The Ancient Speech

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1. And Did Those Feet In Ancient Time And did those feet in ancient time Walk upon England’s mountains green? And was the holy Lamb of God On England’s pleasant pastures seen? And did the Countenance Divine Shine forth upon our clouded hills? And was Jerusalem builded here Among these dark satanic mills? Bring me my bow of burning gold! Bring me my […]...
2. Spring Carol WHEN loud by landside streamlets gush, And clear in the greenwood quires the thrush, With sun on the meadows And songs in the shadows Comes again to me The gift of the tongues of the lea, The gift of the tongues of meadows. Straightway my olden heart returns And dances with the dancing burns; It […]...
3. The Silence Though the air is full of singing My head is loud With the labor of words. Though the season is rich With fruit, my tongue Hungers for the sweet of speech. Though the beech is golden I cannot stand beside it Mute, but must say “It is golden,” while the leaves Stir and fall with […]...
4. Lines Written In The Belief That The Ancient Roman Festival Of The Dead Was Called Ambarvalia Swings the way still by hollow and hill, And all the world’s a song; “She’s far,” it sings me, “but fair,” it rings me, “Quiet,” it laughs, “and strong!” Oh! spite of the miles and years between us, Spite of your chosen part, I do remember; and I go With laughter in my heart. So […]...
5. Wild Dark Love Song Her man, A wild dark love song Borne deep within her gypsy soul He’s gone to live in jagged mountains Where salmon jump and sing In tarns High above The cloud lines Beyond the silver moon In the shadow of the Cader Idris In misty mountains Where meadowlarks are known to wing And wild geese […]...
6. Sonnet 13 – And wilt thou have me fashion into speech And wilt thou have me fashion into speech The love I bear thee, finding words enough, And hold the torch out, while the winds are rough, Between our faces, to cast light on each?- I drop it at thy feet. I cannot teach My hand to hold my spirit so far off From myself-me-that I […]...
7. As I Step Over A Puddle At The End Of Winter, I Think Of An Ancient Chinese Governor And how can I, born in evil days And fresh from failure, ask a kindness of Fate? Written A. D. 819 Po Chu-i, balding old politician, What’s the use? I think of you, Uneasily entering the gorges of the Yang-Tze, When you were being towed up the rapids Toward some political job or other In […]...
8. The "happy isles" of horace Oh, come with me to the Happy Isles In the golden haze off yonder, Where the song of the sun-kissed breeze beguiles, And the ocean loves to wander. Fragrant the vines that mantle those hills, Proudly the fig rejoices; Merrily dance the virgin rills, Blending their myriad voices. Our herds shall fear no evil there, […]...
9. The Master Singer A LAUGHTER in the diamond air, a music in the trembling grass; And one by one the words of light as joydrops through my being pass: “I am the sunlight in the heart, the silver moon-glow in the mind; My laughter runs and ripples through the wavy tresses of the wind. I am the fire […]...
10. Village Song HONEY, child, honey, child, whither are you going? Would you cast your jewels all to the breezes blowing? Would you leave the mother who on golden grain has fed you? Would you grieve the lover who is riding forth to wed you? Mother mine, to the wild forest I am going, Where upon the champa […]...
11. 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 […]...
12. Hold Hard, These Ancient Minutes In The Cuckoo's Month Hold hard, these ancient minutes in the cuckoo’s month, Under the lank, fourth folly on Glamorgan’s hill, As the green blooms ride upward, to the drive of time; Time, in a folly’s rider, like a county man Over the vault of ridings with his hound at heel, Drives forth my men, my children, from the […]...
13. Ancient History Adam, a brown old vulture in the rain, Shivered below his wind-whipped olive-trees; Huddling sharp chin on scarred and scraggy knees, He moaned and mumbled to his darkening brain; ‘He was the grandest of them all was Cain! ‘A lion laired in the hills, that none could tire: ‘Swift as a stag: a stallion of […]...
