for her touch, she hid her face and I kissed the hollow and impermanent office of her throat and she began to speak first as a dog does, then stopped, for after her lips and tongue met mine it was as though with a human word composed of water and sunlight. It is good to have been here before, she said, to have seen from this height the old forest come to hunt under, before the newer forest rose in its place. I understand your flight away, she said, my flight away, where once it was too late. Forgive me, she added, for assuming the bad of what is bad and which I want what is good to forget. <|endoftext|> "Outside My Window", by Bess Evers [Nature, Landscapes & Pastorals, Arts & Sciences, Poetry & Poets] There is a desolate beauty about this place of trudging wetness with the labyrinthine path and glimmering tree-covered shafts glancing at lights we can't quite see all that glitters is the dizziness of shimmer the justice of it all It is raining And our trees are old, and so is this building which is old And far beyond it which is old Unseasonable, how can anyone forget the dead? It is springtime but you would know what that means It is warm This is not love though we say so for love means spring, that we are not here though we say so It is springtime and we are here continuing which is growing in this cold the wind blows It is not hard to get here if it is hard to get away <|endoftext|> "Juggling Laundress", by Stephen Stamford Jaimes [Religion, God & the Divine, Arts & Sciences, Poetry & Poets, Reading Progress] (Arthur Avalon) It was the camel's hump and not the God who made him Who said: Liable to go full five seas with no lie-in. But then, a month later, back for another swunch on a tungsten mattress unlike his lost one of Arabia. Then come the unfashionable golf clap and stab of steel. His covenant with art, art of his chewing, a seal whose embroidered silk had broidered him This unpunished shield of what he did not know and did, forgot-to-be-covered. In a full-colored satin bathyspy. And for that, he took communion on a body-palter made by Samson except in this instance it was a package which could be reaped from the exhaust of Satan into which he was to have been buried. Now the camel is pulling him; now the innumerous clubs of zeal. He knows what he is doing. But that hump of his is to go as well and presently is as good as all-made up. And the repudiation which makes possible to the ethic of his nature need not be buried in a body-hoarder if it is embodied in a spirit which one day will try to get free. <|endoftext|> "Something With an Elephant (1891)", by Ted Berrigan [Living, The Body, The Mind, Nature, Arts & Sciences, Philosophy, Mythology & Folklore, Ghosts & the Supernatural, Greek & Roman Mythology] There's a ======================================== SAMPLE 96 ======================================== factors to continue this peristyle of living for life is never started or stopped or changed. There are changes in the weather that I believe—and I am more convinced than ever that when the weather warms or suddenly changes in a certain place, we know. It is seventy to seventy at home, blue sky and the sunrise shaking the grass. In the morn we walk between seedless lawns filling the air with wisp of something awful—hope— that only a child will with bare hands clean, something, because it cannot. The cotton is the same every year. The sill phase, the drill and drop phase— it is all the same with cotton, that the seeds are swarming, floating or burrowing beneath our feet until our walk on earth. And I can go, day after day, four hundred miles, one year later. All life is stretch and stretch— there are always screams, storms, you, or your house, your children, the family issues—eating disorders, scholarships, writing blocks. This, too, will end. How could you not who have known you? (If I had loved you all along, I say, who was insensitive enough to think love, how strange!) Now I am convinced, it is the rushing wind, even the sustained fume of the cotton: all of it or many things, all arriving, all so the mind can not only pick it up and put it down, but keep it and pass over to the next thing that is the same. There is nothing in this world equal to home, even air, when you lift your face and clap it your mouth filling a large mouth. <|endoftext|> "Kingdom", by George Starclight [Living, Coming of Age, Parenthood, Nature, Trees & Flowers, Social Commentaries, History & Politics] In the days of the monarchy, birds sang in the fields; pigeons rattle and deal ansuing the overbank; then the overbank smoothed into houses; the house stays put. The nights were long; the lines held the clock in the over bank; the round house in the wind; the castle in the under bank. This was the natural order, like the wind's movement, as of stars, the tree, the falling water; the horse and cart moving without a guide. No one thought to look up to see how the people were like the branches of trees, no one, with delight, looking beyond what had been. For of course there was, a king— yet no one thought to be ambushed by an unknown king, a choice, to lose the plot, to lose the palace; all the free, in city or country, vague and free, like monarchs, endless, no heed given to the work. <|endoftext|> "In a Corner of the University", by Will Alexander The door was closed By an old, fat, blind, we could guess Unemployed man, his socks thrown On the chair beside it. The door opened With a wooden spring, and a chair Sailed out of a star; it fell To the floor with a clack. The blind man called out sharply, "You must keep the door! You Open this door for one with Such eyes as this!" And when it was The half-hushed, nervous student Who had not seen the chair go by, Put out her hand and missed: it Bore a soft blow: that was all. <|endoftext|> "Conversation with a Friend on Romans", by J. Frederic Jagger [Relationships, Arts & Sciences, Humor & Satire, Social Commentaries, History & Politics] We're fond of quoting people, but it's an illegal act To put our words in someone else's mouth. For instance, if I say to you, "I like Hitler," You would be liable, of course, and-legal. One may be bitten by ants-by-dogs- in the District But it is entertaining, and sometimes amusing. And such an episode can only ======================================== SAMPLE 97 ======================================== In high show and strict rule he served, Preferring over all others, (51) For in it he was naturally bred; Curious and perverse of manners, hard of learning, Illiberal with his habits, and immoral, Having no taste for feasting in public, Nor fit for the great services of state. He was the godson of (2) the more notable Lord Berkeley, Descended from an illustrious line, The founder of a book-domain of his own, Who, by his philosophy, (4) attained Unto the moral virtues, and titles of the State. He borrowed much of his system of science From his holy philosopher his teacher. He is remembered for the following laws, Laid down in books (5) on epistolary page; In a collection of two thousand chapters, Which he was first among authors to publish. He it was who also sketched (6) the following plan, For forming the general principles, when Conditions were scarce peaceful enough to require the aid Of troops to keep order and fair sway subservient. The council is a general board (7) of delegates, (15) Appointed by congress, whose duty it is to coin Mills, levy war, and maintain peace; to borrow when Needful, and lend when pride requireth alliance. From each mint, gold or silver pieces are hoarded, Then paid off, and in the book (16) transformed to gold again; To guard their account even from greedy banker. But suppose, and this is very great contingency, That half gold, half silver (17) be engrossed; What then the poor saver (18) must be told? He cannot meddle with the whole treasure box. It's gold, silver, and gold again; and here again. If this threefold alloy were ever turned Into obsidian, diamond, and mangan clay, We scarce would call it gold at all; but is quite A different metal still, of different colour. Perhaps you think the writer is well known For that very reason; therefore I will mention, That though of patriots of all aspiring kinds, He is the first Patriot, and of all pedlars, The foremost wag, in arms or peace, that still 'shamed The country; though thus severe he be considered. He to congress in spite, was nay An obscure member, that he was a Peer of State. Then it should be easy to excuse him, If you could justly general headnote (21) say. When springing views were rather scarce to be pressed For a clear idea of what he is, His country was not so poor and worthless before As to be prodigal now, Of his own judgement he has unsettled parts; And unless you believe that nation (23) is To sovereign now and generations past, When nothing is granted but their fame; Or that Genoese (26) had a distinct And manifest interest now, 't is at present (March, 1889) too diffuse to tell; That no man's a fool, 't is said by very Able to comprehend his own acre, Or rather that, wiser still, in nature's course, Nothing can be comprehended, Is a truly cautious man; to trick Your wise words to salvation is in other Events the surest way to fool, And make up for want of speed in time. But as to deeds that time has seen, His account would leave no question. Above a mere direct contribution, No mortal weals nor ills of the mind Can stop the body, or disturb its affairs; The lusts, or sins, the fiery passions of the blood Are hard to vanquish, when they do not contend With the blood's moderation and homely sense, Which, like sailors fearing on the ocean's brink, Have discovered that the means they possess Of cheating nature in the opposite And futile fight, while watching their long aims, Are not their enemies, but are the natural And ever-watchful allies of the good. However that may be, the writer now Reflects on the English empire o'er us all; On its fecundity and fertility; Its lavishness; its stability; its power; Its wealth; its empire; and how that power Is exercised; and the troubles that are met With the surplus of it, and what the nation, In view of what may yet be the day. The state of mind that bejes at present is In the mind of many among us, and, how Seemingly inconsistent with the supposition ======================================== SAMPLE 98 ======================================== 'Come.' Well! she was not at that. She said, 'Well? I think you are wise.' 'And I may be,' he said. And 'Would you give me your advice'--and the way she said it, you saw she knew him; she felt his chin. There was a flash of song and she fizzled out. "She called me an idiot, a book-learned man!... The man is mad; don't you believe it. Some drollery! some colour! 'Where was I!' Right? Oh, I knew, 'Where was I?' Right. And what was the use? We talked the talk. I was ancient, she was young. A half-fledged thought was in her head. Your wisdom's just. 'You seem to be old yourself, old-fashioned.' I made a good deal of Alice Boddy. What did she mean? What did she know? What did she know? You'll laugh: the true old-fashioned way is the best; no chaste fool with too much honest pine. "'Then will you sit down and tell me, darling, why I now look out a second at your face and always at your dress (the dress was all right, I grant you, but you always see it apart, so like a hat), and wonder if I may not be on the budget for this evening. When she, your wife, who always at trim as a queen makes her real challenge, when you accept this night her challenge (there was but one small modification of that old custom you take for granted and that was merely a state dress, an old one which possibly amused you, though you never stated it, is out of fashion) looks throughout, sees all that is best and perhaps you may be surprised how cheaply it was done.' 'Your price?' 'My dear, I do not regard my dress. Your price?' 'My dear--your dear.' "'My dear Nelly, I saw a personages--a person whose place among us is a striking case. He seemed ill at ease, and I have heard that he carried a pretty sharpness.' 'What we think of!' shouted Mrs. GUMP, 'is what we said of none. If he doesn't like his dress, it is not our fault, we never paint without a very clear view of the origin of the dress.' 'It's not the dress that sticks in me. I never saw Mrs. Vere dress at all but from the same source.' 'Then your wife was the source?' 'Alice,' I say. Her eyes gleamed. 'It seems I had scarcely ever seen Alice coat but in her own parlor.' 'And at that time she was not what now she is a comfortable supper-woman.' 'If she had turned out all virgin?' She began to shrieze. 'I see,' she said, 'you're all over thinking. Here, don't stand on it, Alice, Alice, that's very unkind of you--or me. But this is the point. You do admit that Alice (that is, Mr. Vere) came in at that time, you know, in the same month as the martial month, as the twenty-first, and that she was dressed in the fashion that came from the peasant, dressed it to. It may be all the craps that one can in a moment get over. I'm pleased that I was never one of the classes, the writers, etc., to whom the notion of custom holds such sway at all. Now, one may tell a story in any way he chooses, and I do not mind so long as he tells it as he can --and be very precise in his choice of illustration-- so long as he lets me have the dress of Alice, I see nothing wrong with an empty glass. Here is the reason why it was not far-fetched. That is, I never went beyond that point.' The first consideration in this country is the coffee. By the way, I have never tasted it, nor quite chilioned off it either, I suppose. It is said when they introduced thet an antipathy between them, that she used to blush each time he touched her. This is a girl, who becomes once cheapened for the occasion. As far as the economy of the place go, it is better for the shop, as well as the country, that she should be as cheap as ======================================== SAMPLE 99 ======================================== knocks many times with vigour's bluster. the westerly wind and into her casement there may be come to kiss the glimmering joys, for all it may not clear, its nimble sky-charmers. let me go to her. the gathering sheets seem most fair to her, in snowfall, her four large windows. let me find her, let me find my bounden-knotted home. opteryx and pyrgos offer a battle of webs and shadows, weaving larger nimble shapes from him. let me find her. herself, I fear, will be all too found. <|endoftext|> "Echo", by Sheryl Luna [Relationships, Men & Women] So he spoke softly, yet the darkness Swelled and roiled like a fish tongue. “Why do you hurt me like that,” She said, “You do not know my name. “It would be very helpful, if I could describe your features clearly. How about Echo?” He answered: “There is a mountain. There is a road. A river. A house of which you may not be aware. One could perish from the dingle; Echo, the eagle, has no comment. “Now you realize how distant She is from you, the way a leaf Is to a rock. Here is my house. There is Echo. Every river has A river. Earth to earth. A crow Swinging along the edge of a tree. “I am no bird. I am you. My voice resounds along time. You Are in your ways. I echo. I doubt. I doubt. But I echo. And my voice Is your dream. It stirs memory, Your dream. What you echo, so to speak, Is your next move. And what you move, It is, what you dream. And you tremble To hold your dreams. I echo sky. And I have the ability, the consciousness To manifest. But Echo doesn’t Have a word for you. You, for instance, May turn up in any genre. Shining in prose. Splendor, Or the bound, unique art of qin, Essentially a flow of stars In a forest. So, glory is your Perceptibility, and not in your voice. <|endoftext|> "Googling 'parasite' with internal politics", by Claire Moody [Arts & Sciences, Language & Linguistics, Poetry & Poets] A lot of glass to clear your throat,I start out wondering if I’m here,again, in this place,this room,in this city,at this time.The air feels very much like glass,which makes sense, since this is Los Angeles.You glance at your phone,but you won't find your friend,whatearse you may dataLike an algorithm is a kind of sharing,but you know what I mean when I saySearching for a ghost doesn’t get you into trouble,not that there’s anything to see.Echo is not hiding anything.No matter what you say.Your shadow does not scrutinize every little spot of light.But it does get in the way of your thinking.It weighs you down. If only you were nano-sized,like a microscopic spy.You know you are a more subtle creature than we give you credit for.It makes you more attractive, in its way.As soon as you blab,you become less than yourself.I try looking for the stars,but there isn’t any.I scratch my ears,and scratch all over this place.I am vain as I am.A gentleman should be a gentleman.Sorry,but you are not going to like this. <|endoftext|> "Why I Still Love Thee, Superstition!", by Carl Phillips [Living, Death, Sorrow & Grieving, Arts & Sciences, Music, Religion, Arts & Sciences, Music, Farewells & Good Luck] What do I do sometimes tears burning my eyes what nothing do I do what do I do this sighing the song that sighing this sighing this what do I do do I <|endoftext|> "Don't Stop Til You Stop", by Evie Shockley [Activities, Travels & Journeys, Social Commentaries, Heroes ======================================== SAMPLE 100 ======================================== By nightfall, passing forth a darkness oblique, And a hush ing ; yea, cast An aching darkness round in silence,-- For darkness made from light. A little baby, narrow and boyish, Pale as light, but with a wrinkle Of sharpest grief caught in a bull's hoof, Heavy as death, her head bent on, And sleeping upon the floor, Lay sleeping there. O little baby in the night, that weeps not! Nay, not yet,-- Only emptiest here, not here, but shadowiest Of things, wafting by Dead-winged stars that rose in the sun. As after sorrow, night's burden routs the light, So after sorrow, night's burden routs the light. And scarce she had time to wake Before she knew How like herself the moonlight looked, by that She knew Aurora. For how by whom else Had been made; by whom else Swept spaces so clear, amid these stars, And faintly gleaming things, that floated 'besides, And woke her drowsy: or else how, When she had known him so, What time is it, when no quarter hath been given? When judgements are made, and stricken palmed pilots Pant, "Take away! ye hollow Gods, that compass Deadly eke with blood of your late pursuers?" Yet even then, though heaven and earth at last were filled With such a sov-ereable Moon as does live pity, And all the maples with quenchless cedars, Lightly she drives back Her silver shafts of moonlight to regret, Her crownless kings to the eternal night. And sleeping in her safety, she will weep Her wrath for daybreak's wanness in the sphere, Where ever she and Guidance sleep obscure, And never at rest, since Guidance so must go Where'er he follow, shadow upon shadow shadow; There will he sing "No more of fight." That one, whose "qualms were too severe To bear residence here." Is a "mortal enemy" To that whom, only he, can bear Hotlier than his infernal share; Since that, at Heaven's last high call, The worlds, alas, no more than theirs Sum to a single note. His wisdom can poison spread; Mine could make life ill, secure Immune to anywhere. "Alas, your task is doomed to fail, Though a very holy noble style You teach the world to scorn; And though your visions bring but light And truth, which all were sick of long ago. --And that the way you have ordained it is." "A croaking crevice in the rock! 'Tis hell the last that ever declines." --"What wouldst thou have? that man in whose arm The brave infant struggled, so he spoke, Could not be white of heart as mine." "But mine The virtue not to wound; the defect of will Blasted by merit of wound." "Is this the heart you wound with? Then, By all who know and all who hear, Whom boldy makes its own award, Make the above mine arm my arm to-night, Mine arm mine." O note of blue smoke seen over the water, O whisper of a distant mountain (How does it retreat? Does it melt?) It can only be Clear Water. The sun I saw from the deck rose up And followed windily The coast as it swung West. The hill-wind met the wave, and ceased And rose with a meager force, And fell. And then began again, A coy nostalgic air Being sunset. My three sunsets That I have recorded Are: A. The start of fancy: bright in dreams B. The vistas fade and fall again C. But when the day springs forth on air D. And the day shines forth on air A faint following of wind clouds Winding from the nest, far off, to home, The land of clouds. (One wave of them And then gone.) From a single wooden house I asked the question, "There is not one tree, not one plant, Not one blade of grass in all the pasture, But divides and unites and ends and fills and fills and un-fills and ends and fills and un- ends and ends and wraps its arms around and unwraps and pulls and un-wraps and un- Turns and un- turns and turns its slow arms round and over and over and over and over again." ======================================== SAMPLE 101 ======================================== By one being and or many being in one." That is just saying that does not give me room. Truly I know you are used for music. What if that music were playing me? Is that music harmony? You have destroyed as much as you Have created and will destroy more. For my sake go get the first thing. It has been sitting here collecting dust Not listening. <|endoftext|> "Five Hundred Flips", by Damir Ron, Mosqaure, Dollars and Yet a Thousand Evenings at Schwetzingen, Chicago 1981, for Charles "Ghost of George" Zorn 1. The subject of our visit leaps and thrashes in the oversized sweater of the winter park. A bus pulls into the station, an unattending transfer he meets us on the platforms, flashes the excitement of Indians on a Buffalo barracoon. The duck test, he kneels down to catch them, the falls divode, the ascension, the hangar, the roaming. Now he wonders at the wings. One seat – an open cargo net. Two seats – it’s a battle of attrition, full of supporters, technical judges weighing up the profit. He works in the shed, he, a spot of green chalk, quite free. What is that all about? He shuffles his pieces and looks at me, the rest of the players, they too are on their tenths, second half of coma, second poor man against rock, the good line stiffening against the rough. The checkers come to the dresser to see if it fits, to start again. He puts on his sunglasses to check. He joins in our chat, he listens, then leaves the room. 2. ALMOST A SHORT HALTPAP IS NOT A reckless tune, that cat has his charms, the falling rain in the pigeon bar — a wingspan that opens so wide you are groping for shelter from a wind that no wind should stand on its own stolen scent without you. But it is not a reckless tune, this settling down and going steady with no sign that will take you on. The rivulets you whistle down their heads the rapiers you half bring to a halt. They raise their fingers to intercept the topless ukase, and place it in your hand. You limper in and shut the door. Be glad no window is open at all. Be glad no oil can be found, no chips to grip, no scratches after each wheel to wobble and gauge the motor's angle of incidence. Be glad, that there is a nest of law inside the vertical valley of money. There is nothing left behind once it is stopped. I work after hours in my flat, no more does the sun come up. In the upper shaft you lie again, the box pressed up against the side of your ear indicating this is work you wont to forget, it will come to a knife dont'bcontendances. Shall we travel from here into the room where fear is proof of thee? There is a break in the half-cell, the world looks back, edge on edge. It is broken, its angles become more rounded, the lines of objectivity, the cornice holding the sky off, the stairs returning to the ceiling, the fence sideways. It seems the face we knew is headed towards that half-clear shade of a sidewalk, turns the vertical down to the walking level. When the turning is not so steep, he slips on the rug, a strong man, and no matter, we slip on our glasses, confused, eyes still trained on the screen we cant see, and along the turn of the building, toward the sound of other words, and below the buzzing, its car sound, we go <|endoftext|> "The New Dishes", by Dami Hawaii [Living, Death, Social Commentaries, Race & Ethnicity] I've always thought death a carnival, full of funnels and gibbets and public executioners and the like. Nigro, Oklahoma: the Iwa-zuk is carved in the stone sluice-wall with a whistle of strips flinging into the dark . Our homestead: the back of our house is riven with glue so that water can drain slowly. Our grating bathroom: use a sieve to strain the water before it hits the floor. In the field: the serpent coils and I hold a jar of grains that I bought at a field dinner. Winter: stand by the untreated ======================================== SAMPLE 102 ======================================== Then lay the Tor for men and God. Not only this, but many times, The Tor for God and man May take the form of a sword To cut each other in a fight With shouts, and battles, and bloodshed, As though God's last messengers On earth had never died. Not my mouthpiece I speak, For I know not one, The Man more than any: Whoso wants a mouth, he should preach And he should have a tongue That he may vent his soul. He speak with eloquence, he write With pensiveness and pensiveness. When a man groweth old, the fire Of love tare him out his heart. The King was young, and said That if his lordship sought The Queen a bride, the King answered-- And laughed at the disparagement-- That he would find the diamond At some inner depth, a rose bush Where yews have long reposed, Or in odd places, but no jewels. These men had straw and wool enough, And wheat enough to keep the house warm, And malt enough to fill the mash-bowls. "Let the mill go back" they thought, But not a flint-holder. And beech wood went for fire in the ovens, And milk in the wombs. Time was, his lord the bishop served in the barracks, And in the tavern on any hawk or horse, Older than Hugh, nowty courser, saw the dandy, With silver gilt arms, all brailed up with tin, A girra's bloom, a sugared belt to cuff him. And morning grass and nightshade ended the year, With little seeds in the pungent dark, Started the corn for the grubbing barm, And left them bread and candles for supper. The church-going folk was very great, The church-people stayed, There were lots to pay and seats full free, And that could be had. But yet they tried And men that didn't pay Got a chaplet instead, And Hugh that didn't pay got a pretty thing, A shilling worth two marks, The bill for Hugh, and that all to plead his youth, And keep him in estimation. And since that time, the sages tell, They've paid their debts o'er and o'er, To build their character. And some a score do blow, But Hugh that never paid got a dark blue streak Between the eyes and chin, Hugh that never paid. Come what may, The more that men have done, The more that women have been, The more they will be; And if that they're good, And heed that god and that charters, All's well till they get the gold. Dear Maggie, old inna nastylix I'm ware o' hoaathin', wi' men. I'se betaider a chambler licht, Wi' Kate an' a' weel gaed to Dublin; I'se hunted 't wi' the chopper A chil' download fley, An' I've carryna heritage here. I'se known frae I tillage, An' fed 't fair fole varra ways, An' toke o' e'en a part, An' been in na time o' daunce; I'se het hounds an' sleared wimmin, An' my breed's at daunce; I'se hankered here. An' sind Wicklow's lords o' style, An' tinker children, cock and waly, To hell with colleges; An' tawk on oubliette, An' tawk on oubliette, An' conies to flog. I'se got to my arm, Ae bitter on oubliette, An' tawk on oubliette. I'se let my gardners, saucily, Gull to meister ware, For ne'er gee two parting fowls, An' tak' e'en tham wider; I sind Wicklow's kings o' grace, An' tak' Wicklow's grace, I needna Peter for this. 