On the Way

Related poetry:

1. Plus Ultra Far beyond the sunrise and the sunset rises Heaven, with worlds on worlds that lighten and respond: Thought can see not thence the goal of hope’s surmises Far beyond. Night and day have made an everlasting bond Each with each to hide in yet more deep disguises Truth, till souls of men that thirst for […]...
2. The Light and Glory of the Word The Spirit breathes upon the word, And brings the truth to sight; Precepts and promises afford A sanctifying light. A glory gilds the sacred page, Majestic like the sun; It gives a light to every age, It gives, but borrows none. The hand that gave it still supplies The gracious light and heat; His truths […]...
3. By the Bivouac's Fitful Flame BY the bivouac’s fitful flame, A procession winding around me, solemn and sweet and slow;-but first I note, The tents of the sleeping army, the fields’ and woods’ dim outline, The darkness, lit by spots of kindled fire-the silence; Like a phantom far or near an occasional figure moving; The shrubs and trees, (as I […]...
4. Questionnaire HAVE I told any man to be a liar for my sake? Have I sold ice to the poor in summer and coal to the poor in winter for the sake of daughters who nursed brindle bull terriers and led with a leash their dogs clothed in plaid wool jackets? Have I given any man […]...
5. The buddha's tooth (for matt – 15) In the first seven years you choose your howdah Having by then bare inklings of a journey But where or why – confusion there to cloud a Judgement no more ready than a sore knee To enter the lists of a whole life’s tourney – But after this howdah-do (this introduction) […]...
6. 16-bit Intel 8088 chip with an Apple Macintosh You can’t run Radio Shack programs In its disc drive. Nor can a Commodore 64 Drive read a file You have created on an IBM Personal Computer. Both Kaypro and Osborne computers use The CP/M operating system But can’t read each other’s Handwriting For they format (write On) discs in different […]...
7. The Burial of the Reverend Gilfillan On the Gilfillan burial day, In the Hill o’ Balgay, It was a most solemn sight to see, Not fewer than thirty thousand people assembled in Dundee, All watching the funeral procession of Gilfillan that day, That death had suddenly taken away, And was going to be buried in the Hill o’ Balgay. There were […]...
8. One World “The worlds in which we live are two The world ‘I am’ and the world ‘I do.'” The worlds in which we live at heart are one, The world “I am,” the fruit of “I have done”; And underneath these worlds of flower and fruit, The world “I love,” the only living root....
9. Because Of You Because of you, The world is a much nicer place. Because of you, I have faith in the human race. Because of you, I know what it means to love Unconditionally. Because of you, I know what it means to give Unselfishly. Because of you, I believe in magic and mystery And worlds unseen. Because […]...
10. To Jośe Marίa Palacio Palacio, good friend, Is spring there Showing itself on branches of black poplars By the roads and river? On the steeps Of the high Duero, spring is late, But so soft and lovely when it comes! Are there a few new leaves On the old elms? The acacias must still be bare, And the mountain […]...
11. "Ave Ceasar&quot Long ago the Gladiators, When the call to combat came, Marching past the massed spectators, Hailed the Emp’ror with acclaim! Voices ringing with the fury Of the strife so soon to be, Cried, “O Caesar, morituri Salutamus te!” Nowadays the massed spectators See the unaccustomed sight Legislative gladiators Marching to their last great fight; Young […]...
12. To Imagination When weary with the long day’s care, And earthly change from pain to pain, And lost and ready to despair, Thy kind voice calls me back again: Oh, my true friend! I am not lone, While thou canst speak with such a tone! So hopeless is the world without; The world within I doubly prize; […]...
13. Hiram Scates I tried to win the nomination For president of the County-board And I made speeches all over the County Denouncing Solomon Purple, my rival, As an enemy of the people, In league with the master-foes of man. Young idealists, broken warriors, Hobbling on one crutch of hope, Souls that stake their all on the truth, […]...
