Elegy

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1. Trickle, Drops TRICKLE, drops! my blue veins leaving! O drops of me! trickle, slow drops, Candid, from me falling-drip, bleeding drops, From wounds made to free you whence you were prison’d, From my face-from my forehead and lips, From my breast-from within where I was conceal’d-press forth, red drops-confession drops; Stain every page-stain every song I sing, […]...
2. On the Road Roar of the rushing train fearfully rocking, Impatient people jammed in line for food, The rasping noise of cars together knocking, And worried waiters, some in ugly mood, Crowding into the choking pantry hole To call out dishes for each angry glutton Exasperated grown beyond control, From waiting for his soup or fish or mutton. […]...
3. The Blue Scarf Pale, with the blue of high zeniths, shimmered Over with silver, brocaded In smooth, running patterns, a soft stuff, with dark knotted fringes, It lies there, Warm from a woman’s soft shoulders, and my fingers close on it, Caressing. Where is she, the woman who wore it? The scent of her Lingers and drugs me! […]...
4. A Satirical Elegy On the Death of a Late FAMOUS GENERAL His Grace! impossible! what dead! Of old age, too, and in his bed! And could that Mighty Warrior fall? And so inglorious, after all! Well, since he’s gone, no matter how, The last loud trump must wake him now: And, trust me, as the noise grows stronger, […]...
5. Elegy XVIII: Love's Progress Who ever loves, if he do not propose The right true end of love, he’s one that goes To sea for nothing but to make him sick. Love is a bear-whelp born: if we o’erlick Our love, and force it new strange shapes to take, We err, and of a lump a monster make. Were […]...
6. Elegy VIII: The Comparison As the sweet sweat of roses in a still, As that which from chafed musk-cats’ pores doth trill, As the almighty balm of th’ early East, Such are the sweat drops of my mistress’ breast, And on her brow her skin such lustre sets, They seem no sweat drops, but pearl coronets. Rank sweaty froth […]...
7. Elegy V: His Picture Here take my picture; though I bid farewell, Thine, in my heart, where my soul dwells, shall dwell. ‘Tis like me now, but I dead, ’twill be more When we are shadows both than ’twas before. When weather-beaten I come back, my hand Perhaps with rude oars torn, or sunbeams tanned, My face and breast […]...
8. The old pond Following are several translations Of the ‘Old Pond’ poem, which may be The most famous of all haiku: Furuike ya Kawazu tobikomu Mizu no oto Basho Literal Translation Fu-ru (old) i-ke (pond) ya, Ka-wa-zu (frog) to-bi-ko-mu (jumping into) Mi-zu (water) no o-to (sound) The old pond A frog jumps in, sound of water. Translated by […]...
9. Conqueror I was a gulp of high air – A bird breathing in, A black dot on blue paper, A privileged recipient Of finite sacrament Of souls of flying saints. That all happened the moment You taught me splendid roundness As defined by the touch of your lips. The other mysteries fell, one by one, Cities […]...
10. Sweet Dancer The girl goes dancing there On the leaf-sown, new-mown, smooth Grass plot of the garden; Escaped from bitter youth, Escaped out of her crowd, Or out of her black cloud. Ah, dancer, ah, sweet dancer! If strange men come from the house To lead her away, do not say That she is happy being crazy; […]...
11. When a people reach the top of a hill When a people reach the top of a hill, Then does God lean toward them, Shortens tongues and lengthens arms. A vision of their dead comes to the weak. The moon shall not be too old Before the new battalions rise, Blue battalions. The moon shall not be too old When the children of change […]...
12. Duino Elegies: The Fourth Elegy O trees of life, oh, what when winter comes? We are not of one mind. Are not like birds In unison migrating. And overtaken, Overdue, we thrust ourselves into the wind And fall to earth into indifferent ponds. Blossoming and withering we comprehend as one. And somewhere lions roam, quite unaware, In their magnificence, of […]...
13. Dream Song 111: I miss him. When I get back to camp I miss him. When I get back to camp I’ll dig him up. Well, he can prop & watch, Can’t he, pink or blue, And I will talk to him. I miss him. Slams, Grand or any, aren’t for the tundra much. One face-card will do. It’s marvellous how four sit down—beyond My thought how […]...
