The Two Sayings

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1. Two Husbands Unpenitent, I grieve to state, Two good men stood by heaven’s gate, Saint Peter coming to await. The stopped the Keeper of the Keys, Saying: “What suppliants are these, Who wait me not on bended knees? “To get my heavenly Okay A man should have been used to pray, Or suffered in some grievous way.” […]...
2. Miniver Cheevy Miniver Cheevy, child of scorn, Grew lean while he assailed the seasons; He wept that he was ever born, And he had reasons. Miniver loved the days of old When swords were bright and steeds were prancing; The vision of a warrior bold Would set him dancing. Miniver sighed for what was not, And dreamed, […]...
3. The Premier and the Socialist The Premier and the Socialist Were walking through the State: They wept to see the Savings Bank Such funds accumulate. “If these were only cleared away,” They said, “it would be great.” “If three financial amateurs Controlled them for a year, Do you suppose,” the Premier said, “That they would get them clear?” “I think […]...
4. He forgot and I remembered He forgot and I remembered ‘Twas an everyday affair Long ago as Christ and Peter “Warmed them” at the “Temple fire.” “Thou wert with him” quoth “the Damsel”? “No” said Peter, ’twasn’t me Jesus merely “looked” at Peter Could I do aught else to Thee?...
5. Whats The Use Of A Title? They dont make it The beautiful die in flame – Sucide pills, rat poison, rope what – Ever… They rip their arms off, Throw themselves out of windows, They pull their eyes out of the sockets, Reject love Reject hate Reject, reject. They do’nt make it The beautiful can’t endure, They are butterflies They are […]...
6. The Look The Saviour looked on Peter. Ay, no word, No gesture of reproach; the Heavens serene Though heavy with armed justice, did not lean Their thunders that way: the forsaken Lord Looked only, on the traitor. None record What that look was, none guess; for those who have seen Wronged lovers loving through a death-pang keen, […]...
7. Aunt Jane When Aunt Jane died we hunted round, And money everywhere we found. How much I do not care to say, But no death duties will we pay, And Aunt Jane will be well content We bilked the bloody Government. While others spent she loved to save, But couldn’t take it to her grave. While others […]...
8. The Death and Last Confession of Wandering Peter When Peter Wanderwide was young He wandered everywhere he would: All that he approved was sung, And most of what he saw was good. When Peter Wanderwide was thrown By Death himself beyond Auxerre, He chanted in heroic tone To priests and people gathered there: “If all that I have loved and seen Be with […]...
9. As a World Would Have It Shall I never make him look at me again? I look at him, I look my life at him, I tell him all I know the way to tell, But there he stays the same. Shall I never make him speak one word to me? Shall I never make him say enough to show My […]...
10. The Best Thing In The World What’s the best thing in the world? June-rose, by May-dew impearled; Sweet south-wind, that means no rain; Truth, not cruel to a friend; Pleasure, not in haste to end; Beauty, not self-decked and curled Till its pride is over-plain; Light, that never makes you wink; Memory, that gives no pain; Love, when, so, you’re loved […]...
11. There is a Languor of the Life There is a Languor of the Life More imminent than Pain ‘Tis Pain’s Successor When the Soul Has suffered all it can A Drowsiness diffuses A Dimness like a Fog Envelops Consciousness As Mists obliterate a Crag. The Surgeon does not blanch at pain His Habit is severe But tell him that it ceased to […]...
12. Cultural Evolution When from his cave, young Mao in his youthful mind A work to renew old China first designed, Then he alone interpreted the law, And from tradtional fountains scorned to draw: But when to examine every part he came, Marx and Confucius turned out much the same....
13. Great-Heart Theodore Roosevelt “The interpreter then called for a man-servant of his, one Great-Heart.” Bunyan’s’ Pilgrim’s Process Concerning brave Captains Our age hath made known For all men to honour, One standeth alone, Of whom, o’er both oceans, Both peoples may say: “Our realm is diminished With Great-Heart away.” In purpose unsparing, In action no less, […]...
