The Seven Ages of Wise

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1. Ages and Ages, Returning at Intervals AGES and ages, returning at intervals, Undestroy’d, wandering immortal, Lusty, phallic, with the potent original loins, perfectly sweet, I, chanter of Adamic songs, Through the new garden, the West, the great cities calling, Deliriate, thus prelude what is generated, offering these, offering myself, Bathing myself, bathing my songs in Sex, Offspring of my loins....
2. All the World's a Stage All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant, Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms. Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel And shining morning […]...
3. Recorders Ages Hence RECORDERS ages hence! Come, I will take you down underneath this impassive exterior-I will tell you what to say of me; Publish my name and hang up my picture as that of the tenderest lover, The friend, the lover’s portrait, of whom his friend, his lover, was fondest, Who was not proud of his songs, […]...
4. The Four Ages of Man 1.1 Lo now! four other acts upon the stage, 1.2 Childhood, and Youth, the Manly, and Old-age. 1.3 The first: son unto Phlegm, grand-child to water, 1.4 Unstable, supple, moist, and cold’s his Nature. 1.5 The second: frolic claims his pedigree; 1.6 From blood and air, for hot and moist is he. 1.7 The third […]...
5. Freedom Freedom, as every schoolboy knows, Once shrieked as Kosciusko fell; On every wind, indeed, that blows I hear her yell. She screams whenever monarchs meet, And parliaments as well, To bind the chains about her feet And toll her knell. And when the sovereign people cast The votes they cannot spell, Upon the pestilential blast […]...
6. Of the Four Ages of Man Lo, now four other act upon the stage, Childhood and Youth, the Many and Old age: The first son unto phlegm, grandchild to water, Unstable, supple, cold and moist’s his nature The second, frolic, claims his pedigree From blood and air, for hot and moist is he. The third of fire and choler is compos’d, […]...
7. The Four Ages Of The World The goblet is sparkling with purpled-tinged wine, Bright glistens the eye of each guest, When into the hall comes the Minstrel divine, To the good he now brings what is best; For when from Elysium is absent the lyre, No joy can the banquet of nectar inspire. He is blessed by the gods, with an […]...
8. Middle-Ages I heard a clash, and a cry, And a horseman fleeing the wood. The moon hid in a cloud. Deep in shadow I stood. ВЂ˜Ugly work! ’ thought I, Holding my breath. ВЂ˜Men must be cruel and proud, ВЂ˜Jousting for death’. With gusty glimmering shone The moon; and the wind blew colder. A man went […]...
9. The Return They turned him loose; he bowed his head, A felon, bent and grey. His face was even as the Dead, He had no word to say. He sought the home of his old love, To look on her once more; And where her roses breathed above, He cowered beside the door. She sat there in […]...
10. I Love The Naked Ages Long Ago I love the naked ages long ago When statues were gilded by Apollo, When men and women of agility Could play without lies and anxiety, And the sky lovingly caressed their spines, As it exercised its noble machine. Fertile Cybele, mother of nature, then, Would not place on her daughters a burden, But, she-wolf sharing […]...
11. The Wise Dead men are wisest, for they know How far the roots of flowers go, How long a seed must rot to grow. Dead men alone bear frost and rain On throbless heart and heatless brain, And feel no stir of joy or pain. Dead men alone are satiate; They sleep and dream and have no […]...
12. To a Very Wise Man I Fires in the dark you build; tall quivering flames In the huge midnight forest of the unknown. Your soul is full of cities with dead names, And blind-faced, earth-bound gods of bronze and stone Whose priests and kings and lust-begotten lords Watch the procession of their thundering hosts, Or guard relentless fanes with flickering […]...
13. The Wise Brothers FIRST VOICE So long adrift, so fast aground, What foam and ruin have we found – We, the Wise Brothers? Could heaven and earth be framed amiss, That we should land in fine like this- We, and no others? SECOND VOICE Convoyed by what accursèd thing Made we this evil reckoning – We, the Wise […]...
