The Garret

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1. My Garret Here is my Garret up five flights of stairs; Here’s where I deal in dreams and ply in fancies, Here is the wonder-shop of all my wares, My sounding sonnets and my red romances. Here’s where I challenge Fate and ring my rhymes, And grope at glory aye, and starve at times. Here is my […]...
2. Sandpipers Sandland where the salt water kills the sweet potatoes. Homes for sandpipers-the script of their feet is on the sea shingles-they write in the morning, it is gone at noon-they write at noon, it is gone at night. Pity the land, the sea, the ten mile flats, pity anything but the sandpiper’s wire legs and […]...
3. Narcissus Encircled by her arms as by a shell, She hears her being murmur, While forever he endures The outrage of his too pure image… Wistfully following their example, Nature re-enters herself; Contemplating its own sap, the flower Becomes too soft, and the boulder hardens… It’s the return of all desire that enters Toward all life […]...
4. I Have Some Friends I have some friends, some worthy friends, And worthy friends are rare: These carpet slippers on my feet, That padded leather chair; This old and shabby dressing-gown, So well the worse of wear. I have some friends, some honest friends, And honest friends are few; My pipe of briar, my open fire, A book that’s […]...
5. 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 […]...
6. The Fabulists When all the world would keep a matter hid, Since Truth is seldom Friend to any crowd, Men write in Fable, as old AEsop did, Jesting at that which none will name aloud. And this they needs must do, or it will fall Unless they please they are not heard at all. When desperate Folly […]...
7. Two Months June No hope, no change! The clouds have shut us in, And through the cloud the sullen Sun strikes down Full on the bosom of the tortured Town, Till Night falls heavy as remembered sin That will not suffer sleep or thought of ease, And, hour on hour, the dry-eyed Moon in spite Glares through […]...
8. Pity Me Not Because The Light Of Day Pity me not because the light of day At close of day no longer walks the sky; Pity me not for beauties passed away From field and thicket as the the year goes by; Pity me not the waning of the moon, Nor that the ebbing tide goes out to sea, Nor that a man’s […]...
9. My Friends My friends without shields walk on the target It is late the windows are breaking My friends without shoes leave What they love Grief moves among them as a fire among Its bells My friends without clocks turn On the dial they turn They part My friends with names like gloves set out Bare handed […]...
10. 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 […]...
11. The Giver of Stars Hold your soul open for my welcoming. Let the quiet of your spirit bathe me With its clear and rippled coolness, That, loose-limbed and weary, I find rest, Outstretched upon your peace, as on a bed of ivory. Let the flickering flame of your soul play all about me, That into my limbs may come […]...
12. The Tired Worker O whisper, O my soul! The afternoon Is waning into evening, whisper soft! Peace, O my rebel heart! for soon the moon From out its misty veil will swing aloft! Be patient, weary body, soon the night Will wrap thee gently in her sable sheet, And with a leaden sigh thou wilt invite To rest […]...
13. Dear Friends Dear Friends, reproach me not for what I do, Nor counsel me, nor pity me; nor say That I am wearing half my life away For bubble-work that only fools pursue. And if my bubbles be too small for you, Blow bigger then your own: the games we play To fill the frittered minutes of […]...
14. Rhymes for Gloriana I. THE DOLL UPON THE TOPMOST BOUGH This doll upon the topmost bough, This playmate-gift, in Christmas dress, Was taken down and brought to me One sleety night most comfortless. Her hair was gold, her dolly-sash Was gray brocade, most good to see. The dear toy laughed, and I forgot The ill the new year […]...
15. If any sink, assure that this, now standing If any sink, assure that this, now standing Failed like Themselves and conscious that it rose Grew by the Fact, and not the Understanding How Weakness passed or Force arose Tell that the Worst, is easy in a Moment Dread, but the Whizzing, before the Ball When the Ball enters, enters Silence Dying annuls the […]...
16. Crossroads The second half of my life will be black To the white rind of the old and fading moon. The second half of my life will be water Over the cracked floor of these desert years. I will land on my feet this time, Knowing at least two languages and who My friends are. I […]...
17. Song IV: Draw Near and Behold Me Love is enough: draw near and behold me Ye who pass by the way to your rest and your laughter, And are full of the hope of the dawn coming after; For the strong of the world have bought me and sold me And my house is all wasted from threshold to rafter. Pass by […]...
18. Virginity My mother she had children five and four are dead and gone; While I, least worthy to survive, persist in living on. She looks at me, I must confess, sometimes with spite and bitterness. My mother is three-score and ten, while I am forty-three, You don’t know how it hurts me when we go somewhere […]...
19. A Ballad of Burdens The burden of fair women. Vain delight, And love self-slain in some sweet shameful way, And sorrowful old age that comes by night As a thief comes that has no heart by day, And change that finds fair cheeks and leaves them grey, And weariness that keeps awake for hire, And grief that says what […]...
20. Sexism The happiest moment in a woman’s life Is when she hears the turn of her lover’s key In the lock, and pretends to be asleep When he enters the room, trying to be Quiet but clumsy, bumping into things, And she can smell the liquor on his breath But forgives him because she has him […]...
21. "I Love You Sweatheart&quot A man risked his life to write the words. A man hung upside down (an idiot friend Holding his legs?) with spray paint To write the words on a girder fifty feet above A highway. And his beloved, The next morning driving to work…? His words are not (meant to be) so unique. Does she […]...
