Calmly We Walk Through This April's Day

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1. What Fifty Said When I was young my teachers were the old. I gave up fire for form till I was cold. I suffered like a metal being cast. I went to school to age to learn the past. Now when I am old my teachers are the young. What can’t be molded must be cracked and sprung. […]...
2. Forever at His side to walk Forever at His side to walk The smaller of the two! Brain of His Brain Blood of His Blood Two lives One Being now Forever of His fate to taste If grief the largest part If joy to put my piece away For that beloved Heart All life to know each other Whom we can […]...
3. The One Before the Last I dreamt I was in love again With the One Before the Last, And smiled to greet the pleasant pain Of that innocent young past. But I jumped to feel how sharp had been The pain when it did live, How the faded dreams of Nineteen-ten Were Hell in Nineteen-five. The boy’s woe was as […]...
4. 195. Song-A Rose-bud by my Early Walk A ROSE-BUD by my early walk, Adown a corn-enclosed bawk, Sae gently bent its thorny stalk, All on a dewy morning. Ere twice the shades o’ dawn are fled, In a’ its crimson glory spread, And drooping rich the dewy head, It scents the early morning. Within the bush her covert nest A little linnet […]...
5. Poem (The lump of coal my parents teased) The lump of coal my parents teased I’d find in my Christmas stocking Turned out each year to be an orange, For I was their sunshine. Now I have one C. gave me, A dense node of sleeping fire. I keep it where I read and write. “You’re on chummy terms with dread,” It reminds […]...
6. Evening Song of the Thoughtful Child Shadow children, thin and small, Now the day is left behind, You are dancing on the wall, On the curtains, on the blind. On the ceiling, children, too, Peeping round the nursery door, Let me come and play with you, As we always played before. Let’s pretend that we have wings And can really truly […]...
7. Dream Song 135: I heard said 'Cats that walk by their wild lone&#039 I heard said ‘Cats that walk by their wild lone’ But Henry had need of friends. They disappeared Shall I follow my dream? Clothes disappeared in a backward sliding, zones Shot into view, pocked, exact & weird: Who is what he seem? I will tell you now a story about Speck: After other cuts, he […]...
8. I Walk'd the Other Day 1 I walk’d the other day, to spend my hour, 2 Into a field, 3 Where I sometimes had seen the soil to yield 4 A gallant flow’r; 5 But winter now had ruffled all the bow’r 6 And curious store 7 I knew there heretofore. 8 Yet I, whose search lov’d not to peep […]...
9. September, The First Day Of School I My child and I hold hands on the way to school, And when I leave him at the first-grade door He cries a little but is brave; he does Let go. My selfish tears remind me how I cried before that door a life ago. I may have had a hard time letting go. […]...
10. I Know, You Walk I walk so often, late, along the streets, Lower my gaze, and hurry, full of dread, Suddenly, silently, you still might rise And I would have to gaze on all your grief With my own eyes, While you demand your happiness, that’s dead. I know, you walk beyond me, every night, With a coy footfall, […]...
11. Fridolin (The Walk To The Iron Factory) A gentle was Fridolin, And he his mistress dear, Savern’s fair Countess, honored in All truth and godly fear. She was so meek, and, ah! so good! Yet each wish of her wayward mood, He would have studied to fulfil, To please his God, with earnest will. From the first hour when daylight shone Till […]...
12. Burning the Doll I am the girl who burned her doll, Who gave her father the doll to burn ” The bride doll I had been given At six, as a Christmas gift, By the same great uncle who once introduced me At my blind second cousin’s wedding To a man who winced, A future Miss America, I’m […]...
13. Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night. Good men, the […]...
14. Come, Walk With Me Come, walk with me, There’s only thee To bless my spirit now – We used to love on winter nights To wander through the snow; Can we not woo back old delights? The clouds rush dark and wild They fleck with shade our mountain heights The same as long ago And on the horizon rest […]...
