Science-fiction Cradlesong

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1. Nearer, my God, to Thee Nearer, my God, to Thee, Nearer to Thee! E’en though it be a cross That raiseth me: Still all my song shall be Nearer, my God! to Thee, Nearer to Thee. Though, like the wanderer, The sun gone down, Darkness be over me, My rest a stone; Yet in my dreams I’d be Nearer, my […]...
2. The Science Of The Night I touch you in the night, whose gift was you, My careless sprawler, And I touch you cold, unstirring, star-bemused, That have become the land of your self-strangeness. What long seduction of the bone has led you Down the imploring roads I cannot take Into the arms of ghosts I never knew, Leaving my manhood […]...
3. Letter To My Wife 11-11-1933 Bursa Prison My one and only! Your last letter says: “My head is throbbing, my heart is stunned!” You say: “If they hang you, if I lose you, I’ll die!” You’ll live, my dear My memory will vanish like black smoke in the wind. Of course you’ll live, red-haired lady of my heart: In […]...
4. Mortal Limit I saw the hawk ride updraft in the sunset over Wyoming. It rose from coniferous darkness, past gray jags Of mercilessness, past whiteness, into the gloaming Of dream-spectral light above the lazy purity of snow-snags. There west were the Tetons. Snow-peaks would soon be In dark profile to break constellations. Beyond what height Hangs now […]...
5. Sonnet XXI So is it not with me as with that Muse Stirr’d by a painted beauty to his verse, Who heaven itself for ornament doth use And every fair with his fair doth rehearse Making a couplement of proud compare, With sun and moon, with earth and sea’s rich gems, With April’s first-born flowers, and all […]...
6. Sonnet 21: So is it not with me as with that muse So is it not with me as with that muse, Stirred by a painted beauty to his verse, Who heaven it self for ornament doth use And every fair with his fair doth rehearse, Making a couplement of proud compare With sun and moon, with earth and sea’s rich gems, With April’s first-born flowers, and […]...
7. Love O Love! thou makest all things even In earth or heaven; Finding thy way through prison-bars Up to the stars; Or, true to the Almighty plan, That out of dust created man, Thou lookest in a grave, to see Thine immortality!...
8. Thread the sky is shattered Its debris Clutters the world’s streets Where the light came from Is a question Charred beyond recognition Heads hang out of walls Limbs unattached Rigid in their will to crawl away But there’s a bird (black In the jagged sky) With a twig still stuck in its beak Is it falling […]...
9. Daybreak In Alabama When I get to be a composer I’m gonna write me some music about Daybreak in Alabama And I’m gonna put the purtiest songs in it Rising out of the ground like a swamp mist And falling out of heaven like soft dew. I’m gonna put some tall tall trees in it And the scent […]...
10. A science so the Savants say A science so the Savants say, “Comparative Anatomy” By which a single bone Is made a secret to unfold Of some rare tenant of the mold, Else perished in the stone So to the eye prospective led, This meekest flower of the mead Upon a winter’s day, Stands representative in gold Of Rose and Lily, […]...
11. That the Science of Cartography Is Limited -and not simply by the fact that this shading of Forest cannot show the fragrance of balsam, The gloom of cypresses, Is what I wish to prove. When you and I were first in love we drove To the borders of Connacht And entered a wood there. Look down you said: this was once a […]...
12. Sonnet – To Science Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art! Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes. Why preyest thou thus upon the poet’s heart, Vulture, whose wings are dull realities? How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise, Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering To seek for treasure in the jewelled […]...
13. After a Tempest The day had been a day of wind and storm; The wind was laid, the storm was overpast, And stooping from the zenith, bright and warm Shone the great sun on the wide earth at last. I stood upon the upland slope and cast My eye upon a broad and beauteous scene, Where the vast […]...
14. Lines Draw a line. Write a line. There. Stay in line, hold the line, a glance Between the lines is fine but don’t Turn corners, cross, cut in, go over Or out, between two points of no Return’s a line of flight, between Two points of view’s a line of vision. But a line of thought […]...
