Sonnet: The Ghosts Of James And Peirce In Harvard Yard

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1. Sonnet Suggested By Homer, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe, Paul Vakzy, James Joyce, Et Al Let me not, ever, to the marriage in Cana Of Galilee admit the slightest sentiment Of doubt about the astonishing and sustaining manna Of chance and choice to throw a shadow’s element Of disbelief in truth Love is not love Nor is the love of love its truth in consciousness If it can be made […]...
2. Ghosts in Love “Tell me, where do ghosts in love Find their bridal veils?” “If you and I were ghosts in love We’d climb the cliffs of Mystery, Above the sea of Wails. I’d trim your gray and streaming hair With veils of Fantasy From the tree of Memory. ‘Tis there the ghosts that fall in love Find […]...
3. The Ghosts of the Buffaloes Last night at black midnight I woke with a cry, The windows were shaking, there was thunder on high, The floor was a-tremble, the door was a-jar, White fires, crimson fires, shone from afar. I rushed to the door yard. The city was gone. My home was a hut without orchard or lawn. It was […]...
4. 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 […]...
5. Saddest Poem I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. Write, for instance: “The night is full of stars, And the stars, blue, shiver in the distance.” The night wind whirls in the sky and sings. I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. On nights […]...
6. Sonnet XV When I consider every thing that grows Holds in perfection but a little moment, That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows Whereon the stars in secret influence comment; When I perceive that men as plants increase, Cheered and cheque’d even by the self-same sky, Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease, And wear […]...
7. Sonnet XV: When I consider everything that grows When I consider everything that grows Holds in perfection but a little moment, That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows Whereon the stars in secret influence comment; When I perceive that men as plants increase, Cheered and check’d even by the selfsame sky, Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease, And wear their […]...
8. The Dawn I would be ignorant as the dawn That has looked down On that old queen measuring a town With the pin of a brooch, Or on the withered men that saw From their pedantic Babylon The careless planets in their courses, The stars fade out where the moon comes. And took their tablets and did […]...
9. Sonnet 15: When I consider every thing that grows When I consider every thing that grows Holds in perfection but a little moment. That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows Whereon the stars in secret influence comment. When I perceive that men as plants increase, Cheerèd and checked even by the self-same sky, Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease, And wear […]...
10. A Rabbit As King Of The Ghosts The difficulty to think at the end of day, When the shapeless shadow covers the sun And nothing is left except light on your fur- There was the cat slopping its milk all day, Fat cat, red tongue, green mind, white milk And August the most peaceful month. To be, in the grass, in the […]...
11. When Lilacs Last in the Door-yard Bloom'd 1 WHEN lilacs last in the door-yard bloom’d, And the great star early droop’d in the western sky in the night, I mourn’d-and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring. O ever-returning spring! trinity sure to me you bring; Lilac blooming perennial, and drooping star in the west, And thought of him I love. 2 O […]...
12. Ignorant Before The Heavens Of My Life Ignorant before the heavens of my life, I stand and gaze in wonder. Oh the vastness Of the stars. Their rising and descent. How still. As if I didn’t exist. Do I have any Share in this? Have I somehow dispensed with Their pure effect? Does my blood’s ebb and flow Change with their changes? […]...
13. Elizabeth Elizabeth, it surely is most fit [Logic and common usage so commanding] In thy own book that first thy name be writ, Zeno and other sages notwithstanding; And I have other reasons for so doing Besides my innate love of contradiction; Each poet – if a poet – in pursuing The muses thro’ their bowers […]...
14. The Ghosts Smith, great writer of stories, drank; found it immortalized his pen; Fused in his brain-pan, else a blank, heavens of glory now and then; Gave him the magical genius touch; God-given power to gouge out, fling Flat in your face a soul-thought Bing! Twiddle your heart-strings in his clutch. “Bah!” said Smith, “let my body […]...
