The Folly of Wisdom

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1. The Folly Of Being Comforted One that is ever kind said yesterday: ‘Your well-beloved’s hair has threads of grey, And little shadows come about her eyes; Time can but make it easier to be wise Though now it seems impossible, and so All that you need is patience.’ Heart cries, ‘No, I have not a crumb of comfort, not a […]...
2. Folly (For A. K. K.) What distant mountains thrill and glow Beneath our Lady Folly’s tread? Why has she left us, wise in woe, Shrewd, practical, uncomforted? We cannot love or dream or sing, We are too cynical to pray, There is no joy in anything Since Lady Folly went away. Many a knight and gentle […]...
3. Men Loved Wholly Beyond Wisdom Men loved wholly beyond wisdom Have the staff without the banner. Like a fire in a dry thicket Rising within women’s eyes Is the love men must return. Heart, so subtle now, and trembling, What a marvel to be wise., To love never in this manner! To be quiet in the fern Like a thing […]...
4. Nine Things It’s night And a numbered beauty Lapses at the wind, Chortles with the Branches of a tree, giggles, Plays shadow dance With a dead kite, Cajoles affection From falling leaves, And knows four Other things. One is the color Of your hair....
5. Wisdom (Proverbs, viii. 22-31) “Ere God had built the mountains, Or raised the fruitful hills; Before he fill’d the fountains That feed the running rills; In me from everlasting, The wonderful I am, Found pleasures never wasting, And Wisdom is my name. “When, like a tent to dwell in, He spread the skies abroad, And swathed […]...
6. Petropolis From a fearful height, a wandering light, But does a star glitter like this, crying? Transparent star, wandering light Your brother, Petropolis, is dying. From a fearful height, earthly dreams are alight, And a green star is crying. Oh star, if you are the brother of water and light, Your brother, Petropolis, is dying. A […]...
7. 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 […]...
8. Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night. Good men, the […]...
9. Heights Of Folly O crows circling over my head and cawing! I admit to being, at times, Suddenly, and without the slightest warning, Exceedingly happy. On a morning otherwise sunless, Strolling arm in arm Past some gallows-shaped trees With my dear Helen, Who is also a strange bird, With a feeling of being summoned Urgently, but by a […]...
10. Love and Folly Love’s worshippers alone can know The thousand mysteries that are his; His blazing torch, his twanging bow, His blooming age are mysteries. A charming science but the day Were all too short to con it o’er; So take of me this little lay, A sample of its boundless lore. As once, beneath the fragrant shade […]...
11. Cupid And Folly CUPID, ere depriv’d of Sight, Young and apt for all Delight, Met with Folly on the way, As Idle and as fond of Play. In gay Sports the time they pass; Now run, now wrestle on the Grass; Their painted Wings then nimbly ply, And ev’ry way for Mast’ry try: ‘Till a Contest do’s arise, […]...
12. 409. Epigram-The Raptures of Folly THOU greybeard, old Wisdom! may boast of thy treasures; Give me with young Folly to live; I grant thee thy calm-blooded, time-settled pleasures, But Folly has raptures to give....
13. Elegy The cur foretells the knell of parting day; The loafing herd winds slowly o’er the lea; The wise man homewards plods; I only stay To fiddle-faddle in a minor key....
14. When Lovely Woman Stoops To Folly When lovely woman stoops to folly, And finds too late that men betray, What charm can soothe her melancholy, What art can wash her guilt away? The only art her guilt to cover, To hide her shame from every eye, To give repentance to her lover, And wring his bosom, is-to die....
15. Wisdom When Wisdom tells me that the world’s a speck Lost on the shoreless blue of God’s To-Day… I smile, and think, ‘For every man his way: The world’s my ship, and I’m alone on deck!’ And when he tells me that the world’s a spark Lit in the whistling gloom of God’s To-Night… I look […]...
16. Wisdom The true faith discovered was When painted panel, statuary. Glass-mosaic, window-glass, Amended what was told awry By some peasant gospeller; Swept the Sawdust from the floor Of that working-carpenter. Miracle had its playtime where In damask clothed and on a seat Chryselephantine, cedar-boarded, His majestic Mother sat Stitching at a purple hoarded That He might […]...
17. Wisdom This I say, and this I know: Love has seen the last of me. Love’s a trodden lane to woe, Love’s a path to misery. This I know, and knew before, This I tell you, of my years: Hide your heart, and lock your door. Hell’s afloat in lovers’ tears. Give your heart, and toss […]...
18. Ducks and wisdom [from a motif by Jean Dunand (1877-1942)] Seven lacqueur ducks on a silver pond Their rippling held in a moveless frieze Nothing now can help them swim beyond The stoned edges (invent a new-age breeze) Eternity is water starved of trees Their fixture is our own – for all we fidget History puts us down […]...
19. Elusive wisdom thoth (who became hermes who became mercury) Who was both moon and wisdom to the egyptians Manifested himself mainly as an ibis – a watery bird A restless creature that could not stop searching Through marshy ground with its sickle-shaped beak So to the christians the bird became a scavenger The worst sinner from whom […]...
20. Wisdom And Prudence Wouldst thou, my friend, mount up to the highest summit of wisdom, Be not deterred by the fear, prudence thy course may deride That shortsighted one sees but the bank that from thee is flying, Not the one which ere long thou wilt attain with bold flight....
