Caput Mortuum

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1. A Day Off Let us put awhile away All the cares of work-a-day, For a golden time forget, Task and worry, toil and fret, Let us take a day to dream In the meadow by the stream. We may lie in grasses cool Fringing a pellucid pool, We may learn the gay brook-runes Sung on amber afternoons, And […]...
2. Golden Days Another day of toil and strife, Another page so white, Within that fateful Log of Life That I and all must write; Another page without a stain To make of as I may, That done, I shall not see again Until the Judgment Day. Ah, could I, could I backward turn The pages of that […]...
3. Modern Love IV: All Other Joys of Life All other joys of life he strove to warm, And magnify, and catch them to his lip: But they had suffered shipwreck with the ship, And gazed upon him sallow from the storm. Or if Delusion came, ’twas but to show The coming minute mock the one that went. Cold as a mountain in its […]...
4. Prelude They say that rhyme and rhythm are Outmoded now. I do not know, for I am far From high of brow. But if the twain you take away, Since basely bred, Proud Poetry, I dare to say, Would scarce be read. With humble heart I thus define My rôle in rhyme: Oh may I never […]...
5. Adonis 1. Each of us like you Has died once, Has passed through drift of wood-leaves, Cracked and bent And tortured and unbent In the winter-frost, The burnt into gold points, Lighted afresh, Crisp amber, scales of gold-leaf, Gold turned and re-welded In the sun; Each of us like you Has died once, Each of us […]...
6. To Her Father with Some Verses Most truly honoured, and as truly dear, If worth in me or ought I do appear, Who can of right better demand the same Than may your worthy self from whom it came? The principal might yield a greater sum, Yet handled ill, amounts but to this crumb; My stock’s so small I know not […]...
7. My Cross I wrote a poem to the moon But no one noticed it; Although I hoped that late or soon Someone would praise a bit Its purity and grace forlone, Its beauty tulip-cool… But as my poem died still-born, I felt a fool. I wrote a verse of vulgar trend Spiced with an oath or two; […]...
8. The Debt This is the debt I pay Just for one riotous day, Years of regret and grief, Sorrow without relief. Pay it I will to the end Until the grave, my friend, Gives me a true release Gives me the clasp of peace. Slight was the thing I bought, Small was the debt I thought, Poor […]...
9. Who Bides His Time Who bides his time, and day by day Faces defeat full patiently, And lifts a mirthful roundelay, However poor his fortunes be, He will not fail in any qualm Of poverty the paltry dime It will grow golden in his palm, Who bides his time. Who bides his time he tastes the sweet Of honey […]...
10. Weekend Glory Some clichty folks Don’t know the facts, Posin’ and preenin’ And puttin’ on acts, Stretchin’ their backs. They move into condos Up over the ranks, Pawn their souls To the local banks. Buying big cars They can’t afford, Ridin’ around town Actin’ bored. If they want to learn how to live life right They ought […]...
11. Squash in Blossom How lush, how loose, the uninhibited squash is. If ever hearts (and these immoderate leaves Are vegetable hearts) were worn on sleeves, The squash’s are. In green the squash vine gushes. The flowers are cornucopias of summer, Briefly exuberant and cheaply golden. And if they make a show of being hidden, Are open promiscuously to […]...
12. Now Art Has Lost Its Mental Charms ‘Now Art has lost its mental charms France shall subdue the world in arms.’ So spoke an Angel at my birth; Then said ‘Descend thou upon earth, Renew the Arts on Britain’s shore, And France shall fall down and adore. With works of art their armies meet And War shall sink beneath thy feet. But […]...
13. Love and Black Magic To the woods, to the woods is the wizard gone; In his grotto the maiden sits alone. She gazes up with a weary smile At the rafter-hanging crocodile, The slowly swinging crocodile. Scorn has she of her master’s gear, Cauldron, alembic, crystal sphere, Phial, philtre-“Fiddlededee For all such trumpery trash!” quo’ she. “A soldier is […]...
