Bathed and Washed

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1. Bathed in War's Perfume BATHED in war’s perfume-delicate flag! (Should the days needing armies, needing fleets, come again,) O to hear you call the sailors and the soldiers! flag like a beautiful woman! O to hear the tramp, tramp, of a million answering men! O the ships they arm with joy! O to see you leap and beckon from […]...
2. Nature that Washed Her Hands in Milk Nature, that washed her hands in milk, And had forgot to dry them, Instead of earth took snow and silk, At love’s request to try them, If she a mistress could compose To please love’s fancy out of those. Her eyes he would should be of light, A violet breath, and lips of jelly; Her […]...
3. Purity Life of my life, I shall ever try to keep my body pure, knowing That thy living touch is upon all my limbs. I shall ever try to keep all untruths out from my thoughts, knowing That thou art that truth which has kindled the light of reason in my mind. I shall ever try […]...
4. Take Back the Virgin Page Written on Returning a Blank Book Take back the virgin page, White and unwritten still; Some hand, more calm and sage, The leaf must fill. Thoughts come, as pure as light Pure as even you require; But, oh! each word I write Love turns to fire. Yet let me keep the book: Oft shall my […]...
5. 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 […]...
6. A soft Sea washed around the House A soft Sea washed around the House A Sea of Summer Air And rose and fell the magic Planks That sailed without a care For Captain was the Butterfly For Helmsman was the Bee And an entire universe For the delighted crew....
7. Authorship You say that father write a lot of books, but what he write I don’t Understand. He was reading to you all the evening, but could you really Make out what he meant? What nice stores, mother, you can tell us! Why can’t father Write like that, I wonder? Did he never hear from his […]...
8. Unlyric Love Song It is time to give that-of-myself which I could not at first: To offer you now at last my least and my worst: Minor, absurd preserves, The shell’s end-curves, A document kept at the back of a drawer, A tin hidden under the floor, Recalcitrant prides and hesitations: To pile them carefully in a desparate […]...
9. Carbonara eyes Nicky said I couldn’t write, she’s got a charming Sense of social etiquette – given she’s a bitch (the canine sort, can’t spell for shit or even write A word) but then she has the most expressive eyes. So what she said was no surprise, she’d heard My lamentations, licked my hands, rested forepaws On […]...
10. Walt Whitman The master-songs are ended, and the man That sang them is a name. And so is God A name; and so is love, and life, and death, And everything. But we, who are too blind To read what we have written, or what faith Has written for us, do not understand: We only blink, and […]...
11. Woe! It is true, our tribe is similar to the bees, It gathers honey of wisdom, carries it, stores it in honeycombs. I am able to roam for hours Through the labyrinth of the main library, floor to floor. But yesterday, looking for the words of masters and prophets, I wandered into high regions That are […]...
12. 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 […]...
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. Eating and Drinking chapter VI Then an old man, a keeper of an inn, said, “Speak to us of Eating and Drinking.” And he said: Would that you could live on the fragrance of the earth, and like an air plant be sustained by the light. But since you must kill to eat, and rob the young of its mother’s […]...
15. The Fly Little Fly Thy summers play, My thoughtless hand Has brush’d away. Am not I A fly like thee? Or art not thou A man like me? For I dance And drink & sing; Till some blind hand Shall brush my wing. If thought is life And strength & breath; And the want Of thought is […]...
16. Let Them Alone If God has been good enough to give you a poet Then listen to him. But for God’s sake let him alone until he is dead; No prizes, no ceremony, They kill the man. A poet is one who listens To nature and his own heart; and if the noise of the world grows up […]...
17. Enigmas You’ve asked me what the lobster is weaving there with his golden feet? I reply, the ocean knows this. You say, what is the ascidia waiting for in its transparent bell? What is it waiting for? I tell you it is waiting for time, like you. You ask me whom the Macrocystis alga hugs in […]...
18. Ageing Schoolmaster And now another autumn morning finds me With chalk dust on my sleeve and in my breath, Preoccupied with vague, habitual speculation On the huge inevitability of death. Not wholly wretched, yet knowing absolutely That I shall never reacquaint myself with joy, I sniff the smell of ink and chalk and my mortality And think […]...
19. Impromptu, to Lady Winchelsea In vain you boast Poetic Names of yore, And cite those Sapho’s we admire no more: Fate doom’d the Fall of ev’ry Female Wit, But doom’d it then when first Ardelia writ. Of all Examples by the World confest, I knew Ardelia could not quote the best; Who, like her Mistress on Britannia’s Throne; Fights, […]...
20. Sonnet III THe souerayne beauty which I doo admyre, Witnesse the world how worthy to be prayzed: The light wherof hath kindled heauenly iyre, In my fraile spirit by her from basenesse raysed. That being now with her huge brightnesse dazed, Base thing I can no more endure to view: But looking still on her I stand […]...
21. The God Of Common-Sense My Daddy used to wallop me for every small offense: “Its takes a hair-brush back,” said he, “to teach kids common-sense.” And still to-day I scarce can look a hair-brush in the face. Without I want in sympathy to pat a tender place. For Dad declared with unction: “Spare the brush and spoil the brat.” […]...
