This is the place they hoped before

Related poetry:

1. When I hoped I feared When I hoped I feared Since I hoped I dared Everywhere alone As a Church remain Spectre cannot harm Serpent cannot charm He deposes Doom Who hath suffered him...
2. When I hoped, I recollect When I hoped, I recollect Just the place I stood At a Window facing West Roughest Air was good Not a Sleet could bite me Not a frost could cool Hope it was that kept me warm Not Merino shawl When I feared I recollect Just the Day it was Worlds were lying out to […]...
3. I stepped from Plank to Plank I stepped from Plank to Plank A slow and cautious way The Stars about my Head I felt About my Feet the Sea. I knew not but the next Would be my final inch This gave me that precarious Gait Some call Experience....
4. First Sight Lambs that learn to walk in snow When their bleating clouds the air Meet a vast unwelcome, know Nothing but a sunless glare. Newly stumbling to and fro All they find, outside the fold, Is a wretched width of cold. As they wait beside the ewe, Her fleeces wetly caked, there lies Hidden round them, […]...
5. A single Clover Plank A single Clover Plank Was all that saved a Bee A Bee I personally knew From sinking in the sky ‘Twixt Firmament above And Firmament below The Billows of Circumference Were sweeping him away The idly swaying Plank Responsible to nought A sudden Freight of Wind assumed And Bumble Bee was not This harrowing event […]...
6. 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...
7. A Prison gets to be a friend A Prison gets to be a friend Between its Ponderous face And Ours a Kinsmanship express And in its narrow Eyes We come to look with gratitude For the appointed Beam It deal us stated as our food And hungered for the same We learn to know the Planks That answer to Our feet So […]...
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. How many schemes may die How many schemes may die In one short Afternoon Entirely unknown To those they most concern The man that was not lost Because by accident He varied by a Ribbon’s width From his accustomed route The Love that would not try Because beside the Door It must be competitions Some unsuspecting Horse was tied Surveying […]...
10. Somewhere upon the general Earth Somewhere upon the general Earth Itself exist Today The Magic passive but extant That consecrated me Indifferent Seasons doubtless play Where I for right to be Would pay each Atom that I am But Immortality Reserving that but just to prove Another Date of Thee Oh God of Width, do not for us Curtail Eternity!...
11. No Man can compass a Despair No Man can compass a Despair As round a Goalless Road No faster than a Mile at once The Traveller proceed Unconscious of the Width Unconscious that the Sun Be setting on His progress So accurate the One At estimating Pain Whose own has just begun His ignorance the Angel That pilot Him along...
12. I rose because He sank I rose because He sank I thought it would be opposite But when his power dropped My Soul grew straight. I cheered my fainting Prince I sang firm even Chants I helped his Film with Hymn And when the Dews drew off That held his Forehead stiff I met him Balm to Balm I told […]...
13. 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 […]...
14. 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 […]...
15. These are the Signs to Nature's Inns These are the Signs to Nature’s Inns Her invitation broad To Whosoever famishing To taste her mystic Bread These are the rites of Nature’s House The Hospitality That opens with an equal width To Beggar and to Bee For Sureties of her staunch Estate Her undecaying Cheer The Purple in the East is set And […]...
16. How brittle are the Piers How brittle are the Piers On which our Faith doth tread No Bridge below doth totter so Yet none hath such a Crowd. It is as old as God Indeed ’twas built by him He sent his Son to test the Plank, And he pronounced it firm....
17. Preaching Vs Practice It is easy to sit in the sunshine And talk to the man in the shade; It is easy to float in a well-trimmed boat, And point out the places to wade. But once we pass into the shadows, We murmur and fret and frown, And, our length from the bank, we shout for a […]...
18. Visits To St. Elizabeths This is the house of Bedlam. This is the man That lies in the house of Bedlam. This is the time Of the tragic man That lies in the house of Bedlam. This is a wristwatch Telling the time Of the talkative man That lies in the house of Bedlam. This is a sailor Wearing […]...
19. A Door just opened on a street A Door just opened on a street I lost was passing by An instant’s Width of Warmth disclosed And Wealth and Company. The Door as instant shut And I I lost was passing by Lost doubly but by contrast most Informing misery...
20. Epitaph Stop, Christian passer-by : Stop, child of God, And read, with gentle breast. Beneath this sod A poet lies, or that which once seem’d he O, lift one thought in prayer for S. T. C. That he who many a year with toil of breath Found death in life, may here find life in death […]...
21. The Prisoners Steel doors – guillotine gates – Of the doorless house closed massively. We were locked in with loss. Guards frisked us, marked our wrists, Then let us into the drab Rec Hall – Splotched green walls, high windows barred – Where the dispossessed awaited us. Hands intimate with knife and pistol, Hands that had cruelly […]...
22. The Props assist the House The Props assist the House Until the House is built And then the Props withdraw And adequate, erect, The House support itself And cease to recollect The Auger and the Carpenter Just such a retrospect Hath the perfected Life A past of Plank and Nail And slowness then the Scaffolds drop Affirming it a Soul....
