A MISSAL LIKE A BONE

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1. Richard Bone When I first came to Spoon River I did not know whether what they told me Was true or false. They would bring me an epitaph And stand around the shop while I worked And say “He was so kind,” “He was wonderful,” “She was the sweetest woman,” “He was a consistent Christian.” And I […]...
2. Meditation on a Bone A piece of bone, found at Trondhjem in 1901, with the following runic inscription (about A. D. 1050) cut on it: I loved her as a maiden; I will not trouble Erlend’s detestable wife; better she should be a widow. Words scored upon a bone, Scratched in despair or rage Nine hundred years have gone; […]...
3. The Missal Makers To visit the Escurial We took a motor bus, And there a guide mercurial Took charge of us. He showed us through room after room, And talked hour after hour, Of place, crypt and royal tomb, Of pomp and power. But in bewilderment of grace What pleased me most of all Were ancient missals proud […]...
4. An Inspiration However the battle is ended, Though proudly the victor comes With fluttering flags and prancing nags And echoing roll of drums. Still truth proclaims this motto, In letters of living light, – No Question is ever settled, Until it is settled right. Though the heel of the strong oppressor May grind the weak to dust, […]...
5. Settle The Question Right However the battle is ended, Though proudly the victor comes, With flaunting flags and neighing nags And echoing roll of drums; Still truth proclaims this motto In letters of living light, No question is ever settled Until it is settled right. Though the heel of the strong oppressor May grind the weak in the dust, […]...
6. Psalm Three On the day when my words Were earth… I was a friend to stalks of wheat. On the day when my words Were wrath I was a friend to chains. On the day when my words Were stones I was a friend to streams. On the day when my words Were a rebellion I was […]...
7. Bone-fable one morning the bone was there Set in the centre of waste ground Against the early morning sun The frost along its concave rim Sparkled – raised a hundredfold The price a passing dog Would place on it but the dogs Who came (barking amongst themselves About the food shining at them Across the rubbled […]...
8. The Blunder is in estimate The Blunder is in estimate. Eternity is there We say, as of a Station Meanwhile he is so near He joins me in my Ramble Divides abode with me No Friend have I that so persists As this Eternity....
9. Ship Starting, The LO! the unbounded sea! On its breast a Ship starting, spreading all her sails-an ample Ship, carrying even her moonsails; The pennant is flying aloft, as she speeds, she speeds so stately-below, emulous waves press forward, They surround the Ship, with shining curving motions, and foam....
10. Sitting by a Bush in Broad Sunlight When I spread out my hand here today, I catch no more than a ray To feel of between thumb and fingers; No lasting effect of it lingers. There was one time and only the one When dust really took in the sun; And from that one intake of fire All creatures still warmly suspire. […]...
11. Sonnet LIX: As Love and I As Love and I, late harbor’d in one inn, With proverbs thus each other entertain: “In Love there is no lack,” thus I begin; “Fair words make fools,” replieth he again; “Who spares to speak doth spare to speed,” quoth I; “As well,” saith he, “too forward as too slow”; “Fortune assists the boldest,” I […]...
12. Friendship IXX And a youth said, “Speak to us of Friendship.” Your friend is your needs answered. He is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving. And he is your board and your fireside. For you come to him with your hunger, and you seek him for peace. When your friend speaks his […]...
13. The Bone that has no Marrow The Bone that has no Marrow, What Ultimate for that? It is not fit for Table For Beggar or for Cat. A Bone has obligations A Being has the same A Marrowless Assembly Is culpabler than shame. But how shall finished Creatures A function fresh obtain? Old Nicodemus’ Phantom Confronting us again!...
14. Murderers He was my best and oldest friend. I’d known him all my life. And yet I’m sure towards the end He knew I loved his wife, And wonder, wonder if it’s why He came so dreadfully to die. He drove his car at racing speed And crashed into a tree. How could he have so […]...
