My Most Distinguished Guest And Learned Friend

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1. The Best Friend Now shall I walk Or shall I ride? “Ride”, Pleasure said; “Walk”, Joy replied. Now what shall I Stay home or roam? “Roam”, Pleasure said; And Joy “stay home.” Now shall I dance, Or sit for dreams? “Sit,” answers Joy; “Dance,” Pleasure screams. Which of ye two Will kindest be? Pleasure laughed sweet, But Joy […]...
2. Thinking Of A Friend At Night In this evil year, autumn comes early… I walk by night in the field, alone, the rain clatters, The wind on my hat…And you? And you, my friend? You are standing maybe and seeing the sickle moon Move in a small arc over the forests And bivouac fire, red in the black valley. You are […]...
3. Ballad of a Ship Down by the flash of the restless water The dim White Ship like a white bird lay; Laughing at life and the world they sought her, And out she swung to the silvering bay. Then off they flew on their roystering way, And the keen moon fired the light foam flying Up from the flood […]...
4. A learned man came to me once A learned man came to me once. He said, “I know the way, come.” And I was overjoyed at this. Together we hastened. Soon, too soon, were we Where my eyes were useless, And I knew not the ways of my feet. I clung to the hand of my friend; But at last he cried, […]...
5. We learned the Whole of Love We learned the Whole of Love The Alphabet the Words A Chapter then the mighty Book Then Revelation closed But in Each Other’s eyes An Ignorance beheld Diviner than the Childhood’s And each to each, a Child Attempted to expound What Neither understood Alas, that Wisdom is so large And Truth so manifold!...
6. I learned at least what Home could be I learned at least what Home could be How ignorant I had been Of pretty ways of Covenant How awkward at the Hymn Round our new Fireside but for this This pattern of the Way Whose Memory drowns me, like the Dip Of a Celestial Sea What Mornings in our Garden guessed What Bees for […]...
7. Sonnet XII: That Learned Father To the Soul That learned Father, who so firmly proves The Soul of man immortal and divine, And doth the several offices define: Anima – Gives her that name, as she the Body moves; Amor – Then is she Love, embracing charity; Animus – Moving a Will in us, it is the Mind Mens – […]...
8. If anybody's friend be dead If anybody’s friend be dead It’s sharpest of the theme The thinking how they walked alive At such and such a time Their costume, of a Sunday, Some manner of the Hair A prank nobody knew but them Lost, in the Sepulchre How warm, they were, on such a day, You almost feel the date […]...
9. Mock Panegyric on a Young Friend In measured verse I’ll now rehearse The charms of lovely Anna: And, first, her mind is unconfined Like any vast savannah. Ontario’s lake may fitly speak Her fancy’s ample bound: Its circuit may, on strict survey Five hundred miles be found. Her wit descends on foes and friends Like famed Niagara’s fall; And travellers gaze […]...
10. To His Honoured and Most Ingenious Friend Mr. Charles Cotton For brave comportment, wit without offence, Words fully flowing, yet of influence: Thou art that man of men, the man alone, Worthy the public admiration: Who with thine own eyes read’st what we do write, And giv’st our numbers euphony, and weight. Tell’st when a verse springs high, how understood To be, or not born […]...
11. Fear Not, Dear Friend, But Freely Live Your Days FEAR not, dear friend, but freely live your days Though lesser lives should suffer. Such am I, A lesser life, that what is his of sky Gladly would give for you, and what of praise. Step, without trouble, down the sunlit ways. We that have touched your raiment, are made whole From all the selfish […]...
12. Sonnet XXI: Your Words, My Friend Your words, my friend, (right healthful caustics) blame My young mind marr’d, whom Love doth windlass so, That mine own writings like bad servants show My wits, quick in vain thoughts, in virtue lame; That Plato I read for nought, but if he tame Such doltish gyres; that to my birth I owe Nobler desires, […]...
