The White Mans Burden

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1. The Fountain Oh in the deep blue night The fountain sang alone; It sang to the drowsy heart Of a satyr carved in stone. The fountain sang and sang But the satyr never stirred Only the great white moon In the empty heaven heard. The fountain sang and sang And on the marble rim The milk-white peacocks […]...
2. The wanderer Upon a mountain height, far from the sea, I found a shell, And to my listening ear the lonely thing Ever a song of ocean seemed to sing, Ever a tale of ocean seemed to tell. How came the shell upon that mountain height? Ah, who can say Whether there dropped by some too careless […]...
3. A Year's Burden 1870 Fire and wild light of hope and doubt and fear, Wind of swift change, and clouds and hours that veer As the storm shifts of the tempestuous year; Cry wellaway, but well befall the right. Hope sits yet hiding her war-wearied eyes, Doubt sets her forehead earthward and denies, But fear brought hand to hand […]...
4. The Burden Of Itys This English Thames is holier far than Rome, Those harebells like a sudden flush of sea Breaking across the woodland, with the foam Of meadow-sweet and white anemone To fleck their blue waves, – God is likelier there Than hidden in that crystal-hearted star the pale monks bear! Those violet-gleaming butterflies that take Yon creamy […]...
5. O Bitter Sprig! Confession Sprig! O BITTER sprig! Confession sprig! In the bouquet I give you place also-I bind you in, Proceeding no further till, humbled publicly, I give fair warning, once for all. I own that I have been sly, thievish, mean, a prevaricator, greedy, derelict, And I own that I remain so yet. What foul thought but I […]...
6. A Door just opened on a street A Door just opened on a street I lost was passing by An instant’s Width of Warmth disclosed And Wealth and Company. The Door as instant shut And I I lost was passing by Lost doubly but by contrast most Informing misery...
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. Lost Star When the creation was new and all the stars shone in their first Splendor, the gods held their assembly in the sky and sang ‘Oh, the picture of perfection! the joy unalloyed!’ But one cried of a sudden -‘It seems that somewhere there is a break in the chain of light And one of the […]...
9. Martha “Once…Once upon a time…” Over and over again, Martha would tell us her stories, In the hazel glen. Hers were those clear gray eyes You watch, and the story seems Told by their beautifulness Tranquil as dreams. She’d sit with her two slim hands Clasped round her bended knees; While we on our elbows lolled, […]...
10. The White Man's Burden Take up the White man’s burden Send forth the best ye breed Go bind your sons to exile To serve your captives’ need; To wait in heavy harness On fluttered folk and wild Your new-caught, sullen peoples, Half devil and half child. Take up the White Man’s burden In patience to abide, To veil the […]...
11. Three Songs To The One Burden I The Roaring Tinker if you like, But Mannion is my name, And I beat up the common sort And think it is no shame. The common breeds the common, A lout begets a lout, So when I take on half a score I knock their heads about. From mountain to mountain ride the fierce […]...
12. Every day I bear a burden Every day I bear a burden, and I bear this calamity for a purpose: I bear the discomfort of cold and December’s snow in hope of spring. Before the fattener-up of all who are lean, I drag this so emaciated body; Though they expel me from two hundred cities, I bear it for the sake […]...
13. The Moths There’s a kind of white moth, I don’t know What kind, that glimmers By mid-May In the forest, just As the pink mocassin flowers Are rising. If you notice anything, It leads you to notice More And more. And anyway I was so full of energy. I was always running around, looking At this and […]...
14. Noon I bend to the ground To catch Something whispered, Urgent, drifting Across the ditches. The heaviness of Flies stuttering In orbit, dirt Ripening, the sweat Of eggs. There are Small streams The width ofa thumb Running in the villages Of sheaves, whole Eras of grain Wakening on The stalks, a roof That breathes over My […]...
15. Some Like Poetry Write it. Write. In ordinary ink On ordinary paper: they were given no food, They all died of hunger. “All. How many? It’s a big meadow. How much grass For each one?” Write: I don’t know. History counts its skeletons in round numbers. A thousand and one remains a thousand, As though the one had […]...
16. Tonight I Can Write Tonight I can write the saddest lines. Write, for example, ‘The night is starry And the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.’ The night wind revolves in the sky and sings. Tonight I can write the saddest lines. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. Through nights like this one I […]...
17. Saddest Poem I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. Write, for instance: “The night is full of stars, And the stars, blue, shiver in the distance.” The night wind whirls in the sky and sings. I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. On nights […]...
18. How many schemes may die How many schemes may die In one short Afternoon Entirely unknown To those they most concern The man that was not lost Because by accident He varied by a Ribbon’s width From his accustomed route The Love that would not try Because beside the Door It must be competitions Some unsuspecting Horse was tied Surveying […]...
19. The wounded angel (from a painting by hugo simberg) Those who bear the wounded angel Are they honoured or destroyed Far beyond their comprehension Are the warfares of the void Angels have a sheen to lift them Well above the bloody battles Human beings give their hurts to Divines don’t need such tittle-tattles Yet this angel has been […]...
20. Beyond Siberia Again Siberia Beyond Siberia again Siberia, Beyond impenetrable forest again forest. And beyond it waste ground, Where a blizzard of snow breaks loose. The blizzard has handcuffs, and the snow- Storm has a knife which kills at once…. I will die, pay a debt For others who live somewhere, Out of spite, out of fear and terror, […]...
