Riddle

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1. First Sight Lambs that learn to walk in snow When their bleating clouds the air Meet a vast unwelcome, know Nothing but a sunless glare. Newly stumbling to and fro All they find, outside the fold, Is a wretched width of cold. As they wait beside the ewe, Her fleeces wetly caked, there lies Hidden round them, […]...
2. The Riddle Shall I love God for causing me to be? I was mere utterance; shall these words love me? Yet when I caused His work to jar and stammer, And one free subject loosened all His grammar, I love Him that He did not in a rage Once and forever rule me off the page, But, […]...
3. A Riddle Song THAT which eludes this verse and any verse, Unheard by sharpest ear, unform’d in clearest eye or cunningest mind, Nor lore nor fame, nor happiness nor wealth, And yet the pulse of every heart and life throughout the world incessantly, Which you and I and all pursuing ever ever miss, Open but still a secret, […]...
4. A Riddle: On A Kiss What thing is that, nor felt nor seene Till it bee given? a present for a Queene: A fine conceite to give and take the like: The giver yet is farther for to seeke; The taker doth possesse nothing the more, The giver hee hath nothing lesse in store: And given once that nature hath […]...
5. The Riddle of the World Know then thyself, presume not God to scan The proper study of Mankind is Man. Placed on this isthmus of a middle state, A Being darkly wise, and rudely great: With too much knowledge for the Sceptic side, With too much weakness for the Stoic’s pride, He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest; […]...
6. Under the Violets HER hands are cold; her face is white; No more her pulses come and go; Her eyes are shut to life and light; Fold the white vesture, snow on snow, And lay her where the violets blow. But not beneath a graven stone, To plead for tears with alien eyes; A slender cross of wood […]...
7. The True Lover The lad came to the door at night, When lovers crown their vows, And whistled soft and out of sight In shadow of the boughs. “I shall not vex you with my face Henceforth, my love, for aye; So take me in your arms a space Before the cast is grey. “When I from hence […]...
8. 1914 IV: The Dead These hearts were woven of human joys and cares, Washed marvellously with sorrow, swift to mirth. The years had given them kindness. Dawn was theirs, And sunset, and the colours of the earth. These had seen movement, and heard music; known Slumber and waking; loved; gone proudly friended; Felt the quick stir of wonder; sat […]...
9. Marine Snow At Mid-Depths And Down As you descend, slowly, falling faster past You this snow, Ghostly, some flakes bio- Luminescent (you plunge, And this lit snow doesn’t land At your feet but keeps falling below You): single-cell-plant chains, shreds Of zooplankton’s mucus food traps, Fish fecal pellets, radioactive fallouts, Sand grains, pollen….And inside These jagged falling islands Live more microlives, […]...
10. Mortal Limit I saw the hawk ride updraft in the sunset over Wyoming. It rose from coniferous darkness, past gray jags Of mercilessness, past whiteness, into the gloaming Of dream-spectral light above the lazy purity of snow-snags. There west were the Tetons. Snow-peaks would soon be In dark profile to break constellations. Beyond what height Hangs now […]...
11. Life All in the dark we grope along, And if we go amiss We learn at least which path is wrong, And there is gain in this. We do not always win the race, By only running right, We have to tread the mountain’s base Before we reach its height. The Christs alone no errors made; […]...
12. Inscription 08 – For The Cenotaph At Ermenonville STRANGER! the MAN OF NATURE lies not here: Enshrin’d far distant by his rival’s side His relics rest, there by the giddy throng With blind idolatry alike revered! Wiselier directed have thy pilgrim feet Explor’d the scenes of Ermenonville. ROUSSEAU Loved these calm haunts of Solitude and Peace; Here he has heard the murmurs of […]...
13. They Were Welcome To Their Belief Grief may have thought it was grief. Care may have thought it was care. They were welcome to their belief, The overimportant pair. No, it took all the snows that clung To the low roof over his bed, Beginning when he was young, To induce the one snow on his head. But whenever the roof […]...
14. The Snow Man One must have a mind of winter To regard the frost and the boughs Of the pine-trees crusted with snow; And have been cold a long time To behold the junipers shagged with ice, The spruces rough in the distant glitter Of the January sun; and not to think Of any misery in the sound […]...
15. 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 […]...
16. 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 […]...
17. Petropolis From a fearful height, a wandering light, But does a star glitter like this, crying? Transparent star, wandering light Your brother, Petropolis, is dying. From a fearful height, earthly dreams are alight, And a green star is crying. Oh star, if you are the brother of water and light, Your brother, Petropolis, is dying. A […]...
18. Answer THE WARMTH of life is quenched with bitter frost; Upon the lonely road a child limps by Skirting the frozen pools: our way is lost: Our hearts sink utterly. But from the snow-patched moorland chill and drear, Lifting our eyes beyond the spirëd height, With white-fire lips apart the dawn breathes clear Its soundless hymn […]...
19. The Withering Of The Boughs I cried when the moon was mutmuring to the birds: ‘Let peewit call and curlew cry where they will, I long for your merry and tender and pitiful words, For the roads are unending, and there is no place to my mind.’ The honey-pale moon lay low on the sleepy hill, And I fell asleep […]...
20. WINTERLIGHT Let us, this December night, leave the ring Of heat, the lapping flames around the fire’s heart, Move with bodies tensed against the light Towards the moon’s pull and the cloud’s hand. Arms of angels hold us, lend our bodies Height of stars and the planets’ whirl, Grant us sufficiency of light so we may […]...