14. Lord when the wise men came from farr LORD when the wise men came from farr Ledd to thy Cradle by A Starr, Then did the shepheards too rejoyce, Instructed by thy Angells voyce, Blest were the wisemen in their skill, 5 And shepheards in their harmelesse will. Wisemen in tracing natures lawes Ascend unto the highest cause, Shepheards with humble fearefulnesse Walke […]...
15. Wise Men In Their Bad Hours Wise men in their bad hours have envied The little people making merry like grasshoppers In spots of sunlight, hardly thinking Backward but never forward, and if they somehow Take hold upon the future they do it Half asleep, with the tools of generation Foolishly reduplicating Folly in thirty-year periods; the eat and laugh too, […]...
16. Song of the Wise Children 1902 When the darkened Fifties dip to the North, And frost and the fog divide the air, And the day is dead at his breaking-forth, Sirs, it is bitter beneath the Bear! Far to Southward they wheel and glance, The million molten spears of morn The spears of our deliverance That shine on the house […]...
17. But Wise Men Perceive Approaching Things Because gods perceive future things, men what is happening now, but wise men perceive approaching things. Philostratus, Life of Apollonius of Tyana, VIII, 7. Men know what is happening now. The gods know the things of the future, The full and sole possessors of all lights. Of the future things, wise men perceive Approaching things. […]...
18. Sonnet 140: Be wise as thou art cruel; do not press Be wise as thou art cruel; do not press My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain, Lest sorrow lend me words and words express The manner of my pity-wanting pain. If I might teach thee wit, better it were, Though not to love, yet, love, to tell me so, As testy sick men, when their […]...
19. Circe's Power I never turned anyone into a pig. Some people are pigs; I make them Look like pigs. I’m sick of your world That lets the outside disguise the inside. Your men weren’t bad men; Undisciplined life Did that to them. As pigs, Under the care of Me and my ladies, they Sweetened right up. Then […]...
20. The Apparitions Because there is safety in derision I talked about an apparition, I took no trouble to convince, Or seem plausible to a man of sense. Distrustful of thar popular eye Whether it be bold or sly. Fifteen apparitions have I seen; The worst a coat upon a coat-hanger. I have found nothing half so good […]...
21. Hymn 143 Characters of the children of God. From several scriptures. So new-born babes desire the breast, To feed, and grow, and thrive; So saints with joy the gospel taste, And by the gospel live. [With inward gust their heart approves All that the word relates; They love the men their Father loves, And hate the works […]...
22. The Lifeguard In a stable of boats I lie still, From all sleeping children hidden. The leap of a fish from its shadow Makes the whole lake instantly tremble. With my foot on the water, I feel The moon outside Take on the utmost of its power. I rise and go our through the boats. I set […]...
23. To the Muse Resign the rhapsody, the dream, To men of larger reach; Be ours the quest of a plain theme, The piety of speech. As monkish scribes from morning break Toiled till the close of light, Nor thought a day too long to make One line or letter bright: We also with an ardent mind, Time, wealth, […]...
24. The Last Bargain “Come and hire me,” I cried, while in the morning I was walking on the stone-paved road. Sword in hand, the King came in his chariot. He held my hand and said, “I will hire you with my power.” But his power counted for nought, and he went away in his chariot. In the heat […]...
25. No Road Since we agreed to let the road between us Fall to disuse, And bricked our gates up, planted trees to screen us, And turned all time’s eroding agents loose, Silence, and space, and strangers – our neglect Has not had much effect. Leaves drift unswept, perhaps; grass creeps unmown; No other change. So clear it […]...
26. Cambridge in the Long Where drowsy sound of college-chimes Across the air is blown, And drowsy fragrance of the limes, I lie and dream alone. A dazzling radiance reigns o’er all O’er gardens densely green, O’er old grey bridges and the small, Slow flood which slides between. This is the place; it is not strange, But known of old […]...
27. Hymn 160 Custom in sin. Let the wild leopards of the wood Put off the spots that nature gives, Then may the wicked turn to God, And change their tempers and their lives. As well might Ethiopian slaves Wash out the darkness of their skin, The deed as well might leave their graves, As old transgressors cease […]...
