The Rapture

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1. Whence Cometh Such Tender Rapture? Whence cometh such tender rapture? Those curls they are not the first ones I’ve smoothened, and I’ve already Known lips that were darker than yours. The stars have risen and faded, Whence cometh such tender rapture? And eyes have risen and faded In face of these eyes of mine I’d never yet hearkened unto Such […]...
2. The Rapture of the Year While skies glint bright with bluest light Through clouds that race o’er fields and town, And leaves go dancing left and right, And orchard apples tumble down; While school-girls sweet, in lane or street, Lean ‘gainst the wind and feel and hear Its glad heart like a lover’s beat, So reigns the rapture of the […]...
3. What Is Life? And what is Life? An hour-glass on the run, A mist retreating from the morning sun, A busy, bustling, still-repeated dream. Its length? A minute’s pause, a moment’s thought. And Happiness? A bubble on the stream, That in the act of seizing shrinks to nought. And what is Hope? The puffing gale of morn, That […]...
4. Mother, Summer, I My mother, who hates thunder storms, Holds up each summer day and shakes It out suspiciously, lest swarms Of grape-dark clouds are lurking there; But when the August weather breaks And rains begin, and brittle frost Sharpens the bird-abandoned air, Her worried summer look is lost, And I her son, though summer-born And summer-loving, none […]...
5. Hamlet Off-Stage: Neutrinos Explain Suck-Uppers Neutrinos do zip but swap back and forth Into each other, much like Rosypoop And Guildendoo do. For years it was thought Neutrinos hung out weightless as R&G. No longer. Scientists have discovered Neutrinos possess mass. Though invisible, Neutrinos weigh as much as all the stars. How could I have thought the R & G […]...
6. Rapture To Laura From earth I seem to wing my flight, And sun myself in Heaven’s pure light, When thy sweet gaze meets mine I dream I quaff ethereal dew, When my own form I mirrored view In those blue eyes divine! Blest notes from Paradise afar, Or strains from some benignant star Enchant my ravished ear: My […]...
7. Three Songs Of Shattering I The first rose on my rose-tree Budded, bloomed, and shattered, During sad days when to me Nothing mattered. Grief of grief has drained me clean; Still it seems a pity No one saw,-it must have been Very pretty. II Let the little birds sing; Let the little lambs play; Spring is here; and so […]...
8. The best days of my life What is it about Bryan Adams and his song ‘Summer of 69’? Why do the lyrics linger? Was it 90° in the shade and the harbinger of the end Of the golden weather, or the impending closure Of a glorious decade? He should have called it ‘The best days of my life’, it would have […]...
9. Refuted ‘Anticipation is sweeter than realisation.’ It may be, yet I have not found it so. In those first golden dreams of future fame I did not find such happiness as came When toil was crowned with triumph. Now I know My words have recognition, and will go Straight to some listening heart, my early aim, […]...
10. Picking Blueberries, Austerlitz, New York,1957 Once, in summer In the blueberries, I fell asleep, and woke When a deer stumbled against me. I guess She was so busy with her own happiness She had grown careless And was just wandering along Listening To the wind as she leaned down To lip up the sweetness. So, there we were With nothing […]...
11. Hummingbird Pauses at the Trumpet Vine Who doesn’t love Roses, and who Doesn’t love the lilies Of the black ponds Floating like flocks Of tiny swans, And of course, the flaming Trumpet vine Where the hummingbird comes Like a small green angel, to soak His dark tongue In happiness – And who doesn’t want To live with the brisk Motor of […]...
12. The Bag Of The Bee About the sweet bag of a bee Two cupids fell at odds, And whose the pretty prize should be They vowed to ask the gods. Which Venus hearing, thither came, And for their boldness stripped them, And, taking thence from each his flame, With rods of myrtle whipped them. Which done, to still their wanton […]...
13. Happiness for kelly Happiness is the stuff of birthdays And the coming of sweet things When they are not expected Happiness is when the moment Catches the sunlight and a giggle Comes out of darkness to take a look Happiness is when the body Rhymes with the heart and the whole Self flows like a mountain […]...
14. Sonnet 01 Sidney, in whom the heyday of romance Came to its precious and most perfect flower, Whether you tourneyed with victorious lance Or brought sweet roundelays to Stella’s bower, I give myself some credit for the way I have kept clean of what enslaves and lowers, Shunned the ideals of our present day And studied those […]...
15. Happiness Happiness, to some, elation; Is, to others, mere stagnation. Days of passive somnolence, At its wildest, indolence. Hours of empty quietness, No delight, and no distress. Happiness to me is wine, Effervescent, superfine. Full of tang and fiery pleasure, Far too hot to leave me leisure For a single thought beyond it. Drunk! Forgetful! This […]...
16. Dunce At school I never gained a prize, Proving myself the model ass; Yet how I watched the wistful eyes, And cheered my mates who topped the class. No envy in my heart I found, Yet bone was worthier to own Those precious books in vellum bound, Than I, a dreamer and a drone. No prize […]...
17. The End We decided to have the abortion, became Killers together. The period that came Changed nothing. They were dead, that young couple Who had been for life. As we talked of it in bed, the crash Was not a surprise. We went to the window, Looked at the crushed cars and the gleaming Curved shears of […]...
18. Welcome Cross ‘Tis my happiness below Not to live without the cross, But the Saviour’s power to know, Sanctifying every loss; Trials must and will befall; But with humble faith to see Love inscribed upon them all, This is happiness to me. God in Israel sows the seeds Of affliction, pain, and toil; These spring up and […]...