14. The Benefactors Ah! What avails the classic bent And what the cultured word, Against the undoctored incident That actually occurred? And what is Art whereto we press Through paint and prose and rhyme When Nature in her nakedness Defeats us every time? It is not learning, grace nor gear, Nor easy meat and drink, But bitter pinch […]...
15. Words Out of us all That make rhymes Will you choose Sometimes – As the winds use A crack in a wall Or a drain, Their joy or their pain To whistle through – Choose me, You English words? I know you: You are light as dreams, Tough as oak, Precious as gold, As poppies and […]...
16. Admire their style I’m reading fellow poets’ blogs today, A sustaining source of entertainment; I admire their style without exciting comment Or resorting to an unkind eye, simple though It is to sigh about uneasy affirmation. I hope when they read me (if they ever do) They rest as easy on my lack of finished form, The hazy, […]...
17. Sonnet XXXVII WHat guyle is this, that those her golden tresses, She doth attyre vnder a net of gold: And with sly skill so cunningly them dresses, That which is gold or heare, may scarse be told? Is it that mens frayle eyes, which gaze too bold, She may entangle in that golden snare: And being caught […]...
18. Said Grenfell to my Spirit Said Grenfell to my spirit, “You’ve been writing very free Of the charms of other places, and you don’t remember me. You have claimed another native place and think it’s Nature’s law, Since you never paid a visit to a town you never saw: So you sing of Mudgee Mountains, willowed stream and grassy flat: […]...
19. Four Preludes on Playthings of the Wind “The past is a bucket of ashes.” 1 THE WOMAN named To-morrow Sits with a hairpin in her teeth And takes her time And does her hair the way she wants it And fastens at last the last braid and coil And puts the hairpin where it belongs And turns and drawls: Well, what of […]...
20. On King Arthur’s Round Table at Winchester Where Venta’s Norman castle still uprears Its rafter’d hall, that o’er the grassy foss, And scatter’d flinty fragments clad in moss, On yonder steep in naked state appears; High hung remains, the pride of war-like years, Old Arthur’s board: on the capacious round Some British pen has sketch’d the names renown’d, In marks obscure, of […]...
21. Threes I WAS a boy when I heard three red words A thousand Frenchmen died in the streets For: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity—I asked Why men die for words. I was older; men with mustaches, sideburns, Lilacs, told me the high golden words are: Mother, Home, and Heaven—other older men with Face decorations said: God, Duty, Immortality […]...
22. The Stars are old, that stood for me The Stars are old, that stood for me The West a little worn Yet newer glows the only Gold I ever cared to earn Presuming on that lone result Her infinite disdain But vanquished her with my defeat ‘Twas Victory was slain....
23. Siege Perilous Long warned of many terrors more severe To scorch him than hell’s engines could awaken, He scanned again, too far to be so near, The fearful seat no man had ever taken. So many other men with older eyes Than his to see with older sight behind them Had known so long their one way […]...
24. A Song From 'The Player Queen&#039 My mother dandled me and sang, ‘How young it is, how young!’ And made a golden cradle That on a willow swung. ‘He went away,’ my mother sang, ‘When I was brought to bed,’ And all the while her needle pulled The gold and silver thread. She pulled the thread and bit the thread And […]...
25. If By Dull Rhymes Our English Must Be Chain'd If by dull rhymes our English must be chain’d, And, like Andromeda, the Sonnet sweet Fetter’d, in spite of pained loveliness; Let us find out, if we must be constrain’d, Sandals more interwoven and complete To fit the naked foot of poesy; Let us inspect the lyre, and weigh the stress Of every chord, and […]...
26. MACTAVISH I do not write for love of pelf, Nor lust for phantom fame; I do not rhyme to please myself, Nor yet to win acclaim: No, strange to say it is my plan, What gifts I have, to lavish Upon a simple working man MACTAVISH. For that’s the rather smeary name, Of dreary toil a […]...
