The Poets light but Lamps

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1. Poets to Come POETS to come! orators, singers, musicians to come! Not to-day is to justify me, and answer what I am for; But you, a new brood, native, athletic, continental, greater than before known, Arouse! Arouse-for you must justify me-you must answer. I myself but write one or two indicative words for the future, I but advance […]...
2. The Poets O ye dead Poets, who are living still Immortal in your verse, though life be fled, And ye, O living Poets, who are dead Though ye are living, if neglect can kill, Tell me if in the darkest hours of ill, With drops of anguish falling fast and red From the sharp crown of thorns […]...
3. To Certain Poets Now is the rhymer’s honest trade A thing for scornful laughter made. The merchant’s sneer, the clerk’s disdain, These are the burden of our pain. Because of you did this befall, You brought this shame upon us all. You little poets mincing there With women’s hearts and women’s hair! How sick Dan Chaucer’s ghost must […]...
4. The Martyr Poets did not tell The Martyr Poets did not tell But wrought their Pang in syllable That when their mortal name be numb Their mortal fate encourage Some The Martyr Painters never spoke Bequeathing rather to their Work That when their conscious fingers cease Some seek in Art the Art of Peace...
5. Besides the Autumn poets sing Besides the Autumn poets sing A few prosaic days A little this side of the snow And that side of the Haze A few incisive Mornings A few Ascetic Eves Gone Mr. Bryant’s “Golden Rod” And Mr. Thomson’s “sheaves.” Still, is the bustle in the Brook Sealed are the spicy valves Mesmeric fingers softly touch […]...
6. Old Poets (For Robert Cortez Holliday) If I should live in a forest And sleep underneath a tree, No grove of impudent saplings Would make a home for me. I’d go where the old oaks gather, Serene and good and strong, And they would not sigh and tremble And vex me with a song. The pleasantest sort […]...
7. The Poets Of The Tomb The world has had enough of bards who wish that they were dead, ‘Tis time the people passed a law to knock ’em on the head, For ‘twould be lovely if their friends could grant the rest they crave Those bards of ‘tears’ and ‘vanished hopes’, those poets of the grave. They say that life’s […]...
8. Dippold the Optician What do you see now? Globes of red, yellow, purple. Just a moment! And now? My father and mother and sisters. Yes! And now? Knights at arms, beautiful women, kind faces. Try this. A field of grain-a city. Very good! And now? A young woman with angels bending over her. A heavier lens! And now? […]...
9. Lately our poets Lately our poets loiter’d in green lanes, Content to catch the ballads of the plains; I fancied I had strength enough to climb A loftier station at no distant time, And might securely from intrusion doze Upon the flowers thro’ which Ilissus flows. In those pale olive grounds all voices cease, And from afar dust […]...
10. The Last of the Light Brigade 1891 There were thirty million English who talked of England’s might, There were twenty broken troopers who lacked a bed for the night. They had neither food nor money, they had neither service nor trade; They were only shiftless soldiers, the last of the Light Brigade. They felt that life was fleeting; they kuew not […]...
11. Light Light, my light, the world-filling light, The eye-kissing light, Heart-sweetening light! Ah, the light dances, my darling, at the center of my life; The light strikes, my darling, the chords of my love; The sky opens, the wind runs wild, laughter passes over the earth. The butterflies spread their sails on the sea of light. […]...
12. Under the Light, yet under Under the Light, yet under, Under the Grass and the Dirt, Under the Beetle’s Cellar Under the Clover’s Root, Further than Arm could stretch Were it Giant long, Further than Sunshine could Were the Day Year long, Over the Light, yet over, Over the Arc of the Bird Over the Comet’s chimney Over the Cubit’s […]...
13. I reckon when I count it all I reckon when I count it all First Poets Then the Sun Then Summer Then the Heaven of God And then the List is done But, looking back the First so seems To Comprehend the Whole The Others look a needless Show So I write Poets All Their Summer lasts a Solid Year They can […]...
