Bacchanalia

Related poetry:

1. A Memory of June When June comes dancing o’er the death of May, With scarlet roses tinting her green breast, And mating thrushes ushering in her day, And Earth on tiptoe for her golden guest, I always see the evening when we met The first of June baptized in tender rain And walked home through the wide streets, gleaming […]...
2. Kill your Balm and its Odors bless you Kill your Balm and its Odors bless you Bare your Jessamine to the storm And she will fling her maddest perfume Haply your Summer night to Charm Stab the Bird that built in your bosom Oh, could you catch her last Refrain Bubble! “forgive” “Some better” Bubble! “Carol for Him when I am gone”!...
3. William Street The red globe of light, the liquor green, The pulsing arrows and the running fire Spilt on the stones, go deeper than a stream; You find this ugly, I find it lovely Ghosts’ trousers, like the dangle of hung men, In pawn-shop windows, bumping knee by knee, But none inside to suffer or condemn; You […]...
4. WHAT I DID IN THE MOONLIGHT I planted my grief In freshly turned earth A tree grows there now You should see the size of it I filled my wheel-barrow With all my pointless regrets I put them out by the curb A truck will pick them up on Thursday I spent some time following my cat She led me all […]...
5. Remembered Women FOR a woman’s face remembered as a spot of quick light on the flat land of dark night, For this memory of one mouth and a forehead they go on in the gray rain and the mud, they go on among the boots and guns. The horizon ahead is a thousand fang flashes, it is […]...
6. Bathed and Washed “Bathed in fragrance, Do not brush your hat; Washed in perfume, Do not shake your coat: “Knowing the world Fears what is too pure, The wisest man Prizes and stores light!” By Bluewater An old angler sat: You and I together, Let us go home....
7. On The Farm There was Dai Puw. He was no good. They put him in the fields to dock swedes, And took the knife from him, when he came home At late evening with a grin Like the slash of a knife on his face. There was Llew Puw, and he was no good. Every evening after the […]...
8. The Deaf and Blind Do we reach the sea with clocks In our pockets, with the noise of the sea In the sea, or are we the carriers Of a purer and more silent water? The water rubbing against our hands sharpens knives. The warriors have found their weapons in the waves And the sound of their blows is […]...
9. 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 […]...
10. The Snakes of September All summer I heard them Rustling in the shrubbery, Outracing me from tier To tier in my garden, A whisper among the viburnums, A signal flashed from the hedgerow, A shadow pulsing In the barberry thicket. Now that the nights are chill And the annuals spent, I should have thought them gone, In a torpor […]...
11. Subway Wind Far down, down through the city’s great, gaunt gut, The gray train rushing bears the weary wind; In the packed cars the fans the crowd’s breath cut, Leaving the sick and heavy air behind. And pale-cheeked children seek the upper door To give their summer jackets to the breeze; Their laugh is swallowed in the […]...
12. Now I am a Plant, a Weed Now I am a plant, a weed, Bending and swinging On a rocky ledge; And now I am a long brown grass Fluttering like flame; I am a reed; An old shell singing For ever the same; A drift of sedge; A white, white stone; A bone; Until I pass Into sand again, And spin […]...
13. Sacrifice THOSE delicate wanderers, The wind, the star, the cloud, Ever before mine eyes, As to an altar bowed, Light and dew-laden airs Offer in sacrifice. The offerings arise: Hazes of rainbow light, Pure crystal, blue, and gold, Through dreamland take their flight; And ‘mid the sacrifice God moveth as of old. In miracles of fire […]...
14. 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 […]...
15. 1887 From Clee to heaven the beacon burns, The shires have seen it plain, From north and south the sign returns And beacons burn again. Look left, look right, the hills are bright, The dales are light between, Because ’tis fifty years to-night That God has saved the Queen. Now, when the flame they watch not […]...
16. 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 […]...
17. Oh! Had We Some Bright Little Isle of Our Own Oh! had we some bright little isle of our own, In a blue summer ocean, far off and alone, Where a leaf never dies in the still blooming bowers, And the bee banquets on through a whole year of flowers; Where the sun loves to pause With so fond a delay, That the night only […]...
18. Columbus Cheney This weeping willow! Why do you not plant a few For the millions of children not yet born, As well as for us? Are they not non-existent, or cells asleep Without mind? Or do they come to earth, their birth Rupturing the memory of previous being? Answer! The field of unexplored intuition is yours. But […]...
19. I was the slightest in the House I was the slightest in the House I took the smallest Room At night, my little Lamp, and Book And one Geranium So stationed I could catch the Mint That never ceased to fall And just my Basket Let me think I’m sure That this was all I never spoke unless addressed And then, ’twas […]...
20. 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 […]...
21. The Yellow Violet When beechen buds begin to swell, And woods the blue-bird’s warble know, The yellow violet’s modest bell Peeps from last-year’s leaves below. Ere russet fields their green resume, Sweet flower, I love, in forest bare, To meet thee, when thy faint perfume Alone is in the virgin air. Of all her train, the hands of […]...
22. The Mower Against Gardens Luxurious Man, to bring his Vice in use, Did after him the World seduce: And from the Fields the Flow’rs and Plants allure, Where Nature was most plain and pure. He first enclos’d within the Gardens square A dead and standing pool of Air: And a more luscious Earth for them did knead, Which stupifi’d […]...
23. Mercian Hymns XVII He drove at evening through the hushed Vosges. The car radio, Glimmering, received broken utterance from the horizon of storms… ‘God’s honours – our bikes touched: he skidded and came off.’ ‘Liar.’ A Timid father’s protective bellow. Disfigurement of a village king. ‘Just Look at the bugger…’ His maroon GT chanted then overtook. He lavished […]...
