Memoir

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1. When a people reach the top of a hill When a people reach the top of a hill, Then does God lean toward them, Shortens tongues and lengthens arms. A vision of their dead comes to the weak. The moon shall not be too old Before the new battalions rise, Blue battalions. The moon shall not be too old When the children of change […]...
2. When Bryan Speaks When Bryan speaks, the town’s a hive. From miles around, the autos drive. The sparrow chirps. The rooster crows. The place is kicking and alive. When Bryan speaks, the bunting glows. The raw procession onward flows. The small dogs bark. The children laugh A wind of springtime fancy blows. When Bryan speaks, the wigwam shakes. […]...
3. Memoir of a Proud Boy HE lived on the wings of storm. The ashes are in Chihuahua. Out of Ludlow and coal towns in Colorado Sprang a vengeance of Slav miners, Italians, Scots, Cornishmen, Yanks. Killings ran under the spoken commands of this boy With eighty men and rifles on a hogback mountain. They killed swearing to remember The shot […]...
4. Thick-Sprinkled Bunting THICK-SPRINKLED bunting! Flag of stars! Long yet your road, fateful flag!-long yet your road, and lined with bloody death! For the prize I see at issue, at last is the world! All its ships and shores I see, interwoven with your threads, greedy banner! -Dream’d again the flags of kings, highest born, to flaunt unrival’d? […]...
5. The Battle of Sheriffmuir ‘Twas in the year 1715, and on the 10th of November, Which the people of Scotland have cause to remember; On that day the Earl of Mar left Perth bound for Sheriffmuir, At the same time leaving behind a garrison under Colonel Balfour. Besides leaving a force of about three thousand men quartered in different […]...
6. The Persian Version Truth-loving Persians do not dwell upon The trivial skirmish fought near Marathon. As for the Greek theatrical tradition Which represents that summer’s expedition Not as a mere reconnaisance in force By three brigades of foot and one of horse (Their left flank covered by some obsolete Light craft detached from the main Persian fleet) But […]...
7. THE KISS: A DIALOGUE 1 Among thy fancies, tell me this, What is the thing we call a kiss? 2 I shall resolve ye what it is: It is a creature born and bred Between the lips, all cherry-red, By love and warm desires fed, CHOR. And makes more soft the bridal bed. 2 It is an active flame, […]...
8. Accomplished Facts EVERY year Emily Dickinson sent one friend The first arbutus bud in her garden. In a last will and testament Andrew Jackson Remembered a friend with the gift of George Washington’s pocket spy-glass. Napoleon too, in a last testament, mentioned a silver Watch taken from the bedroom of Frederick the Great, And passed along this […]...
9. Potomac River Mist ALL the policemen, saloonkeepers and efficiency experts in Toledo knew Bern Dailey; secretary ten years when Whitlock was mayor. Pickpockets, yeggs, three card men, he knew them all and how they flit from zone to zone, birds of wind and weather, singers, fighters, scavengers. The Washington monument pointed to a new moon for us and […]...
10. Cool Tombs WHEN Abraham Lincoln was shoveled into the tombs, he forgot the copperheads and the assassin… in the dust, in the cool tombs. And Ulysses Grant lost all thought of con men and Wall Street, cash and collateral turned ashes… in the dust, in the cool tombs. Pocahontas’ body, lovely as a poplar, sweet as a […]...
11. Spartan Mother My mother loved her horses and Her hounds of pedigree; She did not kiss the baby hand I held to her in glee. Of course I had a sweet nou-nou Who tended me with care, And mother reined her nag to view Me with a critic air. So I went to a famous school, But […]...
12. Bronzes I THE bronze General Grant riding a bronze horse in Lincoln Park Shrivels in the sun by day when the motor cars whirr By in long processions going somewhere to keep appointment For dinner and matinees and buying and selling Though in the dusk and nightfall when high waves are piling On the slabs of […]...
13. America Once in English they said America. Was it English to them. Once they said Belgian. We like a fog. Do you for weather. Are we brave. Are we true. Have we the national colour. Can we stand ditches. Can we mean well. Do we talk together. Have we red cross. A great many people speak […]...
