The Burned Child

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1. TO HIS SAVIOUR, A CHILD;A PRESENT, BY A CHILD Go, pretty child, and bear this flower Unto thy little Saviour; And tell him, by that bud now blown, He is the Rose of Sharon known. When thou hast said so, stick it there Upon his bib or stomacher; And tell him, for good handsel too, That thou hast brought a whistle new, Made of […]...
2. The Superseded I As newer comers crowd the fore, We drop behind. – We who have laboured long and sore Times out of mind, And keen are yet, must not regret To drop behind. II Yet there are of us some who grieve To go behind; Staunch, strenuous souls who scarce believe Their fires declined, And know […]...
3. A Child's Laughter ALL the bells of heaven may ring, All the birds of heaven may sing, All the wells on earth may spring, All the winds on earth may bring All sweet sounds together – Sweeter far than all things heard, Hand of harper, tone of bird, Sound of woods at sundawn stirred, Welling water’s winsome word, […]...
4. To a Child of Quality, Five Years Old, 1704. The Author then Forty LORDS, knights, and squires, the numerous band That wear the fair Miss Mary’s fetters, Were summoned by her high command To show their passions by their letters. My pen amongst the rest I took, Lest those bright eyes, that cannot read, Should dart their kindling fire, and look The power they have to be obey’d. […]...
5. Morning in the Burned House In the burned house I am eating breakfast. You understand: there is no house, there is no breakfast, Yet here I am. The spoon which was melted scrapes against The bowl which was melted also. No one else is around. Where have they gone to, brother and sister, Mother and father? Off along the shore, […]...
6. Like Mighty Foot Lights burned the Red Like Mighty Foot Lights burned the Red At Bases of the Trees The far Theatricals of Day Exhibiting to These ‘Twas Universe that did applaud While Chiefest of the Crowd Enabled by his Royal Dress Myself distinguished God...
7. Man Child All day he lay upon the sand When summer sun was bright, And let the grains sift through his hand With infantile delight; Just like a child, so soft and fair, Though he was twenty-five – An innocent, my mother – care Had kept so long alive. Oh it is hard to bear a cross […]...
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. A Curse For A Nation I heard an angel speak last night, And he said ‘Write! Write a Nation’s curse for me, And send it over the Western Sea.’ I faltered, taking up the word: ‘Not so, my lord! If curses must be, choose another To send thy curse against my brother. ‘For I am bound by gratitude, By love […]...
10. Mother and child One night a tiny dewdrop fell Into the bosom of a rose, “Dear little one, I love thee well, Be ever here thy sweet repose!” Seeing the rose with love bedight, The envious sky frowned dark, and then Sent forth a messenger of light And caught the dewdrop up again. “Oh, give me back my […]...
11. "I Love You Sweatheart&quot A man risked his life to write the words. A man hung upside down (an idiot friend Holding his legs?) with spray paint To write the words on a girder fifty feet above A highway. And his beloved, The next morning driving to work…? His words are not (meant to be) so unique. Does she […]...
12. The Child Is Father To The Man ‘The child is father to the man.’ How can he be? The words are wild. Suck any sense from that who can: ‘The child is father to the man.’ No; what the poet did write ran, ‘The man is father to the child.’ ‘The child is father to the man!’ How can he be? The […]...
13. Child Margaret THE CHILD Margaret begins to write numbers on a Saturday morning, the first numbers formed under her wishing child fingers. All the numbers come well-born, shaped in figures assertive for a frieze in a child’s room. Both 1 and 7 are straightforward, military, filled with lunge and attack, erect in shoulder-straps. The 6 and 9 […]...
14. Carbonara eyes Nicky said I couldn’t write, she’s got a charming Sense of social etiquette – given she’s a bitch (the canine sort, can’t spell for shit or even write A word) but then she has the most expressive eyes. So what she said was no surprise, she’d heard My lamentations, licked my hands, rested forepaws On […]...
15. To Earthward Love at the lips was touch As sweet as I could bear; And once that seemed too much; I lived on air That crossed me from sweet things, The scent of was it musk From hidden grapevine springs Down hill at dusk? I had the swirl and ache From sprays of honeysuckle That when they’re […]...
16. 311. On the Birth of a Posthumous Child SWEET flow’ret, pledge o’ meikle love, And ward o’ mony a prayer, What heart o’ stane wad thou na move, Sae helpless, sweet, and fair? November hirples o’er the lea, Chill, on thy lovely form: And gane, alas! the shelt’ring tree, Should shield thee frae the storm. May He who gives the rain to pour, […]...
17. Child and mother O mother-my-love, if you’ll give me your hand, And go where I ask you to wander, I will lead you away to a beautiful land, The Dreamland that’s waiting out yonder. We’ll walk in a sweet posie-garden out there, Where moonlight and starlight are streaming, And the flowers and the birds are filling the air […]...
18. Sonnet 76: Why is my verse so barren of new pride? Why is my verse so barren of new pride? So far from variation or quick change? Why with the time do I not glance aside To new-found methods, and to compounds strange? Why write I still all one, ever the same, And keep invention in a noted weed, That every word doth almost tell my […]...
19. The Stolen Child Where dips the rocky highland Of Sleuth Wood in the lake, There lies a leafy island Where flapping herons wake The drowsy water-rats; There we’ve hid our faery vats, Full of berries And of reddest stolen cherries. Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild With a faery, hand in hand, For […]...
20. Come hither, child Come hither, child who gifted thee With power to touch that string so well? How darest thou rouse up thoughts in me, Thoughts that I would but cannot quell? Nay, chide not, lady; long ago I heard those notes in Ula’s hall, And had I known they’d waken woe I’d weep their music to recall. […]...
