Song of Perfect Propriety

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1. MY PERFECT ROSE At ten she came to me, three years ago, There was ‘something between us’ even then; Watching her write like Eliot every day, Turn prose into haiku in ten minutes flat, Write a poem in Greek three weeks from learning the alphabet; Then translate it as ‘Sun on a tomb, gold place, small sacred horse’. […]...
2. One Perfect Rose A single flow’r he sent me, since we met. All tenderly his messenger he chose; Deep-hearted, pure, with scented dew still wet – One perfect rose. I knew the language of the floweret; ‘My fragile leaves,’ it said, ‘his heart enclose.’ Love long has taken for his amulet One perfect rose. Why is it no […]...
3. He Tells Of The Perfect Beauty O cloud-pale eyelids, dream-dimmed eyes, The poets labouring all their days To build a perfect beauty in rhyme Are overthrown by a woman’s gaze And by the unlabouring brood of the skies: And therefore my heart will bow, when dew Is dropping sleep, until God burn time, Before the unlabouring stars and you....
4. Dream Song 125: Bards freezing, naked, up to the neck in water Bards freezing, naked, up to the neck in water, Wholly in dark, time limited, different from Initiations now: The class in writing, clothed & dry & light, Unlimited time, till Poetry takes some, Nobody reads them though, No trumpets, no solemn instauration, no change; No commissions, ladies high in soulful praise (pal) none, Costumes as […]...
5. Dear Colette Dear Colette, I want to write to you About being a woman For that is what you write to me. I want to tell you how your face Enduring after thirty, forty, fifty. . . Hangs above my desk Like my own muse. I want to tell you how your hands Reach out from your […]...
6. The Perfect Marriage I I hate this yoke; for the world’s sake here put it on: Knowing ’twill weigh as much on you till life is gone. Knowing you love your freedom dear, as I love mine- Knowing that love unchained has been our life’s great wine: Our one great wine (yet spent too soon, and serving none; […]...
7. Writing often it is the only Thing Between you and Impossibility. No drink, No woman’s love, No wealth Can Match it. Nothing can save You Except Writing. It keeps the walls From Failing. The hordes from Closing in. It blasts the Darkness. Writing is the Ultimate Psychiatrist, The kindliest God of all the Gods. Writing stalks […]...
8. For An Unknown Lady Lady, if you’d slumber sound, Keep your eyes upon the ground. If you’d toss and turn at night, Slip your glances left and right. Would the mornings find you gay, Never give your heart away. Would they find you pale and sad, Fling it to a whistling lad. Ah, but when his pleadings burn, Will […]...
9. The perfect cup We were born of tea, our mum could drink fourteen Cups a day, an awesome feat to try to rationalise, Beyond belief unless you knew where we had one She would have two. The perfect cup, she said, Was never one; I understood in sum that meant A pot of tea for two, a cuppa […]...
10. Purposely Ungrammatical Love Song There’s many and many, and not so far, Is willing to dry my tears away; There’s many to tell me what you are, And never a lie to all they say. It’s little the good to hide my head, It’s never the use to bar my door; There’s many as counts the tears I shed, […]...
11. Let me not mar that perfect Dream Let me not mar that perfect Dream By an Auroral stain But so adjust my daily Night That it will come again. Not when we know, the Power accosts The Garment of Surprise Was all our timid Mother wore At Home in Paradise....
12. Crossroads The second half of my life will be black To the white rind of the old and fading moon. The second half of my life will be water Over the cracked floor of these desert years. I will land on my feet this time, Knowing at least two languages and who My friends are. I […]...
13. Dream Song 121: Grief is fatiguing. He is out of it Grief is fatiguing. He is out of it, The whole humiliating Human round, Out of this & that. He made a-many hearts go pit-a-pat Who now need never mind his nostril-hair Nor a critical error laid bare. He endured fifty years. He was Randall Jarrell And wrote a-many books & he wrote well. Peace to […]...