13. Seascape With Sun And Eagle Freer Than most birds An eagle flies up Over San Francisco Freer than most places Soars high up Floats and glides high up In the still Open spaces Flown from the mountains Floated down Far over ocean Where the sunset has begun A mirror of itself He sails high over Turning and turning Where seaplanes […]...
14. My November Guest My Sorrow, when she’s here with me, Thinks these dark days of autumn rain Are beautiful as days can be; She loves the bare, the withered tree; She walks the sodden pasture lane. Her pleasure will not let me stay. She talks and I am fain to list: She’s glad the birds are gone away, […]...
15. Lo, Now, My Guest LO, now, my guest, if aught amiss were said, Forgive it and dismiss it from your head. For me, for you, for all, to close the date, Pass now the ev’ning sponge across the slate; And to that spirit of forgiveness keep Which is the parent and the child of sleep....
16. A Song of the Road O I will walk with you, my lad, whichever way you fare, You’ll have me, too, the side o’ you, with heart as light as air; No care for where the road you take’s a-leadin’ anywhere, It can but be a joyful ja’nt whilst you journey there. The road you take’s the path o’ love, […]...
17. A Parting Guest What delightful hosts are they Life and Love! Lingeringly I turn away, This late hour, yet glad enough They have not withheld from me Their high hospitality. So, with face lit with delight And all gratitude, I stay Yet to press their hands and say, “Thanks. So fine a time! Good night.”...
18. He was my host he was my guest He was my host he was my guest, I never to this day If I invited him could tell, Or he invited me. So infinite our intercourse So intimate, indeed, Analysis as capsule seemed To keeper of the seed....
19. Guest am I to have Guest am I to have Light my northern room Why to cordiality so averse to come Other friends adjourn Other bonds decay Why avoid so narrowly My fidelity...
20. The Soul that hath a Guest The Soul that hath a Guest Doth seldom go abroad Diviner Crowd at Home Obliterate the need And Courtesy forbid A Host’s departure when Upon Himself be visiting The Emperor of Men...
21. The Guest is gold and crimson The Guest is gold and crimson An Opal guest and gray Of Ermine is his doublet His Capuchin gay He reaches town at nightfall He stops at every door Who looks for him at morning I pray him too explore The Lark’s pure territory Or the Lapwing’s shore!...
22. To a Friend I ask but one thing of you, only one, That always you will be my dream of you; That never shall I wake to find untrue All this I have believed and rested on, Forever vanished, like a vision gone Out into the night. Alas, how few There are who strike in us a chord […]...
23. A Dead Friend I. Gone, O gentle heart and true, Friend of hopes foregone, Hopes and hopeful days with you Gone? Days of old that shone Saw what none shall see anew, When we gazed thereon. Soul as clear as sunlit dew, Why so soon pass on, Forth from all we loved and knew Gone? II. Friend of […]...
24. THE CHEAT OF CUPID; OR, THE UNGENTLE GUEST One silent night of late, When every creature rested, Came one unto my gate, And knocking, me molested. Who’s that, said I, beats there, And troubles thus the sleepy? Cast off; said he, all fear, And let not locks thus keep ye. For I a boy am, who By moonless nights have swerved; And all […]...
25. Hail, Guest, And Enter Freely! HAIL, guest, and enter freely! All you see Is, for your momentary visit, yours; and we Who welcome you are but the guests of God, And know not our departure....
26. Dream Song 127: Again, his friend's death made the man sit still Again, his friend’s death made the man sit still And freeze inside—his daughter won first price— His wife scowled over at him— It seemed to be Hallowe’en. His friend’s death had been adjudged suicide, Which dangles a trail Longer than Henry’s chill, longer than his loss And longer than the letter that he wrote That […]...
27. A Channel Passage The damned ship lurched and slithered. Quiet and quick My cold gorge rose; the long sea rolled; I knew I must think hard of something, or be sick; And could think hard of only one thing YOU! You, you alone could hold my fancy ever! And with you memories come, sharp pain, and dole. Now […]...
