In Black Despair

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1. No Man can compass a Despair No Man can compass a Despair As round a Goalless Road No faster than a Mile at once The Traveller proceed Unconscious of the Width Unconscious that the Sun Be setting on His progress So accurate the One At estimating Pain Whose own has just begun His ignorance the Angel That pilot Him along...
2. Black Morning Lovesong In love’s dances, in love’s dances One retreats and one advances, One grows warmer and one colder, One more hesitant, one bolder. One gives what the other needed Once, or will need, now unheeded. One is clenched, compact, ingrowing While the other’s melting, flowing. One is smiling and concealing While the other’s asking kneeling. One […]...
3. Sonnet 144: Two loves I have, of comfort and despair Two loves I have, of comfort and despair, Which like two spirits do suggest me still: The better angel is a man right fair, The worser spirit a woman coloured ill. To win me soon to hell, my female evil Tempteth my better angel from my side, And would corrupt my saint to be a […]...
4. Valentine To The Girl In Black In hand I take this pen of mine To write you, sweet, a valentine; I’d take your dainty hand instead, But-you’re a drawing-I am wed- And that is why, you understand, I only take my pen in hand....
5. Ode to Despair TERRIFIC FIEND! thou Monster fell, Condemn’d in haunts profane to dwell, Why quit thy solitary Home, O’er wide Creation’s paths to roam? Pale Tyrant of the timid Heart, Whose visionary spells can bind The strongest passions of the mind, Freezing Life’s current with thy baneful Art. Nature recoils when thou art near, For round thy […]...
6. The Black Berry wears a Thorn in his side The Black Berry wears a Thorn in his side But no Man heard Him cry He offers His Berry, just the same To Partridge and to Boy He sometimes holds upon the Fence Or struggles to a Tree Or clasps a Rock, with both His Hands But not for Sympathy We tell a Hurt to […]...
7. Black Oaks Okay, not one can write a symphony, or a dictionary, Or even a letter to an old friend, full of remembrance And comfort. Not one can manage a single sound though the blue jays Carp and whistle all day in the branches, without The push of the wind. But to tell the truth after a […]...
8. 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 […]...
9. Answered Good-bye – Yes, I am going, Sudden? Well, you are right. But a startling truth came home to me With sudden force last night. What is it? shall I tell you? – Nay, that is why I go. I am running away from the battlefield, Turning my back on the foe. Riddles? You think me […]...
10. That Shadow, my Likeness THAT shadow, my likeness, that goes to and fro, seeking a livelihood, chattering, chaffering; How often I find myself standing and looking at it where it flits; How often I question and doubt whether that is really me; -But in these, and among my lovers, and caroling my songs, O I never doubt whether that […]...
11. Love and Black Magic To the woods, to the woods is the wizard gone; In his grotto the maiden sits alone. She gazes up with a weary smile At the rafter-hanging crocodile, The slowly swinging crocodile. Scorn has she of her master’s gear, Cauldron, alembic, crystal sphere, Phial, philtre-“Fiddlededee For all such trumpery trash!” quo’ she. “A soldier is […]...
12. The Great Black Heron Since I stroll in the woods more often Than on this frequented path, it’s usually Trees I observe; but among fellow humans What I like best is to see an old woman Fishing alone at the end of a jetty, Hours on end, plainly content. The Russians mushroom-hunting after a rain Trail after themselves a […]...
13. The Black Swan When the swans turned my sister into a swan I would go to the lake, at night, from milking: The sun would look out through the reeds like a swan, A swan’s red beak; and the beak would open And inside there was darkness, the stars and the moon. Out on the lake, a girl […]...
14. The Quip The merry world did on a day With his train-bands and mates agree To meet together where I lay, And all in sport to jeer at me. First, Beauty crept into a rose, Which when I plucked not, “Sir,” said she, “Tell me, I pray, whose hands are those?” But thou shalt answer, Lord, for […]...
15. Despair I have experienc’d The worst, the World can wreak on me the worst That can make Life indifferent, yet disturb With whisper’d Discontents the dying prayer I have beheld the whole of all, wherein My Heart had any interest in this Life, To be disrent and torn from off my Hopes That nothing now is […]...
16. Despair Who is he? A railroad track toward hell? Breaking like a stick of furniture? The hope that suddenly overflows the cesspool? The love that goes down the drain like spit? The love that said forever, forever And then runs you over like a truck? Are you a prayer that floats into a radio advertisement? Despair, […]...
17. The Suicide's Argument Ere the birth of my life, if I wished it or no No question was asked me it could not be so! If the life was the question, a thing sent to try And to live on be YES; what can NO be? to die. NATURE’S ANSWER Is’t returned, as ’twas sent? Is’t no worse […]...
18. A Meeting With Despair AS evening shaped I found me on a moor Which sight could scarce sustain: The black lean land, of featureless contour, Was like a tract in pain. “This scene, like my own life,” I said, “is one Where many glooms abide; Toned by its fortune to a deadly dun Lightless on every side. I glanced […]...
19. To Reformers in Despair ‘Tis not too late to build our young land right, Cleaner than Holland, courtlier than Japan, Devout like early Rome, with hearths like hers, Hearths that will recreate the breed called man....
20. A Song Of Despair The memory of you emerges from the night around me. The river mingles its stubborn lament with the sea. Deserted like the dwarves at dawn. It is the hour of departure, oh deserted one! Cold flower heads are raining over my heart. Oh pit of debris, fierce cave of the shipwrecked. In you the wars […]...