15. M. Degas Teaches Art & Science At Durfee Intermediate School Detroit, 1942 He made a line on the blackboard, One bold stroke from right to left Diagonally downward and stood back To ask, looking as always at no one In particular, “What have I done?” From the back of the room Freddie Shouted, “You’ve broken a piece Of chalk.” M. Degas did not smile. “What have I […]...
16. The Black Unicorn The black unicorn is greedy. The black unicorn is impatient. ‘The black unicorn was mistaken For a shadow or symbol And taken Through a cold country Where mist painted mockeries Of my fury. It is not on her lap where the horn rests But deep in her moonpit Growing. The black unicorn is restless The […]...
17. 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 […]...
18. Spelt From Sibyl's Leaves Earnest, earthless, equal, attuneable, ‘ vaulty, voluminous, … stupendous Evening strains to be tíme’s vást, ‘ womb-of-all, home-of-all, hearse-of-all night. Her fond yellow hornlight wound to the west, ‘ her wild hollow hoarlight hung to the height Waste; her earliest stars, earl-stars, ‘ stárs principal, overbend us, Fíre-féaturing heaven. For earth ‘ her being has […]...
19. Large Bad Picture Remembering the Strait of Belle Isle or Some northerly harbor of Labrador, Before he became a schoolteacher A great-uncle painted a big picture. Receding for miles on either side Into a flushed, still sky Are overhanging pale blue cliffs Hundreds of feet high, Their bases fretted by little arches, The entrances to caves Running in […]...
20. Javanese Dancers Twitched strings, the clang of metal, beaten drums, Dull, shrill, continuous, disquieting: And now the stealthy dancer comes Undulantly with cat-like steps that cling; Smiling between her painted lids a smile, Motionless, unintelligible, she twines Her fingers into mazy lines, The scarves across her fingers twine the while. One, two, three, four glide forth, and, […]...
21. People Who Must I PAINTED on the roof of a skyscraper. I painted a long while and called it a day’s work. The people on a corner swarmed and the traffic cop’s whistle never let up all afternoon. They were the same as bugs, many bugs on their way- Those people on the go or at a standstill; […]...
22. Night-Music At one the wind rose, And with it the noise Of the black poplars. Long since had the living By a thin twine Been led into their dreams Where lanterns shine Under a still veil Of falling streams; Long since had the dead Become untroubled In the light soil. There were no mouths To drink […]...
23. Saddest Poem I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. Write, for instance: “The night is full of stars, And the stars, blue, shiver in the distance.” The night wind whirls in the sky and sings. I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. On nights […]...
24. Summer Wind It is a sultry day; the sun has drank The dew that lay upon the morning grass, There is no rustling in the lofty elm That canopies my dwelling, and its shade Scarce cools me. All is silent, save the faint And interrupted murmur of the bee, Settling on the sick flowers, and then again […]...
25. Of Tolling Bell I ask the cause? Of Tolling Bell I ask the cause? “A Soul has gone to Heaven” I’m answered in a lonesome tone Is Heaven then a Prison? That Bells should ring till all should know A Soul had gone to Heaven Would seem to me the more the way A Good News should be given....
26. My Madonna I haled me a woman from the street, Shameless, but, oh, so fair! I bade her sit in the model’s seat And I painted her sitting there. I hid all trace of her heart unclean; I painted a babe at her breast; I painted her as she might have been If the Worst had been […]...
27. The Wandering Bard What life like that of the bard can be The wandering bard, who roams as free As the mountain lark that o’er him sings, And, like that lark a music brings, Within him, where’er he comes or goes A fount that for ever flows! The world’s to him like some playground, Where fairies dance their […]...
28. Dream Song 50: In a motion of night they massed nearer my post In a motion of night they massed nearer my post. I hummed a short blues. When the stars went out I studied my weapons system. Grenades, the portable rack, the yellow spout Of the anthrax-ray: in order. Yes, and most Of my pencils were sharp. This edge of the galaxy has often seen A defence […]...