14. Flying Fish I HAVE lived in many half-worlds myself… and so I know you. I leaned at a deck rail watching a monotonous sea, the same circling birds and the same plunge of furrows carved by the plowing keel. I leaned so… and you fluttered struggling between two waves in the air now… and then under the […]...
15. To The University Of Cambridge, In New-England WHILE an intrinsic ardor prompts to write, The muses promise to assist my pen; ‘Twas not long since I left my native shore The land of errors, and Egyptain gloom: Father of mercy, ’twas thy gracious hand Brought me in safety from those dark abodes. Students, to you ’tis giv’n to scan the heights Above, […]...
16. The House Of Dust: Part 03: 03: Haunted Chambers The lamplit page is turned, the dream forgotten; The music changes tone, you wake, remember Deep worlds you lived before,-deep worlds hereafter Of leaf on falling leaf, music on music, Rain and sorrow and wind and dust and laughter. Helen was late and Miriam came too soon. Joseph was dead, his wife and children starving. […]...
17. Sonnet XXV: The Wisest Scholar The wisest scholar of the wight most wise By Phoebus’ doom, with sugar’d sentence says, That Virtue, if it once met with our eyes, Strange flames of love it in our souls would raise; But for that man with pain his truth descries, Whiles he each thing in sense’s balance weighs, And so nor will, […]...
18. Hymn 46 God’s condescension to human affairs. Up to the Lord, that reigns on high, And views the nations from afar, Let everlasting praises fly, And tell how large his bounties are. [He that can shake the worlds he made, Or with his word, or with his rod, His goodness, how amazing great! And what a condescending […]...
19. Name of a Tree Some days I am Ana’s teacher, some days she is mine. This morning, we look through her kitchen window, The one she can’t get clean, cobwebs massed Between sash and pane. The sky is blue-gold, almost The color of home. Ana, I say, each winter I get more lonely. Both of us would like the […]...
20. The God Abandons Antony When suddenly, at midnight, you hear An invisible procession going by With exquisite music, voices, Don’t mourn your luck that’s failing now, Work gone wrong, your plans All proving deceptive don’t mourn them uselessly. As one long prepared, and graced with courage, Say goodbye to her, the Alexandria that is leaving. Above all, don’t fool […]...
21. Seashore On the seashore of endless worlds children meet. The infinite sky is motionless overhead And the restless water is boisterous. On the seashore of endless worlds The children meet with shouts and dances. They build their houses with sand And they play with empty shells. With withered leaves they weave their boats And smilingly float […]...
22. On the Seashore On the seashore of endless worlds children meet. The infinite sky is motionless overhead and the restless water is boisterous. On the seashore of endless worlds the children meet with shouts and dances. They build their houses with sand, and they play with empty shells. With withered leaves they weave their boats and smilingly float […]...
23. From the Hymn of Empedocles IS it so small a thing To have enjoy’d the sun, To have lived light in the spring, To have loved, to have thought, to have done; To have advanced true friends, and beat down baffling foes; That we must feign a bliss Of doubtful future date, And while we dream on this Lose all […]...
24. Jabberers I RISE out of my depths with my language. You rise out of your depths with your language. Two tongues from the depths, Alike only as a yellow cat and a green parrot are alike, Fling their staccato tantalizations Into a wildcat jabber Over a gossamer web of unanswerables. The second and the third silence, […]...
25. Debris HE is wisest who has the most caution, He only wins who goes far enough. Any thing is as good as established, when that is established that will produce it and continue it....
26. Do You Want Affidavits? THERE’S a hole in the bottom of the sea. Do you want affidavits? There’s a man in the moon with money for you. Do you want affidavits? There are ten dancing girls in a sea-chamber off Nantucket waiting for you. There are tall candles in Timbuctoo burning penance for you. There are-anything else? Speak now-for […]...
27. The Good-Morrow I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I Did, till we loved? were we not weaned till then, But sucked on country pleasures, childishly? Or snorted we in the seven sleepers’ den? ‘Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be. If ever any beauty I did see, Which I desired, and got, ’twas but […]...
