Self-Knowledge XVII

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1. Song of the Wave XVII The strong shore is my beloved And I am his sweetheart. We are at last united by love, and Then the moon draws me from him. I go to him in haste and depart Reluctantly, with many Little farewells. I steal swiftly from behind the Blue horizon to cast the silver of My foam upon […]...
2. Long I Thought that Knowledge LONG I thought that knowledge alone would suffice me-O if I could but obtain knowledge! Then my lands engrossed me-Lands of the prairies, Ohio’s land, the southern savannas, engrossed me-For them I would live-I would be their orator; Then I met the examples of old and new heroes-I heard of warriors, sailors, and all dauntless […]...
3. Knowledge Now that I know How passion warms little Of flesh in the mould, And treasure is brittle, I’ll lie here and learn How, over their ground Trees make a long shadow And a light sound....
4. Joy and Sorrow chapter VIII Then a woman said, “Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow.” And he answered: Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears. And how else can it be? The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. […]...
5. Sonnet XVII Who will believe my verse in time to come, If it were fill’d with your most high deserts? Though yet, heaven knows, it is but as a tomb Which hides your life and shows not half your parts. If I could write the beauty of your eyes And in fresh numbers number all your graces, […]...
6. The End of the World Here, at the end of the world, The flowers bleed As if they were hearts, The hearts ooze a darkness Like india ink, & poets dip their pens in & they write. “Here, at the end of the world,” They write, Not knowing what it means. “Here, where the sky nurses on black milk, Where […]...
7. Lines Draw a line. Write a line. There. Stay in line, hold the line, a glance Between the lines is fine but don’t Turn corners, cross, cut in, go over Or out, between two points of no Return’s a line of flight, between Two points of view’s a line of vision. But a line of thought […]...
8. Holy Sonnet XVII: Since She Whom I Loved Since she whom I loved hath paid her last debt To Nature, and to hers, and my good is dead, And her soul early into heaven ravished, Wholly on heavenly things my mind is set. Here the admiring her my mind did whet To seek thee, God; so streams do show the head; But though […]...
9. The Peaceful Shepherd If heaven were to do again, And on the pasture bars, I leaned to line the figures in Between the dotted starts, I should be tempted to forget, I fear, the Crown of Rule, The Scales of Trade, the Cross of Faith, As hardly worth renewal. For these have governed in our lives, And see […]...
10. Modern Love XVII: At Dinner She Is Hostess At dinner, she is hostess, I am host. Went the feast ever cheerfuller? She keeps The Topic over intellectual deeps In buoyancy afloat. They see no ghost. With sparkling surface-eyes we ply the ball: It is in truth a most contagious game: HIDING THE SKELETON, shall be its name. Such play as this the devils […]...
11. XVII (Thinking, Tangling Shadows…) Thinking, tangling shadows in the deep solitude. You are far away too, oh farther than anyone. Thinking, freeing birds, dissolving images, Burying lamps. Belfry of fogs, how far away, up there! Stifling laments, milling shadowy hopes, Taciturn miller, Night falls on you face downward, far from the city. Your presence is foreign, as strange to […]...
12. Life Is A Privilege Life is a privilege. Its youthful days Shine with the radiance of continuous Mays. To live, to breathe, to wonder and desire, To feed with dreams the heart’s perpetual fire, To thrill with virtuous passions, and to glow With great ambitions – in one hour to know The depths and heights of feeling – God! […]...
13. XVII (I do not love you…) I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz, Or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off. I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, In secret, between the shadow and the soul. I love you as the plant that never blooms But carries in itself the light […]...
14. Sonnets xvii O NEVER say that I was false of heart, Though absence seem’d my flame to qualify! As easy might I from myself depart, As from my soul, which in thy breast doth lie: That is my home of love; if I have ranged, Like him that travels I return again, Just to the time, not […]...