14. Nightingales Beautiful must be the mountains whence ye come, And bright in the fruitful valleys the streams, wherefrom Ye learn your song: Where are those starry woods? O might I wander there, Among the flowers, which in that heavenly air Bloom the year long! Nay, barren are those mountains and spent the streams: Our song is […]...
15. Mist In The Valley These hills, to hurt me more, That am hurt already enough,- Having left the sea behind, Having turned suddenly and left the shore That I had loved beyond all words, even a song’s words, to Convey, And built me a house on upland acres, Sweet with the pinxter, bright and rough With the rusty blackbird […]...
16. The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner Part I It is an ancient Mariner, And he stoppeth one of three. ‘By thy long grey beard and glittering eye, Now wherefore stopp’st thou me? The bridegroom’s doors are opened wide, And I am next of kin; The guests are met, the feast is set: Mayst hear the merry din.’ He holds him with […]...
17. The Ancient World Today the Masons are auctioning Their discarded pomp: a trunk of turbans, Gemmed and ostrich-plumed, and operetta costumes Labeled inside the collar “Potentate” And “Vizier.” Here their chairs, blazoned With the Masons’ sign, huddled Like convalescents, lean against one another On the grass. In a casket are rhinestoned poles The hierophants carried in parades; Here’s […]...
18. Ancient Music Winter is icummen in, Lhude sing Goddamm. Raineth drop and staineth slop, And how the wind doth ramm! Sing: Goddamm. Skiddeth bus and sloppeth us, An ague hath my ham. Freezeth river, turneth liver, Damn you, sing: Goddamm. Goddamm, Goddamm, ’tis why I am, Goddamm, So ‘gainst the winter’s balm. Sing goddamm, damm, sing Goddamm. […]...
19. Norse lullaby The sky is dark and the hills are white As the storm-king speeds from the north to-night, And this is the song the storm-king sings, As over the world his cloak he flings: “Sleep, sleep, little one, sleep;” He rustles his wings and gruffly sings: “Sleep, little one, sleep.” On yonder mountain-side a vine Clings […]...
20. The Voice Of The Ancient Bard Youth of delight come hither. And see the opening morn, Image of truth new born. Doubt is fled & clouds of reason. Dark disputes & artful teazing, Folly is an endless maze, Tangled roots perplex her ways, How many have fallen there! They stumble all night over bones of the dead: And feel they know […]...
21. New Year's Chimes What is the song the stars sing? (And a million songs are as song of one) This is the song the stars sing: (Sweeter song’s none) One to set, and many to sing, (And a million songs are as song of one) One to stand, and many to cling, The many things, and the one […]...
22. The Dark Hills Dark hills at evening in the west, Where sunset hovers like a sound Of golden horns that sang to rest Old bones of warriors under ground, Far now from all the bannered ways Where flash the legions of the sun, You fade as if the last of days Were fading, and all wars were done....
23. The Too-Late Born We too, we too, descending once again The hills of our own land, we too have heard Far off – Ah, que ce cor a longue haleine – The horn of Roland in the passages of Spain, The first, the second blast, the failing third, And with the third turned back and climbed once more […]...
24. I Sleep a Lot I sleep a lot and read St. Thomas Aquinas Or The Death of God (that’s a Protestant book). To the right the bay as if molten tin, Beyond the bay, city, beyond the city, ocean, Beyond the ocean, ocean, till Japan. To the left dry hills with white grass, Beyond the hills an irrigated valley […]...
25. The Fairy Bridal-Hymn [This is the hymn to Eleanor, daughter of Mab and a golden drone, sung by the Locust choir when the fairy child marries her God, the yellow rose] This is a song to the white-armed one Cold in the breast as the frost-wrapped Spring, Whose feet are slow on the hills of life, Whose round […]...
26. Australian Scenery The Mountains A land of sombre, silent hills, where mountain cattle go By twisted tracks, on sidelings deep, where giant gum trees grow And the wind replies, in the river oaks, to the song of the stream below. A land where the hills keep watch and ward, silent and wide awake As those who sit […]...
