My Hundred Books

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1. Picture-Books in Winter Summer fading, winter comes Frosty mornings, tingling thumbs, Window robins, winter rooks, And the picture story-books. Water now is turned to stone Nurse and I can walk upon; Still we find the flowing brooks In the picture story-books. All the pretty things put by, Wait upon the children’s eye, Sheep and shepherds, trees and crooks, […]...
2. My Library Like prim Professor of a College I primed my shelves with books of knowledge; And now I stand before them dumb, Just like a child that sucks its thumb, And stares forlorn and turns away, With dolls or painted bricks to play. They glour at me, my tomes of learning. “You dolt!” they jibe; “you […]...
3. My Wars are laid away in Books My Wars are laid away in Books I have one Battle more A Foe whom I have never seen But oft has scanned me o’er And hesitated me between And others at my side, But chose the best Neglecting me till All the rest, have died How sweet if I am not forgot By Chums […]...
4. And Yet The Books And yet the books will be there on the shelves, separate beings, That appeared once, still wet As shining chestnuts under a tree in autumn, And, touched, coddled, began to live In spite of fires on the horizon, castles blown up, Tribes on the march, planets in motion. “We are, ” they said, even as […]...
5. The Land of Story-Books At evening when the lamp is lit, Around the fire my parents sit; They sit at home and talk and sing, And do not play at anything. Now, with my little gun, I crawl All in the dark along the wall, And follow round the forest track Away behind the sofa back. There, in the […]...
6. May and the Poets There is May in books forever; May will part from Spenser never; May’s in Milton, May’s in Prior, May’s in Chaucer, Thomson, Dyer; May’s in all the Italian books: She has old and modern nooks, Where she sleeps with nymphs and elves, In happy places they call shelves, And will rise and dress your rooms […]...
7. After a hundred years After a hundred years Nobody knows the Place Agony that enacted there Motionless as Peace Weeds triumphant ranged Strangers strolled and spelled At the lone Orthography Of the Elder Dead Winds of Summer Fields Recollect the way Instinct picking up the Key Dropped by memory...
8. Dark Glasses Sweet maiden, why disguise The beauty of your eyes With glasses black? Although I’m well aware That you are more than fair, Allure you lack. For as I stare at you I ask if brown or blue Your optics are? But though I cannot see, I’m sure that each must be Bright as a star. […]...
9. Two Hundred Years After Trudging by Corbie Ridge one winter’s night, (Unless old hearsay memories tricked his sight) Along the pallid edge of the quiet sky He watched a nosing lorry grinding on, And straggling files of men; when these were gone, A double limber and six mules went by, Hauling the rations up through ruts and mud To […]...
10. Unto my Books so good to turn Unto my Books so good to turn Far ends of tired Days It half endears the Abstinence And Pain is missed in Praise As Flavors cheer Retarded Guests With Banquettings to be So Spices stimulate the time Till my small Library It may be Wilderness without Far feet of failing Men But Holiday excludes the […]...
11. Among Those Killed In The Dawn Raid Was A Man Aged A Hundred When the morning was waking over the war He put on his clothes and stepped out and he died, The locks yawned loose and a blast blew them wide, He dropped where he loved on the burst pavement stone And the funeral grains of the slaughtered floor. Tell his street on its back he stopped […]...
12. A Fountain, a Bottle, a Donkey's Ears, and Some Books Old Davis owned a solid mica mountain In Dalton that would someday make his fortune. There’d been some Boston people out to see it: And experts said that deep down in the mountain The mica sheets were big as plate-glass windows. He’d like to take me there and show it to me. “I’ll tell you […]...
13. A Hundred Collars Lancaster bore him such a little town, Such a great man. It doesn’t see him often Of late years, though he keeps the old homestead And sends the children down there with their mother To run wild in the summer a little wild. Sometimes he joins them for a day or two And sees old […]...