14. Elegy IV: The Perfume Once, and but once found in thy company, All thy supposed escapes are laid on me; And as a thief at bar is questioned there By all the men that have been robed that year, So am I (by this traiterous means surprized) By thy hydroptic father catechized. Though he had wont to search with […]...
15. Elegy Oh destiny of Borges To have sailed across the diverse seas of the world Or across that single and solitary sea of diverse Names, To have been a part of Edinburgh, of Zurich, of the Two Cordobas, Of Colombia and of Texas, To have returned at the end of changing generations To the ancient lands […]...
16. Elegy: Walking the Line Every month or so, Sundays, we walked the line, The limit and the boundary. Past the sweet gum Superb above the cabin, along the wall- Stones gathered from the level field nearby When first we cleared it. (Angry bumblebees Stung the two mules. They kicked. Thirteen, I ran.) And then the field: thread-leaf maple, deciduous […]...
17. Elegy to the Memory of David Garrick, Esq DEAR SHADE OF HIM, who grac’d the mimick scene, And charm’d attention with resistless pow’r; Whose wond’rous art, whose fascinating mien, Gave glowing rapture to the short-liv’d hour! Accept the mournful verse, the ling’ring sigh, The tear that faithful Mem’ry stays to shed; The SACRED TEAR, that from Reflection’s eye, Drops on the ashes of […]...
18. An Elegy on the Death of Montgomery Tappen An elegy on the death of MONTGOMERY TAPPEN who dies at Poughkeepsie on the 20th of Nov. 1784 in the ninth year of his age. The sweetest, gentlest, of the youthful train, Here lies his clay cold upon the sable bier! He scarce had started on life’s varied plain, For dreary death arrested his career. […]...
19. The Cat in the Kitchen (For Donald Hall) Have you heard about the boy who walked by The black water? I won’t say much more. Let’s wait a few years. It wanted to be entered. Sometimes a man walks by a pond, and a hand Reaches out and pulls him in. There was no Intention, exactly. The pond was lonely, […]...
20. 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 […]...
21. Spelt From Sibyl's Leaves Earnest, earthless, equal, attuneable, ‘ vaulty, voluminous, … stupendous Evening strains to be tíme’s vást, ‘ womb-of-all, home-of-all, hearse-of-all night. Her fond yellow hornlight wound to the west, ‘ her wild hollow hoarlight hung to the height Waste; her earliest stars, earl-stars, ‘ stárs principal, overbend us, Fíre-féaturing heaven. For earth ‘ her being has […]...
22. 173. Elegy on Stella STRAIT is the spot and green the sod From whence my sorrows flow; And soundly sleeps the ever dear Inhabitant below. Pardon my transport, gentle shade, While o’er the turf I bow; Thy earthy house is circumscrib’d, And solitary now. Not one poor stone to tell thy name, Or make thy virtues known: But what […]...
23. Elegy II: The Anagram Marry, and love thy Flavia, for she Hath all things whereby others beautious be, For, though her eyes be small, her mouth is great, Though they be ivory, yet her teeth be jet, Though they be dim, yet she is light enough, And though her harsh hair fall, her skin is rough; What though her […]...
24. Affirmation To grow old is to lose everything. Aging, everybody knows it. Even when we are young, We glimpse it sometimes, and nod our heads When a grandfather dies. Then we row for years on the midsummer Pond, ignorant and content. But a marriage, That began without harm, scatters Into debris on the shore, And a […]...
25. 307. Elegy on Captain Matthew Henderson O DEATH! thou tyrant fell and bloody! The meikle devil wi’ a woodie Haurl thee hame to his black smiddie, O’er hurcheon hides, And like stock-fish come o’er his studdie Wi’ thy auld sides! He’s gane, he’s gane! he’s frae us torn, The ae best fellow e’er was born! Thee, Matthew, Nature’s sel’ shall mourn, […]...
26. Bavarian Gentians Not every man has gentians in his house In Soft September, at slow, Sad Michaelmas. Bavarian gentians, big and dark, only dark Darkening the daytime torchlike with the smoking blueness of Pluto’s gloom, Ribbed and torchlike, with their blaze of darkness spread blue Down flattening into points, flattened under the sweep of white day Torch-flower […]...
