Amateurs of Heaven

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1. Men Are Heaven's Piers MEN are Heaven’s piers; they evermore Unwearying bear the skyey floor; Man’s theatre they bear with ease, Unfrowning cariatides! I, for my wife, the sun uphold, Or, dozing, strike the seasons cold. She, on her side, in fairy-wise Deals in diviner mysteries, By spells to make the fuel burn And keep the parlour warm, to […]...
2. Impromptu, to Lady Winchelsea In vain you boast Poetic Names of yore, And cite those Sapho’s we admire no more: Fate doom’d the Fall of ev’ry Female Wit, But doom’d it then when first Ardelia writ. Of all Examples by the World confest, I knew Ardelia could not quote the best; Who, like her Mistress on Britannia’s Throne; Fights, […]...
3. I went to Heaven I went to Heaven ‘Twas a small Town Lit with a Ruby Lathed with Down Stiller than the fields At the full Dew Beautiful as Pictures No Man drew. People like the Moth Of Mechlin frames Duties of Gossamer And Eider names Almost contented I could be ‘Mong such unique Society...
4. Sisters Of Mercy Oh the sisters of mercy, they are not departed or gone. They were waiting for me when I thought that I just can’t go On. And they brought me their comfort and later they brought me This song. Oh I hope you run into them, you who’ve been travelling so Long. Yes you who must […]...
5. Their Height in Heaven comforts not Their Height in Heaven comforts not Their Glory nought to me ‘Twas best imperfect as it was I’m finite I can’t see The House of Supposition The Glimmering Frontier that Skirts the Acres of Perhaps To Me shows insecure The Wealth I had contented me If ’twas a meaner size Then I had counted it […]...
6. I would to heaven that I were so much clay I would to heaven that I were so much clay, As I am blood, bone, marrow, passion, feeling – Because at least the past were passed away – And for the future – (but I write this reeling, Having got drunk exceedingly today, So that I seem to stand upon the ceiling) I say – […]...
7. Lights Out “Lights out” along the land, “Lights out” upon the sea. The night must put her hiding hand O’er peaceful towns where children sleep, And peaceful ships that darkly creep Across the waves, as if they were not free. The dragons of the air, The hell-hounds of the deep, Lurking and prowling everywhere, Go forth to […]...
8. Late, O Miller LATE, O miller, The birds are silent, The darkness falls. In the house the lights are lighted. See, in the valley they twinkle, The lights of home. Late, O lovers, The night is at hand; Silence and darkness Clothe the land....
9. Sonnet XIII: Letters and Lines To the Shadow Letters and lines we see are soon defac’d, Metals do waste and fret with canker’s rust, The diamond shall once consume to dust, And freshest colors with foul stains disgrac’d; Paper and ink can paint but naked words, To write with blood of force offends the sight; And if with tears I […]...
10. Last night my soul cried O exalted sphere of Heaven Last night my soul cried, “O exalted sphere of Heaven, you hang indeed inverted, with flames in your belly. “Without sin and crime, eternally revolving upon your body in its complaining is the indigo of mourning; “Now happy, now unhappy, like Abraham in the fire; at once king and beggar like Ebrahim-e Adham. “In your […]...
11. New Year's Chimes What is the song the stars sing? (And a million songs are as song of one) This is the song the stars sing: (Sweeter song’s none) One to set, and many to sing, (And a million songs are as song of one) One to stand, and many to cling, The many things, and the one […]...
12. He Wishes For The Cloths Of Heaven Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths, Enwrought with golden and silver light, The blue and the dim and the dark cloths Of night and light and the half-light, I would spread the cloths under your feet: But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because […]...
13. The True Lover The lad came to the door at night, When lovers crown their vows, And whistled soft and out of sight In shadow of the boughs. “I shall not vex you with my face Henceforth, my love, for aye; So take me in your arms a space Before the cast is grey. “When I from hence […]...
14. Absence My shadow I woke to a wind swirling the curtains light and dark And the birds twittering on the roofs, I lay cold In the early light in my room high over London. What fear was it that made the wind sound like a fire So that I got up and looked out half-asleep At […]...
15. Truce It begins with one or two soldiers And one or two following With hampers over their shoulders. They might be off wildfowling As they would another Christmas Day, So gingerly they pick their steps. No one seems sure of what to do. All stop when one stops. A fire gets lit. Some spread Their greatcoats […]...
16. How far is it to Heaven? How far is it to Heaven? As far as Death this way Of River or of Ridge beyond Was no discovery. How far is it to Hell? As far as Death this way How far left hand the Sepulchre Defies Topography....
17. Which is best? Heaven Which is best? Heaven Or only Heaven to come With that old Codicil of Doubt? I cannot help esteem The “Bird within the Hand” Superior to the one The “Bush” may yield me Or may not Too late to choose again....
18. The Goose Fish On the long shore, lit by the moon To show them properly alone, Two lovers suddenly embraced So that their shadows were as one. The ordinary night was graced For them by the swift tide of blood That silently they took at flood, And for a little time they prized Themselves emparadised. Then, as if […]...
19. The Marriage of Heaven and Hell The Argument. Rintrah roars & shakes his fires in the burdend air; Hungry clouds swag on the deep Once meek, and in a perilous path, The just man kept his course along The vale of death. Roses are planted where thorns grow. And on the barren heath Sing the honey bees. Then the perilous path […]...
20. Take your Heaven further on Take your Heaven further on This to Heaven divine Has gone Had You earlier blundered in Possibly, e’en You had seen An Eternity put on Now to ring a Door beyond Is the utmost of Your Hand To the Skies apologize Nearer to Your Courtesies Than this Sufferer polite Dressed to meet You See in […]...
