I Held A Shelley Manuscript

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1. The Grave Of Shelley Like burnt-out torches by a sick man’s bed Gaunt cypress-trees stand round the sun-bleached stone; Here doth the little night-owl make her throne, And the slight lizard show his jewelled head. And, where the chaliced poppies flame to red, In the still chamber of yon pyramid Surely some Old-World Sphinx lurks darkly hid, Grim warder […]...
2. Golden Days Another day of toil and strife, Another page so white, Within that fateful Log of Life That I and all must write; Another page without a stain To make of as I may, That done, I shall not see again Until the Judgment Day. Ah, could I, could I backward turn The pages of that […]...
3. Civilization spurns the Leopard! Civilization spurns the Leopard! Was the Leopard bold? Deserts never rebuked her Satin Ethiop her Gold Tawny her Customs She was Conscious Spotted her Dun Gown This was the Leopard’s nature Signor Need a keeper frown? Pity the Pard that left her Asia Memories of Palm Cannot be stifled with Narcotic Nor suppressed with Balm...
4. 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 […]...
5. The Mole Said he: “I’ll dive deep in the Past, And write a book of direful days When summer skies were overcast With smoke of humble hearths ablaze; When War was rampant in the land, And poor folk cowered in the night, While ruin gaped on every hand – Of ravishing and wrath I’ll write.” Ten years […]...
6. Take Back the Virgin Page Written on Returning a Blank Book Take back the virgin page, White and unwritten still; Some hand, more calm and sage, The leaf must fill. Thoughts come, as pure as light Pure as even you require; But, oh! each word I write Love turns to fire. Yet let me keep the book: Oft shall my […]...
7. Theme For English B The instructor said, Go home and write a page tonight. And let that page come out of you Then, it will be true. I wonder if it’s that simple? I am twenty-two, colored, born in Winston-Salem. I went to school there, then Durham, then here To this college on the hill above Harlem. I am […]...
8. 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 […]...
9. There Are Not Many Kingdoms Left I write the lips of the moon upon her shoulders. In a Temple of silvery farawayness I guard her to rest. For her bed I write a stillness over all the swans of the World. With the morning breath of the snow leopard I Cover her against any hurt. Using the pen of rivers and […]...
10. From Citron-Bower From citron-bower be her bed, Cut from branch of tree a-flower, Fashioned for her maidenhead. From Lydian apples, sweet of hue, Cut the width of board and lathe, Carve the feet from myrtle-wood. Let the palings of her bed Be quince and box-wood overlaid With the scented bark of yew. That all the wood in […]...
11. The Ballad Of How Macpherson Held The Floor Said President MacConnachie to Treasurer MacCall: “We ought to have a piper for our next Saint Andrew’s Ball. Yon squakin’ saxophone gives me the syncopated gripes. I’m sick of jazz, I want to hear the skirling of the pipes.” “Alas! it’s true,” said Tam MacCall. “The young folk of to-day Are fox-trot mad and dinna […]...
12. Shelley Knight-errant of the Never-ending Quest, And Minstrel of the Unfulfilled Desire; For ever tuning thy frail earthly lyre To some unearthly music, and possessed With painful passionate longing to invest The golden dream of Love’s immortal fire In mortal robes of beautiful attire, And fold perfection to thy throbbing breast! What wonder, Shelley, if the […]...
13. I held a Jewel in my fingers I held a Jewel in my fingers And went to sleep The day was warm, and winds were prosy I said “‘Twill keep” I woke and chid my honest fingers, The Gem was gone And now, an Amethyst remembrance Is all I own...
14. Spring Pastoral Liza, go steep your long white hands In the cool waters of that spring Which bubbles up through shiny sands The colour of a wild-dove’s wing. Dabble your hands, and steep them well Until those nails are pearly white Now rosier than a laurel bell; Then come to me at candlelight. Lay your cold hands […]...
15. Percy Bysshe Shelley My father who owned the wagon-shop And grew rich shoeing horses Sent me to the University of Montreal. I learned nothing and returned home, Roaming the fields with Bert Kessler, Hunting quail and snipe. At Thompson’s Lake the trigger of my gun Caught in the side of the boat And a great hole was shot […]...
16. What Twigs We held by What Twigs We held by Oh the View When Life’s swift River striven through We pause before a further plunge To take Momentum As the Fringe Upon a former Garment shows The Garment cast, Our Props disclose So scant, so eminently small Of Might to help, so pitiful To sink, if We had labored, fond […]...
17. These held their Wick above the West These held their Wick above the West Till when the Red declined Or how the Amber aided it Defied to be defined Then waned without disparagement In a dissembling Hue That would not let the Eye decide Did it abide or no...
18. Apples of Hesperides Glinting golden through the trees, Apples of Hesperides! Through the moon-pierced warp of night Shoot pale shafts of yellow light, Swaying to the kissing breeze Swings the treasure, golden-gleaming, Apples of Hesperides! Far and lofty yet they glimmer, Apples of Hesperides! Blinded by their radiant shimmer, Pushing forward just for these; Dew-besprinkled, bramble-marred, Poor duped […]...
19. Shelley's Skylark (The neighbourhood of Leghorn: March) Somewhere afield here something lies In Earth’s oblivious eyeless trust That moved a poet to prophecies – A pinch of unseen, unguarded dust The dust of the lark that Shelley heard, And made immortal through times to be; – Though it only lived like another bird, And knew not its immortality. Lived its meek life; […]...
