Cleansings

Related poetry:

1. Calmly We Walk Through This April's Day Calmly we walk through this April’s day, Metropolitan poetry here and there, In the park sit pauper and rentier, The screaming children, the motor-car Fugitive about us, running away, Between the worker and the millionaire Number provides all distances, It is Nineteen Thirty-Seven now, Many great dears are taken away, What will become of you […]...
2. Sleeping Together Sleeping together… how tired you were… How warm our room… how the firelight spread On walls and ceiling and great white bed! We spoke in whispers as children do, And now it was I and then it was you Slept a moment, to wake “My dear, I’m not at all sleepy,” one of us said…. […]...
3. Canine Conversation If dogs could speak, O Mademoiselle, What funny stories they could tell! For instance, take your little “peke,” How awkward if the dear could speak! How sad for you and all of us, Who round you flutter, flirt and fuss; Folks think you modest, mild and meek. . . But would they – if Fi-Fi […]...
4. Immortality So I have sunk my roots in earth Since that my pretty boys had birth; And fear no more the grave and gloom, I, with the centuries to come. As the tree blossoms so bloom I, Flinging wild branches to the sky; Renew each year my leafy suit, Strike with the years a deeper root. […]...
5. The Waking I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. I feel my fate in what I cannot fear. I learn by going where I have to go. We think by feeling. What is there to know? I hear my being dance from ear to ear. I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. Of […]...
6. I Wake And Feel The Fell Of Dark, Not Day I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day. What hours, O what black hours we have spent This night! what sights you, heart, saw; ways you went! And more must, in yet longer light’s delay. With witness I speak this. But where I say Hours I mean years, mean life. And my lament […]...
7. Babylon THE BLUE dusk ran between the streets: my love was winged within my mind, It left to-day and yesterday and thrice a thousand years behind. To-day was past and dead for me, for from to-day my feet had run Through thrice a thousand years to walk the ways of ancient Babylon. On temple top and […]...
8. Against Lying O ’tis a lovely thing for youth To early walk in wisdom’s way; To fear a lie, to speak the truth, That we may trust to all they say! But liars we can never trust, Even when they say what is true. And he who does one fault at first And lies to hide it, […]...
9. The Sunderland Calamity ‘Twas in the town of Sunderland, and in the year of 1883, That about 200 children were launch’d into eternity While witnessing an entertainment in Victoria Hall, While they, poor little innocents, to God for help did call. The entertainment consisted of conjuring, and the ghost illusion play, Also talking waxworks, and living marionettes, and […]...
10. Long, too Long, O Land! LONG, too long, O land, Traveling roads all even and peaceful, you learn’d from joys and prosperity only; But now, ah now, to learn from crises of anguish-advancing, grappling with direst fate, and recoiling not; And now to conceive, and show to the world, what your children en-masse really are; (For who except myself has […]...
11. In the Valley of Cauteretz All along the valley, stream that flashest white, Deepening thy voice with the deepening of the night, All along the valley, where thy waters flow, I walk’d with one I loved two and thirty years ago. All along the valley, while I walk’d to-day, The two and thirty years were a mist that rolls away; […]...
12. Come, Walk With Me Come, walk with me, There’s only thee To bless my spirit now – We used to love on winter nights To wander through the snow; Can we not woo back old delights? The clouds rush dark and wild They fleck with shade our mountain heights The same as long ago And on the horizon rest […]...
13. OBSTACLES A thousand visits to the supermarket A thousand acts of sexual intimacy Spread over forty years. Your essence was quite other A smile of absolute connection Repeated a thousand times. Your daily visits to the outside lavatory While I stood talking outside, An intimacy I have sought With no other. My greatest fear is that […]...
14. Any Woman I am the pillars of the house; The keystone of the arch am I. Take me away, and roof and wall Would fall to ruin me utterly. I am the fire upon the hearth, I am the light of the good sun, I am the heat that warms the earth, Which else were colder than […]...