21. I Would I Were a Careless Child I would I were a careless child, Still dwelling in my highland cave, Or roaming through the dusky wild, Or bounding o’er the dark blue wave; The cumbrous pomp of Saxon pride Accords not with the freeborn soul, Which loves the mountain’s craggy side, And seeks the rocks where billows roll. Fortune! take back these […]...
22. The Three Enemies THE FLESH “Sweet, thou art pale.” “More pale to see, Christ hung upon the cruel tree And bore His Father’s wrath for me.” “Sweet, thou art sad.” “Beneath a rod More heavy, Christ for my sake trod The winepress of the wrath of God.” “Sweet, thou art weary.” “Not so Christ: Whose mighty love of […]...
23. Child In Red Sometimes she walks through the village in her little red dress All absorbed in restraining herself, And yet, despite herself, she seems to move According to the rhythm of her life to come. She runs a bit, hesitates, stops, Half-turns around… And, all while dreaming, shakes her head For or against. Then she dances a […]...
24. In Memory of a Child I The angels guide him now, And watch his curly head, And lead him in their games, The little boy we led. II He cannot come to harm, He knows more than we know, His light is brighter far Than daytime here below. III His path leads on and on, Through pleasant lawns and flowers, […]...
25. The Happy Child I saw this day sweet flowers grow thick But not one like the child did pick. I heard the packhounds in green park But no dog like the child heard bark. I heard this day bird after bird But not one like the child has heard. A hundred butterflies saw I But not one like […]...
26. Child Lover Drunk or sober Uncle Jim Played the boy; Never glum or sour or grim, Oozin’ joy. Most folks thought he was no good, Blamin’ him; But where kiddies were, you could Bank on Jim. Sure he allus hated work, Lovin’ play. “Jest a good fer nuthin’ jerk,” Lots would say. Yet how the children fell […]...
27. Child of Europe 1 We, whose lungs fill with the sweetness of day. Who in May admire trees flowering Are better than those who perished. We, who taste of exotic dishes, And enjoy fully the delights of love, Are better than those who were buried. We, from the fiery furnaces, from behind barbed wires On which the winds […]...
28. A Child in the Garden When to the garden of untroubled thought I came of late, and saw the open door, And wished again to enter, and explore The sweet, wild ways with stainless bloom inwrought, And bowers of innocence with beauty fraught, It seemed some purer voice must speak before I dared to tread that garden loved of yore, […]...
29. Abuse of the Gospel Too many, Lord, abuse Thy grace In this licentious day, And while they boast they see Thy face, They turn their own away. Thy book displays a gracious light That can the blind restore; But these are dazzled by the sight, And blinded still the more. The pardon such presume upon, They do not beg […]...
30. Looking Upwards in a Storm God of my life, to Thee I call, Afflicted at Thy feet I fall; When the great water-floods prevail, Leave not my trembling heart to fail! Friend of the friendless and the faint, Where should I lodge my deep complaint, Where but with Thee, whose open door Invites the helpless and the poor! Did ever […]...
31. A Dialogue I DEATH, if thou wilt, fain would I plead with thee: Canst thou not spare, of all our hopes have built, One shelter where our spirits fain would be, Death, if thou wit? No dome with suns and dews impearled and gilt, Imperial: but some roof of wildwood tree, Too mean for sceptre’s heft or […]...
32. A Dialog I. Death, if thou wilt, fain would I plead with thee: Canst thou not spare, of all our hopes have built, One shelter where our spirits fain would be, Death, if thou wilt? No dome with suns and dews impearled and gilt, Imperial: but some roof of wildwood tree, Too mean for sceptre’s heft or […]...
33. Grace My stock lies dead and no increase Doth my dull husbandry improve: O let thy graces without cease Drop from above! If still the sun should hide his face, Thy house would but a dungeon prove, Thy works, night’s captives: O let grace Drop from above! The dew doth ev’ry morning fall; And shall the […]...
34. Robin Hood, A Child It was the pleasant season yet, When the stones at cottage doors Dry quickly, while the roads are wet, After the silver showers. The green leaves they looked greener still, And the thrush, renewing his tune, Shook a loud note from his gladsome bill Into the bright blue noon. Robin Hood’s mother looked out, and […]...
35. The Child-Angel They clamour and fight, they doubt and despair, they know no end To their wrangling. Let your life come amongst them like a flame of light, my Child, unflickering and pure, and delight them into silence. They are cruel in their greed and their envy, their words are like Hidden knives thirsting for blood. Go […]...
36. Not A Child ‘Not a child: I call myself a boy,’ Says my king, with accent stern yet mild, Now nine years have brought him change of joy; ‘Not a child.’ How could reason be so far beguiled, Err so far from sense’s safe employ, Stray so wide of truth, or run so wild? Seeing his face bent […]...
37. Sonnet 124: If my dear love were but the child of state If my dear love were but the child of state, It might for Fortune’s bastard be unfathered, As subject to Time’s love or to Time’s hate, Weeds among weeds, or flowers with flowers gathered. No, it was builded far from accident; It suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls Under the blow of thralled discontent, […]...
38. The Earth-Child in the Grass In the very early morning Long before Dawn time I lay down in the paddock And listened to the cold song of the grass. Between my fingers the green blades, And the green blades pressed against my body. “Who is she leaning so heavily upon me?” Sang the grass. “Why does she weep on my […]...
39. Lines Draw a line. Write a line. There. Stay in line, hold the line, a glance Between the lines is fine but don’t Turn corners, cross, cut in, go over Or out, between two points of no Return’s a line of flight, between Two points of view’s a line of vision. But a line of thought […]...
40. The Wicked Postman Why do you sit there on the floor so quiet and silent, tell me, Mother dear? The rain is coming in through the open window, making you all Wet, and you don’t mind it. Do you hear the gong striking four? It is time for my brother To come home from school. What has happened […]...