22. Amoretti III: The Sovereign Beauty The sovereign beauty which I do admire, Witness the world how worthy to be praised: The light whereof hath kindled heavenly fire In my frail spirit, by her from baseness raised; That being now with her huge brightness dazed, Base thing I can no more endure to view; But looking still on her, I stand […]...
23. Dedication In youth I longed to paint The loveliness I saw; And yet by dire constraint I had to study Law. But now all that is past, And I have no regret, For I am free at last Law to forget. To beauty newly born With brush and tube I play; And though my daubs you […]...
24. "I Love You Sweatheart&quot A man risked his life to write the words. A man hung upside down (an idiot friend Holding his legs?) with spray paint To write the words on a girder fifty feet above A highway. And his beloved, The next morning driving to work…? His words are not (meant to be) so unique. Does she […]...
25. The Red Flower In the pleasant time of Pentecost, By the little river Kyll, I followed the angler’s winding path Or waded the stream at will, And the friendly fertile German land Lay round me green and still. But all day long on the eastern bank Of the river cool and clear, Where the curving track of the […]...
26. The Convert After one moment when I bowed my head And the whole world turned over and came upright, And I came out where the old road shone white, I walked the ways and heard what all men said, Forests of tongues, like autumn leaves unshed, Being not unlovable but strange and light; Old riddles and new […]...
27. Majestas Populi Majesty of the nature of man! In crowds shall I seek thee? ‘Tis with only a few that thou hast made thine abode. Only a few ever count; the rest are but blanks of no value, And the prizes are hid ‘neath the vain stir that they make....
28. For Meng Hao-Jan I love Master Meng. Free as a flowing breeze, He is famous Throughout the world. In rosy youth, he cast away Official cap and carriage. Now, a white-haired elder, he reclines Amid pines and cloud. Drunk beneath the moon, He often attains sagehood. Lost among the flowers, He serves no lord. How can I aspire […]...
29. Death Wants More Death death wants more death, and its webs are full: I remember my father’s garage, how child-like I would brush the corpses of flies From the windows they thought were escape- Their sticky, ugly, vibrant bodies Shouting like dumb crazy dogs against the glass Only to spin and flit In that second larger than hell or […]...
30. Sacrifice THOSE delicate wanderers, The wind, the star, the cloud, Ever before mine eyes, As to an altar bowed, Light and dew-laden airs Offer in sacrifice. The offerings arise: Hazes of rainbow light, Pure crystal, blue, and gold, Through dreamland take their flight; And ‘mid the sacrifice God moveth as of old. In miracles of fire […]...
31. The Mole Said he: “I’ll dive deep in the Past, And write a book of direful days When summer skies were overcast With smoke of humble hearths ablaze; When War was rampant in the land, And poor folk cowered in the night, While ruin gaped on every hand – Of ravishing and wrath I’ll write.” Ten years […]...
32. There Are Not Many Kingdoms Left I write the lips of the moon upon her shoulders. In a Temple of silvery farawayness I guard her to rest. For her bed I write a stillness over all the swans of the World. With the morning breath of the snow leopard I Cover her against any hurt. Using the pen of rivers and […]...
33. MATINS, OR MORNING PRAYER When with the virgin morning thou dost rise, Crossing thyself come thus to sacrifice; First wash thy heart in innocence; then bring Pure hands, pure habits, pure, pure every thing. Next to the altar humbly kneel, and thence Give up thy soul in clouds of frankincense. Thy golden censers fill’d with odours sweet Shall make […]...
34. Is White a Color? White, pristine, unblemished They say it is not a color I love white mists, clouds Lingering on blue mountains. White, no shades No off white, cream Pure as snow on shimmering peaks Is my favorite sight. Nurses, priests, politicians Are bound, chained to white White nebulous clouds Evoke deep nostalgic thoughts. They swaddled my father […]...
35. I ask of thee, love, nothing but relief I ask of thee, love, nothing but relief. Thou canst not bring the old days back again; For I was happy then, Not knowing heavenly joy, not knowing grief....
36. Humming-bird pie the paiute indians had the bird sussed A humming bird (loaded with seeds) set out To see beyond the sun – it aimed to be frugal Rationing itself to only one seed a day – even so It ran out long before it meant to It gave up (getting nowhere and seeing nothing) – All […]...
37. Santa Fe In Winter The city is closing for the night. Stores draw their blinds one by one, And it’s dark again, save for the dim Infrequent streetlight bending at the neck Like a weighted stem. Years have built The city in layers: balustrades filled in With brick, adobe reinforced with steel, And the rounded arches smoothed With white […]...
38. Light And Warmth In cheerful faith that fears no ill The good man doth the world begin; And dreams that all without shall still Reflect the trusting soul within. Warm with the noble vows of youth, Hallowing his true arm to the truth; Yet is the littleness of all So soon to sad experience shown, That crowds but […]...
39. The Beautiful American Word, Sure The beautiful American word, Sure, As I have come into a room, and touch The lamp’s button, and the light blooms with such Certainty where the darkness loomed before, As I care for what I do not know, and care Knowing for little she might not have been, And for how little she would be […]...
40. The World And I This is not exactly what I mean Any more than the sun is the sun. But how to mean more closely If the sun shines but approximately? What a world of awkwardness! What hostile implements of sense! Perhaps this is as close a meaning As perhaps becomes such knowing. Else I think the world and […]...