The Orient Express

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1. Morning Express Along the wind-swept platform, pinched and white, The travellers stand in pools of wintry light, Offering themselves to morn’s long, slanting arrows. The train’s due; porters trundle laden barrows. The train steams in, volleying resplendent clouds Of sun-blown vapour. Hither and about, Scared people hurry, storming the doors in crowds. The officials seem to waken […]...
2. The House In The Woods At the back of the houses there is the wood. While there is a leaf of summer left, the wood Makes sounds I can put somewhere in my song, Has paths I can walk, when I wake, to good Or evil: to the cage, to the oven, to the House In the Wood. It is […]...
3. The Bungler You glow in my heart Like the flames of uncounted candles. But when I go to warm my hands, My clumsiness overturns the light, And then I stumble Against the tables and chairs....
4. Sonnet 7: Lo, in the orient when the gracious light Lo, in the orient when the gracious light Lifts up his burning head, each under eye Doth homage to his new-appearing sight, Serving with looks his sacred majesty; And having climbed the steep-up heavenly hill, Resembling strong youth in his middle age, Yet mortal looks adore his beauty still, Attending on his golden pilgrimage; But […]...
5. ON HIMSELF A wearied pilgrim I have wander’d here, Twice five-and-twenty, bate me but one year; Long I have lasted in this world; ’tis true But yet those years that I have lived, but few. Who by his gray hairs doth his lustres tell, Lives not those years, but he that lives them well: One man has […]...
6. The Evil Eye It comes oozing Out of flowers at night, It comes out of the rain If a snake looks skyward, It comes out of chairs and tables If you don’t point at them and say their names. It comes into your mouth while you sleep, Pressing in like a washcloth. Beware. Beware. If you meet a […]...
7. Gunner Did they send me away from my cat and my wife To a doctor who poked me and counted my teeth, To a line on a plain, to a stove in a tent? Did I nod in the flies of the schools? And the fighters rolled into the tracer like rabbits, The blood froze over […]...
8. Child of the Romans THE dago shovelman sits by the railroad track Eating a noon meal of bread and bologna. A train whirls by, and men and women at tables Alive with red roses and yellow jonquils, Eat steaks running with brown gravy, Strawberries and cream, eclaires and coffee. The dago shovelman finishes the dry bread and bologna, Washes […]...
9. Last Night I Dreamed of Chickens Last night I dreamed of chickens, There were chickens everywhere, They were standing on my stomach, They were nesting in my hair, They were pecking at my pillow, They were hopping on my head, They were ruffling up their feathers As they raced about my bed. They were on the chairs and tables, They were […]...
10. Nocturne III One night One night all full of murmurings, of perfumes and music of wings; One night In which fantastic fireflies burnt in the humid nuptial shadows, Slowly by my side, pressed altogether close, silent and pale, As if a presentiment of infinite bitternesses Agitated you unto the most hidden fibers of your being, Along the […]...
11. The Refugees In the shabby train no seat is vacant. The child in the ripped mask Sprawls undisturbed in the waste Of the smashed compartment. Is their calm extravagant? They had faces and lives like you. What was it they possessed That they were willing to trade for this? The dried blood sparkles along the mask Of […]...
12. Sonnet 122: Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain Full charactered with lasting memory, Which shall above that idle rank remain Beyond all date even to eternity- Or at the least, so long as brain and heart Have faculty by nature to subsist; Till each to razed oblivion yield his part Of thee, thy record never […]...
13. Sonnet CXXII Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain Full character’d with lasting memory, Which shall above that idle rank remain Beyond all date, even to eternity; Or at the least, so long as brain and heart Have faculty by nature to subsist; Till each to razed oblivion yield his part Of thee, thy record never […]...
14. The Rose Of The World Who dreamed that beauty passes like a dream? For these red lips, with all their mournful pride, Mournful that no new wonder may betide, Troy passed away in one high funeral gleam, And Usna’s children died. We and the labouring world are passing by: Amid men’s souls, that waver and give place Like the pale […]...
15. Life's Scars They say the world is round, and yet I often think it square, So many little hurts we get From corners here and there. But one great truth in life I’ve found, While journeying to the West- The only folks who really wound Are those we love the best. The man you thoroughly despise Can […]...
16. The Path RUNNING along a bank, a parapet That saves from the precipitous wood below The level road, there is a path. It serves Children for looking down the long smooth steep, Between the legs of beech and yew, to where A fallen tree checks the sight: while men and women Content themselves with the road and […]...
17. Dream Song 85: Op. posth. no. 8 Flak. An eventful thought came to me, Who squirm in my hole. How will the matter end? Who’s king these nights? What happened to. . . day? Are ships abroad? I would like to but may not entertain a friend. Save me from ghastly frights, Triune! My wood or word seems to be rotting. I […]...
18. Passing showers Yesterday a passing, transient shower, Slaked my thirst so gently, softly, Showers in March are unheard – In this arid part of the world. They say the world is dying, I know, I remember how you said love died, It was a passing shower, a fancy, That left you cold and shivering. This distance, these […]...
19. Sonnet LXVII: On Passing over a Dreary Tract Swift fleet the billowy clouds along the sky, Earth seems to shudder at the storm aghast; While only beings as forlorn as I, Court the chill horrors of the howling blast. Even round yon crumbling walls, in search of food, The ravenous Owl foregoes his evening flight, And in his cave, within the deepest wood, […]...