29. Liaison A big bud of moon hangs out of the twilight, Star-spiders spinning their thread Hang high suspended, withouten respite Watching us overhead. Come then under the trees, where the leaf-cloths Curtain us in so dark That here we’re safe from even the ermin-moth’s Flitting remark. Here in this swarthy, secret tent, Where black boughs flap […]...
30. An Autumn Sunset I Leaguered in fire The wild black promontories of the coast extend Their savage silhouettes; The sun in universal carnage sets, And, halting higher, The motionless storm-clouds mass their sullen threats, Like an advancing mob in sword-points penned, That, balked, yet stands at bay. Mid-zenith hangs the fascinated day In wind-lustrated hollows crystalline, A wan […]...
31. Impromptu, to Lady Winchelsea In vain you boast Poetic Names of yore, And cite those Sapho’s we admire no more: Fate doom’d the Fall of ev’ry Female Wit, But doom’d it then when first Ardelia writ. Of all Examples by the World confest, I knew Ardelia could not quote the best; Who, like her Mistress on Britannia’s Throne; Fights, […]...
32. Grumpy Grandpa Grand-daughter of the Painted Nails, As if they had been dipped in gore, I’d like to set you lugging pails And make you scrub the kitchen floor. I’m old and crotchety of course, And on this point my patience fails; I’d sue my old girl for divorce If she showed up with painted nails. Grand-daughter […]...
33. The Argument Of His Book I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds, and bowers, Of April, May, of June, and July-flowers. I sing of May-poles, hock-carts, wassails, wakes, Of bridegrooms, brides, and of their bridal-cakes. I write of youth, of love, and have access By these to sing of cleanly wantonness. I sing of dews, of rains, and piece by […]...
34. Take your Heaven further on Take your Heaven further on This to Heaven divine Has gone Had You earlier blundered in Possibly, e’en You had seen An Eternity put on Now to ring a Door beyond Is the utmost of Your Hand To the Skies apologize Nearer to Your Courtesies Than this Sufferer polite Dressed to meet You See in […]...
35. Cacoethes Scribendi If all the trees in all the woods were men; And each and every blade of grass a pen; If every leaf on every shrub and tree Turned to a sheet of foolscap; every sea Were changed to ink, and all earth’s living tribes Had nothing else to do but act as scribes, And for […]...
36. Vulture I had walked since dawn and lay down to rest on a bare hillside Above the ocean. I saw through half-shut eyelids a vulture wheeling high up in heaven, And presently it passed again, but lower and nearer, its orbit narrowing, I understood then That I was under inspection. I lay death-still and heard the […]...
37. In a Boat See the stars, love, In the water much clearer and brighter Than those above us, and whiter, Like nenuphars. Star-shadows shine, love, How many stars in your bowl? How many shadows in your soul, Only mine, love, mine? When I move the oars, love, See how the stars are tossed, Distorted, the brightest lost. -So […]...
38. At the Aquarium of the Pacific I saw a brilliant angelfish whose tail And fins shimmered yellow until it turned And silver spread like an undercoat of fur When stroked against the nap, across its scales. Black as caviar and rimmed with gold, Its eyes, though flat as dimes, looked deep as wells. The clownfish cruising by above the shells, Its […]...
39. A Man Young And Old: II. Human Dignity Like the moon her kindness is, If kindness I may call What has no comprehension in’t, But is the same for all As though my sorrow were a scene Upon a painted wall. So like a bit of stone I lie Under a broken tree. I could recover if I shrieked My heart’s agony To […]...
40. For A Coming Extinction Gray whale Now that we are sinding you to The End That great god Tell him That we who follow you invented forgiveness And forgive nothing I write as though you could understand And I could say it One must always pretend something Among the dying When you have left the seas nodding on their […]...