Age and Youth

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1. Reconciliation I BEGIN through the grass once again to be bound to the Lord; I can see, through a face that has faded, the face full of rest Of the earth, of the mother, my heart with her heart in accord, As I lie ‘mid the cool green tresses that mantle her breast I begin with […]...
2. A Man Young And Old: VII. The Friends Of His Youth Laughter not time destroyed my voice And put that crack in it, And when the moon’s pot-bellied I get a laughing fit, For that old Madge comes down the lane, A stone upon her breast, And a cloak wrapped about the stone, And she can get no rest With singing hush and hush-a-bye; She that […]...
3. Youth and Calm ‘Tis death! and peace, indeed, is here, And ease from shame, and rest from fear. There’s nothing can dismarble now The smoothness of that limpid brow. But is a calm like this, in truth, The crowning end of life and youth, And when this boon rewards the dead, Are all debts paid, has all been […]...
4. A Memory Of Youth The moments passed as at a play; I had the wisdom love brings forth; I had my share of mother-wit, And yet for all that I could say, And though I had her praise for it, A cloud blown from the cut-throat North Suddenly hid Love’s moon away. Believing every word I said, I praised […]...
5. Nurse's Song (Innocence) When voices of children are heard on the green And laughing is heard on the hill, My heart is at rest within my breast And everything else is still Then come home my children the sun is gone down And the dews of night arise Come come leave off play, and let us away Till […]...
6. THE YOUTH AND THE MILLSTREAM [This sweet Ballad, and the one entitled The Maid of the Mill’s Repentance, were written on the occasion of a Visit paid by Goethe to Switzerland. The Maid of the Mill’s Treachery, To which the latter forms the sequel, was not written till the following Year.] YOUTH. SAY, sparkling streamlet, whither thou Art Going! With […]...
7. Youth And Age Verse, a Breeze ‘mid blossoms straying, Where HOPE clung feeding, like a bee Both were mine! Life went a-maying With NATURE, HOPE, and POESY, [Image][Image]When I was young! When I was young? Ah, woful WHEN! Ah! for the Change ‘twixt Now and Then! This breathing House not built with hands, This body that does me […]...
8. Never Born THE TIME has gone by. The child is dead. The child was never even born. Why go on? Why so much as begin? How can we turn the clock back now And not laugh at each other As ashes laugh at ashes?...
9. Dead Men's Love There was a damned successful Poet; There was a Woman like the Sun. And they were dead. They did not know it. They did not know their time was done. They did not know his hymns Were silence; and her limbs, That had served Love so well, Dust, and a filthy smell. And so one […]...
10. God Gave To Me A Child In Part GOD gave to me a child in part, Yet wholly gave the father’s heart: Child of my soul, O whither now, Unborn, unmothered, goest thou? You came, you went, and no man wist; Hapless, my child, no breast you kist; On no dear knees, a privileged babbler, clomb, Nor knew the kindly feel of home. […]...
11. The Youth By The Brook Beside the brook the boy reclined And wove his flowery wreath, And to the waves the wreath consigned The waves that danced beneath. “So fleet mine hours,” he sighed, “away Like waves that restless flow: And so my flowers of youth decay Like those that float below.” “Ask not why I, alone on earth, Am […]...
12. My Lost Youth Often I think of the beautiful town That is seated by the sea; Often in thought go up and down The pleasant streets of that dear old town, And my youth comes back to me. And a verse of a Lapland song Is haunting my memory still: “A boy’s will is the wind’s will, And […]...
13. Youth and Love What does youth know of love? Little enough, I trow! He plucks the myrtle for his brow, For his forehead the rose. Nay, but of love It is not youth who knows....
14. The Funeral of Youth: Threnody The Day that Youth had died, There came to his grave-side, In decent mourning, from the country’s ends, Those scatter’d friends Who had lived the boon companions of his prime, And laughed with him and sung with him and wasted, In feast and wine and many-crown’d carouse, The days and nights and dawnings of the […]...