23. A Song of the Road O I will walk with you, my lad, whichever way you fare, You’ll have me, too, the side o’ you, with heart as light as air; No care for where the road you take’s a-leadin’ anywhere, It can but be a joyful ja’nt whilst you journey there. The road you take’s the path o’ love, […]...
24. O Captain! My Captain! 1 O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done; The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won; The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring: But O heart! heart! heart! O the bleeding drops of […]...
25. Bacchanalia The evening comes, the fields are still. The tinkle of the thirsty rill, Unheard all day, ascends again; Deserted is the half-mown plain, Silent the swaths! the ringing wain, The mower’s cry, the dog’s alarms, All housed within the sleeping farms! The business of the day is done, The last-left haymaker is gone. And from […]...
26. Except the Heaven had come so near Except the Heaven had come so near So seemed to choose My Door The Distance would not haunt me so I had not hoped before But just to hear the Grace depart I never thought to see Afflicts me with a Double loss ‘Tis lost and lost to me...
27. Ourselves we do inter with sweet derision Ourselves we do inter with sweet derision. The channel of the dust who once achieves Invalidates the balm of that religion That doubts as fervently as it believes....
28. I Know, You Walk I walk so often, late, along the streets, Lower my gaze, and hurry, full of dread, Suddenly, silently, you still might rise And I would have to gaze on all your grief With my own eyes, While you demand your happiness, that’s dead. I know, you walk beyond me, every night, With a coy footfall, […]...
29. Hanging Fire I am fourteen And my skin has betrayed me The boy I cannot live without Still sucks his tumb In secret How come my knees are Always so ashy What if I die Before the morning comes And momma’s in the bedroom With the door closed. I have to learn how to dance In time […]...
30. Ka ‘Ba A closed window looks down On a dirty courtyard, and black people Call across or scream or walk across Defying physics in the stream of their will Our world is full of sound Our world is more lovely than anyone’s Tho we suffer, and kill each other And sometimes fail to walk the air We […]...
31. May 24, 1980 I have braved, for want of wild beasts, steel cages, Carved my term and nickname on bunks and rafters, Lived by the sea, flashed aces in an oasis, Dined with the-devil-knows-whom, in tails, on truffles. From the height of a glacier I beheld half a world, the earthly width. Twice have drowned, thrice let knives […]...
32. His Pilgrimage GIVE me my scallop-shell of quiet, My staff of faith to walk upon, My scrip of joy, immortal diet, My bottle of salvation, My gown of glory, hope’s true gage; And thus I’ll take my pilgrimage. Blood must be my body’s balmer; No other balm will there be given: Whilst my soul, like quiet palmer, […]...
33. I felt a Funeral, in my Brain I felt a Funeral, in my Brain, And Mourners to and fro Kept treading treading till it seemed That Sense was breaking through And when they all were seated, A Service, like a Drum Kept beating beating till I thought My Mind was going numb And then I heard them lift a Box And creak […]...
34. One Wants A Teller In A Time Like This One wants a teller in a time like this One’s not a man, one’s not a woman grown To bear enormous business all alone. One cannot walk this winding street with pride Straight-shouldered, tranquil-eyed, Knowing one knows for sure the way back home. One wonders if one has a home. One is not certain if […]...
35. Not any sunny tone Not any sunny tone From any fervent zone Find entrance there Better a grave of Balm Toward human nature’s home And Robins near Than a stupendous Tomb Proclaiming to the Gloom How dead we are...
36. Death's Waylaying not the sharpest Death’s Waylaying not the sharpest Of the thefts of Time There Marauds a sorer Robber, Silence is his name No Assault, nor any Menace Doth betoken him. But from Life’s consummate Cluster He supplants the Balm....
37. On Rabbi Kook's Street On Rabbi Kook’s Street I walk without this good man A streiml he wore for prayer A silk top hat he wore to govern, Fly in the wind of the dead Above me, float on the water Of my dreams. I come to the Street of Prophets there are none. And the Street of Ethiopians […]...
38. Sweet Skepticism of the Heart Sweet Skepticism of the Heart That knows and does not know And tosses like a Fleet of Balm Affronted by the snow Invites and then retards the Truth Lest Certainty be sere Compared with the delicious throe Of transport thrilled with Fear...
39. A Dream Lies Dead A dream lies dead here. May you softly go Before this place, and turn away your eyes, Nor seek to know the look of that which dies Importuning Life for life. Walk not in woe, But, for a little, let your step be slow. And, of your mercy, be not sweetly wise With words of […]...
40. The things we thought that we should do The things we thought that we should do We other things have done But those peculiar industries Have never been begun The Lands we thought that we should seek When large enough to run By Speculation ceded To Speculation’s Son The Heaven, in which we hoped to pause When Discipline was done Untenable to Logic […]...