Incantation

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1. Incantation Human reason is beautiful and invincible. No bars, no barbed wire, no pulping of books, No sentence of banishment can prevail against it. It establishes the universal ideas in language, And guides our hand so we write Truth and Justice With capital letters, lie and oppression with small. It puts what should be above things […]...
2. An Incantation Come with me, and we will blow Lots of bubbles, as we go; Bubbles bright as ever Hope Drew from fancy or from soap; Bright as e’er the South Sea sent From its frothy element! Come with me, and we will blow Lots of bubbles, as we go. Mix the lather, Johnny W lks, Thou, […]...
3. The Incantation Scene: Federal Political Arena A darkened cave. In the middle, a cauldron, boiling. Enter the three witches. 1ST WITCH: Thrice hath the Federal Jackass brayed. 2ND WITCH: Once the Bruce-Smith War-horse neighed. 3RD WITCH: So Georgie comes, ’tis time, ’tis time, Around the cauldron to chant our rhyme. 1ST WITCH: In the cauldron boil and […]...
4. Distance Were you to cross the world, my dear, To work or love or fight, I could be calm and wistful here, And close my eyes at night. It were a sweet and gallant pain To be a sea apart; But, oh, to have you down the lane Is bitter to my heart....
5. Paradise Seed Where is the seed Of the tree felled, Of the forest burned, Or living root Under ash and cinders? From woven bud What last leaf strives Into life, last Shrivelled flower? Is fruit of our harvest, Our long labour Dust to the core? To what far, fair land Borne on the wind What winged seed […]...
6. The Star Twinkle, twinkle, little star, How I wonder what you are! Up above the world so high, Like a diamond in the sky. When the blazing sun is gone, When he nothing shines upon, Then you show your little light, Twinkle, twinkle, all the night. Then the trav’ller in the dark, Thanks you for your tiny […]...
7. Black On Black Serrations of chimneys Stone-black perforate Velvet-black dark. A tree coils in core of darkness. My swinging Hands Incise the night. A man slips into a doorway, Black hole in blackness, and drowns there. A second man passing traces The diagram of his steps On invisible pavement. Rain Draws black parallel threads Through the hollow of […]...
8. Unlyric Love Song It is time to give that-of-myself which I could not at first: To offer you now at last my least and my worst: Minor, absurd preserves, The shell’s end-curves, A document kept at the back of a drawer, A tin hidden under the floor, Recalcitrant prides and hesitations: To pile them carefully in a desparate […]...
9. Holy Sonnet V: I Am A Little World Made Cunningly I am a little world made cunningly Of elements, and an angelic sprite; But black sin hath betrayed to endless night My worlds both parts, and (oh!) both parts must die. You which beyond that heaven which was most high Have found new spheres, and of new lands can write, Pour new seas in mine […]...
10. AN ODE TO MY JAILED FRIEND Unmasked – The spirits’ face is a black hole Swallowing the celestial beauty Of the stars. Caged – The sentinel is crouched Subsumed in seething pain Not pain but anger of being guiltless Yet ‘guilty’ for being in jail. The cell – No crime equals its greasy grey walls Thickly dark with no grills for […]...
11. Liaison A big bud of moon hangs out of the twilight, Star-spiders spinning their thread Hang high suspended, withouten respite Watching us overhead. Come then under the trees, where the leaf-cloths Curtain us in so dark That here we’re safe from even the ermin-moth’s Flitting remark. Here in this swarthy, secret tent, Where black boughs flap […]...
12. And They Obey SMASH down the cities. Knock the walls to pieces. Break the factories and cathedrals, warehouses And homes Into loose piles of stone and lumber and black Burnt wood: You are the soldiers and we command you. Build up the cities. Set up the walls again. Put together once more the factories and cathedrals, Warehouses and […]...
13. Earthfast Architects plant their imagination, weld their poems on rock, Clamp them to the skidding rim of the world and anchor them down to its core; Leave more than the painter’s or poet’s snail-bright trail on a friable leaf; Can build their chrysalis round them – stand in their sculpture’s belly. They see through stone, they […]...
14. While History's Muse While History’s Muse the memorial was keeping Of all that the dark hand of Destiny weaves, Beside her the Genius of Erin stood weeping, For hers was the story that blotted the leaves. But oh! how the tear in her eyelids grew bright, When, after whole pages of sorrow and shame, She saw History write, […]...
15. The Lane Some day, I think, there will be people enough In Froxfield to pick all the blackberries Out of the hedges of Green Lane, the straight Broad lane where now September hides herself In bracken and blackberry, harebell and dwarf gorse. To-day, where yesterday a hundred sheep Were nibbling, halcyon bells shake to the sway Of […]...
16. Prophecy I shall die hidden in a hut In the middle of an alder wood, With the back door blind and bolted shut, And the front door locked for good. I shall lie folded like a saint, Lapped in a scented linen sheet, On a bedstead striped with bright-blue paint, Narrow and cold and neat. The […]...
17. On Pain Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses Your understanding. Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its Heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain. And could you keep your heart in wonder at the Daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem Less […]...
18. The Grey Monk “I die, I die!” the Mother said, “My children die for lack of bread. What more has the merciless Tyrant said?” The Monk sat down on the stony bed. The blood red ran from the Grey Monk’s side, His hands and feet were wounded wide, His body bent, his arms and knees Like to the […]...
19. Cassandra O Hymen king. Hymen, O Hymen king, What bitter thing is this? What shaft, tearing my heart? What scar, what light, what fire Searing my eye-balls and my eyes with flame? Nameless, O spoken name, King, lord, speak blameless Hymen. Why do you blind my eyes? Why do you dart and pulse Till all the […]...