21. The difference between Despair The difference between Despair And Fear is like the One Between the instant of a Wreck And when the Wreck has been The Mind is smooth no Motion Contented as the Eye Upon the Forehead of a Bust That knows it cannot see...
22. Delight's Despair at setting Delight’s Despair at setting Is that Delight is less Than the sufficing Longing That so impoverish. Enchantment’s Perihelion Mistaken oft has been For the Authentic orbit Of its Anterior Sun....
23. Despair's advantage is achieved Despair’s advantage is achieved By suffering Despair To be assisted of Reverse One must Reverse have bore The Worthiness of Suffering like The Worthiness of Death Is ascertained by tasting As can no other Mouth Of Savors make us conscious As did ourselves partake Affliction feels impalpable Until Ourselves are struck...
24. Safe Despair it is that raves Safe Despair it is that raves Agony is frugal. Puts itself severe away For its own perusal. Garrisoned no Soul can be In the Front of Trouble Love is one, not aggregate Nor is Dying double...
25. The Black Cottage We chanced in passing by that afternoon To catch it in a sort of special picture Among tar-banded ancient cherry trees, Set well back from the road in rank lodged grass, The little cottage we were speaking of, A front with just a door between two windows, Fresh painted by the shower a velvet black. […]...
26. The Companion Let him answer as he will, Or be lightsome as he may, Now nor after shall he say Worn-out words enough to kill, Or to lull down by their craft, Doubt, that was born yesterday, When he lied and when she laughed. Let him and another name For the starlight on the snow, Let him […]...
27. The Black Sheep “The aristocratic ne’er-do-well in Canada frequently finds his way Into the ranks of the Royal North-West Mounted Police.” Extract. Hark to the ewe that bore him: “What has muddied the strain? Never his brothers before him Showed the hint of a stain.” Hark to the tups and wethers; Hark to the old gray ram: “We’re […]...
28. Black Bonnet A day of seeming innocence, A glorious sun and sky, And, just above my picket fence, Black Bonnet passing by. In knitted gloves and quaint old dress, Without a spot or smirch, Her worn face lit with peacefulness, Old Granny goes to church. Her hair is richly white, like milk, That long ago was fair […]...
29. Of the Terrible Doubt of Appearances OF the terrible doubt of appearances, Of the uncertainty after all-that we may be deluded, That may-be reliance and hope are but speculations after all, That may-be identity beyond the grave is a beautiful fable only, May-be the things I perceive-the animals, plants, men, hills, shining and flowing waters, The skies of day and night-colors, […]...
30. The Black Virgin One in thy thousand statues we salute thee On all thy thousand thrones acclaim and claim Who walk in forest of thy forms and faces Walk in a forest calling on one name And, most of all, how this thing may be so Who know thee not are mystified to know That one cries “Here […]...
31. The Black Watch Memorial Ye Sons of Mars, it gives me great content To think there has been erected a handsome monument In memory of the Black Watch, which is magnificent to see, Where they first were embodied at Aberfeldy. And as a Highland regiment they are worthy of what has been done for them, Because a more courageous […]...
32. The Things that never can come back, are several The Things that never can come back, are several Childhood some forms of Hope the Dead Though Joys like Men may sometimes make a Journey And still abide We do not mourn for Traveler, or Sailor, Their Routes are fair But think enlarged of all that they will tell us Returning here “Here!” There are […]...
33. A Poetry Reading At West Point I read to the entire plebe class, In two batches. Twice the hall filled With bodies dressed alike, each toting A copy of my book. What would my Shrink say, if I had one, about Such a dream, if it were a dream? Question and answer time. “Sir,” a cadet yelled from the balcony, And […]...
34. Poets to Come POETS to come! orators, singers, musicians to come! Not to-day is to justify me, and answer what I am for; But you, a new brood, native, athletic, continental, greater than before known, Arouse! Arouse-for you must justify me-you must answer. I myself but write one or two indicative words for the future, I but advance […]...
35. Once more, my now bewildered Dove Once more, my now bewildered Dove Bestirs her puzzled wings Once more her mistress, on the deep Her troubled question flings Thrice to the floating casement The Patriarch’s bird returned, Courage! My brave Columbia! There may yet be land...
36. A Scrap of Paper “Will you go to war just for a scrap of paper?” Question Of the German Chancellor to the British Ambassador, August 5, 1914. A mocking question! Britain’s answer came Swift as the light and searching as the flame. “Yes, for a scrap of paper we will fight Till our last breath, and God defend the […]...
37. Resolution People are still expecting this annus horribilis To close its black box of monstrosities; If I asked you about resolutions You’d probably give me that look And say “May this year fare us well.” I would know the answer too well And you, carefully folding the question, Tuck it back into my pocket and zip […]...
38. Black Cat A ghost, though invisible, still is like a place Your sight can knock on, echoing; but here Within this thick black pelt, your strongest gaze Will be absorbed and utterly disappear: Just as a raving madman, when nothing else Can ease him, charges into his dark night Howling, pounds on the padded wall, and feels […]...
39. The Little Black Boy My mother bore me in the southern wild, And I am black, but O! my soul is white. White as an angel is the English child: But I am black as if bereav’d of light. My mother taught me underneath a tree And sitting down before the heat of day. She took me on her […]...
40. River Moons THE DOUBLE moon, one on the high back drop of the west, one on the curve of the river face, The sky moon of fire and the river moon of water, I am taking these home in a basket, hung on an elbow, such a teeny weeny elbow, in my head. I saw them last […]...