On Sitting Down To Read King Lear Once Again

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1. Written Before Re-Reading King Lear O golden-tongued Romance with serene lute! Fair plumed Syren! Queen of far away! Leave melodizing on this wintry day, Shut up thine olden pages, and be mute. Adieu! for once again the fierce dispute Betwixt damnation and impassioned clay Must I burn through; once more humbly assay The bitter-sweet of this Shakespearian fruit. Chief Poet! […]...
2. The Madness Of King Goll I sat on cushioned otter-skin: My word was law from Ith to Emain, And shook at Inver Amergin The hearts of the world-troubling seamen, And drove tumult and war away From girl and boy and man and beast; The fields grew fatter day by day, The wild fowl of the air increased; And every ancient […]...
3. The Hour of the King WHO would think this quiet breather From the world had taken flight? Yet within the form we see there Wakes the Golden King to-night. Out upon the face of faces He looked forth before his sleep: Now he knows the starry races Haunters of the ancient deep. On the Bird of Diamond Glory Floats in […]...
4. 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. […]...
5. The Frost-King – Song II Brighter shone the golden shadows; On the cool wind softly came The low, sweet tones of happy flowers, Singing little Violet’s name. ‘Mong the green trees was it whispered, And the bright waves bore it on To the lonely forest flowers, Where the glad news had not gone. Thus the Frost-King lost his kingdom, And […]...
6. Very Early Spring The fields are snowbound no longer; There are little blue lakes and flags of tenderest green. The snow has been caught up into the sky So many white clouds and the blue of the sky is cold. Now the sun walks in the forest, He touches the bows and stems with his golden fingers; They […]...
7. The Robing of the King ON the bird of air blue-breasted glint the rays of gold, And its shadowy fleece above us waves the forest old, Far through rumorous leagues of midnight stirred by breezes warm. See the old ascetic yonder, ah, poor withered form, Where he crouches wrinkled over by unnumbered years Through the leaves the flakes of moon-fire […]...
8. The King The King beneath the mountains, The King of carven stone, The lord of silver fountains, Shall come into his own! His crown shall be upholden, His harp shall be restrung, His halls shall echo golden, To songs of yore re-sung. The woods shall wave on mountains, And grass beneath the sun; His wealth shall flow […]...
9. How pleasant to know Mr. Lear How pleasant to know Mr. Lear, Who has written such volumes of stuff. Some think him ill-tempered and queer, But a few find him pleasant enough. His mind is concrete and fastidious, His nose is remarkably big; His visage is more or less hideous, His beard it resembles a wig. He has ears, and two […]...
10. WHEN HE WOULD HAVE HIS VERSES READ In sober mornings, do not thou rehearse The holy incantation of a verse; But when that men have both well drunk, and fed, Let my enchantments then be sung or read. When laurel spirts i’ th’ fire, and when the hearth Smiles to itself, and gilds the roof with mirth; When up the Thyrse is […]...
11. Lo! In Thine Honest Eyes I Read LO! in thine honest eyes I read The auspicious beacon that shall lead, After long sailing in deep seas, To quiet havens in June ease. Thy voice sings like an inland bird First by the seaworn sailor heard; And like road sheltered from life’s sea Thine honest heart is unto me....
12. Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye I loved you in the morning, our kisses deep and warm, Your hair upon the pillow like a sleepy golden storm, Yes, many loved before us, I know that we are not new, In city and in forest they smiled like me and you, But now it’s come to distances and both of us must […]...
13. Sonnet XXXVIII: Sitting Alone, Love Sitting alone, Love bids me go and write; Reason plucks back, commanding me to stay, Boasting that she doth still direct the way, Or else Love were unable to endite. Love, growing angry, vexed at the spleen And scorning Reason’s maimed argument, Straight taxeth Reason, wanting to invent, Where she with Love conversing hath not […]...