20. Dream Song 71: Spellbound held subtle Henry all his four Spellbound held subtle Henry all his four Hearers in the racket of the market With ancient signs, infamous characters, New rythms. On the steps he was beloved, Hours a day, by all his four, or more, Depending. And they paid him. It was not, so, like no one listening But critics famed & Henry’s pals […]...
21. Rome at the Pyramid of Cestius Near the Graves of Shelley and Keats Who, then, was Cestius, And what is he to me? – Amid thick thoughts and memories multitudinous One thought alone brings he. I can recall no word Of anything he did; For me he is a man who died and was interred To leave a pyramid Whose purpose was exprest Not with its first design, […]...
22. The House Was Quiet And The World Was Calm The house was quiet and the world was calm. The reader became the book; and summer night Was like the conscious being of the book. The house was quiet and the world was calm. The words were spoken as if there was no book, Except that the reader leaned above the page, Wanted to lean, […]...
23. To an Ungentle Critic The great sun sinks behind the town Through a red mist of Volnay wine…. But what’s the use of setting down That glorious blaze behind the town? You’ll only skip the page, you’ll look For newer pictures in this book; You’ve read of sunsets rich as mine. A fresh wind fills the evening air With […]...
24. 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...
25. Shut Not Your Doors, &c SHUT not your doors to me, proud libraries, For that which was lacking on all your well-fill’d shelves, yet needed most, I bring; Forth from the army, the war emerging-a book I have made, The words of my book nothing-the drift of it everything; A book separate, not link’d with the rest, nor felt by […]...
26. To Edward Fitzgerald I chanced upon a new book yesterday; I opened it, and, where my finger lay ‘Twixt page and uncut page, these words I read – Some six or seven at most – and learned thereby That you, Fitzgerald, whom by ear and eye She never knew, “thanked God my wife was dead.” Aye, dead! and […]...
27. Man Alone It is yourself you seek In a long rage, Scanning through light and darkness Mirrors, the page, Where should reflected be Those eyes and that thick hair, That passionate look, that laughter. You should appear Within the book, or doubled, Freed, in the silvered glass; Into all other bodies Yourself should pass. The glass does […]...
28. The Mountaineer OH, at the eagle’s height To lie i’ the sweet of the sun, While veil after veil takes flight And God and the world are one. Oh, the night on the steep! All that his eyes saw dim Grows light in the dusky deep, And God is alone with him....
29. The School of Night What did I study in your School of Night? When your mouth’s first unfathomable yes Opened your body to be my book, I read My answers there and learned the spell aright, Yet, though I searched and searched, could never guess What spirits it raised nor where their questions led. Those others, familiar tenants of […]...
30. 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 […]...
31. Many red devils ran from my heart Many red devils ran from my heart And out upon the page, They were so tiny The pen could mash them. And many struggled in the ink. It was strange To write in this red muck Of things from my heart....
32. Million Man March Poem The night has been long, The wound has been deep, The pit has been dark, And the walls have been steep. Under a dead blue sky on a distant beach, I was dragged by my braids just beyond your reach. Your hands were tied, your mouth was bound, You couldn’t even call out my name. […]...
33. The Prarie Battlements (To Edgar Lee Masters, with great respect) HERE upon the prarie Is our ancestral hall. Agate is the dome, Cornelian the wall. Ghouls are in the cellar, But fays upon the stairs. And here lived old King Silver Dreams, Always at his prayers. Here lived gray Queen Silver Dreams, Always signing psalms, And haughty Grandma […]...
34. There is no Frigate like a Book There is no Frigate like a Book To take us Lands away Nor any Coursers like a Page Of prancing Poetry This Traverse may the poorest take Without oppress of Toll How frugal is the Chariot That bears the Human soul....
35. Elizabeth Barrett Browning Elizabeth Barrett Browning Sat gossiping with Robert. (She was really a raving beauty in her day. With Mary Pickford curls in clouds and whirls.) She was trying to think of something nice to say, So she pointed to a page by her fellow star and sage, And said: “I wish that I could write that […]...
36. Errata Where it says snow Read teeth-marks of a virgin Where it says knife read You passed through my bones Like a police-whistle Where it says table read horse Where it says horse read my migrant’s bundle Apples are to remain apples Each time a hat appears Think of Isaac Newton Reading the Old Testament Remove […]...
37. 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? […]...
38. Authorship You say that father write a lot of books, but what he write I don’t Understand. He was reading to you all the evening, but could you really Make out what he meant? What nice stores, mother, you can tell us! Why can’t father Write like that, I wonder? Did he never hear from his […]...
39. TO WILLIAM E. CHANNING The pages of thy book I read, And as I closed each one, My heart, responding, ever said, “Servant of God! well done!” Well done! Thy words are great and bold; At times they seem to me, Like Luther’s, in the days of old, Half-battles for the free. Go on, until this land revokes The […]...
40. The Song Of Wandering Aengus I went out to the hazel wood, Because a fire was in my head, And cut and peeled a hazel wand, And hooked a berry to a thread; And when white moths were on the wing, And moth-like stars were flickering out, I dropped the berry in a stream And caught a little silver trout. […]...