28. Introspection If you go deep Into the heart What do you find there? Fear, fear, Fear of the jaws of the rock, Fear of the teeth and splinters of iron that tear Flesh from the bone, and the moist Blood, running unfelt From the wound, and the hand Suddenly moist and red. If you go deep […]...
29. Amor Vincit Omnia Love is no more. It died as the mind dies: the pure desire Relinquishing the blissful form it wore, The ample joy and clarity expire. Regret is vain. Then do not grieve for what you would efface, The sudden failure of the past, the pain Of its unwilling change, and the disgrace. Leave innocence, And […]...
30. Death and the Lady TURN in, my lord, she said ; As it were the Father of Sin I have hated the Father of the Dead, The slayer of my kin ; By the Father of the Living led, Turn in, my lord, turn in. We were foes of old ; thy touch was cold, But mine is warm […]...
31. Apparition La lune s’attristait. Des sйraphins en pleurs Rкvant, l’archet aux doigts, dans le calme des fleurs Vaporeuses, tiraient de mourantes violes De blancs sanglots glissant sur l’azur des corolles. -C’йtait le jour bйni de ton premier baiser. Ma songerie aimant а me martyriser S’enivrait savamment du parfum de tristesse Que mкme sans regret et sans […]...
32. A Study Of Reading Habits When getting my nose in a book Cured most things short of school, It was worth ruining my eyes To know I could still keep cool, And deal out the old right hook To dirty dogs twice my size. Later, with inch-thick specs, Evil was just my lark: Me and my coat and fangs Had […]...
33. Ballad of Dead Friends As we the withered ferns By the roadway lying, Time, the jester, spurns All our prayers and prying All our tears and sighing, Sorrow, change, and woe All our where-and-whying For friends that come and go. Life awakes and burns, Age and death defying, Till at last it learns All but Love is dying; Love’s […]...
34. Archaic Torso Of Apollo We cannot know his legendary head With eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torso Is still suffused with brilliance from inside, Like a lamp, in which his gaze, now turned to low, Gleams in all its power. Otherwise The curved breast could not dazzle you so, nor could A smile run through the placid […]...
35. "Houses" so the Wise Men tell me “Houses” so the Wise Men tell me “Mansions”! Mansions must be warm! Mansions cannot let the tears in, Mansions must exclude the storm! “Many Mansions,” by “his Father,” I don’t know him; snugly built! Could the Children find the way there Some, would even trudge tonight!...
36. They Flee From Me They flee from me that sometime did me seek With naked foot, stalking in my chamber. I have seen them gentle, tame, and meek, That now are wild and do not remember That sometime they put themself in danger To take bread at my hand; and now they range, Busily seeking with a continual change. […]...
37. The Old Jimmy Woodser The old Jimmy Woodser comes into the bar Unwelcomed, unnoticed, unknown, Too old and too odd to be drunk with, by far; So he glides to the end where the lunch baskets are And they say that he tipples alone. His frockcoat is green and the nap is no more, And his hat is not […]...
38. Garden-Spot God’s acre was her garden-spot, she said; She sat there often, of the Summer days, Little and slim and sweet, among the dead, Her hair a fable in the leveled rays. She turned the fading wreath, the rusted cross, And knelt to coax about the wiry stem. I see her gentle fingers on the moss […]...
39. Broadway Under Grand Central’s tattered vault maybe half a dozen electric stars still lit One saxophone blew, and a sheer black scrim Billowed over some minor constellation Under repair. Then, on Broadway, red wings In a storefront tableau, lustrous, the live macaws Preening, beaks opening and closing Like those animated knives that unfold all night In […]...
40. Not A Child ‘Not a child: I call myself a boy,’ Says my king, with accent stern yet mild, Now nine years have brought him change of joy; ‘Not a child.’ How could reason be so far beguiled, Err so far from sense’s safe employ, Stray so wide of truth, or run so wild? Seeing his face bent […]...