20. When I Suspected There will be a time when it will end. Be it parting Be it death So each passing minute with you Pendulummed with sadness. So many times I looked long into your face. I could hear the clock ticking....
21. Train Train. Distant Train. Praise the glorious distance of Train. Dogs bark, reply to the mournful echo of Train’s whistle. Train looks back, keeps moving. Train carries its boxcars of secrets further and further away (and even further still) from those who profess to love Train, but who do not run after him. Eyes brimmed with […]...
22. Agoraphobia My whole world is all you refuse: A black light, angelic and cold On the path to the orchard, Fox-runs and clouded lanes and the glitter of webbing, Little owls snagged in the fruit nets Out by the wire And the sense of another life, that persists When I go out into the yard And […]...
23. The First Night Of Fall And Falling Rain The common rain had come again Slanting and colorless, pale and anonymous, Fainting falling in the first evening Of the first perception of the actual fall, The long and late light had slowly gathered up A sooty wood of clouded sky, dim and distant more and more Until, at dusk, the very sense of selfhood […]...
24. The peace of wild things When despair grows in me And I wake in the middle of the night at the least sound In fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake Rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the […]...
25. Some Rainbow coming from the Fair! Some Rainbow coming from the Fair! Some Vision of the World Cashmere I confidently see! Or else a Peacock’s purple Train Feather by feather on the plain Fritters itself away! The dreamy Butterflies bestir! Lethargic pools resume the whir Of last year’s sundered tune! From some old Fortress on the sun Baronial Bees march one […]...
26. COURAGE CARELESSLY over the plain away, Where by the boldest man no path Cut before thee thou canst discern, Make for thyself a path! Silence, loved one, my heart! Cracking, let it not break! Breaking, break not with thee! 1776.*...
27. From Shadow Now the November skies, And the clouds that are thin and gray, That drop with the wind away; A flood of sunlight rolls, In a tide of shallow light, Gold on the land and white On the water, dim and warm in the wood; Then it is gone, and the wan Clear of the shade […]...
28. Guilt The clock is frozen in the tower, The thickening fog with sooty smell Has blanketed the motor power Which turns the London streets to hell; And footsteps with their lonely sound Intensify the silence round. I haven’t hope. I haven’t faith. I live two lives and sometimes three. The lives I live make life a […]...
29. The shut-eye train Come, my little one, with me! There are wondrous sights to see As the evening shadows fall; In your pretty cap and gown, Don’t detain The Shut-Eye train – “Ting-a-ling!” the bell it goeth, “Toot-toot!” the whistle bloweth, And we hear the warning call: “All aboard for Shut-Eye Town!” Over hill and over plain Soon […]...
30. Freedom of Love (Translated from the French by Edouard Rodti) My wife with the hair of a wood fire With the thoughts of heat lightning With the waist of an hourglass With the waist of an otter in the teeth of a tiger My wife with the lips of a cockade and of a bunch of stars of […]...
31. All these my banners be All these my banners be. I sow my pageantry In May It rises train by train Then sleeps in state again My chancel all the plain Today. To lose if one can find again To miss if one shall meet The Burglar cannot rob then The Broker cannot cheat. So build the hillocks gaily Thou […]...
32. Haunted House Here was a place where none would ever come For shelter, save as we did from the rain. We saw no ghost, yet once outside again Each wondered why the other should be so dumb; And ruin, and to our vision it was plain Where thrift, outshivering fear, had let remain Some chairs that were […]...
33. A Coloured Print by Shokei It winds along the face of a cliff This path which I long to explore, And over it dashes a waterfall, And the air is full of the roar And the thunderous voice of waters which sweep In a silver torrent over some steep. It clears the path with a mighty bound And tumbles below […]...
34. Noctambule Zut! it’s two o’clock. See! the lights are jumping. Finish up your bock, Time we all were humping. Waiters stack the chairs, Pile them on the tables; Let us to our lairs Underneath the gables. Up the old Boul’ Mich’ Climb with steps erratic. Steady. . . how I wish I was in my attic! […]...
35. I Told You I told you the winter would go, love, I told you the winter would go, That he’d flee in shame when the south wind came, And you smiled when I told you so. You said the blustering fellow Would never yield to a breeze, That his cold, icy breath had frozen to death The flowers, […]...
36. Dawning There are hours when every thing creaks When chairs stretch their arms, tables their legs And closets crack their backs, incautiously Fed up with the polite fantasy Of having to stay in one place And stick to their stations Humans too, at work, or in love Know such aches and growing pains When inner furnishings […]...
37. Lizards And Snakes On the summer road that ran by our front porch Lizards and snakes came out to sun. It was hot as a stove out there, enough to scorch A buzzard’s foot. Still, it was fun To lie in the dust and spy on them. Near but remote, They snoozed in the carriage ruts, a smile […]...
38. 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 […]...
39. Dreamers Soldiers are citizens of death’s gray land, Drawing no dividend from time’s to-morrows. In the great hour of destiny they stand, Each with his feuds, and jealousies, and sorrows. Soldiers are sworn to action; they must win Some flaming, fatal climax with their lives. Soldiers are dreamers; when the guns begin They think of firelit […]...
40. The Gardener LXVIII: None Lives For Ever, Brother None lives for ever, brother, and Nothing lasts for long. Keep that in Mind and rejoice. Our life is not the one old burden, Our path is not the one long Journey. One sole poet has not to sing one Aged song. The flower fades and dies; but he Who wears the flower has not […]...