Testament

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1. Fringed Gentians Near where I live there is a lake As blue as blue can be, winds make It dance as they go blowing by. I think it curtseys to the sky. It’s just a lake of lovely flowers And my Mamma says they are ours; But they are not like those we grow To be our […]...
2. Graves I dreamed one man stood against a thousand, One man damned as a wrongheaded fool. One year and another he walked the streets, And a thousand shrugs and hoots Met him in the shoulders and mouths he passed. He died alone. And only the undertaker came to his funeral. Flowers grow over his grave anod […]...
3. For Jane: With All The Love I Had, Which Was Not Enough I pick up the skirt, I pick up the sparkling beads In black, This thing that moved once Around flesh, And I call God a liar, I say anything that moved Like that Or knew My name Could never die In the common verity of dying, And I pick Up her lovely Dress, All her […]...
4. Hemlock and Cedar THIN sheets of blue smoke among white slabs… near the shingle mill… winter morning. Falling of a dry leaf might be heard… circular steel tears through a log. Slope of woodland… brown… soft… tinge of blue such as pansy eyes. Farther, field fires… funnel of yellow smoke… spellings of other yellow in corn stubble. Bobsled […]...
5. Cartoon I AM making a Cartoon of a Woman. She is the People. She is the Great Dirty Mother. And Many Children hang on her Apron, crawl at her Feet, snuggle at her Breasts....
6. Testament Oh, let it be a night of lyric rain And singing breezes, when my bell is tolled. I have so loved the rain that I would hold Last in my ears its friendly, dim refraln. I shall lie cool and quiet, who have lain Fevered, and watched the book of day unfold. Death will not […]...
7. Warning When I am an old woman I shall wear purple With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me. And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves And satin sandles, and say we’ve no money for butter. I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tired And gobble up […]...
8. Talking (and Singing) of the Nordic Man I Behold, my child, the Nordic man, And be as like him, as you can; His legs are long, his mind is slow, His hair is lank and made of tow. II And here we have the Alpine Race: Oh! What a broad and foolish face! His skin is of a dirty yellow. He is […]...
9. Old Testament Gospel (Hebrews, iv.2) Israel in ancient days Not only had a view Of Sinai in a blaze, But learn’d the Gospel too; The types and figures were a glass, In which thy saw a Saviour’s face. The paschal sacrifice And blood-besprinkled door, Seen with enlighten’d eyes, And once applied with power, Would teach the need of […]...
10. The Dinkey Bird In an ocean, ‘way out yonder, (As all sapient people know) Is the land of Wonder-Wander, Whither children love to go; It’s their playing, romping, swinging, That give great joy to me While the Dinkey-Bird goes singing In the amfalula tree! There the gum-drops grow like cherries, And taffy’s thick as peas Caramels you pick […]...
11. The Gentlemen In The Meadow Some gentlemen are floating in the meadow over The yellow grass. They seem to hover by those wonderful blue Little flowers that grow there by those rocks. Perhaps they have floated up from that nearby Graveyard? They drift a little when the wind blows. Butterflies flutter through them. . ....
12. Last Will And Testament Comrades, if I don’t live to see the day I mean, if I die before freedom comes Take me away And bury me in a village cemetery in Anatolia. The worker Osman whom Hassan Bey ordered shot Can lie on one side of me, and on the other side The martyr Aysha, who gave birth […]...
13. A Welsh Testament All right, I was Welsh. Does it matter? I spoke a tongue that was passed on To me in the place I happened to be, A place huddled between grey walls Of cloud for at least half the year. My word for heaven was not yours. The word for hell had a sharp edge Put […]...
14. Testament 1. Dear relatives and friends, when my last breath Grows large and free in air, don’t call it death A word to enrich the undertaker and inspire His surly art of imitating life; conspire Against him. Say that my body cannot now Be improved upon; it has no fault to show To the sly cosmetician. […]...
15. I Sit and Think I sit beside the fire and think Of all that I have seen, Of meadow-flowers and butterflies In summers that have been; Of yellow leaves and gossamer In autumns that there were, With morning mist and silver sun And wind upon my hair. I sit beside the fire and think Of how the world will […]...
16. For Anne Gregory ‘Never shall a young man, Thrown into despair By those great honey-coloured Ramparts at your ear, Love you for yourself alone And not your yellow hair.’ ‘But I can get a hair-dye And set such colour there, Brown, or black, or carrot, That young men in despair May love me for myself alone And not […]...
17. From 'The Testament of Beauty&#039 ‘Twas at that hour of beauty when the setting sun Squandereth his cloudy bed with rosy hues, to flood His lov’d works as in turn he biddeth them Good-night; And all the towers and temples and mansions of men Face him in bright farewell, ere they creep from their pomp Naked beneath the darkness;- while […]...
18. Smoke Smoke, it is all smoke In the throat of eternity. . . . For centuries, the air was full of witches Whistling up chimneys On their spiky brooms Cackling or singing more sweetly than Circe, As they flew over rooftops Blessing & cursing their Kind. We banished & burned them Making them smoke in the […]...
19. The River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter After Li Po While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead I played at the front gate, pulling flowers. You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse, You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums. And we went on living in the village of Chokan: Two small people, without dislike or suspicion. […]...
20. Slants at Buffalo, New York A FOREFINGER of stone, dreamed by a sculptor, points to the sky. It says: This way! this way! Four lions snore in stone at the corner of the shaft. They too are the dream of a sculptor. They too say: This way! this way! The street cars swing at a curve. The middle-class passengers witness […]...
21. Death Fugue Black milk of daybreak we drink it at sundown We drink it at noon in the morning we drink it at night We drink it and drink it We dig a grave in the breezes there one lies unconfined A man lives in the house he plays with the serpents he writes He writes when […]...
