The Andante of Snakes

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1. Weave in, Weave in, My Hardy Life WEAVE in! weave in, my hardy life! Weave yet a soldier strong and full, for great campaigns to come; Weave in red blood! weave sinews in, like ropes! the senses, sight weave in! Weave lasting sure! weave day and night the weft, the warp, incessant weave! tire not! (We know not what the use, O […]...
2. La Figlia che Piange O quam te memorem virgo… STAND on the highest pavement of the stair- Lean on a garden urn- Weave, weave the sunlight in your hair- Clasp your flowers to you with a pained surprise- Fling them to the ground and turn With a fugitive resentment in your eyes: But weave, weave the sunlight in your […]...
3. Salome's Dancing-Lesson She that begs a little boon (Heel and toe! Heel and toe!) Little gets – and nothing, soon. (No, no, no! No, no, no!) She that calls for costly things Priceless finds her offerings- What’s impossible to kings? (Heel and toe! Heel and toe!) Kings are shaped as other men. (Step and turn! Step and […]...
4. Unlyric Love Song It is time to give that-of-myself which I could not at first: To offer you now at last my least and my worst: Minor, absurd preserves, The shell’s end-curves, A document kept at the back of a drawer, A tin hidden under the floor, Recalcitrant prides and hesitations: To pile them carefully in a desparate […]...
5. The Snakes of September All summer I heard them Rustling in the shrubbery, Outracing me from tier To tier in my garden, A whisper among the viburnums, A signal flashed from the hedgerow, A shadow pulsing In the barberry thicket. Now that the nights are chill And the annuals spent, I should have thought them gone, In a torpor […]...
6. Lizards And Snakes On the summer road that ran by our front porch Lizards and snakes came out to sun. It was hot as a stove out there, enough to scorch A buzzard’s foot. Still, it was fun To lie in the dust and spy on them. Near but remote, They snoozed in the carriage ruts, a smile […]...
7. Indian Weavers WEAVERS, weaving at break of day, Why do you weave a garment so gay? . . . Blue as the wing of a halcyon wild, We weave the robes of a new-born child. Weavers, weaving at fall of night, Why do you weave a garment so bright? . . . Like the plumes of a […]...
8. He Tells Of A Valley Full Of Lovers I dreamed that I stood in a valley, and amid sighs, For happy lovers passed two by two where I stood; And I dreamed my lost love came stealthily out of the wood With her cloud-pale eyelids falling on dream-dimmed eyes: I cried in my dream, O women, bid the young men lay Their heads […]...
9. Child Margaret THE CHILD Margaret begins to write numbers on a Saturday morning, the first numbers formed under her wishing child fingers. All the numbers come well-born, shaped in figures assertive for a frieze in a child’s room. Both 1 and 7 are straightforward, military, filled with lunge and attack, erect in shoulder-straps. The 6 and 9 […]...
10. A Journey Through The Moonlight In sleep when an old man’s body is no longer Aware of his boundaries, and lies flattened by Gravity like a mere of wax in its bed. . . It drips Down to the floor and moves there like a tear down a Cheek. . . Under the back door into the silver meadow, Like […]...
11. Love Much Love much. Earth has enough of bitter in it. Cast sweets into its cup whene’er you can. No heart so hard, but love at last may win it. Love is the great primæval cause of man. All hate is foreign to the first great plan. Love much. Your heart will be led out to slaughter, […]...
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14. Ay, workman, make me a dream Ay, workman, make me a dream, A dream for my love. Cunningly weave sunlight, Breezes, and flowers. Let it be of the cloth of meadows. And good workman And let there be a man walking thereon....
15. After Auschwitz Anger, As black as a hook, Overtakes me. Each day, Each Nazi Took, at 8:00 A. M., a baby And sauteed him for breakfast In his frying pan. And death looks on with a casual eye And picks at the dirt under his fingernail. Man is evil, I say aloud. Man is a flower That […]...
16. Heel & Toe To The End Gagarin says, in ecstasy, He could have Gone on forever He floated At and sang And when he emerged from that One hundred eight minutes off The surface of The earth he was smiling. Then he returned To take his place Among the rest of us From all that division and Subtraction a measure To […]...