22. Loving In Truth, And Fain In Verse My Love To Show Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show, That She, dear She, might take some pleasure of my pain, -Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know, Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain – I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe, Studying inventions fine, […]...
23. A Landscape By Courbet Low lies the mere beneath the moorside, still And glad of silence: down the wood sweeps clear To the utmost verge where fed with many a rill Low lies the mere. The wind speaks only summer: eye nor ear Sees aught at all of dark, hears aught of shrill, From sound or shadow felt or […]...
24. Beaumont and Fletcher An hour ere sudden sunset fired the west, Arose two stars upon the pale deep east. The hall of heaven was clear for night’s high feast, Yet was not yet day’s fiery heart at rest. Love leapt up from his mother’s burning breast To see those warm twin lights, as day decreased, Wax wider, till […]...
25. Sonnet I: Loving In Truth Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show, That she (dear She) might take some pleasure of my pain: Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know, Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain; I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe, Studying inventions fine, her […]...
26. The Creation I The God separated a spirit from Himself and fashioned it into Beauty. He showered upon her all the blessings of gracefulness and kindness. He gave her the cup of happiness and said, “Drink not from this cup unless you forget the past and the future, for happiness is naught but the moment.” And He also […]...
27. Astrophel and Stella: I ASTROPHEL AND STELLA: I Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show, That she, dear she, might take some pleasure of my pain, Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know, Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain, I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe; […]...
28. Historion No man hath dared to write this thing as yet, And yet I know, how that the souls of all men great At times pass athrough us, And we are melted into them, and are not Save reflexions of their souls. Thus am I Dante for a space and am One Francois Villon, ballad-lord and […]...
29. Along The Sun-Drenched Roadside Along the sun-drenched roadside, from the great Hollow half-treetrunk, which for generations Has been a trough, renewing in itself An inch or two of rain, I satisfy My thirst: taking the water’s pristine coolness Into my whole body through my wrists. Drinking would be too powerful, too clear; But this unhurried gesture of restraint Fills […]...
30. The Day's Work We now, held in captivity, Spring to our bondage nor grieve See now, how it is blesseder, Brothers, to give than receive! Keep trust, wherefore we were made, Paying the debt that we owe; For a clean thrust, and the shear of the blade, Will carry us where would go. The Ship that Found Herself. […]...
31. Words For Departure Nothing was remembered, nothing forgotten. When we awoke, wagons were passing on the warm summer pavements, The window-sills were wet from rain in the night, Birds scattered and settled over chimneypots As among grotesque trees. Nothing was accepted, nothing looked beyond. Slight-voiced bells separated hour from hour, The afternoon sifted coolness And people drew together […]...
32. The End Of The Trail Life, you’ve been mighty good to me, Yet here’s the end of the trail; No more mountain, moor and sea, No more saddle and sail. Waves a-leap in the laughing sun Call to me as of yore. . . . Alas! my errant days are done: I’ll rove no more, no more. Life, you’ve cheered […]...
33. To A Cat STATELY, kindly, lordly friend, Condescend Here to sit by me, and turn Glorious eyes that smile and burn, Golden eyes, love’s lustrous meed, On the golden page I read. All your wondrous wealth of hair, Dark and fair, Silken-shaggy, soft and bright As the clouds and beams of night, Pays my reverent hand’s caress Back […]...
34. Choriambics I Ah! not now, when desire burns, and the wind calls, and the suns of spring Light-foot dance in the woods, whisper of life, woo me to wayfaring; Ah! not now should you come, now when the road beckons, And good friends call, Where are songs to be sung, fights to be fought, yea! and the […]...
35. Virginibus Puerisque I care not that one listen if he lives For aught but life’s romance, nor puts above All life’s necessities the need to love, Nor counts his greatest wealth what Beauty gives. But sometime on an afternoon in spring, When dandelions dot the fields with gold, And under rustling shade a few weeks old ‘Tis […]...
36. The Punisher I have fetched the tears up out of the little wells, Scooped them up with small, iron words, Dripping over the runnels. The harsh, cold wind of my words drove on, and still I watched the tears on the guilty cheek of the boys Glitter and spill. Cringing Pity, and Love, white-handed, came Hovering about […]...
37. In Tempore Senectutis When I am old I will not have you look apart From me, into the cold, Friend of my heart, Nor be sad in your remembrance Of the careless, mad-heart semblance That the wind hath blown away When I am old. When I am old And the white hot wonder-fire Unto the world seem cold, […]...
38. Job the Rejected They met, and overwhelming her distrust With penitence, he praised away her fear; They married, and Job gave him half a year To wreck the temple, as we knew he must. He fumbled hungrily to readjust A fallen altar, but the road was clear By which it was her will to disappear That evening when […]...
39. Passing Breeze Yes, I know, this is nothing but thy love, O beloved of my heart – this golden light that dances upon the leaves, These idle clouds sailing across the sky, This passing breeze leaving its coolness upon my forehead. The morning light has flooded my eyes – this is thy message to my heart. Thy […]...
40. One Of Us Two The day will dawn when one of us shall hearken In vain to hear a voice that has grown dumb. And morns will fade, noons pale, and shadows darken, While sad eyes watch for feet that never come. One of us two must sometime face existence Alone with the memories that but sharpen pain. And […]...