22. The Shanty On The Rise When the caravans of wool-teams climbed the ranges from the West, On a spur among the mountains stood ‘The Bullock-drivers’ Rest’; It was built of bark and saplings, and was rather rough inside, But ’twas good enough for bushmen in the careless days that died Just a quiet little shanty kept by ‘Something-in-Disguise’, As the […]...
23. The Dormouse and the Doctor There once was a Dormouse who lived in a bed Of delphiniums (blue) and geraniums (red), And all the day long he’d a wonderful view Of geraniums (red) and delphiniums (blue). A Doctor came hurrying round, and he said: “Tut-tut, I am sorry to find you in bed. Just say ‘Ninety-nine’ while I look at […]...
24. I know of people in the Grave I know of people in the Grave Who would be very glad To know the news I know tonight If they the chance had had. ‘Tis this expands the least event And swells the scantest deed My right to walk upon the Earth If they this moment had....
25. The Whale The Whale is found in seas and oceans, Indulging there in fishlike motions, But Science shows that Whales are mammals, Like Jersey cows, and goats, and camels. When undisturbed, the Whale will browse Like camels, goats, and Jersey cows, On food that satisfies its tongue, Thus making milk to feed its young. Asking no costly […]...
26. Autumn Fires In the other gardens And all up the vale, From the autumn bonfires See the smoke trail! Pleasant summer over And all the summer flowers, The red fire blazes, The grey smoke towers. Sing a song of seasons! Something bright in all! Flowers in the summer, Fires in the fall!...
27. By Their Works Who cleaned up the Last Supper? These would be my people. Maybe hung over, wanting Desperately a better job, Standing with rags In hand as the window Beckons with hills Of yellow grass. In Da Vinci, The blue robed apostle Gesturing at Christ Is saying, give Him the check. What a mess they’ve made Of […]...
28. The Mowed Hollow When yellow leaves the sky They pipe it to the houses To go on making red And warm and floral and brown But gradually people tire of it, Return it inside metal, and go To be dark and breathe water colours. Some yellow hangs on outside Forlornly tethered to posts. Cars chase their own supply. […]...
29. Childhood I The bitterness. the misery, the wretchedness of childhood Put me out of love with God. I can’t believe in God’s goodness; I can believe In many avenging gods. Most of all I believe In gods of bitter dullness, Cruel local gods Who scared my childhood. II I’ve seen people put A chrysalis in a […]...
30. Shenandoah IN the Shenandoah Valley, one rider gray and one rider blue, and the sun on the riders wondering. Piled in the Shenandoah, riders blue and riders gray, piled with shovels, one and another, dust in the Shenandoah taking them quicker than mothers take children done with play. The blue nobody remembers, the gray nobody remembers, […]...
31. The Revenge of Rain-in-the-Face In that desolate land and lone, Where the Big Horn and Yellowstone Roar down their mountain path, By their fires the Sioux Chiefs Muttered their woes and griefs And the menace of their wrath. “Revenge!” cried Rain-in-the-Face, “Revenue upon all the race Of the White Chief with yellow hair!” And the mountains dark and high […]...
32. Where the Sidewalk Ends There is a place where the sidewalk ends And before the street begins, And there the grass grows soft and white, And there the sun burns crimson bright, And there the moon-bird rests from his flight To cool in the peppermint wind. Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black And the dark […]...
33. Ballad by the Fire Slowly I smoke and hug my knee, The while a witless masquerade Of things that only children see Floats in a mist of light and shade: They pass, a flimsy cavalcade, And with a weak, remindful glow, The falling embers break and fade, As one by one the phantoms go. Then, with a melancholy glee […]...
34. Come and Play in the Garden Little sister, come away, And let us in the garden play, For it is a pleasant day. On the grass-plat let us sit, Or, if you please, we’ll play a bit, And run about all over it. But the fruit we will not pick, For that would be a naughty trick, And very likely make […]...
35. Hamlet Micure In a lingering fever many visions come to you: I was in the little house again With its great yard of clover Running down to the board-fence, Shadowed by the oak tree, Where we children had our swing. Yet the little house was a manor hall Set in a lawn, and by the lawn was […]...
36. The trees in the garden rained flowers The trees in the garden rained flowers. Children ran there joyously. They gathered the flowers Each to himself. Now there were some Who gathered great heaps Having opportunity and skill Until, behold, only chance blossoms Remained for the feeble. Then a little spindling tutor Ran importantly to the father, crying: “Pray, come hither! See this […]...
37. For My Lover, Returning To His Wife She is all there. She was melted carefully down for you And cast up from your childhood, Cast up from your one hundred favorite aggies. She has always been there, my darling. She is, in fact, exquisite. Fireworks in the dull middle of February And as real as a cast-iron pot. Let’s face it, I […]...
38. Disillusionment Of Ten O'clock The houses are haunted By white night-gowns. None are green, Or purple with green rings, Or green with yellow rings, Or yellow with blue rings. None of them are strange, With socks of lace And beaded ceintures. People are not going To dream of baboons and periwinkles. Only, here and there, an old sailor, Drunk […]...
39. The Fury Of Flowers And Worms Let the flowers make a journey On Monday so that I can see Ten daisies in a blue vase With perhaps one red ant Crawling to the gold center. A bit of the field on my table, Close to the worms Who struggle blinding, Moving deep into their slime, Moving deep into God’s abdomen, Moving […]...
40. The Sins of Kalamazoo THE SINS of Kalamazoo are neither scarlet nor crimson. The sins of Kalamazoo are a convict gray, a dishwater drab. And the people who sin the sins of Kalamazoo are neither scarlet nor crimson. They run to drabs and grays-and some of them sing they shall be washed whiter than snow-and some: We should worry. […]...