27. Twelve O'Clock Mother, I do want to leave off my lessons now. I have been at my Book all the morning. You say it is only twelve o’clock. Suppose it isn’t any later; Can’t you ever think it is afternoon when it is only twelve O’clock? I can easily imagine now that the sun has reached the […]...
28. Fergus Falling He climbed to the top Of one of those million white pines Set out across the emptying pastures Of the fifties – some program to enrich the rich And rebuke the forefathers Who cleared it all at once with ox and axe – Climbed to the top, probably to get out Of the shadow Not […]...
29. Elegy Let them bury your big eyes In the secret earth securely, Your thin fingers, and your fair, Soft, indefinite-colored hair,- All of these in some way, surely, From the secret earth shall rise; Not for these I sit and stare, Broken and bereft completely; Your young flesh that sat so neatly On your little bones […]...
30. Elegy The page opens to snow on a field: boot-holed month, black hour The bottle in your coat half voda half winter light. To what and to whom does one say yes? If God were the uncertain, would you cling to him? Beneath a tattoo of stars the gate open, so silent so like a tomb. […]...
31. Elegy In The Classroom In the thin classroom, where your face Was noble and your words were all things, I find this boily creature in your place; Find you disarranged, squatting on the window sill, Irrefutably placed up there, Like a hunk of some big frog Watching us through the V Of your woolen legs. Even so, I must […]...
32. Widows My mother’s playing cards with my aunt, Spite and Malice, the family pastime, the game My grandmother taught all her daughters. Midsummer: too hot to go out. Today, my aunt’s ahead; she’s getting the good cards. My mother’s dragging, having trouble with her concentration. She can’t get used to her own bed this summer. She […]...
33. The Gamblers Life’s a jail where men have common lot. Gaunt the one who has, and who has not. All our treasures neither less nor more, Bread alone comes thro’ the guarded door. Cards are foolish in this jail, I think, Yet they play for shoes, for drabs and drink. She, my lawless, sharp-tongued gypsy maid Will […]...
34. Elegy Written In A Country Churchyard The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, The lowing herd wind slowly o’er the lea, The ploughman homeward plods his weary way, And leaves the world to darkness and to me. Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, And all the air a solemn stillness holds, Save where the beetle wheels his droning […]...
35. Stay Now the journey is ending, The wind is losing heart. Into your hands it’s falling, A rickety house of cards. The cards are backed with pictures Displaying all the world. You’ve stacked up all the images And shuffled them with words. And how profound the playing That once again begins! Stay, the card you’re drawing […]...
36. March Elegy I have enough treasures from the past To last me longer than I need, or want. You know as well as I. . . malevolent memory Won’t let go of half of them: A modest church, with its gold cupola Slightly askew; a harsh chorus Of crows; the whistle of a train; A birch tree […]...
37. Morning Poem Every morning The world Is created. Under the orange Sticks of the sun The heaped Ashes of the night Turn into leaves again And fasten themselves to the high branches – And the ponds appear Like black cloth On which are painted islands Of summer lilies. If it is your nature To be happy You […]...
38. The Earth Falls Down If I could blame it all on the weather, The snow like the cadaver’s table, The trees turned into knitting needles, The ground as hard as a frozen haddock, The pond wearing its mustache of frost. If I could blame conditions on that, If I could blame the hearts of strangers Striding muffled down the […]...
39. Clapp's Pond Three miles through the woods Clapp’s Pond sprawls stone gray Among oaks and pines, The late winter fields Where a pheasant blazes up Lifting his yellow legs Under bronze feathers, opening Bronze wings; And one doe, dimpling the ground as she touches Its dampness sharply, flares Out of the brush and gallops away. * By […]...
40. 141. Tam Samson's Elegy HAS auld Kilmarnock seen the deil? Or great Mackinlay 1 thrawn his heel? Or Robertson 2 again grown weel, To preach an’ read? “Na’ waur than a’! cries ilka chiel, “Tam Samson’s dead!” Kilmarnock lang may grunt an’ grane, An’ sigh, an’ sab, an’ greet her lane, An’ cleed her bairns, man, wife, an’ wean, […]...