Taedium Vitae

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1. Last Curtain I know that the day will come When my sight of this earth shall be lost, And life will take its leave in silence, Drawing the last curtain over my eyes. Yet stars will watch at night, And morning rise as before, And hours heave like sea waves casting up pleasures and pains. When I […]...
2. How Solemn as One by One HOW solemn, as one by one, As the ranks returning, all worn and sweaty-as the men file by where I stand; As the faces, the masks appear-as I glance at the faces, studying the masks; (As I glance upward out of this page, studying you, dear friend, whoever you are;) How solemn the thought of […]...
3. Curriculum Vitae 1992 1) I was born in a Free City, near the North Sea. 2) In the year of my birth, money was shredded into Confetti. A loaf of bread cost a million marks. Of Course I do not remember this. 3) Parents and grandparents hovered around me. The World I lived in had a soft […]...
4. Vitae Summa Brevis Spem Nos Vetat Incohare Longam They are not long, the weeping and the laughter, Love and desire and hate: I think they have no portion in us after We pass the gate. They are not long, the days of wine and roses: Out of a misty dream Our path emerges for a while, then closes Within a dream. [The title […]...
5. Cassius Hueffer They have chiseled on my stone the words: ‘His life was gentle, and the elements so mixed in him That nature might stand up and say to all the world, This was a man.’ Those who knew me smile As they read this empty rhetoric. My epitaph should have been: ‘Life was not gentle to […]...
6. Curriculum Vitae As though it were reluctant to be day, …….Morning deploys a scale …….Of rarities in gray, And winter settles down in its chain-mail, Victorious over legions of gold and red. ……The smokey souls of stones, ……Blunt pencillings of lead, Pare down the world to glintless monotones Of graveyard weather, vapors of a fen …….We reckon […]...
7. Each Day A Life I count each day a little life, With birth and death complete; I cloister it from care and strife And keep it sane and sweet. With eager eyes I greet the morn, Exultant as a boy, Knowing that I am newly born To wonder and to joy. And when the sunset splendours wane And ripe […]...
8. Here And Now Here, in the heart of the world, Here, in the noise and the din, Here, where our spirits were hurled To battle with sorrow and sin, This is the place and the spot For knowledge of infinite things; This is the kingdom where Thought Can conquer the prowess of kings. Wait for no heavenly life, […]...
9. No Life can pompless pass away No Life can pompless pass away The lowliest career To the same Pageant wends its way As that exalted here How cordial is the mystery! The hospitable Pall A “this way” beckons spaciously A Miracle for all!...
10. He Wonders Whether to Praise or Blame Her I have peace to weigh your worth, now all is over, But if to praise or blame you, cannot say. For, who decries the loved, decries the lover; Yet what man lauds the thing he’s thrown away? Be you, in truth, this dull, slight, cloudy naught, The more fool I, so great a fool to […]...
11. Red-Tiled Roof Poets may praise a wattle thatch Doubtfully waterproof; Let me uplift my lowly latch Beneath a rose-tiled roof. Let it be gay and rich in hue, Soft bleached by burning days, Where skies ineffably are blue, And seas a golden glaze. But set me in the surly North Beneath a roof of slate, And as […]...
12. Sonnet XXIV: Rich Fools There Be Rich fools there be, whose base and filthy heart Lies hatching still the goods wherein they flow: And damning their own selves to Tantal’s smart, Wealth breeding want, more blist more wretched grow. Yet to those fools heav’n such wit doth impart As what their hands do hold, their heads do know, And knowing love, […]...
13. Purity Life of my life, I shall ever try to keep my body pure, knowing That thy living touch is upon all my limbs. I shall ever try to keep all untruths out from my thoughts, knowing That thou art that truth which has kindled the light of reason in my mind. I shall ever try […]...
14. Sonnet 24 – Let the world's sharpness, like a clasping knife Let the world’s sharpness, like a clasping knife, Shut in upon itself and do no harm In this close hand of Love, now soft and warm, And let us hear no sound of human strife After the click of the shutting. Life to life- I lean upon thee, Dear, without alarm, And feel as safe […]...