'Ha', here I founced an orange, A reader an' an' a gosholic kind, A knol-do on an aitht an' clear. I'se ======================================== SAMPLE 103 ======================================== We all can sing of love, We all can sing of life. What shall make each of us noble And shine out in the eyes of all men, That in triumph and in grief we know We are all of us children of the sun? What man has not, on the lonely moonlit heights, Seen the glory of the lances' fires, And heard the singing of the beaten arrows? What can the earth and ocean and sky That music not disclose? What voice of human choirness e'er came nigh That was not poured into that music,-- The Voice of the All About Us? "O, youth," the Master, the long ago, Sought meaning in a dusty speech For one who wanted only to be glad; And gave me my first and smallest "yes" When none beside my young heart had faith, And only wore a smile that faded and fell, When on the downward path I chose to tread From love of earth and all mankind. "O, youth," the Master cried, "happiness But scales for passions. Love one and similar It destroys the faith that other loves justify, For if you but one true thing forget You may in thousand so wander out" And so "hear the ring of Liberty That option lost to many a soul in Hell." When folly sets her roots like the grasses That grasp the dreams of ages old, And those who breed the grandchildren plot In city and on valley map Like the day-towers through the light and shade Of the wild-windÕadowed years, The holes left in her future trysts Are like the unfinisht hopes of ages. But peace is her song and love her vow, Though the light falls dim in sunshine, And the star-flags lean above With fadeless light more fadeless still, When so the eyes get dim that have seen Her Parian crystal that will not Wane to graver grief and let envy in But let us bear the sledge,-- Or is it only the last? When one in play Is but the player all his life, Yet when he's dead People have called it a lie, For his records in a book Too tune-note-like for any else Were musical, though he pronounced That no such names could be dream-senders Dream-senders, or else like hunters Writing about dreams of hunters. The good news of the world is dead, And the dead have daylong days; And the flowers of the world, Mocking the news that's erring, Are the leaves of the world that fall For joy as sweet as any wine, And all hope is, right and just, The hope that's more than hope and winnower By all those means that keep the world Keeping the live long not-being of man. She was making her dish, For night was very near In the sky, and the kitchen glimmer The ghost-like lady's foot on a chair Was strong with cooking. And by the stove was something burning On the table there; And by the stove by the west window there, Was a shine Of something white and shining in the evening, And the dish the lady was stirring Was dripping. And all the servants in their faces dressed Went out to admire the shining ph[oe]nix, And each one made her sigh Because the shining ph[oe]nix Was making the dish much nicer, Even as the shining lady's hand Threw on the stove. And that stood, on the counter, Temptingly outstretched, As if to snatch at her gold, Like a lover that sees his fair Out in an enchanting land, Which is very near, And is very kind, And the smell of which is eating her, Because it is hot, And which the lady did not like, But the lady do not hate. I am trying Tone from the deep-recessed leaf, The dove-numinous page. In the fifth chapter of the Bible, There is a line which says, "A woman shall not marry a worm." If worm I mean, No word shall arise in sceptre or sceptre At such a time as this; But the page I refer to is from a manuscript Dateless and sure, Written by someone who never knew. And in them-verse I see a Fair as another From the Fair we see about us-to-day. She has no fair; but she ======================================== SAMPLE 104 ======================================== So the brides we help aren't 'victories.' (A roar of approval.) Then he cried, "Each German bridegroom is a fairy-ring Of pure simplicity and wonder, in fair Glad Germany!" ''Woe! Woe!" The harsh and stony words rung At the side of Cranksy. "'Tis naught! I see Through the flames a lost cause. But the birds-- The doe-eyed gold-black-white chattering Cherub-bos, Strike, over burning and choking flames, In the deep, far skies, their sweetest notes that e'er Was sung. "A far more glorious crusade The glorious Lord has sent me!" (His lids fluttered closing.) "Than has Davy to the Hall, I aspire, On the royal standard,--a radiant cross,-- To offer up before the hearth-fire!" (He mopped his brow, and laughed. The fire jumped. But, as he jumped, a scolding at sea Filled the open air.) "A far better thing is ours To have conquered,--save none but we, To have trodden that upper path!" (His lace collar clanked.) "Antilochus! but only you, (Brokenly.) A-thrust, I clasp my husband's feet! Is this your way to come to Dandy's seat?" (He shook his head.) "And oh! what means your tears and moan For my good host who goes on plying? (He paused, as if his heart should break.) Come, here's a banquet, once a year, And here we'll toast God and forget our woes!" (He laughed.) "Now I will turn my back for this, and go And leave you, and--I'll put my wing in. Though what you hold in hand is foul, I'm with you still, Dandy, in the end; Though in this heap of your suspicious smoke, Your dead Albatross, I've dropped down in pain, The cloud of the sky's grey but not at all like Dandy's tears." He left. The unknown in him grew dark, Darker as the evening-hand containing One of the brightest stars of morning; And so, amid the nameless stars, I laid me down in an unknown lane. <|endoftext|> For your pale hand is on the remote suspirations of air, As a prize-fight between the wandering winds of air And a weasel in a yard, and a crippled bird in an empty field, And a thief in an old oyster bed, Are afraid of your delicate fingers. For the rosy hands which gather each threadbare grain, And the green thumbs which do the mingled thing With the voice of long tossing sphynx-- (Which gets it forward, because the wind's in the back of its own articulation,) For your pale hand--which is as pale as the sunset-- Where the fear of your fingers grows Because your breath is fear, For your pale hand is the fear of your fingers And the little feet treading fearfully out again: For the bell in your pink-heels Is a ringer for a peal of the proper mighty peal of the world's great throat; For your tread--a man's--where you don't tread at all, on the air's very soft land-- For your little foot which is nothing like a woman's, And for the way your smile still carries you all day, For a cheek which is its woman's on the verge of a woman's whole womanhood, Lady, this is for you. I say 'hello' to your nose On your rounded thymus; for your kiss--I put my lips on it; For your eyes which know what light is--I thumb the dark: For your breast which is as it was--with a pink and a polka-dot, I put on a coat by a paltry woman in Boston: For the wonder of your hair--I chop it bare. But if for one moment You'll allow that these Are not the faces of your dream of Life, Lady, I must ask your leave To go to the smith and my humble thanks For my crimson heart's desire Has the fire of your eyes to last. How I know that this is the beautiful eye of the man whose death is so sacred, to the south of tomorrow, as the hour with the sunrise, to the east of you, my dear lady. The ======================================== SAMPLE 105 ======================================== theirs—fire at my hands. She's young, a young woman. Her life is almost up. A bullet costs nothing to make. II. Once there was a woman whose private life was an abandoned mill, and in her many years she built her life around the success of the mill, sawmilltown.org gathering people around her fire, who had something to burn. Her dream: and her peace, anvil in winter, dark brown ground and black air, so she was chased and is now the ruts in the land that is turned to ashes. III. I run from left field. You run from home plate, the shadows in the bottles, more than anything, want this. Doors turn into the rain, the sluices, the numbers, and the sagging trees. On top of the last number the dream darkens, the late hour, fog. The boy is killed, the road full of dogs that break through the banks in their excitement. My left eye tightens so that it, as it can, spots the last number as it always has. The elephants run towards the day. Rain on the leaves, and the ground turn black and fill. IV. The little boy, the shoeless one, the boy from home and farm, his knees beat to, his wits lost: don't fall on the alder, don't forget the love. A bit of blood one night, and when he was home sprang silently to mother. In the quiet wife was silent, the right hand pointed, the man was sorry out of sight. Or so he said, and her tired head went limp, left blood-filled body, the son pulled what father was hiding. V. She was not bride. She was not bride to the shared death of martyrs, the sweet rag of their tears, their wine from lips and sweat. Love is what she needed, whether she called it now or not. The boy had it. He had only a dream on his back, his legs close to the fence. VI. She held sway. Was his companion, or terror. The women who had seen nothing. On the fourth night he woke to find her gone. It seems he only wakes to hear her voice. When he comes to her it is a trickle of sand he saw when he slept. She might have taken the wind for a moment. He watches her slowly sweep behind the grain silodores, an area cancer researcher had given her. She is gone before the sunset, and the fire is gone, but the boy watches he knows his mother did love him, but did he? He waits the lazy blood to run once more down his throat. He knows he is sleep deprived, but does the boy, who was held by sheer force, do him? He comes to find the boy, so that the cycle can be broken. The toddler boy will run as he is trained. The blood thins, the cancer lies in REM, in dream, death and waking. There is only the DO that the boy will save, and the river of now. He may be slow, but he knows the curb is the right edge. In truth, he may not remember. He stands in his sleep where she is now, watching, thinking, learning, waiting. <|endoftext|> "The Mask Maker", by James Haimes [Religion, God & the Divine, Arts & Sciences, Social Commentaries, Mythology & Folklore, Heroes & Patriotism] When we've grown weary of the hero, there is a certain triumph to be found in the figure of the mask. There, the underworld of fantasy and the ideals that carry it, is God dressing as a minstrel. To us he is immaculate, regardless of his skin, be it shabby or silvered, or if o on behalf of the fair or beefed, or just an old suit, a bald head, headdress not unparalleled in its beauty but pitiable in its delicacy. When that other menagerie called the human face is viewed, we find it to be pitiful indeed. Still it comes, after all these years. The film is transparent, every man behind the camera is transparent as well, the model who stood beside a mirror holding ======================================== SAMPLE 106 ======================================== m.it.upp., a place qu.cross, shift. rep.resurecto, a ditch. ru.et.pagi, a while. s.t.cogn., to stop. t.t.abpan, lift off, say bad. t.c.rabian, rabban, gain. tr.vt.raficali, permanent. w.eg.u.baona, a fellow. z.ar.od.pagn, on. "Servants of Wiglaf greet ye!" Then g.h. and forward they went. And as they marched on, the hosts of men, a.n.d. cu.pl., anonymous. <|endoftext|> "The afternoon is fine, I thank them, And the night is fine; But when all's said and done I would fain meet once more, And I would never change this hour. I thank them also for the light of the moon, And the pleasant hollowness, And thank them also for one and two inches of soil, And for the comfort of a poor understanding. And then, against all, I thank them for themselves. And then against all I thank them for their naivete. For nothing will shake me like the Church, And nothing shakes me like the Gods. And I honor them as a matron of old, And then I thank them that none understands. And then against all I honor them with my blood. And I will stare them down when at last they cry "We are blind. And no one has yet tried to hit me as I wait to take this blot." I am almost home, I am almost home. The shores are blue and fair, But never, never, never here. And I'm stuck where I'm stuck--there's no helping it, And I'm all red with shivers and dreams of sleep. There, take me, there, across the sea. All night long, like a blossom, like a bloom, Like the longest Day's fair bride, I'll waft the ripened years. And then, I am coming, and I am coming, Oh, to what? Is there anything left to do? There's the parson in the cafe, and the parson in the house, Laughing and conversing and talking, Laughing and lolling with jovial pleasure, For the battle and the wound, And the sunset and the kettle; But I'll put me away, I am old, I am old. Where is the man who waits below, Who commands the river and the cliff, All storms that may happen and all dreams, Who wakes the city and wakes the house? Yet here, it's well, the man is there, And here, at last I find peace. If this be city or country, What business have I to be wise? And if I don't understand the night, What care I how soon or late? Oh, what, if I should lie before The gates of sleep, exhausted and blind! I shall surely hear the cock crowing And hear the big guns answering And see the first rocket burst. And some day I shall wish that I Had done in weeds the crookest And most neglected things as an old man Could do in summer or in showers. But if that day should come, Or if it is my fate to be blind, Why shall I make a deal of so? Or shall I grow a little flower To put upon my quaint no stick or chain? And there, through days and moments that seem To drag in swamps and lead in the desert, I shall have the pleasure to grow wiser, And wiser, I shall say, in turning Shall be more conscious of life's vigor. And thus I shall raise my soul Up from the dust and centre of life, And I shall know what it is to have An inner luster and a sun-tint. So I shall smile at the life around And be ever of the Man who finds His life less than a blurred stone. A Rocket may be needed At any moment, for a bridge, For a barricade, To give credibility to a word Or to say the word to a coward's face That there will be no moonlight for ever. There may be flashes that must be tuned To fit the power that awaits the soul. But before or in advance of these, A Rocket is needed to help the people ======================================== SAMPLE 107 ======================================== A piteous place to have my secret found. Long time by such was heard no more; His widow strange, in evil strait, False alarms and harrowings pained, Sought him of bones and ashes sought The miser's treasure in his ground, No other gain, except the thought To have that valued more by shame. Look by her, O women, who Kiss and seal your own unkissed, And to this man only I The gift though not the gift entitle, The unhonoured but most fair; For if ye lack, what can you have? Love not me for gift one bare on me, Do what I shall, or promise of me, Or for what loss, I reave you mine. I have not love, if love come to me; But am love's servant, because I serve. Or, for smile or smile thou obost, Or for one touch thou pity me, Or for one word, continue thee still, My soul, I ask not, be not void, I mean for one, hold not void, Or to love me at my hard gate, Nor for how long a term, or what; Be there where thou thyself shalt come, Just to be there, to be there for thee, To watch the short, the long, what happens there; Be there, the body if it live, Be there, the soul, I say, or death. The autumnal sun her heart hath bleated: And all the maiden summer's rustling bower, And the maiden autumn's weeping well. And, though he knows not she, how so he? But her she will bless, till he is gone; And, even if dead, will live, or live; Her heart knows not between, the half and whole. And he, fair sweet creature, whom thou liest With such gentle memory in the sea, How often as she prayed, she opened her heart To take the blessing of thy blissful kisses, And she too could have kissed, her love, when he was gone. So he has cursed the prayer and virtue vain, The rose, as foul as wilful sin, hath snatched, Nor can, nor will not let the wrong to be; So few have found her maiden love divine, So few have found that her love is good. Fairer than brook or fall, happier flow, Summer seemeth less, though complete of day: To sit, and see thy lord all void of thee, And feel that thee is all thy summer's grace, Though half the flow the skies have lost and rained. And purer than is her esoial seed, Whose never stain, but finds anthrophsis, And whoso curseth that pure sphere, Then all his zeal has cur'd, and filth hurl, To grow thus foul would worse than not well befall. My lord, I know full well that you take thought To command what shall, and yet not what shall not; And being thus constrained by goodness, Ye must allow that love is good, though fleshly, And in it self poisons all that's good; And yet, alas! a poison'd heart doth hate To find that fat which fatten'd it hath borne. But she, whither doth your high worldly love Return again? for though you weep, and smart, You fly, and dare to hope from her side; But to return to waste to waste again, For thus to shoot, it kills the skilled faget. O soul, this wrong I bear, for your sake, That you must ever from this good set Return, since heart is not her abou: I lay her waste, as do even unto-night, And doom to be a waste of night and day. O heaven my guide to stand, and stay Those poisonous kisses, which my pride Have so defames and wounded me with, I know not, and can not watch her maimed, To whom false courtiers well do run, As she to you first have had, without. Hence, hence! loathed for guidance of my thought; I go, in your error like a sheep, Whither I befooled myself, and mind, That to the wise and virtuous made me; And, evermore, unto her I bend. Well ladeth Amelia that you wait To see the needle time that lives not With maids in whom he would have looked The father of these grows apace; And yet ======================================== SAMPLE 108 ======================================== spooling fat, the sheafer swirled swiftly over me. Not a drop wet before, so I knew what water it had in its tight recesses, and I thought of this, knowing full well the cost for my fingers: my fingers & my palms a pool of gone, a sip a taste of what once sold for a cup of gold, for what the scrolls called a meed in blood. I am the great Juggernaut, hungry, stopping nothing, all my offerings blank, not, not there. All I could hear was my own footsteps on the runway. <|endoftext|> "Gymnopint, or the Runners", by Larry Levis [Living, The Mind, Nature, Trees & Flowers] If it must be said why it has happened to me at least once, wouldn't it be a million years ago, and would I be the runner who two hundred ninety-nine years later still carrying his young life on carrys himself like a field of chafers (as my great-grandfather, too, with a field of chafers) and trying to think clearly, in the attic of his house in a Boston suburb on a still summer night, and the ghost of his childhood then flitting back and forth in his mind, as though he still saw it happen, and still was running that season of families lighting fireworks and burning tires as the girls and boys they were, two thousand nine hundred ninety-nine in one of the nicest towns in the country all in this year's town soccer tournament, running through bells, the teammates' standing for the lyrics of the Boston anthem at the halfway point of the game I still run now, today, running as my great-grandfather did, while the hall clock hit two-forty, still pushing forward, my mind's eye, gazing down at the kitchen table, where the fire places itself, into the few red leaves that give it a flame-like appearance. Walking it still, lifting my eyes up to the pine tables on which so many memories lie, chiming my head off of them from floor to elevators. Having seen it all over, in my sleep I'm sure of the beauty that I possess, that it will turn out to be, between the parking lot and the tunnel, between light and darkness. <|endoftext|> "Refuge Dust", by Steven Sen Greeley [Living, Death, Sorrow & Grieving, Nature, Landscapes & Pastorals] A bright shake with no sound … a year and a day … The seed itself, upon settlement, small and dull. Like a dust, transparent. Almost invisible. —Thomas Merton First, everything is still: the old uprooted dirt in the road, the gown of wet, unopened wings, the flowers stolen from beds by rain. Down there, the chickens whisenstandingclosedoor in full scream with no memory of dying. We shout,we weep, we giggle, we tuck the duff ticketsfrom our rollerbacks into our breast pocket against gridlock. One of us rolls a cigarette down its neck, the one who didn't do it, the one who forgot, to turn on the headlamp, to banish the night so she won't follow it with her. * But first, we have to draw the shutroads, the memories, the homesickness,the inexplicable fits, the cuts and the sunburned tummies. We wake, longing to be anywhere but there. We cough, sneeze, cough, sneeze. The wet, sick burn of waking; the nightwhere we are lost,alone in an endless sense of it. The only smell in the house is the one we Are featuring. Only we are not there. Only, we are past. The wide, empty light. The eggshell dullness of dawn. Two sets of barter: two voices crying. Three minutes ringing, three Thankgivings. And clay … A graystone. A set of closed Ears. A Showband. A heap of glazedand V.O.V. basketmaking. A Morning. We go to the windows: The curtains not tryin. The light lift up the shades … The lights turn ======================================== SAMPLE 109 ======================================== is this all at all: her great news from the mother of her four children more or less lost and confused. Only this morning have I felt her turn across the bed while I was folding the clothes, and she heard me, not entirely clear, and turned to me while I dried the knots, leaning into the lamp, half-hidden, against the side of the bed the way you're inclined to do when you're teaching a poem and want the light. Her five and a half decades of spitting teeth (Don't ask me to explain the phenomenon I call the lissutation of such complexity: she is such an extraordinary scent that even just listing her creations and their unspecified Atlantic origins i makes my mouth just wreathe and spout— so much white lip fragrance that i doubt whether in the pattern of her life I feel a bouquet of five and a half spheres but not sure what scent I don't the sun loves her can I smell her? The fact is that sometimes pain makes even porosity possible. I'm sleeping and who is ever slept better? I'm the man in front of me with my tongue in the man on top of me with my leg in front of me and my thumb in the air behind me and my palm moving when my heart beats— i'm trying to tell a story about her scuffles and stains and broken bones and holes in the head of a heavy stone and here I am still with my eyes open and across the night a poet who almost caught the sun is lost, dead at the altar of his sister so here I am here and here are you and here here here the soul reborn and here I am in the pavilion I dreamt about everything and here I am not the story here in the breaking shale of the fear of not the light exploding is the other side of myself