14. Young Sea The sea is never still. It pounds on the shore Restless as a young heart, Hunting. The sea speaks And only the stormy hearts Know what it says: It is the face of a rough mother speaking. The sea is young. One storm cleans all the hoar And loosens the age of it. I hear […]...
15. Eleventh Hour The bloom was off the economic recovery. “I just want to know one thing,” she said. What was that one thing? He’ll never know, Because at just that moment he heard the sound Of broken glass in the bathroom, and when he got there, It was dark. His hand went to the wall But the […]...
16. The Army of Death When you see millions of the mouthless dead Across your dreams in pale battalions go, Say not soft things as other men have said, That you’ll remember. For you need not so. Give them not praise. For, deaf, how should they know It is not curses heaped on each gashed head? Nor tears. Their blind […]...
17. When You See Millions Of The Mouthless Dead When you see millions of the mouthless dead Across your dreams in pale battalions go, Say not soft things as other men have said, That you’ll remember. For you need not so. Give them not praise. For, deaf, how should they know It is not curses heaped on each gashed head? Nor tears. Their blind […]...
18. Teeth English Teeth, English Teeth! Shining in the sun A part of British heritage Aye, each and every one. English Teeth, Happy Teeth! Always having fun Clamping down on bits of fish And sausages half done. English Teeth! HEROES’ Teeth! Hear them click! and clack! Let’s sing a song of praise to them – Three Cheers […]...
19. The Troops Dim, gradual thinning of the shapeless gloom Shudders to drizzling daybreak that reveals Disconsolate men who stamp their sodden boots And turn dulled, sunken faces to the sky Haggard and hopeless. They, who have beaten down The stale despair of night, must now renew Their desolation in the truce of dawn, Murdering the livid hours […]...
20. Resolve Build on resolve, and not upon regret, The structure of thy future. Do not grope Among the shadows of old sins, but let Thine own soul’s light shine on the path of hope And dissipate the darkness. Waste no tears Upon the blotted record of lost years, But turn the leaf, and smile, oh! smile, […]...
21. How Oft Has the Benshee Cried How oft has the Benshee cried, How oft has death untied Bright links that Glory wove, Sweet bonds entwined by Love. Peace to each manly soul that sleepeth; Rest to each faithful eye that weepeth; Long may the fair and brave, Sigh o’er the hero’s grave. We’re fallen upon gloomy days! Star after star decays. […]...
22. Knucks IN Abraham Lincoln’s city, Where they remember his lawyer’s shingle, The place where they brought him Wrapped in battle flags, Wrapped in the smoke of memories From Tallahassee to the Yukon, The place now where the shaft of his tomb Points white against the blue prairie dome, In Abraham Lincoln’s city… I saw knucks In […]...
23. Victory All night the ways of Heaven were desolate, Long roads across a gleaming empty sky. Outcast and doomed and driven, you and I, Alone, serene beyond all love or hate, Terror or triumph, were content to wait, We, silent and all-knowing. Suddenly Swept through the heaven low-crouching from on high, One horseman, downward to the […]...
24. Adelaide Crapsey AMONG the bumble-bees in red-top hay, a freckled field of brown-eyed Susans dripping yellow leaves in July, I read your heart in a book. And your mouth of blue pansy-I know somewhere I have seen it rain-shattered. And I have seen a woman with her head flung between her naked knees, and her head held […]...
25. White Shoulders YOUR white shoulders I remember And your shrug of laughter. Low laughter Shaken slow From your white shoulders. Where the moon slants and wavers....
26. Epitaph in a Church-Yard in Charleston, South Carolina GEORGE AUGUSTUS CLOUGH A NATIVE OF LIVERPOOL, DIED SUDDENLY OF “STRANGER’S FEVER” NOV’R 5th 1843 AGED 22 He died of “Stranger’s Fever” when his youth Had scarcely melted into manhood, so The chiselled legend runs; a brother’s woe Laid bare for epitaph. The savage ruth Of a sunny, bright, but alien land, uncouth With cruel […]...
27. Contemplation Of The Sword Reason will not decide at last; the sword will decide. The sword: an obsolete instrument of bronze or steel, formerly used to kill men, but here In the sense of a symbol. The sword: that is: the storms and counter-storms of general destruction; killing of men, Destruction of all goods and materials; massacre, more or […]...