14. The Birds reported from the South The Birds reported from the South A News express to Me A spicy Charge, My little Posts But I am deaf Today The Flowers appealed a timid Throng I reinforced the Door Go blossom for the Bees I said And trouble Me no More The Summer Grace, for Notice strove Remote Her best Array The […]...
15. A Song at Cock-Crow The first time that Peter denied his Lord He shrank from the cudgel, the scourge and the cord, But followed far off to see what they would do, Till the cock crew till the cock crew After Gethsemane, till the cock crew! The first time that Peter denied his Lord ‘Twas only a maid in […]...
16. In The Vaulted Way In the vaulted way, where the passage turned To the shadowy corner that none could see, You paused for our parting, – plaintively: Though overnight had come words that burned My fond frail happiness out of me. And then I kissed you, – despite my thought That our spell must end when reflection came On […]...
17. The Ballad Of Father Gilligan The old priest Peter Gilligan Was weary night and day; For half his flock were in their beds, Or under green sods lay. Once, while he nodded on a chair, At the moth-hour of eve, Another poor man sent for him, And he began to grieve. ‘I have no rest, nor joy, nor peace, For […]...
18. Song From Marriage-A-La-Mode Why should a foolish marriage vow, Which long ago was made, Oblige us to each other now, When passion is decayed? We loved, and we loved, as long as we could, Till our love was loved out in us both; But our marriage is dead when the pleasure is fled: ‘Twas pleasure first made it […]...
19. THE LEGEND OF THE HORSESHOE WHAT time our Lord still walk’d the earth, Unknown, despised, of humble birth, And on Him many a youth attended (His words they seldom comprehended), It ever seem’d to Him most meet To hold His court in open street, As under heaven’s broad canopy One speaks with greater liberty. The teachings of His blessed word […]...
20. Single Vision Before I am completely shriven I shall reject my inch of heaven. Cancel my eyes, and, standing, sink Into my deepest self; there drink Memory down. The banner of My blood, unfurled, will not be love, Only the pity and the pride Of it, pinned to my open side. When I have utterly refined The […]...
21. Two Sonnets In Memory (Nicola Sacco Bartolomeo Vanzetti) Executed August 23, 1927 I As men have loved their lovers in times past And sung their wit, their virtue and their grace, So have we loved sweet Justice to the last, That now lies here in an unseemly place. The child will quit the cradle and grow wise And stare […]...
22. Vain Venture To have a business of my own With toil and tears, I wore my fingers to the bone For weary years. With stoic heart, for sordid gold In patient pain My life and liberty I sold For others gain. I scrimped and scraped, as cent by cent My savings grew; I found a faded shop […]...
23. Psalm 106 part 2 v.7,8,12ff S. M. Israel punished and pardoned; or, God’s unchangeable love. God of eternal love, How fickle are our ways! And yet how oft did Isr’el prove Thy constancy of grace! They saw thy wonders wrought, And then thy praise they sung; But soon thy works of power forgot, And murmured with their tongue. Now […]...
24. Sonnet 21 – Say over again, and yet once over again Say over again, and yet once over again, That thou dost love me. Though the word repeated Should seem ‘a cuckoo-song,’ as thou dost treat it, Remember, never to the hill or plain, Valley and wood, without her cuckoo-strain Comes the fresh Spring in all her green completed. Beloved, I, amid the darkness greeted By […]...
25. First Memory Long ago, I was wounded. I lived To revenge myself Against my father, not For what he was For what I was: from the beginning of time, In childhood, I thought That pain meant I was not loved. It meant I loved....
26. The New Poetry Handbook 1 If a man understands a poem, he shall have troubles. 2 If a man lives with a poem, he shall die lonely. 3 If a man lives with two poems, he shall be unfaithful to one. 4 If a man conceives of a poem, he shall have one less child. 5 If a man […]...
