The False Friends

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1. The Stranger The Stranger within my gate, He may be true or kind, But he does not talk my talk I cannot feel his mind. I see the face and the eyes and the mouth, But not the soul behind. The men of my own stock, They may do ill or well, But they tell the lies […]...
2. Having each of you as friends For more than 40 years we’ve been good friends, Since 1963 in fact, from college where we met (and managed there to build a strong quartet Of campus friendship which kept those years intact, Still yet as clear as yesterday). The musketeers were we, Four sons of Nereid, or perhaps Persephone, As different each from […]...
3. The False Gods “We are false and evanescent, and aware of our deceit, From the straw that is our vitals to the clay that is our feet. You may serve us if you must, and you shall have your wage of ashes,- Though arrears due thereafter may be hard for you to meet. “You may swear that we […]...
4. A Farewell to False Love Farewell, false love, the oracle of lies, A mortal foe and enemy to rest, An envious boy, from whom all cares arise, A bastard vile, a beast with rage possessed, A way of error, a temple full of treason, In all effects contrary unto reason. A poisoned serpent covered all with flowers, Mother of sighs, […]...
5. The Lover Pleads With His Friend For Old Friends Though you are in your shining days, Voices among the crowd And new friends busy with your praise, Be not unkind or proud, But think about old friends the most: Time’s bitter flood will rise, Your beauty perish and be lost For all eyes but these eyes....
6. On The Death Of Friends In Childhood We shall not ever meet them bearded in heaven Nor sunning themselves among the bald of hell; If anywhere, in the deserted schoolyard at twilight, Forming a ring, perhaps, or joining hands In games whose very names we have forgotten. Come memory, let us seek them there in the shadows....
7. On Leaving Some Friends At An Early Hour Give me a golden pen, and let me lean On heaped-up flowers, in regions clear, and far; Bring me a tablet whiter than a star, Or hand of hymning angel, when ’tis seen The silver strings of heavenly harp atween: And let there glide by many a pearly car Pink robes, and wavy hair, and […]...
8. I Have Some Friends I have some friends, some worthy friends, And worthy friends are rare: These carpet slippers on my feet, That padded leather chair; This old and shabby dressing-gown, So well the worse of wear. I have some friends, some honest friends, And honest friends are few; My pipe of briar, my open fire, A book that’s […]...
9. On A Friends Absence Come, come, I faint: thy heavy stay Doubles each houre of the day: The winged hast of nimble love Makes aged Time not seeme to move: Did not the light, And then the night Instruct my sight I should believe the Sunne forgot his flight. Show not the drooping marygold Whose leaves like grieving amber […]...
10. Sonnet 109: O, never say that I was false of heart O, never say that I was false of heart, Though absence seemed my flame to qualify. As easy might I from my self depart As from my soul which in thy breast doth lie. That is my home of love; if I have ranged, Like him that travels I return again, Just to the time, […]...
11. True and False Comforts O God, whose favorable eye, The sin-sick soul revives, Holy and heavenly is the joy Thy shining presence gives. Not such as hypocrites suppose, Who with a graceless heart Taste not of Thee, but drink a dose, Prepared by Satan’s art. Intoxicating joys are theirs, Who while they boast their light, And seem to soar […]...
12. In Memoriam A. H. H.: 6. One writes, that Other Friends Rem One writes, that “Other friends remain,” That “Loss is common to the race” And common is the commonplace, And vacant chaff well meant for grain. That loss is common would not make My own less bitter, rather more. Too common! Never morning wore To evening, but some heart did break. O father, wheresoe’er thou be, […]...
13. My Friends The man above was a murderer, the man below was a thief; And I lay there in the bunk between, ailing beyond belief; A weary armful of skin and bone, wasted with pain and grief. My feet were froze, and the lifeless toes were purple and green and gray; The little flesh that clung to […]...
14. Covenent 1914 We thought we ranked above the chance of ill. Others might fall, not we, for we were wise Merchants in freedom. So, of our free-will We let our servants drug our strength with lies. The pleasure and the poison had its way On us as on the meanest, till we learned That he who […]...
15. Fifteen False Propositions Against God – Section XIV If the diamond ring turns brass Mama’s going to buy you a looking glass Marianne Moore and Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams Going on a picnic together when they were all students at the University of Pennsylvania Now they are all over seventy and the absent baby Is a mirror sheltering their image....
16. Cassandra The mad girl with the staring eyes and long white fingers Hooked in the stones of the wall, The storm-wrack hair and screeching mouth: does it matter, Cassandra, Whether the people believe Your bitter fountain? Truly men hate the truth, they’d liefer Meet a tiger on the road. Therefore the poets honey their truth with […]...
17. Mrs. Purkapile He ran away and was gone for a year. When he came home he told me the silly story Of being kidnapped by pirates on Lake Michigan And kept in chains so he could not write me. I pretended to believe it, though I knew very well What he was doing, and that he met […]...
18. False Notions, Fears, And Other Things Of Wood Repeatedly, that sturdy stump in me Bears up like stone, Beneath some ritual I see: The blinding axe Swings up, holds, That moment of its weightlessness Inscrutable Till I confirm the arm is mine; I will it, grip, Feel moist the swelling handle, The shudder rude, The difference fallen. Toward that chopping block I carry […]...
19. Fifteen False Propositions Against God – Section XIII Hush now baby don’t say a word Mama’s going to buy you a mocking bird The third Joyful mystery. The joy that descends on you when all the trees are cut down And all the fountains polluted and you are still alive waiting For an absent savior. The third Joyful mystery. If the mocking bird […]...
20. If If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you; If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too: If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies, Or being […]...