15. Jack JACK was a swarthy, swaggering son-of-a-gun. He worked thirty years on the railroad, ten hours a day, And his hands were tougher than sole leather. He married a tough woman and they had eight children And the woman died and the children grew up and Went away and wrote the old man every two years. […]...
16. Psalm 149 Praise God, all his saints or, The saints judging the world. All ye that love the Lord, rejoice, And let your songs be new; Amidst the church with cheerful voice His later wonders show. The Jews, the people of his grace, Shall their Redeemer sing; And Gentile nations join the praise, While Zion owns her […]...
17. Rosemary For the sake of some things That be now no more I will strew rushes On my chamber-floor, I will plant bergamot At my kitchen-door. For the sake of dim things That were once so plain I will set a barrel Out to catch the rain, I will hang an iron pot On an iron […]...
18. MacGregor's Gathering The moon’s on the lake, and the mist’s on the brae, And the Clan has a name that is nameless by day; Then gather, gather, gather, Grigalach! Gather, gather, gather, &c. Our signal for fight, that from monarchs we drew, Must be heard but by night in our vengeful haloo! Then haloo, Grigalach! haloo, Grigalach! […]...
19. The Opening of the Piano IN the little southern parlor of tbe house you may have seen With the gambrel-roof, and the gable looking westward to the green, At the side toward the sunset, with the window on its right, Stood the London-made piano I am dreaming of to-night! Ah me! how I remember the evening when it came! What […]...
20. Languages THERE are no handles upon a language Whereby men take hold of it And mark it with signs for its remembrance. It is a river, this language, Once in a thousand years Breaking a new course Changing its way to the ocean. It is mountain effluvia Moving to valleys And from nation to nation Crossing […]...
21. Love's Language How does Love speak? In the faint flush upon the tell-tale cheek, And in the pallor that succeeds it; by The quivering lid of an averted eye – The smile that proves the parent to a sigh – Thus doth Love speak. How does Love speak? By the uneven heart-throbs, and the freak Of bounding […]...
22. I Know, You Walk I walk so often, late, along the streets, Lower my gaze, and hurry, full of dread, Suddenly, silently, you still might rise And I would have to gaze on all your grief With my own eyes, While you demand your happiness, that’s dead. I know, you walk beyond me, every night, With a coy footfall, […]...
23. 545. Song-Mally's meek, Mally's sweet Chorus-Mally’s meek, Mally’s sweet, Mally’s modest and discreet; Mally’s rare, Mally’s fair, Mally’s every way complete. AS I was walking up the street, A barefit maid I chanc’d to meet; But O the road was very hard For that fair maiden’s tender feet. Mally’s meek, &c. It were mair meet that those fine feet Were […]...
24. Twenty-Four Years Twenty-four years remind the tears of my eyes. (Bury the dead for fear that they walk to the grave in labour.) In the groin of the natural doorway I crouched like a tailor Sewing a shroud for a journey By the light of the meat-eating sun. Dressed to die, the sensual strut begun, With my […]...
25. The Children's Song Puck of Poock’s Hills Land of our Birth, we pledge to thee Our love and toil in the years to be; When we are grown and take our place As men and women with our race. Father in Heaven who lovest all, Oh, help Thy children when they call; That they may build from age […]...
26. Confessions of a fool (i) I believed in flower-power (the triumph of the meek) The thought that what a wind could bend was not to be Derided for its weakness but known to draw its calm From a corporate sense of self (its many-ed history) That tyranny (in the long blow) lacked the will to break That heaped-up suffering […]...
27. You, Doctor Martin You, Doctor Martin, walk From breakfast to madness. Late August, I speed through the antiseptic tunnel Where the moving dead still talk Of pushing their bones against the thrust Of cure. And I am queen of this summer hotel Or the laughing bee on a stalk Of death. We stand in broken Lines and wait […]...