14. Song Of One Of The Girls Here in my heart I am Helen; I’m Aspasia and Hero, at least. I’m Judith, and Jael, and Madame de Stael; I’m Salome, moon of the East. Here in my soul I am Sappho; Lady Hamilton am I, as well. In me Recamier vies with Kitty O’Shea, With Dido, and Eve, and poor Nell. I’m […]...
15. I bended unto me a Bough I bended unto me a bough of May, That I might see and smell: It bore it in a sort of way, It bore it very well. But, when I let it backward sway, Then it were hard to tell With what a toss, with what a swing, The dainty thing Resumed its proper level, […]...
16. Ultimatum I’m wearied of wearying love, my friend, Of worry and strain and doubt; Before we begin, let us view the end, And maybe I’ll do without. There’s never the pang that was worth the tear, And toss in the night I won’t- So either you do or you don’t, my dear, Either you do or […]...
17. 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 […]...
18. The Ballad Of A Bachelor Listen, ladies, while I sing The ballad of John Henry King. John Henry was a bachelor, His age was thirty-three or four. Two maids for his affection vied, And each desired to be his bride, And bravely did they strive to bring Unto their feet John Henry King. John Henry liked them both so well, […]...
19. 283. Song-Willie brew'd a Peck o' Maut O WILLIE 1 brew’d a peck o’ maut, And Rob and Allen cam to see; Three blyther hearts, that lee-lang night, Ye wadna found in Christendie. Chorus.-We are na fou, we’re nae that fou, But just a drappie in our ee; The cock may craw, the day may daw And aye we’ll taste the barley […]...
20. Song How old may Phyllis be, you ask, Whose beauty thus all hearts engages? To answer is no easy task; For she has really two ages. Stiff in brocard, and pinch’d in stays, Her patches, paint, and jewels on; All day let envy view her face; And Phyllis is but twenty-one. Paint, patches, jeweTHE merchant, to […]...
21. To Dan STEP me now a bridal measure, Work give way to love and leisure, Hearts be free and hearts be gay Doctor Dan doth wed to-day. Diagnosis, cease your squalling Check that scalpel’s senseless bawling, Put that ugly knife away Doctor Dan doth wed to-day. ‘Tis no time for things unsightly, Life’s the day and life […]...
22. A Love Song Reject me not if I should say to you I do forget the sounding of your voice, I do forget your eyes that searching through The mists perceive our marriage, and rejoice. Yet, when the apple-blossom opens wide Under the pallid moonlight’s fingering, I see your blanched face at my breast, and hide My eyes […]...
23. Dance-Hall Girls Where are the dames I used to know In Dawson in the days of yore? Alas, it’s fifty years ago, And most, I guess, have “gone before.” The swinging scythe is swift to mow Alike the gallant and the fair; And even I, with gouty toe, Am glad to fill a rocking chair. Ah me, […]...
24. 30. Song-Composed in August NOW westlin winds and slaught’ring guns Bring Autumn’s pleasant weather; The moorcock springs on whirring wings Amang the blooming heather: Now waving grain, wide o’er the plain, Delights the weary farmer; And the moon shines bright, when I rove at night, To muse upon my charmer. The partridge loves the fruitful fells, The plover loves […]...
25. A Sort Of A Song Let the snake wait under His weed And the writing Be of words, slow and quick, sharp To strike, quiet to wait, Sleepless. -through metaphor to reconcile The people and the stones. Compose. (No ideas But in things) Invent! Saxifrage is my flower that splits The rocks....
26. He Remembers Forgotten Beauty When my arms wrap you round I press My heart upon the loveliness That has long faded from the world; The jewelled crowns that kings have hurled In shadowy pools, when armies fled; The love-tales wrought with silken thread By dreaming ladies upon cloth That has made fat the murderous moth; The roses that of […]...
27. The Children The children are all crying in their pens And the surf carries their cries away. They are old men who have seen too much, Their mouths are full of dirty clothes, The tongues poverty, tears like puss. The surf pushes their cries back. Listen. They are bewitched. They are writing down their life On the […]...