15. On the Death of the Honourable Mr. James Thynne Farewell, lov’d Youth! since ’twas the Will of Heaven So soon to take, what had so late been giv’n; And thus our Expectations to destroy, Raising a Grief, where we had form’d a Joy; Who once believ’d, it was the Fates Design In Him to double an Illustrious Line, And in a second Channel spread […]...
16. The Ghosts Never stoops the soaring vulture On his quarry in the desert, On the sick or wounded bison, But another vulture, watching From his high aerial look-out, Sees the downward plunge, and follows; And a third pursues the second, Coming from the invisible ether, First a speck, and then a vulture, Till the air is dark […]...
17. Answer To A Sonnet By J. H. Reynolds “Dark eyes are dearer far Than those that mock the hyacinthine bell.” Blue! ‘Tis the life of heaven,-the domain Of Cynthia,-the wide palace of the sun,- The tent of Hesperus, and all his train,- The bosomer of clouds, gold, gray, and dun. Blue! ‘Tis the life of waters:-Ocean And all its vassal streams, pools numberless, […]...
18. Martha SEXTON! Martha’s dead and gone; Toll the bell! toll the bell! Her weary hands their labor cease; Good night, poor Martha, sleep in peace! Toll the bell! Sexton! Martha ‘s dead and gone; Toll the bell! toll the bell! For many a year has Martha said, “I’m old and poor, would I were dead!” Toll […]...
19. To James Whitcomb Riley On his “Book of Joyous Children” Yours is a garden of old-fashioned flowers; Joyous children delight to play there; Weary men find rest in its bowers, Watching the lingering light of day there. Old-time tunes and young love’s laughter Ripple and run among the roses; Memory’s echoes, murmuring after, Fill the dusk when the long […]...
20. Holy Sonnet XII: Why Are We By All Creatures Waited On? Why are we by all creatures waited on? Why do the prodigal elements supply Life and food to me, being more pure than I, Simple, and further from corruption? Why brook’st thou, ignorant horse, subjection? Why dost thou, bull, and bore so seelily, Dissemble weakness, and by one man’s stroke die, Whose whole kind you […]...
21. Sonnet XLIII: Why Should Your Fair Eyes Why should your fair eyes with such sovereign grace Disperse their rays on every vulgar spirit, Whilst I in darkness, in the self-same place, Get not one glance to recompense my merit? So doth the plowman gaze the wand’ring star, And only rest contented with the light, That never learn’d what constellations are Beyond the […]...
22. Innocence The height of wisdom seems to me That of a child; So let my ageing vision be Serene and mild. The depth of folly, I aver, Is to fish deep In that dark pool of science where Truth-demons sleep. Let me not be a bearded sage Seeing too clear; In issues of the atom age […]...
23. 115. The Farewell to the Brethren of St. James's Lodge, Tarbolton ADIEU! a heart-warm fond adieu; Dear brothers of the mystic tie! Ye favourèd, enlighten’d few, Companions of my social joy; Tho’ I to foreign lands must hie, Pursuing Fortune’s slidd’ry ba’; With melting heart, and brimful eye, I’ll mind you still, tho’ far awa. Oft have I met your social band, And spent the cheerful, […]...
24. Saint, Revolutionist Saint, revolutionist, God and sage know well, That there is a place Where that much-rung bell, The well-beloved body, And its sensitive face Must be sacrificed. There is, it seems, in this A something meaningless, Hanging without support And yet too dear to touch, That life should seek its end Where no will can descend, […]...
25. Sonnet – To Zante Fair isle, that from the fairest of all flowers, Thy gentlest of all gentle names dost take! How many memories of what radiant hours At sight of thee and thine at once awake! How many scenes of what departed bliss! How many thoughts of what entombed hopes! How many visions of a maiden that is […]...
26. 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 […]...
27. Henry James in the Heart of the City We have a small sculpture of Henry James on our terrace in New York City. Nothing would surprise him. The beast in the jungle was what he saw Edith Wharton’s obfuscating older brother. . . He fled the demons Of Manhattan For fear they would devour His inner ones (the ones who wrote the books) […]...
