As One does Sickness over

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1. A Sickness of this World it most occasions A Sickness of this World it most occasions When Best Men die. A Wishfulness their far Condition To occupy. A Chief indifference, as Foreign A World must be Themselves forsake contented, For Deity....
2. An EPISTLE from Alexander to Hephaestion In His Sickness WITH such a Pulse, with such disorder’d Veins, Such lab’ring Breath, as thy Disease constrains; With failing Eyes, that scarce the Light endure, (So long unclos’d, they’ve watch’d thy doubtful Cure) To his Hephaestion Alexander writes, To soothe thy Days, and wing thy sleepless Nights, I send thee Love: Oh! that I could impart, As […]...
3. Upon a Fit of Sickness Twice ten years old not fully told Since nature gave me breath, My race is run, my thread spun, Lo, here is fatal death. All men must die, and so must I; This cannot be revoked. For Adam’s sake this word God spake When he so high provoked. Yet live I shall, this life’s but […]...
4. "Sown in dishonor"! “Sown in dishonor”! Ah! Indeed! May this “dishonor” be? If I were half so fine myself I’d notice nobody! “Sown in corruption”! Not so fast! Apostle is askew! Corinthians 1. 15. narrates A Circumstance or two!...
5. MEN MIND NO STATE IN SICKNESS That flow of gallants which approach To kiss thy hand from out the coach; That fleet of lackeys which do run Before thy swift postilion; Those strong-hoof’d mules, which we behold Rein’d in with purple, pearl, and gold, And shed with silver, prove to be The drawers of the axle-tree; Thy wife, thy children, and […]...
6. 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 […]...
7. 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 […]...
8. Thread the sky is shattered Its debris Clutters the world’s streets Where the light came from Is a question Charred beyond recognition Heads hang out of walls Limbs unattached Rigid in their will to crawl away But there’s a bird (black In the jagged sky) With a twig still stuck in its beak Is it falling […]...
9. Of the Terrible Doubt of Appearances OF the terrible doubt of appearances, Of the uncertainty after all-that we may be deluded, That may-be reliance and hope are but speculations after all, That may-be identity beyond the grave is a beautiful fable only, May-be the things I perceive-the animals, plants, men, hills, shining and flowing waters, The skies of day and night-colors, […]...
10. This Consciousness that is aware This Consciousness that is aware Of Neighbors and the Sun Will be the one aware of Death And that itself alone Is traversing the interval Experience between And most profound experiment Appointed unto Men How adequate unto itself Its properties shall be Itself unto itself and none Shall make discovery. Adventure most unto itself The […]...
11. His little Hearse like Figure His little Hearse like Figure Unto itself a Dirge To a delusive Lilac The vanity divulge Of Industry and Morals And every righteous thing For the divine Perdition Of Idleness and Spring...
12. I Do Not Speak I do not ask for mercy for understanding for peace And in these heavy days I do not ask for release I do not ask that suffering shall cease. I do not pray to God to let me die To give an ear attentive to my cry To pause in his marching and not hurry […]...
13. Despair's advantage is achieved Despair’s advantage is achieved By suffering Despair To be assisted of Reverse One must Reverse have bore The Worthiness of Suffering like The Worthiness of Death Is ascertained by tasting As can no other Mouth Of Savors make us conscious As did ourselves partake Affliction feels impalpable Until Ourselves are struck...
14. 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 […]...
15. The Trade They bear, in place of classic names, Letters and numbers on their skin. They play their grisly blindfold games In little boxes made of tin. Sometimes they stalk the Zeppelin, Sometimes they learn where mines are laid, Or where the Baltic ice is thin. That is the custom of “The Trade.” Few prize-courts sit upon […]...
16. Hap If but some vengeful god would call to me From up the sky, and laugh: “Thou suffering thing, Know that thy sorrow is my ecstasy, That thy love’s loss is my hate’s profiting!” Then would I bear it, clench myself, and die, Steeled by the sense of ire unmerited; Half-eased in that a Powerfuller than […]...
17. Hymn 160 Custom in sin. Let the wild leopards of the wood Put off the spots that nature gives, Then may the wicked turn to God, And change their tempers and their lives. As well might Ethiopian slaves Wash out the darkness of their skin, The deed as well might leave their graves, As old transgressors cease […]...
18. O Me! O Life! O ME! O life!… of the questions of these recurring; Of the endless trains of the faithless-of cities fill’d with the foolish; Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?) Of eyes that vainly crave the light-of the objects mean-of the struggle ever renew’d; Of the poor results […]...
19. This World is not Conclusion This World is not Conclusion. A Species stands beyond Invisible, as Music But positive, as Sound It beckons, and it baffles Philosophy don’t know And through a Riddle, at the last Sagacity, must go To guess it, puzzles scholars To gain it, Men have borne Contempt of Generations And Crucifixion, shown Faith slips and laughs, […]...
20. Risk is the Hair that holds the Tun Risk is the Hair that holds the Tun Seductive in the Air That Tun is hollow but the Tun With Hundred Weights to spare Too ponderous to suspect the snare Espies that fickle chair And seats itself to be let go By that perfidious Hair The “foolish Tun” the Critics say While that delusive Hair […]...
