There is no Frigate like a Book

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1. Martha SEXTON! Martha’s dead and gone; Toll the bell! toll the bell! Her weary hands their labor cease; Good night, poor Martha, sleep in peace! Toll the bell! Sexton! Martha ‘s dead and gone; Toll the bell! toll the bell! For many a year has Martha said, “I’m old and poor, would I were dead!” Toll […]...
2. My Book Before I drink myself to death, God, let me finish up my Book! At night, I fear, I fight for breath, And wake up whiter than a spook; And crawl off to a bistro near, And drink until my brain is clear. Rare Absinthe! Oh, it gives me strength To write and write; and so […]...
3. A Book Full of Pictures Father studied theology through the mail And this was exam time. Mother knitted. I sat quietly with a book Full of pictures. Night fell. My hands grew cold touching the faces Of dead kings and queens. There was a black raincoat in the upstairs bedroom Swaying from the ceiling, But what was it doing there? […]...
4. I Go Back To The House For A Book I turn around on the gravel And go back to the house for a book, Something to read at the doctor’s office, And while I am inside, running the finger Of inquisition along a shelf, Another me that did not bother To go back to the house for a book Heads out on his own, […]...
5. Book Lover I keep collecting books I know I’ll never, never read; My wife and daughter tell me so, And yet I never head. “Please make me,” says some wistful tome, “A wee bit of yourself.” And so I take my treasure home, And tuck it in a shelf. And now my very shelves complain; They jam […]...
6. Safe Despair it is that raves Safe Despair it is that raves Agony is frugal. Puts itself severe away For its own perusal. Garrisoned no Soul can be In the Front of Trouble Love is one, not aggregate Nor is Dying double...
7. Go, Little Book – The Ancient Phrase GO, little book – the ancient phrase And still the daintiest – go your ways, My Otto, over sea and land, Till you shall come to Nelly’s hand. How shall I your Nelly know? By her blue eyes and her black brow, By her fierce and slender look, And by her goodness, little book! What […]...
8. At leisure is the Soul At leisure is the Soul That gets a Staggering Blow The Width of Life before it spreads Without a thing to do It begs you give it Work But just the placing Pins Or humblest Patchwork Children do To Help its Vacant Hands...
9. When I read the Book WHEN I read the book, the biography famous, And is this, then, (said I,) what the author calls a man’s life? And so will some one, when I am dead and gone, write my life? (As if any man really knew aught of my life; Why, even I myself, I often think, know little or […]...
10. The Book of Urizen: Chapter III 1. The voice ended, they saw his pale visage Emerge from the darkness; his hand On the rock of eternity unclasping The Book of brass. Rage siez’d the strong 2. Rage, fury, intense indignation In cataracts of fire blood & gall In whirlwinds of sulphurous smoke: And enormous forms of energy; All the seven deadly […]...
11. The Book of Urizen: Chapter VIII 1. Urizen explor’d his dens Mountain, moor, & wilderness, With a globe of fire lighting his journey A fearful journey, annoy’d By cruel enormities: forms Of life on his forsaken mountains 2. And his world teemd vast enormities Frightning; faithless; fawning Portions of life; similitudes Of a foot, or a hand, or a head Or […]...
12. Book Borrower I am a mild man, you’ll agree, But red my rage is, When folks who borrow books from me Turn down their pages. Or when a chap a book I lend, And find he’s loaned it Without permission to a friend – As if he owned it. But worst of all I hate those crooks […]...
13. Coloring Book Each picture is heartbreakingly banal, A kitten and a ball of yarn, A dog and bone. The paper is cheap, easily torn. A coloring book’s authority is derived From its heavy black lines As unalterable as the ten commandments Within which minor decisions are possible: The dog black and white, The kitten gray. Under the […]...
14. Book Passion I dreamed I was eating A book. It was made from 8″ by 12″ slabs One inch deep. It tasted like cheese But cut like watercress. As I chewed I understood. As I looked around Others were reading The same title But in the regular way I couldn’t determine Which was best, Eyes only Or […]...
