DECLARATION OF WAR

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1. The Declaration of London We were all one heart and one race When the Abbey trumpets blew. For a moment’s breathing-space We had forgotten you. Now you return to your honoured place Panting to shame us anew. We have walked with the Ages dead With our Past alive and ablaze. And you bid us pawn our honour for bread, […]...
2. Modern Declaration I, having loved ever since I was a child a few things, never having Wavered In these affections; never through shyness in the houses of the Rich or in the presence of clergymen having denied these Loves; Never when worked upon by cynics like chiropractors having Grunted or clicked a vertebra to the discredit of […]...
3. At the Melting of the Snow There’s a sunny Southern land, And it’s there that I would be Where the big hills stand, In the South Countrie! When the wattles bloom again, Then it’s time for us to go To the old Monaro country At the melting of the snow. To the East or to the West, Or wherever you may […]...
4. The Rose did caper on her cheek The Rose did caper on her cheek Her Bodice rose and fell Her pretty speech like drunken men Did stagger pitiful Her fingers fumbled at her work Her needle would not go What ailed so smart a little Maid It puzzled me to know Till opposite I spied a cheek That bore another Rose Just […]...
5. A Game of Fives Five little girls, of Five, Four, Three, Two, One: Rolling on the hearthrug, full of tricks and fun. Five rosy girls, in years from Ten to Six: Sitting down to lessons – no more time for tricks. Five growing girls, from Fifteen to Eleven: Music, Drawing, Languages, and food enough for seven! Five winsome girls, […]...
6. Out of Town Out of town the sky was bright and blue, Never fog-cloud, lowering, thick, was seen to frown; Nature dons a garb of gayer hue, Out of town. Spotless lay the snow on field and down, Pure and keen the air above it blew; All wore peace and beauty for a crown. London sky, marred by […]...
7. Poems Done on a Late Night Car I. CHICKENS I am The Great White Way of the city: When you ask what is my desire, I answer: “Girls fresh as country wild flowers, With young faces tired of the cows and barns, Eager in their eyes as the dawn to find my mysteries, Slender supple girls with shapely legs, Lure in the […]...
8. We talked as Girls do We talked as Girls do Fond, and late We speculated fair, on every subject, but the Grave Of ours, none affair We handled Destinies, as cool As we Disposers be And God, a Quiet Party To our Authority But fondest, dwelt upon Ourself As we eventual be When Girls to Women, softly raised We occupy […]...
9. Helen of Tyre What phantom is this that appears Through the purple mist of the years, Itself but a mist like these? A woman of cloud and of fire; It is she; it is Helen of Tyre, The town in the midst of the seas. O Tyre! in thy crowded streets The phantom appears and retreats, And the […]...
10. Gipsy Love The gipsy tents are on the down, The gipsy girls are here; And it’s O to be off and away from the town With a gipsy for my dear! We’d make our bed in the bracken With the lark for a chambermaid; The lark would sing us awake in the morning, Singing above our head. […]...
11. Perhaps you'd like to buy a flower Perhaps you’d like to buy a flower, But I could never sell If you would like to borrow, Until the Daffodil Unties her yellow Bonnet Beneath the village door, Until the Bees, from Clover rows Their Hock, and Sherry, draw, Why, I will lend until just then, But not an hour more!...
12. Some Like Poetry Write it. Write. In ordinary ink On ordinary paper: they were given no food, They all died of hunger. “All. How many? It’s a big meadow. How much grass For each one?” Write: I don’t know. History counts its skeletons in round numbers. A thousand and one remains a thousand, As though the one had […]...
13. Codicil Schizophrenic, wrenched by two styles, One a hack’s hired prose, I earn Me exile. I trudge this sickle, moonlit beach for miles, Tan, burn To slough off This live of ocean that’s self-love. To change your language you must change your life. I cannot right old wrongs. Waves tire of horizon and return. Gulls screech […]...
14. A London Plane-Tree Green is the plane-tree in the square, The other trees are brown; They droop and pine for country air; The plane-tree loves the town. Here from my garret-pane, I mark The plane-tree bud and blow, Shed her recuperative bark, And spread her shade below. Among her branches, in and out, The city breezes play; The […]...
15. I started Early Took my Dog I started Early Took my Dog And visited the Sea The Mermaids in the Basement Came out to look at me And Frigates in the Upper Floor Extended Hempen Hands Presuming Me to be a Mouse Aground upon the Sands But no Man moved Me till the Tide Went past my simple Shoe And past […]...
16. Going to Him! Happy letter! Going to Him! Happy letter! Tell Him Tell Him the page I didn’t write Tell Him I only said the Syntax And left the Verb and the pronoun out Tell Him just how the fingers hurried Then how they waded slow slow And then you wished you had eyes in your pages So you could […]...
17. Miscast I I have whetted my brain until it is like a Damascus Blade, So keen that it nicks off the floating fringes of passers-by, So sharp that the air would turn its edge Were it to be twisted in flight. Licking passions have bitten their arabesques into it, And the mark of them lies, in and […]...
18. Washington McNeely Rich, honored by my fellow citizens, The father of many children, born of a noble mother, All raised there In the great mansion-house, at the edge of town. Note the cedar tree on the lawn! I sent all the boys to Ann Arbor, all of the girls to Rockford, The while my life went on, […]...
19. The Dandelion O DANDELION, rich and haughty, King of village flowers! Each day is coronation time, You have no humble hours. I like to see you bring a troop To beat the blue-grass spears, To scorn the lawn-mower that would be Like fate’s triumphant shears, Your yellow heads are cut away, It seems your reign is o’er. […]...