21. Truth is as old as God Truth is as old as God His Twin identity And will endure as long as He A Co-Eternity And perish on the Day Himself is borne away From Mansion of the Universe A lifeless Deity....
22. I don't remember the word I wished to say I don’t remember the word I wished to say. The blind swallow returns to the hall of shadow, On shorn wings, with the translucent ones to play. The song of night is sung without memory, though. No birds. No blossoms on the dried flowers. The manes of night’s horses are translucent. An empty boat drifts […]...
23. How firm Eternity must look How firm Eternity must look To crumbling men like me The only Adamant Estate In all Identity How mighty to the insecure Thy Physiognomy To whom not any Face cohere Unless concealed in thee...
24. To The University Of Cambridge, In New-England WHILE an intrinsic ardor prompts to write, The muses promise to assist my pen; ‘Twas not long since I left my native shore The land of errors, and Egyptain gloom: Father of mercy, ’twas thy gracious hand Brought me in safety from those dark abodes. Students, to you ’tis giv’n to scan the heights Above, […]...
25. Playthings Child, how happy you are sitting in the dust, playing with a broken twig all the morning. I smile at your play with that little bit of a broken twig. I am busy with my accounts, adding up figures by the hour. Perhaps you glance at me and think, “What a stupid game to spoil […]...
26. A Sparrow took a Slice of Twig A Sparrow took a Slice of Twig And thought it very nice I think, because his empty Plate Was handed Nature twice Invigorated, waded In all the deepest Sky Until his little Figure Was forfeited away...
27. River Moons THE DOUBLE moon, one on the high back drop of the west, one on the curve of the river face, The sky moon of fire and the river moon of water, I am taking these home in a basket, hung on an elbow, such a teeny weeny elbow, in my head. I saw them last […]...
28. Her smile was shaped like other smiles Her smile was shaped like other smiles The Dimples ran along And still it hurt you, as some Bird Did hoist herself, to sing, Then recollect a Ball, she got And hold upon the Twig, Convulsive, while the Music broke Like Beads among the Bog...
29. I am alive I guess I am alive I guess The Branches on my Hand Are full of Morning Glory And at my finger’s end The Carmine tingles warm And if I hold a Glass Across my Mouth it blurs it Physician’s proof of Breath I am alive because I am not in a Room The Parlor Commonly it is […]...
30. A Black Man Talks of Reaping I have sown beside all waters in my day. I planted deep, within my heart the fear That wind or fowl would take the grain away. I planted safe against this stark, lean year. I scattered seed enough to plant the land In rows from Canada to Mexico But for my reaping only what the […]...
31. A Bird came down the Walk A Bird came down the Walk He did not know I saw He bit an Angleworm in halves And ate the fellow, raw, And then he drank a Dew From a convenient Grass And then hopped sidewise to the Wall To let a Beetle pass He glanced with rapid eyes That hurried all around They […]...
32. Oh, For The Time When I Shall Sleep Oh, for the time when I shall sleep Without identity, And never care how rain may steep, Or snow may cover me! No promised heaven these wild desires Could all, or half, fulful; No threatened hell, with quenchless fires, Subdue this quenchless will! So said I, and still say the same; Still, to my death, […]...
33. 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 […]...
34. Jonathan Swift Somers After you have enriched your soul To the highest point, With books, thought, suffering, the understanding of many personalities, The power to interpret glances, silences, The pauses in momentous transformations, The genius of divination and prophecy; So that you feel able at times to hold the world In the hollow of your hand; Then, if, […]...
35. Nature and God I neither knew Nature and God I neither knew Yet Both so well knew me They startled, like Executors Of My identity. Yet Neither told that I could learn My Secret as secure As Herschel’s private interest Or Mercury’s affair...
36. That sacred Closet when you sweep That sacred Closet when you sweep Entitled “Memory” Select a reverential Broom And do it silently. ‘Twill be a Labor of surprise Besides Identity Of other Interlocutors A probability August the Dust of that Domain Unchallenged let it lie You cannot supersede itself But it can silence you...
37. Called Into Play Fall fell: so that’s it for the leaf poetry: Some flurries have whitened the edges of roads And lawns: time for that, the snow stuff: & Turkeys and old St. Nick: where am I going to Find something to write about I haven’t already Written away: I will have to stop short, look Down, look […]...
38. A Work Of Artifice The bonsai tree In the attractive pot Could have grown eighty feet tall On the side of a mountain Till split by lightning. But a gardener Carefully pruned it. It is nine inches high. Every day as he Whittles back the branches The gardener croons, It is your nature To be small and cozy, Domestic […]...
39. The most triumphant Bird I ever knew or met The most triumphant Bird I ever knew or met Embarked upon a twig today And till Dominion set I famish to behold so eminent a sight And sang for nothing scrutable But intimate Delight. Retired, and resumed his transitive Estate To what delicious Accident Does finest Glory fit!...
40. Sanity I’ve held you all these years, Supporting you through all. I plead for your hand just this once, Then I realise I was always alone, Suffering with my hidden pain, Struggling with my past. These wounds won’t mend. I’m tired of being around, Caught up in my fears each day, Time cannot rub them out. […]...