The Longing

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1. Longing Could I from this valley drear, Where the mist hangs heavily, Soar to some more blissful sphere, Ah! how happy should I be! Distant hills enchant my sight, Ever young and ever fair; To those hills I’d take my flight Had I wings to scale the air. Harmonies mine ear assail, Tunes that breathe a […]...
2. To Althea, From Prison When love with unconfined wings Hovers within my gates, And my divine Althea brings To whisper at the grates; When I lie tangled in her hair, And fettered to her eye, The birds that wanton in the air Know no such liberty. When flowing cups run swiftly round With no allaying Thames, Our careless heads […]...
3. A Sad State Of Freedom You waste the attention of your eyes, The glittering labour of your hands, And knead the dough enough for dozens of loaves Of which you’ll taste not a morsel; You are free to slave for others You are free to make the rich richer. The moment you’re born They plant around you Mills that grind […]...
4. Longing to be with Christ To Jesus, the crown of my hope, My soul is in haste to be gone; O bear me, ye cherubim, up, And waft me away to His throne! My Saviour, whom absent I love, Whom, not having seen I adore; Whose name is exalted above All glory, dominion, and power; Dissolve thou these bonds that […]...
5. NOT EVERY DAY FIT FOR VERSE ‘Tis not ev’ry day that I Fitted am to prophesy: No, but when the spirit fills The fantastic pannicles, Full of fire, then I write As the Godhead doth indite. Thus enraged, my lines are hurl’d, Like the Sibyl’s, through the world: Look how next the holy fire Either slakes, or doth retire; So the […]...
6. The Lovers See how in their veins all becomes spirit; Into each other they mature and grow. Like axles, their forms tremblingly orbit, Round which it whirls, bewitching and aglow. Thirsters, and they receive drink, Watchers, and see: they receive sight. Let them into one another sink So as to endure each other outright....
7. Sonnet 147: My love is as a fever, longing still My love is as a fever, longing still For that which longer nurseth the disease, Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill, Th’ uncertain sickly appetite to please. My reason, the physician to my love, Angry that his prescriptions are not kept, Hath left me, and I desperate now approve Desire is death, which […]...
8. Mourning and Longing The Saviour hides His face; My spirit thirsts to prove Renew’d supplies of pardoning grace, And never-fading love. The favor’d souls who know What glories shine in Him, Pant for His presence as the roe Pants for the living stream. What trifles tease me now! They swarm like summer flies! They cleave to everything I […]...
9. Not What Was Meant When the Academy of Arts demanded freedom Of artistic expression from narrow-minded bureaucrats There was a howl and a clamour in its immediate vicinity But roaring above everything Came a deafening thunder of applause From beyond the Sector boundary. Freedom! it roared. Freedom for the artists! Freedom all round! Freedom for all! Freedom for the […]...
10. Reconciliation Some may have blamed you that you took away The verses that could move them on the day When, the ears being deafened, the sight of the eyes blind With lightning, you went from me, and I could find Nothing to make a song about but kings, Helmets, and swords, and half-forgotten things That were […]...
11. TO WILLIAM E. CHANNING The pages of thy book I read, And as I closed each one, My heart, responding, ever said, “Servant of God! well done!” Well done! Thy words are great and bold; At times they seem to me, Like Luther’s, in the days of old, Half-battles for the free. Go on, until this land revokes The […]...
12. Fleeing Away My thoughts soar not as they ought to soar, Higher and higher on soul-lent wings; But ever and often and more and more They are dragged down earthward by little things, By little troubles and little needs, As a lark might be tangled among the weeds. My purpose is not what it ought to be, […]...
13. Freedom What freeman knoweth freedom? Never he Whose father’s father through long lives have reigned O’er kingdoms which mere heritage attained. Though from his youth to age he roam as free As winds, he dreams not freedom’s ecstacy. But he whose birth was in a nation chained For centuries; where every breath was drained From breasts […]...
14. Take Back the Virgin Page Written on Returning a Blank Book Take back the virgin page, White and unwritten still; Some hand, more calm and sage, The leaf must fill. Thoughts come, as pure as light Pure as even you require; But, oh! each word I write Love turns to fire. Yet let me keep the book: Oft shall my […]...
15. Longing I am not sorry for my soul That it must go unsatisfied, For it can live a thousand times, Eternity is deep and wide. I am not sorry for my soul, But oh, my body that must go Back to a little drift of dust Without the joy it longed to know....
16. Where We Differ To think my thoughts are hers, Not one of hers is mine; She laughs while I must sigh; She sighs while I must whine. She eats while I must fast; She reads while I am blind; She sleeps while I must wake; Free I no freedom find. To think the world for me Contains but […]...
17. Longing Come to me in my dreams, and then By day I shall be well again! For so the night will more than pay The hopeless longing of the day. Come, as thou cam’st a thousand times, A messenger from radiant climes, And smile on thy new world, and be As kind to others as to […]...
18. LONGING WHAT pulls at my heart so? What tells me to roam? What drags me and lures me From chamber and home? How round the cliffs gather The clouds high in air! I fain would go thither, I fain would be there! The sociable flight Of the ravens comes back; I mingle amongst them, And follow […]...
19. Sonnet III THe souerayne beauty which I doo admyre, Witnesse the world how worthy to be prayzed: The light wherof hath kindled heauenly iyre, In my fraile spirit by her from basenesse raysed. That being now with her huge brightnesse dazed, Base thing I can no more endure to view: But looking still on her I stand […]...
20. Longing is like the Seed Longing is like the Seed That wrestles in the Ground, Believing if it intercede It shall at length be found. The Hour, and the Clime Each Circumstance unknown, What Constancy must be achieved Before it see the Sun!...