28. The Song of Fionnuala Silent, oh Moyle, be the roar of thy water, Break not, ye breezes, your chain of repose, While, murmuring mournfully, Lir’s lonely daughter Tell’s to the night-star her tale of woes. When shall the swan, her death-note singing, Sleep, with wings in darkness furl’d? When will heaven, its sweet bell ringing, Call my spirit from […]...
29. The Snowman in the Yard (For Thomas Augustine Daly) The Judge’s house has a splendid porch, with pillars And steps of stone, And the Judge has a lovely flowering hedge that came from across The seas; In the Hales’ garage you could put my house and everything I own, And the Hales have a lawn like an emerald and a […]...
30. Words For A Trumpet Chorale Celebrating The Autumn “The trumpet is a brilliant instrument.” – Dietrich Buxtehude Come and come forth and come up from the cup of Your dumbness, stunned and numb, come with The statues and believed in, Thinking this is nothing, deceived. Come to the summer and sun, Come see upon that height, and that sum In the seedtime of […]...
31. The Man Into Whose Yard You Should Not Hit Your Ball each day mowed And mowed his lawn, his dry quarter acre, The machine slicing a wisp From each blade’s tip. Dust storms rose Around the roar: 6:00 P. M., every day, Spring, summer, fall. If he could mow The snow he would. On one side, his neighbors the cows Turned their backs to him And […]...
32. Back Yard Shine on, O moon of summer. Shine to the leaves of grass, catalpa and oak, All silver under your rain to-night. An Italian boy is sending songs to you to-night from an accordion. A Polish boy is out with his best girl; they marry next month; to-night they are throwing you kisses. An old man […]...
33. Kail Yard Bard A very humble pen I ply Beneath a cottage thatch; And in the sunny hours I try To till my cabbage patch; And in the gloaming glad am I To lift the latch. I do not plot to pile up pelf, With jowl and belly fat; To simple song I give myself, And seek no […]...
34. Three Ghosts THREE tailors of Tooley Street wrote: We, the People. The names are forgotten. It is a joke in ghosts. Cutters or bushelmen or armhole basters, they sat Cross-legged stitching, snatched at scissors, stole each Other thimbles. Cross-legged, working for wages, joking each other As misfits cut from the cloth of a Master Tailor, They sat […]...
35. Take Back the Virgin Page Written on Returning a Blank Book Take back the virgin page, White and unwritten still; Some hand, more calm and sage, The leaf must fill. Thoughts come, as pure as light Pure as even you require; But, oh! each word I write Love turns to fire. Yet let me keep the book: Oft shall my […]...
36. 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 […]...
37. Ghosts Some ghosts are women, Neither abstract nor pale, Their breasts as limp as killed fish. Not witches, but ghosts Who come, moving their useless arms Like forsaken servants. Not all ghosts are women, I have seen others; Fat, white-bellied men, Wearing their genitals like old rags. Not devils, but ghosts. This one thumps barefoot, lurching […]...
38. Ghosts I to a crumpled cabin came Upon a hillside high, And with me was a withered dame As weariful as I. “It used to be our home,” she said; “How well I remember well! Oh that our happy hearth should be Today an empty shell!” The door was flailing in the storm That deafed us […]...
39. JAMES SIMMONS R. I. P You were the one I wanted most to know So like yet unlike, like fire and snow, The casual voice, the sharp invective, The barbed wit, the lapsed Irish Protestant Who never gave a shit, crossed the palms Of the great and good with coins hot with contempt For the fakers and the tricksters whose […]...
40. Ghosts of a Lunatic Asylum Here, where men’s eyes were empty and as bright As the blank windows set in glaring brick, When the wind strengthens from the sea and night Drops like a fog and makes the breath come thick; By the deserted paths, the vacant halls, One may see figures, twisted shades and lean, Like the mad shapes […]...