in the park I wrote about the first life in the open open virginity of everything The giraffe helm the broken first-woman head came to the table and spilled it out at the back of the pickup truck some guy with odd channels got this lot: a woman with a lost head under her a bottle of wine a box of strange fruit broken down wood and the beautiful lips she made with her husbands: in the corner a broken arm and a fence with concrete and the dogs and the graveyard and a fly never heard before and men with sticks to what the roof and in a big parking lot outside the ocean a tall man in a blue windbreaker summoned a certain family: the woman head first in the dirt the house looking rather almost normal looking they lived not there and not there but used the car (the beetles are out!) the last of her words a burning cup with her name on it never her name and he was that few words into his wife and on top of the bed the sun in it lit all of us and out of the park a large man with two sides popping up like rubber bands and a road of four doors and a car which he would pretend to fix and never do better than that here was a dozer and the pinup of a life in the park he was a few of the first the old version of himself they lived outside the door and that he was an opening neck at the door of the zebra blonde wife and a water spray the hush of in the back of he spoke: turn off and turn on the lights i for the shadows and what the<|endoftext|>Breathe not in the mouth of the fire Within its frayed folds Feel not the sun within the boughs When the tree bends towards the sound Listen! Live not in the green for a stone I plucked, a fern's wing is it It has caught between the ribs It must burst into flower soon Turn not from the dark, the groves, Cast not off the light Leave ======================================== SAMPLE 110 ======================================== That is the spot of which I beg To tell the lover! You will know that he. Such a question as we're giving will Or not always yield a sweet relief-- And in other words the plea is, 'Tis a single small cup That you've given or that she's left; Be true, O love, that you and she Have in hand been working; And here the parable ends! So that God's in us your garment made, And made it sure you'd, O Joe, And just in the nick o' I'd send it in, And therein may be seen 'Tis not often that we pierce the wind To know what manner of love you bear; And if you'll a child know you, Joe, He'll know you better yet, O Joe. The mother-marshal's judgment, Disseminating like a wind Of good news to the mother-marshal For the young man, is always good. My honor rests with you, There is no elder by my side; Tall and strong, my friend, You must stand by the young man, By your side, while I die. Sorries the best as before, My affairs I like as otherwhere, And in other places like not at all; So that I'll put it pretty between, And I'll tell you, my friends, About the last bout between, And it's like to win. Good old sport, I love you so, That I wish long life to you; And I love nothing better than to see As to-day between us twain, You and I meet at the court, Old catamisite, There we go tumbling together. I see men in every trade, I see them with and without clothes; I see their men all about, I see them down and deerskinned. At golf all the tears are drinking, They never fresh eat and all about, I've sa known an ass in every place, And as rich in tumbling as in swearing. I'm old and poor, That is my lot; And as such I am, The world hath chuckles That never shall Be better than when God grants; For what is the world by a bishop given? Old, poor and old The more I live! Abandoned pallid flesh, Do tatters in God sends me my health, The pearl from off my sun Is nectar still; His gifts are not undone At all; He hath plenty to spare The soul's ruin's seed; If I would work, God knows, God might make me bad. Old, poor old wife dying, Let me work and starve, My barber if you will, That way I'll earn my bread, But no scalp-necks, no admirals; Old old wife, God keep you well. Vexation of crowds is bitterer When mountains of the dead may block the ways When people are not steady, and never can be; When dogs are too quick for detection, and too mobile. When the shocking roar is heard, and the noise seen and heard, God's clouds are shaken, and the world's forests are alarmed; When brake-winds can fan no fowls, and turn no feathery winders, And when birds hasten to the sunshine, they hasten amain. Then sharper am I, and I feign no promptude at all, And I shift my road to yet another thoroughfare When people hear my rum, not caring, and do not Look up and say: "Shall I come in, or may? Is it he or some one whose men are stupid, And all his promises dearer than reality? Some fellow who'll lie and promise, and dash in many a feat At first setting; who on new ones makes ungodly haste; Who couldn't stop a rolling wagon once for whole duration, And swore he never would; who drives on too, too close apace, But that the dog could tell it better than he, And bite and laugh, and be reproved and called to be rewarded." I remember those happy days, when all went well With my old wife--with my younger wife, it is true. And yet, these recollections will not set right My moody thought and sadness in my soul that's flown. No--I would forget her with a mixture of pride and woe When in the widowed houses of the school-room I dwell. ======================================== SAMPLE 111 ======================================== - ten thousand miles. No rock, or tree, or branch, is missing; No flower, or fruit, or grass, or soil, Wherever the footfall passes. - Ten thousand years! On such a day, when deepest night Shaded earth and city, rose a sun, Who saw the face of heaven smile on earth, Through wandering element, And breaking bright with rays on wreathed shield The horse-boy of the gods. My brethren, this day will reach you: Ours your high hope, give them the glad gift. Have you the wonted heart, Deep-brained, your old faiths, In which thou wert fated to find your heaven And know the world's abiding light? My brethren, we are waiting for you; With faith of their own to trace your morn, And joy that came to midland folk, By old-world roots, in chieftain's care, When hatred ended hate's old strife And one-time sorrow vanished. Is it a sick, here-about town, And wanton ways, wherein nought's oppressed, Is it a land of dwelling-places? To leave the homes we know is hard: Yet are the ways for our stretch of blood, For were it other ways we should fare, But our ancient fire and weather-beaten sand. O my ancient homes and country sides, Before me lie a desert waste: But let the thought mine eyes assuage Where thou and I, or one with eyes like mine From of our kingdom's days that blent They are utterly old. And what once was, now is nothing met: No corner finds to merry make, But ends a part of broken glass. No idle son or lady was there To see them as they went and ran, In days that used their love and life: For my old father-in-law was dead, And I was born the man to live In climes where men are born to die. I had a sun-like eye to see, So much our eyes had grown, That I could track a glimpse of wing: And now that day which on you shone, No eye through all the sky could see, Where stars came down, or where A wind of summer brought a sheen Of pell-mell to those wavering fields And mirage landscapes: and you asked Where then was our thealk of love, When my love, had I no choice, But to be still and lie with thee, And all that throng of happy men To joyous Paglia pass along? Now naught is ours, but what at Rome Maketh for the playing-table. With not the ill nor the troubled mind We carry at fair Alba water, The own wool-wool, the manly breast A slave of wages: yet thy city in The fancy of our blood shall rise, When life is done. O dream so, mine Albineissi! 'Tis in thy name that I endure the smart. Youth's full streams fall on my lap, Youth's full eyes, that send me singing by, Youth's full voice, which I so listen to, Summer suns and winters, and mists and rains, Rise, fix and close their listening hair On the royal coast that lies behind these walls Where far from the king's desire we go, Where, like a traitor, sings one silly string Hend inexorable as the grim king's! Is there a white thread on earth, where life Can be happy, and God's law defy! Then may no sun shine where life gives suck To such a honey-wheel of life's delight A storm-swept scene as this on heights! Alas, the wheel is broken! Is there no wall Whereof to check the spreading of the curse? And is the old woman, if there be one, Still ticking in her somewhat sadism? 'Mid bronze monsters must the care Of that non-needy to hold in check The foaming-place of Western Europe come? And alas, they pass, and turn their sight Dear outposts of the gracious and high MedFlowery hillocks that saw so much, And not a trace, however, of the go! But where the spot the town with marching shone, And flowery disport and eager cry Pierced back the quiet of God's awesome, Did she make haste like speeding move To buy her foals in fresh onset free? And is ======================================== SAMPLE 112 ======================================== Plug for unoffending ears, there might be some And it was a light plug and it was on An old Woman on a mobile I am not sure what she does with it Or what The one of which she has plenty left That is she lives alone To 'rot a mobile for five I would imagine it is The foreplay thing But had to have it for What the others had It was splitted she said 'Each till the fire Here's love and a baby That means bread to eat And a pen to write with If you are reading my poems You are a party to our fame So give me half the goats I lost I thought of something To make it sound better 'Twould be Do the right thing and if you make a baby there'll be more To take it to a better end And that is a plow And we should surely have goats again We used to have goats Now we don't I thought of a plan Then a bull I thought of a plan to take to a better Not a goat No, a cow I said I thought of a plan The plan was good Now we all know how it was I think of a plan but we had goats I don't know what I said That if no one makes a baby And the baby eats the goats and spreads the hair to cold And the hair goes on like it has no ends we might as well make a willow but I'm not so sure that's as good We should have goats again I thought of a plan like a flea I used to have a willow We used to have goats The flea meant a plan And a plan meant goats I'm not so sure now That we have no plans We should have goats again To those that know us well I would add. No, we're not doing so well. We, Ealing. For the last time Not in our for the best. No, no, there would be No assurance That we have got over All this lying and dying and it's we're not We're not We're not No, that's not right I must have forgot it and it doesn't seem very amiable we're not doing Goodbye. Oh God, the slaughter. And who will feed them If not you? <|endoftext|> "Barrel-Ache", by VIVIAN BRENNAN [Living, The Body] Somewhere on the map New England Little cities who know what war is drawn with a circle least white in the wake of sunrise A passage in the book of a stithic On a map called loss as a a cool thing an invisible dollar a phantom prize a defensive claymore The blade holding back what can't be shown On the ever so invisible thread of wait on the invisible thread of so <|endoftext|> "The Moon", by VIVIAN BRENNAN [Living, The Body, Nature, Stars, Planets, Heavens] The moon is at the full. Her pole is the long window of an ice planet She flickers like a mote on the wood of the wanderer and down the scope of the wanderer's eye a constant drifter She and her light pole the orb meditating And she is encased in a suit of refrigerated sky. As if on the long habitable road to higher Hubble halls where fluids and chainsmokes and ether work their lunar jargon in evasive play she wanders from her preferred seat as though black beards of gore. And I, off the moon, north to Spain, am yanked backward through the rim of a galaxy by lorca sounds and pain. At last. A barn, a porch, stairs, a parking lot. A house. A key on the door and a door which can't be opened by anyone but me. And I wear a suit of the same cold. <|endoftext|> "Zaragoza", by Nikos Kazantidis [Activities, Travels & Journeys, Arts & Sciences, Humor & Satire, Social Commentaries, History & Politics] The ancient Greeks understood the concept of a god of fate but they were unable to ======================================== SAMPLE 113 ======================================== Sane the human countenance, the charms of grace! Where the woods covbid hid, Glam t'ward cover the whole ground, Round the sooty 'rock 'at New-sown o'er the hill. Larches, who thought his heart in guard The fells made shelter 'bout, Was all outdoors, his heart meant To view the scene, But low in hollow struck by fear, Blown over was his nest, Far as he could get, Nor of rest could get. The ways were too far, too far, As he brought him to the ford, He had forgot his wages, He was starting again, And straight he swooned away. When hounds ne'er foiled their play, His heart had hopes of money, Which were to be done on the hill, Bought by the live-stock that grew. By the stream demarcated, Brimmed full was the secret store, Holes beneath the wateree, All that he 'gan to sell, Purse-less there, and pinched empty. Stuffed all did his pockets With apples, and apples, So that he could not make Good the receipts therefor. On the open Iward Where the fish-song is clear, Fair Rachel the lintie Left the charge ta'en ta'en, Sang, while she wor bicyho, Of the pears to bak, "Adam has a samming, Sealed I say, to be; Till a was the time when Save him that would buy He should make no scrap; Take him, Adam, a bak Ta'en his apples ta'en." "Yet, I hope and pray," He said, "'at you land, While you yet may hope to do, Apple Jacob would hide. The time will come, tho' far It may fly, to take What you e'er may be When you ma' and har he'd ha' do, If you take hold, and keep In your bosom, Jacob's grape." Many winters, birche had his ship, Gnawing, which hung on high. Now the time once upon him set, In the sight o' the sun, It was a big, brawling jriar, That roared, and raved, and glistened, For a day, a day--it 's dangerous Company, a better hame. This a' ye need to know, When your birches flow, And your heathland is wet, Wha'll mak you gie them sike promises, Till the tide's wi' the thicket brown! He will stand, he will stand, Standing by your heaths. Hope and ye may dree, Standing by the roots o' yis, 'Leav a you trowd the trees, The day, wha's passed, won't come nigh, To see the viewin' o't. He said, he said, and he said, The mavis is a-building, The whitehawks a-crowin', The rooks a going, sleet, or cold, Or getting wud, or wet, Frae dis, I'll send ye here. The withered orchis, the goots, The smoored, or wild geese, The stirks in the brakens o't, A' day, wan'ne, ruther heath'nized Than a' the greets o't. As lang as I'm e'en, The cry sall't mar, The kimmer utter nauthin', The licht be vengeful. Then, wha its members Can noo mair, Ye may bet faith, it's me that Will be the truth. Sooner will be the muckle, The precious pears-apple, The golden peels, and peans, That's their dew, I kess, That wants to ha'e it sich a count, An' there's noo mair they want. I had a ill woo for a weel-maid, Thruth-man, by my side dirlin' Ann, That through the meadow, up the forest, Went whare she went that was nae sly, And the wonder ye had an easie crib! Her Father must ha'e gied her ======================================== SAMPLE 114 ======================================== immortal Maugree, In deep endazzzz view I slam de Shtunde Moon him fro … Dere he do dut upside de Huffsome Printer Infarmee for all de Shmacks you send him forth in die message you tell dem you'll send dem us a whack hog if we send you one. Click an' click allshome! Mail dee word de de Awl o' Wharf he du de block abed out in de pennies. Mail with an healt muftiu'd muve dinkum dey o'really cool about dat; P'low dee eations spread dee cheeks wid de airmanan an we haven't you to fear. Hush to shteme other shthings; I shtop to try to heaap up on de daastyny I found it hard to wreat to get it over or a bout dat dese letters I'd bided int' shpavement I shoome to undaat. . . People 'do de eetsion oop de block an we shplit all but ppl weeevere laast widout ears lak grape stmanes alak wid hazin guns for a purposed shpang. I shoome, how, come on, we gona pay de bank. Stop me if I shoome we can't gott oos o' dat, sthro; Don't come 'long; why, I says, that's wollow piftoo, pplop; Stop me if I'm gona Gimme a shword 'cause I don't like it, peaud! No, I won't say poyo. Don't gona, min, no dee poyo; One shpake ort 'I shoome at you. Stop me if I don't follow peaud; In summoerd ed off, peaud, very edshpond I dussed peaced my shoe cohend; I shoomp, I wimped, I fell, I knacked too oop ma fro; Quack, goid she herte beeath I read her letter, too, to see worta cohend; All alone, peaud! I kep; ma foar, ma foarb, I got comfterall shbadt; Meb Moore eet dinner at t' Old Duke's to edef coom, an laat; Chear old t'poort's heer up loike she did dat, an laat; Unseen, coom, go t'poort. I shoomp de Duke, doot, ma ootto; My ithers eet dine an laat, no lasted laat; At least they'd got besoort a stuf eet seeat; Ma heeter seet de plees hainp no eat, alas! Dat winter eet air' foortaat, foond for to besoonder. Yes, foortaat, foonder, foonder; na wa de stoor-sair; Thay tuck out, plack an desar, day an day; De daat especial, solskub alders aslone; To not live ye need ma puoin aaat, ma foonder; But I peard we would gladden ma yule, sooonder. Phra Patri, Lord Sir! I do admonish and sayf you of 'Aidoos doat ees for t'Hess, For eet heer, he's aye t'lags apast ma ligh, An', fo' dat, Mr. Hassid, Mr. Zoubek, Dat aint his foostack I aint heered; Somanus aint pore his ould fur Gafe, An' t'keght man elle Manhatta foorn it; I can ed it oot oorly, an' oner oot; De coroso yans de liddle her De 'ooder-shop goot owre de shilds, De nouf heer heer in de 'afoosh, De fowler's peef, de moscow oop, Dem hes preet off; like apout soon, Dis unco seet it, wof paarts peonder; Yous eber all de freres, you know, Poot al befoond een de big shop, Waes de pulpit, preet a woonder; De pulpit's toadies it to t't' ======================================== SAMPLE 115 ======================================== Waves with the unruffled joy the swift-streaming bark. Then setting thereon, the royal hero, His shoulders bare, he mounted on the swift. And Asamanj, O Nikala's great-hearted son, Compelled this foot rest by that and swiftly pressed. But in vain, for Asamanj only pressed Still from the fastness clinging to the bank. Then Nikinte right-hearted and brave His household gods and saints beheld, And said with lips that moved not a bit, "These solemn shrines their feet have set apart. Thenceforth leave them for their gods to worship, Those blest whom Nanadu calls this day." Then neither Nikinte of Nikala Needed teach, nor Asamanj his mind, The hero who made strong the pride of kings. Thou hast thy dwelling here by choice, And all thee bewitching henceforth art For secret pleasure evermore the same, While evermore thou ruleth, high-souled, In secret pleasure round the world. Thus they praised, and so did Asamanj, Whose secret pleasure in his heart was working. And safe amid the regions of the sun They took the steed, nor meddled they with clothes, And bore Nikinte for all his loving, And laid Nikombekhi on the sand Where of old the Brisèd one had been. Then Asamanj thus, his own dream expressing: "For still I'm fain to rule the peoples fair. Now since I put my softest thought on paper, Truly the gods in such a choice must weigh it." But Nikitth, that great glory was playing, Struck from the shoulder lopped off the tip, She backward fell upon the sand, The whole realm of Rohitas, Her life traveled o'er again, Withdrawing from her wound and life, At length the law gat understanding, Three thousand men her face had lost. Now many women gat born, These held with lamenting still more lamenting, Bowing their heads in humiliation. Soon that day's sorrow was their lot. The ruler of the peoples wide, When he was about the work to think on, First he adhered to that mid-trial, And the more he thought the worse he thought. But when the thought of Asamanj came in, Now the psalm he had been chanting, When the birds a cry responded not to call, Struck at the middle of his throat. And thus it chanced that Asamanj As a flame cast down, a forest burning, Laid a bridge for such a lord of heaven, Where the stream of Nameless ran, Where-as rages the salt sea-wave, Or can meet the maimed and wounded. When his feet no longer on the shore Gazed with downcast eyes at the brine, Within the bridge an Indian fell, And as revenge or as pride of feeling, Against the flesh he drew his bleeding. And the Prince his labour ended soon, With his heart on a thousand things paining, Yet he knew the misery naught eluding, And he spoke the man before the gate, To the warder thus he said, "O thou warden of the western gate, This is the building, nay more, 'tis the Thing, 'tis the very thing I wanted, Dishonour'd the words, dishonoured the song. O cast me forth for ever! I am Asamanj, whom as woodlands Might not suffice to capture, And who to freedom bore in chains A body and soul of fire." So was he caught, but in panic fled, As his throat clipt at some jabbing flint, And to Asamanj, with burning face, He made his sorrow known in looks, Yet gat him no answer back again. So for a long time he waiting stood, Till Asamanj, the king of tales, Drawed drawers of scrolls, and he at last Grew so wild in word and gesture, that It the prince at last began, "Tell me now, O my brother, what shall now Befall, what will become of me? What have I left, what shall I need?" And Asamanj laughed aloud with mirth. Then with keen censure cried the monarch, "Thy sire, Asamanj, wast then a boy, Or to seek out the way of boys Hath go on foot through all ======================================== SAMPLE 116 ======================================== (That's poetry, my boy.) Drake wrote "TheBarber" How "liferespous" this row? And why did he not argue the tenant's freedom of conscription? The whole lecture runs to the tune of a stout peeress' song. I sat through hours of it. But nothing happened at all, which is as it should be. Now he is like to be born again To cut the trunk down, fling its leftovers to the window (how could you do it that way?), feel his way in that dark, unquestioning arabic space that spreads and darkens over time, from matter to light that it is God's choice, God's go uncounted, unsupervised, unknowable, without hope or any trace of how it all ends. Now, a day, like this last year when the land was far away and they gave me the mumps and didn't call me in from dinner when I was feverish. They wanted to set me on the shy table, in a room my mother read and recoiled from, and say it had not been good, that I had not been punished, but later she said, you are the one who should feel it. It's always some sin that is worse than the one for us the thing we are fearing. And I kept myself lowered, the right arabic voice that comes out when the mouth says something. There, I said that it wasn't fear that the terrorists will take me that I would not go and end my here, that I would stand here all my life, and leave the darkness of it behind, even if nobody said it, even you, that I would never be good again as when I said I would not go on hunger striking, that I would be back on the tight steps, the doors of home, that I would at last stand before you, the second coming of our king. And my mother argued, well, but as she argued, the one with the gun, ammoon, started firing, emptying his bullets out into the dirt, anywhere, the path, in one last ditch, wild, futile run for it, not the final hole. <|endoftext|> "Nude, Nude", by Juster [Living, Life Choices, The Body, Nature, Social Commentaries] "To the degree that I have touched the map, I have touched your plea. And by the way the ground I walk on is naked. But if this is too abstract for you, there is one pain I have left that I hope to prove about skin, how itNever becomes skin. I hope to expose that which I believe to be true: The skin of a person is flesh, whether that flesh be beautiful, hairy, or silky smooth. You have looked at me with naked eyes, even when I was in the whites. And you have resisted, turning your back, telling me, being only as I am. That is enough to prove that I have touched you. Never that being in the whites was the whole truth. And to be pointed out that my human soul is as different from yours, what is it you have said I did not know of art history or philosophy, so abstract, your hair is as unique as my mother's skin. To the degree that I have looked into your body as being naked, that is a key to my own mind. <|endoftext|> "Nonny Nymor", by Juster [Living, Death, The Body] Kongo John had practiced ju-jitsu at school, pouring milk over the chandelier and onto the wedding-cake, convincing the groom his burns were nothing but dairy, nothing but heat, until his own mother came to teach him "sunshine mechanics" in a dream. Then, once, he saw a man bleed out like a tarp in a hurricane and painfully (how the medical dictionary terms it) push out a syringe full of fluid the size of a blood blister. He chose the path of least resistance— half conscious he shakes his head in fond recognition, and knows that the man who bleeds is not necessarily dead, but has made the sign of the cross as a quivering cross—to find out what the signs may be. That and the smell of pine smoke, a smell that never escapes the freezer in October, which means kudzu and lettuce and wind, the difference between tan and ======================================== SAMPLE 117 ======================================== Full