14. The End of the World Here, at the end of the world, The flowers bleed As if they were hearts, The hearts ooze a darkness Like india ink, & poets dip their pens in & they write. “Here, at the end of the world,” They write, Not knowing what it means. “Here, where the sky nurses on black milk, Where […]...
15. The Fingers of the Light The Fingers of the Light Tapped soft upon the Town With “I am great and cannot wait So therefore let me in.” “You’re soon,” the Town replied, “My Faces are asleep But swear, and I will let you by, You will not wake them up.” The easy Guest complied But once within the Town The […]...
16. Light HAIL holy light, ofspring of Heav’n first-born, Or of th’ Eternal Coeternal beam May I express thee unblam’d? since God is light, And never but in unapproached light Dwelt from Eternitie, dwelt then in thee, Bright effluence of bright essence increate. Or hear’st thou rather pure Ethereal stream, Whose Fountain who shall tell? before the […]...
17. 16-bit Intel 8088 chip with an Apple Macintosh You can’t run Radio Shack programs In its disc drive. Nor can a Commodore 64 Drive read a file You have created on an IBM Personal Computer. Both Kaypro and Osborne computers use The CP/M operating system But can’t read each other’s Handwriting For they format (write On) discs in different […]...
18. When The Light Appears Lento You’ll bare your bones you’ll grow you’ll pray you’ll only know When the light appears, boy, when the light appears You’ll sing & you’ll love you’ll praise blue heavens above When the light appears, boy, when the light appears You’ll whimper & you’ll cry you’ll get yourself sick and sigh You’ll sleep & you’ll […]...
19. Poets Vain is the chiming of forgotten bells That the wind sways above a ruined shrine. Vainer his voice in whom no longer dwells Hunger that craves immortal Bread and Wine. Light songs we breathe that perish with our breath Out of our lips that have not kissed the rod. They shall not live who have […]...
20. Light is sufficient to itself Light is sufficient to itself If Others want to see It can be had on Window Panes Some Hours in the Day. But not for Compensation It holds as large a Glow To Squirrel in the Himmaleh Precisely, as to you....
21. By a departing light By a departing light We see acuter, quite, Than by a wick that stays. There’s something in the flight That clarifies the sight And decks the rays....
22. It's like the Light It’s like the Light A fashionless Delight It’s like the Bee A dateless Melody It’s like the Woods Private Like the Breeze Phraseless yet it stirs The proudest Trees It’s like the Morning Best when it’s done And the Everlasting Clocks Chime Noon!...
23. Bereavement in their death to feel Bereavement in their death to feel Whom We have never seen A Vital Kinsmanship import Our Soul and theirs between For Stranger Strangers do not mourn There be Immortal friends Whom Death see first ’tis news of this That paralyze Ourselves Who, vital only to Our Thought Such Presence bear away In dying ’tis as […]...
24. As from the earth the light Balloon As from the earth the light Balloon Asks nothing but release Ascension that for which it was, Its soaring Residence. The spirit looks upon the Dust That fastened it so long With indignation, As a Bird Defrauded of its song....
25. The light was always you In the beginning there was light, Abundant light that truly lit the way, Time was never lost in dodging flights Of feckless shadows and darkness seldom Ever blight the brightness of our days. And when the shadows came at night And stretched into the weary dawn, tangled In the sleepers’ eyes and yawning in their […]...
26. A Toad, can die of Light A Toad, can die of Light Death is the Common Right Of Toads and Men Of Earl and Midge The privilege Why swagger, then? The Gnat’s supremacy is large as Thine Life is a different Thing So measure Wine Naked of Flask Naked of Cask Bare Rhine Which Ruby’s mine?...
27. There's a certain Slant of light There’s a certain Slant of light, Winter Afternoons That oppresses, like the Heft Of Cathedral Tunes Heavenly Hurt, it gives us We can find no scar, But internal difference, Where the Meanings, are None may teach it Any ‘Tis the Seal Despair An imperial affliction Sent us of the Air When it comes, the Landscape […]...
