For Lucy, Who Came First

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1. You, Andrew Marvell And here face down beneath the sun And here upon earth’s noonward height To feel the always coming on The always rising of the night To feel creep up the curving east The earthy chill of dusk and slow Upon those under lands the vast And ever climbing shadow grow And strange at Ecbatan the […]...
2. PUBLISHERS And then they pretend like owls With marble eyes and wizened stupidity I do not know why they cannot perceive True art But I will write Until sand evaporates And the moon consumes the sun I will write Even for the sake of art For myself and for those who feel Reading could lift them […]...
3. Lucy Ashton's Song Look not thou on beauty’s charming; Sit thou still when kings are arming; Taste not when the wine-cup glistens; Speak not when the people listens; Stop thine ear against the singer; From the red gold keep thy finger; Vacant heart and hand and eye, Easy live and quiet die....
4. Exiled Searching my heart for its true sorrow, This is the thing I find to be: That I am weary of words and people, Sick of the city, wanting the sea; Wanting the sticky, salty sweetness Of the strong wind and shattered spray; Wanting the loud sound and the soft sound Of the big surf that […]...
5. To Lucy, Countess of Bedford, with John Donne's Satires Lucy, you brightness of our sphere, who are Life of the Muses’ day, their morning star! If works, not th’ author’s, their own grace should look, Whose poems would not wish to be your book? But these, desir’d by you, the maker’s ends Crown with their own. Rare poems ask rare friends. Yet satires, since […]...
6. 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 […]...
7. A Song before Sailing Wind of the dead men’s feet, Blow down the empty street Of this old city by the sea With news for me! Blow me beyond the grime And pestilence of time! I am too sick at heart to war With failure any more. Thy chill is in my bones; The moonlight on the stones Is […]...
8. Hypochondriac Maybe it’s Emphysema, a shiny black jewel of phlegm Humming like a clump of bees in my chest. Perhaps a tumor crawling in the crook of my armpit, A blood clot opening like a tiny red flower in my brain. Maybe it’s too early to show up on an X-ray, A kind of cancerous seed […]...
9. Black On Black Serrations of chimneys Stone-black perforate Velvet-black dark. A tree coils in core of darkness. My swinging Hands Incise the night. A man slips into a doorway, Black hole in blackness, and drowns there. A second man passing traces The diagram of his steps On invisible pavement. Rain Draws black parallel threads Through the hollow of […]...
10. Earliest Spring TOSSING his mane of snows in wildest eddies and tangles, Lion-like March cometh in, hoarse, with tempestuous breath, Through all the moaning chimneys, and ‘thwart all the hollows and angles Round the shuddering house, threating of winter and death. But in my heart I feel the life of the wood and the meadow Thrilling the […]...
11. Rapids at Night Here at the roots of the mountains, Between the sombre legions of cedars and tamaracks, The rapids charge the ravine: A little light, cast by foam under starlight, Wavers about the shimmering stems of the birches: Here rise up the clangorous sounds of battle, Immense and mournful. Far above curves the great dome of darkness […]...
12. Eldorado Gaily bedight, A gallant knight, In sunshine and in shadow, Had journeyed long, Singing a song, In search of Eldorado. But he grew old This knight so bold And o’er his heart a shadow Fell as he found No spot of ground That looked like Eldorado. And, as his strength Failed him at length, He […]...
13. Turns And Movies: Zudora Here on the pale beach, in the darkness; With the full moon just to rise; They sit alone, and look over the sea, Or into each other’s eyes. . . She pokes her parasol into the sleepy sand, Or sifts the lazy whiteness through her hand. ‘A lovely night,’ he says, ‘the moon, Comes up […]...
14. THE SLAVE'S DREAM Beside the ungathered rice he lay, His sickle in his hand; His breast was bare, his matted hair Was buried in the sand. Again, in the mist and shadow of sleep, He saw his Native Land. Wide through the landscape of his dreams The lordly Niger flowed; Beneath the palm-trees on the plain Once more […]...
15. The Prisoner I lash and writhe against my prison bars, And watch with sullen eyes the gaping crowd. . Give me my freedom and the burning stars, The hollow sky, and crags of moonlit cloud! Once I might range across the trackless plain, And roar with joy, until the desert air And wide horizons echoed it amain: […]...
16. Infelice Walking swiftly with a dreadful duchess, He smiled too briefly, his face was pale as sand, He jumped into a taxi when he saw me coming, Leaving my alone with a private meaning, He loves me so much, my heart is singing. Later at the Club when I rang him in the evening They said: […]...
17. Growing Old What is it to grow old? Is it to lose the glory of the form, The lustre of the eye? Is it for beauty to forego her wreath? Yes, but not for this alone. Is it to feel our strength – Not our bloom only, but our strength-decay? Is it to feel each limb Grow […]...
18. 437. Song-Thine am I, my faithful Fair THINE am I, my faithful Fair, Thine, my lovely Nancy; Ev’ry pulse along my veins, Ev’ry roving fancy. To thy bosom lay my heart, There to throb and languish; Tho’ despair had wrung its core, That would heal its anguish. Take away those rosy lips, Rich with balmy treasure; Turn away thine eyes of love, […]...
19. Amidst the Flowers a Jug of Wine Amidst the flowers a jug of wine, I pour alone lacking companionship. So raising the cup I invite the Moon, Then turn to my shadow which makes three of us. Because the Moon does not know how to drink, My shadow merely follows the movement of my body. The moon has brought the shadow to […]...
20. A Solemn thing within the Soul A Solemn thing within the Soul To feel itself get ripe And golden hang while farther up The Maker’s Ladders stop And in the Orchard far below You hear a Being drop A Wonderful to feel the Sun Still toiling at the Cheek You thought was finished Cool of eye, and critical of Work He […]...