21. When the Lad for Longing Sighs When the lad for longing sighs, Mute and dull of cheer and pale, If at death’s own door he lies, Maiden, you can heal his ail. Lovers’ ills are all to buy: The wan look, the hollow tone, The hung head, the sunken eye, You can have them for your own. Buy them, buy them: […]...
22. Quantum Mutata There was a time in Europe long ago When no man died for freedom anywhere, But England’s lion leaping from its lair Laid hands on the oppressor! it was so While England could a great Republic show. Witness the men of Piedmont, chiefest care Of Cromwell, when with impotent despair The Pontiff in his painted […]...
23. My Book Before I drink myself to death, God, let me finish up my Book! At night, I fear, I fight for breath, And wake up whiter than a spook; And crawl off to a bistro near, And drink until my brain is clear. Rare Absinthe! Oh, it gives me strength To write and write; and so […]...
24. Oysters Charming oysters I cry: My masters, come buy, So plump and so fresh, So sweet is their flesh, No Colchester oyster Is sweeter and moister: Your stomach they settle, And rouse up your mettle: They’ll make you a dad Of a lass or a lad; And madam your wife They’ll please to the life; Be […]...
25. Testament 1. Dear relatives and friends, when my last breath Grows large and free in air, don’t call it death A word to enrich the undertaker and inspire His surly art of imitating life; conspire Against him. Say that my body cannot now Be improved upon; it has no fault to show To the sly cosmetician. […]...
26. Sonnet 76: Why is my verse so barren of new pride? Why is my verse so barren of new pride? So far from variation or quick change? Why with the time do I not glance aside To new-found methods, and to compounds strange? Why write I still all one, ever the same, And keep invention in a noted weed, That every word doth almost tell my […]...
27. Freedom XIV And an orator said, “Speak to us of Freedom.” And he answered: At the city gate and by your fireside I have seen you prostrate yourself and worship your own freedom, Even as slaves humble themselves before a tyrant and praise him though he slays them. Ay, in the grove of the temple and in […]...
28. To the United States of America Brothers in blood! They who this wrong began To wreck our commonwealth, will rue the day When first they challenged freeman to the fray, And with the Briton dared the American. Now are we pledged to win the Rights of man: Labour and Justice now shall have their way, And in a League of Peace […]...
29. On Leaving Some Friends At An Early Hour Give me a golden pen, and let me lean On heaped-up flowers, in regions clear, and far; Bring me a tablet whiter than a star, Or hand of hymning angel, when ’tis seen The silver strings of heavenly harp atween: And let there glide by many a pearly car Pink robes, and wavy hair, and […]...
30. Continual Conversation With A Silent Man The old brown hen and the old blue sky, Between the two we live and die The broken cartwheel on the hill. As if, in the presence of the sea, We dried our nets and mended sail And talked of never-ending things, Of the never-ending storm of will, One will and many wills, and the […]...
31. Stanzas for the Times Is this the land our fathers loved, The freedom which they toiled to win? Is this the soil whereon they moved? Are these the graves they slumber in? Are we the sons by whom are borne The mantles which the dead have worn? And shall we crouch above these graves, With craven soul and fettered […]...
32. Sonnet LXXXV My tongue-tied Muse in manners holds her still, While comments of your praise, richly compiled, Reserve their character with golden quill And precious phrase by all the Muses filed. I think good thoughts whilst other write good words, And like unletter’d clerk still cry ‘Amen’ To every hymn that able spirit affords In polish’d form […]...
33. Sonnet 85: My tongue-tied Muse in manners holds her still My tongue-tied Muse in manners holds her still, While comments of your praise, richly compiled, Reserve their character with golden quill, And precious phrase by all the Muses filed. I think good thoughts, whilst other write good words, And like unlettered clerk still cry “Amen” To every hymn that able spirit affords In polished form […]...
34. 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 […]...
35. Strike, Churl Strike, churl; hurl, cheerless wind, then; heltering hail May’s beauty massacre and wispиd wild clouds grow Out on the giant air; tell Summer No, Bid joy back, have at the harvest, keep Hope pale....
36. Another Song Words go on travelling from voice To voice while the phones are still And the wires hum in the cold. Now And then dark winter birds settle Slowly on the crossbars, where huddled They caw out their loneliness. Except For them the March world is white And barely alive. The train to Providence Moans somewhere […]...
37. Oh For the Swords of Former Time Oh for the swords of former time! Oh for the men who bore them, When, arm’d for Right, they stood sublime, And tyrants crouch’d before them: When free yet, ere courts began With honours to enslave him, The best honours worn by Man Were those which Virtue gave him. Oh for the swords, etc., etc. […]...
38. Voices at the Window Who is it that, this dark night, Underneath my window plaineth? It is one who from thy sight Being, ah, exiled, disdaineth Every other vulgar light. Why, alas, and are you he? Be not yet those fancies changeed? Dear, when you find change in me, Though from me you be estranged, Let my change to […]...
39. A Curse For A Nation I heard an angel speak last night, And he said ‘Write! Write a Nation’s curse for me, And send it over the Western Sea.’ I faltered, taking up the word: ‘Not so, my lord! If curses must be, choose another To send thy curse against my brother. ‘For I am bound by gratitude, By love […]...
40. The Chrysolites and Rubies Bacchus Brings The chrysolites and rubies Bacchus brings To crown the feast where swells the broad-vein’d brow, Where maidens blush at what the minstrel sings, They who have coveted may covet now. Bring me, in cool alcove, the grape uncrush’d, The peach of pulpy cheek and down mature, Where every voice (but bird’s or child’s) is hush’d, […]...