15. Funeral Of Youth, The: Threnody The day that YOUTH had died, There came to his grave-side, In decent mourning, from the country’s ends, Those scatter’d friends Who had lived the boon companions of his prime, And laughed with him and sung with him and wasted, In feast and wine and many-crown’d carouse, The days and nights and dawnings of the […]...
16. The Mother Poem (two) I always wanted to give birth Do that incredible natural thing That women do-I nearly broke down When I heard we couldn’t And then my man said to me Well there’s always adoption (we didn’t have test tubes and the rest Then) and well even in the early sixties there was something Scandalous about adopting […]...
17. Invocation to Youth COME then, as ever, like the wind at morning! Joyous, O Youth, in the aged world renew Freshness to feel the eternities around it, Rain, stars and clouds, light and the sacred dew. The strong sun shines above thee: That strength, that radiance bring! If Winter come to Winter, When shall men hope for Spring?...
18. She Didn’t Mean To Do It Oh, she was sad, oh, she was sad. She didn’t mean to do it. Certain thrills stay tucked in your limbs, Go no further than your fingers, move your legs through their paces, But no more. Certain thrills knock you flat On your sheets on your bed in your room and you fade And they […]...
19. A youth in apparel that glittered A youth in apparel that glittered Went to walk in a grim forest. There he met an assassin Attired all in garb of old days; He, scowling through the thickets, And dagger poised quivering, Rushed upon the youth. “Sir,” said this latter, “I am enchanted, believe me, To die, thus, In this medieval fashion, According […]...
20. Little Popeet – the Lost Child Near by the silent waters of the Mediterranean, And at the door of an old hut stood a coloured man, Whose dress was oriental in style and poor with wear, While adown his furrowed cheeks ran many a tear. And the poor coloured man seemed very discontent, And his grief overcame him at this moment; […]...
21. Sing To Me Sing to me! Something of sunlight and bloom, I am so compassed with sorrow and gloom, I am so sick with the world’s noisse and strife, – Sing of the beauty and brightness of life – Sing to me, sing to me! Sing to me! Something that’s jubilant, glad! I am so weary, my soul […]...
22. Graves I dreamed one man stood against a thousand, One man damned as a wrongheaded fool. One year and another he walked the streets, And a thousand shrugs and hoots Met him in the shoulders and mouths he passed. He died alone. And only the undertaker came to his funeral. Flowers grow over his grave anod […]...
23. I Will Not Fight I will not fight: though proud of pith I hold no one worth striving with; And should resentment burn my breast I deem that silence serves me best: So having not a word to say, Contemptuous I turn away. I will not fret: my rest of life Free I will keep from hate and strife; […]...
24. Vull a Man No, I’m a man, I’m vull a man, You beat my manhood, if you can. You’ll be a man if you can teake All steates that household life do meake. The love-toss’d child, a-croodlen loud, The bwoy a-screamen wild in play, The tall grown youth a-steppen proud, The father staid, the house’s stay. No ; […]...
25. The Other One “Gather around me, children dear; The wind is high and the night is cold; Closer, little ones, snuggle near; Let’s seek a story of ages old; A magic tale of a bygone day, Of lovely ladies and dragons dread; Come, for you’re all so tired of play, We’ll read till it’s time to go to […]...
26. Sonnet 96: Some say thy fault is youth, some wantonness Some say thy fault is youth, some wantonness; Some say thy grace is youth and gentle sport; Both grace and faults are loved of more and less; Thou mak’st faults graces that to thee resort. As on the finger of a thronèd queen, The basest jewel will be well esteemed. So are those errors that […]...
27. Before Her Portrait In Youth As lovers, banished from their lady’s face And hopeless of her grace, Fashion a ghostly sweetness in its place, Fondly adore Some stealth-won cast attire she wore, A kerchief or a glove: And at the lover’s beck Into the glove there fleets the hand, Or at impetuous command Up from the kerchief floats the virgin […]...
