The Alchemist

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1. The Alchemist in the City My window shews the travelling clouds, Leaves spent, new seasons, alter’d sky, The making and the melting crowds: The whole world passes; I stand by. They do not waste their meted hours, But men and masters plan and build: I see the crowning of their towers, And happy promises fulfill’d. And I – perhaps if […]...
2. The Alchemist's Petition Thou wilt not sentence to eternal life My soul that prays that it may sleep and sleep Like a white statue dropped into the deep, Covered with sand, covered with chests of gold, And slave-bones, tossed from many a pirate hold. But for this prayer thou wilt not bind in Hell My soul, that shook […]...
3. Winter Night It snowed and snowed, the whole world over, Snow swept the world from end to end. A candle burned on the table; A candle burned. As during summer midges swarm To beat their wings against a flame Out in the yard the snowflakes swarmed To beat against the window pane The blizzard sculptured on the […]...
4. Style Flaubert wanted to write a novel About nothing. It was to have no subject And be sustained upon the style alone, Like the Holy Ghost cruising above The abyss, or like the little animals In Disney cartoons who stand upon a branch That breaks, but do not fall Till they look down. He never wrote […]...
5. The Dead Man Walking They hail me as one living, But don’t they know That I have died of late years, Untombed although? I am but a shape that stands here, A pulseless mould, A pale past picture, screening Ashes gone cold. Not at a minute’s warning, Not in a loud hour, For me ceased Time’s enchantments In hall […]...
6. Losses It was not dying: everybody died. It was not dying: we had died before In the routine crashes and our fields Called up the papers, wrote home to our folks, And the rates rose, all because of us. We died on the wrong page of the almanac, Scattered on mountains fifty miles away; Diving on […]...
7. Beaumont and Fletcher An hour ere sudden sunset fired the west, Arose two stars upon the pale deep east. The hall of heaven was clear for night’s high feast, Yet was not yet day’s fiery heart at rest. Love leapt up from his mother’s burning breast To see those warm twin lights, as day decreased, Wax wider, till […]...
8. Sonnet 04: Not In This Chamber Only At My Birth Not in this chamber only at my birth- When the long hours of that mysterious night Were over, and the morning was in sight- I cried, but in strange places, steppe and firth I have not seen, through alien grief and mirth; And never shall one room contain me quite Who in so many rooms […]...
9. Amor Vincit Omnia Love is no more. It died as the mind dies: the pure desire Relinquishing the blissful form it wore, The ample joy and clarity expire. Regret is vain. Then do not grieve for what you would efface, The sudden failure of the past, the pain Of its unwilling change, and the disgrace. Leave innocence, And […]...
10. A Dream I dreamed that I ws dead and crossed the heavens, Heavens after heavens with burning feet and swift, And cried: “O God, where art Thou?” I left one On earth, whose burden I would pray Thee lift.” I was so dead I wondered at no thing, Not even that the angels slowly turned Their faces, […]...
11. Sonnet XVI: Mongst All the Creatures An Allusion to the Phoenix ‘Mongst all the creatures in this spacious round Of the birds’ kind, the Phoenix is alone, Which best by you of living things is known; None like to that, none like to you is found. Your beauty is the hot and splend’rous sun, The precious spices be your chaste desire, […]...
12. After Reading "Antony And Cleopatra&quot AS when the hunt by holt and field Drives on with horn and strife, Hunger of hopeless things pursues Our spirits throughout life. The sea’s roar fills us aching full Of objectless desire – The sea’s roar, and the white moon-shine, And the reddening of the fire. Who talks to me of reason now? It […]...
13. The Mortal One Three months after he lies dead, that Long yellow narrow body, Not like Christ but like one of his saints, The naked ones in the paintings whose bodies are Done in gilt, all knees and raw ribs, The ones who died of nettles, bile, the One who died roasted over a slow fire- Three months […]...
14. The Song of the Pilgrims (Halted around the fire by night, after moon-set, they sing this beneath the trees.) What light of unremembered skies Hast thou relumed within our eyes, Thou whom we seek, whom we shall find? . . . A certain odour on the wind, Thy hidden face beyond the west, These things have called us; on a […]...
15. A Western Ballad When I died, love, when I died My heart was broken in your care; I never suffered love so fair As now I suffer and abide When I died, love, when I died. When I died, love, when I died I wearied in an endless maze That men have walked for centuries, As endless as […]...
16. Hast Never Come to Thee an Hour HAST never come to thee an hour, A sudden gleam divine, precipitating, bursting all these bubbles, fashions, wealth? These eager business aims-books, politics, art, amours, To utter nothingness?...
17. On Chloris Standing By The Fire Faire Chloris, standing by the Fire, An amorous coale with hot desire Leapt on her breast, but could not melt The chaste snow there which when it felt For shame it blusht; and then it died There where resistance did abide, And lest she should take it unkind Repentant ashes left behind....
18. To Fr. Armando Everyone, after all, was killed: He who was crucified, He who died without skin, He who died without a head, He who was drowned, He who was thrown down From the wall of the Temple, Which shortly after that Ceased to exist. Everyone, after all, was tormented; He who was put at the mercy Of […]...
19. Crow's Fall When Crow was white he decided the sun was too white. He decided it glared much too whitely. He decided to attack it and defeat it. He got his strength up flush and in full glitter. He clawed and fluffed his rage up. He aimed his beak direct at the sun’s centre. He laughed himself […]...
20. Dream Song 64: Supreme my holdings, greater yet my need Supreme my holdings, greater yet my need, Thoughtless I go out. Dawn. Have I my cig’s, My flaskie O, O crystal cock, —my kneel has gone to seed, — And anybody’s blessing? (Blast the MIGs For making funble so My tardy readying.) Yes, utter’ that. Anybody’s blessing? —Mr Bones, You makes too much I might […]...