19. Before Before the gate has been closed, Before the last quetion is posed, Before I am transposed. Before the weeds fill the gardens, Before there are no pardons, Before the concrete hardens. Before all the flute-holes are covered, Beore things are locked in then cupboard, Before the rules are discovered. Before the conclusion is planned, Before […]...
20. The Search Happiness, a-roving round For a sweet abiding place, In a stately palace found Symmetry and gilded grace; Courtliness and table cheer, All that chimes with evening dress. . . “I could never stick it here,” Swift decided Happiness. Happiness a-seeking still, In a mansion of the town, Comfort-crammed to overspill, Sought in vain to settle […]...
21. Sonnet 38 – First time he kissed me, he but only kissed First time he kissed me, he but only kissed The fingers of this hand wherewith I write; And ever since, it grew more clean and white, Slow to world-greetings, quick with its ‘Oh, list,’ When the angels speak. A ring of amethyst I could not wear here, plainer to my sight, Than that first kiss. […]...
22. Weeds FROM the time of the early radishes To the time of the standing corn Sleepy Henry Hackerman hoes. There are laws in the village against weeds. The law says a weed is wrong and shall be killed. The weeds say life is a white and lovely thing And the weeds come on and on in […]...
23. Home They Brought Her Warrior Dead Home they brought her warrior dead: She nor swooned, nor uttered cry: All her maidens, watching, said, ‘She must weep or she will die.’ Then they praised him, soft and low, Called him worthy to be loved, Truest friend and noblest foe; Yet she neither spoke nor moved. Stole a maiden from her place, Lightly […]...
24. Maiden Name Marrying left yor maiden name disused. Its five light sounds no longer mean your face, Your voice, and all your variants of grace; For since you were so thankfully confused By law with someone else, you cannot be Semantically the same as that young beauty: It was of her that these two words were used. […]...
25. Poem in Prose This poem is for my wife. I have made it plainly and honestly: The mark is on it Like the burl on the knife. I have not made it for praise. She has no more need for praise Than summer has Or the bright days. In all that becomes a woman Her words and her […]...
26. Why Do Birds Sing? Let poets piece prismatic words, Give me the jewelled joy of birds! What ecstasy moves them to sing? Is it the lyric glee of Spring, The dewy rapture of the rose? Is it the worship born in those Who are of Nature’s self a part, The adoration of the heart? Is it the mating mood […]...
27. Have You Ever Tried to Enter the Long Black Branches Have you ever tried to enter the long black branches Of other lives – Tried to imagine what the crisp fringes, full of honey, Hanging From the branches of the young locust trees, in early morning, Feel like? Do you think this world was only an entertainment for you? Never to enter the sea and […]...
28. Hymn 33 Absurdity of infidelity. 1 Cor. 1:26-31. Shall atheists dare insult the cross Of our Redeemer, God? Shall infidels reproach his laws, Or trample on his blood? What if he choose mysterious ways To cleanse us from our faults? May not the works of sovereign grace Transcend our feeble thoughts? What if his gospel bids us […]...
29. 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 […]...
30. For A Poet I have wrapped my dreams in a silken cloth, And laid them away in a box of gold; Where long will cling the lips of the moth, I have wrapped my dreams in a silken cloth; I hide no hate; I am not even wroth Who found the earth’s breath so keen and cold; I […]...
31. A March Snow Let the old snow be covered with the new: The trampled snow, so soiled, and stained, and sodden. Let it be hidden wholly from our view By pure white flakes, all trackless and untrodden. When Winter dies, low at the sweet Spring’s feet Let him be mantled in a clean, white sheet. Let the old […]...
32. A Letter a penny for your thoughts my dear how are you Got things to tell got to stand naked before you Disintegration now depicts my inner me were you Here you might see no difference within but you I’m sure don’t have to be here to find out how yours Is different now simply because everything […]...
33. One Perfect Rose A single flow’r he sent me, since we met. All tenderly his messenger he chose; Deep-hearted, pure, with scented dew still wet – One perfect rose. I knew the language of the floweret; ‘My fragile leaves,’ it said, ‘his heart enclose.’ Love long has taken for his amulet One perfect rose. Why is it no […]...
34. 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 […]...
35. FOR EVER THE happiness that man, whilst prison’d here, Is wont with heavenly rapture to compare, The harmony of Truth, from wavering clear, Of Friendship that is free from doubting care, The light which in stray thoughts alone can cheer The wise, the bard alone in visions fair, In my best hours I found in her all […]...
36. There is a Zone whose even Years There is a Zone whose even Years No Solstice interrupt Whose Sun constructs perpetual Noon Whose perfect Seasons wait Whose Summer set in Summer, till The Centuries of June And Centuries of August cease And Consciousness is Noon....
37. The Vampire A fool there was and he mad his prayer (Even as you and I!) To a rag and a bone and a hank of hair (We called her the woman who did not care), But the fool he called her his lady fair (Even as you and I!) Oh the years we waste and the […]...
38. Where The Creek Used To Run In ash-fine silt that spread like sand After the flood and before the wild weeds Claimed the old stream bed; Before thistle phalanxes sprang From the dying mud to invest hollows Between abandoned river stones; in affluent heat Of an endless summer of immature dreams; In a valley redolent with green and khaki hills We […]...
39. Like Flowers, that heard the news of Dews Like Flowers, that heard the news of Dews, But never deemed the dripping prize Awaited their low Brows Or Bees that thought the Summer’s name Some rumor of Delirium, No Summer could for Them Or Arctic Creatures, dimly stirred By Tropic Hint some Travelled Bird Imported to the Wood Or Wind’s bright signal to the […]...
40. 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 […]...