28. When Ida Puts Her Armor On The Cowboy had a sterling heart, The Maiden was from Boston, The Rancher saw his wealth depart- The Steers were what he lost on. The Villain was a banker’s limb, His spats and cane were nifty; The Maiden needs must marry him- Her father was not thrifty. The Sheepmen were as foul as pitch, The […]...
29. Ode To Salt This salt In the saltcellar I once saw in the salt mines. I know You won’t Believe me, But It sings, Salt sings, the skin Of the salt mines Sings With a mouth smothered By the earth. I shivered in those solitudes When I heard The voice of The salt In the desert. Near Antofagasta […]...
30. Bones Sling me under the sea. Pack me down in the salt and wet. No farmer’s plow shall touch my bones. No Hamlet hold my jaws and speak How jokes are gone and empty is my mouth. Long, green-eyed scavengers shall pick my eyes, Purple fish play hide-and-seek, And I shall be song of thunder, crash […]...
31. The Song of O'Ruark, Prince of Breffni The valley lay smiling before me, Where lately I left her behind; Yet I trembled, and something hung o’er me, That sadden’d the joy of my mind. I look’d for the lamp which, she told me, Should shine when her Pilgrim return’d; But, though darkness began to infold me, No lamp from the battlements burn’d! […]...
32. What the Sexton Said Your dust will be upon the wind Within some certain years, Though you be sealed in lead to-day Amid the country’s tears. When this idyllic churchyard Becomes the heart of town, The place to build garage or inn, They’ll throw your tombstone down. Your name so dim, so long outworn, Your bones so near to […]...
33. Momus Momus is the name men give your face, The brag of its tone, like a long low steamboat whistle Finding a way mid mist on a shoreland, Where gray rocks let the salt water shatter spray Against horizons purple, silent. Yes, Momus, Men have flung your face in bronze To gaze in gargoyle downward on […]...
34. The Dying Words Of Stonewall Jackson “Order A. P. Hill to prepare for battle.” “Tell Major Hawks to advance the Commissary train.” “Let us cross the river and rest in the shade.” The stars of Night contain the glittering Day And rain his glory down with sweeter grace Upon the dark World’s grand, enchanted face All loth to turn away. And […]...
35. Gargoyle I SAW a mouth jeering. A smile of melted red iron ran over it. Its laugh was full of nails rattling. It was a child’s dream of a mouth. A fist hit the mouth: knuckles of gun-metal driven by an electric wrist and shoulder. It was a child’s dream of an arm. The fist hit […]...
36. She is Far From the Land She is far from the land where her young hero sleeps, And lovers are round her, sighing; But coldly she turns from their gaze, and weeps, For her heart in his grave is lying. She sings the wild song of her dear native plains, Every note which he loved awaking; Ah! little they think, who […]...
37. Poems Done on a Late Night Car I. CHICKENS I am The Great White Way of the city: When you ask what is my desire, I answer: “Girls fresh as country wild flowers, With young faces tired of the cows and barns, Eager in their eyes as the dawn to find my mysteries, Slender supple girls with shapely legs, Lure in the […]...
38. Psalm 118 part 2 v.17-21 C. M. Public praise for deliverance from death. Lord, thou hast heard thy servant cry And rescued from the grave; Now shall he live; and none can die, If God resolve to save. Thy praise, more constant than before, Shall fill his daily breath; Thy hand, that hath chastised him sore, Defends him still […]...
39. Great are the Myths 1 GREAT are the myths-I too delight in them; Great are Adam and Eve-I too look back and accept them; Great the risen and fallen nations, and their poets, women, sages, inventors, rulers, warriors, and priests. Great is Liberty! great is Equality! I am their follower; Helmsmen of nations, choose your craft! where you sail, […]...
40. The Battle of the Nile ‘Twas on the 18th of August in the year of 1798, That Nelson saw with inexpressible delight The City of Alexandria crowded with the ships of France, So he ordered all sail to be set, and immediately advance. And upon the deck, in deep anxiety he stood, And from anxiety of mind he took but […]...