15. The Iliad: Book VI (excerpt) He said, and pass’d with sad presaging heart To seek his spouse, his soul’s far dearer part; At home he sought her, but he sought in vain: She, with one maid of all her menial train, Had thence retir’d; and, with her second joy, The young Astyanax, the hope of Troy, Pensive she stood on […]...
16. On Mr. G. Herbert's Book, Entitled the Temple of Sacred Poe Know you fair, on what you look; Divinest love lies in this book, Expecting fire from your eyes, To kindle this his sacrifice. When your hands untie these strings, Think you’have an angel by th’ wings. One that gladly will be nigh, To wait upon each morning sigh. To flutter in the balmy air Of […]...
17. The Poet And His Book Down, you mongrel, Death! Back into your kennel! I have stolen breath In a stalk of fennel! You shall scratch and you shall whine Many a night, and you shall worry Many a bone, before you bury One sweet bone of mine! When shall I be dead? When my flesh is withered, And above my […]...
18. A Hymn for Christmas Day Almighty Framer of the Skies! O let our pure devotion rise, Like Incense in thy Sight! Wrapt in impenetrable Shade The Texture of our Souls were made Till thy Command gave light. The Sun of Glory gleam’d the Ray, Refin’d the Darkness into Day, And bid the Vapours fly; Impell’d by his eternal Love He […]...
19. Dream Song 171: Go, ill-sped book, and whisper to her or Go, ill-sped book, and whisper to her or Storm out the message for her only ear That she is beautiful. Mention sunsets, be not silent of her eyes And mouth and other prospects, praise her size, Say her figure is full. Say her small figure is heavenly & full, So as stunned Henry yatters like […]...
20. Lover's Gifts XIX: It Is Written in the Book It is written in the book that Man, when fifty, must leave the Noisy world, to go to the forest seclusion. But the poet proclaims That the forest hermitage is only for the young. For it is the Birthplace of flowers and the haunt of birds and bees; and hidden Hooks are waiting there for […]...
21. Beast, Book, Body I was sick of being a woman, Sick of the pain, The irrelevant detail of sex, My own concavity Uselessly hungering And emptier whenever it was filled, And filled finally By its own emptiness, Seeking the garden of solitude Instead of men. The white bed In the green garden I looked forward To sleeping alone […]...
22. Depressed By A Book Of Bad Poetry, I Walk Toward An Unused Pasture And Invite The Insects To Join Me Relieved, I let the book fall behind a stone. I climb a slight rise of grass. I do not want to disturb the ants Who are walking single file up the fence post, Carrying small white petals, Casting shadows so frail that I can see through them. I close my eyes for a moment and […]...
23. Two butterflies went out at Noon Two butterflies went out at Noon And waltzed upon a Farm Then stepped straight through the Firmament And rested, on a Beam And then together bore away Upon a shining Sea Though never yet, in any Port Their coming, mentioned be If spoken by the distant Bird If met in Ether Sea By Frigate, or […]...
24. The Book of Urizen: Chapter II 1. Earth was not: nor globes of attraction The will of the Immortal expanded Or contracted his all flexible senses. Death was not, but eternal life sprung 2. The sound of a trumpet the heavens Awoke & vast clouds of blood roll’d Round the dim rocks of Urizen, so nam’d That solitary one in Immensity […]...
25. Sonnet LXXI: Who Will in Fairest Book Who will in fairest book of nature know How virtue may best lodg’d in beauty be, Let him but learn of love to read in thee, Stella, those fair lines which true goodness show. There shall he find all vices’ overthrow, Not by rude force, but sweetest sovereignty Of reason, from whose light those night-birds […]...
26. Book Ends I Baked the day she suddenly dropped dead We chew it slowly that last apple pie. Shocked into sleeplessness you’re scared of bed. We never could talk much, and now don’t try. You’re like book ends, the pair of you, she’d say, Hog that grate, say nothing, sit, sleep, stare… The ‘scholar’ me, you, worn […]...