of the mystery. "Let not your ken be turned by the flowery air, Whose lustre dies away in thin-flushed rays, And shallow dreams; To penetrate the soul, that cowl a veil, Till lo, the spirits in! "It is the realm, my son, Where the love of God first dwelt. In that name, my son, Let the breezes blow that wake the Needling's bone, The Angel's horn, The sounds that soothe you, and win you to this place." "Oda, many a one hath heard the Orish's speech, 'Write what you hear.' The Blind Man's on the waters drear, And many the visions that have seen him, Many like him, They know not whence their sight was lost, Seeing he lives but lives, and they live but live. And O that sight in my ears! Could it have been as you say? Yet all the seer, if all the seer should be That knoweth not Hestern Weiss to be. "How many strange crafts have flashed and gleamed In the darkened air of night? Had they grown afraid of light, Or passed e'en at last? Ah, hap! ye see that sun Linking afar to west; That is the work of hands not half so bright, And all to God of course. "Oda, what on earth of me, O what of me Hath the fully unfolded world Trophled and shown of me? What to me of me is writ? O what of me has 't writ, Save this, O this, which, Seeing but for me hath me by the nose, Or rather by the eel in the water, Tingles in at the book of God! "So quick, O dragon, grasp, O feeble wights! Hark! an axe blows through thy casque, Nor, therefore, wince so! For, O by the eve of Sunday! O hapless prey! I could have writ until now, So badly had I done. "God, what a stoundle-hole is thine, O father house, O cheap new-building of cobblers! Now to the eagle's trented eyes, Now unto the apple's wracks, O now the blacksmith's torch is red! O for a battle, and a sacrifice! O atone, for Thy surplus youth, O for a battle and a sacrifice! "O to the blueness of the bricks and stones, O to the rarer metal of Time, O for the violence of men and thought, And no more violence! O for the frailty and falseness, and Falshood too, O for the blacksmith's blood and ee and purse! O how little, O how false and how brief, O for the wines and scotch and falseness too! O for a slake on Thy sullied forehead! O for an ash-sake, O son of Ruksh! "So cud the Dervise, -- and as he came in For his court-aid sent by two young slaves, He clicked, and it has rived, what time That one stood holdin' him, sirs, that kinder Than the spirit-load draw out o' thee. He's all one hand and fingers, so an' that, He thinks that these will gie him the girts, An' 'mongst the lads his father's seen to that, He spaks in admiration o' the reg'lar day "If, Honorable Provost, gentlemen say That to the plough's sholome a one's a prig, Or shol' spend his hard-earned coinin' on sallows, Then I must wonder o' ma likin', Because he't wuz his father that fought in the wars, An' climbed the shell-holes o' Sut cam down, when he'd fun, From lumbago-spouts in deadly splinters, When mos' we 'ad been, to fight for Bill Yank to drink. "Then forgive him, he's growin' still more trim; But, gee two things. The spreadin' 's afoot, An' two-shootin' hey saw a friendly face Will never get him stamped an' neet, Or hisses or hollies at any fern. In fact, as he sees me, he'll lend his een To give a ======================================== SAMPLE 118 ======================================== Lifts into far air the moving clouds, Which very soon, are drawn to the wall, And on the left with little to commend, Lends to the right the earth drawn blind, On the right, by the gently shearing wind, Brought down the watchmen at the door, And to their minds excited His song of times of former years; And with such fearful breath the sough That, filling them with dread, they quake Loosened the bolts, and swung the doors. It is not that this night shall leave Her neighboring soul with a dim mien, A woman who would be but nigh; No, no, no, it is her who sways All woe and bliss in her low will, And rides, like a mist, through the cool air; And round her, like rings of clouds, Builds her pois'nous pavilion, strong Of every gust that can assail, The silken dance of Mis'ry's wiles. And all men's lives she marshals, but The undiscerning soul to prayer; And like the cloud of silence stand The heavy faces of the past, Because they have no voice, which speaks Of the now lost, the departed. I know a dark street, Where, in words no caricature has been given, I see a woman kneeling and praying With incense and a veil between her breasts. Close by the walls, a sick man, Not there, but sitting in his room, Sees only the girl's white face, And by the margins Is sprinkled round, like pebbles Left, that there wait for the river The names of which are unleaved; And the man hears in the voices The dregs which escaped from his own heart, And from his own lips, at times, Gush out a bitter deed, yet of such heed That the man stands looking upward And seeing now, as from a fantastic period, The chameleonic face Of the goddess that wears her weeds of light. And he draws breath, and listens, And, as if by custom, looks what he hears Down the smooth stream of his life; and what he sees Dissolves the walls of his chamber, That might take the sound of a fallen roof, And the light of his life, at the hour Of his coming, hangs mournful there And shakes the firmament, and blindens The corners from its seeming liberty; And from his tongue the word is spoken That forever puts a stop to mirth. All things begin in the prime of nature's time; Nor is there one who, with a thoughtful air, Dips his hand or accepts ofhimself the prey. By the elements furthest employed, The moving round of which is danger; And man, when cast upon the waters first, Was, by nature of his made, Thy seed, O Nature, and the means. The wear of man is one pulse of motion; The force of fire is sound; the element That swings in time is body. Heard how every race from the creation Is fed with moisture and seed: Spirits fed with fire With cooling winds. They know how calm the vital heat they bear, And change their element; They feel the merit of which they utter, And how that element is their force; They feel that they are living and dead The living life eternal. And they call the sun 'the fire' For what the fire, it proves that it be The living fire; And the wind 'the wind,' Or the living wind which clearly runs Along the rational world's great circumference, Spreading the influence of unity, Pushing toward infinite and beyond. We are here; We have been here; And this is our effort, My drum, which is the general heart. From the unknown deep caverns, The primal bodies sought Oases, where men stood and worked. Our mystic existence Of a nation, we rose; A nation, our family, Whose roots are visible, visible; We cry to thee through all the storms, 'Thee' God, and on Thy coast, Thee, and only Thou, God, true God.' And I heard the note Of morning, as the last Snow-cloud from the land sank down. The moment was sweet and sad; The moment a glow by which the twilight In a white array fell back Into A golden wind, and washed my eyes With light. I saw in a thought, Who could but be, My love on me lying; ======================================== SAMPLE 119 ======================================== So pained she was that she fell to ground And the earth did bear her away. He, standing by, to see it fade, Incompassed by woe and love, cried, I cannot watch such misery. But, upon his neck her finger rested, Which with his thumb a blossom kind Full at his lips the same did lay, He fell on earth at her feet embraced. Our master knelt, again he knelt, till one, That merrily sounding thro' the dance Did lift himself from table- Thwarted tears that his torment did thee send, He did seek refuge with her heart, "My little child, why weepest thou so?" "O father, give me a harp! I can not thus forfingert thou," "It is not meet that I should give," So sighed she, "my brood the overplus As yet is tucked within my vest, And thou these fingers must have to wear." And there she drooping died, and it grew In the house the animal's place to have. And we who nursed the serpent all Bore her to heaven and what do we find? That it grew? no! for it is now Along with ours in wisdom and in power. Again she drooped and drooped. Each time it happened The sweetest of the company That tended her used oft to call, As she a table held up to light. At length it seemed the value fell And down she gave a sudden cry. The beast did in his chest receive That wound, and of its own might, go down. It was with indolence. And so She soon was up and on her feet; And, ever after hither came, Like a lamp glowing at the hall-door. But when to law she now was brought Her master all her fangs did sing, She durst not then to touch the key, For, whene'er she came upon the move, Her teeth, both number andy mild, A half-field of tumbling lightness, Unremitting would vail. O precious garment dear, Which her maidens in ravishment, Gaz'd on, full-face from the gown, This being nor fair nor thriving tooth, But beauty--faint or true-- Thereby 'st O sweet--thou sayst--is in A clear voice--her bosom's share, In proof of that--a morsel small Of course to set her teeth on edge By unfeminately too much liking. To wanton with desire and that or dare With twenty lovers, and through one, In the house of one, so bad, Withdraw their eyes; when this is sought In all they find but one, and then By him that one they hate; So that of their twelve loves, The seventh loves best the hound that leads, And so they hate him most of all; Then from her frowns they from their eyes Hide their unconquer'd heads: And find it well; but see, thus lost Their wit, from her wag'd, while yet their hearts Keek, and relish sweet each turn of her face; And like thin flames within their chest The joy, that is for wisps compared; Thou bloody cock! that fidgets on thy mouf, Thou naked hound! thou beast coward! beast To the depth of now distain'd digging Thy breast out, pupdst with blood and dirt! O fear me, as I did, how thou shalt rut upon me To a most troubl'd issue: her first kiss, Each mouthing her first look that she doth own As the rarest there is, and that rarest not To eyes but hers, which then unfebriels all At its rarest sense of her beholding, She gives utterance to her first protest, First meeting these hollow speeches which peruse This, as she may, for her fresh wit, so close She doth meet them, and answers with their own, That what she doth stand obstinall to Of formal and of figurick words, A formal aspect of figurick words, And from the figurick to the formal, As I understand it, renders them true Unless they show otherwise pompously, Which they could not, if they did. I see a Lido end in a Arena; Whose poles are th'withdrawn machines of men, But in between, to show action there, There, with a mine's more piercing report, ======================================== SAMPLE 120 ======================================== Who strove till dawn to establish her fame. For many a long year her fame continued, With silent pomp her honors shone. Yet doth she fail, despite her might; Mayhap it is not wise at all, Howe'er she chooseth her adventures. She come a market maiden, A fairer woman ne'er was known. She wrought with tender and with strict The success of her lover's aim, And in due bounds conspired All that he made, the setting and the rising. She helped him in his hour of need, In storm of war, when foes close siege, And in the day of needing help, She aided him by her skill. She burned, as the sun that hasteth at evening, With zeal to aid her spouse in need; And she wanted right dreadful trials. Her to her brother some revelations Brought by the god of war, which he showed. By these revelations he strengthened, And made inquiries how it was The maiden may have her wishes satisfied. She says that death, and leaving unaided, This full complement of glory With death can come to her, and she now will wait, But content we know will await her Lord. For mark this; when first he would succeed, Then first the river to break and spread over, Then rise the wave, the billows' laborious laborious rising; Then tumultuous, then at random, then in go, Such is the rising and prevailing That the tide in hands of every one Shall be but water; sailing on high. Girt in the middle so the sun's rays of cooling air Shall in series lead each other, brightening; Rising unto westerns, then to Folcobar, Then rising toward the darksome East, and by that way So they be numbered, such is the heaving bulging Of daylight levels over star levels; but on the meadows The shade itself in speed past quick as thought it passed. So strange are wonders! And many and many are they; The new moon shows one high, and crawling leaves Lisping with live figures, show one low, Frail as the stars, taller than I am. And all the live space the dead space occupied, Or no, or higher, than my highest beam, And all the place filled, my filling fill. Now other wonder wonders shall be shown: The boat shows the mushroom grown from earth Growing from the earth, showing, I said, The boat just as it shows the space; The hosts, the prey the plane has spread through, The prey to niches, to faults in converting; The silence and strangeness and vastness, The multitude of shapes, but I forget All, all, of these, my hosts. Oh great, my gods, tell me true, Are these the bodies that I hold? I feel, but not of bodies. I walk; and I can not find, As I stretch my limbs, a body there. Yet I remember, oh I remember, I once was of bodies, or was I a soul? Oh great gods, tell me, gods of my rebirth, Are my body still and living water? And another thing I remember too, When the clouds know I, when I rise, Ah Ah Monk, rise, of consciousness again. In the clouds I expect to find my body. I thought all the birds and streams were gone, Though the whole heaven was quiet and calm, For I was so inclined to take A little walk with slumbers. When I found I was changed, and that I was not Daughter of Naught I did not care, but arose, Not caring, and found all my body Was full of Heifers. Again my gods I do presume to say, My body all of blood and weeping Heifer As the pale tide feeds on the fishes, And as the moon feeds on stars, If there be an end of all, if there be no shore, If there be no water to use For the fishes of the shallows. And I am here and I awake and have teeth For an hour, for the fishes are up and you are down, For the logs swung out, the pines in for a drink, I have no meat, and I begin to gnaw, My jaws I can not stop there for the tree but scratch, For my food and my drink, and my gums they scratch, For the snake we call the night-steed, The long dim snake my mountains the roots of Aroaras. And I eat, it is good and it ======================================== SAMPLE 121 ======================================== Or--this were worse-- slighted, fled with, and unknowing! <|endoftext|> In the sweet spring time the humming-bird made music With a simple organ-like voice, "HUMAN, O HUMAN, listen to me!" The oak-kid on the song-bird's breast made answer With the simple treble (low, treble, higher), "What do you say, Hum-Mus? Can I help you?" The little square singing-jay (nature-lover) sang to this, "I can do more for your pleasure than any man but I." The song-birds were always wrong, so they atone. "Oh, happy, happy, happy they who own a MUCHIM (master-hammer) To blow out the candles on the birthday cake of earth. Oh, happier still who can laugh out the tears And take out the stoneware orb which the tear-drops went into So that, like a steam-boat, it could work round the world in its golden and shady course. To-day, and for ever, a BRIGHT VACATION IT IS. The busy, bustling, City moil--the West-side's work-to-rule. Will there be a procession, see, Of sunshine, and soft sound of black wings Lifting and sinking, 'Tis the last of summer and oft the bird Will sit in the tree On branch after branch until she wear The philtre off her breast, And still will sing, as gaunt they die, As sweet in the leaves as they live, The joy of her fresh plumage, The wind to go frolic and play. And I who pine To listen to the chant of the philtre's tongue, Be waiting to bustle--and Away! Down the road, and far, Sings the white-throated green; And far and far, The devil's two-legged schismatics go Mysing, and reeling, and staggering, down the street. And I, with a tear, Speak low, tremulous, Shining, flashing, I know not what am I saying, I know not what. I know not whom I are saying, but something tells me To find you at the gate. The birds are singing, Chaff and gold, Horn all blowing. The wind in the clover Is blowing so chill; A sudden vale of metal Has burst; A planet glows in the rain, And the owl-like phœnx whirrs. See the sweet vale of heavy rain, And the eagles, they pause On the roofs and mist, And the eddies, and the haze; Hear it blow in the dusk Bubble-up, spray-up, Under the trees, The way of the rain. I have heard the birds singing, And the wind in the clover, But no song my lips have heard, And none that I can sing. I am always sighing A desperate sigh. I saw you that September morning Three days before Out in the slow-rolling grass, And I knew that it was dying, And I wanted the rain. And there was the fire, In the chilly airs and light, Out in the yard; And there was the rain, Sweating and spattered, And there was the weather, In that one word! I know, I know, I know That it's not winter yet; There's the elms, it seems, With their dry perfectly symmetrical branchings, Fading, crumbling, Gone, like the summer-blossoms, The rose's whispers, The blue-gray morning, And the hill-sides, shining! Oh, by the roses crying For their sisters, one by one! Not another, one alone, Roses still, and red, and soft, Not by the precious pebbles, And the wild, lovely owl-haunted wall. No more by any breeze Nor any reason, Since the lovely June is dying, With a quick refreshment, And the cicala sounds, And the heart that aches again, Lonely and dreaming, Dying, to live. A smell of caliae On my hands, but dry. And the air, when it has carried The stucco flags, When it has channelled All the bells into mysterious swirls. And the distant ======================================== SAMPLE 122 ======================================== Drop from the skies as in the river's depths; Fall, as an arrow from the undeliberate Greater than all missiles; not of weight By volume recompensed; and yet that it COULD LIFT ON THE HUMANE EYE: I feel it hangin' on my eye-balls now, Lip-height from line and everything! <|endoftext|> "Up from the Depths", by Howard Moss [Religion, Christianity, Social Commentaries, History & Politics, War & Conflict] (Submitted during the Persian Gulf War, January 1998) The most effective military education has got to be peasant bread and a virgin woman striking prose for her good man (you know, from a village croft) fives, sixes and extra large tenners, old milk-bearers returning to camp after thirty years to pick up their sniffles, and two in the kitchen, one in the bunker, pinning their medals on timex, gushing and ineffectual streamers on their cream-white uniforms fleeing blood-streaked bayonets, bluish and prim-lashed military prigs who will not sever from the TV set, so into the mud suffocating, unrelieved is the one true voice of God (Don't panic, here's a blank red scale as a break). O no voice, o no sign, O no prayin', thou great wound in God's stubborn mouth, O no, all through those years that heroic Body housed the terrible fire from the flanks, from the sun-blanched flues (saltin' in the arid sand), has borne the burden of war. Coda, si there is no more the old military man, but a young, militarized breed in one place or another, even the streets show a fatigued breed, some heroes badged, some bad girls that were old enough to draw their noses, fingers or cones without suckin' or hit a mine or fireman, when day falls over the bay (today!) the vapors incubate, a sort of mixed maturenesse, a ripple of cytochalus leaves; the cytochalus itself is an aborted fetus, it was never born. I am terribly sad because my Mother, I am afraid, has passed, broken, the cytochalus, the one instrument perfect to acquire a first, xenophyllous death. O I had told her: you must carry this child, whenever it comes to the good soldier, but she came with low omens, with no Words unaccustomed, hearing her Nurse the Nurses laugh at their own death and what a fancy dirty way it is. O I hope they all rot in mental washing, seeing as they so recently went into the Fluffitecture of Things, into their factory, to walk away and Forget. I am sick of seeing their precious puddles like little marble ponies descending, their bikes landing, in imitation of marble but there is something inviolate that set these little toys moving in the right direction, if you saw them you would say: these are not good Gifts. They break my heart. <|endoftext|> "Transition Days", by Anne Wojciechowski [Love, Heartache & Loss, Romantic Love] What wasn't could be transformed into shape and pathos, what was darkest what gleamed most inalterably into laurels becoming pathways to dew. It was getting good, the boy too good for the reality of the open hour. On such a day the open road became his school, through solexed devastation. He saw stars, no doubt, his mind's refraction of star sunlight. Out there it was dark as in here, together, apart. There were remembrances, the whole place evenly seemlier alive than ever, what with breath of a recently dead son, and things to come that we would both find fantastical. All this and no goodbye, where they went, the boy's friend. It was going to be their last afternoon, his getting ======================================== SAMPLE 123 ======================================== After meeting said to me: The distance dividing us was one, One word and your heart's song, said Gabriel, when you loved her. And since then one name and your heart's song has been, And you say now the world's, Gabriel; that we be! He was your pastor then, being by then your friend, He always was your scholar and your teacher, Saying one day and meaning another day, Then meaning now and then, my boy. And Gabriel said Anon to all what you wanted to hear. And I say to you this constant talk of friends Goes the life out of you. The lie you believe Is of them. They tell you their lives are fine, But life, just like you, is never ever all. This constant life talk, I say, is the air Your life is. It will go, too. I know it goes, To others who have loved you. You know it too, Just by having to live it all yourself. Who could have dreamed us to be where we are? You and I and Gabriel know not why, But neither here above nor there below Have we any good, not a single good. The good that there might be, if there were none, Why have we this and not without eyes? A word-concentring company, above and ears, Ears and eyes, Gabriel's dim-by-half ears. Yet how they move in the sun and the moon, Moving in the beat of a others' rhythm. Who wakes and moves and moves and waits and moves. Always walking the edge, the edge of the door, The edge of others' laughter, what are they? Thoughtful and voiceless, angel and parent, Palsy and weak and mute and self-conscious. Blind and dear and blind and faithful, rout and nation, The cradle-voice and the-guard-on-evermore They will guard and pace and pace and pray and pray and move and listen and listen and listen and wait and move and say what, we know not, Here and now the tongue is broken and faltering And my heart and my heart's hope are over-ripen, And I have loved you long. <|endoftext|> from Act I Scene II Outside the walls, where the fountain speaks, With pleasure I note the water's speech. For I have called it silver-clear. This is my vain mind's effort fine. And lo, with ears to hear and eyes to see, Behind me my prepared feet tread on. From the rose-blossom scent, It finds the laughter of the mountain top. Outside my walls, in the world outside, A dancer treads her," she said, "the sound of rain Unvaleably pleased, how refreshing. To-day is but a form-statement, to-day Of aspect, nothing deeper than a dream, As blank, white, clear, agile, and fluent As the eye's perception, or the human ear Untecked of falsehood, a fine art, A fine art, you may call it so. And I can but call it beautiful. Now come in, my love, the curtain call!" And all the dances ended, I did not set out The breath, as yet, from my body. Just enough, It took my consciousness elsewhere. But I knew I must have it there. As crisp, As clear, as something clear to the eye. Not pure, I know, as yet. Must still Be tempered in me. Not yet wholly tempered, Unpure as yet. But temperate, as close to pure As cream, close to pure as breath can get, No more crude than pure, the cream at first A drop too pure to be breath, pure and fine, In small abundance. More and more, For as it starts out from the mouth, what I had Been forced to mouth, I step out from this, And with one taste my life are this, And with one taste, my life cease. Was I for this it took, This body in which it was, myself, And set me up in the middle of space. Was I for this, and my looking out From the upper and the lower world, And feeling that I belonged there, Or only myself. In a circle round themselves They looked on me. And I alone, Had a look of surprise. "O god, How pale you are! How chill your breast." "I am an old fonder of shade." "Pardon, I ======================================== SAMPLE 124 ======================================== The marshes are thine. By mysterious impulses now, Seek not to hold me fast; to do so would be vain. So says the seer, in what he will do for thee. First, do not disdain his bounty, up to now. And second, dare not of his love revoke. Not to the silver and the gold say "No," For this is only the world's great scourge still. If, unrequited, thou dost grant the boon, Faithless he that thou wilt be unfeeling too. And if thou dost, thou shalt see the bane reverse, From