Bric-a-Brac

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1. In A Breton Cemetery They sleep well here, These fisher-folk who passed their anxious days In fierce Atlantic ways; And found not there, Beneath the long curled wave, So quiet a grave. And they sleep well, These peasant-folk, who told their lives away, From day to market-day, As one should tell, With patient industry, Some sad old rosary. And […]...
2. A Map Of Love Your face more than others’ faces Maps the half-remembered places I have come to I while I slept- Continents a dream had kept Secret from all waking folk Till to your face I awoke, And remembered then the shore, And the dark interior....
3. Pensive and Faltering PENSIVE and faltering, The words, the dead, I write; For living are the Dead; (Haply the only living, only real, And I the apparition-I the spectre.) 5...
4. Tonight I Can Write Tonight I can write the saddest lines. Write, for example, ‘The night is starry And the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.’ The night wind revolves in the sky and sings. Tonight I can write the saddest lines. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. Through nights like this one I […]...
5. The Mole Said he: “I’ll dive deep in the Past, And write a book of direful days When summer skies were overcast With smoke of humble hearths ablaze; When War was rampant in the land, And poor folk cowered in the night, While ruin gaped on every hand – Of ravishing and wrath I’ll write.” Ten years […]...
6. The Voice Woman much missed, how you call to me, call to me, Saying that now you are not as you were When you had changed from the one who was all to me, But as at first, when our day was fair. Can it be you that I hear? Let me view you, then, Standing as […]...
7. Reminiscence I am reminiscing you; and the little boy who often stole some change from the left pocket of your pants that would hang behind the door in the front room; his pride in bringing home for Mom, his three brothers and as many sisters, a plastic bagful of bananas or oranges from the money he’d […]...
8. Braggart The days will rally, wreathing Their crazy tarantelle; And you must go on breathing, But I’ll be safe in hell. Like January weather, The years will bite and smart, And pull your bones together To wrap your chattering heart. The pretty stuff you’re made of Will crack and crease and dry. The thing you are […]...
9. Because My Faltering Feet Because my faltering feet may fail to dare The first descendant of the steps of Hell Give me the Word in time that triumphs there. I too must pass into the misty hollow Where all our living laughter stops: and hark! The tiny stuffless voices of the dark Have called me, called me, till I […]...
10. The Poet Fears Failure The poet fears failure & so she says “Hold on pen What if the critics Hate me?” & with that question She blots out more lines Than any critic could. The critic is only doing his job: Keeping the poet lonely. He barks Like a dog at the door When the master comes home. It’s […]...
11. That One Oh days devoted to the useless burden Of putting out of mind the biography Of a minor poet of the Southem Hemisphere, To whom the fates or perhaps the stars have given A body which will leave behind no child, And blindness, which is semi-darkness and jail, And old age, which is the dawn of […]...
12. Distressed Haiku In a week or ten days The snow and ice Will melt from Cemetery Road. I’m coming! Don’t move! Once again it is April. Today is the day We would have been married Twenty-six years. I finished with April Halfway through March. You think that their Dying is the worst Thing that could happen. Then […]...
13. The Shearers No church-bell rings them from the Track, No pulpit lights theirblindness ‘Tis hardship, drought, and homelessness That teach those Bushmen kindness: The mateship born, in barren lands, Of toil and thirst and danger, The camp-fare for the wanderer set, The first place to the stranger. They do the best they can to-day Take no thought […]...
14. The Sun Says His Prayers “The sun says his prayers,” said the fairy, Or else he would wither and die. “The sun says his prayers,” said the fairy, “For strength to climb up through the sky. He leans on invisible angels, And Faith is his prop and his rod. The sky is his crystal cathedral. And dawn is his altar […]...
15. Crying to be written Dawn has reached the ridges to the north and a thin Line of light chased the night west; it is the best Time of day for me – a cup of coffee, Benson & Scud Pretending to sleep in their baskets at my feet, I am seated, ready to write knowing the lounge fire Is […]...
16. On Broadway About me young careless feet Linger along the garish street; Above, a hundred shouting signs Shed down their bright fantastic glow Upon the merry crowd and lines Of moving carriages below. Oh wonderful is Broadway only My heart, my heart is lonely. Desire naked, linked with Passion, Goes trutting by in brazen fashion; From playhouse, […]...
17. Sonnet VIII: There's Nothing Grieves Me There’s nothing grieves me, but that Age should haste, That in my days I may not see thee old, That where those two clear sparkling eyes are plac’d Only two loop-holes then I might behold; That lovely, arched, ivory, polish’d brow Defac’d with wrinkles that I might but see; Thy dainty hair, so curl’d and […]...
18. The Eagle He clasps the crag with crooked hands; Close to the sun in lonely lands, Ring’d with the azure world, he stands. The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls; He watches from his mountain walls, And like a thunderbolt he falls....
19. Ballade at Thirty-five This, no song of an ingénue, This, no ballad of innocence; This, the rhyme of a lady who Followed ever her natural bents. This, a solo of sapience, This, a chantey of sophistry, This, the sum of experiments, I loved them until they loved me. Decked in garments of sable hue, Daubed with ashes of […]...
20. Symptom Recital I do not like my state of mind; I’m bitter, querulous, unkind. I hate my legs, I hate my hands, I do not yearn for lovelier lands. I dread the dawn’s recurrent light; I hate to go to bed at night. I snoot at simple, earnest folk. I cannot take the gentlest joke. I find […]...
