An Epitaph upon Husband and Wife

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1. Any Wife To Any Husband I My love, this is the bitterest, that thou Who art all truth and who dost love me now As thine eyes say, as thy voice breaks to say – Shouldst love so truly and couldst love me still A whole long life through, had but love its will, Would death that leads me from […]...
2. Holy Innocents Sleep, little Baby, sleep, The holy Angels love thee, And guard thy bed, and keep A blessed watch above thee. No spirit can come near Nor evil beast to harm thee: Sleep, Sweet, devoid of fear Where nothing need alarm thee. The Love which doth not sleep, The eternal arms around thee: The shepherd of […]...
3. A Musician's Wife Between the visits to the shock ward The doctors used to let you play On the old upright Baldwin Donated by a former patient Who is said to be quite stable now. And all day long you played Chopin, Badly and hauntingly, when you weren’t Screaming on the porch that looked Like an enormous birdcage. […]...
4. To A Lady On The Death Of Her Husband GRIM monarch! see, depriv’d of vital breath, A young physician in the dust of death: Dost thou go on incessant to destroy, Our griefs to double, and lay waste our joy? Enough thou never yet wast known to say, Though millions die, the vassals of thy sway: Nor youth, nor science, not the ties of […]...
5. The Evening-Watch: A Dialogue BODY 1 Farewell! I go to sleep; but when 2 The day-star springs, I’ll wake again. SOUL 3 Go, sleep in peace; and when thou liest 4 Unnumber’d in thy dust, when all this frame 5 Is but one dram, and what thou now descriest 6 In sev’ral parts shall want a name, 7 Then […]...
6. In San Lorenzo Is thine hour come to wake, O slumbering Night? Hath not the Dawn a message in thine ear? Though thou be stone and sleep, yet shalt thou hear When the word falls from heaven Let there be light. Thou knowest we would not do thee the despite To wake thee while the old sorrow and […]...
7. Pilate's Wife's Dream I’ve quenched my lamp, I struck it in that start Which every limb convulsed, I heard it fall­ The crash blent with my sleep, I saw depart Its light, even as I woke, on yonder wall; Over against my bed, there shone a gleam Strange, faint, and mingling also with my dream. It sunk, and […]...
8. The Waking I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. I feel my fate in what I cannot fear. I learn by going where I have to go. We think by feeling. What is there to know? I hear my being dance from ear to ear. I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. Of […]...
9. Epitaph No matter how he toil and strive The fate of every man alive With luck will be to lie alone, His empty name cut in a stone. Grim time the fairest fame will flout, But though his name be blotted out, And he forgotten with his peers, His stone may wear a year of years. […]...
10. Stars Ah! why, because the dazzling sun Restored our Earth to joy, Have you departed, every one, And left a desert sky? All through the night, your glorious eyes Were gazing down in mine, And, with a full heart’s thankful sighs, I blessed that watch divine. I was at peace, and drank your beams As they […]...
11. The End of the Day The night darkens fast & the shadows darken, Clouds & the rain gather about mine house, Only the wood-dove moans, hearken, O hearken! The moan of the wood-dove in the rain-wet boughs. Loneliness & the night! The night is lonely Star-covered the night takes to a tender breast Wrapping them in her veil these dark […]...
12. I had no Cause to be awake I had no Cause to be awake My Best was gone to sleep And Morn a new politeness took And failed to wake them up But called the others clear And passed their Curtains by Sweet Morning when I oversleep Knock Recollect to Me I looked at Sunrise Once And then I looked at Them […]...
13. The Promise of Sleep Put the sweet thoughts from out thy mind, The dreams from out thy breast; No joy for thee but thou shalt find Thy rest All day I could not work for woe, I could not work nor rest; The trouble drove me to and fro, Like a leaf on the storm’s breast. Night came and […]...
