The Past is the Present

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1. Past and Present I remember, I remember The house where I was born, The little window where the sun Came peeping in at morn; He never came a wink too soon Nor bought too long a day; But now, I often wish the night Had borne my breath away. I remember, I remember The roses, red and white, […]...
2. In Me, Past, Present, Future meet In me, past, present, future meet To hold long chiding conference. My lusts usurp the present tense And strangle Reason in his seat. My loves leap through the future’s fence To dance with dream-enfranchised feet. In me the cave-man clasps the seer, And garlanded Apollo goes Chanting to Abraham’s deaf ear. In me the tiger […]...
3. The Ghost Of The Past We two kept house, the Past and I, The Past and I; I tended while it hovered nigh, Leaving me never alone. It was a spectral housekeeping Where fell no jarring tone, As strange, as still a housekeeping As ever has been known. As daily I went up the stair, And down the stair, I […]...
4. Holy Sonnet XIII: What If This Present Were The World's Last Night? What if this present were the world’s last night? Mark in my heart, O soul, where thou dost dwell, The picture of Christ crucified, and tell Whether that countenance can thee affright, Tears in his eyes quench the amazing light, Blood fills his frowns, which from his pierced head fell. And can that tongue adjudge […]...
5. The Present The day comes slowly in the railyard Behind the ice factory. It broods on One cinder after another until each Glows like lead or the eye of a dog Possessed of no inner fire, the brown And greasy pointer who raises his muzzle A moment and sighing lets it thud Down on the loading dock. […]...
6. THE PRESENT; OR, THE BAG OF THE BEE Fly to my mistress, pretty pilfering bee, And say thou bring’st this honey-bag from me; When on her lip thou hast thy sweet dew placed, Mark if her tongue but slyly steal a taste; If so, we live; if not, with mournful hum, Toll forth my death; next, to my burial come....
7. How much the present moment means How much the present moment means To those who’ve nothing more The Fop the Carp the Atheist Stake an entire store Upon a Moment’s shallow Rim While their commuted Feet The Torrents of Eternity Do all but inundate...
8. The Soul's Superior instants The Soul’s Superior instants Occur to Her alone When friend and Earth’s occasion Have infinite withdrawn Or She Herself ascended To too remote a Height For lower Recognition Than Her Omnipotent This Mortal Abolition Is seldom but as fair As Apparition subject To Autocratic Air Eternity’s disclosure To favorites a few Of the Colossal substance […]...
9. All That's Past Very old are the woods; And the buds that break Out of the brier’s boughs, When March winds wake, So old with their beauty are Oh, no man knows Through what wild centuries Roves back the rose. Very old are the brooks; And the rills that rise Where snow sleeps cold beneath The azure skies […]...
10. Past Days ‘Tis strange to think, there was a time When mirth was not an empty name, When laughter really cheered the heart, And frequent smiles unbidden came, And tears of grief would only flow In sympathy for others’ woe; When speech expressed the inward thought, And heart to kindred heart was bare, And Summer days were […]...
11. Past One O'Clock Past one o’clock. You must have gone to bed. The Milky Way streams silver through the night. I’m in no hurry; with lightning telegrams I have no cause to wake or trouble you. And, as they say, the incident is closed. Love’s boat has smashed against the daily grind. Now you and I are quits. […]...
12. Past Days I. Dead and gone, the days we had together, Shadow-stricken all the lights that shone Round them, flown as flies the blown foam’s feather, Dead and gone. Where we went, we twain, in time foregone, Forth by land and sea, and cared not whether, If I go again, I go alone. Bound am I with […]...
13. Past And Future MY future will not copy fair my past On any leaf but Heaven’s. Be fully done Supernal Will! I would not fain be one Who, satisfying thirst and breaking fast, Upon the fulness of the heart at last Says no grace after meat. My wine has run Indeed out of my cup, and there is […]...
14. Past and Future The new hath come and now the old retires: And so the past becomes a mountain-cell, Where lone, apart, old hermit-memories dwell In consecrated calm, forgotten yet Of the keen heart that hastens to forget Old longings in fulfilling new desires. And now the Soul stands in a vague, intense Expectancy and anguish of suspense, […]...
15. Woman with a Past THERE was a woman tore off a red velvet gown And slashed the white skin of her right shoulder And a crimson zigzag wrote a finger nail hurry. There was a woman spoke six short words And quit a life that was old to her For a life that was new. There was a woman […]...
16. All My Past Life All my past life is mine no more, The flying hours are gone, Like transitory dreams given o’er, Whose images are kept in store By memory alone. What ever is to come is not, How can it then be mine? The present moment’s all my lot, And that as fast as it is got, Phyllis, […]...
17. An Image From A Past Life He. Never until this night have I been stirred. The elaborate starlight throws a reflection On the dark stream, Till all the eddies gleam; And thereupon there comes that scream From terrified, invisible beast or bird: Image of poignant recollection. She. An image of my heart that is smitten through Out of all likelihood, or […]...
18. Time Long Past Like the ghost of a dear friend dead Is Time long past. A tone which is now forever fled, A hope which is now forever past, A love so sweet it could not last, Was Time long past. There were sweet dreams in the night Of Time long past: And, was it sadness or delight, […]...
19. The Past is such a curious Creature The Past is such a curious Creature To look her in the Face A Transport may receipt us Or a Disgrace Unarmed if any meet her I charge him fly Her faded Ammunition Might yet reply....