21. Rememberance And you wait, keep waiting for that one thing Which would infinitely enrich your life: The powerful, uniquely uncommon, The awakening of dormant stones, Depths that would reveal you to yourself. In the dusk you notice the book shelves With their volumes in gold and in brown; And you think of far lands you journeyed, […]...
22. Sonnet XLIX: Thou Leaden Brain Thou leaden brain, which censur’st what I write, And say’st my lines be dull and do not move, I marvel not thou feel’st not my delight, Which never felt’st my fiery touch of love. But thou, whose pen hath like a pack-horse serv’d, Whose stomach unto gall hath turn’d thy food, Whose senses, like poor […]...
23. The Jolly Company The stars, a jolly company, I envied, straying late and lonely; And cried upon their revelry: “O white companionship! You only In love, in faith unbroken dwell, Friends radiant and inseparable!” Light-heart and glad they seemed to me And merry comrades (EVEN SO GOD OUT OF HEAVEN MAY LAUGH TO SEE THE HAPPY CROWDS; AND […]...
24. Salvage GUNS on the battle lines have pounded now a year Between Brussels and Paris. And, William Morris, when I read your old chapter on The great arches and naves and little whimsical Corners of the Churches of Northern France Brr-rr! I’m glad you’re a dead man, William Morris, I’m glad You’re down in the damp […]...
25. The Satin Dress Needle, needle, dip and dart, Thrusting up and down, Where’s the man could ease a heart Like a satin gown? See the stitches curve and crawl Round the cunning seams- Patterns thin and sweet and small As a lady’s dreams. Wantons go in bright brocade; Brides in organdie; Gingham’s for the plighted maid; Satin’s for […]...
26. The Free THEY bathed in the fire-flooded fountains: Life girdled them round and about: They slept in the clefts of the mountains: The stars called them forth with a shout. They prayed, but their worship was only The wonder at nights and at days, As still as the lips of the lonely Though burning with dumbness of […]...
27. 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 […]...
28. When I heard the Learn'd Astronomer WHEN I heard the learn’d astronomer; When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me; When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them; When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room, How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick; […]...
29. Rain Along Shore Wan white mists upon the sea, East wind harping mournfully All the sunken reefs along, Wail and heart-break in its song, But adown the placid bay Fisher-folk keep holiday. All the deeps beyond the bar Call and murmur from afar, ‘Plaining of a mighty woe Where the great ships come and go, But adown the […]...
30. Portrait (For S. A.)TO write one book in five years Or five books in one year, To be the painter and the thing painted, … where are we, bo? Wait-get his number. The barber shop handling is here And the tweeds, the cheviot, the Scotch Mist, And the flame orange scarf. Yet there is more-he sleeps […]...
31. When the prophet, a complacent fat man When the prophet, a complacent fat man, Arrived at the mountain-top, He cried: “Woe to my knowledge! I intended to see good white lands And bad black lands, But the scene is grey.”...
32. Reuben Pantier Well, Emily Sparks, your prayers were not wasted, Your love was not all in vain. I owe whatever I was in life To your hope that would not give me up, To your love that saw me still as good. Dear Emily Sparks, let me tell you the story. I pass the effect of my […]...
33. The Road to Old Man's Town The fields of youth are filled with flowers, The wine of youth is strong: What need have we to count the hours? The summer days are long. But soon we find to our dismay That we are drifting down The barren slopes that fall away Towards the foothills grim and grey That lead to Old […]...
34. The Indian To His Love The island dreams under the dawn And great boughs drop tranquillity; The peahens dance on a smooth lawn, A parrot sways upon a tree, Raging at his own image in the enamelled sea. Here we will moor our lonely ship And wander ever with woven hands, Murmuring softly lip to lip, Along the grass, along […]...
35. The Height of the Ridiculous I WROTE some lines once on a time In wondrous merry mood, And thought, as usual, men would say They were exceeding good. They were so queer, so very queer, I laughed as I would die; Albeit, in the general way, A sober man am I. I called my servant, and he came; How kind […]...
36. NOT EVERY DAY FIT FOR VERSE ‘Tis not ev’ry day that I Fitted am to prophesy: No, but when the spirit fills The fantastic pannicles, Full of fire, then I write As the Godhead doth indite. Thus enraged, my lines are hurl’d, Like the Sibyl’s, through the world: Look how next the holy fire Either slakes, or doth retire; So the […]...
37. Vision Of The Archangels, The Slowly up silent peaks, the white edge of the world, Trod four archangels, clear against the unheeding sky, Bearing, with quiet even steps, and great wings furled, A little dingy coffin; where a child must lie, It was so tiny. (Yet, you had fancied, God could never Have bidden a child turn from the spring […]...
38. TO WILLIAM E. CHANNING The pages of thy book I read, And as I closed each one, My heart, responding, ever said, “Servant of God! well done!” Well done! Thy words are great and bold; At times they seem to me, Like Luther’s, in the days of old, Half-battles for the free. Go on, until this land revokes The […]...
39. Good-Children Street There’s a dear little home in Good-Children street – My heart turneth fondly to-day Where tinkle of tongues and patter of feet Make sweetest of music at play; Where the sunshine of love illumines each face And warms every heart in that old-fashioned place. For dear little children go romping about With dollies and tin […]...
40. Boon Soul Behold! I’m old; my hair is white; My eighty years are in the offing, And sitting by the fire to-night I sip a grog to ease my coughing. It’s true I’m raucous as a rook, But feeling bibulously “bardy,” These lines I’m scribbling in a book: The verse complete of Thomas Hardy. Although to-day he’s […]...