I Dreamed My Genesis

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1. I Dreamed Of Forest Alleys fair I. I DREAMED of forest alleys fair And fields of gray-flowered grass, Where by the yellow summer moon My Jenny seemed to pass. I dreamed the yellow summer moon, Behind a cedar wood, Lay white on fields of rippling grass Where I and Jenny stood. I dreamed – but fallen through my dream, In a […]...
2. I Have Dreamed of You so Much I have dreamed of you so much that you are no longer real. Is there still time for me to reach your breathing body, to kiss your mouth and make Your dear voice come alive again? I have dreamed of you so much that my arms, grown used to being crossed on my Chest as […]...
3. Last Night I Dreamed of Chickens Last night I dreamed of chickens, There were chickens everywhere, They were standing on my stomach, They were nesting in my hair, They were pecking at my pillow, They were hopping on my head, They were ruffling up their feathers As they raced about my bed. They were on the chairs and tables, They were […]...
4. The Harvest Moon The flame-red moon, the harvest moon, Rolls along the hills, gently bouncing, A vast balloon, Till it takes off, and sinks upward To lie on the bottom of the sky, like a gold doubloon. The harvest moon has come, Booming softly through heaven, like a bassoon. And the earth replies all night, like a deep […]...
5. Genesis In the outer world that was before this earth, That was before all shape or space was born, Before the blind first hour of time had birth, Before night knew the moonlight or the morn; Yea, before any world had any light, Or anything called God or man drew breath, Slowly the strong sides of […]...
6. Genesis I was but a half-grown boy, You were a girl-child slight. Ah, how weary you were! You had led in the bullock-fight… We slew the bullock at length With knives and maces of stone. And so your feet were torn, Your lean arms bruised to the bone. Perhaps ’twas the slain beast’s blood We drank, […]...
7. I Dreamed I Moved Among The Elysian Fields I dreamed I moved among the Elysian fields, In converse with sweet women long since dead; And out of blossoms which that meadow yields I wove a garland for your living head. Danai, that was the vessel for a day Of golden Jove, I saw, and at her side, Whom Jove the Bull desired and […]...
8. The Last Judgment With beating heart and lagging feet, Lord, I approach the Judgment-seat. All bring hither the fruits of toil, Measures of wheat and measures of oil; Gold and jewels and precious wine; No hands bare like these hands of mine. The treasure I have nor weighs nor gleams: Lord, I can bring you only dreams. In […]...
9. In heaven In heaven, Some little blades of grass Stood before God. “What did you do?” Then all save one of the little blades Began eagerly to relate The merits of their lives. This one stayed a small way behind, Ashamed. Presently, God said, “And what did you do?” The little blade answered, “Oh my Lord, Memory […]...
10. The chatter of a death-demon from a tree-top The chatter of a death-demon from a tree-top Blood blood and torn grass Had marked the rise of his agony This lone hunter. The grey-green woods impassive Had watched the threshing of his limbs. A canoe with flashing paddle, A girl with soft searching eyes, A call: “John!” . . . . . Come, arise, […]...
11. The Man Who Dreamed Of Faeryland He stood among a crowd at Dromahair; His heart hung all upon a silken dress, And he had known at last some tenderness, Before earth took him to her stony care; But when a man poured fish into a pile, It Seemed they raised their little silver heads, And sang what gold morning or evening […]...
12. New Feet EMPTY battlefields keep their phantoms. Grass crawls over old gun wheels And a nodding Canada thistle flings a purple Into the summer’s southwest wind, Wrapping a root in the rust of a bayonet, Reaching a blossom in rust of shrapnel....
13. Stream Of Life The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day Runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures. It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth In numberless blades of grass And breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers. It is the same […]...
14. 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 […]...
15. St. Martin's Summer AS swallows turning backward When half-way o’er the sea, At one word’s trumpet summons They came again to me – The hopes I had forgotten Came back again to me. I know not which to credit, O lady of my heart! Your eyes that bade me linger, Your words that bade us part – I […]...
16. To-Day, This Insect To-day, this insect, and the world I breathe, Now that my symbols have outelbowed space, Time at the city spectacles, and half The dear, daft time I take to nudge the sentence, In trust and tale I have divided sense, Slapped down the guillotine, the blood-red double Of head and tail made witnesses to this […]...
17. The Genesis of the Butterfly The dawn is smiling on the dew that covers The tearful roses; lo, the little lovers That kiss the buds, and all the flutterings In jasmine bloom, and privet, of white wings, That go and come, and fly, and peep and hide, With muffled music, murmured far and wide. Ah, the Spring time, when we […]...
18. The Mower The mower stalled, twice; kneeling, I found A hedgehog jammed up against the blades, Killed. It had been in the long grass. I had seen it before, and even fed it, once. Now I had mauled its unobtrusive world Unmendably. Burial was no help: Next morning I got up and it did not. The first […]...
19. Grass The living room is overgrown with grass. It has Come up around the furniture. It stretches through The dining room, past the swinging door into the Kitchen. It extends for miles and miles into the Walls. . . There’s treasure in grass, things dropped or put There; a stick of rust that was once a […]...
20. Hymn 25 A vision of the Lamb. Rev. 5:6-9. All mortal vanities, begone, Nor tempt my eyes, nor tire my ears; Behold, amidst th’ eternal throne, A vision of the Lamb appears. [Glory his fleecy robe adorns, Marked with the bloody death he bore; Seven are his eyes, and seven his horns, To speak his wisdom and […]...