27. Those Annual Bills These annual bills! these annual bills! How many a song their discord trills Of “truck” consumed, enjoyed, forgot, Since I was skinned by last year’s lot! Those joyous beans are passed away; Those onions blithe, O where are they? Once loved, lost, mourned now vexing ILLS Your shades troop back in annual bills! And so […]...
28. The Eagle That is Forgotten Sleep softly… eagle forgotten… under the stone. Time has its way with you there, and the clay has its own. “We have buried him now,” thought your foes, and in secret rejoiced. They made a brave show of their mourning, their hatred unvoiced. They had snarled at you, barked at you, foamed at you, day […]...
29. Tonight I Can Write Tonight I can write the saddest lines. Write, for example, ‘The night is starry And the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.’ The night wind revolves in the sky and sings. Tonight I can write the saddest lines. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. Through nights like this one I […]...
30. Poor Peter Blind Peter Piper used to play All up and down the city; I’d often meet him on my way, And throw a coin for pity. But all amid his sparkling tones His ear was quick as any To catch upon the cobble-stones The jingle of my penny. And as upon a day that shone He […]...
31. Epilogue To Asolando At the midnight in the silence of the sleep-time, When you set your fancies free, Will they pass to where by death, fools think, imprisoned Low he lies who once so loved you, whom you loved so, Pity me? Oh to love so, be so loved, yet so mistaken! What had I on earth to […]...
32. Saddest Poem I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. Write, for instance: “The night is full of stars, And the stars, blue, shiver in the distance.” The night wind whirls in the sky and sings. I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. On nights […]...
33. 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. […]...
34. Bob's Lane Women he liked, did shovel-bearded Bob, Old Farmer Hayward of the Heath, but he Loved horses. He himself was like a cob And leather-coloured. Also he loved a tree. For the life in them he loved most living things, But a tree chiefly. All along the lane He planted elms where now the stormcock sings […]...
35. A Sourdough Story Hark to the Sourdough story, told at sixty below, When the pipes are lit and we smoke and spit Into the campfire glow. Rugged are we and hoary, and statin’ a general rule, A genooine Sourdough story Ain’t no yarn for the Sunday School. A Sourdough came to stake his claim in Heav’n one morning […]...
36. Hymn 14 The triumph of faith or, Christ’s unchangeable love. Rom. 8:33ff. Who shall the Lord’s elect condemn? ‘Tis God that justifies their souls; And mercy, like a mighty stream, O’er all their sins divinely rolls. Who shall adjudge the saints to hell? ‘Tis Christ that suffered in their stead; And, the salvation to fulfil, Behold him […]...
37. When You Are Old When you are old and grey and full of sleep, And nodding by the fire, take down this book, And slowly read, and dream of the soft look Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep; How many loved your moments of glad grace, And loved your beauty with love false or true, But […]...
38. Judgment Day Saint Peter stood, at Heaven’s gate, All souls claims to adjudicate Saying to some souls, “Enter in!” “Go to Hell,” to others, “you are steeped in sin.” When up from earth, with a great hubbub, Came all the members of the Tuscarora Club. The angel Gabriel, peering out, Said, “What, the devil, is this noise […]...
39. The Return of the Children “They” Traffics and Discoveries Neither the harps nor the crowns amused, nor the cherubs’ dove-winged races Holding hands forlornly the Children wandered beneath the Dome, Plucking the splendid robes of the passers-by, and with pitiful! faces Begging what Princes and Powers refused: “Ah, please will you let us go home?” Over the jewelled floor, nigh […]...
40. Though I Thy Mithridates Were Though I thy Mithridates were, Framed to defy the poison-dart, Yet must thou fold me unaware To know the rapture of thy heart, And I but render and confess The malice of thy tenderness. For elegant and antique phrase, Dearest, my lips wax all too wise; Nor have I known a love whose praise Our […]...