14. Summons Keep me from going to sleep too soon Or if I go to sleep too soon Come wake me up. Come any hour Of night. Come whistling up the road. Stomp on the porch. Bang on the door. Make me get out of bed and come And let you in and light a light. Tell […]...
15. TO MY WIFE I You buy my freedom with your love. With every book you catalogue or stamp My imagination hacks a strand from the hawser That for three years has held it In the grubbing estuary of mud and time. Your early waking with tired eyes And late return at evening, all Contribute to the store of […]...
16. Ashes Of Life Love has gone and left me and the days are all alike; Eat I must, and sleep I will,-and would that night were here! But ah!-to lie awake and hear the slow hours strike! Would that it were day again!-with twilight near! Love has gone and left me and I don’t know what to do; […]...
17. Sappho I sigh at day-dawn, and I sigh When the dull day is passing by. I sigh at evening, and again I sigh when night brings sleep to men. Oh! it were far better to die Than thus forever mourn and sigh, And in death’s dreamless sleep to be Unconscious that none weep for me; Eased […]...
18. Dreams are well but Waking's better Dreams are well but Waking’s better, If One wake at morn If One wake at Midnight better Dreaming of the Dawn Sweeter the Surmising Robins Never gladdened Tree Than a Solid Dawn confronting Leading to no Day...
19. Dream Land Where sunless rivers weep Their waves into the deep, She sleeps a charmed sleep: Awake her not. Led by a single star, She came from very far To seek where shadows are Her pleasant lot. She left the rosy morn, She left the fields of corn, For twilight cold and lorn And water springs. Through […]...
20. For My Lover, Returning To His Wife She is all there. She was melted carefully down for you And cast up from your childhood, Cast up from your one hundred favorite aggies. She has always been there, my darling. She is, in fact, exquisite. Fireworks in the dull middle of February And as real as a cast-iron pot. Let’s face it, I […]...
21. Ye Mariners of England 1 Ye Mariners of England 2 That guard our native seas, 3 Whose flag has braved, a thousand years, 4 The battle and the breeze 5 Your glorious standard launch again 6 To match another foe! 7 And sweep through the deep, 8 While the stormy winds do blow, 9 While the battle rages loud […]...
22. A Wife In London December 1899 I She sits in the tawny vapour That the Thames-side lanes have uprolled, Behind whose webby fold-on-fold Like a waning taper The street-lamp glimmers cold. A messenger’s knock cracks smartly, Flashed news in her hand Of meaning it dazes to understand Though shaped so shortly: He he has fallen in the far South […]...
23. Suppose? It’s mighty nice at shut of day With weariness to hit the hey, To close your eyes, tired through and through, And just forget that “you are you.” It’s mighty sweet to wake again When sunshine floods the window pain; I love in cosy couch to lie, And re-discover “I am I.” It would be […]...
24. Letter Of Recommendation From My Father To My Future Wife During the war, I was in China. Every night we blew the world to hell. The sky was purple and yellow Like his favorite shirt. I was in India once On the Ganges in a tourist boat. There were soldiers, Some women with parasols. A dead body floated by Going in the opposite direction. My […]...
25. Through Agony I All night, through the eternity of night, Pain was my potion though I could not feel. Deep in my humbled heart you ground your heel, Till I was reft of even my inner light, Till reason from my mind had taken flight, And all my world went whirling in a reel. And all my […]...
26. The Wife's Will SIT still­a word­a breath may break (As light airs stir a sleeping lake,) The glassy calm that soothes my woes, The sweet, the deep, the full repose. O leave me not! for ever be Thus, more than life itself to me! Yes, close beside thee, let me kneel­ Give me thy hand that I may […]...
27. The End It is time for me to go, mother; I am going. When in the paling darkness of the lonely dawn you stretch out Your arms for your baby in the bed, I shall say, “Baby is not Here!”-mother, I am going. I shall become a delicate draught of air and caress you and I shall […]...
