I Knew A Man By Sight

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1. From the Bush The Channel fog has lifted – And see where we have come! Round all the world we’ve drifted, A hundred years from “home”. The fields our parents longed for – Ah! we shall ne’er know how – The wealth that they were wronged for We’ll see as strangers now! The Dover cliffs have passed on […]...
2. Now I knew I lost her Now I knew I lost her Not that she was gone But Remoteness travelled On her Face and Tongue. Alien, though adjoining As a Foreign Race Traversed she though pausing Latitudeless Place. Elements Unaltered Universe the same But Love’s transmigration Somehow this had come Henceforth to remember Nature took the Day I had paid so […]...
3. Modern Love I: By This He Knew She Wept By this he knew she wept with waking eyes: That, at his hand’s light quiver by her head, The strange low sobs that shook their common bed Were called into her with a sharp surprise, And strangled mute, like little gaping snakes, Dreadfully venomous to him. She lay Stone-still, and the long darkness flowed away […]...
4. Nature and God I neither knew Nature and God I neither knew Yet Both so well knew me They startled, like Executors Of My identity. Yet Neither told that I could learn My Secret as secure As Herschel’s private interest Or Mercury’s affair...
5. I knew that I had gained I knew that I had gained And yet I knew not how By Diminution it was not But Discipline unto A Rigor unrelieved Except by the Content Another bear its Duplicate In other Continent....
6. The Old Chimaeras. Old Recipts THE old Chimaeras, old receipts For making “happy land,” The old political beliefs Swam close before my hand. The grand old communistic myths In a middle state of grace, Quite dead, but not yet gone to Hell, And walking for a space, Quite dead, and looking it, and yet All eagerness to show The Social-Contract […]...
7. If You Only Knew Far from me and like the stars, the sea and all the trappings of poetic myth, Far from me but here all the same without your knowing, Far from me and even more silent because I imagine you endlessly. Far from me, my lovely mirage and eternal dream, you cannot know. If you only knew. […]...
8. The Man Who Knew The Dreamer visioned Life as it might be, And from his dream forthright a picture grew, A painting all the people thronged to see, And joyed therein till came the Man Who Knew, Saying: “‘Tis bad! Why do ye gape, ye fools! He painteth not according to the schools.” The Dreamer probed Life’s mystery of […]...
9. 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, […]...
10. We knew not that we were to live We knew not that we were to live Nor when we are to die Our ignorance our cuirass is We wear Mortality As lightly as an Option Gown Till asked to take it off By his intrusion, God is known It is the same with Life...
11. It knew no lapse, nor Diminuation It knew no lapse, nor Diminuation But large serene Burned on until through Dissolution It failed from Men I could not deem these Planetary forces Annulled But suffered an Exchange of Territory Or World...
12. I groped for him before I knew I groped for him before I knew With solemn nameless need All other bounty sudden chaff For this foreshadowed Food Which others taste and spurn and sneer Though I within suppose That consecrated it could be The only Food that grows...
13. The most triumphant Bird I ever knew or met The most triumphant Bird I ever knew or met Embarked upon a twig today And till Dominion set I famish to behold so eminent a sight And sang for nothing scrutable But intimate Delight. Retired, and resumed his transitive Estate To what delicious Accident Does finest Glory fit!...
14. It knew no Medicine It knew no Medicine It was not Sickness then Nor any need of Surgery And therefore ’twas not Pain It moved away the Cheeks A Dimple at a time And left the Profile plainer And in the place of Bloom It left the little Tint That never had a Name You’ve seen it on a […]...
15. Once, I knew a fine song Once, I knew a fine song, It is true, believe me It was all of birds, And I held them in a basket; When I opened the wicket, Heavens! They all flew away. I cried, “Come back, little thoughts!” But they only laughed. They flew on Until they were as sand Thrown between me and […]...
16. I Knew A Woman I knew a woman, lovely in her bones, When small birds sighed, she would sigh back at them; Ah, when she moved, she moved more ways than one: The shapes a bright container can contain! Of her choice virtues only gods should speak, Or English poets who grew up on Greek (I’d have them sing […]...
17. For largest Woman's Hearth I knew For largest Woman’s Hearth I knew ‘Tis little I can do And yet the largest Woman’s Heart Could hold an Arrow too And so, instructed by my own, I tenderer, turn Me to....
18. Elijah's Wagon knew no thill Elijah’s Wagon knew no thill Was innocent of Wheel Elijah’s horses as unique As was his vehicle Elijah’s journey to portray Expire with him the skill Who justified Elijah In feats inscrutable...
19. Come With Me, I Said, And No One Knew (VII) Come with me, I said, and no one knew Where, or how my pain throbbed, No carnations or barcaroles for me, Only a wound that love had opened. I said it again: Come with me, as if I were dying, And no one saw the moon that bled in my mouth Or the blood that […]...
20. I could suffice for Him, I knew I could suffice for Him, I knew He could suffice for Me Yet Hesitating Fractions Both Surveyed Infinity “Would I be Whole” He sudden broached My syllable rebelled ‘Twas face to face with Nature forced ‘Twas face to face with God Withdrew the Sun to Other Wests Withdrew the furthest Star Before Decision stooped to […]...
21. At Home When I was dead, my spirit turned To seek the much-frequented house: I passed the door, and saw my friends Feasting beneath green orange boughs; From hand to hand they pushed the wine, They sucked the pulp of plum and peach; They sang, they jested, and they laughed, For each was loved of each. I […]...