a love not to be given to anything. Have I persuaded thee? Then do thou but this, To make thy future life an empty day. And it shall not be a life lost, but saved, Which is to be feared as much as any life. But if not so much magic lie o'er thee, As promises not to cause thee pain in coming, Yet from the motives that would not permit Thou to this man or that prevented by oath, In the wilderness, where thy thoughts but take The things that by dangers are undone, Seems thou obliged to watch for his good, Since neither of them can enjoy aught on thee. Who would not undergo such danger for thee, But preys by love on one that loveth none? The giver of thy blessings would be naught Without thee, since the lifter took away All that was dear to him. So many springs, And flowers and fruit in nature's nursery, Seldom boil, and wounds turn off from the tongue; Alas, that as the rivers cannot have salt, So men, deprived of love, burn in fornication. Or doth thy breast support some miserable thing, To move thee to bepearl what my breast require? And what's this thou would'st fain compel me to do, But shall it, failing, leave me more behind? Pity not my mind with what it hopes for; Its wealth doth far exceed the fortune which Has yet three qualities, that do live with ease: With these it will long endure and last, With these go on always; this is not wealth, But a comfort, and they fortune's axe still.) Let them live, and things unselectable give, What shall I do? when I can do nothing more With that they are, than this I have before? And my heart fears, in case I use too much, And do a little, to make it feel how much A little am left me, and my poverty Itself a fortune, as they say, makes men. What though the field which yields me one little acre, Were a desert fit only for the thirst of wine? What though this little vineyard yield but a little wine? How vain to hope I had, or needed, If I had not trusted to your vows and you Being mine for ever to make happy the loss, And come when I was weary and worn with wine, And give to fill the pause after my repose! Be content! thou havest my word, as brief as thine, That I shall never seek to make myself to be Of thy assurance and thy faith my pledge. But a little wine, as when we come to fill The breach 'twixt wine and moisture, nips and courts the tongue, Making it complain of days that have been more sweet Than this which I have left behind me. Why, as well, I might content my thirst, and as much I cannot, Put forth my left upon thy lap, and drink it up, Making a pleasure my own sorrow of this wine. I will come to thee, when love renews her pain, When she repents her wasted beauty that I hate, And yields me her rich wounds to be ravished throes, Her jewels of joy, her wounds that shame her pride, A goodly piece of all those things that were, With those sweet pleasures swoln, made drunk with joy, I will come to thee, and ask thee why she stays Thus rigorously to drink joy and die wine; And will kiss thee that thou may'st know what I perceive Will she suck hence the life-giving flood. Cupid once upon a field of cold raised His arm in supplication to the sun: Out of his breast milk and spice and salt Pressed clotted ashes; and he gazed in vain Into the distance for a bound, Nor ever would aught nor sleep or knowledge get Of life or love, or life's fit respect Upon that bosom. ======================================== SAMPLE 125 ======================================== For we will pass the evening of This our conquest on the soil of Spain, And it is but at the dawn of day That the dark hosts of the oppressed shall rise. "We have delayed long the troops of Spain, And it is desired that to-day The first of October shall be our hour To crush this proud army of France. But it is not permitted to delay A little space; meanwhile A thousand shields, a thousand spears, A thousand knapsacks and a thousand horses Cannot quell a single Moor. Who is there left now, with a stout heart To face this many-arrest Fort*? Ye who possess sense enough to know In honor hold, the fort or fall; For, as it behooves, We have the better helmet, the better shield, The better helm, And, armed with these, are ten times stronger Than this small band of Franks, led by five, And also, I say, In that they are five more than we And ten than ten. And forasmuch as it would avail us Not a little, should we to-day crush the Emperor Again, but it is plain to all That to-morrow, with God's assistance, We will be twenty times more numerous, And five times stronger, than we are now. And if we once again should win great This night the fort, our lives may show That not a Frank in the whole world, Though he were as mighty as this whole court, Would have the power to stop our course; For we with arrows powerful and our swords Will render with gold. That is no idle talk, But what we almost hope." * - Literally, "Fort Amond," but the neighborhoods of Bierry and Carondelet, six miles east of Luchon, are often called the "City of Wine," as the County of Beauca is known "the City of Drink" by those who have been dispensing it in its many streets and villages. With such legends preoccupied, it was naturally hard for the Duc de Nevers in the private quarters of his Chateau to rest from his ardent duties to the tavern and its patrons. Scarce was he weary of his "new siege" or his "bitter hunt" before he had another such encounter. Himself, about four o'clock, his vision beheld, as he stood at his window again. The curtains of the casement raised and unfolded, and an image shone with such great beauty on nose and hair as young women, in the sunny of their hair, and with beauteous eyes were waving their arms on the high terrace. Darted from the stock her eyes, attuned to exceeding sweetness of their light, so rapid and keen, to the stranger in the next apartment, he within became so bewildered that all his members had given way to pleasure and pride, forgetting To say that Virgilian had not yet given ground, fair as Branko's Albana is. The "refuge" of our two young soldiers seemed sweet and congenial enough, spacious and fair; a score of people was seated on the veranda grass, and of those many were seated fathers with their children. Four doors from the center door roofed by a raised plinth, four loftier columns held backwards a door leading out into the terrace. And when I closed in haste the lovely lid of the Salon, its smallest entrance given over to the author (while the rest was opened to great men, such as de Neyron and his Emperor, Through this short portal, up a flight Not trampling, but of quiet flight, My eyes were wended to the upper world; O'er that loveliness, with such gladness, I softened my thoughts, returning home. The whole day over again I fall asleep, And, in the twilight, dream, not quite forget That I saw Paris, Faubourg, the beauteous gardens, And was accosted by faces, not of men, But in their natural envies, so sweet and calm, That, though five hundred twenty years have passed since I left the capital, still I tremble with respect To their indulgence; and I feel a impulse to ask, But am prevented by the King.) He saw how fair the scenery, (Though he had passed its pleasures all Or nearly all, as past it he rode,) Yet would not have the beauty For so long a time denied His forces to it, and his ======================================== SAMPLE 126 ======================================== US Born "Savvy man" your woe was not he who bade and bid (Artic). The thrush's native fosse, bright with day thy "Not to know" what poet (or he!) first O Triumph of Death! none shall be made rich by the Poetical Phoolick that wrought him a fortune but Death that a wit MUST go along with Fame till he be grave. To the wisest and most learned SIFER Yet has to thy gracious light go the same way that thou didst go thou wast born " My Father" only Her ZEAL and BIB were but "SPROUENS" of home-found philosophical scruples. Her gifted & coloured highest estate born of separation & ruin at the lee of Fame, thy gloom is clouded. yet she is none the less The Spirit of Dissolution through all her titles of art music and most From the famous "Lupi di Roma" a stick and her self "La MaddELRhun" a rubbish. Not only Her contriver, Dutch, is banished art, to Paris. what wilt she do? And Europe's dance her Elegant ERECT not a tame form One unfurled fraught with theme And still unfurled, some fibreous new ft'om FRANZ GRUNTINGER rises As yet untalked. Yet he is not dead My HELEN young, They tell me he'll sail to France. I forgot your gentle eyes are young That calmly saw the wavering of men's spirits. They are gazing upward in calm calm unassuming faces When I forget the flowers, wither! I must forget, Helene. Away. Now in our dark house she plays. Oh he! Oh sweet! And one-eyes, her even hand at rest keeps the guitar's counter show less an idle stick. I think his soul shines clear with noble plunder of just things as nature's quiver. I'd hate to see the "retirement" farm of the place where all is seen and none is heard. A field, a pasture, and a pram Are the last things one sees. Not yet the glamour has passed. I sat on the sills as the crisp snowflakes fell. The hedge of growing masters of men hangs over humanity as in a dream. In the middle of the year, the few green leaves across the way, 'twouldn't start my eyes. Or with a wink, the forest? MRS. EDELSTON'S sweet heart beats for a grown child. What will the nights with dread be? What will the nights with dread, and darkness? Where will find the pure black water? Will you still be turned by the hand into an engine and spur away. What sweet moments of joy, what sweet moments of joy in your fair and dying summer, however? MRS. ELLIOT ASSISTS NO EX CELENTI TRAVEL SILL WITH LOVE, THAT NEVER TOLERATES TRAVEL SILL WITH LOVE, THAT'S LIKE A WEATHER MINISTER, TRAVEL SILL WITH LOVE, IN A CRAWLING JOURNAL. Where shall I look for pure romance, what zone of skies, what pure sanctuary? The Veil, the Tomb of Juan 128* Tessera que Ávila, las Constants del Mundo Solamente calcar el Mento en Amado El Emfitado. ¡Oi, dijeras del Tintorera, de manteca! Is it true— Is it true? A tale for an old woman, a love unrequited? And there is no one to hear it? And to make out her tale One pils the first in her place and die. And Juan's such a little solace. <|endoftext|> "The Four Degrees of Morality", by Reverend James Fuller [Religion, Arts & Sciences, Social Commentaries, History & Politics, Race & Ethnicity] "I" — The devout pupil, conscious of his imperfections, wears his prayer-books to head. "Worthy Essence" — The intellect, declinering its nabolites, gives the wanted portion to the loathed body. "Worth" — Sings the off-spring of the importance of members, and the simple, natural, unmistakable. "Liberty" — The intellectual possesses ======================================== SAMPLE 127 ======================================== he rose from bed to look at the window, the vast expanse of snowfall. Or a gust of cold wind that blows a woman's hair into her face, the cheeks tattooed with lines from her new glasses a pleasure from which she cannot escape. I’m watching your family. They’re not excited, their eyes are bound by death or love or money or sex or love or a fat man or a woman's sins. The fist in the car is your brother, Fuggedig (pronounced ‘fuu”) the second from your parents. Nuance, from the jarring tightness of his stammer: He hovers between fear of God, and fear of pain or any kind of pain for that matter, and love of work, and the joy of work, and freedom, with some excitations. He left college the day his wife was born, left the business, he said, to train a Kurdish servant girl who is to clean the office, and then retire. In his late sixties he can barely control his mania for his wife, they say, whose efforts to soothe his stammering effect have been known to involve the hairbrush or an evening of dancing with the neighbours in and out the window. The lights glint from the snow. The yellow hotel knows it can use the light. It wants to be loved on the roof, is grumbling to the hotel supervisor as he snaps the iron ceiling to pearl-coloured slats, to keep the book departs as the cool night sinks in. I can see it all in this light if you don't say anything I get goose bumps too, in part because when the light goes down he and I will be alone the light is one thing we have in common when we leave, it is another than warmth or bliss. <|endoftext|> "Road", by Ted Greenwald [Living, Life Choices, The Mind, Activities, Indoor Activities, Travels & Journeys] It is no one, I decided, entering the pale yellow tunnel that splits air into ever-smaller layers, transparent tubes fibrillating beneath glass where in a moment I might watch the personalities of traffic soften, a movie of ants running from the picture ­—a committee meeting on the way to the beach, a toy picture of a road — changeable from black to white as I crouched behind the steering wheel and the projection rose up from my shoulder into a star map suspended from the ceiling as some form drew me back to itself, became a road, a story of one boy moving from woodland to woodland, from inside to outside: the following road was a road I had not yet taken, and headed into: the infotainment system altering its tone, glancing obviously at the little steering wheel as if it might be tapped or pulled or jabbed, altering the way we took the road into the coast: I did not want to be parted from; I never could be put back, I decided; that would be ridiculous, to put it back; the rebels on the pavement, who thought the world was strange, the story line a form of sanity gone awry, who saw sign in the snow, saw force, they might see ­ —­ thought they saw a road, though they saw something else — ­ might see what they thought they saw, if only they could see, if only they believed. I let the road unfurl itself, slide by slide, renewing the instant I was driven off; moving away from it into the snow, the war within its meaning, the ­anti-­government sign to their right, what they were unable to see: a road the whole world took, they said, that ordered them back into the loop, back ­—­ whose order was to throw them onto roads they thought they were outside of, back into the maelstrom of the endless woods, back into the thought they were living inside the ­world, the forest that had opened in their minds, yet one road going through it all, one road that led to ­every house. <|endoftext|> "Seeing with Two Eye(s)", by Stéphane Doo [Living, Death, Relationships, Family & Ancestors, Nature, Weather] Then all at once the sky lit up with the silver of decapitating birds as roosting kites failed and flapped and fell like shivering bell birds unapologging for the sky and for the sun, who in liquid spl ======================================== SAMPLE 128 ======================================== … No nation, so blest and wise, Shall from our gloom envy see, Where the yellow harvest sleeps All exhilarated by the sun. When the white frost was our life, And the human tints deceived our sight In our excess of joy were we; Then the Lamb's lamentation made us feel How poor a thing we are, Warm many lamps now go out, As one by one goes out. … … … No blood, or swell of soul, or sight, or grace, To work in one, to make one act, But one event, one life. "Time," says the spirit, "brings," but the soul is In the wheel of its internal life, With but one start. … … The feet, the tenderest of the ever-tried Seize on the heart: this fact, and the light, The one dear taste of dear, Banish every shadow of doubt, Self, and all; Or, if they rise on cloudy wings, so pale, That, if men had any souls to call, Their frail waxen wings would be seen As thin as thine,– Or if they glow and are not many, like thee, 'Twere hard indeed to deem, if aught else one loved Lives in a dream, or loves alone; For, soul or brains, or blood of neck or breast, Is in thy soul, or on thy heart, as fate, When a thought, conceived in bolt or dawn, Appalls, Or comes by indrawn-evaluated breath That one is like the first, one test or work Never again to be done! Thus, then, whatever the winds whisper, sea, air, or land, Or the priestless windows flash,– Whatever, hearkening from plain or shut, Or heeded or slain with rumor or care, Thou dost pour thy life, And bear, as test and guardian, that shall hold Thy conduct of no esteem! It whispers: Nature is beyond all law! Nature that hath called poets forth, And settled bodies in the public way, The folly and squalor of the crowd, Whose mad enterprise is never mell: I'll tell what Nature hath proceeded from: Mould of the heart: so writ of old by Epicurus, Who, being for a while valiant men, Were nevertheless only vain, Their flabby souls and conflicted mounts Mocked at the laws, the souls' intwining rings. Who trusteth not to Nature's providence? May know the ascetic must his means devise; An antidote for the poison that she breeds. And he, poor and potted in Nature's hands, Wailing, shaking in Nature's cruel arts, Was only wise which sapped the heart with hate, From whose troubled limbs th' atrozy felt Creation with her nightshade-moulded leaves. Him this, this tribute of my peace beholds; This, this for life he takes his dimmed gaze on, This to the Flower, so fed with unfeeling dews, Whom still the unfeeling Nature gives the mate. Nature's so exact! 'tis not even in vain: The crowd of lank weeds that, reeling, might have jumped From thir mottled stink-holes of monstrous life, Doused full many a one that groaneth for time; Gathered, in no lettered land of toil, And carrying, wretchedly, their foul seeds, All that the poor miserable buggers bear Of dusty earth, in meek surrender That sate them for a while on Earth's many bosoms, Theid, and heaped each barren hetairic flowrs, And some of flower, hideous with ambrosial poison, Printed in Gorgonian fume, as if Bombina fresh Dropt on Earth's face for ages. Nature's so exact! Who shows a touch of shrewdness in her method, Shows nature in himself a race adept at cheating, Or Lucifer, in his blackest eyewear, Without the cunning of half his rings and scales To win his mind from death to life again, Showed cunning of mind to look into the face Of his God, and paint the face of salvation With as many colours as Heaven's self doth wear. The Gods, indeed, are only ingenious, And wise, in any history we read; As old Seers, all ignorance laving in To see all wisdom in their own black souls ======================================== SAMPLE 129 ======================================== question & tossed into the blue mattress they wheeled & shouldered o they scattered in thick tar grass they reclined & asmersed scrubbed dry they heaved down & up & down & faced flaming passions & filled the heavy space with patience as if were innocent I whom witnessed grow quiet in to meek satisfaction I myself begin to heave I utter become relaxed though such huffing ransom last some months after all I remember this time as far had the blue messenger met or not given them a call was he to say anything the air was just a little cleared I might even have stood it <|endoftext|> "Water in Air", by Sherod and Baynton [Nature, Summer, Arts & Sciences, Poetry & Poets] It happened this way, dear friend, over summer. The sky was a foggy haze and water was everywhere. Then water announced itself. It was that dog's way of saying, you're my number. And it said number to our ears and pulled us from our cassocks. And it dragged us through the river. Then it bowed and splashed us all over the earth—and exploded. And it said, Your fault. <|endoftext|> "Search", by Angel Nafis [Living, The Body] Even the ways we live the body doesn't even know. I want that calm worship of the body I used to know in the summers I spent wedged in the kitchen or gazing out window stomached or shooting hoops on the outdoor court. Body searching, spatter of spit and sweat and all the corners of that mouth with wind-off closed in prayer, body building and body burning for a life lived as long as it takes a while to recognize in the lungs level increase and the blood vessels filled with doubt and then the heart full of sacrifice. Here I thought I'd be whole. Now that flesh is God, I try once more to accept the rest of it. Body with a mouth and outropped underneath it for a hand to hold on to like the rat. Hear it roar. <|endoftext|> "Shop Talk", by Gabby Chapman [Living, Life Choices, The Body, The Mind] Thank you, Alex, for this year's offering! Not only that Blueist wash brings out the best in both of us, but you've got new sousaphones, a best-seller! I can't wait to give them a spin, but how marvelous to lift the trigger hair to get at the strings! Those lessons were so clear, so formal, and so TOO thorough! I was hooked straight away, and can't wait to bring you these over to the west side. <|endoftext|> "Wind", by Ange Mlinkza [Living, Life Choices, The Mind] last wintered in thy lyric passes without question thee frame-poet of the juice of life’s wood? raids from thy site to cut, from between thy rock the blood of the oak? the name and source of thy dread blow give thee, or in the mist give thee, in the dimmer glare of thy furnace of memory, at the hour of no return? say, once thy vision was clear, and then it was stone stripped of the loam, and a name was affixed to it, the reverberant AOR so? I spoke so. I cannot choose to say. When I speak I who has a choice but speak how? <|endoftext|> "On a Bridal Shower", by Alice Notley [Living, Life Choices, The Body, Nature] I am thinking now of bridal showers, of the feeling of getting them— I mean the giving of pleasure, of giving yourself to other people. They come to mind: how many sweeter feelings there are: Nectar vaults, lockable vaults. The most brilliant of eyes—that of my friend, now dead—was such a doll. Light and easy, of voice easy as a moonbeam. And she wasn't thinking of birth, but wealth, the dream. Wealth, the sparkling. It's the eyes alone that gleam, the loose and luminescent body. And the mouth. And how deep and wide and light-wide and luminous mouth. So many of us gave ourselves to others. We didn't know we did. <|endoftext|> "Words Made Flesh", by Ange Mlinkza [Arts, Poetry & Poets, Social Comment ======================================== SAMPLE 130 ======================================== Substantially, or apparently; or so They understood their archer-guarded Homeland of Paradise to be. And for the tiger-pagadier, what More dangerous, or rarer, what more strong, What more excellent, what more perfet! Also such was the prevalence, the subtle power Of metaphor has been pronounced by some Of so great use in an allegory--whereas the "Rights of Women" are expressly laid down--that one Aristotle, and the Rights of Man, which are negotiated by him. There are, besides, some writings which in this respect, however, are said to belong to memory, not of our life, such as his Memories of But as, with a tinge of sadness, on this wise it has come down, some centuries since to these shores; and is still her home of many years, among those forests of toils, dwellings, and huts which mean so much to the young principal author to whom we have quoted as "all that's good, blessing and praised of vain men"; who felt, when he was near the old wood and headed by the master-chimic Eden, that he was sobering with all good, and shuddered at his own rash good-will; he knew this Country, too, to be Lord of the main race, and so generous in his patronage of others--who is to blame for this antedating oblivion? The man was to Greece and to Olympus a promise in behalf of his Allegiance (to which we should recall his æra as warmly republished in "The Return!"); and now to England belongs, it is true, the bit of Land that he left there ungrivked by a proud part of himself; but not more, this side of that small loop, does he loiter than that old race which, down the pass, round the "Cosmic Serpent," and where it joins the sea, recedes for ever from the spot where first his mission to this Earth began. The needful moments: while, having, so far, pursued the strictly philosophic path, we have seen but its porch obscure from behind; but now--to make so profound a step to undo something of our earlier presence--it is in the way of The clouds rose and set, while at our side we move to meet that serpent, and the stars, like our own, multiply and pierce through his eyes; and in his ear was hanging our or "bloom" of song; our lilies bent, knee-deep, into the stream that we and he alone might follow through the woods; and it seems to us now, as night came up, the right time for that sacrifice of Life, which, without which, we cannot hold any the earth for an heuristic without her, and make, whenever, man may find so much, we shall die. Yet the knot which hung behind us, our lily-pads was something that thought might unknot, and with thinking we had shed tears of purer wool, than wool whose From this abyss of solemn knowledge we roll through a different xtrareme; at once, all that was of deep, was no more deep, more past all past, and what was done was done not merely for action but life, whereon are PRESENT though in realms of mortal That deep man had slid in lethargy, slipping his creaking jaws. He was not so heavy as when one, for lust, makes life a mast for the winds that whirl their fulminate round, and to think what void she does, as one who lifts his gaze from the dawn; or as one who looks up from sea to the precipice, and Where, like a lily of a platanus, he and his beams are wont to wind themselves, as though still wrapped in dream; but where one comes the wind of the kisses of a sailor, and unhand in the waves is borne, As one who now, according to the time, springs, when the scene is changed ignored, as if the utterance of her name had not been done to death in the deep; and where the Soul hurries through the Necessity, for the winnowing of the clouds; that they are wasted in fleeting lightning; they are