21. Amoretti III: The Sovereign Beauty The sovereign beauty which I do admire, Witness the world how worthy to be praised: The light whereof hath kindled heavenly fire In my frail spirit, by her from baseness raised; That being now with her huge brightness dazed, Base thing I can no more endure to view; But looking still on her, I stand […]...
22. 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 […]...
23. Love stopped before it began It would have been love, I am sure of it, And I held her hand torn between concern and pride Whilst she cried and cried on her first day at school. We walked to where her brother mowed the lawns With many others, racing with their mowers At manic speed in tight formation. Fascination Dared […]...
24. The Sign-Post The dim sea glints chill. The white sun is shy, And the skeleton weeds and the never-dry, Rough, long grasses keep white with frost At the hill-top by the finger-post; The smoke of the traveller’s-joy is puffed Over hawthorn berry and hazel tuft. I read the sign. Which way shall I go? A voice says: […]...
25. Circumstantial Evidence She does not mind a good cigar (The kind, that is, I smoke); She thinks all men quite stupid are, (But laughs whene’er I joke). She says she does not care for verse (But praises all I write); She says that punning is a curse, (But then mine are so bright!) She does not like […]...
26. Willard Fluke My wife lost her health, And dwindled until she weighed scarce ninety pounds. Then that woman, whom the men Styled Cleopatra, came along. And we we married ones All broke our vows, myself among the rest. Years passed and one by one Death claimed them all in some hideous form, And I was borne along […]...
27. Joy to have merited the Pain Joy to have merited the Pain To merit the Release Joy to have perished every step To Compass Paradise Pardon to look upon thy face With these old fashioned Eyes Better than new could be for that Though bought in Paradise Because they looked on thee before And thou hast looked on them Prove Me […]...
28. Les Grands Mutiles I saw three wounded of the war: And the first had lost his eyes; And the second went on wheels and had No legs below the thighs; And the face of the third was featureless, And his mouth ran cornerwise. So I made a rhyme about each one, And this is how my fancies run....
29. 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 […]...
30. Has My Heart Gone To Sleep? Has my heart gone to sleep? Have the beehives of my dreams Stopped working, the waterwheel Of the mind run dry, Scoops turning empty, Only shadow inside? No, my heart is not asleep. It is awake, wide awake. Not asleep, not dreaming- Its eyes are opened wide Watching distant signals, listening On the rim of […]...
31. Lover's Gifts XLII: Are You a Mere Picture Are you a mere picture, and not as true as those stars, true as This dust? They throb with the pulse of things, but you are Immensely aloof in your stillness, painted form. The day was when you walked with me, your breath warm, your Limbs singing of life. My world found its speech in […]...
32. Cry your dreams cry your dreams Child, Cry silent your screams As Still again, Those masters of war Face our souls And try to ignore. The broken tears Lying Shattered still, Across graveyards Too full. Our children There they lie, Lost to reason Lost to sky Fatherless children Asking Still asking why? Do we bleed Our eyes blind, […]...
33. A Song of Enchantment A song of Enchantment I sang me there, In a green-green wood, by waters fair, Just as the words came up to me I sang it under the wild wood tree. Widdershins turned I, singing it low, Watching the wild birds come and go; No cloud in the deep dark blue to be seen Under […]...
34. THE BLEEDING HAND; OR THE SPRIG OF EGLANTINE GIVEN TO A MAID From this bleeding hand of mine, Take this sprig of Eglantine: Which, though sweet unto your smell, Yet the fretful briar will tell, He who plucks the sweets, shall prove Many thorns to be in love....
35. A Prayer O HOLY SPIRIT of the Hazel, hearken now: Though shining suns and silver moons burn on the bough, And though the fruit of stars by many myriads gleam, Yet in the undergrowth below, still in thy dream, Lighting the monstrous maze and labyrinthine gloom Are many gem-winged flowers with gay and delicate bloom. And in […]...
36. 473. On Chloris requesting a sprig of blossom'd thorn FROM the white-blossom’d sloe my dear Chloris requested A sprig, her fair breast to adorn: No, by Heavens! I exclaim’d, let me perish, if ever I plant in that bosom a thorn!...
37. Abou Ben Adhem Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!) Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace, And saw, within the moonlight in his room, Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom, An angel writing in a book of gold:- Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold, And to the Presence in the room […]...
38. Walt Whitman The master-songs are ended, and the man That sang them is a name. And so is God A name; and so is love, and life, and death, And everything. But we, who are too blind To read what we have written, or what faith Has written for us, do not understand: We only blink, and […]...
39. The Song Of Wandering Aengus I went out to the hazel wood, Because a fire was in my head, And cut and peeled a hazel wand, And hooked a berry to a thread; And when white moths were on the wing, And moth-like stars were flickering out, I dropped the berry in a stream And caught a little silver trout. […]...
40. Corn Hut Talk WRITE your wishes on the door and come in. Stand outside in the pools of the harvest moon. Bring in the handshake of the pumpkins. There’s a wish for every hazel nut? There’s a hope for every corn shock? There’s a kiss for every clumsy climbing shadow? Clover and the bumblebees once, High winds and […]...