Song For The Last Act
Now that I have your face by heart, I look
Less at its features than its darkening frame
Where quince and melon, yellow as young flame,
Lie with quilled dahlias and the shepherd’s crook.
Beyond, a garden, There, in insolent ease
The lead and marble figures watch the show
Of yet another summer loath to go
Although the scythes hang in the apple trees.
Now that I have your face by heart, I look.
Now that I have your voice by heart, I read
In the black chords upon a dulling page
Music that is not meant for music’s cage,
Whose emblems mix with words that shake and bleed.
The staves are shuttled over with a stark
Unprinted silence. In a double dream
I must spell out the storm, the running stream.
The beat’s too swift. The notes shift in the dark.
Now that I have your voice by heart, I read.
Now that I have your heart by heart, I see
The wharves with their great ships and architraves;
The rigging and the cargo and the slaves
On a strange beach under a broken sky.
O not departure, but a voyage done!
The bales stand on the stone; the anchor weeps
Its red rust downward, and the long vine creeps
Beside the salt herb, in the lengthening sun.
Now that I have your heart by heart, I see.
Related poetry:
- The Cat's Song Mine, says the cat, putting out his paw of darkness. My lover, my friend, my slave, my toy, says The cat making on your chest his gesture of drawing Milk from his mother’s forgotten breasts. Let us walk in the woods, says the cat. I’ll teach you to read the tabloid of scents, To fade […]...
- 16-bit Intel 8088 chip with an Apple Macintosh You can’t run Radio Shack programs In its disc drive. Nor can a Commodore 64 Drive read a file You have created on an IBM Personal Computer. Both Kaypro and Osborne computers use The CP/M operating system But can’t read each other’s Handwriting For they format (write On) discs in different […]...
- 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 […]...
- Ode To Salt This salt In the saltcellar I once saw in the salt mines. I know You won’t Believe me, But It sings, Salt sings, the skin Of the salt mines Sings With a mouth smothered By the earth. I shivered in those solitudes When I heard The voice of The salt In the desert. Near Antofagasta […]...
- The Oldest Song “These were never your true love’s eyes. Why do you feign that you love them? You that broke from their constancies, And the wide calm brows above them! This was never your true love’s speech. Why do you thrill when you hear it? You that have ridden out of its reach The width of the […]...
- The Song Of The Beggar I am always going from door to door, Whether in rain or heat, And sometimes I will lay my right ear in The palm of my right hand. And as I speak my voice seems strange as if It were alien to me, For I’m not certain whose voice is crying: Mine or someone else’s. […]...
- One Of Us Two The day will dawn when one of us shall hearken In vain to hear a voice that has grown dumb. And morns will fade, noons pale, and shadows darken, While sad eyes watch for feet that never come. One of us two must sometime face existence Alone with the memories that but sharpen pain. And […]...
- Autumn Song Like a joy on the heart of a sorrow, The sunset hangs on a cloud; A golden storm of glittering sheaves, Of fair and frail and fluttering leaves, The wild wind blows in a cloud. Hark to a voice that is calling To my heart in the voice of the wind: My heart is weary […]...
- Adelaide Crapsey AMONG the bumble-bees in red-top hay, a freckled field of brown-eyed Susans dripping yellow leaves in July, I read your heart in a book. And your mouth of blue pansy-I know somewhere I have seen it rain-shattered. And I have seen a woman with her head flung between her naked knees, and her head held […]...
- Song Unsung The song that I came to sing remains unsung to this day. I have spent my days in stringing and in unstringing my instrument. The time has not come true, the words have not been rightly set; Only there is the agony of wishing in my heart. The blossom has not opened; only the wind […]...
- A Birthday Song. To S. G For ever wave, for ever float and shine Before my yearning eyes, oh! dream of mine Wherein I dreamed that time was like a vine, A creeping rose, that clomb a height of dread Out of the sea of Birth, all filled with dead, Up to the brilliant cloud of Death o’erhead. This vine bore […]...