28. In Youth I have Known One How often we forget all time, when lone Admiring Nature’s universal throne; Her woods – her winds – her mountains – the intense Reply of Hers to Our intelligence! I. In youth I have known one with whom the Earth In secret communing held – as he with it, In daylight, and in beauty, from […]...
29. I Told You I told you the winter would go, love, I told you the winter would go, That he’d flee in shame when the south wind came, And you smiled when I told you so. You said the blustering fellow Would never yield to a breeze, That his cold, icy breath had frozen to death The flowers, […]...
30. A Meeting She steps into the dark swamp Where the long wait ends. The secret slippery package Drops to the weeds. She leans her long neck and tongues it Between breaths slack with exhaustion And after a while it rises and becomes a creature Like her, but much smaller. So now there are two. And they walk […]...
31. In Youth Milton, our noblest poet, in the grace Of youth, in those fair eyes and clustering hair, That brow untouched by one faint line of care, To mar its openness, we seem to trace The front of the first lord of the human race, Mid thine own Paradise portrayed so fair, Ere Sin or Sorrow scathed […]...
32. Virgin Youth Now and again All my body springs alive, And the life that is polarised in my eyes, That quivers between my eyes and mouth, Flies like a wild thing across my body, Leaving my eyes half-empty, and clamorous, Filling my still breasts with a flush and a flame, Gathering the soft ripples below my breast […]...
33. While Gazing on the Moon's Light While gazing on the moon’s light, A moment from her smile I turn’d, To look at orbs that, more bright, In lone and distant glory burn’d. But too far Each proud star, For me to feel its warming flame; Much more dear That mild sphere, Which near our planet smiling came; Thus, Mary, be but […]...
34. Unknown Girl In A Maternity Ward Child, the current of your breath is six days long. You lie, a small knuckle on my white bed; Lie, fisted like a snail, so small and strong At my breast. Your lips are animals; you are fed With love. At first hunger is not wrong. The nurses nod their caps; you are shepherded Down […]...
35. Sweet And Low Sweet and low, sweet and low, Wind of the western sea, Low, low, breathe and blow, Wind of the western sea! Over the rolling waters go, Come from the dying moon, and blow, Blow him again to me; While my little one, while my pretty one, sleeps. Sleep and rest, sleep and rest, Father will […]...
36. The Pilgrim Youth’s gay springtime scarcely knowing Went I forth the world to roam And the dance of youth, the glowing, Left I in my father’s home, Of my birthright, glad-believing, Of my world-gear took I none, Careless as an infant, cleaving To my pilgrim staff alone. For I placed my mighty hope in Dim and holy […]...
37. If I were dead ‘IF I were dead, you’d sometimes say, Poor Child!’ The dear lips quiver’d as they spake, And the tears brake From eyes which, not to grieve me, brightly smiled. Poor Child, poor Child! I seem to hear your laugh, your talk, your song. It is not true that Love will do no wrong. Poor Child! […]...
38. Rest ON me to rest, my bird, my bird: The swaying branches of my heart Are blown by every wind toward The home whereto their wings depart. Build not your nest, my bird, on me; I know no peace but ever sway: O lovely bird, be free, be free, On the wild music of the day. […]...
39. A Nursery Darling A Mother’s breast: Safe refuge from her childish fears, From childish troubles, childish tears, Mists that enshroud her dawning years! See how in sleep she seems to sing A voiceless psalm an offering Raised, to the glory of her King In Love: for Love is Rest. A Darling’s kiss: Dearest of all the signs that […]...
40. Cuba My eldest sister arrived home that morning In her white muslin evening dress. ‘Who the hell do you think you are Running out to dances in next to nothing? As though we hadn’t enough bother With the world at war, if not at an end.’ My father was pounding the breakfast-table. ‘Those Yankees were touch […]...