21. Café Comedy She I’m waiting for the man I hope to wed. I’ve never seen him – that’s the funny part. I promised I would wear a rose of red, Pinned on my coat above my fluttered heart, So that he’d know me – a precaution wise, Because I wrote him I was twenty-three, And Oh such […]...
22. LETTERS TO FRIENDS I Eddie Linden Dear Eddie we’ve not met Except upon the written page And at your age the wonder Is that you write at all When so many have gone under Or been split asunder by narcissistic humours Blunder following blunder Barker and Graham, godfathering my verse Bearing me cloud-handed to Haworth moor From my […]...
23. Friends Now must I these three praise Three women that have wrought What joy is in my days: One because no thought, Nor those unpassing cares, No, not in these fifteen Many-times-troubled years, Could ever come between Mind and delighted mind; And one because her hand Had strength that could unbind What none can understand, What […]...
24. Sonnet XX: Fly, Fly, My Friends Fly, fly, my friends, I have my death wound; fly! See there that boy, that murthering boy I say, Who like a thief, hid in dark bush doth lie, Till bloody bullet get him wrongful prey. So tyrant he no fitter place could spy, Nor so fair level in so secret stay, As that sweet […]...
25. A Man Young And Old: VII. The Friends Of His Youth Laughter not time destroyed my voice And put that crack in it, And when the moon’s pot-bellied I get a laughing fit, For that old Madge comes down the lane, A stone upon her breast, And a cloak wrapped about the stone, And she can get no rest With singing hush and hush-a-bye; She that […]...
26. My Friends My friends without shields walk on the target It is late the windows are breaking My friends without shoes leave What they love Grief moves among them as a fire among Its bells My friends without clocks turn On the dial they turn They part My friends with names like gloves set out Bare handed […]...
27. His Phoenix There is a queen in China, or maybe it’s in Spain, And birthdays and holidays such praises can be heard Of her unblemished lineaments, a whiteness with no stain, That she might be that sprightly girl trodden by a bird; And there’s a score of duchesses, surpassing womankind, Or who have found a painter to […]...
28. In the desert In the desert I saw a creature, naked, bestial, Who, squatting upon the ground, Held his heart in his hands, And ate of it. I said: “Is it good, friend?” “It is bitter – bitter,” he answered; “But I like it Because it is bitter, And because it is my heart.”...
29. Tombstones in the Starlight I. The Minor Poet His little trills and chirpings were his best. No music like the nightingale’s was born Within his throat; but he, too, laid his breast Upon a thorn. II. The Pretty Lady She hated bleak and wintry things alone. All that was warm and quick, she loved too well- A light, a […]...
30. The Heart Of The Woman O what to me the little room That was brimmed up with prayer and rest; He bade me out into the gloom, And my breast lies upon his breast. O what to me my mother’s care, The house where I was safe and warm; The shadowy blossom of my hair Will hide us from the […]...
31. Hiawatha's Friends Two good friends had Hiawatha, Singled out from all the others, Bound to him in closest union, And to whom he gave the right hand Of his heart, in joy and sorrow; Chibiabos, the musician, And the very strong man, Kwasind. Straight between them ran the pathway, Never grew the grass upon it; Singing birds, […]...
32. Friends Beyond WILLIAM Dewy, Tranter Reuben, Farmer Ledlow late at plough, Robert’s kin, and John’s, and Ned’s, And the Squire, and Lady Susan, lie in Mellstock churchyard now! “Gone,” I call them, gone for good, that group of local hearts and Heads; Yet at mothy curfew-tide, And at midnight when the noon-heat breathes it back from walls […]...
33. To My Friends Yes, my friends! that happier times have been Than the present, none can contravene; That a race once lived of nobler worth; And if ancient chronicles were dumb, Countless stones in witness forth would come From the deepest entrails of the earth. But this highly-favored race has gone, Gone forever to the realms of night. […]...
34. The Two Friends AXIOCHUS, a handsome youth of old, And Alcibiades, (both gay and bold,) So well agreed, they kept a beauteous belle, With whom by turns they equally would dwell. IT happened, one of them so nicely played, The fav’rite lass produced a little maid, Which both extolled, and each his own believed, Though doubtless one or […]...
35. Friends Departed They are all gone into the world of light! And I alone sit ling’ring here; Their very memory is fair and bright, And my sad thoughts doth clear. It glows and glitters in my cloudy breast, Like stars upon some gloomy grove, Or those faint beams in which this hill is drest After the sun’s […]...
36. Dear Friends Dear Friends, reproach me not for what I do, Nor counsel me, nor pity me; nor say That I am wearing half my life away For bubble-work that only fools pursue. And if my bubbles be too small for you, Blow bigger then your own: the games we play To fill the frittered minutes of […]...
37. Soon Our Friends Perish SOON our friends perish, Soon all we cherish Fades as days darken – goes as flowers go. Soon in December Over an ember, Lonely we hearken, as loud winds blow....
38. To Friends At Home TO friends at home, the lone, the admired, the lost The gracious old, the lovely young, to May The fair, December the beloved, These from my blue horizon and green isles, These from this pinnacle of distances I, The unforgetful, dedicate....
39. Friends Within The Darkness I can remember starving in a Small room in a strange city Shades pulled down, listening to Classical music I was young I was so young it hurt like a knife Inside Because there was no alternative except to hide as long As possible Not in self-pity but with dismay at my limited chance: Trying […]...
40. The healed Heart shows its shallow scar The healed Heart shows its shallow scar With confidential moan Not mended by Mortality Are Fabrics truly torn To go its convalescent way So shameless is to see More genuine were Perfidy Than such Fidelity....