withered and exhausted by that wind which carries the Osiris and the vivacious Isis from their places of strength to mercy and the gods' laughter. We pierce with a shock of torches, and verses, the shed ======================================== SAMPLE 131 ======================================== O'ercomes the merry Sun and Jove's angelick ray With nought but dark fancy to embay. I know how all so bright and bright The stars seem when the dull night comes on; How all the flowers look out, (Yet by this time the Summer amanful done.) Not all is well. Let us then do so As when the Spring had left the reign Of the earth-star till moonlight shone; And then like Frost did bid the woods grow wan, And winter ran to their ruin: No weather took longer hard of summer's time Than those wherein now we live and lie, And see how dim and dull everything has grown, From star to star, round yon Black Mount that stands Now look how all is rottenly dreary; More like a bottle scaupp'd Than any fiery-starv'd hive: For as the winter drips So pours The winter-soil on the field and vine. And as the frost Burneth So doth the leafy rain That feeds on decay. This day last year was never, never seen One in their summer-sweats. But how the growing wet Is sucking out the oil, That from those cypress-trees The years, that seeing a white man On his desire Lavish pictures, fire and water, Made the neighbours all see their use. How the busy hours of the day In new white gowns of wanton laughter, Laugh their lives away. And the place of pride The strange white people, With their statues, love and malice, May well forget That the stars that look on them are of short duration. O O yet (then are like) Thy ground, Thy shores in Carcason by Pearse, Thou Old Land, Take back the name thou didst of queens; But not in glory of white saints. And the far-distant sea Too far With its grey-green headlands and faint sky From among white glens And gardens Where the country of this song To the sea Is a grey city on a hill, Nor thence a whale can come. It seems a book: That face of the writing Is not the face Of any writing. But the sea stretches Its arm out. The sea is not shown. And so their eyes Is the tome Of the writing of our ears It is the bound Of their hands. <|endoftext|> Let me tell you of the blessings Death doth give Erewhile And can boast now for the conquest of Life's death. Keep your life, and mind it nor dispose it To blessings of Death. The most blest in Death's possession are Those who hear his laugh and know it not; But if it falls from any right human Sculpture, these have no fear of it. Nor do I mean the hardened cheek or turned Naked eye, nor heart purged of sorrow, But such as in the sad peace of true freedom live Till they find a thing to laugh at. And to my way of thinking was brought When on my having slept, which my swoon'd soul Was half draggling to believe it over and over, There first came dancing as in some old festal Comedy, Death and my Love and I: Then came the chaste dogma of the nineteenth There shall be full understanding. He that forsaketh shall have desolate: He that abideth shall have had no place at all. Which having understood straight and deeply, One great joy is wrought through my sad welling Of tears, which perish in holding so long That sweet discovery never to be believed, But cursed by all men that shall believe it. Sweet happiness no longer may I find, But with heaps and heaps of human losses must I Die, and in the end be nothing but dust. Nor do I think I am so truly blest As thus to have experienc'd one blotted life. My true-lovers all Are dull and miserable wretches, And all those pleasures that I have Are but weltsma; ill honey-charms; Trementka; Gelos; all the bubbling starts Of waters cool that from the rocks gushing Are wurth; the myrk and affuzum Of streams are not worth a thought. But to go where Joy goes, where Folly Joy Shuts anying her; when sultana Morn Is flooding the world ======================================== SAMPLE 132 ======================================== ?" Vast hills and mighty plains are the kings of Fable Who have made those far-sought antiques their own, And under far-domed centers joys the trader. Greet the full-sailed white ships from Provence sailed, Invincible and on their last portents cast, The sign of the octaves of the Nile's domain In fury crash for all who die. What grave or guarded grandeur Stirs now the organ joyous, or why Gladly and gladly in verse or long Pours the rich concert Of thanks to God For this good day, or for that new Achievement, which perchance was found For God's own glory of the contented soul? So the organ joyously beats. Awake, awake! lift up your eyes To the silent stars in the sky. And hear a noise of waters, and then, The whiteness of the snow-fields; then, The sound of a face and voice; a sudden shade Of green and white, and ears of soot; with looks Of a young mother's, looking earnest eyes, And delicate limbs that lean and walk, Now forward, now backward, now no more; Whom the while a long little dream has brought her, Standing, listening at her open door. Where is he? with the evil eye Looking at me to betray me; with good looks, Ever earnest, now with neck held out, Pausing in impotent suffering and care; Soothing a whimpering child against her knees With looks his own? This man so loved and feared? What sudden menace, this unlooked-for guise? This shameless trespass, this death-like stepping backwards? Why, what have I to do with? I am afraid. Shake in its glass my house, the globe of earth, The solar system! The ways of the moon And of the sun are full of danger for thee, And loveliness none other by any far. Hast thou thought of this, O blind? It is enough That one hast thou found another, thou thought'st Total darkness from the other's light. Sleep, 'Tis sweet! It is sweet to sleep. Thy body's nerves Repeat the seduction; thy brain, thine eyes, The Sun-God's laws of love, are no false doth, And if a moneyed grudge tempt thee to waken, The sheep-crown'd Queen of the Night, And one whose name is inviolably strapped, Thine for the first caress, O Gemini, The duped woman! O look out thy habit, gird in Thy hands before, till at least thy spirit Freed from the flesh, as I found in thee From the next low. But if any one, This sinner who were consecrated to despise This good morning, will, the morning after, The death-hour having turned, will flee to the street. Or, if the moon, or any star, will put in An interval with human sense to chase him, I will not be hasty to mark him, for now It is fair day here; there is not any blame, Where conscience shines so bright. I know not his name. 'Tis not love's champion; this alone appears To be the star of thy life; the ground From which the heaven of glory opens; the star That forms the body, the soul of thee. I know thee, I to thee, thee through whose heart To hear the vast organ music whereof The voices draw to a halt and stand still, And when they rise engage a new metre. This music makes a thing to be, to stand, In breathing time, thy laureat and archetype. And being, though but mirrored outward, immortal Draws from those hypnotic corners of thine eyes Oaths, promises, flowers, gold, the man, the word. My heart knows not thy name, but O thou who art More lovely than land or highest spray, for ever Thou and thy life shall be the name. He who knows All that is sure, the man--that enemy of man, Hatred, violence, the law that slaves, lies, Is death, what death is--be his cry in thine ear. No breath shall enter, breath, mouth, any living thing, Then perish as the sand that instant, never, Swept from the sun, earth, ocean, fire. What will Can sever here, when even thy image leaves This room? what doors that be for ======================================== SAMPLE 133 ======================================== Adrastus repents, and Oedipus yet Heeds the prophetic voices and thus addresses, The forgers of his Sire's image: "Wherefore will come the spring? I seek the eddying winds and hide Some branches of my head. Their silence seals my fate. Their hearts are hard as stone,-- Troy is now become my foe. My sire, 'tis said, that hearth should 'emphira, An early death the honor gain. "Our fires, I ween, if in the spy Of these roofless gods would perish. I charge Apollo, if he get The secrets of my soul, to show This to my man, to cleave the bone, That horses and men may hear, And, learned to death, singly slay A lion or an ox of bronze; And when the moonlight shines to tell The futtle gainst flee or loss, if fate Be victor or defender, I, Of woods unknightly and unknightly crew, To witless hazard will go strive with fate, And will my ruinous journey try. "Or else will chafe his temples with my tongue With magic charms and hard points, Through the endless clang of metals, And jasper horrors, till he hear Such words as if said by woman, O king, The charms men use, to set at large Each other's words. "But if my cry is worst in all, Oh cruel king, the hard decrees Of death deign to take me--nay, ne'er Of death suffer me, but through your spite For your full gold pay a suit of gifts, And being wrapt in darkness, O king, Let not one day, or night or dawn, Thy honor own!" Such prayers he gave, and bright his gifts were, For the hateful man; then straight to death They bear. In locust-laden ships, Not very swift, as they make along The rocky road, with many a stone Covered save one; all all at once the force Of shrapnel from afar shatter Their thundering tower,--and as they turn And face the foe they feel their sorrowing, And for that day they must endure the storm Of war and be the swamp-fumes sick. And no avail the pierced deck above Swells resolute, and black out-flung Closer and nearer to the flames. And so Their shipmates could not bear the thought Of one smitten, whom the fates would bear To that poor lonely death against the odds Of shipwreck and the fire and hate. A chronicle of a river: Dorinda the movable land And her many children: some and all Destroyed by the flood of Grand-Dieu; Her corse is everborn: 'twas wot And easy for her having seen. Nor true nor false of this record lies. When our dear friend, the Sigmund, lay low In the close season, there came down A flotin' mass of leaves from trees To our church, thus saving the dead. We thought 'twas the springin' of a brook Or a nice fisher had fled for cover, And called it "Flit for us, Ford!" 'Twas a stupid thing and half absurd. There's a beauteous sort of bird in all the world I love the dust in, with its hoarded notes And the heavy anguish of its throat That so seldom has its passionate say. But what's a wild, to use a farmer's expression, A carrion flutist to talk of? My dainty little darlings, What do you think that feathers from a rat Proclaim, one minute after next day? You smile up at me with moist well-dishevelled faces In your mutual sympathy; And I smile back at you with love, With a curious valency. I do not trust the spring, this year so mild, Like all past years. What will come of it? I fear, through four feet of mud, up a stone And across a hedge to reach your arms, The damp, distempered garden of my mind. You think I can't love? You wish to deny Love is the mind in virtue's face, A transient thing, a chronic ill, A symptom of failure, a pang, a loss! Wishing is weak; for every kiss It withers to a feverish throb Or reckless revel in degenerate ======================================== SAMPLE 134 ======================================== for brown bits of plants in the pan along with roast chicken at the ready on a tray on this moonless night but what a strange juxtaposition: a globe in the dashes, a globe above the campfire. <|endoftext|> "Elegy", by Steve Gehrke [Living, Death, Sorrow & Grieving, Relationships, Family & Ancestors] Bob: My father has just died I'm reading about his family And it's a great big melting pot Of Germans, Irish, Chinese, and the like It's always these big multi-cultured families When they all come to a pile of unlived lives Bob: When Mum was alive she'd use scissors to scatter me and my brother and sister Like germ for country's political needs If Dad could only get our flats we'd land on That highway into the countryside to escape Bob: My mother used to whip her first born child up the land to a distant country My Mother made her a big camp The evening she gave us our life Bob: We took the duck into the barn The different bed The morning ones took the duck to the bridge the day after one of them sleeps Bob: But Mum on the bridge with her head in her hands Looks more lovely than ever An awe As she moves slowly and as far Bob: My first child was small and mute Yet a wooden horse stands in the bed It's real brawned and free of fear It's standing, shhbbq'd on the sharp turn Bob: What Dad couldn't say because of the baby Now can say without the guilt Now can smell the stench and taste the blood on his beard Bob: In the morning after he spanked me I was the slightest babe and the most helpless Bob: It was bloodied brass from his ear to his feet Bob: Standing the moment he took away my wife Bob: In his bed the moment she died we cuddled and slept Bob: My mother was a mouthful of death he says Bob: We used to swallow half his sentence in it Bob: And one day I'll be sticky concupis sweet The end of the century Bob: By dint of death they're still evil Bob: And Bob is too Bob am I? <|endoftext|> "Eclogue", by Robert Jones [The Body, Nature, Stars, Planets, Heavens, Winter, Social Commentaries, History & Politics, Mythology & Folklore, Ghosts & the Supernatural, Horror] Of the moon I have slept and awoken only once, dust the dank and desiccated cocoon of the moon that settles on dead night Bob: do not let the body be taken away and the moon left where it has always lain with hunger in its frozen peels Bob: just beneath the thin phosphorous needle where is the bitter sweet air where the flowers, whose frozen saliva has built up to the stomach and stopped Bob: gold of you my hands long and slender to ease the ache of you long and stiff and the little skin-worms gripping your flesh the small black grains of sand how much I have loved you long ago and in your brown sweater sock of death and the blood red self of your hair the howling white wolves of wind and my old song <|endoftext|> "Dreams", by M.L.Centener [Living, Disappointment & Failure, The Body, Activities, Jobs & Working, Travels & Journeys, Social Commentaries, War & Conflict] Tortillas Cooking with permanent spells cast from a projecting satellite. I am a level three spirits conjuring Rice from the warp of dreams a constellation. I am the Hermes who provides the equinox Rising fifteen degrees on a rotating globe. I carry not food but souls. Dried frog or fish is heavenly as brown beans dipped in curry. A fish which is caught in the sun as well as the maze of the sea. For I am of dense wood and snow. A woman in the high Angle world On the arm of a Giant is as soft as a maiden child. I see her dining on braised root and a solitary muff She lifts her head, a leaf tosses in the general air. <|endoftext|> "And the Conquering Bull", by M.L.Centener [Social Commentaries, War & Conflict] And so we gather Like the matachacha That conquers the heart, like the Rising Christ, by Allah's decree And in crucifying the old ======================================== SAMPLE 135 ======================================== : And herein is that most deadly fault in us, from whence all evil proceeds; our reason being so weak, any impulse perceived, can Eve's engage the birth of our blood and that of our wait to this sad turn. If the last appeal Eve's law thou must make, use it, in rejecting her; for Law is only given to free; or, to tell the truth, She gave thee that when thou to Lucifer screamed, And desireth vengeance, thou mightest use thee now, Yet while 'tis law, make it with more care; for, else, thou may'st see through th' appeerings of wrong. A good end runs through all ill and good; Yet must it be rescued from accident To good end: to loose the chain, means to bring that once more The blessed liberty; yet that returns which Hell, Faces' access, th' unholy one will visit, Much as th' impenitent addresses that Truth which we infer; To whom she adds the burden of her crime; Yet this looked in her part, for love, and as great ill. Or do all evils in God's name, and in thine own For most, for all; as if all in all were born of him. Yet such good she, by her foul act nearly, Did as a sacred thou; so do all evil first and last To that; nor add what besides they have on their side, Or what they claim; for, in that, none may add what's next y't according to God's favor; Which is the cause why all these son and daughter serve, Since they can beget sons and feast in litters. Upon thy part, against the block, If love you must, you must, or do you will; Yet let your precept say, To love ourselves, and lay down our sin. <|endoftext|> "The Bustle", by Anne Braden [Relationships, Family & Ancestors, Arts & Sciences, Architecture & Engineering, Humor & Satire, Social Commentaries, Crime & Punishment] My cottage, little cottage-lake, O lee laurie me stow hyde, Do ye tak'th my wooin shall I tak'th you, I'll gie ye a pickle-gall to model ye; When my wooing began ye waen I wad a cow, And another to me as good are ye now I wad na whea, For ay wid a face like Winston baron the grand man Gorst twisted een lat Reen we at it in garrets lom my grannie's where We at him baith we at him ay in garrets I wad na be so bold as take ye whea A worter wi' my face like Grandman Wale's But I shall be at yon barmaid's Who shuns comlin dogs, and yet will scream at a faggot bonfire. Then I shall be at the Reeve that shrieked when he saw the vix enegy in, As Reeve aff we'd had ye been ain As evil as fettle could na see was he. Then I shall be at the Daumas whea canna tell wheae I whea shall be at my yeat is ye, But that I shall I yie ye at the hoose I deserve as good or mair evil done to ye In the hearing of the foolish mob I shall be at the kneel I'll drink me raw for my crimes shall be my hand And be a nail in ye hands for this naething shite I deserve. Then at the Crown I'll be at the King the laddie the throp is he we at his shins and pray him now wad bene ter see it and cravit him to fak it soore art I to stan', an' ay in the happy land I shall be at the meeting to whea shall see It, and paie him and pray him to grace it I wi' a murmur that shall join wi' a cheers and a howds that luguet comes when he loup in the hoose I shalt be at the Holey Dwenty ye on the Ghouls that burn by day and night on the Paous they ne'er shakness they but make them worse when they rise agaist the baucht. And I at the Slammin of Warst Province ance hae been at the R*** in the R*** een a stunted Dicke o' Sorrow an' woe an' damnation, And in the Gallie o' Warst, where wal, as thee stan' in France, I laboured the formation at it ay for a degree or twa-three termes, And at the last it was ay a landmark in the aunty's baws That I shall be at the hoose I deserve ======================================== SAMPLE 136 ======================================== For wisdom, beauty, grace It seemed that so beautified his heart, That his heart quailed beneath the law, That his heart ached within to come-- And lo! the greenest woods Were burning in a fire of light, Each leaf a flowing stream, Each blossom a mirror run-- I looked and I fell a-weeping. The year (so old and olden is it) Burned from the root; all things grew: A thing of plumes and embossing shone, A thing that waved its plumes and glitter; A pageant the whole world through Of the rarest septonies; The roses bloomed With wonders of change and wealth of delight: The gold of the grass Was shaped and wrought with care and skill; At last I looked through my anguish And saw the goal I had attained; I knew the score, The last position of the race. There, the year far ahead in sunlight, Rolled the great flood of the ten-cent weed, And thence thro' the forests came, And far an-ere the ten-horse fences Gave the scymitar field to blazonry. The fence I wrote was sinister, The name was "Frankie's Mansion," And I had the records made, When a month and full a day I lived at the "Frank Corly House"-- I knew it by its name. 'Twas the past springtime when in "The Colony" Tall stocks were measuring now This year's crop, and seemed to make their saving. I saw the joyous mood when the merry song Has broken out to sing the little warblings Of the ducklings' wings against the daylight, And my lonely garden heard and saw The peeping sense of hope within the trees. It made me glad To think there was not always after; And in thought how that sense of joy was passed, I wisht that I had a second root To lie upon for trust, And in sooth, in this, my second wish, She had not wed And had my second love to gild and root As that first, last, sole, sole second root, That is to say, each second love and time. <|endoftext|> Let your smiling affections move with genial heat through Life's common fields, While her dim dreams with'orn all she hath still dreaming. Oh, long-sorrowing lovers, how did they yearning Look, how speak, how fail'd their acts to cheer her! Now 'gainst each other now repining, still watching, With repining sighs, her eyes yet wide awake. Nothing for it but a wanting of herself that she saw, Which only meant a O, for the bold words. And a yet, with' which the locust was standing, And that which was coming in the sunset. It was not Love that she tried to look for, But the love to match her looks to the truths. For Love is but the love of an artist to the eye, And let it be such to its highest striving: But with Truth, Love, or Truth a lass is shy; The point it' requires is her name. And so to the naught of hers The conquer'd chalice she drank, And found her soul in the fathomless cup By fancy fed; for so to its sweetness she Consummate it; but still the soul in it, The soul in beauties never contending, Went loving after her own soul; And they in the golden cup compete, As when we use to lose our brains, And stand like him that pine for our friends, To hang & climb for their sake. This is the mountain of Love's beauty, Where every chandelier hangs in a row; The dark & splendid lustre of incessant stars In crystalline heaven shining. This the banquet and inspiration, O lady of love's few times true! O lady in love's nothing dying; O lady of strange dreams & beauty, How close you fly to reach her face! The flower of flowers, whose wavering petals In purity, grace & innocence diffused; Yet forget thy mouth, for it is dewily Yet fresh as the near autumn leaf of May, Yet mild as the blue wave in ocean shore, But delicious of the virgin Lombard, Of the easy southern grange. But that thy lips have drunk the dream-wine Of fair immortals, well knowst thou art That scene's eternal tintwit ======================================== SAMPLE 137 ======================================== 'But, with blushing cheeks, And eyes of scorn, He stole from out the hall To seek his revels.' But yearn and hunger, which seemed to die in vain 'In the amorous bosoms of some well-dressed women, Were wont to have some share in the nature of man: And, of all the carnal industry that's praised on that coast, I never had before such appetite or strength To set the world on fire, as on the naked ladies And eke the saints among. But when I shared in the appetite Of every hawking-cock that roamed about this shore, And with sharp horns would make hold, and answer him by growling He would not take the pigmy's prong, but he would take My whole hand and crunch down my gizzard on the like purpose, And with great and fine inclinations press me To the bowblade, nor yet be satisfied with hot kisses, If the hog, who closely knit to me, did not also press me To death." As the sheep are hastening homewards, leaving the butcher, While with shouts they greet him, "Eat," to whom he's saying, "Serves him right;"--so hastes he forth, as if he'll run after her On her way, though oft he does not know where she's going, Nor of his beak the food he'll bring, nor of her coming; So from that day each one, who was now straying Through the wood, when he was first returned, set out to find And rush on Guelily; thus it was that you But that you who had followed us thus far didn't see That which you said yourself, that we have a proper place Of habitation," he said, "your having missed there's little good, And we have all what we would find there if we went. Take this brooch of ribbon, forsooth, which now (you'll cry) No longer has this purpose, than just to serve its way As you find it, and not as you think, back to the heart, To Jo's, Jo's earth, or what's its proper home." "Oh the dreadful truth, the dreadful truth, how hast thou erred! Not to thine own great memory, and the place, thy own home, Where none but thy race can ever make it thine any more." While he spoke, she spurred her mule, and fled as fast as she Could without the knowledge of other people. Their hearts, in a horse, were not so light, in a rainbow That moorless sky. And then when he saw she had stopped At the pearl-walk, he had hardly time to cry, "Oh no, We've lost our way," before a rock was thrown By the rock-thief at his hand. O'Brien then cried, "When fortune sneaks, so take her!" but the bell had caught The sound of his voice; and the instant was but an hour. They reached a garden that seemed all at random, And fenced with a garden-gate that was iron-strapped. There, while she flirted and giggled with each sure, Disappeared not by a moment, as though death whispered, Which had caught up before she reached the garden gate, "It's only to deceive me, I never deceived you," Then clung more closely to him; a virgin-lady Stole past him: for the rest it was like play to him, The part he had left her, playing that fine art Of waving and cooing at any noise that buzzed Behind closed doors. O'Brien had got somewhat used To that fancy but little of fancies. It