15. Snow Day Today we woke up to a revolution of snow, Its white flag waving over everything, The landscape vanished, Not a single mouse to punctuate the blankness, And beyond these windows The government buildings smothered, Schools and libraries buried, the post office lost Under the noiseless drift, The paths of trains softly blocked, The world fallen […]...
16. Cleansings Walk here among the walking scepters. Learn Inhuman patience. Flesh can only cleave To bone this tightly if their hearts believe That G-d is good, and never mind the Urn. A lentil and a bean might plump their skin With mothers’ bounteous, soft-dimpled fat (and call it “health”), might quickly build again The muscles of […]...
17. Photography Extraordinary The Milk-and-Water School Alas! she would not hear my prayer! Yet it were rash to tear my hair; Disfigured, I should be less fair. She was unwise, I may say blind; Once she was lovingly inclined; Some circumstance has changed her mind. The Strong-Minded or Matter-of-Fact School Well! so my offer was no go! She […]...
18. The Task: Book V, The Winter Morning Walk (excerpts) ‘Tis morning; and the sun, with ruddy orb Ascending, fires th’ horizon: while the clouds, That crowd away before the driving wind, More ardent as the disk emerges more, Resemble most some city in a blaze, Seen through the leafless wood. His slanting ray Slides ineffectual down the snowy vale, And, tinging all with his […]...
19. One Third Of The Calendar In January everything freezes. We have two children. Both are she’ses. This is our January rule: One girl in bed, and one in school. In February the blizzard whirls. We own a pair of little girls. Blessings upon of each the head The one in school and the one in bed. March is the month […]...
20. In an Old Farmhouse Outside the afterlight’s lucent rose Is smiting the hills and brimming the valleys, And shadows are stealing across the snows; From the mystic gloom of the pineland alleys. Glamour of mingled night and day Over the wide, white world has sway, And through their prisoning azure bars, Gaze the calm, cold eyes of the early […]...
21. Elizabeth Childers Dust of my dust, And dust with my dust, O, child who died as you entered the world, Dead with my death! Not knowing breath, though you tried so hard, With a heart that beat when you lived with me, And stopped when you left me for Life. It is well, my child. For you […]...
22. Long, too Long, O Land! LONG, too long, O land, Traveling roads all even and peaceful, you learn’d from joys and prosperity only; But now, ah now, to learn from crises of anguish-advancing, grappling with direst fate, and recoiling not; And now to conceive, and show to the world, what your children en-masse really are; (For who except myself has […]...
23. Two Schools I put my heart to school In the world, where men grow wise, “Go out,” I said, “and learn the rule; Come back when you win a prize.” My heart came back again: “Now where is the prize?” I cried. “The rule was false, and the prize was pain, And the teacher’s name was Pride.” […]...
24. Stupidity Stupidity, woe’s anodyne, Be kind and comfort me in mine; Smooth out the furrows of my brow, Make me as carefree as a cow, Content to sleep and eat and drink And never think Stupidity, let me be blind To all the ills of humankind; Fill me with simple sentiment To walk the way my […]...
25. The Blues What did I think, a storm clutching a clarinet And boarding a downtown bus, headed for lessons? I had pieces to learn by heart, but at twelve You think the heart and memory are different. “‘It’s a poor sort of memory that only works Backwards,’ the Queen remarked.” Alice in Wonderland. Although I knew the […]...
26. Love (II) Immortal Heat, O let thy greater flame Attract the lesser to it: let those fires Which shall consume the world, first make it tame, And kindle in our hearts such true desires, As may consume our lusts, and make thee way. Then shall our hearts pant thee; then shall our brain All her invention on […]...
27. Annus Mirabilis Sexual intercourse began In nineteen sixty-three (which was rather late for me) – Between the end of the Chatterley ban And the Beatles’ first LP. Up to then there’d only been A sort of bargaining, A wrangle for the ring, A shame that started at sixteen And spread to everything. Then all at once the […]...
28. The Task: Book VI, The Winter Walk at Noon (excerpts) Thus heav’nward all things tend. For all were once Perfect, and all must be at length restor’d. So God has greatly purpos’d; who would else In his dishonour’d works himself endure Dishonour, and be wrong’d without redress. Haste then, and wheel away a shatter’d world, Ye slow-revolving seasons! We would see (A sight to which […]...