20. She could not live upon the Past She could not live upon the Past The Present did not know her And so she sought this sweet at last And nature gently owned her The mother that has not a knell For either Duke or Robin...
21. Past Carin&#039 Now up and down the siding brown The great black crows are flyin’, And down below the spur, I know, Another ‘milker’s’ dyin’; The crops have withered from the ground, The tank’s clay bed is glarin’, But from my heart no tear nor sound, For I have gone past carin’ Past worryin’ or carin’, Past […]...
22. 220. Song-The Winter it is Past THE WINTER it is past, and the summer comes at last And the small birds, they sing on ev’ry tree; Now ev’ry thing is glad, while I am very sad, Since my true love is parted from me. The rose upon the breer, by the waters running clear, May have charms for the linnet or […]...
23. At Half past Three, a single Bird At Half past Three, a single Bird Unto a silent Sky Propounded but a single term Of cautious melody. At Half past Four, Experiment Had subjugated test And lo, Her silver Principle Supplanted all the rest. At Half past Seven, Element Nor Implement, be seen And Place was where the Presence was Circumference between....
24. A Song: When June is Past, the Fading Rose Ask me no more where Jove bestows, When June is past, the fading rose; For in your beauty’s orient deep These flowers as in their causes, sleep. Ask me no more whither doth stray The golden atoms of the day; For in pure love heaven did prepare Those powders to enrich your hair. Ask me […]...
25. Sonnet 42 – 'My future will not copy fair my past&#039 ‘My future will not copy fair my past’- I wrote that once; and thinking at my side My ministering life-angel justified The word by his appealing look upcast To the white throne of God, I turned at last, And there, instead, saw thee, not unallied To angels in thy soul! Then I, long tried By […]...
26. I never hear that one is dead I never hear that one is dead Without the chance of Life Afresh annihilating me That mightiest Belief, Too mighty for the Daily mind That tilling its abyss, Had Madness, had it once or twice The yawning Consciousness, Beliefs are Bandaged, like the Tongue When Terror were it told In any Tone commensurate Would strike […]...
27. No Worst, There Is None. Pitched Past Pitch Of Grief No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief, More pangs will, schooled at forepangs, wilder wring. Comforter, where, where is your comforting? Mary, mother of us, where is your relief? My cries heave, herds-long; huddle in a main, a chief Woe, world-sorrow; on an age-old anvil wince and sing- Then lull, then leave […]...
28. TO HIS SAVIOUR, A CHILD;A PRESENT, BY A CHILD Go, pretty child, and bear this flower Unto thy little Saviour; And tell him, by that bud now blown, He is the Rose of Sharon known. When thou hast said so, stick it there Upon his bib or stomacher; And tell him, for good handsel too, That thou hast brought a whistle new, Made of […]...
29. Dream Song 119: Fresh-shaven, past months & a picture in New York Fresh-shaven, past months & a picture in New York Of Beard Two, I did have Three took off. Well. . Shadow & act, shadow & act, Better get white or you’ get whacked, Or keep so-called black & raise new hell. I’ve had enough of this dying. You’ve done me a dozen goodnesses; get well. […]...
30. Thought Thought, I love thought. But not the juggling and twisting of already existent ideas I despise that self-important game. Thought is the welling up of unknown life into consciousness, Thought is the testing of statements on the touchstone of consciousness, Thought is gazing onto the face of life, and reading what can be read, Thought […]...
31. Poem (Faithful to your commands, o consciousness) Poem Faithful to your commands, o consciousness, o Beating wings, I studied The roses and the muses of reality, The deceptions and the deceptive elation of the redness of the growing morning, And all the greened and thomed variety of the vines of error, which begin by promising Everything and more than everything, and then […]...
32. 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 […]...
33. 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 […]...
34. The Problem Shall we conceal the Case, or tell it – We who believe the evidence? Here and there the watch-towers knell it With a sullen significance, Heard of the few who hearken intently and carry an eagerly upstrained Sense. Hearts that are happiest hold not by it; Better we let, then, the old view reign; Since […]...
35. Sonnet 85: My tongue-tied Muse in manners holds her still My tongue-tied Muse in manners holds her still, While comments of your praise, richly compiled, Reserve their character with golden quill, And precious phrase by all the Muses filed. I think good thoughts, whilst other write good words, And like unlettered clerk still cry “Amen” To every hymn that able spirit affords In polished form […]...
36. Sonnet LXXXV My tongue-tied Muse in manners holds her still, While comments of your praise, richly compiled, Reserve their character with golden quill And precious phrase by all the Muses filed. I think good thoughts whilst other write good words, And like unletter’d clerk still cry ‘Amen’ To every hymn that able spirit affords In polish’d form […]...
37. 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...
38. How a Little Girl Sang Ah, she was music in herself, A symphony of joyousness. She sang, she sang from finger tips, From every tremble of her dress. I saw sweet haunting harmony, An ecstasy, an ecstasy, In that strange curling of her lips, That happy curling of her lips. And quivering with melody Those eyes I saw, that tossing […]...
39. At leisure is the Soul At leisure is the Soul That gets a Staggering Blow The Width of Life before it spreads Without a thing to do It begs you give it Work But just the placing Pins Or humblest Patchwork Children do To Help its Vacant Hands...
40. The Comet at Valbury or Yell'ham I It bends far over Yell’ham Plain, And we, from Yell’ham Height, Stand and regard its fiery train, So soon to swim from sight. II It will return long years hence, when As now its strange swift shine Will fall on Yell’ham; but not then On that sweet form of thine....