seemed The time to play on hope was o'er and now, all through The play of her ornament, he seemed quite worn to death, As though scarce having shown his last bright smile. And then she reached a tower, before whose top The forest for seed had raised its leafy town. "Hold on," he said, "To-night we'll make this parson smile To hear you sung at." And the Angel at the top Triangled: "I'll see you in heaven." "Then presently Cozied they were and went and came, and following one Another, the three-days' showreel they set to. While he gave vent to the 'prentice, they wandered From chimney to chimney all the livelong day, And ever on his lips their letters flew, And his quick eye he constantly looked upon; That is, until he found he ======================================== SAMPLE 138 ======================================== philippe David a used book of matches in black graffle cinnamon Sipping mint-tea. David knows. Well, so do you and the first time you heard it one was an old man named Habib. You said now do you see how this whole broadcloth is the same thing on different legs This is because here this silly babble about measurements the thin turn in patterns amidst castillian porn on the same weekend "messy rag thoughtlets on balconies" amidst desert rocks a spectral skeuomorphic determination <|endoftext|> "Morning Scene", by Yusef Lincoln [Activities, Eating & Drinking, Arts & Sciences] 1 1. David violated his vinaiga: taciturn, insourepresentational deficit-shaming hobbledeburned googling the Breakfast Trope of a forgotten breakfast banishment of all things edible runny bile I don't mean too much. I mean nothing 2 So I started looking for him. I noticed a small flicker of colored grissome fare in the (or might have) Grill sidewalk. It was then I saw him— flit tandem as a scatter of cut-n-paste bread and biscuit, a stamp of breakfast—and I was damn sure it was 2. I decided to look right around. And the God of the Extramariating Fun went on as if guiding a chariot 3. Then when (that sort of green) passes the passing of eggs, in the inter- val of breakfast 4. It was a round of laughter of the breaded and buttered bread, of the accipiter. It was a surprise, because the bread and its kind were there. (If) we are happy and oh the world is good, is good 5. An Overachiever being a round of applause for circumference, as with any thing but it was flattened by and it seemed equal and equal 6. Now I sit with my delirious hands hanging and my scratch of a country of dreams just waiting for the hallelujah powdered hillbillies chocolatures like the yolk-sand white razzamook natural porcupine 7. I never mean to be the old man. I am only stammering around and saying you await, but I mean to be the old man. You know that goes with this to the carpet of the beet I oldman you love 8. The davenport had been pilted by the woodpecker where he stood uncovered the hook of his left arm out sending a hollow spark as in agony a man may stand exposed for hours beyond which he would mournful 9. It was a dead apple brown green it sat the summer leafing for the absence of foliage which itself is a kind of green. I was on the inside because I was not 10. The bellbird of the air, what happens if you fall through into the language of when you don't hear anything if there is no bell 11. Because the feel of breath ======================================== SAMPLE 139 ======================================== Timber, with a steady stroke, And a split-rail, with a jerk, And a scratch, with a shudder, All her truss was overturned, And the blanket was turned to mush, As she laughed with delight To hear the butcher's skill. One after one, as their ship went faster, She seemed in a feverish state To rock and rap the boom, While some fell off with a frightened "Ok!" And fell, and were... ahh, out of sight! Some thought they heard footsteps at nightfall When all their ears would prick with the din; And then some strange body stumbled on, With such dreadful import! Sometimes a round ball of fury, In a goal it would appear, A-fighting with an unseen Extremity of law, Will, vengeance, far as the living Human would suffice For any foul-dealing but to hurl An errant sphere into a blaze! Now, I give you all the best idea, As to how it went down, How a shield was exchanged for another, How a round ball of blood Shook every Fate from its place, And how the scullion went down, And down he must, with the best plan That we yet see. Go to the kitchen, then! The lion Surprise you with his poma-stone; Tread carefully over the lion's paws As the devil down to hell goes down! Go to the corner-bench, then, and see Yourselves, how dirty and bloody; Gape with a bitterness that has ne'er been known, As I think the patriot must, to hale The citizens of the nation, and fire His own friends, but, to save them, have used Have you, forsooth, as much satisfaction From the lion's tear or the lion's gape? Oh, the people's griefs! Their rage and anguish! These all will be smothering me, and I'm sorry I have extinguished Leviathan! At my side, a clean and native-born Waste of his race, a radiant surprise, A shrine of innocence, his true bride, With not one bitter word to hurt me! The "vein on his neck," the yard in his ear, The "party on his back" and the way, The way of the world he knew, and the chain Do you feel at heart for me? no? Therewith as I watched the children With mine, do you suppose? to accustom To see any one of my kind Called "father" by any one of them? Perhaps, but I don't know! I feel no pity, Not any, not any, for Jacob. If you can't be there (God help us) Just be happy for us, my jaunt, While you're there, whatever you be! If the work be too great, Just go with pleasure, the world be free As be the beaker which the poet quaff, And my reason so and so, So so and so, (Oh, it's better--so very very good!) Which leads me, so so, (So very good!) And the wine, and so long and dear, So very very good! If you don't drink, go stand in the sun! And, if you can't be there, Be there, so you won't be cold, hot, or tired! So just be, see what I meant (I'm sure it was not quite black-and-white!) And "dry," and "dry!" This is the sort of thinking I had for a month, And if you say, how is it that there's nothing now but the still, the pure and the unimpassioned song that you used to have in your head all the time, I'll tell you that all this has been humbling and killing you. It's going to get worse if you can't be there for the crowds and the cheers, And you've got to say something in your restlessness; but why be there, if all you can do is stand there and rot? Why be there, if you can be there, when they stand, how silly, where they kvetch as they wait, Who never learn'd anything, never learned, where the gate is none! They who learn'd the luck you have said, never learn'd, but rest will? No, you shan't tell me why; and what's more, I doubt if I am to believe you. But even if I do not know why ======================================== SAMPLE 140 ======================================== In centuries gone before our name he died, Our credit shall be well-grounded withal, His died not in this his mortal walk. The king is wooing: why should not then our Rose Pierce the Queen's eyes where they rise by halves? Why has she leave to slumber as she will, And why the last and most odious deed The wrong for our sake in some rumour besets? Wilt thou not hear his Mother's anodyne And laugh at all her pains and charms? He sees her when she gazes on the South; She whom he would prove the old Cicereus, But rose and fell her love in flocks And haws and last rays on Palm-fringed lakes. Her flush sickens him; he has wandered There thither many a day, she sees and sows There grass to faunos and fane-soul to frame In each and every loveth away. Now as a long wet dream Hath suddenly left her eyes and gone; There sappeth she to all the woods and vales A sound as of floods and rivulets; There next he wendeth where a moon-beam trembles In this-half smitten dell between. And riven circles gleam with crests of will, That mock the songless boughs, that flaunt Above her windblown leafage; And on the mountain and on the plain She sees and hears, and thought of him With strength enkindled; folly, and pride, Are twined and mingled thro' her mood. For here the magpie trusting Of her and of her race and ply With graceful plumes her page adorn, And more her page than teach her she feigns In so strange guise; that could she read, Or heeded, fretful were, and fond. I had been scarce escaped When hot of heart, but trifler light, She snatched my truth to see and she laughed From oh to woe in every look. There was she chang'd from me In half a week, a shadowy shape With dawned night at spirit-low. One May morning when the day was bright, Ravish'd with sound of song and bloom, And filled with wind from directions many, I came and saw,--and strange was mine To see the body with such wreaths gray, I would not breathe, nor turn my eyes, Nor gaze,--goaded in my place, at ease, Thro' all the air of the room--and lo! what was this, That hid my body, from mine unseemly force, But rove the cloudy hair with golden tresses? Lo! by her side I saw, all calm, float Another form, more lovely far Than that the sudden new-come maid. She to this was mate, but different In many things from this whom I knew, And on her bosom much I looked, and this In deference looked, and look I must, for she, Laugh'd in my face, though dry the tears Fall on it ever. With hand to hand, And foot, and shoulder, and hand, We pass'd many inches o'er A field all grassed, and silver-green, We stopped--I looked--and lo! Three splendid serpents, in pride, Now changed, and with a stride, I mark'd them as they swept in their climb; And on each other bow'd, and sank. The sun smote them with his spangled rod, They changed their planetary motions, And thrice each other took, and thrice they drew, And from the flowery land of flowers, And from the cuckoo bird's wild yean, And from the stars that herseething sing, And from the nightfall of the heavens far, They have enchant'd me, and I lie in state, And lo! the laurel, with the laurel-bough, I see grow warm, and overhang my tomb. I write the cestus from on high, And half a chi liga manes de arbol, --Ha, to write from hence, e'en from the sky, And form of thought, and letters in such state-- De passioni gius, mas estilla vexa! Do what you please with my verses, And watch the flowers unfold, or the pine. Yet deem that thou canst change, or make the same, Nor thy beauty never ======================================== SAMPLE 141 ======================================== Then in his inner spirit the devil vanished. "No soul that joy hath won on earth Can ever know how much I loved it And still its light abiding makes me! Oh! shining book, the star o' th' world, Thine's the sole praise that ever I write: And I could all my life before thee give, And still some part would praise. So, go! "The world is all too dark; even poets Partake a peculiarity And leave their fellow men at this. Who needs must read who must not write Soars in the whirl of passion, Has scarce the stomach for the soul. Who needs to write but has not the nerve, Has not the courage for the task, Or may he match me in the race. "May each seek the great and dare to do But has the man enough to say to me: Think you of might as of the mattering Which only hands and eyes can measure. He's good who makes of steel a glass "Dare I dare say that I, that I, Even I, can bring him to the sight of me, Prevent him looking on me as an oar. Now, as this be all I can, I say to you, You tell me that it is naught but a dream; And, in as much as it is, I own it to be so. "Shall this be bound in any land as whole? And then on this with South and North, Shall stay the daring and the pride Of the Frenchmen and the British say? Shall 'deep' Pip be made the consul there? "Shall know of how my hair is now braided, Shall judge of how well I am nourished. Or of how long I shiver, tremble, lie When I meet her side of Hogwarts? Shall fall of earth and earth renewed be where it is, And a flood pour afterwards? A love is nursed in vain, a passion bred. "Shall be the mad Roman's last resource, When the foe first gained the stretch of yonder? If think I cast a censer, the thunder And the f. g. will be forever on him. Wherefore be with me? No time is for fear. So since the devil's two-edged sword is shining, He must be divided, he who of men has not." "How like the pistoia when she flies!" (And a nearer view might just have made her dear to us.) "'Mongst women, such! How brave, how loyal, how true, How she became Ching Shuyin!" Thus, thus the French took up the word again, "'Mongst women, be the sorrows and the worries; For the Law and the Old Law still do err, And shall so long, for never do but err. Why have I not ten years more, then, a bit of flesh? O France, for honour, reason, good works, glory, Give me of the Law, to breathe and move, thy life, When thou so wrench'd thine own begeth a man." "Woe worth my thinking, what I thought a year ago, When, going up the Assanad, now their steps linking, You heard me out, without the least prompting, Till both your gambolls were weary and pretty well knew me. At Assan and at Baghdad now you chose your way; I scarcely saw your face, and could not say where you grazing Like to the hillside--you seemed near to Numban. "Behold, O glorious Moonlight, who led us on ere We reached the Calic day: whom and wherefore? From what lord o'er Nandeef, no dame unknown, Branz Andauck, and whose holiness I speak? In my ear I heard, it could have been my eye could see, A self-bondal charmed me on Gabriel's storm; That I, who do unquiet mind comprehend, Might strange fixt utterings quick and subtle light, And all that hope, surrender and consolation." Breathless, thaw out in icy outcries, we pass'd our bourn With 'axy blood, where the Ain, sunning one shine, Arrests us, and we must aft to Dover; "Why dye we little ships at sea? to what intent, Booty to leeward now? 'Her Dragon's' sails Shenp' and 'er rails, and gets the dodgy land! ======================================== SAMPLE 142 ======================================== To see our partners, The brotherly snow-balls Arising like the grapes of wine; To watch a frail existence, Wresting forth with her heels That was not steady on a root, Though the gorse had dried on every rose That lived on earth, Let it not be said, But the door was open,--a peep Of green leaves Gleamed out at dusk in front of it. Yester morrow, As if a watchman's wonder Arrived and that green leaf Were an inner sander, Then sorrow and not sorrow then Might lift the breast of a man. After a hundred years or so, There came to London That old man who had a place Where the remnants of the clergy After the reaping Of the Churches of Christ, Were silent--at least so they left it. "The Evangelists of the early age, Here labor to entice the faithful sheep From the hands of the butcher Christ. Christ is indeed their historic Helen, But to say 'The work is mine,' And in that mental self-commositlin To declare the Psalmist poet's widow A 'special gift' in 'Olgillock's sense' Is to invite the candid reply, 'That work is not done,' the headbrows say, And 'It cannot be my business,' The dons, the 'rectors, the exorcists, The doctors of the Old Master, The merry men, the merchants who deal in Beer and ale, And every one Of the cacochists and hustlers of the city. And it is wrong to reproach the Church For what their record is of good; But the Devil and all his cohorts With their bosoms full of trespass Are to be found of the Church as much as other things. There is thy Gospel in record of vices, The devil's own language in the Apostles' Paraphrases of the Prophets' life. So thou shouldst not be surprised at it, Shouldst not retitle of all thy brethren To life or death and the Dragon's fangs 'Twould be betraying in their ranks, And among these friends of the High Priest's, Here, old man, 'tis like thyself 'twixt whom and thee There may come to a church, a cry, a cry That Christ's True Catholicna weight in Thy breast; While that Thy sacred Tales divine of old Might return in Thy son the Faith of the Rose, Now the cankered hucksters for intoxicate From the gospel, now the homily-ministers And Catholic place-wspers whose stamp is the swine. Little Sunday School, R.C.L.A., O Mr. Savoy, H.S.A.R., O dear Mr. Savoy, How many willing "little saints" there are In this capital individual Of sin-blinded Philip Ruddock, all hearts athirst For the sweet rain and the sun, who shall draw Thy sacrament at the daily sacrifice Which all the salled saints of this great hall Condemn to pour out at this summer's end? Wherefore this many-dealing Sempiternal Roves so far, and with such a blessing-loving train, By whose inspiration we wield the keys Of this or any world or atom-world Where our own soul-snapshots to such things Our mortals have so long beheld! O ye who sit so proud in perilous doubt Of your Saviour's faithfulness, When your broken Angels are lost in hell, Of whom, O Daggers, ye seem to think He knew no sorrow but for a Wood-Slane scroll; O heads so proud, so vacant of your tongue, O moons so far, O dewy myrtles That sound no Christian call, you wicked men, It may be you know nothing of the wood Wherethrough He borne, with perfect resign Of blessings light, remitted to our hearts, O honoured title, O title-dow O humble reversion, O Life's long valley O lot so great, so many happy days O son of Laërtes, we bless thee, lead thee O King, be happy, leading all, not so much As your soft flocks whom thou wouldst not sever, O Mr. Churchman, O rich Lord, but ask no more Of us but tears, for that we weep thy brow, While our sweet love o'erflows to exceed your wealth. See the clouds give way to the setting sun; See the whistle ======================================== SAMPLE 143 ======================================== Till she was ready for the funeral; And shortly before the solemn Share of flesh upon the pyre She was flung forth upon the rack, And she became a coal. Old Kuo, for helping me in the matter, Was beaten by Igo and Jinxi, For not turning over more wood; Which made his beard take the front of the cask And made him turn small round head and chin. And there was a great fuss made about His ears; and old Kuo was frightened, And turned to them and smiled, and said he drew Long green stick in which he sticks things in forest. They laughed and said they never saw it. The morning after they put him to bed, And great world awoke to look upon Igo, but Jinxi whispered to the wind, As she sailed on the river before them: "A white rabbit took Igo's place And has taken Iko's arms in arms." There were who blamed the silly old man; Some called him Athene and Chryses, And others called him Phaked inside their rings. Some said he'd find a body at noon, That was so fat, it gave the belly a knell; Others that at nightfall it was Shen. And there were those who wrote him down a spook, Who being thus lamented always, died. For there were those who said Igo would do As others did, and Jinxi too, as they. There were who said Igo was so forgotful, He would forget what others bestowed. Then too there were who were certain he was kind. And there were those who came and went by other, As being similar, both in faith and gear. Of these as many kept their office Or were their places taken by others, And they also came and went as others. Some were good people, some evil folks were they. But when at evening, at the second hour, Which is the peak time for being dead, You see Igo standing alone in the middle, Then you begin to see the evil, too. For the agonies now round him grow. At this time you are in mourning style. You cut your hair and let it go to your belt And run in barefooted in the dust of the road. For this is what we mean when we say We're in the track of sin. And the lament for this Igo will tell you And Jinxi, to whom you'll ask Will tell you what we mean when we say We're in with one who is no good. So this at the time is sometimes moaning, And that is often saying sorry. And there is the Igo who would Let one out in the hope of keeping it. You see how this may be; The very next day you'll see it not. And Jinxi, too, and Igo who saw Or thought he saw, at the time being set, Two bears argue or wander in the stinging net. For what is said below And what is not said, repeat. And here's the case, though once you knew The third may like you very well. You will need no other man to tell you Of your sin; this Jinxi'll tell. But read it--read it, and then--you. You need a horse to lead you, a dragon, And a tiger to match the little man, But Jinxi is not here to help you much. For a thousand will do just as well. They are leading, laughing all the way, In what they will never do, for giving you Something for the going; Jinxi who, By his own plan, will by all things tell. And so with courage that no reader may despise, You'll read on and never have cause to doubt. You'll read him and leave it, leaving not fear. And how is this? What I've sung is done. We'll then depart, and the God who's in you Shall still, and he who now may change you Will follow, learning to use you For the better and for the worse. I went a-Rimbaud, He went a-ramping, He went a-murdering At a most morose Rimbaud. The moon was sinking, Her torch was out. I heard him call On a peat glade. There he stood A fire was winding. He drew up, and read. So, that's done. So I have read you-- That's done. Now that's been said, We turn, as of old begun ======================================== SAMPLE 144 ======================================== basing as on tears: and the last line I read, on my lap, no words at all, was ''ewe is the last Friend. This is the pulse of the world it is here to bring the arts to heighten the earth. <|endoftext|> "Small God", by David Baker [Activities, Travels & Journeys, Nature, Religion] Some places even God would give his grace for reverence, and I've seen the world—all my life— with its familiar lack of grace. In some places he looks down in pleasure (perhaps he's ever so small) and can't be seen: the beautiful, portable art that propels through the world its stray tokens. But in Japan they honor it (they were behind me, I think they knew it was primitive) and go all around in leather-molded jackets towards the wheatfields and the shrine. And everywhere I've seen the energy constellated by these nomad things, stepping through the ring of movement, the way it comes to be an exterior to replace the static of the old reverence in the face. For it's strange not to come to a thing in awe (that light will be there for you when you get to heaven) and to be another thing stepping through the world with its small wonder—it doesn't seem to have a will. <|endoftext|> "Three Reflections on Guided by the Mask", by Soron Komdom [Religion, Social Commentaries] I In a village near Jesup, some two hundred miles east of Piava, rubble opened shaitans stood guard at a crossroads. Two tourists, lying in the Tigerben forest, appeared on them. After a while they took their shoes off and then walked back. The villagers saw nothing amiss, and could hear the searchers asking for the right tide. A small Japanese figure, it was inhabitable, and only there to allow them to enjoy the place it occupies, or to leave for the datamount. Inside the Tengen history, he was alive and meeting all around him. It had, at first, nothing to say. With widening eyes, as if from the first shock in another country, to walk and lie down a little open, its branches took in air two or three, with limbs spread wide in the jujitsu of their foliage, were three stone figures, alive at the three gates, of the wordless forest. An organ puts out more music and still more smiles into the air than from any pressurised, properly sealed, circulated, escaping one's lungs. Their lips move, part of them move as if three tongues controlling air in their surprises. II If, days before, in some no longer piano-ghetto you encountered a forester, the first thing you would encounter is his bootle-sized palm lifted fair and wide above a shoulder tufted with black turban. And if, upon turning back, you ask him, "Where's all the animals gone?" he would reply "In a way, they've gone. You see, all of them went. In the musical light of sound that built the works of man they've found the musical way, they've found, where they've gone. So they say, in this sense, all of them are gone. But just because their story is on paper, they may be found in the most elementary corner of an afternoon in a country as great as or greater than your own, doesn't mean they will be there with their particular cast of ideals, or on the same floor of the same hotel, or having the same voluntary affiliation or affections, or of acquaintance. We hear of gladiators, races for the most part, taken alive— we are told. And just as the trees of Gregory Bateson are drawn up in July, the black silhouettes of hundreds of crows hover as if they would electrocute themselves to the corollaries of sun and blue sky so in our hotel, all our effects came frozen for the purpose of shopping. I did not come to Jesup in a mood of purple, torn to pieces, the public health of Arizona. In fact, I came to cut down ======================================== SAMPLE 145 ======================================== Saturday, October. It was going to be a long day. I remember walking back from the lake. A man offered me a small piece of yellow artwork. "Your mother," he said, "Can do anything Your father couldn't When I was his age." That afternoon I joined a women's chorale. My notes were the same as last, "In Jesus' Name, Never give up!" Now you can make a man Say what he didn't once tell me. In a lozenge, in a round, In a square, Make him Quit what He loves best. A fellow comes down the street, a major comes down the street. O, the major takes it good and hard! For they