20. A Rusty Nail I ran a nail into my hand, The wound was hard to heal; So bitter was the pain to stand I thought how it would feel, To have spikes thrust through hands and feet, Impaled by hammer beat. Then hoisted on a cross of oak Against the sullen sky, With all about the jeering follk […]...
21. I Knew A Man By Sight I knew a man by sight, A blameless wight, Who, for a year or more, Had daily passed my door, Yet converse none had had with him. I met him in a lane, Him and his cane, About three miles from home, Where I had chanced to roam, And volumes stared at him, and he […]...
22. Every Man Should have a Rifle So I sit and write and ponder, while the house is deaf and dumb, Seeing visions “over yonder” of the war I know must come. In the corner – not a vision – but a sign for coming days Stand a box of ammunition and a rifle in green baize. And in this, the living […]...
23. The House Of Dust: Part 03: 01: As evening falls As evening falls, And the yellow lights leap one by one Along high walls; And along black streets that glisten as if with rain, The muted city seems Like one in a restless sleep, who lies and dreams Of vague desires, and memories, and half-forgotten pain. . . Along dark veins, like lights the quick […]...
24. Take Back the Virgin Page Written on Returning a Blank Book Take back the virgin page, White and unwritten still; Some hand, more calm and sage, The leaf must fill. Thoughts come, as pure as light Pure as even you require; But, oh! each word I write Love turns to fire. Yet let me keep the book: Oft shall my […]...
25. St. Alexis, Patron of Beggars We who beg for bread as we daily tread Country lane and city street, Let us kneel and pray on the broad highway To the saint with the vagrant feet. Our altar light is a buttercup bright, And our shrine is a bank of sod, But still we share St. Alexis’ care, The Vagabond of […]...
26. Sonnet FLESH, I have knocked at many a dusty door, Gone down full many a midnight lane, Probed in old walls and felt along the floor, Pressed in blind hope the lighted window-pane, But useless all, though sometimes when the moon Was full in heaven and the sea was full, Along my body’s alleys came a […]...
27. Waves I saw a tiny God Sitting Under a bright blue umbrella That had white tassels And forked ribs of gold. Below him His little world Lay open to the sun. The shadow of His hat Lay upon a city. When he stretched forth His hand A lake became a dark tremble. When he kicked up […]...
28. Poet's Path My garden hath a slender path With ivy overgrown, A secret place where once would pace A pot all alone; I see him now with fretted brow, Plunged deep in thought; And sometimes he would write maybe, And sometimes he would not. A verse a day he used to say Keeps worry from the door; […]...
29. The Lost Mistress All’s over, then: does truth sound bitter As one at first believes? Hark, ’tis the sparrows’ good-night twitter About your cottage eaves! And the leaf-buds on the vine are woolly, I noticed that today; One day more bursts them open fully -You know the red turns grey. Tomorrow we meet the same then, dearest? May […]...
30. Casualty I He would drink by himself And raise a weathered thumb Towards the high shelf, Calling another rum And blackcurrant, without Having to raise his voice, Or order a quick stout By a lifting of the eyes And a discreet dumb-show Of pulling off the top; At closing time would go In waders and peaked […]...
31. 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 […]...
32. It Is Later Than You Think Lone amid the cafe’s cheer, Sad of heart am I to-night; Dolefully I drink my beer, But no single line I write. There’s the wretched rent to pay, Yet I glower at pen and ink: Oh, inspire me, Muse, I pray, It is later than you think! Hello! there’s a pregnant phrase. Bravo! let me […]...
33. Winter Clouded with snow The cold winds blow, And shrill on leafless bough The robin with its burning breast Alone sings now. The rayless sun, Day’s journey done, Sheds its last ebbing light On fields in leagues of beauty spread Unearthly white. Thick draws the dark, And spark by spark, The frost-fires kindle, and soon Over […]...
34. Adoption Because I was a woman lone And had of friends so few, I made two little ones my own, Whose parents no one knew; Unwanted foundlings of the night, Left at the convent door, Whose tiny hands in piteous plight Seemed to implore. By Deed to them I gave my name, And never will they […]...
35. My Country My Country The love of field and coppice Of green and shaded lanes, Of ordered woods and gardens Is running in your veins. Strong love of grey-blue distance, Brown streams and soft, dim skies I know, but cannot share it, My love is otherwise. I love a sunburnt country, A land of sweeping plains, Of […]...
36. Sonnet 02: Time Does Not Bring Relief; You All Have Lied Time does not bring relief; you all have lied Who told me time would ease me of my pain! I miss him in the weeping of the rain; I want him at the shrinking of the tide; The old snows melt from every mountain-side, And last year’s leaves are smoke in every lane; But last […]...
37. After Auschwitz Anger, As black as a hook, Overtakes me. Each day, Each Nazi Took, at 8:00 A. M., a baby And sauteed him for breakfast In his frying pan. And death looks on with a casual eye And picks at the dirt under his fingernail. Man is evil, I say aloud. Man is a flower That […]...
38. Death In The Arctic I I took the clock down from the shelf; “At eight,” said I, “I shoot myself.” It lacked a minute of the hour, And as I waited all a-cower, A skinful of black, boding pain, Bits of my life came back again. . . . “Mother, there’s nothing more to eat Why don’t you go […]...
39. The Room Through that window-all else being extinct Except itself and me-I saw the struggle Of darkness against darkness. Within the room It turned and turned, dived downward. Then I saw How order might-if chaos wished-become: And saw the darkness crush upon itself, Contracting powerfully; it was as if It killed itself, slowly: and with much pain. […]...
40. The Plains A land, as far as the eye can see, where the waving grasses grow Or the plains are blackened and burnt and bare, where the false mirages go Like shifting symbols of hope deferred – land where you never know. Land of the plenty or land of want, where the grey Companions dance, Feast or […]...