- Telegram I SAW a telegram handed a two hundred pound man at a desk. And the little scrap of paper charged the air like a set of crystals in a chemist’s tube to a whispering pinch of salt. Cross my heart, the two hundred pound man had just cracked a joke about a new hat he […]...
- Irish Love Song Well, if the thing is over, better it is for me, The lad was ever a rover, loving and laughing free, Far too clever a lover not to be having still A lass in the town and a lass by the road and a lass by the farther hill Love on the field and love […]...
- Sonnet 22 – When our two souls stand up erect and strong When our two souls stand up erect and strong, Face to face, silent, drawing nigh and nigher, Until the lengthening wings break into fire At either curved point,-what bitter wrong Can the earth do to us, that we should not long Be here contented? Think. In mounting higher, The angels would press on us and […]...
- The Song Of The Pacifist What do they matter, our headlong hates, when we take the toll of our Dead? Think ye our glory and gain will pay for the torrent of blood we have shed? By the cheers of our Victory will the heart of the mother be comforted? If by the Victory all we mean is a broken […]...
- Dream Song 53: He lay in the middle of the world, and twicht He lay in the middle of the world, and twicht. More Sparine for Pelides, Human (half) & down here as he is, With probably insulting mail to open And certainly unworthy words to hear And his unforgiving memory. €”I seldom go to films. They are too exciting, Said the Honourable Possum. €”It takes me so […]...
- My Song This song of mine will wind its music around you, my child, like The fond arms of love. This song of mine will touch your forehead like a kiss of Blessing. When you are alone it will sit by your side and whisper in Your ear, when you are in the crowd it will fence […]...
- A Song Persuade me not, there is a Grace Proceeds from Silvia’s Voice or Lute, Against Miranda’s charming Face To make her hold the least Dispute. Musick, which tunes the Soul for Love, And stirs up all our soft Desires, Do’s but the glowing Flame improve, Which pow’rful Beauty first inspires. Thus, whilst with Art she plays, […]...
- Rosemary Beauty and Beauty’s son and rosemary – Venus and Love, her son, to speak plainly – Born of the sea supposedly, At Christmas each, in company, Braids a garland of festivity. Not always rosemary – Since the flight to Egypt, blooming indifferently. With lancelike leaf, green but silver underneath, Its flowers – white originally – […]...
- A British-Roman Song (A. D. 406) “A Centurion of the Thirtieth” Puck of Pook’s Hill My father’s father saw it not, And I, belike, shall never come To look on that so-holly spot That very Rome Crowned by all Time, all Art, all Might, The equal work of Gods and Man, City beneath whose oldest height The Race […]...
- 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 […]...
- The Palace When I was a King and a Mason a Master proven and skilled I cleared me ground for a Palace such as a King should build. I decreed and dug down to my levels. Presently, under the silt, I came on the wreck of a Palace such as a King had built. There was no […]...
- A Home Song I read within a poet’s book A word that starred the page: “Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage!” Yes, that is true; and something more You’ll find, where’er you roam, That marble floors and gilded walls Can never make a home. But every house where Love abides, And Friendship […]...
- Song I: Though the World Be A-Waning Love is enough: though the World be a-waning And the woods have no voice but the voice of complaining, Though the sky be too dark for dim eyes to discover The gold-cups and daisies fair blooming thereunder, Though the hills be held shadows, and the sea a dark wonder, And this day draw a veil […]...
- Indian Love Song She LIKE a serpent to the calling voice of flutes, Glides my heart into thy fingers, O my Love! Where the night-wind, like a lover, leans above His jasmine-gardens and sirisha-bowers; And on ripe boughs of many-coloured fruits Bright parrots cluster like vermilion flowers. He Like the perfume in the petals of a rose, Hides […]...
- An Indian Love Song He Lift up the veils that darken the delicate moon Of thy glory and grace, Withhold not, O love, from the night Of my longing the joy of thy luminous face, Give me a spear of the scented keora Guarding thy pinioned curls, Or a silken thread from the fringes That trouble the dream of […]...