28. Epilogue Those blessиd structures, plot and rhyme Why are they no help to me now I want to make Something imagined, not recalled? I hear the noise of my own voice: The painter’s vision is not a lens, it trembles to caress the light. But sometimes everything I write With the threadbare art of my eye […]...
29. No Crowd that has occurred No Crowd that has occurred Exhibit I suppose That General Attendance That Resurrection does Circumference be full The long restricted Grave Assert her Vital Privilege The Dust connect and live On Atoms features place All Multitudes that were Efface in the Comparison As Suns dissolve a star Solemnity prevail Its Individual Doom Possess each separate […]...
30. The Light and Glory of the Word The Spirit breathes upon the word, And brings the truth to sight; Precepts and promises afford A sanctifying light. A glory gilds the sacred page, Majestic like the sun; It gives a light to every age, It gives, but borrows none. The hand that gave it still supplies The gracious light and heat; His truths […]...
31. An Exhortation Chameleons feed on light and air: Poets’ food is love and fame: If in this wide world of care Poets could but find the same With as little toil as they, Would they ever change their hue As the light chameleons do, Suiting it to every ray Twenty times a day? Poets are on this […]...
32. A Light exists in Spring A Light exists in Spring Not present on the Year At any other period When March is scarcely here A Color stands abroad On Solitary Fields That Science cannot overtake But Human Nature feels. It waits upon the Lawn, It shows the furthest Tree Upon the furthest Slope you know It almost speaks to you. […]...
33. Making Light Of It I call out a secret name, the name Of the angel who guards my sleep, And light grows in the east, a new light Like no other, as soft as the petals Of the blown rose in late summer. Yes, it is late summer in the West. Even the grasses climbing the Sierras Reach for […]...
34. The Light of Other Days OFT, in the stilly night, Ere slumber’s chain has bound me, Fond Memory brings the light Of other days around me: The smiles, the tears Of boyhood’s years, The words of love then spoken; The eyes that shone, Now dimm’d and gone, The cheerful hearts now broken! Thus, in the stilly night, Ere slumber’s chain […]...
35. The Light of Stars The night is come, but not too soon; And sinking silently, All silently, the little moon Drops down behind the sky. There is no light in earth or heaven But the cold light of stars; And the first watch of night is given To the red planet Mars. Is it the tender star of love? […]...
36. Clear, with Light, Variable Winds The fountain bent and straightened itself In the night wind, Blowing like a flower. It gleamed and glittered, A tall white lily, Under the eye of the golden moon. From a stone seat, Beneath a blossoming lime, The man watched it. And the spray pattered On the dim grass at his feet. The fountain tossed […]...
37. More Light! More Light! For Heinrich Blucher and Hannah Arendt Composed in the Tower before his execution These moving verses, and being brought at that time Painfully to the stake, submitted, declaring thus: “I implore my God to witness that I have made no crime.” Nor was he forsaken of courage, but the death was horrible, The sack of […]...
38. The Light By The Barn The light by the barn that shines all night Pales at dawn when a little breeze comes. A little breeze comes breathing the fields From their sleep and waking the slow windmill. The slow windmill sings the long day About anguish and loss to the chickens at work. The little breeze follows the slow windmill […]...
39. June Light Your voice, with clear location of June days, Called me outside the window. You were there, Light yet composed, as in the just soft stare Of uncontested summer all things raise Plainly their seeming into seamless air. Then your love looked as simple and entire As that picked pear you tossed me, and your face […]...
40. Light Breaks Where No Sun Shines Light breaks where no sun shines; Where no sea runs, the waters of the heart Push in their tides; And, broken ghosts with glowworms in their heads, The things of light File through the flesh where no flesh decks the bones. A candle in the thighs Warms youth and seed and burns the seeds of […]...