21. Refrain The air is dark, the night is sad, I lie sleepless and I groan. Nobody cares when a man goes mad: He is sorry, God is glad. Shadow changes into bone. Every shadow has a name; When I think of mine I moan, I hear rumors of such fame. Not for pride, but only shame, […]...
22. After the Engagement Well, Mabel, ’tis over and ended – The ball I wrote was to be; And oh! it was perfectly splendid – If you could have been here to see. I’ve a thousand things to write you That I know you are wanting to hear, And one, that is sure to delight you – I am […]...
23. Sonnet XIII: Letters and Lines To the Shadow Letters and lines we see are soon defac’d, Metals do waste and fret with canker’s rust, The diamond shall once consume to dust, And freshest colors with foul stains disgrac’d; Paper and ink can paint but naked words, To write with blood of force offends the sight; And if with tears I […]...
24. Glory and Shadow SHADOWWHO art thou, O Glory, In flame from the deep Where stars chant their story; Why trouble my sleep? I hardly had rested; My dreams wither now. Why comest thou crested And gemmed on thy brow? GLORYUp, Shadow, and follow The way I will show: The blue gleaming hollow To-night we shall know: And rise […]...
25. Your tiger (in china it is symbolic Of darkness and the new moon) In your night’s hollow The tiger stalks Black grasses have licked It into nothingness Hooked by moon I hover on your hollow’s lip I feel the smell of fire The leap of a bright cat-fur My eye is dumb Asking to be devoured I […]...
26. Near But Far Away She wavered, stopped and turned, methought her eyes, The deep grey windows of her heart, were wet, Methought they softened with a new regret To note in mine unspoken miseries, And as a prayer from out my heart did rise And struggled on my lips in shame’s strong net, She stayed me, and cried “Brother!” […]...
27. In the Beck There is a fish, that quivers in the pool, Itself a shadow, but its shadow, clear. Catch it again and again, it still is there. Against the flowing stream, its life keeps pace With death – the impulse and the flash of grace Hiding in its stillness, moves to be motionless. No net will hold […]...
28. Huge Vapours Brood Above the Clifted Shore Huge vapours brood above the clifted shore, Night o’er the ocean settles, dark and mute, Save where is heard the repercussive roar Of drowsy billows, on the rugged foot Of rocks remote; or still more distant tone Of seamen, in the anchored bark, that tell The watch relieved; or one deep voice alone, Singing the […]...
29. Written near a Port on a Dark Evening Huge vapours brood above the clifted shore, Night on the ocean settles dark and mute, Save where is heard the repercussive roar Of drowsy billows on the rugged foot Of rocks remote; or still more distant tone Of seamen in the anchored bark that tell The watch relieved; or one deep voice alone Singing the […]...
30. John Horace Burleson I won the prize essay at school Here in the village, And published a novel before I was twenty-five. I went to the city for themes and to enrich my art; There married the banker’s daughter, And later became president of the bank- Always looking forward to some leisure To write an epic novel of […]...
31. How To Kill Under the parabola of a ball, A child turning into a man, I looked into the air too long. The ball fell in my hand, it sang In the closed fist: Open Open Behold a gift designed to kill. Now in my dial of glass appears The soldier who is going to die. He smiles, […]...
32. Song (From the diaries of Malte Laurids Brigge) You, whom I do not tell that all night long I lie weeping, Whose very being makes me feel wanting Like a cradle. You, who do not tell me, that you lie awake Thinking of me: What, if we carried all these longings within us Without ever being […]...
33. Incantation A white well In a black cave; A bright shell In a dark wave. A white rose Black brambles hood; Smooth bright snows In a dark wood. A flung white glove In a dark fight; A white dove On a wild black night. A white door In a dark lane; A bright core To bitter […]...
34. By the Spring, at Sunset Sometimes we remember kisses, Remember the dear heart-leap when they came: Not always, but sometimes we remember The kindness, the dumbness, the good flame Of laughter and farewell. Beside the road Afar from those who said “Good-by” I write, Far from my city task, my lawful load. Sun in my face, wind beside my shoulder, […]...
35. Day That I Have Loved Tenderly, day that I have loved, I close your eyes, And smooth your quiet brow, and fold your thin dead hands. The grey veils of the half-light deepen; colour dies. I bear you, a light burden, to the shrouded sands, Where lies your waiting boat, by wreaths of the sea’s making Mist-garlanded, with all grey […]...
36. Still I Rise You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I’ll rise. Does my sassiness upset you? Why are you beset with gloom? ‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells Pumping in my living room. Just like moons and like […]...
37. Dream Land Where sunless rivers weep Their waves into the deep, She sleeps a charmed sleep: Awake her not. Led by a single star, She came from very far To seek where shadows are Her pleasant lot. She left the rosy morn, She left the fields of corn, For twilight cold and lorn And water springs. Through […]...
38. THE SADNESS OF THE MOON THE Moon more indolently dreams to-night Than a fair woman on her couch at rest, Caressing, with a hand distraught and light, Before she sleeps, the contour of her breast. Upon her silken avalanche of down, Dying she breathes a long and swooning sigh; And watches the white visions past her flown, Which rise like […]...
39. Love in a Look Let me but feel thy look’s embrace, Transparent, pure, and warm, And I’ll not ask to touch thy face, Or fold thee with mine arm. For in thine eyes a girl doth rise, Arrayed in candid bliss, And draws me to her with a charm More close than any kiss. A loving-cup of golden wine, […]...
40. Perfidy Hollow rang the house when I knocked on the door, And I lingered on the threshold with my hand Upraised to knock and knock once more: Listening for the sound of her feet across the floor, Hollow re-echoed my heart. The low-hung lamps stretched down the road With shadows drifting underneath, With a music of […]...