15. I Grant You Ample Leave “I grant you ample leave To use the hoary formula ‘I am’ Naming the emptiness where thought is not; But fill the void with definition, ‘I’ Will be no more a datum than the words You link false inference with, the ‘Since’ & ‘so’ That, true or not, make up the atom-whirl. Resolve your ‘Ego’, […]...
16. The Gardener XXVII: Trust Love “Trust love even if it brings sorrow. Do not close up your heart.” “Ah no, my friend, your words are Dark, I cannot understand them.” “Pleasure is frail like a dewdrop, While it laughs it dies. But sorrow is Strong and abiding. Let sorrowful Love wake in your eyes.” “Ah no, my friend, your words […]...
17. The Message Send home my long stray’d eyes to me, Which O too long have dwelt on thee, Yet since there they have learn’d such ill, Such forc’d fashions, And false passions, That they be Made by thee Fit for no good sight, keep them still. Send home my worthless heart again, Which no unworthy thought could […]...
18. Percival Sharp Observe the clasped hands! Are they hands of farewell or greeting, Hands that I helped or hands that helped me? Would it not be well to carve a hand With an inverted thumb, like Elagabalus? And yonder is a broken chain, The weakest-link idea perhaps But what was it? And lambs, some lying down, Others […]...
19. Carnal Knowledge Having picked the final datum From the universe And fixed it in its column, Named the causes of infinity, Performed the calculus Of the imaginary i, it seems The body aches To come too, To the light, Transmit the grace of gravity, Express in its own algebra The symmetries of awe and fear, The shudder […]...
20. Immortality In Sleeping Beauty’s castle The clock strikes one hundred years And the girl in the tower returns to the world. So do the servants in the kitchen, Who don’t even rub their eyes. The cook’s right hand, lifted An exact century ago, Completes its downward arc To the kitchen boy’s left ear; The boy’s tensed […]...
21. Battle The war of words is done; The red-lipped cannon speak; The battle has begun. The web your speeches spun Tears and blood shall streak; The war of words is done. Smoke enshrouds the sun; Earth staggers at the shriek Of battle new begun. Poltroons and braggarts run: Woe to the poor, the meek! The war […]...
22. Gyroscope This admirable gadget, when it is Wound on a string and spun with steady force, Maintains its balance on most any smooth Surface, pleasantly humming as it goes. It is whirled not on a constant course, but still Stands in unshivering integrity For quite some time, meaning nothing perhaps But being something agreeable to watch, […]...
23. CHARADE Two words there are, both short, of beauty rare, Whose sounds our lips so often love to frame, But which with clearness never can proclaim The things whose own peculiar stamp they bear. ‘Tis well in days of age and youth so fair, One on the other boldly to inflame; And if those words together […]...
24. Hope Hope was but a timid friend; She sat without the grated den, Watching how my fate would tend, Even as selfish-hearted men. She was cruel in her fear; Through the bars, one dreary day, I looked out to see her there, And she turned her face away! Like a false guard, false watch keeping, Still, […]...
25. Home And Love Just Home and Love! the words are small Four little letters unto each; And yet you will not find in all The wide and gracious range of speech Two more so tenderly complete: When angels talk in Heaven above, I’m sure they have no words more sweet Than Home and Love. Just Home and Love! […]...
26. It tossed and tossed It tossed and tossed A little Brig I knew o’ertook by Blast It spun and spun And groped delirious, for Morn It slipped and slipped As One that drunken stept Its white foot tripped Then dropped from sight Ah, Brig Good Night To Crew and You The Ocean’s Heart too smooth too Blue To break […]...
27. The Hope Of My Heart “Delicta juventutis et ignorantius ejus, quoesumus ne memineris, Domine.” I left, to earth, a little maiden fair, With locks of gold, and eyes that shamed the light; I prayed that God might have her in His care And sight. Earth’s love was false; her voice, a siren’s song; (Sweet mother-earth was but a lying name) […]...
