The Seekers

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1. The Vagabond Give to me the life I love, Let the lave go by me, Give the jolly heaven above And the byway nigh me. Bed in the bush with stars to see, Bread I dip in the river – There’s the life for a man like me, There’s the life for ever. Let the blow fall […]...
2. En-Dor “Behold there is a woman that hath a familiar spirit at En-dor.” I Samuel, xxviii. 7. The road to En-dor is easy to tread For Mother or yearning Wife. There, it is sure, we shall meet our Dead As they were even in life. Earth has not dreamed of the blessing in store For desolate […]...
3. The Evil Seekers We are born with luck Which is to say with gold in our mouth. As new and smooth as a grape, As pure as a pond in Alaska, As good as the stem of a green bean We are born and that ought to be enough, We ought to be able to carry on from […]...
4. ASYLUM SEEKERS When Blunkett starts to talk like Enoch Powell I think of Harold Wilson’s statue in Huddersfield Station Caught striding forward, gripping his pipe in his pocket, Hair blowing in the wind. Could we but turn that bronze To flesh I would have asked him to meet the two Asylum-seekers I met in Huddersfield’s main street […]...
5. The Road to Old Man's Town The fields of youth are filled with flowers, The wine of youth is strong: What need have we to count the hours? The summer days are long. But soon we find to our dismay That we are drifting down The barren slopes that fall away Towards the foothills grim and grey That lead to Old […]...
6. The Foggy Dew A splendid place is London, with golden store, For them that have the heart and hope and youth galore; But mournful are its streets to me, I tell you true, For I’m longing sore for Ireland in the foggy dew. The sun he shines all day here, so fierce and fine, With never a wisp […]...
7. The Winds Out of the West Land Blow The winds out of the west land blow, My friends have breathed them there; Warm with the blood of lads I know Comes east the sighing air. It fanned their temples, filled their lungs, Scattered their forelocks free; My friends made words of it with tongues That talk no more to me. Their voices, dying […]...
8. Psalm 119 part 8 The word of God is the saint’s portion. Ver. 111, paraphrased. Lord, I have made thy word my choice, My lasting heritage; There shall my noblest powers rejoice, My warmest thoughts engage. I’ll read the histories of thy love, And keep thy laws in sight, While through the promises I rove, With ever fresh delight. […]...
9. No Man can compass a Despair No Man can compass a Despair As round a Goalless Road No faster than a Mile at once The Traveller proceed Unconscious of the Width Unconscious that the Sun Be setting on His progress So accurate the One At estimating Pain Whose own has just begun His ignorance the Angel That pilot Him along...
10. Loneliness Being apart and lonely is like rain. It climbs toward evening from the ocean plains; From flat places, rolling and remote, it climbs To heaven, which is its old abode. And only when leaving heaven drops upon the city. It rains down on us in those twittering Hours when the streets turn their faces to […]...
11. My Friends My friends without shields walk on the target It is late the windows are breaking My friends without shoes leave What they love Grief moves among them as a fire among Its bells My friends without clocks turn On the dial they turn They part My friends with names like gloves set out Bare handed […]...
12. I Rose Up at the Dawn of Day I rose up at the dawn of day ‘Get thee away! get thee away! Pray’st thou for riches? Away! away! This is the Throne of Mammon grey.’ Said I: This, sure, is very odd; I took it to be the Throne of God. For everything besides I have: It is only for riches that I […]...
13. A Door just opened on a street A Door just opened on a street I lost was passing by An instant’s Width of Warmth disclosed And Wealth and Company. The Door as instant shut And I I lost was passing by Lost doubly but by contrast most Informing misery...
14. Love's Vicissitudes AS Love and Hope together Walk by me for a while, Link-armed the ways they travel For many a pleasant mile – Link-armed and dumb they travel, They sing not, but they smile. Hope leaving, Love commences To practise on the lute; And as he sings and travels With lingering, laggard foot, Despair plays obligato […]...
15. Through a Glass Darkly What we, when face to face we see The Father of our souls, shall be, John tells us, doth not yet appear; Ah! did he tell what we are here! A mind for thoughts to pass into, A heart for loves to travel through, Five senses to detect things near, Is this the whole that […]...
16. The City You said: “I’ll go to another country, go to another shore, Find another city better than this one. Whatever I try to do is fated to turn out wrong And my heart lies buried like something dead. How long can I let my mind moulder in this place? Wherever I turn, wherever I look, I […]...
17. Roadways ONE road leads to London, One road leads to Wales, My road leads me seawards To the white dipping sails. One road leads to the river, And it goes singing slow; My road leads to shipping, Where the bronzed sailors go. Leads me, lures me, calls me To salt green tossing sea; A road without […]...
18. Under the Greenwood Tree Under the greenwood tree Who loves to lie with me, And turn his merry note Unto the sweet bird’s throat, Come hither, come hither, come hither: Here shall he see No enemy But winter and rough weather. Who doth ambition shun, And loves to live i’ the sun, Seeking the food he eats, And pleas’d […]...
19. Hymn 47 Death of kindred improved. Zech. 1:5. Must friends and kindred droop and die, And helpers be withdrawn? While sorrow with a weeping eye Counts up our comforts gone? Be thou our comfort, mighty God! Our helper and our friend; Nor leave us in this dangerous road, Till all our trials end. O may our feet […]...
20. Birth-Day Ode 03 And wouldst thou seek the low abode Where PEACE delights to dwell? Pause Traveller on thy way of life! With many a snare and peril rife Is that long labyrinth of road: Dark is the vale of years before Pause Traveller on thy way! Nor dare the dangerous path explore Till old EXPERIENCE comes to […]...