make a law in his mind what a fellow should do. He might as well break a rule, and not think of it often! They keep him talking, they make him say what he never will get right. When he is done He walks away down the street, a foolish fellow. You won't find that he ever whistled a tune, or go a mile. They'll pick his nose for all his pleas. He'll never be any fun; You can see this any way. When his nose is numbħalousHħaping it less than a cay. It should grow in length, and cure its mistakes. It should spend its fuel, and come to an end; When a chap has done his share, and there's no more use for it Three hundred years ago this chap came down the street. He went on a legal errand through three hundred years. As he went down the street he bumped and pounded his way, In his bones he was running so he'd have to run his course. He made it to where the windy trains go at night; He passed the windmill, and the blacksmith's hut, and then A mountain lodge, and an old omnibus, and then He just before the end came, the table and chair; He'd got his dues, good and reasonable, so he Said, "Well, I must go, I ought to get some savings." Well, He hasn't got over the town yet! And he, of course, as all the others said, We all went with the other bit, So we stayed at home. But when he saw he'd caught them by that score, He started to windle. He began For all the rest there is nothing to see. So much for Charles, dear fellow, Who reads the poetry and love books. And listen, how loud his laughter when he knows! A pinch of ashes for the mottiest tomahawk, A slice of lily for the tomtit tiger, I'm deep for mowing; It's very deep at Dighton Pool To put a twist on the seegers, I'm high, There's a sign! I'm very proud To give it a whack--no, a fool proof, first go-- The devil makes two-coat, The clergy I've been rowing are a bear in a lancet; I shan't repeat it, though I've heard it said, The devil makes two-coat, When I told Billy of the old storax tale, He couldn't understand, as I told it again, But said it wasn't so long ago, I had proved That I hadn't the strength. And thought all of a place we'd go to To see a moose, an elder. So we talkat There sometimes. He especially loved old St. Farith, Of old St. Bonthor, I think, but he was just like The other two, as I found out while telling this story. Two little old-sided priests together, with a shovel for a cowl, And a 'Too Informed.' A 'Hotter' and a 'Nil' for a house. I can't work, the hay's stolen! I say, as I turn to the side, If I go to the Minster, will the hay come help the birds? O Lord, the barns are all jammed and jammed! As high as a high-tassie table! And the sweeps all over the sward! But the birds will not come to the hay, because they cannot get at it, And the ground all is clogged with clover, Because the wind's rooted and dry, and the sun's in a sweeper, But in the coop ======================================== SAMPLE 146 ======================================== And deeply glancing up, and the beams Of beauty every edge down the broad fields stretched Full in his verge. When Adam's kind Father lifted up his hand and looked at him In wonder, what profit to him could this be? Why should the key of darkness lie hid And yet unlock this world that has its sun So near to day? He believed his hand had some power, And he understood how a change might come. He knew the change, but hoped no change should be. He said, 'May God help him To turn again and reach his Father's place.' And 'The Lord help him'--the Lord was beside him. The darkness shook. And Adam called and called, 'O my Father! Call away the shades! Call away!' And the sweet Poet said no more; but seemed Wondering at the burden which that loving heart, No part of evil--for it had been divine-- Had placed there. He hung back in the half-darkness, seemed to wonder more Than ever sad, for the only tale he knew Was one that made of the same meaning. He saw the sacred two that take Their place between the fault and the good, And the pure that keep their place, high and low, And the ruined that stoop to dread the shame In wicked minds. He touched but the lily and the cypress, The three-cornered glass, And the pale bronze inlaid with precious stones; For all was royal to him who knew, as though The hand of God had drawn All things for him from all things on his desire. From the cavernous heart of dust he drew the stone That lightened a glory in the old world's sleep, The '61 long-eared bird, and the triangular mirror On the turquoise-pin. 'What things are these I see I yet cannot comprehend!' he said. But those who persecute with empty dreams, And the heart that toys with dreams, perceive That bitter evil, low-breathed, base, And puerile things could never be, Made of like condition with these. He understood the curious dreams Of the children he had loved, And the hideous things that come From the demon sterility. And he clung to the sharp-edged thorns, dreaming, Trembling before his face in cold disdain, That the thorns were of steel; he could stand A child's heart's rapture in hot hate's arms flung After an untamed crowd. But the black Leaf was heavy on his sense, And he could not climb to the stars His eyes had seen. And Death held the room as of old. So now, at last, It was death, but not of death His vision of the sky Paled and vanished with the light. The much-wronged soul found no rest. It was as though some smoke Broke in two, and the texture of The air's breast was the whole, Not one softness. And he was as one dead, Clutching a voiceless Thing. He found his body's sin, Where the ripeness makes desire, Abed, but still it ached. It ached for a sweet Like the croaking of bees about A bitter flower. And a green and a pale red leaf Mantled the plume Of his wing, Where it hung out from his body, Shining With dawn's first drizzling tears. Then a strain of a long praise, At the sweet cry of a bird, Then a chill, and then a sweeter, Sweeter, and then its ripe fruit Like ails or quivered pains, Withered and changed in darkness, And before the evening, With the chill and the rafter and the flow Of a wailing wind, In the glory of fading light, He was made as one dead Unto whose room the thorns had drawn And the most Holy thing That mortal earth hath Is the fate of him Who sings not and shares not The common joys of air. Far off, A slender shape And some song upon her lips, And some blue dark days left, For her, and a confession She shall not keep. O Sappho, thou shalt be mine. Mine, and with me, Sappho, With her, all mine. That is the signature Of my love unto thee, In the land that thou art, In the loom of the sea. Some poor creature then ======================================== SAMPLE 147 ======================================== Older members might congratulate He who acted for all to lead, One by the other committing woe On a long-haired, long-limbed foe. He never should have suffered more Those that were his peers to cheer, And, smiting a deeper wound, Murmured o'er his long-trailed wars:-- "Victory, victory glory; from the hand That such a vile and traitorous race Pierced by thy captain fell!" Then raged he forth, and, ere we knew it, Had found us "crook hands," as he termed 'em. We said we feared to meet his hated face, But while the war continued, found 'em strong. What with the hope of increase of booty, And his hope of capture or of ransack, He urged the old scheme once again, And lingered up the fighting again, All shameless as of old. He took the fancy of "Brown," as hath been said, And long in thinking him a true old friend Proved him to be. We saw no kindness, Nor feel that he did so much as try. We met him coming down from the hills In very short weather, so straight he knew That he was sent for to command My verses have not got the grace That he got in return: I will confess That I wish my Maine the match Of that great man, and eke my Pennsylvania. His conduct on the River and the Lines Was not a match. When the Maine brought in Vickey all at once, he would not concede That a man could brook a bet: "Maine" cried, "We'll test it first. Well, stay in your place." And there was donned his battle-banners, And round the town a drum he beat, He cheering said, "D's, and D's!" when all was said. But I'll tell you just there was no end to their squabbling, And Maine claimed his first for his arms, And Pennsylvania declared he was a liar, And brought the court to judgement, that the matter should be Judged by judges, who, not only their own bards, Should make the laws of poetry. Lar will swear in presence of man: No man ever did so before As he did on New-Kirk-Vell's day; I do not think that there is in nature Any work that he did after. He scaped the first scalding fate that is faced By all who work for bread. He built his bark without sail or chart, He sailed beyond the forecastle, And when he found he was going West, He cursed his lucky hands and eyes. He swam the great fathoms at his age, He breathed the great air of earth, And turned his ebbing days to years. It would not do to track him here. Lar was like the Balaam and Jonah, And the patriarch Joseph when he got down He had a favorite: It would not do at all, as you might guess, To tell the world your case. He never was some sort of prophet And pick and choose the best to lay his cards on, And cry "over all the land and sea" "We are selling time." His was the merchant class, and the pet Of the moneyed men, and--he had a fine Amicus, the City lawyer. He did not lend a hand, but he lent Evidence and waited for a royalty To come, with all its annuities. He lived without all the vices of the class, With all the hang-ups of self- WMD'd men, With all the virtues of his time, The pride of Italy, if fame be due, The pleasure of Great Britain. I tell you, it's odd; Lar could live with Lar, And sell all time as if by a stick; But he was the same--a stick--in fact. For veneer'd bodies, and veneer'd men, There never is a chance. And when the class was over, the office, There would be Lar, a company man, too, A faithful guard upon the door. All would whisper with one accord That Lar would do the same again. And it is strictly speaking true;--'t is known That on the night of Lar's disappearance Another, was next ready at the door. With many hands to Ob! One should have time enough, And much less blame, To make a revolution, And take no rest ======================================== SAMPLE 148 ======================================== Councils, trials, loups, In common with Witches: All the servants of one Queen, All the art's perfection, Bring to me their gifts. But I fear nought for thee. Thou art no queen of men. No mind of flesh. Thou whose brow is ever sad, Never glad, never glad. Alas! this heart's contradiction. You mock, with fair deceit, my thoughts; You tell me that my heart's created, Not my sense, but my sense. Truth with lies one That 'tis the mind, the dull brain's deceits, Which learn'd not what it needsook, but takes the Word, which reckon'd sense cannot speed. Wise that heart, that cunning brain, The tongue of flesh, that tongue all one, and A wild one, which fetters human nature, 'Tis now my humble role to play. Your cruelty, which wishes what cannot bind, Which grant nothing that can help, render You happier--less unhappy. Be noble, dear Sir! above this mind, In the will you will find a means; And when you'll look back, think the thought worth Praise you, for I have praised you. And would you hear an honest song, List'ning which prov'd your kindness. 'Twas there that greatness was begot: The lie which you concei'd divine Sounded for our sages Was that the beast and the throne were forlorn, And from long sloth and sland was instill'd Of beginning and end of thee. Whiles God kill'd his angels with zeal, To let them make them in our image. Thou wert a dove which to th' impassion'd mind Though thrice blind, the kind heaven-hand maintains: From that great mediation thou 'r talk'st now, And the great Lord of tongues, seeing, makes it so. Lo, I have fix'd the voyce to thy soul, Which never yet did leave thine own. List now to my love: And you shall discern the faults of a love That can but too forcibly pursue Aflame devouring orgies, after Which the sinner belongs to the cache. But you with no less passion than the flame Which to some was grac'd, who ne'er forgets The day he errs, ere his bad turn he takes; Nor yet remurth when he errs to love With that most halachic zeal Which either to make him not well Or well still and wiser, perch in the shade. But to love's fire, which is of God's grace, Thou well in this your tender nectar brew'st: The honey be such as you pleased Lord, Whose hand did in love's business beate; And then unerring to love's figure make Th' unerring dart; then sweet perfume the arrow, Which straight hits its mark, or oft flight fails: Now as the lion to capture the apple turned; Or as the weather during sneezes warm, Or when the harp threw the song of her lyre. With thee my truth I will no longer erre: To others I speak it, and take thy part; Others I fear to hear it, and take no pains To try the speaking through, or if they hear I work no better with their eyes than skies. Let them hear what I am, not what I would be. But if what I must say touch you, let it touch Something near to you; not something more in you Than the balance which the world's life balances be. For such, as you, are they which will not take The gage of their loss from the world again; They will be bringers out, and take again The gage of their gains from the world again. For where abides the profit of the world? To be suck'd up the beams of the sun; To be suck'd up the beams in which it shines To the centre of the sun, and there to stay; To be suck'd up the pulses of the air As often as their sprightly souls attend The travelling pulses of their bodies here. The city's danger is in the carriages, When seated it sees it, 'tis in pieces, too. But oft stood so the large-wheeled chariot To view what had pass'd, In those ancient houses how poor the art Which they had practis'd, had much maim'd them there. For what waste there is, 'tis even more where drops fall. Time ======================================== SAMPLE 149 ======================================== // // \\ Or they set sail for Arzerain, or bade their attendants dance without clothes; when the little goat to France off joined, and therewith other slaves to hold up the full face of shepherds, and pose the middle of all the weather-trees. The further-settled towns still were to pursue their frank chinards; the fairer gays, and many whose metelong nose got furs for harlots, then whose country-house had mothered most innumerable recitals and more were branded with slaves; then the queens, who had dirt on either side, and kept their lovers near Rome's hills stand in aadi trees, when the sun bears a long face, and burns a mean life out of her castle, until she turn, for I suppose that some damsel, But to Italy the hills lift all the way from sea to snow, above a haven of shadows, as water in a broken-back holly quill, and her long walls breathe drollsong, as in a tall fountain gushed white and known red drops, and each a little woman.) And when she set down her lordship, a little girl cried in the sun While every tree were in pain, and as she ceased her laugh grew cold over the whole forest. The wild fennel spat its rock, and the ouzel shrank from the bramble's thorn. With her burden she goes by meadows soft with flowers; with woodland currant-wet daffodils; with scented tall John in the foot-path flowers; with bowed lotus-blooming hedges and the woman's suspended, fleeting witherings; while the very sweep of the fairway brings her to park and fairness. What is more fair than this having slaved thy ways through day and night, from the high-built rising to the dim-mournful low of dusk? And then, methinks, pouring a little rue Thou didst, from mewardness out thro' the persisting dusk. But only the swallows which are scourgers by day, and stay when weary, do they follow thee: nor may I meet thee even when I lead to Tachein. For I am kinemess and syntess of Nature if non-synosthetical syntactical God, & only body-to-body contact Backward, ass to your ass when dawx and yourself are wax-light, thou best there may forget: backward, ass to your ass. III My dalliance with `Mo' (therefore, `My Mo'!) on the Alpine; on the Alpine touch-&-tear Wood; the air slow-doubled with drench wailing; cries and all the ashes caught by Jane, caught in David, by Jed; Pantazu's scream; Cide's discovery; the Pond and fairy-lights: The Maiden in the pavilion all pewter, whose name was `Fee Fee,' 'Fee Fee,' who admitted herself in red leather breeches, which were not sewed by the clerk, who (fool) doubted whether the maiden was a `Yes' or a `No,' and then there were the points of dress, of dress which would make her, well, a young bride:--the tobacco oil; the file of one's consort's proofs, as the weaver wove the thread (like wire) with a knife, and so, in short, did I; that is, me, whom you were wise to meet! You were, I suppose, like most of your city maids, groomed in file, of file, file, file, file! file, file, file! with file to go to the wedding of some friend whom you had (your son) often withed (the file, of course, of `Peggy' and her lover, and the file of the maiden, likewise, with file, file, file, file, file! From the austere and perem daemonic Realm of the Past-- the stage of no substance, and the theater all empty, since you, your `personality disfigured,' as it were, your rearing majestic, your complex, your `mythology deiled,' your tainted and malignant alterity have spectrally expired, dead, as you said, like phantoms! and not blown as phantoms are ======================================== SAMPLE 150 ======================================== Previous to a trial so stern? Whate'er betide, this shall be thy pride, No medium can be divided between thee and the horror of death! Such is thine anger, 'tis war to match thee--vile carnage, Scores of burnt slaves and of slain men! On! on! perish too and enter not here; Nor three--"See there, a king's of flesh in barbs here!' Upon the other hand I tell you, nor the way which will take ye there, The desolate--there, the snow, the stink of corpses, dark, silent desert, Seareless and peerless! Beholding that you there depart, Great multitude, we lift not a hand, If I'm betwixt! <|endoftext|> When you are old and I am dead, When the scythe of time has been sheathed And the rain of life is dried and gone, When your head has begun to thin, And the lips have lost all their fountains, And the arms to creep away, When the mouth complains of chill and pain, And the weary eyes stare at all, I shall come when you call to me And the heart in your hand break like stone And the love that once the heart had reft Change the breath it was capable of breathn. All the little things that you say Have increased our grief and vexation; But the crown that did defend us Has been twisted all in strings: And the joy for which we feared you would die Has brought tears and other hurt than fear To the one hope we dreaded to lose. 'Curse God and die'--this is the wish Of some who weep; But what would happen if they should try To act their part, And leave room for such civil zeal? I used to say to myself, when one day Prayer was all that I could want, 'It will all sometime, I'll bet one hour, Be a pleasure to pray!' But the next minute I knew that I had lost Both the time and the luck; And from that day to this, I've always kept Atematic and mineral water close, And I chew a little finely-ground regular stone. And every day of my life I wake And kiss the dear attached clay, And wonder how it is I get on so! And then I kneel and pray and cut grass, And whatever else I may be doing For the chain that binds me to the earth, I always find God washing my line. Another came in his shift of white, Whence gaily hopped the white round wave. 'The offer is through you,' I said, 'And your prayer may rejoice or sour!' 'The question is,' he said, 'and your nod, And of your own choose!' And I rejoiced to see one human nature strong, In the faithlessness and greed, the rectitude of taking a keener point than any man's country can supply. But you all know the toast is grown, And ordered as 'barley grass,' And poured and packed and sealed away, And on the edge of your eyes there grows A stalk of unagrin'd Alaskan Hind, And I myself in the cotton dress My mother caught when one summer's day Was made the lone grand instrument of her finishing. A long hour of light I have to wait Before we can start in the boat, But lo, I'm taught how to say that farewell. O other friends, O other places, For this one wants a good railway to show, And half an old house that lay beyond, And where the town we have spoken o'er Is no fairer anywhere than where it's set. We're ten years out, and the great railroad reaches Kirtles Cove and is faced with runagates; The first November disaster comes to a close And the Coast Guards in state grace the old stockade, So that Santa Barbara looks more like the North Star. O many wishes, O the prospects that lie In the charmed place between destination and deed! We're ten years out and we're done with your wooer logs, O Lea and Snowmass, and O OURTO That played in the garden at home. My dear hero, would I could live for the rest Of my life and do everything that I could do If some warm sunny day, with a word or a smile, I could find my way to the next from the start! And though I am nearly sixty, and I work When my face shines like the ======================================== SAMPLE 151 ======================================== Can teach me how to love it! Too late one valor lady Said: The pangs which wring the woman Are fallen on the man; and she Left us and broke for the world. How come you? - . I will tell you: Seat yourself a clerk and look And listen: a minute; I hear the chisel must. Oh, but to have! to have a man Well bred, well boy Servant! Alas! Or it is always Spring. O! smile, Sarah Jargon, smile! I would I knew you again! For all day long, of sun and rain, Have I been striving how to serve And you, O smile, did me service give! Oh, I was but a mortal thing, Not more than you the Virgin Queen, And we bear all to Christ on earth, And as pilgrims to their tomb: But I was ever patient; And you alone, I think, can know How, on my spirit, you supplied A light 'twixt this and Hades. So, smile and smile again, At least you'll let me wear The smile, 'most, with grace. A kind of twilight crept across the court, As far as the glasses at the bar Began to trickle and sag slowly low, And a ghost, or two, had each year a fear Of something not right, not right 'too dreary, When very weary, they, too, sank low. For in the air a vision, a fragrance, of summer-me Plucked through the drells' spirits and struck down like ripe rime, When they began to wail again the dark they'd feel, With Sorrow, and Passion beating on their side, And, once again, a sight which made a man shrink; And in its place the smile and the word, "Sweet," came near The heart of the Sorrow, while the fountain at hand And the dews have both five-starred and shone at the outside. A hush! and then, the baron and both ruffians bowed And faced each other, while the room grew starry And tired, and from every feature came away A calm entropy of thought, while the lark at tail, Never once broken from half conscious, stirred her nest, Nodded her duteous-eyed head and beat her tiny breast, Or sang on her tiny thinned egg inside out; While, like a forest of silent father-stars, Grayed all the world and gave back naturally to blue, Staring on the fresh-springing world, strong and wary, And humming at the sky. While all men hold, as far As outward appears, the ikons, the singers, saviors, There are still more, whom one may think not wholly sound, Or mortals at all, save in those particulars Made holy by their proper honest godheads. Or whether for better or for worse, The flower, which, full of odour, i' the wind, Drives home to be consumed by rotund sunset, Is the flower which men destroy as it were, And will leave the dead root, at length, the only one. But, from a dismal dream at liberty, Which I had awaked in this Dream-Foundation Prison, Of the men I have allowed a course, to navigate, I dreamed a dream: and yet it is true That the dream was not unreal; and for it struck My spirit with pernicious anguish. But it was many and many a year, nor long Did it endure; for it was the dream Of a more gracious, clear, distinguished time, Than it is now, nor will it further progress gain, Except in stern enlightenment; not down here, In this day, did a single dark cloud come to o'er-shadow The bright high fresh sunrise; for the full of morn Shone with the hoary east the open south And the air felt like the spirit of God Still breathing, warm and wise and fresh; a bright stream Of light o'er the sea carried a melody slow Onwards; and we saw far off, as we held The beat of each attaining heartbeats, a-yankeefields Of dusky blossom-ledges, the joyful heads of hues, Clustering pink and white; for nigh under our feet The waves their hearts had beneath the sun Rocking in the golden fire. And then we rose, and that wild bliss at last Was gone. Our hearts would fail us. The picture ======================================== SAMPLE 152 ======================================== To tell me of the task? Yet most: Of objects fixed, of arts that chant, Of wretched hearts that die for prayer: Some whisper as a fading echo In deserts, where the voice grows dim At last, and fades from sight; That human spirit of longing went Into the solitary scene To breathe its wild with thee, or drink In the unloving ear of dust. The Espousal Laying Statue of Feminine Royal Harness Locking Stone of Youth <|endoftext|> "Succouring of the Ram", by William Cullen Bryant [Religion, The Spiritual] I bear not into My heart the resentment That my soul bears to mi