14. Poem For People That Are Understandably Too Busy To Read Poetry Relax. This won’t last long. Or if it does, or if the lines Make you sleepy or bored, Give in to sleep, turn on The T. V., deal the cards. This poem is built to withstand Such things. Its feelings Cannot be hurt. They exist Somewhere in the poet, And I am far away. Pick […]...
15. Lover's Gifts XIX: It Is Written in the Book It is written in the book that Man, when fifty, must leave the Noisy world, to go to the forest seclusion. But the poet proclaims That the forest hermitage is only for the young. For it is the Birthplace of flowers and the haunt of birds and bees; and hidden Hooks are waiting there for […]...
16. A Ritual To Read To Each Other If you don’t know the kind of person I am And I don’t know the kind of person you are A pattern that others made may prevail in the world And following the wrong god home we may miss our star. For there is many a small betrayal in the mind, A shrug that lets […]...
17. Old Poets (For Robert Cortez Holliday) If I should live in a forest And sleep underneath a tree, No grove of impudent saplings Would make a home for me. I’d go where the old oaks gather, Serene and good and strong, And they would not sigh and tremble And vex me with a song. The pleasantest sort […]...
18. On a Hill-top BEARDED with dewy grass the mountains thrust Their blackness high into the still grey light, Deepening to blue: far up the glimmering height In silver transience shines the starry dust. Silent the sheep about me; fleece by fleece They sleep and stir not: I with awe around Wander uncertain o’er the giant mound, A fire […]...
19. An Embroidery Rose Red’s hair is brown as fur And shines in firelight as she prepares Supper of honey and apples, curds and whey, For the bear, and leaves it ready On the hearth-stone. Rose White’s grey eyes Look into the dark forest. Rose Red’s cheeks are burning, Sign of her ardent, joyful Compassionate heart. Rose White […]...
20. The King and the Shepherd Through ev’ry Age some Tyrant Passion reigns: Now Love prevails, and now Ambition gains Reason’s lost Throne, and sov’reign Rule maintains. Tho’ beyond Love’s, Ambition’s Empire goes; For who feels Love, Ambition also knows, And proudly still aspires to be possest Of Her, he thinks superior to the rest. As cou’d be prov’d, but that […]...
21. Immortality WE must pass like smoke or live within the spirit’s fire; For we can no more than smoke unto the flame return If our thought has changed to dream, our will unto desire, As smoke we vanish though the fire may burn. Lights of infinite pity star the grey dusk of our days: Surely here […]...
22. Leaving White King City White King City I left at dawn In the morning-glow of the clouds; The thousand miles to Chiang-ling We sailed in a single day. On either shore the gibbons’ chatter Sounded without pause While my light boat skimmed past Ten thousand sombre crags....
23. The Castaway Obscurest night involv’d the sky, Th’ Atlantic billows roar’d, When such a destin’d wretch as I, Wash’d headlong from on board, Of friends, of hope, of all bereft, His floating home for ever left. No braver chief could Albion boast Than he with whom he went, Nor ever ship left Albion’s coast, With warmer wishes […]...
24. A Dream Within A Dream Take this kiss upon the brow! And, in parting from you now, Thus much let me avow You are not wrong, who deem That my days have been a dream; Yet if hope has flown away In a night, or in a day, In a vision, or in none, Is it therefore the less gone? […]...
25. King Arthur's Men Have Come Again [Written while a field-worker in the Anti-Saloon League of Illinois.] King Arthur’s men have come again. They challenge everywhere The foes of Christ’s Eternal Church. Her incense crowns the air. The heathen knighthood cower and curse To hear the bugles ring, But spears are set, the charge is on, Wise Arthur shall be king! And […]...
26. The Gardener LXIX: I Hunt for the Golden Stag I hunt for the golden stag. You may smile, my friends, but I Pursue the vision that eludes me. I run across hills and dales, I wander Through nameless lands, because I am Hunting for the golden stag. You come and buy in the market And go back to your homes laden with Goods, but […]...
27. From: A King Of Kings, A King Among The Kings Come, let us rejoice in James Joyce, in the greatness of this poet, king, and king of poets For he is our poor dead king, he is the monarch and Caesar of English, he is the veritable King of the King’s English The English of the life of the city, and the English of music; […]...