29. Hymn 11 The humble enlightened, and carnal reason humbled. Luke 10:21,22. There was an hour when Christ rejoiced, And spoke his joy in words of praise: “Father, I thank thee, mighty God, Lord of the earth, and heav’ns, and seas. “I thank thy sovereign power and love That crowns my doctrine with success, And makes the babes […]...
30. The Orphan My father and mother are dead, Nor friend, nor relation I know; And now the cold earth is their bed, And daisies will over them grow. I cast my eyes into the tomb, The sight made me bitterly cry; I said, “And is this the dark room, Where my father and mother must lie?” I […]...
31. The Shorter Catechism I burned my fingers on the stove And wept with bitterness; But poor old Auntie Maggie strove To comfort my distress. Said she: ‘Think, lassie, how you’ll burn Like any wicked besom In fires of hell if you don’t learn Your Shorter Catechism.’ A man’s chief end is it began, (No mention of a woman’s), […]...
32. The Blind Girl Kind Christians, pray list to me, And I’ll relate a sad story, Concerning a little blind girl, only nine years of age, Who lived with her father in a lonely cottage. Poor girl, she had never seen the blessed light of day, Nor the beautiful fields of corn and hay, Nor the sparrows, that lifted […]...
33. Memorial Day For The War Dead Memorial day for the war dead. Add now The grief of all your losses to their grief, Even of a woman that has left you. Mix Sorrow with sorrow, like time-saving history, Which stacks holiday and sacrifice and mourning On one day for easy, convenient memory. Oh, sweet world soaked, like bread, In sweet milk […]...
34. Little Popeet – the Lost Child Near by the silent waters of the Mediterranean, And at the door of an old hut stood a coloured man, Whose dress was oriental in style and poor with wear, While adown his furrowed cheeks ran many a tear. And the poor coloured man seemed very discontent, And his grief overcame him at this moment; […]...
35. The Mortal One Three months after he lies dead, that Long yellow narrow body, Not like Christ but like one of his saints, The naked ones in the paintings whose bodies are Done in gilt, all knees and raw ribs, The ones who died of nettles, bile, the One who died roasted over a slow fire- Three months […]...
36. Sonnet XIII: Letters and Lines To the Shadow Letters and lines we see are soon defac’d, Metals do waste and fret with canker’s rust, The diamond shall once consume to dust, And freshest colors with foul stains disgrac’d; Paper and ink can paint but naked words, To write with blood of force offends the sight; And if with tears I […]...
37. Emily Sparks Where is my boy, my boy In what far part of the world? The boy I loved best of all in the school? I, the teacher, the old maid, the virgin heart, Who made them all my children. Did I know my boy aright, Thinking of him as a spirit aflame, Active, ever aspiring? Oh, […]...
38. Your Hay It Is Mow'd, And Your Corn Is Reap'd (Comus.) Your hay it is mow’d, and your corn is reap’d; Your barns will be full, and your hovels heap’d: Come, my boys, come; Come, my boys, come; And merrily roar out Harvest Home. (Chorus.) Come, my boys, come; Come, my boys, come; And merrily roar out Harvest Home. (Man.) We ha’ cheated the parson, […]...
39. Storm-Racked How should I sing when buffeting salt waves And stung with bitter surges, in whose might I toss, a cockleshell? The dreadful night Marshals its undefeated dark and raves In brutal madness, reeling over graves Of vanquished men, long-sunken out of sight, Sent wailing down to glut the ghoulish sprite Who haunts foul seaweed forests […]...
40. The Walk Hail to thee, mountain beloved, with thy glittering purple-dyed summit! Hail to thee also, fair sun, looking so lovingly on! Thee, too, I hail, thou smiling plain, and ye murmuring lindens, Ay, and the chorus so glad, cradled on yonder high boughs; Thee, too, peaceably azure, in infinite measure extending Round the dusky-hued mount, over […]...