22. 115. The Farewell to the Brethren of St. James's Lodge, Tarbolton ADIEU! a heart-warm fond adieu; Dear brothers of the mystic tie! Ye favourèd, enlighten’d few, Companions of my social joy; Tho’ I to foreign lands must hie, Pursuing Fortune’s slidd’ry ba’; With melting heart, and brimful eye, I’ll mind you still, tho’ far awa. Oft have I met your social band, And spent the cheerful, […]...
23. Willard Fluke My wife lost her health, And dwindled until she weighed scarce ninety pounds. Then that woman, whom the men Styled Cleopatra, came along. And we we married ones All broke our vows, myself among the rest. Years passed and one by one Death claimed them all in some hideous form, And I was borne along […]...
24. Carbonara eyes Nicky said I couldn’t write, she’s got a charming Sense of social etiquette – given she’s a bitch (the canine sort, can’t spell for shit or even write A word) but then she has the most expressive eyes. So what she said was no surprise, she’d heard My lamentations, licked my hands, rested forepaws On […]...
25. However grown up six…six…why only yesterday It seems that fist shot out That one eye winked…and yet Now that this day’s arrived It really is as if six years Have blinked – and you’ve sprung Through a thousand instant snaps Into this boy whose tongue Can’t help but say thought not thinked Who’s no longer to be fed […]...
26. Out of sight? What of that? Out of sight? What of that? See the Bird reach it! Curve by Curve Sweep by Sweep Round the Steep Air Danger! What is that to Her? Better ’tis to fail there Than debate here Blue is Blue the World through Amber Amber Dew Dew Seek Friend and see Heaven is shy of Earth that’s […]...
27. The Heritage Our Fathers in a wondrous age, Ere yet the Earth was small, Ensured to us a heritage, And doubted not at all That we the children of their heart, Which then did beat so high, In later rime should play like part For our posterity. A thousand years they steadfast built, To ‘vantage us and […]...
28. Out of Sight They held a polo meeting at a little country town, And all the local sportsmen came to win themselves renown. There came two strangers with a horse, and I am much afraid They both belonged to what is called “the take-you-down brigade”. They said their horse could jump like fun, and asked an amateur To […]...
29. Sight Unseemly are the open eyes That watch the midnight sheep, That look upon the secret skies Nor close, abashed, in sleep; That see the dawn drag in, unbidden, To birth another day- Oh, better far their gaze were hidden Below the decent clay....
30. Thought it was America Is there anything which isn’t made in China? The answer is… of course there is, the question Was rhetorical, a crude attempt to palliate China’s late renaissance; eighty years ago you’d say That nothing was – or nothing much that Mattered was, and still been wrong. I’d clipped my nails, don’t like them long and […]...
31. Oh, the Sight Entrancing Oh, the sight entrancing, When morning’s beam is glancing O’er files array’d With helm and blade, And plumes in the gay wind dancing! When hearts are all high beating And the trumpet’s voice repeating That song, whose breath May lead to death, But never to entreating. Oh, the sight entrancing, When morning’s beam is glancing […]...
32. A Sight in Camp A SIGHT in camp in the day-break grey and dim, As from my tent I emerge so early, sleepless, As slow I walk in the cool fresh air, the path near by the hospital tent, Three forms I see on stretchers lying, brought out there, untended lying, Over each the blanket spread, ample brownish woollen […]...
33. Sonnet II: Not At First Sight Not at first sight, nor with a dribbed shot Love gave the wound, which while I breathe will bleed; But known worth did in mine of time proceed, Till by degrees it had full conquest got: I saw and liked, I liked but loved not; I lov’d, but straight did not what Love decreed. At […]...
34. There are two Ripenings one of sight There are two Ripenings one of sight Whose forces Spheric wind Until the Velvet product Drop spicy to the ground A homelier maturing A process in the Bur That teeth of Frosts alone disclose In far October Air....
35. Long Sight In Age They say eyes clear with age, As dew clarifies air To sharpen evenings, As if time put an edge Round the last shape of things To show them there; The many-levelled trees, The long soft tides of grass Wrinkling away the gold Wind-ridden waves – all these, They say, come back to focus As we […]...
36. Refrigerator, 1957 More like a vault you pull the handle out And on the shelves: not a lot, And what there is (a boiled potato In a bag, a chicken carcass Under foil) looking dispirited, Drained, mugged. This is not A place to go in hope or hunger. But, just to the right of the middle Of […]...
37. As far as your Rifles Cover Do you think, you slaves of a thousand years to poverty, wealth and pride, You can crush the spirit that has been free in a land that’s new and wide? When you’ve scattered the last of the farmer bands, and the war for a while is over, You will hold the land – ay, you’ll […]...
38. Best Things dwell out of Sight Best Things dwell out of Sight The Pearl the Just Our Thought. Most shun the Public Air Legitimate, and Rare The Capsule of the Wind The Capsule of the Mind Exhibit here, as doth a Burr Germ’s Germ be where?...
39. 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 […]...
40. Cacoethes Scribendi If all the trees in all the woods were men; And each and every blade of grass a pen; If every leaf on every shrub and tree Turned to a sheet of foolscap; every sea Were changed to ink, and all earth’s living tribes Had nothing else to do but act as scribes, And for […]...