15. Love Sonnet XVII I do not love you as if you were a salt rose, or topaz Or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off. I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, In secret, between the shadow and the soul. I love you as the plant that never blooms But carries in itself […]...
16. Teaching XVIII Then said a teacher, “Speak to us of Teaching.” And he said: No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of our knowledge. The teacher who walks in the shadow of the temple, among his followers, gives not of his wisdom but rather of his faith […]...
17. The Children of the Night For those that never know the light, The darkness is a sullen thing; And they, the Children of the Night, Seem lost in Fortune’s winnowing. But some are strong and some are weak, And there’s the story. House and home Are shut from countless hearts that seek World-refuge that will never come. And if there […]...
18. Human Knowledge Since thou readest in her what thou thyself hast there written, And, to gladden the eye, placest her wonders in groups; Since o’er her boundless expanses thy cords to extend thou art able, Thou dost think that thy mind wonderful Nature can grasp. Thus the astronomer draws his figures over the heavens, So that he […]...
19. Nano-Knowledge There, a little right Of Ursus Major, is The Milky Way: A man can point it out, The biggest billionfold of all Predicaments he’s in: His planet’s street address. What gives? What looks A stripe a hundred million Miles away from here Is where we live. * Let’s keep it clear. The Northern Lights Are […]...
20. Carnal Knowledge Having picked the final datum From the universe And fixed it in its column, Named the causes of infinity, Performed the calculus Of the imaginary i, it seems The body aches To come too, To the light, Transmit the grace of gravity, Express in its own algebra The symmetries of awe and fear, The shudder […]...
21. The Nuts of Knowledge A CABIN on the mountain side hid in a grassy nook Where door and windows open wide that friendly stars may look. The rabbit shy can patter in, the winds may enter free, Who throng around the mountain throne in living ecstasy. And when the sun sets dimmed in eve and purple fills the air, […]...
22. The True Knowledge Thou knowest all; I seek in vain What lands to till or sow with seed – The land is black with briar and weed, Nor cares for falling tears or rain. Thou knowest all; I sit and wait With blinded eyes and hands that fail, Till the last lifting of the veil And the first […]...
23. It Is Not the Tear At This Moment Shed It is not the tear at this moment shed, When the cold turf has just been laid o’er him, That can tell how beloved was the friend that’s fled, Or how deep in our hearts we deplore him. ‘Tis the tear, through many a long day wept, ‘Tis life’s whole path o’ershaded; ‘Tis the one […]...
24. 37. Epitaph on William Muir AN HONEST man here lies at rest As e’er God with his image blest; The friend of man, the friend of truth, The friend of age, and guide of youth: Few hearts like his, with virtue warm’d, Few heads with knowledge so informed: If there’s another world, he lives in bliss; If there is none, […]...
25. The Truth of Woman Woman’s faith, and woman’s trust – Write the characters in the dust; Stamp them on the running stream, Print them on the moon’s pale beam, And each evanescent letter Shall be clearer, firmer, better, And more permanent, I ween, Than the thing those letters mean. I have strain’d the spider’s thread ‘Gainst the promise of […]...
26. Jabberers I RISE out of my depths with my language. You rise out of your depths with your language. Two tongues from the depths, Alike only as a yellow cat and a green parrot are alike, Fling their staccato tantalizations Into a wildcat jabber Over a gossamer web of unanswerables. The second and the third silence, […]...
27. Talking XX And then a scholar said, “Speak of Talking.” And he answered, saying: You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts; And when you can no longer dwell in the solitude of your heart you live in your lips, and sound is a diversion and a pastime. And in much of your […]...
28. Sonnet XVII THe glorious portraict of that Angels face, Made to amaze weake mens confused skil: And this worlds worthlesse glory to embase, What pen, what pencill can expresse her fill? For though he colours could deuize at will, And eke his learned hand at pleasure guide: Least trembling it his wormanship should spill, Yet many wondrous […]...