21. Fortune And Wisdom Enraged against a quondam friend, To Wisdom once proud Fortune said “I’ll give thee treasures without end, If thou wilt be my friend instead.” “My choicest gifts to him I gave, And ever blest him with my smile; And yet he ceases not to crave, And calls me niggard all the while.” “Come, sister, let […]...
22. There's Wisdom In Women “Oh love is fair, and love is rare;” my dear one she said, “But love goes lightly over.” I bowed her foolish head, And kissed her hair and laughed at her. Such a child was she; So new to love, so true to love, and she spoke so bitterly. But there’s wisdom in women, of […]...
23. My Coffin Deeming that I was due to die I framed myself a coffin; So full of graveyard zeal was I, I set the folks a-laughing. I made it snugly to my fit, My joinering was honest; And sometimes in it I would sit, And fancy I was non est. I stored it on my cabin shelf […]...
24. Dream Song 20: The Secret of the Wisdom When worst got things, how was you? Steady on? Wheedling, or shockt her & You have been bad to your friend, Whom not you writing to. You have not listened. A pelican of lies You loosed: where are you? Down weeks of evenings of longing By hours, NOW, a stoned bell, You did somebody: others […]...
25. The Coming Of Wisdom With Time Though leaves are many, the root is one; Through all the lying days of my youth I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun; Now I may wither into the truth....
26. On the Funeral of Charles the First The castle clock had tolled midnight: With mattock and with spade, And silent, by the torches’ light, His corse in earth we laid. The coffin bore his name, that those Of other years might know, When earth its secrets should disclose, Whose bones were laid below. “Peace to the dead” no children sung, Slow pacing […]...
27. Wisdom of Hafiz: the Philosopher Takes to Racing My son, if you go to the races to battle with Ikey and Mo, Remember, it’s seldom the pigeon can pick out the eye of the crow; Remember, they live by the business; remember, my son, and go slow. If ever an owner should tell you, “Back mine” don’t you be such a flat. He […]...
28. Cacoethes Scribendi If all the trees in all the woods were men; And each and every blade of grass a pen; If every leaf on every shrub and tree Turned to a sheet of foolscap; every sea Were changed to ink, and all earth’s living tribes Had nothing else to do but act as scribes, And for […]...
29. Mortification How soon doth man decay! When clothes are taken from a chest of sweets To swaddle infants, whose young breath Scarce knows the way; Those clouts are little winding-sheets, Which do consign and send them unto Death. When boyes go first to bed, They step into their voluntarie graves; Sleep binds them fast; onely their […]...
30. From Citron-Bower From citron-bower be her bed, Cut from branch of tree a-flower, Fashioned for her maidenhead. From Lydian apples, sweet of hue, Cut the width of board and lathe, Carve the feet from myrtle-wood. Let the palings of her bed Be quince and box-wood overlaid With the scented bark of yew. That all the wood in […]...
31. When Orpheus Sweetly Did Complayne When Orpheus sweetly did complayne Upon his lute with heavy strayne How his Euridice was slayne, The trees to heare Obtayn’d an eare, And after left it off againe. At every stroake and every stay The boughs kept time, and nodding lay, And listened bending all one way: The aspen tree As well as hee […]...
32. On a Line from Valéry (The Gulf War) The whole green sky is dying. The last tree flares With a great burst of supernatural rose Under a canopy of poisonous airs. Could we imagine our return to prayers To end in time before time’s final throes, The green sky dying as the last tree flares? But we were young in judgement, old in […]...
33. In Tara's Halls A man I praise that once in Tara’s Hals Said to the woman on his knees, ‘Lie still. My hundredth year is at an end. I think That something is about to happen, I think That the adventure of old age begins. To many women I have said, ”Lie still,” And given everything a woman […]...
34. On a Line From Valery (Gulf War) Tout le ciel vert se meurt Le dernier arbre brûle. The whole green sky is dying. The last tree flares With a great burst of supernatural rose Under a canopy of poisonous airs. Could we imagine our return to prayers To end in time before time’s final throes, The green sky dying as the last […]...
35. The Death King I hired a carpenter To build my coffin And last night I lay in it, Braced by a pillow, Sniffing the wood, Letting the old king Breathe on me, Thinking of my poor murdered body, Murdered by time, Waiting to turn stiff as a field marshal, Letting the silence dishonor me, Remembering that I’ll never […]...
36. 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 […]...
37. Rose Leaves When they shall close my careless eyes And look their last upon my face, I fear that some will say: “her lies A man of deep disgrace; His thoughts were bare, his words were brittle, He dreamed so much, he did so little. When they shall seal y coffin lid And this worn mask I […]...
38. Reconciliation WORD over all, beautiful as the sky! Beautiful that war, and all its deeds of carnage, must in time be utterly lost; That the hands of the sisters Death and Night, incessantly softly wash again, and ever again, this soil’d world: … For my enemy is dead-a man divine as myself is dead; I look […]...
39. The Poet's Forge He lies on his back, the idling smith, A lazy, dreaming fellow is he; The sky is blue, or the sky is gray, He lies on his back the livelong day, Not a tool in sight, say what they may, A curious sort of smith is he. The powers of the air are in league […]...
40. 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 […]...