27. The Book of Annandale I Partly to think, more to be left alone, George Annandale said something to his friends – A word or two, brusque, but yet smoothed enough To suit their funeral gaze-and went upstairs; And there, in the one room that he could call His own, he found a sort of meaningless Annoyance in the mute […]...
28. Imitations of Horace: The First Epistle of the Second Book Ne Rubeam, Pingui donatus Munere (Horace, Epistles II. i.267) While you, great patron of mankind, sustain The balanc’d world, and open all the main; Your country, chief, in arms abroad defend, At home, with morals, arts, and laws amend; How shall the Muse, from such a monarch steal An hour, and not defraud the public […]...
29. I lost a World the other day! I lost a World the other day! Has Anybody found? You’ll know it by the Row of Stars Around its forehead bound. A Rich man might not notice it Yet to my frugal Eye, Of more Esteem than Ducats Oh find it Sir for me!...
30. Paradise Lost: Book 08 The Angel ended, and in Adam’s ear So charming left his voice, that he a while Thought him still speaking, still stood fixed to hear; Then, as new waked, thus gratefully replied. What thanks sufficient, or what recompence Equal, have I to render thee, divine Historian, who thus largely hast allayed The thirst I had […]...
31. Paradise is that old mansion Paradise is that old mansion Many owned before Occupied by each an instant Then reversed the Door Bliss is frugal of her Leases Adam taught her Thrift Bankrupt once through his excesses...
32. 'Twas fighting for his Life he was ‘Twas fighting for his Life he was That sort accomplish well The Ordnance of Vitality Is frugal of its Ball. It aims once kills once conquers once There is no second War In that Campaign inscrutable Of the Interior....
33. Lines and Squares Whenever I walk in a London street, I’m ever so careful to watch my feet; And I keep in the squares, And the masses of bears, Who wait at the corners all ready to eat The sillies who tread on the lines of the street Go back to their lairs, And I say to them, […]...
34. The Red Blaze is the Morning The Red Blaze is the Morning The Violet is Noon The Yellow Day is falling And after that is none But Miles of Sparks at Evening Reveal the Width that burned The Territory Argent that Never yet consumed...
35. The Book of Urizen: Chapter VI 1. But Los saw the Female & pitied He embrac’d her, she wept, she refus’d In perverse and cruel delight She fled from his arms, yet he followd 2. Eternity shudder’d when they saw, Man begetting his likeness, On his own divided image. 3. A time passed over, the Eternals Began to erect the tent; […]...
36. Paragraphs from a Day-Book Cherry-ripe: dark sweet burlats, scarlet reverchons Firm-fleshed and tart in the mouth Bigarreaux, peach-and-white napoléons As the harvest moves north From Provence to the banks of the Yonne (they grow napoléons in Washington State now). Before that, garriguettes, From Périgord, in wooden punnets Afterwards, peaches: yellow-fleshed, white, Moss-skinned ruby pêches de vigne. The vendors cry […]...
37. On a Soldier Fallen in the Philippines Streets of the roaring town, Hush for him, hus, be still! He comes, who was stricken down Doing the word of our will. Hush! Let him have his state, Give him his soldier’s crown. The grists of trade can wait Their grinding at the mill, But he cannot wait for his honor, now the trumpet […]...
38. So Far and So Far, and on Toward the End SO far, and so far, and on toward the end, Singing what is sung in this book, from the irresistible impulses of me; But whether I continue beyond this book, to maturity, Whether I shall dart forth the true rays, the ones that wait unfired, (Did you think the sun was shining its brightest? No-it […]...
39. Robert Browning How blind the toil that burrows like the mole, In winding graveyard pathways underground, For Browning’s lineage! What if men have found Poor footmen or rich merchants on the roll Of his forbears? Did they beget his soul? Nay, for he came of ancestry renowned Through all the world, the poets laurel-crowned With wreaths from […]...
40. Paradise Lost: Book 03 Hail, holy Light, offspring of Heaven firstborn, Or of the Eternal coeternal beam May I express thee unblam’d? since God is light, And never but in unapproached light Dwelt from eternity, 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 […]...