28. I have a King, who does not speak I have a King, who does not speak So wondering thro’ the hours meek I trudge the day away Half glad when it is night, and sleep, If, haply, thro’ a dream, to peep In parlors, shut by day. And if I do when morning comes It is as if a hundred drums Did round […]...
29. If I Were King If I were king, my pipe should be premier. The skies of time and chance are seldom clear, We would inform them all with bland blue weather. Delight alone would need to shed a tear, For dream and deed should war no more together. Art should aspire, yet ugliness be dear; Beauty, the shaft, should […]...
30. That Bright Chimeric Beast That bright chimeric beast Conceived yet never born, Save in the poet’s breast, The white-flanked unicorn, Never may be shaken From his solitude; Never may be taken In any earthly wood. That bird forever feathered, Of its new self the sire, After aeons weathered, Reincarnate by fire, Falcon may not nor eagle Swerve from his […]...
31. McGonagall's Ode to the King Oh! God, I thank Thee for restoring King Edward the Seventh’s health again, And let all his subjects throughout the Empire say Amen; May God guard him by night and day, At home and abroad, when he’s far away. May angels guard his bed at night when he lies down, And may his subjects revere […]...
32. THE KING OF THULE.* (* This ballad is also introduced in Faust, Where it is sung by Margaret.) IN Thule lived a monarch, Still faithful to the grave, To whom his dying mistress A golden goblet gave. Beyond all price he deem’d it, He quaff’d it at each feast; And, when he drain’d that goblet, His tears to flow […]...
33. Idylls of the King: The Passing of Arthur (excerpt) That story which the bold Sir Bedivere, First made and latest left of all the knights, Told, when the man was no more than a voice In the white winter of his age, to those With whom he dwelt, new faces, other minds. For on their march to westward, Bedivere, Who slowly paced among the […]...
34. King of the River If the water were clear enough, If the water were still, But the water is not clear, The water is not still, You would see yourself, Slipped out of your skin, Nosing upstream, Slapping, thrashing, Tumbling Over the rocks Till you paint them With your belly’s blood: Finned Ego, Yard of muscle that coils, Uncoils. […]...
35. Myself can read the Telegrams Myself can read the Telegrams A Letter chief to me The Stock’s advance and Retrograde And what the Markets say The Weather how the Rains In Counties have begun. ‘Tis News as null as nothing, But sweeter so than none....
36. Her Late Husband (King's-Hintock, 182-.) “No not where I shall make my own; But dig his grave just by The woman’s with the initialed stone – As near as he can lie – After whose death he seemed to ail, Though none considered why. “And when I also claim a nook, And your feet tread me in, Bestow me, under […]...
37. BEAUTY I AM as lovely as a dream in stone, And this my heart where each finds death in turn, Inspires the poet with a love as lone As clay eternal and as taciturn. Swan-white of heart, a sphinx no mortal knows, My throne is in the heaven’s azure deep; I hate all movements that disturb […]...
38. Sonnet LIV: Yet Read at Last Yet read at last the story of my woe, The dreary abstracts of my endless cares, With my life’s sorrow interlined so, Smok’d with my sighs and blotted with my tears, The sad memorials of my miseries, Penn’d in the grief of mine afflicted ghost, My life’s complaint in doleful elegies, With so pure love […]...
39. He Came To Read He came to read. Two or three books Are open; historians and poets. But he only read for ten minutes, And gave them up. He is dozing On the sofa. He is fully devoted to books But he is twenty-three years old, and he’s very handsome; And this afternoon love passed Through his ideal flesh, […]...
40. Gwin King of Norway Come, kings, and listen to my song: When Gwin, the son of Nore, Over the nations of the North His cruel sceptre bore; The nobles of the land did feed Upon the hungry poor; They tear the poor man’s lamb, and drive The needy from their door. ‘The land is desolate; our wives And children […]...