28. HIS AGE:DEDICATED TO HIS PECULIAR FRIEND, MR JOHN WICKES, UNDER THE NAME OFPOSTUMUS Ah, Posthumus! our years hence fly And leave no sound: nor piety, Or prayers, or vow Can keep the wrinkle from the brow; But we must on, As fate does lead or draw us; none, None, Posthumus, could e’er decline The doom of cruel Proserpine. The pleasing wife, the house, the ground Must all be […]...
29. My friend attacks my friend! My friend attacks my friend! Oh Battle picturesque! Then I turn Soldier too, And he turns Satirist! How martial is this place! Had I a mighty gun I think I’d shoot the human race And then to glory run!...
30. A Prison gets to be a friend A Prison gets to be a friend Between its Ponderous face And Ours a Kinsmanship express And in its narrow Eyes We come to look with gratitude For the appointed Beam It deal us stated as our food And hungered for the same We learn to know the Planks That answer to Our feet So […]...
31. To A Friend Going Blind Today, because I couldn’t find the shortcut through, I had to walk this town’s entire inner Perimeter to find Where the medieval walls break open In an eighteenth century Arch. The yellow valley flickered on and off Through cracks and the gaps For guns. Bruna is teaching me To cut a pattern. Saturdays we buy […]...
32. Nothing But Death There are cemeteries that are lonely, Graves full of bones that do not make a sound, The heart moving through a tunnel, In it darkness, darkness, darkness, Like a shipwreck we die going into ourselves, As though we were drowning inside our hearts, As though we lived falling out of the skin into the soul. […]...
33. Dolor of Autumn The acrid scents of autumn, Reminiscent of slinking beasts, make me fear Everything, tear-trembling stars of autumn And the snore of the night in my ear. For suddenly, flush-fallen, All my life, in a rush Of shedding away, has left me Naked, exposed on the bush. I, on the bush of the globe, Like a […]...
34. To A Gentlewoman For A Friend No marvell if the Sunne’s bright eye Shower downe hott flames; that qualitie Still waytes on light; but when wee see Those sparkling balles of ebony Distil such heat, the gazer straight Stands so amazed at the sight As when the lightning makes a breach Through pitchie clouds: can lightning reach The marrowe hurting not […]...
35. Sonnet 104: To me, fair friend, you never can be old To me, fair friend, you never can be old, For as you were when first your eye I eyed, Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold Have from the forests shook three summers’ pride, Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turned In process of the seasons have I seen, Three April perfumes in three […]...
36. Dora SHE knelt upon her brother’s grave, My little girl of six years old He used to be so good and brave, The sweetest lamb of all our fold; He used to shout, he used to sing, Of all our tribe the little king And so unto the turf her ear she laid, To hark if […]...
37. The Sonnets To Orpheus: XIX Though the world keeps changing its form As fast as a cloud, still What is accomplished falls home To the Primeval. Over the change and the passing, Larger and freer, Soars your eternal song, God with the lyre. Never has grief been possesed, Never has love been learned, And what removes us in death Is […]...
38. Lions Not enough study Has been done On old lions dying. Unable to feed themselves, Without pride, teeth Or claws, their death Is starvation. We don’t wonder What happens To predators past their prime, Pastures are For the meek, and Only reasoning primates Would contemplate Last rites For their ancient nemesis. The lion needs No winter […]...
39. A PARANAETICALL, OR ADVISIVE VERSETO HIS FRIEND, MR JOHN WICKS Is this a life, to break thy sleep, To rise as soon as day doth peep? To tire thy patient ox or ass By noon, and let thy good days pass, Not knowing this, that Jove decrees Some mirth, t’ adulce man’s miseries? No; ’tis a life to have thine oil Without extortion from thy […]...
40. It feels a shame to be Alive It feels a shame to be Alive When Men so brave are dead One envies the Distinguished Dust Permitted such a Head The Stone that tells defending Whom This Spartan put away What little of Him we possessed In Pawn for Liberty The price is great Sublimely paid Do we deserve a Thing That lives […]...