15. Little Brother Wars have been and wars will be Till the human race is run; Battles red by land and sea, Never peace beneath the sun. I am old and little care; I’ll be cold, my lips be dumb: Brother mine, beware, beware. . . Evil looms the wrath to come. Eastern skies are dark with strife, […]...
16. Sonnet XXII: With Fools and Children To Folly With fools and children, good discretion bears; Then, honest people, bear with Love and me, Nor older yet, nor wiser made by years, Amongst the rest of fools and children be; Love, still a baby, plays with gauds and toys, And, like a wanton, sports with every feather, And idiots still are running […]...
17. This self-congratulatory nonsense as the Famous gather to applaud their seeming Greatness You Wonder where The real ones are What Giant cave Hides them As The deathly talentless Bow to Accolades As The fools are Fooled Again You Wonder where The real ones are If there are Real ones. This self-congratulatory nonsense Has lasted Decades And […]...
18. On Hearing O stay, harmonious and sweet sounds, that die In the long vaultings of this ancient fane! Stay, for I may not hear on earth again Those pious airs that glorious harmony; Lifting the soul to brighter orbs on high, Worlds without sin or sorrow! Ah, the strain Has died even the last sounds that lingeringly […]...
19. Marigolds With a fork drive Nature out, She will ever yet return; Hedge the flowerbed all about, Pull or stab or cut or burn, She will ever yet return. Look: the constant marigold Springs again from hidden roots. Baffled gardener, you behold New beginnings and new shoots Spring again from hidden roots. Pull or stab or […]...
20. VALEDICTION I ONCE was fond of fools, And bid them come each day; Then each one brought his tools The carpenter to play; The roof to strip first choosing, Another to supply, The wood as trestles using, To move it by-and-by, While here and there they ran, And knock’d against each other; To fret I soon […]...
21. This Life My friend tells me A man in my house jumped off the roof The roof is the eighth floor of this building The roof door was locked how did he manage? His girlfriend had said goodbye I’m leaving He was 22 His mother and father were hurrying At that very moment From upstate to help […]...
22. When I Set Out For Lyonnesse When I set out for Lyonnesse, A hundred miles away, The rime was on the spray, And starlight lit my lonesomeness When I set out for Lyonnesse A hundred miles away. What would bechance at Lyonnesse While I should sojourn there No prophet durst declare, Nor did the wisest wizard guess What would bechance at […]...
23. The Source There in the fringe of trees between The upper field and the edge of the one Below it that runs above the valley One time I heard in the early Days of summer the clear ringing Six notes that I knew were the opening Of the Fingal’s Cave Overture I heard them again and again […]...
24. London, 1802 Milton! thou should’st be living at this hour: England hath need of thee: she is a fen Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen, Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower, Have forfeited their ancient English dower Of inward happiness. We are selfish men; Oh! raise us up, return to us again; And give […]...
25. Mock On, Mock On, Voltaire, Rousseau Mock on, mock on, Voltaire, Rousseau; Mock on, mock on; ’tis all in vain! You throw the sand against the wind, And the wind blows it back again. And every sand becomes a gem Reflected in the beams divine; Blown back they blind the mocking eye, But still in Israel’s paths they shine. The Atoms […]...
26. Women’s Rights You cannot rob us of the rights we cherish, Nor turn our thoughts away From the bright picture of a “Woman’s Mission” Our hearts portray. We claim to dwell, in quiet and seclusion, Beneath the household roof, From the great world’s harsh strife, and jarring voices, To stand aloof; Not in a dreamy and inane […]...
27. ANSWERS IN A GAME OF QUESTIONS THE LADY. IN the small and great world too, What most charms a woman’s heart? It is doubtless what is new, For its blossoms joy impart; Nobler far is what is true, For fresh blossoms it can shoot Even in the time of fruit. THE YOUNG GENTLEMAN. With the Nymphs in wood and cave Paris […]...