21. The Hill Where are Elmer, Herman, Bert, Tom, and Charley, The weak of will, the strong of arm, the clown, the boozer, the fighter? All, all, are sleeping on the hill. One passed in a fever, One was burned in a mine, One was killed in a brawl, One died in jail, One fell from a bridge […]...
22. A Ballad of Burdens The burden of fair women. Vain delight, And love self-slain in some sweet shameful way, And sorrowful old age that comes by night As a thief comes that has no heart by day, And change that finds fair cheeks and leaves them grey, And weariness that keeps awake for hire, And grief that says what […]...
23. Echoes THE MIGHT that shaped itself through storm and stress In chaos, here is lulled in breathing sweet; Under the long brown ridge in gentleness Its fierce old pulses beat. Quiet and sad we go at eve; the fire That woke exultant in an earlier day Is dead; the memories of old desire Only in shadows […]...
24. The Yukoner He burned a hole in frozen muck, He pierced the icy mould, And there in six-foot dirt he struck A sack or so of gold. He burned holes in the Decalogue, And then it cam about, For Fortune’s just a lousy rogue, His “pocket” petered out. And lo! ’twas but a year all told, When […]...
25. Sonnet XXX: Those Priests To the Vestals Those priests which first the Vestal fire begun, Which might be borrow’d from no earthly flame, Devis’d a vessel to receive the Sun, Being steadfastly opposed to the same; Where, with sweet wood, laid curiously by art, On which the Sun might by reflection beat, Receiving strength from every secret part, The […]...
26. Song VI: Cherish Life that Abideth Love is enough: cherish life that abideth, Lest ye die ere ye know him, and curse and misname him; For who knows in what ruin of all hope he hideth, On what wings of the terror of darkness he rideth? And what is the joy of man’s life that ye blame him For his bliss […]...
27. Yeats Died Saturday In France Yeats died Saturday in France. Freedom from his animal Has come at last in alien Nice, His heart beat separate from his will: He knows at last the old abyss Which always faced his staring face. No ability, no dignity Can fail him now who trained so long For the outrage of eternity, Teaching his […]...
28. WHEN THE FOX DIES, HIS SKIN COUNTS.* (* The name of a game, known in English as “Jack’s Alight.”) WE young people in the shade Sat one sultry day; Cupid came, and “Dies the Fox” With us sought to play. Each one of my friends then sat By his mistress dear; Cupid, blowing out the torch, Said: “The taper’s here!” Then we […]...
29. Scots of the Riverina The boy cleared out to the city from his home at harvest time They were Scots of the Riverina, and to run from home was a crime. The old man burned his letters, the first and last he burned, And he scratched his name from the Bible when the old wife’s back was turned. A […]...
30. Dead Musicians I From you, Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, The substance of my dreams took fire. You built cathedrals in my heart, And lit my pinnacled desire. You were the ardour and the bright Procession of my thoughts toward prayer. You were the wrath of storm, the light On distant citadels aflare. II Great names, I cannot find […]...
31. Sonnet XL: My Heart the Anvil My heart the anvil where my thoughts do beat; My words the hammers fashioning my desire; My breast the forge including all the heat; Love is the fuel which maintains the fire; My sighs the bellows which the flame increaseth, Filling mine ears with noise and nightly groaning; Toiling with pain, my labor never ceaseth, […]...
32. Sonnet LVI: When Like an Eaglet When like an eaglet I first found my Love, For that the virtue I thereof would know, Upon the nest I set it forth to prove If it were of that kingly kind or no; But it no sooner say my Sun appear, But on her rays with open eyes it stood, To show that […]...
33. 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; […]...
34. What Were They Like? Did the people of Viet Nam Use lanterns of stone? Did they hold ceremonies To reverence the opening of buds? Were they inclined to quiet laughter? Did they use bone and ivory, Jade and silver, for ornament? Had they an epic poem? Did they distinguish between speech and singing? Sir, their light hearts turned to […]...
35. No Coward Soul Is Mine No coward soul is mine, No trembler in the world’s storm-troubled sphere: I see Heaven’s glories shine, And faith shines equal, arming me from fear. O God within my breast, Almighty, ever-present Deity! Life-that in me has rest, As I-undying Life-have power in Thee! Vain are the thousand creeds That move men’s hearts: unutterably vain; […]...
36. 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 […]...
37. De M. Antonio NOW Antoninus, in a smiling age, Counts of his life the fifteenth finished stage. The rounded days and the safe years he sees, Nor fears death’s water mounting round his knees. To him remembering not one day is sad, Not one but that its memory makes him glad. So good men lengthen life; and to […]...
38. Some Like Poetry Write it. Write. In ordinary ink On ordinary paper: they were given no food, They all died of hunger. “All. How many? It’s a big meadow. How much grass For each one?” Write: I don’t know. History counts its skeletons in round numbers. A thousand and one remains a thousand, As though the one had […]...
39. The Joy of Earth OH, the sudden wings arising from the ploughed fields brown Showered aloft in spray of song the wild-bird twitter floats O’er the unseen fount awhile, and then comes dropping down Nigh the cool brown earth to hush enraptured notes. Far within a dome of trembling opal throbs the fire, Mistily its rain of diamond lances […]...
40. My Delight and Thy Delight My delight and thy delight Walking, like two angels white, In the gardens of the night: My desire and thy desire Twining to a tongue of fire, Leaping live, and laughing higher: Thro’ the everlasting strife In the mystery of life. Love, from whom the world begun, Hath the secret of the sun. Love can […]...