20. We Go Out Together In the Staring Town We go out together into the staring town And buy cheese and bread and little jugs with Flowered labels Everywhere is a tent where we put on our whirling Show A great deal has been said of the handless serpents Which war has set loose in the gay milk of our Heads But because you […]...
21. When The Sun Come After Rain WHEN the sun comes after rain And the bird is in the blue, The girls go down the lane Two by two. When the sun comes after shadow And the singing of the showers, The girls go up the meadow, Fair as flowers. When the eve comes dusky red And the moon succeeds the sun, […]...
22. 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 […]...
23. Balloon Faces THE BALLOONS hang on wires in the Marigold Gardens. They spot their yellow and gold, they juggle their blue and red, they float their faces on the face of the sky. Balloon face eaters sit by hundreds reading the eat cards, asking, “What shall we eat?”-and the waiters, “Have you ordered?” they are sixty ballon […]...
24. La Fuite De La Lune To outer senses there is peace, A dreamy peace on either hand Deep silence in the shadowy land, Deep silence where the shadows cease. Save for a cry that echoes shrill From some lone bird disconsolate; A corncrake calling to its mate; The answer from the misty hill. And suddenly the moon withdraws Her sickle […]...
25. The Song of Right and Wrong Feast on wine or fast on water And your honour shall stand sure, God Almighty’s son and daughter He the valiant, she the pure; If an angel out of heaven Brings you other things to drink, Thank him for his kind attentions, Go and pour them down the sink. Tea is like the East he […]...
26. Crucible Hot gold runs a winding stream on the inside of a green bowl. Yellow trickles in a fan figure, scatters a line of skirmishers, spreads a chorus of dancing girls, performs blazing ochre evolutions, gathers the whole show into one stream, forgets the past and rolls on. The sea mist green of the bowl’s bottom […]...
27. Bilbea BILBEA, I was in Babylon on Saturday night. I saw nothing of you anywhere. I was at the old place and the other girls were there, but no Bilbea. Have you gone to another house? or city? Why don’t you write? I was sorry. I walked home half-sick. Tell me how it goes. Send me […]...
28. She She who ever had remained in the depth of my being, In the twilight of gleams and of glimpses; She who never opened her veils in the morning light, Will be my last gift to thee, my God, folded in my final song. Words have wooed yet failed to win her; Persuasion has stretched to […]...
29. LONDON ROSES “ROWSES, Rowses! Penny a bunch!” they tell you Slattern girls in Trafalgar, eager to sell you. Roses, roses, red in the Kensington sun, Holland Road, High Street, Bayswater, see you and smell you Roses of London town, red till the summer is done. Roses, roses, locust and lilac, perfuming West End, East End, wondrously budding […]...
30. 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 […]...
31. Persuasions to Joy, a Song IF the quick spirits in your eye Now languish and anon must die; If every sweet and every grace Must fly from that forsaken face; Then, Celia, let us reap our joys Ere Time such goodly fruit destroys. Or if that golden fleece must grow For ever free from aged snow; If those bright suns […]...
32. Light and Dark NOT the soul that’s whitest Wakens love the sweetest: When the heart is lightest Oft the charm is fleetest. While the snow-frail maiden, Waits the time of learning, To the passion laden Turn with eager yearning. While the heart is burning Heaven with earth is banded: To the stars returning Go not empty-handed. Ah, the […]...
33. My playmates The wind comes whispering to me of the country green and cool Of redwing blackbirds chattering beside a reedy pool; It brings me soothing fancies of the homestead on the hill, And I hear the thrush’s evening song and the robin’s morning trill; So I fall to thinking tenderly of those I used to know […]...
34. Hamlet Micure In a lingering fever many visions come to you: I was in the little house again With its great yard of clover Running down to the board-fence, Shadowed by the oak tree, Where we children had our swing. Yet the little house was a manor hall Set in a lawn, and by the lawn was […]...
35. Harlem Shadows I hear the halting footsteps of a lass In Negro Harlem when the night lets fall Its veil. I see the shapes of girls who pass To bend and barter at desire’s call. Ah, little dark girls who in slippered feet Go prowling through the night from street to street! Through the long night until […]...
36. Half Moon in a High Wind MONEY is nothing now, even if I had it, O mooney moon, yellow half moon, Up over the green pines and gray elms, Up in the new blue. Streel, streel, White lacey mist sheets of cloud, Streel in the blowing of the wind, Streel over the blue-and-moon sky, Yellow gold half moon. It is light […]...
37. The Wicked Postman Why do you sit there on the floor so quiet and silent, tell me, Mother dear? The rain is coming in through the open window, making you all Wet, and you don’t mind it. Do you hear the gong striking four? It is time for my brother To come home from school. What has happened […]...
38. Impression Du Matin The Thames nocturne of blue and gold Changed to a Harmony in grey: A barge with ochre-coloured hay Dropt from the wharf: and chill and cold The yellow fog came creeping down The bridges, till the houses’ walls Seemed changed to shadows and St. Paul’s Loomed like a bubble o’er the town. Then suddenly arose […]...
39. The Sunset Years of Samuel Shy Master I may be, But not of my fate. Now come the kisses, too many too late. Tell me, O Parcae, For fain would I know, Where were these kisses three decades ago? Girls there were plenty, Mint julep girls, beer girls, Gay younger married and headstrong career girls, The girls of my friends And […]...
40. To Bessie Drennan Because she could find no one else to paint a picture of the old family place where she and her sisters lived. . .she attended an adult education class in Montpelier. In one evening Bessie Drennan learned everything she would need to accomplish her goals. . . The Vermont Folklife Center Newsletter Bessie, you’ve made […]...