28. To John Donne Donne, the delight of Phoebus and each Muse Who, to thy one, all other brains refuse; Whose every work of thy most early wit Came forth example, and remains so yet; Longer a-knowing than most wits do live; And which no affection praise enough can give! To it, thy language, letters, arts, best life, Which […]...
29. The Perfect Marriage I I hate this yoke; for the world’s sake here put it on: Knowing ’twill weigh as much on you till life is gone. Knowing you love your freedom dear, as I love mine- Knowing that love unchained has been our life’s great wine: Our one great wine (yet spent too soon, and serving none; […]...
30. The Vanquished Knight I HAVE left all upon the shameful field, Honour and Hope, my God, and all but life; Spurless, with sword reversed and dinted shield, Degraded and disgraced, I leave the strife. From him that hath not, shall there not be taken E’en that he hath, when he deserts the strife? Life left by all life’s […]...
31. To A New England Poet Though skilled in Latin and in Greek, And earning fifty cents a week, Such knowledge, and the income, too, Should teach you better what to do: The meanest drudges, kept in pay, Can pocket fifty cents a day. Why stay in such a tasteless land, Where all must on a level stand, (Excepting people, at […]...
32. 182. The Libeller's Self-reproof RASH 1 mortal, and slanderous poet, thy name Shall no longer appear in the records of Fame; Dost not know that old Mansfield, who writes like the Bible, Says, the more ’tis a truth, sir, the more ’tis a libel! Note 1. These are rhymes of dubious authenticity.-Lang. [back]...
33. The Lie Go, Soul, the body’s guest, Upon a thankless errand; Fear not to touch the best; The truth shall be thy warrant: Go, since I needs must die, And give the world the lie. Say to the court, it glows And shines like rotten wood; Say to the church, it shows What’s good, and doth no […]...
34. Escape Tell me, Tramp, where I may go To be free from human woe; Say where I may hope to find Ease of heart and peace of mind; Is thee not some isle you know Where I may leave Care behind? So spoke one is sore distress, And I answered softly: “Yes, There’s an isle so […]...
35. At The Abbey Theatre (Imitated from Ronsard) Dear Craoibhin Aoibhin, look into our case. When we are high and airy hundreds say That if we hold that flight they’ll leave the place, While those same hundreds mock another day Because we have made our art of common things, So bitterly, you’d dream they longed to look All their lives […]...
36. Then And Now When battles were fought With a chivalrous sense of should and ought, In spirit men said, “End we quick or dead, Honour is some reward! Let us fight fair for our own best or worst; So, Gentlemen of the Guard, Fire first!” In the open they stood, Man to man in his knightlihood: They would […]...
37. The Bread-Knife Ballad A little child was sitting Up on her mother’s knee And down down her cheeks the bitter tears did flow. And as I sadly listened I heard this tender plea, ‘Twas uttered in a voice so soft and low. “Not guilty” said the Jury And the Judge said “Set her free, But remember it must […]...
38. Hymn 93 Christ, or Wisdom, obeyed or resisted. Prov. 8:34-36. Thus saith the Wisdom of the Lord, “Blest is the man that hears my word, Keeps daily watch before my gates, And at my feet for mercy waits. “The soul that seeks me shall obtain Immortal wealth and heav’nly gain; Immortal life is his reward; Life, and […]...
39. The Opal Dream Cave In an opal dream cave I found a fairy: Her wings were frailer than flower petals, Frailer far than snowflakes. She was not frightened, but poised on my finger, Then delicately walked into my hand. I shut the two palms of my hands together And held her prisoner. I carried her out of the opal […]...
40. In The Vaulted Way In the vaulted way, where the passage turned To the shadowy corner that none could see, You paused for our parting, – plaintively: Though overnight had come words that burned My fond frail happiness out of me. And then I kissed you, – despite my thought That our spell must end when reflection came On […]...