21. The Drunkard's Funeral “Yes,” said the sister with the little pinched face, The busy little sister with the funny little tract: – “This is the climax, the grand fifth act. There rides the proud, at the finish of his race. There goes the hearse, the mourners cry, The respectable hearse goes slowly by. The wife of the dead […]...
22. I Dream'd in a Dream I DREAM’D in a dream, I saw a city invincible to the attacks of the whole of the rest of the earth; I dream’d that was the new City of Friends; Nothing was greater there than the quality of robust love-it led the rest; It was seen every hour in the actions of the men […]...
23. Kingdom of Love In the dawn of the day when the sea and the earth Reflected the sunrise above, I set forth with a heart full of courage and mirth To seek for the Kingdom of Love. I asked of a Poet I met on the way Which cross-road would lead me aright. And he said: “Follow me, […]...
24. I Have Some Friends I have some friends, some worthy friends, And worthy friends are rare: These carpet slippers on my feet, That padded leather chair; This old and shabby dressing-gown, So well the worse of wear. I have some friends, some honest friends, And honest friends are few; My pipe of briar, my open fire, A book that’s […]...
25. Until the Desert knows Until the Desert knows That Water grows His Sands suffice But let him once suspect That Caspian Fact Sahara dies Utmost is relative Have not or Have Adjacent sums Enough the first Abode On the familiar Road Galloped in Dreams...
26. 58. Epitaph on Holy Willie HERE Holy Willie’s sair worn clay Taks up its last abode; His saul has ta’en some other way, I fear, the left-hand road. Stop! there he is, as sure’s a gun, Poor, silly body, see him; Nae wonder he’s as black’s the grun, Observe wha’s standing wi’ him. Your brunstane devilship, I see, Has got […]...
27. Rest in Peace No more for you the city’s thorny ways, The ugly corners of the Negro belt; The miseries and pains of these harsh days By you will never, never again be felt. No more, if still you wander, will you meet With nights of unabating bitterness; They cannot reach you in your safe retreat, The city’s […]...
28. The Little Box The little box gets her first teeth And her little length Little width little emptiness And all the rest she has The little box continues growing The cupboard that she was inside Is now inside her And she grows bigger bigger bigger Now the room is inside her And the house and the city and […]...
29. Life Let me but live my life from year to year, With forward face and unreluctant soul; Not hurrying to, nor turning from the goal; Not mourning for the things that disappear In the dim past, nor holding back in fear From what the future veils; but with a whole And happy heart, that pays its […]...
30. Exiles It goes on being Alexandria still. Just walk a bit Along the straight road that ends at the Hippodrome And you’ll see palaces and monuments that will amaze you. Whatever war-damage it’s suffered, However much smaller it’s become, It’s still a wonderful city. And then, what with excursions and books And various kinds of study, […]...
31. The City That Will Not Repent Climbing the heights of Berkeley Nightly I watch the West. There lies new San Francisco, Sea-maid in purple dressed, Wearing a dancer’s girdle All to inflame desire: Scorning her days of sackcloth, Scorning her cleansing fire. See, like a burning city Sets now the red sun’s dome. See, mystic firebrands sparkle There on each store […]...
32. Arrival Morning, a glass door, flashes Gold names off the new city, Whose white shelves and domes travel The slow sky all day. I land to stay here; And the windows flock open And the curtains fly out like doves And a past dries in a wind. Now let me lie down, under A wide-branched indifference, […]...
33. The way Hope builds his House The way Hope builds his House It is not with a sill Nor Rafter has that Edifice But only Pinnacle Abode in as supreme This superficies As if it were of Ledges smit Or mortised with the Laws...
34. Epilogue “Why can’t you say what you mean straight out in prose?” Well, say it yourself: then say “It’s that, but more, Or less perhaps, or not that way, or not That after all.” The meaning of a song Might be an undernote; this tree might mean That leaf as much as trunk, branch, other leaves. […]...
35. The City Is A Garment A rhinestone skein, a jeweled brocade of light,- The city is a garment stretched so thin Her festive colors bleed into the night, And everywhere bright seams, unraveling, Now spill their brilliant contents out like coins On motorways and esplanades; bead cars Come tumbling down long highways; at her groin A railtrack like a zipper […]...
36. Resurgam Exiled afar from youth and happy love, If Death should ravish my fond spirit hence I have no doubt but, like a homing dove, It would return to its dear residence, And through a thousand stars find out the road Back into earthly flesh that was its loved abode....
37. Drinking Alone I take my wine jug out among the flowers To drink alone, without friends. I raise my cup to entice the moon. That, and my shadow, makes us three. But the moon doesn’t drink, And my shadow silently follows. I will travel with moon and shadow, Happy to the end of spring. When I sing, […]...
38. Dawn in New York The Dawn! The Dawn! The crimson-tinted, comes Out of the low still skies, over the hills, Manhattan’s roofs and spires and cheerless domes! The Dawn! My spirit to its spirit thrills. Almost the mighty city is asleep, No pushing crowd, no tramping, tramping feet. But here and there a few cars groaning creep Along, above, […]...
39. Psalm 127 The blessing of God on the business and comforts of life. If God succeed not, all the cost And pains to build the house are lost; If God the city will not keep, The watchful guards as well may sleep. What if you rise before the sun, And work and toil when day is done; […]...
40. Mourning Alas my brother! the cry of the mourners of old That cried on each other, All crying aloud on the dead as the death-note rolled, Alas my brother! As flashes of dawn that mists from an east wind smother With fold upon fold, The past years gleam that linked us one with another. Time sunders […]...