28. The Dream I have a dream To fill the golden sheath Of a remembered day…. (Air Heavy and massed and blue As the vapor of opium… Domes Fired in sulphurous mist… Sea Quiescent as a gray seal… And the emerging sun Spurting up gold Over Sydney, smoke-pale, rising out of the bay….) But the day is an […]...
29. Snow White, to the Prince after Susan Thomas Truth is, my life was no fairytale, That afternoon, I lay, a smiling corpse Under a glass sky, a rotten apple Lodged in my throat like a black lump Of cancer, your sloppy kiss dying on my lips. Did you really believe a kiss could cure The poison galloping through my veins, […]...
30. LAMENT How I loathe this land of my exile, Concrete upon concrete, Steel upon steel, Glass upon glass In massed battalions And no way back. My mind moves to a far-off place To a hill-top where the wind is my succour, Its blow and howl and rage Over the springing turf and heather Calms as the […]...
31. Starling a starling sat on the roof (i don’t know how young) Croaking in an old man’s voice Cross with the dapper world After five minutes or so It flew away – its grouse over It was like its feathers Rough and unperturbed I don’t suppose it was educated The other birds ignored it It was […]...
32. Shame You often look at her at some nights, when she is asleep so sound so tight. You wonder how come a child innocent can drive a grown up mad and impatient. Everything comes with a price, and what a tag for this one. Like last night when sleep crawled like a snail, a new day […]...
33. Bathed and Washed “Bathed in fragrance, Do not brush your hat; Washed in perfume, Do not shake your coat: “Knowing the world Fears what is too pure, The wisest man Prizes and stores light!” By Bluewater An old angler sat: You and I together, Let us go home....
34. Psalm 97 v.1,3,5-7,11 C. M. Christ’s incarnation, and the last judgment. Ye islands of the northern sea, Rejoice, the Savior reigns; His word, like fire, prepares his way, And mountains melt to plains. His presence sinks the proudest hills, And makes the valleys rise; The humble soul enjoys his smiles, The haughty sinner dies. The heav’ns his […]...
35. A Hymn for Christmas Day Almighty Framer of the Skies! O let our pure devotion rise, Like Incense in thy Sight! Wrapt in impenetrable Shade The Texture of our Souls were made Till thy Command gave light. The Sun of Glory gleam’d the Ray, Refin’d the Darkness into Day, And bid the Vapours fly; Impell’d by his eternal Love He […]...
36. To the Rev. Dr. Thomas Amory To cultivate in ev’ry noble mind Habitual grace, and sentiments refin’d, Thus while you strive to mend the human heart, Thus while the heav’nly precepts you impart, O may each bosom catch the sacred fire, And youthful minds to Virtue’s throne aspire! When God’s eternal ways you set in sight, And Virtue shines in all […]...
37. Under the Greenwood Tree Under the greenwood tree Who loves to lie with me, And turn his merry note Unto the sweet bird’s throat, Come hither, come hither, come hither: Here shall he see No enemy But winter and rough weather. Who doth ambition shun, And loves to live i’ the sun, Seeking the food he eats, And pleas’d […]...
38. There were many who went in huddled procession There were many who went in huddled procession, They knew not whither; But, at any rate, success or calamity Would attend all in equality. There was one who sought a new road. He went into direful thickets, And ultimately he died thus, alone; But they said he had courage....
39. Journey Home The time that my journey takes is long and the way of it long. I came out on the chariot of the first gleam of light, and pursued my Voyage through the wildernesses of worlds leaving my track on many a star and planet. It is the most distant course that comes nearest to thyself, […]...
40. Smiling back from Coronation Smiling back from Coronation May be Luxury On the Heads that started with us Being’s Peasantry Recognizing in Procession Ones We former knew When Ourselves were also dusty Centuries ago Had the Triumph no Conviction Of how many be Stimulated by the Contrast Unto Misery...