28. The Saginaw Song In Saginaw, in Saginaw, The wind blows up your feet, When the ladies’ guild puts on a feed, There’s beans on every plate, And if you eat more than you should, Destruction is complete. Out Hemlock Way there is a stream That some have called Swan Creek; The turtles have bloodsucker sores, And mossy filthy […]...
29. Valley Song YOUR eyes and the valley are memories. Your eyes fire and the valley a bowl. It was here a moonrise crept over the timberline. It was here we turned the coffee cups upside down. And your eyes and the moon swept the valley. I will see you again to-morrow. I will see you again in […]...
30. Dream Song 32: And where, friend Quo, lay you hiding And where, friend Quo, lay you hiding Across malignant half my years or so? One evil faery It was workt night, with amoroso pleasing Menace, the panes shake Where Lie-by-the-fire is waiting for his cream. A tiger by a torrent in rain, wind, Narrows fiend’s eyes for grief In an old ink-on-silk, Reminding me of […]...
31. Bride Song From ‘The Prince’s Progress’ TOO late for love, too late for joy, Too late, too late! You loiter’d on the road too long, You trifled at the gate: The enchanted dove upon her branch Died without a mate; The enchanted princess in her tower Slept, died, behind the grate; Her heart was starving all this […]...
32. A Pict Song Rome never looks where she treads. Always her heavy hooves fall On our stomachs, our hearts or our heads; And Rome never heeds when we bawl. Her sentries pass on that is all, And we gather behind them in hordes, And plot to reconquer the Wall, With only our tongues for our swords. We are […]...
33. Fool's Money Bags Outside the long window, With his head on the stone sill, The dog is lying, Gazing at his Beloved. His eyes are wet and urgent, And his body is taut and shaking. It is cold on the terrace; A pale wind licks along the stone slabs, But the dog gazes through the glass And is […]...
34. Dream Song 20: The Secret of the Wisdom When worst got things, how was you? Steady on? Wheedling, or shockt her & You have been bad to your friend, Whom not you writing to. You have not listened. A pelican of lies You loosed: where are you? Down weeks of evenings of longing By hours, NOW, a stoned bell, You did somebody: others […]...
35. The Years To-night I close my eyes and see A strange procession passing me The years before I saw your face Go by me with a wistful grace; They pass, the sensitive, shy years, As one who strives to dance, half blind with tears. The years went by and never knew That each one brought me nearer […]...
36. ETERNITY O years! and age! farewell: Behold I go, Where I do know Infinity to dwell. And these mine eyes shall see All times, how they Are lost i’ th’ sea Of vast eternity: Where never moon shall sway The stars; but she, And night, shall be Drown’d in one endless day....
37. Song The linnet in the rocky dells, The moor – lark in the air, The bee among the heather – bells That hide my lady fair: The wild deer browse above her breast; The wild birds raise their brood; And they, her smiles of love caressed, Have left their solitude! I ween, that when the grave’s […]...
38. Shadrach O'Leary O’Leary was a poet-for a while: He sang of many ladies frail and fair, The rolling glory of their golden hair, And emperors extinguished with a smile. They foiled his years with many an ancient wile, And if they limped, O’Leary didn’t care: He turned them loose and had them everywhere, Undoing saints and senates […]...
39. A Faery Song Sung by the people of Faery over Diarmuid and Grania, In their bridal sleep under a Cromlech. We who are old, old and gay, O so old! Thousands of years, thousands of years, If all were told: Give to these children, new from the world, Silence and love; And the long dew-dropping hours of the […]...
40. Dream Song 80: Op. posth. no. 3 It’s buried at a distance, on my insistence, buried. Weather’s severe there, which it will not mind. I miss it. O happies before & during & between the times it got married. I hate the love of leaving it behind, Deteriorating & hopeless that. The great Uh climbed above me, far above me, Doing the […]...