28. The Faithless Wife So I took her to the river Believing she was a maiden, But she already had a husband. It was on St. James night And almost as if I was obliged to. The lanterns went out And the crickets lighted up. In the farthest street corners I touched her sleeping breasts And they opened to […]...
29. For You THE PEACE of great doors be for you. Wait at the knobs, at the panel oblongs. Wait for the great hinges. The peace of great churches be for you, Where the players of loft pipe organs Practice old lovely fragments, alone. The peace of great books be for you, Stains of pressed clover leaves on […]...
30. A Letter to Her Husband Absent upon Public Employment My head, my heart, mine eyes, my life, nay more, My joy, my magazine, of earthly store, If two be one, as surely thou and I, How stayest thou there, whilst I at Ipswich lie? So many steps, head from the heart to sever, If but a neck, soon should we […]...
31. Logos Out of the night forth flamed a star – mine own! Now seventy light-years nearer as I urge Constant my heart through the abyss unknown, Its glory my sole guide while space surge About me. Seventy light-yaers! As I near That gate of light that men call death, its cold Pale gleam begins to pulse, […]...
32. The Dream Called Life From the Spanish of Pedro Calderon de la Barca A dream it was in which I found myself. And you that hail me now, then hailed me king, In a brave palace that was all my own, Within, and all without it, mine; until, Drunk with excess of majesty and pride, Methought I towered so […]...
33. Epitaph Of La Fontaine Made By Himself JOHN, as he came, so went away, Consuming capital and pay, Holding superfluous riches cheap; The trick of spending time he knew, Dividing it in portions two, For idling one, and one for sleep....
34. Sleep! Sleep! Beauty Bright Sleep! sleep! beauty bright, Dreaming o’er the joys of night; Sleep! sleep! in thy sleep Little sorrows sit and weep. Sweet Babe, in thy face Soft desires I can trace, Secret joys and secret smiles, Little pretty infant wiles. As thy softest limbs I feel, Smiles as of the morning steal O’er thy cheek, and […]...
35. An Hymn To The Evening Soon as the sun forsook the eastern main The pealing thunder shook the heav’nly plain; Majestic grandeur! From the zephyr’s wing, Exhales the incense of the blooming spring. Soft purl the streams, the birds renew their notes, And through the air their mingled music floats. Through all the heav’ns what beauteous dies are spread! But […]...
36. To emma abbott There let thy hands be folded Awhile in sleep’s repose; The patient hands that wearied not, But earnestly and nobly wrought In charity and faith; And let thy dear eyes close The eyes that looked alway to God, Nor quailed beneath the chastening rod Of sorrow; Fold thou thy hands and eyes For just a […]...
37. The Ghost Peace in thy hands, Peace in thine eyes, Peace on thy brow; Flower of a moment in the eternal hour, Peace with me now. Not a wave breaks, Not a bird calls, My heart, like a sea, Silent after a storm that hath died, Sleeps within me. All the night’s dews, All the world’s leaves, […]...
38. Her Late Husband (King's-Hintock, 182-.) “No not where I shall make my own; But dig his grave just by The woman’s with the initialed stone – As near as he can lie – After whose death he seemed to ail, Though none considered why. “And when I also claim a nook, And your feet tread me in, Bestow me, under […]...
39. 511. Song-O aye my wife she dang me Chorus-O aye my wife she dang me, An’ aft my wife she bang’d me, If ye gie a woman a’ her will, Gude faith! she’ll soon o’er-gang ye. ON peace an’ rest my mind was bent, And, fool I was! I married; But never honest man’s intent Sane cursedly miscarried. O aye my wife, &c. […]...
40. After Long Silence Speech after long silence; it is right, All other lovers being estranged or dead, Unfriendly lamplight hid under its shade, The curtains drawn upon unfriendly night, That we descant and yet again descant Upon the supreme theme of Art and Song: Bodily decrepitude is wisdom; young We loved each other and were ignorant....