21. By Broad Potomac's Shore 1 BY broad Potomac’s shore-again, old tongue! (Still uttering-still ejaculating-canst never cease this babble?) Again, old heart so gay-again to you, your sense, the full flush spring returning; Again the freshness and the odors-again Virginia’s summer sky, pellucid blue and silver, Again the forenoon purple of the hills, Again the deathless grass, so noiseless, soft […]...
22. THE CARDINAL LOOKS BACK I was a good father to my people, Their houses among the terraced hills Adored God every day, grape-clusters on the vines Made Christ’s blood richer in the goblet My father gave me: the chased silver had vines Round the stem and Cellini made it, ‘Let him take it to Rome’, he had said, ‘The […]...
23. No Foe Shall Gather Our Harvest Sons of the mountains of Scotland, Welshmen of coomb and defile, Breed of the moors of England, Children of Erin’s green isle, We stand four square to the tempest, Whatever the battering hail- No foe shall gather our harvest, Or sit on our stockyard rail. Our women shall walk in honour, Our children shall know […]...
24. At Dawn In the night I dreamed of you; All the place was filled With your presence; in my heart The strife was stilled. All night I have dreamed of you; Now the morn is grey. How shall I arise and face The empty day?...
25. Tell Me Tell me, dear beauty of the dusk, When purple ribbons bind the hill, Do dreams your secret wish fulfill, Do prayers, like kernels from the husk Come from your lips? Tell me if when The mountains loom at night, giant shades Of softer shadow, swift like blades Of grass seeds come to flower. Then Tell […]...
26. Where edges are She is effulgent in the dark halls of town. She is listening but they are hearing. Her skin is blistering and sharp with sparks. She is listening for the crick of grass underfoot. They are hearing her heavy paces. She is straining to feel the hum of the air. They are hearing her voice wailing […]...
27. A Dream of Trees There is a thing in me that dreamed of trees, A quiet house, some green and modest acres A little way from every troubling town, A little way from factories, schools, laments. I would have time, I thought, and time to spare, With only streams and birds for company. To build out of my life […]...
28. The Harvest Bow As you plaited the harvest bow You implicated the mellowed silence in you In wheat that does not rust But brightens as it tightens twist by twist Into a knowable corona, A throwaway love-knot of straw. Hands that aged round ashplants and cane sticks And lapped the spurs on a lifetime of game cocks Harked […]...
29. Sestina I have come, alas, to the great circle of shadow, To the short day and to the whitening hills, When the colour is all lost from the grass, Though my desire will not lose its green, So rooted is it in this hardest stone, That speaks and feels as though it were a woman. And […]...
30. The Cow Thank you, pretty cow, that made Pleasant milk to soak my bread, Every day and every night, Warm, and fresh, and sweet, and white. Do not chew the hemlock rank, Growing on the weedy bank; But the yellow cowslips eat; They perhaps will make it sweet. Where the purple violet grows, Where the bubbling water […]...
31. I think the Hemlock likes to stand I think the Hemlock likes to stand Upon a Marge of Snow It suits his own Austerity And satisfies an awe That men, must slake in Wilderness And in the Desert cloy An instinct for the Hoar, the Bald Lapland’s necessity The Hemlock’s nature thrives on cold The Gnash of Northern winds Is sweetest nutriment […]...
32. Muckers TWENTY men stand watching the muckers. Stabbing the sides of the ditch Where clay gleams yellow, Driving the blades of their shovels Deeper and deeper for the new gas mains Wiping sweat off their faces With red bandanas The muckers work on. . pausing. . to pull Their boots out of suckholes where they slosh. […]...
33. The Ride The horse beneath me seemed To know what course to steer Through the horror of snow I dreamed, And so I had no fear, Nor was I chilled to death By the wind’s white shudders, thanks To the veils of his patient breath And the mist of sweat from his flanks. It seemed that all […]...
34. The Last Quarter of the Moon How long shall I tarnish the mirror of life, A spatter of rust on its polished steel! The seasons reel Like a goaded wheel. Half-numb, half-maddened, my days are strife. The night is sliding towards the dawn, And upturned hills crouch at autumn’s knees. A torn moon flees Through the hemlock trees, The hours have […]...
35. Out o'Doors There’s a gypsy wind across the harvest land, Let us fare forth with it lightly hand in hand; Where cloud shadows blow across the sunwarm waste, And the first red leaves are falling let us haste, For the waning days are lavish of their stores, And the joy of life is with us out o’ […]...
36. All the Hills and Vales Along All the hills and vales along Earth is bursting into song, And the singers are the chaps Who are going to die perhaps. O sing, marching men, Till the valleys ring again. Give your gladness to earth’s keeping, So be glad, when you are sleeping. Cast away regret and rue, Think what you are marching […]...
37. Song III: It Grew Up Without Heeding Love is enough: it grew up without heeding In the days when ye knew not its name nor its measure, And its leaflets untrodden by the light feet of pleasure Had no boast of the blossom, no sign of the seeding, As the morning and evening passed over its treasure. And what do ye say […]...
38. On Fields O'er Which the Reaper's Hand has Passed On fields o’er which the reaper’s hand has pass’d Lit by the harvest moon and autumn sun, My thoughts like stubble floating in the wind And of such fineness as October airs, There after harvest could I glean my life A richer harvest reaping without toil, And weaving gorgeous fancies at my will In subtler […]...
39. The Poetry Reading at high noon At a small college near the beach Sober The sweat running down my arms A spot of sweat on the table I flatten it with my finger Blood money blood money My god they must think I love this like the others But it’s for bread and beer and rent Blood money […]...
40. Old David Smail He dreamed away his hours in school; He sat with such an absent air, The master reckoned him a fool, And gave him up in dull despair. When other lads were making hay You’d find him loafing by the stream; He’d take a book and slip away, And just pretend to fish. . . and […]...