- Young Sea The sea is never still. It pounds on the shore Restless as a young heart, Hunting. The sea speaks And only the stormy hearts Know what it says: It is the face of a rough mother speaking. The sea is young. One storm cleans all the hoar And loosens the age of it. I hear […]...
- The Triple Fool I am two fools, I know – For loving, and for saying so In whining poetry; But where’s that wiseman that would not be I, If she would not deny? Then, as th’ earths inward narrow crooked lanes Do purge sea waters fretful salt away, I thought, if I could draw my pains Through rhymes […]...
- The Song Of The Strange Ascetic If I had been a Heathen, I’d have praised the purple vine, My slaves should dig the vineyards, And I would drink the wine. But Higgins is a Heathen, And his slaves grow lean and grey, That he may drink some tepid milk Exactly twice a day. If I had been a Heathen, I’d have […]...
- Especially For You This poem is a special gift especially For you, All I ask is that you read it often And every time you do I want you to see the person who Gave you this special gift… And I want their image to fill you With love and give your heart a lift. Then I want […]...
- Dream Song 83: Op. posth. no. 6 I recall a boil, whereupon as I had to sit, Just where, and when I had to, for deadlines. O I could learn to type standing, But isn’t it slim to be slumped off from that, Problems undignified, fiery dig salt mines? — Content on one’s black flat: Soming no deadline—is all ancient nonsense— No […]...
- Song of the Soul XXII In the depth of my soul there is A wordless song – a song that lives In the seed of my heart. It refuses to melt with ink on Parchment; it engulfs my affection In a transparent cloak and flows, But not upon my lips. How can I sigh it? I fear it may Mingle […]...
- Sestina I wandered o’er the vast green plains of youth, And searched for Pleasure. On a distant height Fame’s silhouette stood sharp against the skies. Beyond vast crowds that thronged a broad highway I caught the glimmer of a golden goal, While from a blooming bower smiled siren Love. Straight gazing in her eyes, I laughed […]...
- 117. Song-Farewell to Eliza FROM thee, Eliza, I must go, And from my native shore; The cruel fates between us throw A boundless ocean’s roar: But boundless oceans, roaring wide, Between my love and me, They never, never can divide My heart and soul from thee. Farewell, farewell, Eliza dear, The maid that I adore! A boding voice is […]...
- The Song Of The Blindman I am blind, you out there that is a curse, Against one’s will, a contradiction, A heavy daily burden. I lay my hand on the arm of my wife, My grey hand upon her greyer grey, As she guides me through empty spaces. You move about and stir, and imagine Your sounds differing from stone […]...
- Mule Song Silver will lie where she lies Sun-out, whatever turning the world does, Longeared in her ashen, earless, Floating world: Indifferent to sores and greengage colic, Where oats need not Come to, Bleached by crystals of her trembling time: Beyond all brunt of seasons, blind Forever to all blinds, Inhabited by Brooks still she may wraith […]...
- Dream Song 86: Op. posth. no. 9 The conclusion is growing. . . I feel sure, my lord, This august court will entertain the plea Not Guilty by reason of death. I can say no more except that for the record I add that all the crimes since all the times he Died will be due to the breath Of unknown others, […]...
- 199. Song-My Peggy's Charms MY Peggy’s face, my Peggy’s form, The frost of hermit Age might warm; My Peggy’s worth, my Peggy’s mind, Might charm the first of human kind. I love my Peggy’s angel air, Her face so truly heavenly fair, Her native grace, so void of art, But I adore my Peggy’s heart. The lily’s hue, the […]...
- The Red Blaze is the Morning The Red Blaze is the Morning The Violet is Noon The Yellow Day is falling And after that is none But Miles of Sparks at Evening Reveal the Width that burned The Territory Argent that Never yet consumed...
- A Girl Sang a Song A girl sang a song in the temple’s chorus, About men, tired in alien lands, About the ships that left native shores, And all who forgot their joy to the end. Thus sang her clean voice, and flew up to the highness, And sunbeams shined on her shoulder’s white And everyone saw and heard from […]...