27. Shakespeare Would that in body and spirit Shakespeare came Visible emperor of the deeds of Time, With Justice still the genius of his rhyme, Giving each man his due, each passion grace, Impartial as the rain from Heaven’s face Or sunshine from the heaven-enthroned sun. Sweet Swan of Avon, come to us again. Teach us to […]...
28. The Small Hours No more my little song comes back; And now of nights I lay My head on down, to watch the black And wait the unfailing gray. Oh, sad are winter nights, and slow; And sad’s a song that’s dumb; And sad it is to lie and know Another dawn will come....
29. Theme For English B The instructor said, Go home and write a page tonight. And let that page come out of you Then, it will be true. I wonder if it’s that simple? I am twenty-two, colored, born in Winston-Salem. I went to school there, then Durham, then here To this college on the hill above Harlem. I am […]...
30. The Song Of The Soldier-Born Give me the scorn of the stars and a peak defiant; Wail of the pines and a wind with the shout of a giant; Night and a trail unknown and a heart reliant. Give me to live and love in the old, bold fashion; A soldier’s billet at night and a soldier’s ration; A heart […]...
31. Dreams Are Best I just think that dreams are best, Just to sit and fancy things; Give your gold no acid test, Try not how your silver rings; Fancy women pure and good, Fancy men upright and true: Fortressed in your solitude, Let Life be a dream to you. For I think that Thought is all; Truth’s a […]...
32. The Human Face I. Soon Of all the springtimes of the world This one is the ugliest Of all of my ways of being To be trusting is the best Grass pushes up snow Like the stone of a tomb But I sleep within the storm And awaken eyes bright Slowness, brief time ends Where all streets must […]...
33. Not What Was Meant When the Academy of Arts demanded freedom Of artistic expression from narrow-minded bureaucrats There was a howl and a clamour in its immediate vicinity But roaring above everything Came a deafening thunder of applause From beyond the Sector boundary. Freedom! it roared. Freedom for the artists! Freedom all round! Freedom for all! Freedom for the […]...
34. Belated Bard The songs I made from joy of earth In wanton wandering, Are rapturous with Maytime mirth And ectasy of Spring. But all the songs I sing today Take tediously the ear: Novemberishly dark are they With mortuary fear. For half a century has gone Since first I rang a rhyme; And that is long to […]...
35. Portrait of the Artist as a Prematurely Old Man It is common knowledge to every schoolboy and even every Bachelor of Arts, That all sin is divided into two parts. One kind of sin is called a sin of commission, and that is very important, And it is what you are doing when you are doing something you ortant, And the other kind of […]...
36. My Portion is Defeat today My Portion is Defeat today A paler luck than Victory Less Paeans fewer Bells The Drums don’t follow Me with tunes Defeat a somewhat slower means More Arduous than Balls ‘Tis populous with Bone and stain And Men too straight to stoop again, And Piles of solid Moan And Chips of Blank in Boyish Eyes […]...
37. Gold Leaves Lo! I am come to autumn, When all the leaves are gold; Grey hairs and golden leaves cry out The year and I are old. In youth I sought the prince of men, Captain in cosmic wars, Our Titan, even the weeds would show Defiant, to the stars. But now a great thing in the […]...
38. Vickery's Mountain Blue in the west the mountain stands, And through the long twilight Vickery sits with folded hands, And Vickery’s eyes are bright. Bright, for he knows what no man else On earth as yet may know: There’s a golden word that he never tells, And a gift that he will not show. He dreams of […]...
39. Holy Sonnet XVII: Since She Whom I Loved Since she whom I loved hath paid her last debt To Nature, and to hers, and my good is dead, And her soul early into heaven ravished, Wholly on heavenly things my mind is set. Here the admiring her my mind did whet To seek thee, God; so streams do show the head; But though […]...
40. 'Tis so much joy! 'Tis so much joy! ‘Tis so much joy! ‘Tis so much joy! If I should fail, what poverty! And yet, as poor as I, Have ventured all upon a throw! Have gained! Yes! Hesitated so This side the Victory! Life is but Life! And Death, but Death! Bliss is, but Bliss, and Breath but Breath! And if indeed I […]...