21. Why do they shut Me out of Heaven? Why do they shut Me out of Heaven? Did I sing too loud? But I can say a little “Minor” Timid as a Bird! Wouldn’t the Angels try me Just once more Just see if I troubled them But don’t shut the door! Oh, if I were the Gentleman In the “White Robe” And they […]...
22. The Song Of Empedocles And you, ye stars, Who slowly begin to marshal, As of old, in the fields of heaven, Your distant, melancholy lines! Have you, too, survived yourselves? Are you, too, what I fear to become? You, too, once lived; You too moved joyfully Among august companions, In an older world, peopled by Gods, In a mightier […]...
23. Sestina Of The Tramp-Royal Speakin’ in general, I’ave tried ’em all The ‘appy roads that take you o’er the world. Speakin’ in general, I’ave found them good For such as cannot use one bed too long, But must get ‘ence, the same as I’ave done, An’ go observin’ matters till they die. What do it matter where or ‘ow […]...
24. A November Night There! See the line of lights, A chain of stars down either side the street Why can’t you lift the chain and give it to me, A necklace for my throat? I’d twist it round And you could play with it. You smile at me As though I were a little dreamy child Behind whose […]...
25. Walt Whitman The master-songs are ended, and the man That sang them is a name. And so is God A name; and so is love, and life, and death, And everything. But we, who are too blind To read what we have written, or what faith Has written for us, do not understand: We only blink, and […]...
26. The Dream of the Children THE CHILDREN awoke in their dreaming While earth lay dewy and still: They followed the rill in its gleaming To the heart-light of the hill. Its sounds and sights were forsaking The world as they faded in sleep, When they heard a music breaking Out from the heart-light deep. It ran where the rill in […]...
27. The Hound of Heaven I fled Him down the nights and down the days I fled Him down the arches of the years I fled Him down the labyrinthine ways Of my own mind, and in the midst of tears I hid from him, and under running laughter. Up vistaed hopes I sped and shot precipitated Adown titanic glooms […]...
28. God lay dead in heaven God lay dead in heaven; Angels sang the hymn of the end; Purple winds went moaning, Their wings drip-dripping With blood That fell upon the earth. It, groaning thing, Turned black and sank. Then from the far caverns Of dead sins Came monsters, livid with desire. They fought, Wrangled over the world, A morsel. But […]...
29. Tцrnfallet There is a meadow in Sweden Where I lie smitten, Eyes stained with clouds’ White ins and outs. And about that meadow Roams my widow Plaiting a clover Wreath for her lover. I took her in marriage In a granite parish. The snow lent her whiteness, A pine was a witness. She’d swim in the […]...
30. In My Craft Or Sullen Art In my craft or sullen art Exercised in the still night When only the moon rages And the lovers lie abed With all their griefs in their arms I labour by singing light Not for ambition or bread Or the strut and trade of charms On the ivory stages But for the common wages Of […]...
31. River Moons THE DOUBLE moon, one on the high back drop of the west, one on the curve of the river face, The sky moon of fire and the river moon of water, I am taking these home in a basket, hung on an elbow, such a teeny weeny elbow, in my head. I saw them last […]...
32. An Elegy THOUGH beauty be the mark of praise, And yours of whom I sing be such As not the world can praise too much, Yet ’tis your Virtue now I raise. A virtue, like allay so gone Throughout your form as, though that move And draw and conquer all men’s love, This subjects you to love […]...
33. How I Walked Alone in the Jungles of Heaven Oh, once I walked in Heaven, all alone Upon the sacred cliffs above the sky. God and the angels, and the gleaming saints Had journeyed out into the stars to die. They had gone forth to win far citizens, Bought at great price, bring happiness for all: By such a harvest make a holier town […]...
34. The Cold Heaven Suddenly I saw the cold and rook-delighting heaven That seemed as though ice burned and was but the more ice, And thereupon imagination and heart were driven So wild that every casual thought of that and this Vanished, and left but memories, that should be out of season With the hot blood of youth, of […]...
35. 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 […]...
36. Stars (For the Rev. James J. Daly, S. J.) Bright stars, yellow stars, flashing through the air, Are you errant strands of Lady Mary’s hair? As she slits the cloudy veil and bends down through, Do you fall across her cheeks and over heaven too? Gay stars, little stars, you are little eyes, Eyes of baby […]...
37. Saddest Poem I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. Write, for instance: “The night is full of stars, And the stars, blue, shiver in the distance.” The night wind whirls in the sky and sings. I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. On nights […]...
38. Heaven If you were twenty-seven And had done time for beating Our ex-wife and had No dreams you remembered In the morning, you might Lie on your bed and listen To a mad canary sing And think it all right to be There every Saturday Ignoring your neighbors, the streets, The signs that said join, And […]...
39. Mummia As those of old drank mummia To fire their limbs of lead, Making dead kings from Africa Stand pandar to their bed; Drunk on the dead, and medicined With spiced imperial dust, In a short night they reeled to find Ten centuries of lust. So I, from paint, stone, tale, and rhyme, Stuffed love’s infinity, […]...
40. An excerpt from "Mass for the Day of St. Thomas Didymus&quot iiGloria Praise the wet snow Falling early. Praise the shadow My neighor’s chimney casts on the tile roof Even this gray October day that should, they say, Have been golden. Praise The invisible sun burning beyond The white cold sky, giving us Light and the chimney’s shadow. Praise God or the gods, the unknown, That […]...