17. Praise (I) To write a verse or two is all the praise That I can raise: Mend my estate in any ways, Thou shalt have more. I go to Church; help me to wings, and I Will thither fly; Or, if I mount unto the sky, I will do more. Man is all weakness; there is no […]...
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19. On Behalf of Some Irishmen not Followers of Tradition THEY call us aliens, we are told, Because our wayward visions stray From that dim banner they unfold, The dreams of worn-out yesterday. The sum of all the past is theirs, The creeds, the deeds, the fame, the name, Whose death-created glory flares And dims the spark of living flame. They weave the necromancer’s spell, […]...
20. Vegetation O never harm the dreaming world, The world of green, the world of leaves, But let its million palms unfold The adoration of the trees. It is a love in darkness wrought Obedient to the unseen sun, Longer than memory, a thought Deeper than the graves of time. The turning spindles of the cells Weave […]...
21. TO A MADONNA MADONNA, mistress, I would build for thee An altar deep in the sad soul of me; And in the darkest corner of my heart, From mortal hopes and mocking eyes apart, Carve of enamelled blue and gold a shrine For thee to stand erect in, Image divine! And with a mighty Crown thou shalt be […]...
22. The End of the World Here, at the end of the world, The flowers bleed As if they were hearts, The hearts ooze a darkness Like india ink, & poets dip their pens in & they write. “Here, at the end of the world,” They write, Not knowing what it means. “Here, where the sky nurses on black milk, Where […]...
23. The Revival 1 Unfold! unfold! Take in His light, 2 Who makes thy cares more short than night. 3 The joys which with His day-star rise, 4 He deals to all but drowsy eyes; 5 And (what the men of this world miss) 6 Some drops and dews of future bliss. 7 Hark! how his winds have […]...
24. The First Extra A Waltz Song. O sway, and swing, and sway, And swing, and sway, and swing! Ah me, what bliss like unto this, Can days and daylight bring? A rose beneath your feet Has fallen from my head; Its odour rises sweet, All crushed it lies, and dead. O Love is like a rose, Fair-hued, of […]...
25. Gipsy The poppies that in Spring I sow, In rings of radiance gleam and glow, Like lords and ladies gay. A joy are they to dream beside, As in the air of eventide They flutter, dip and sway. For some are scarlet, some are gold, While some in fairy flame unfold, And some are rose and […]...
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27. Day Dream One day people will touch and talk perhaps Easily, And loving be natural as breathing and warm as Sunlight, And people will untie themselves, as string is unknotted, Unfold and yawn and stretch and spread their fingers, Unfurl, uncurl like seaweed returned to the sea, And work will be simple and swift As a seagull […]...
28. An Opera House Within the gold square of the proscenium arch, A curtain of orange velvet hangs in stiff folds, Its tassels jarring slightly when someone crosses the stage behind. Gold carving edges the balconies, Rims the boxes, Runs up and down fluted pillars. Little knife-stabs of gold Shine out whenever a box door is opened. Gold clusters […]...
29. The Recall I am the land of their fathers, In me the virtue stays. I will bring back my children, After certain days. Under their feet in the grasses My clinging magic runs. They shall return as strangers. They shall remain as sons. Over their heads in the branches Of their new-bought, ancient trees, I weave an […]...
30. Torn Shades How, in the first place, did They get torn-pulled down hard Too many times: to hide a blow, Or sex, or a man In stained pajamas? The tear blade-shaped, Serrated, in tatters. And once, In a house flatside to a gas station, As snow fell at a speed and angle you could lean on, Two […]...
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34. 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 […]...
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37. Bird With Two Right Wings And now our government A bird with two right wings Flies on from zone to zone While we go on having our little fun & games At each election As if it really mattered who the pilot is Of Air Force One (They’re interchangeable, stupid!) While this bird with two right wings Flies right on […]...
38. Benjamin Fraser Their spirits beat upon mine Like the wings of a thousand butterflies. I closed my eyes and felt their spirits vibrating. I closed my eyes, yet I knew when their lashes Fringed their cheeks from downcast eyes, And when they turned their heads; And when their garments clung to them, Or fell from them, in […]...
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40. The face that launch'd a thousand ships Was this the face that launch’d a thousand ships, And burnt the topless towers of Ilium? Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss. Her lips suck forth my soul: see where it flies! Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again. Here will I dwell, for heaven is in these lips, And all is […]...