28. Money When I had money, money, O! I knew no joy till I went poor; For many a false man as a friend Came knocking all day at my door. Then felt I like a child that holds A trumpet that he must not blow Because a man is dead; I dared Not speak to let […]...
29. Sonnet For The End Of A Sequence So take my vows and scatter them to sea; Who swears the sweetest is no more than human. And say no kinder words than these of me: “Ever she longed for peace, but was a woman! And thus they are, whose silly female dust Needs little enough to clutter it and bind it, Who meet […]...
30. Song of a Train A monster taught To come to hand Amain, As swift as thought Across the land The train. The song it sings Has an iron sound; Its iron wings Like wheels go round. Crash under bridges, Flash over ridges, And vault the downs; The road is straight Nor stile, nor gate; For milestones towns! Voluminous, vanishing, […]...
31. Aboard at a Ship's Helm , at a ship’s helm, A young steersman, steering with care. A bell through fog on a sea-coast dolefully ringing, An ocean-bell-O a warning bell, rock’d by the waves. O you give good notice indeed, you bell by the sea-reefs ringing, Ringing, ringing, to warn the ship from its wreck-place. For, as on the alert, […]...
32. An Apprehension IF all the gentlest-hearted friends I know Concentred in one heart their gentleness, That still grew gentler till its pulse was less For life than pity, I should yet be slow To bring my own heart nakedly below The palm of such a friend, that he should press Motive, condition, means, appliances, My false ideal […]...
33. Sonnet 02 Think Valentine, as speeding on thy way Homeward thou hastest light of heart along, If heavily creep on one little day The medley crew of travellers among, Think on thine absent friend: reflect that here On Life’s sad journey comfortless he roves, Remote from every scene his heart holds dear, From him he values, and […]...
34. Passing showers Yesterday a passing, transient shower, Slaked my thirst so gently, softly, Showers in March are unheard – In this arid part of the world. They say the world is dying, I know, I remember how you said love died, It was a passing shower, a fancy, That left you cold and shivering. This distance, these […]...
35. Glass Words of a poem should be glass But glass so simple-subtle its shape Is nothing but the shape of what it holds. A glass spun for itself is empty, Brittle, at best Venetian trinket. Embossed glass hides the poem of its absence. Words should be looked through, should be windows. The best word were invisible. […]...
36. Bee! I'm expecting you! Bee! I’m expecting you! Was saying Yesterday To Somebody you know That you were due The Frogs got Home last Week Are settled, and at work Birds, mostly back The Clover warm and thick You’ll get my Letter by The seventeenth; Reply Or better, be with me Yours, Fly....
37. Going Away Walking to-day on the Common, I heard a stranger say To a friend who was standing near him, ‘Do you know I am going away? ‘ I had never seen their faces, May never see them again; Yet the words the stranger uttered, Stirred me with nameless pain. For I knew some heart would miss […]...
38. Travelling on the thumb Travelling on the thumb, it wasn’t hard to do, you took The rides that you could get with no regrets – let shrinkage In the mileage to your goal provide your measures of success, Strode the grassy verges thumb erect and cursed the surly Bastards speeding past so close they near to spun you round. […]...
39. Oft, in the Stilly Night Oft, in the stilly night, Ere slumber’s chain has bound me, Fond memory brings the light Of other days around me; The smiles, the tears, Of boyhood’s years, The words of love then spoken; The eyes that shone, Now dimm’d and gone, The cheerful hearts now broken! Thus, in the stilly night, Ere slumber’s chain […]...
40. The Light of Other Days OFT, in the stilly night, Ere slumber’s chain has bound me, Fond Memory brings the light Of other days around me: The smiles, the tears Of boyhood’s years, The words of love then spoken; The eyes that shone, Now dimm’d and gone, The cheerful hearts now broken! Thus, in the stilly night, Ere slumber’s chain […]...