29. The Death Of Richard Wagner Mourning on earth, as when dark hours descend, Wide-winged with plagues, from heaven; when hope and mirth Wane, and no lips rebuke or reprehend Mourning on earth. The soul wherein her songs of death and birth, Darkness and light, were wont to sound and blend, Now silent, leaves the whole world less in worth. Winds […]...
30. Mercian Hymns XVII He drove at evening through the hushed Vosges. The car radio, Glimmering, received broken utterance from the horizon of storms… ‘God’s honours – our bikes touched: he skidded and came off.’ ‘Liar.’ A Timid father’s protective bellow. Disfigurement of a village king. ‘Just Look at the bugger…’ His maroon GT chanted then overtook. He lavished […]...
31. All the letters I can write All the letters I can write Are not fair as this Syllables of Velvet Sentences of Plush, Depths of Ruby, undrained, Hid, Lip, for Thee Play it were a Humming Bird And just sipped me...
32. Sonnet XVII: Love Steals Unheeded Love steals unheeded o’er the tranquil mind, As Summer breezes fan the sleeping main, Slow through each fibre creeps the subtle pain, ‘Till closely round the yielding bosom twin’d. Vain is the hope the magic to unbind, The potent mischief riots in the brain, Grasps ev’ry thought, and burns in ev’ry vein, ‘Till in the […]...
33. Ode To a Large Tuna in the Market Among the market greens, A bullet From the ocean Depths, A swimming Projectile, I saw you, Dead. All around you Were lettuces, Sea foam Of the earth, Carrots, Grapes, But Of the ocean Truth, Of the unknown, Of the Unfathomable Shadow, the Depths Of the sea, The abyss, Only you had survived, A pitch-black, varnished […]...
34. Sonnet XVII: His Mother Dear Cupid His mother dear Cupid offended late, Because that Mars grown slacker in her love, With pricking shot he did not throughly more To keep the pace of their first loving state. The boy refus’d for fear of Mars’s hate, Who threaten’d stripes, if he his wrath did prove: But she in chafe him from her […]...
35. Sonnet XVII: Stay, Speedy Time To Time Stay, speedy Time, behold, before thou pass, From age to age what thou hast sought to see, One in whom all the excellencies be, In whom Heav’n looks itself as in a glass. Time, look thyself in this tralucent glass, And thy youth past in this pure mirror see, As the world’s beauty […]...
36. Bohemia Bohemia, o’er thy unatlassed borders How many cross, with half-reluctant feet, And unformed fears of dangers and disorders, To find delights, more wholesome and more sweet Than ever yet were known to the “elite.” Herein can dwell no pretence and no seeming; No stilted pride thrives in this atmosphere, Which stimulates a tendency to dreaming. […]...
37. Sung on a By-way WHAT of all the will to do? It has vanished long ago, For a dream-shaft pierced it through From the Unknown Archer’s bow. What of all the soul to think? Some one offered it a cup Filled with a diviner drink, And the flame has burned it up. What of all the hope to climb? […]...
38. Darest Thou Now, O Soul 1 DAREST thou now, O Soul, Walk out with me toward the Unknown Region, Where neither ground is for the feet, nor any path to follow? 2 No map, there, nor guide, Nor voice sounding, nor touch of human hand, Nor face with blooming flesh, nor lips, nor eyes, are in that land. 3 I […]...
39. Poet's Path My garden hath a slender path With ivy overgrown, A secret place where once would pace A pot all alone; I see him now with fretted brow, Plunged deep in thought; And sometimes he would write maybe, And sometimes he would not. A verse a day he used to say Keeps worry from the door; […]...
40. People Who Live People who live by the sea Understand eternity. They copy the curves of the waves, Their hearts beat with the tides, & the saltiness of their blood Corresponds with the sea. They know that the house of flesh Is only a sandcastle Built on the shore, That skin breaks Under the waves Like sand under […]...