27. Refrain Of all the songs which poets sing The ones which are most sweet Are those which at close intervals A low refrain repeat; Some tender word, some syllable, Over and over, ever and ever, While the song lasts, Altering never, Music if sung, music if said, Subtle like some golden thread A shuttle casts, In […]...
28. Dedication To Christina G. Rossetti Songs light as these may sound, though deep and strong The heart spake through them, scarce should hope to please Ears tuned to strains of loftier thoughts than throng Songs light as these. Yet grace may set their sometime doubt at ease, Nor need their too rash reverence fear to wrong The shrine it serves […]...
29. Part Of Speech …and when “the future” is uttered, swarms of mice Rush out of the Russian language and gnaw a piece Of ripened memory which is twice As hole-ridden as real cheese. After all these years it hardly matters who Or what stands in the corner, hidden by heavy drapes, And your mind resounds not with a […]...
30. Each small gleam was a voice Each small gleam was a voice, A lantern voice In little songs of carmine, violet, green, gold. A chorus of colours came over the water; The wondrous leaf-shadow no longer wavered, No pines crooned on the hills, The blue night was elsewhere a silence, When the chorus of colours came over the water, Little songs […]...
31. A Song I had wanted a quiet testament And I had wanted, among other things, A song. That was to be Of a like monotony. (A grace Simply. Very very quiet. A murmur of some lost Thrush, though I have never seen one. Which was you then. Sitting And so, at peace, so very much now this […]...
32. A Singing Lesson Far-fetched and dear-bought, as the proverb rehearses, Is good, or was held so, for ladies: but nought In a song can be good if the turn of the verse is Far-fetched and dear-bought. As the turn of a wave should it sound, and the thought Ring smooth, and as light as the spray that disperses […]...
33. Dying Speech of an Old Philosopher I strove with none, for none was worth my strife: Nature I loved, and, next to Nature, Art: I warm’d both hands before the fire of Life; It sinks; and I am ready to depart....
34. Speech is one symptom of Affection Speech is one symptom of Affection And Silence one The perfectest communication Is heard of none Exists and its indorsement Is had within Behold, said the Apostle, Yet had not seen!...
35. Remorse For Intemperate Speech I ranted to the knave and fool, But outgrew that school, Would transform the part, Fit audience found, but cannot rule My fanatic heart. I sought my betters: though in each Fine manners, liberal speech, Turn hatred into sport, Nothing said or done can reach My fanatic heart. Out of Ireland have we come. Great […]...
36. I fear a Man of frugal Speech I fear a Man of frugal Speech I fear a Silent Man Haranguer I can overtake Or Babbler entertain But He who weigheth While the Rest Expend their furthest pound Of this Man I am wary I fear that He is Grand...
37. Never Again Would Bird's Song Be The Same He would declare and could himself believe That the birds there in all the garden round From having heard the daylong voice of Eve Had added to their own an oversound, Her tone of meaning but without the words. Admittedly an eloquence so soft Could only have had an influence on birds When call or […]...
38. Of Silken Speech and Specious Shoe Of Silken Speech and Specious Shoe A Traitor is the Bee His service to the newest Grace Present continually His Suit a chance His Troth a Term Protracted as the Breeze Continual Ban propoundeth He Continual Divorce....
39. And This Will be All? AND this will be all? And the gates will never open again? And the dust and the wind will play around the rusty door hinges and the songs of October moan, Why-oh, why-oh? And you will look to the mountains And the mountains will look to you And you will wish you were a mountain […]...
40. Listening ‘T is you that are the music, not your song. The song is but a door which, opening wide, Lets forth the pent-up melody inside, Your spirit’s harmony, which clear and strong Sings but of you. Throughout your whole life long Your songs, your thoughts, your doings, each divide This perfect beauty; waves within a […]...