21. I cannot be ashamed I cannot be ashamed Because I cannot see The love you offer Magnitude Reverses Modesty And I cannot be proud Because a Height so high Involves Alpine Requirements And Services of Snow....
22. Evening in a Sugar Orchard From where I lingered in a lull in march Outside the sugar-house one night for choice, I called the fireman with a careful voice And bade him leave the pan and stoke the arch: ‘O fireman, give the fire another stoke, And send more sparks up chimney with the smoke.’ I thought a few might […]...
23. St. John's, Cambridge I stand beneath the tree, whose branches shade Thy western window, Chapel of St. John! And hear its leaves repeat their benison On him, whose hand thy stones memorial laid; Then I remember one of whom was said In the world’s darkest hour, “Behold thy son!” And see him living still, and wandering on And […]...
24. In the High Leaves of a Walnut In the high leaves of a walnut, On the very topmost boughs, A boy that climbed the branching bole His cradled limbs would house. On the airy bed that rocked him Long, idle hours he’d lie Alone with white clouds sailing The warm blue of the sky. I remember not what his dreams were; But […]...
25. The Red Blaze is the Morning The Red Blaze is the Morning The Violet is Noon The Yellow Day is falling And after that is none But Miles of Sparks at Evening Reveal the Width that burned The Territory Argent that Never yet consumed...
26. Tцrnfallet There is a meadow in Sweden Where I lie smitten, Eyes stained with clouds’ White ins and outs. And about that meadow Roams my widow Plaiting a clover Wreath for her lover. I took her in marriage In a granite parish. The snow lent her whiteness, A pine was a witness. She’d swim in the […]...
27. Nature that Washed Her Hands in Milk Nature, that washed her hands in milk, And had forgot to dry them, Instead of earth took snow and silk, At love’s request to try them, If she a mistress could compose To please love’s fancy out of those. Her eyes he would should be of light, A violet breath, and lips of jelly; Her […]...
28. At leisure is the Soul At leisure is the Soul That gets a Staggering Blow The Width of Life before it spreads Without a thing to do It begs you give it Work But just the placing Pins Or humblest Patchwork Children do To Help its Vacant Hands...
29. The Apple Tree When first we saw the apple tree The boughs were dark and straight, But never grief to give had we, Though Spring delayed so late. When last I came away from there The boughs were heavy hung, But little grief had I to spare For Summer, perished young....
30. 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 […]...
31. After Prayers, Lie Cold Arise my body, my small body, we have striven Enough, and He is merciful; we are forgiven. Arise small body, puppet-like and pale, and go, White as the bed-clothes into bed, and cold as snow, Undress with small, cold fingers and put out the light, And be alone, hush’d mortal, in the sacred night, -A […]...
32. Somewhere upon the general Earth Somewhere upon the general Earth Itself exist Today The Magic passive but extant That consecrated me Indifferent Seasons doubtless play Where I for right to be Would pay each Atom that I am But Immortality Reserving that but just to prove Another Date of Thee Oh God of Width, do not for us Curtail Eternity!...
33. The Shadowy Waters: The Harp of Aengus Edain came out of Midhir’s hill, and lay Beside young Aengus in his tower of glass, Where time is drowned in odour-laden winds And Druid moons, and murmuring of boughs, And sleepy boughs, and boughs where apples made Of opal and ruhy and pale chrysolite Awake unsleeping fires; and wove seven strings, Sweet with all […]...
34. No Man can compass a Despair No Man can compass a Despair As round a Goalless Road No faster than a Mile at once The Traveller proceed Unconscious of the Width Unconscious that the Sun Be setting on His progress So accurate the One At estimating Pain Whose own has just begun His ignorance the Angel That pilot Him along...
35. May 24, 1980 I have braved, for want of wild beasts, steel cages, Carved my term and nickname on bunks and rafters, Lived by the sea, flashed aces in an oasis, Dined with the-devil-knows-whom, in tails, on truffles. From the height of a glacier I beheld half a world, the earthly width. Twice have drowned, thrice let knives […]...
36. The Night is Darkening Around Me The night is darkening round me, The wild winds coldly blow ; But a tyrant spell has bound me, And I cannot, cannot go. The giant trees are bending Their bare boughs weighed with snow ; The storm is fast descending, And yet I cannot go. Clouds beyond clouds above me, Wastes beyond wastes below […]...
37. The Moon, how definite its orb! (fragment) The Moon, how definite its orb! Yet gaze again, and with a steady gaze ‘Tis there indeed, but where is it not? It is suffused o’er all the sapphire Heaven, Trees, herbage, snake-like stream, unwrinkled Lake, Whose very murmur does of it partake And low and close the broad smooth mountain Is more a thing […]...
38. Nimrodel An Elven-maid there was of old, A shining star by day. Her mantle white was hemmed with gold, Her shoes of silver-grey. A star was bound upon her brows, A light was on her hair As sun upon the golden boughs In Lorien the fair. Her hair was long, her limbs were white, And fair […]...
39. There was, before me There was, before me, Mile upon mile Of snow, ice, burning sand. And yet I could look beyond all this, To a place of infinite beauty; And I could see the loveliness of her Who walked in the shade of the trees. When I gazed, All was lost But this place of beauty and her. […]...
40. Bathed and Washed “Bathed in fragrance, Do not brush your hat; Washed in perfume, Do not shake your coat: “Knowing the world Fears what is too pure, The wisest man Prizes and stores light!” By Bluewater An old angler sat: You and I together, Let us go home....