24. You Who Never Arrived You who never arrived In my arms, Beloved, who were lost From the start, I don’t even know what songs Would please you. I have given up trying To recognize you in the surging wave of the next Moment. All the immense Images in me the far-off, deeply-felt landscape, Cities, towers, and bridges, and unsuspected […]...
25. New Year's Morning Only a night from old to new! Only a night, and so much wrought! The Old Year’s heart all weary grew, But said: The New Year rest has brought.” The Old Year’s hopes its heart laid down, As in a grave; but trusting, said: “The blossoms of the New Year’s crown Bloom from the ashes […]...
26. Go Plant a Tree God, what a joy it is to plant a tree, And from the sallow earth to watch it rise, Lifting its emerald branches to the skies In silent adoration; and to see Its strength and glory waxing with each spring. Yes, ’tis a goodly, and a gladsome thing To plant a tree. Nature has many […]...
27. The Fitzroy Blacksmith Under the spreading deficit, The Fitzroy Smithy stands; The smith, a spendthrift man is he, With too much on his hands; But the muscles of his brawny jaw Are strong as iron bands. Pay out, pay put, from morn till night, You can hear the sovereigns go; Or you’ll hear him singing “Old Folks at […]...
28. Monday Night May 11th 1846 / Domestic Peace Why should such gloomy silence reign; And why is all the house so drear, When neither danger, sickness, pain, Nor death, nor want have entered here? We are as many as we were That other night, when all were gay, And full of hope, and free from care; Yet, is there something gone away. The […]...
29. MATINS, OR MORNING PRAYER When with the virgin morning thou dost rise, Crossing thyself come thus to sacrifice; First wash thy heart in innocence; then bring Pure hands, pure habits, pure, pure every thing. Next to the altar humbly kneel, and thence Give up thy soul in clouds of frankincense. Thy golden censers fill’d with odours sweet Shall make […]...
30. Not to sleep Not to sleep all the night long, for pure joy, Counting no sheep and careless of chimes Welcoming the dawn confabulation Of birch, her children, who discuss idly Fanciful details of the promised coming – Will she be wearing red, or russet, or blue, Or pure white? – whatever she wears, glorious: Not to sleep […]...
31. Tz'u No. 13 To the tune of “Song of Peace” Year by year, in the snow, I have often gathered plum flowers, Intoxicated with their beauty. Fondling them impudently I got my robe wet with their lucid tears. This year I have drifted to the corner Of the sea and the edge Of the horizon, My temples have […]...
32. Wherein Obscurely On the road with billowing poplars, In a country flat and desolate To the far-off gray horizon, wherein obscurely, A man and a woman went on foot, Each carrying a small suitcase. They were tired and had taken off Their shoes and were walking on Their toes, staring straight ahead. Every time a car passed […]...
33. Sunday The mint bed is in Bloom: lavender haze Day. The grass is More than green and Throws up sharp and Cutting lights to Slice through the Plane tree leaves. And On the cloudless blue I scribble your name....
34. BALCONY MOTHER of memories, mistress of mistresses, O thou, my pleasure, thou, all my desire, Thou shalt recall the beauty of caresses, The charm of evenings by the gentle fire, Mother of memories, mistress of mistresses! The eves illumined by the burning coal, The balcony where veiled rose-vapour clings How soft your breast was then, how […]...
35. The Dawn of Darkness COME earth’s little children pit-pat from their burrows on the hill; Hangs within the gloom its weary head the shining daffodil. In the valley underneath us through the fragrance flit along Over fields and over hedgerows little quivering drops of song. All adown the pale blue mantle of the mountains far away Stream the tresses […]...
36. Spelt From Sibyl's Leaves Earnest, earthless, equal, attuneable, ‘ vaulty, voluminous, … stupendous Evening strains to be tíme’s vást, ‘ womb-of-all, home-of-all, hearse-of-all night. Her fond yellow hornlight wound to the west, ‘ her wild hollow hoarlight hung to the height Waste; her earliest stars, earl-stars, ‘ stárs principal, overbend us, Fíre-féaturing heaven. For earth ‘ her being has […]...
37. The Fugitive The air is perfumed with the morning’s fresh breeze, From the bush peer the sunbeams all purple and bright, While they gleam through the clefts of the dark-waving trees, And the cloud-crested mountains are golden with light. With joyful, melodious, ravishing, strain, The lark, as he wakens, salutes the glad sun, Who glows in the […]...
38. Dream Song 7: 'The Prisoner of Shark Island' with Paul Muni Henry is old, old; for Henry remembers Mr Deeds’ tuba, & the Cameo, & the race in Ben Hur, —The Lost World, with sound, & The Man from Blankey’s, which he did not dig, Nor did he understand one caption of, Bewildered Henry, while the Big Ones laughed. Now Henry is unmistakably a Big One. […]...
39. A Black Man Talks of Reaping I have sown beside all waters in my day. I planted deep, within my heart the fear That wind or fowl would take the grain away. I planted safe against this stark, lean year. I scattered seed enough to plant the land In rows from Canada to Mexico But for my reaping only what the […]...
40. Every Silent Plant in the Garden (To: S. W.) Every silent plant in the garden knows Two sorts of wishes make up the world: One is conceived in heaven, the other in hell The earth buttoned its lip, too humble to tell With regard to intent, millionaires are all Yet about prayers, most of us ignorant children Undiscerning of whatever come […]...