28. One dignity delays for all One dignity delays for all One mitred Afternoon None can avoid this purple None evade this Crown! Coach, it insures, and footmen Chamber, and state, and throng Bells, also, in the village As we ride grand along! What dignified Attendants! What service when we pause! How loyally at parting Their hundred hats they raise! Her […]...
29. The Supreme Sacrifice Well-nigh two thousand years hath Israel Suffered the scorn of man for love of God; Endured the outlaw’s ban, the yoke, the rod, With perfect patience. Empires rose and fell, Around him Nebo was adored and Bel; Edom was drunk with victory, and trod On his high places, while the sacred sod Was desecrated by […]...
30. The Evil Seekers We are born with luck Which is to say with gold in our mouth. As new and smooth as a grape, As pure as a pond in Alaska, As good as the stem of a green bean We are born and that ought to be enough, We ought to be able to carry on from […]...
31. Hymn (FROM THE GERMAN OF MARTIN LUTHER) O heart of mine! lift up thine eyes And see who in yon manger lies! Of perfect form, of face divine It is the Christ-child, heart of mine! O dearest, holiest Christ-child, spread Within this heart of mine thy bed; Then shall my breast forever be A chamber consecrate […]...
32. Hymn 100 Believe and be saved. John 3:16-18. Not to condemn the sons of men, Did Christ, the Son of God, appear; No weapons in his hands are seen, No flaming sword nor thunder there. Such was the pity of our God, He loved the race of man so well, He sent his Son to bear our […]...
33. Hymn 44 Hell; or, The vengeance of God. With holy fear and humble song, The dreadful God our souls adore; Rev’rence and awe become the tongue That speaks the terrors of his power. Far in the deep where darkness dwells, The land of horror and despair, Justice has built a dismal hell, And laid her stores of […]...
34. Lights Out “Lights out” along the land, “Lights out” upon the sea. The night must put her hiding hand O’er peaceful towns where children sleep, And peaceful ships that darkly creep Across the waves, as if they were not free. The dragons of the air, The hell-hounds of the deep, Lurking and prowling everywhere, Go forth to […]...
35. The Other Under my bowels, yellow with smoke, It waits. Under my eyes, those milk bunnies, It waits. It is waiting. It is waiting. Mr. Doppelganger. My brother. My spouse. Mr. Doppelganger. My enemy. My lover. When truth comes spilling out like peas It hangs up the phone. When the child is soothed and resting on the […]...
36. FAITHFUL ECKART “OH, would we were further! Oh, would we were home, The phantoms of night tow’rd us hastily come, The band of the Sorceress sisters. They hitherward speed, and on finding us here, They’ll drink, though with toil we have fetch’d it, the beer, And leave us the pitchers all empty.” Thus speaking, the children with […]...
37. Psalm 84 part 1 The pleasure of public worship. How pleasant, how divinely fair, O Lord of hosts, thy dwellings are! With long desire my spirit faints To meet th’ assemblies of thy saints. My flesh would rest in thine abode, My panting heart cries out for God; My God! my King! why should I be So far from […]...
38. On the March So the time seems come at last, And the drums go rolling past, And above them in the sunlight Labour’s banners float and flow; They are marching with the sun, But I look in vain for one Of the men who fought for freedom more than fifteen years ago. They were men who did the […]...
39. Hymn 156 Presumption and despair; or, Satan’s various temptations. I hate the tempter and his charms, I hate his flatt’ring breath; The serpent takes a thousand forms To cheat our souls to death. He feeds our hopes with airy dreams, Or kills with slavish fear; And holds us still in wide extremes, Presumption or despair. Now he […]...
40. Psalm 128 Family blessings. O happy man, whose soul is filled With zeal and reverent awe! His lips to God their honors yield, His life adorns the law. A careful providence shall stand And ever guard thy head, Shall on the labors of thy hand Its kindly blessings shed. [Thy wife shall be a fruitful vine; Thy […]...