14. Book Lover I keep collecting books I know I’ll never, never read; My wife and daughter tell me so, And yet I never head. “Please make me,” says some wistful tome, “A wee bit of yourself.” And so I take my treasure home, And tuck it in a shelf. And now my very shelves complain; They jam […]...
15. Comrades Oh bear with me, for I am old And count on fingers five The years this pencil I may hold And hope to be alive; How sadly soon our dreaming ends! How brief the sunset glow! Be kindly to the old, my friends: You’ll miss them when they go. I’ve seen so many disappear That […]...
16. A Plain Life No idle gold since this fine sun, my friend, Is no mean miser, but doth freely spend. No prescious stones since these green mornings show, Without a charge, their pearls where’er I go. No lifeless books since birds with their sweet tongues Will read aloud to me their happier songs. No painted scenes since clouds […]...
17. Resurgam Exiled afar from youth and happy love, If Death should ravish my fond spirit hence I have no doubt but, like a homing dove, It would return to its dear residence, And through a thousand stars find out the road Back into earthly flesh that was its loved abode....
18. MACTAVISH I do not write for love of pelf, Nor lust for phantom fame; I do not rhyme to please myself, Nor yet to win acclaim: No, strange to say it is my plan, What gifts I have, to lavish Upon a simple working man MACTAVISH. For that’s the rather smeary name, Of dreary toil a […]...
19. Narcissus Encircled by her arms as by a shell, She hears her being murmur, While forever he endures The outrage of his too pure image… Wistfully following their example, Nature re-enters herself; Contemplating its own sap, the flower Becomes too soft, and the boulder hardens… It’s the return of all desire that enters Toward all life […]...
20. TO BE MERRY Let’s now take our time, While we’re in our prime, And old, old age is afar off; For the evil, evil days Will come on apace, Before we can be aware of....
21. Discrimination The meter I had sought to find, perplexed, Was ripped from books of “verse” that read like prose. I found it in sheet music, in long rows Of hologramic CDs, in sad wrecks Of long-forgotten volumes undisturbed Half-centuries by archivists, unscanned. I read their fading numbers, frowned, perturbed- Why should their tattered artistry be banned? […]...
22. Song-Books of the War In fifty years, when peace outshines Remembrance of the battle lines, Adventurous lads will sigh and cast Proud looks upon the plundered past. On summer morn or winter’s night, Their hearts will kindle for the fight, Reading a snatch of soldier-song, Savage and jaunty, fierce and strong; And through the angry marching rhymes Of blind […]...
23. Nineteen Hundred And Nineteen I Many ingenious lovely things are gone That seemed sheer miracle to the multitude, Protected from the circle of the moon That pitches common things about. There stood Amid the ornamental bronze and stone An ancient image made of olive wood – And gone are phidias’ famous ivories And all the golden grasshoppers and bees. […]...
24. His Books MY days among the Dead are past; Around me I behold, Where’er these casual eyes are cast, The mighty minds of old: My never-failing friends are they, With whom I converse day by day. With them I take delight in weal And seek relief in woe; And while I understand and feel How much to […]...
25. FLOWER-SALUTE THIS nosegay, ’twas I dress’d it, Greets thee a thousand times! Oft stoop’d I, and caress’d it, Ah! full a thousand times, And ‘gainst my bosom press’d it A hundred thousand times! 1815.*...
26. Children Selecting Books In A Library With beasts and gods, above, the wall is bright. The child’s head, bent to the book-colored shelves, Is slow and sidelong and food-gathering, Moving in blind grace… yet from the mural, Care The grey-eyed one, fishing the morning mist, Seizes the baby hero by the hair And whispers, in the tongue of gods and children, […]...
27. HAPPY THIRTIETH BIRTHDAY CARCANET BOOKS Sorry, I almost forgot, but I don’t think Its worth the effort to become a Carcanet poet With my mug-shot on art gloss paper In your catalogue as big as Mont Blanc Easier to imagine, as Benjamin Peret did, A wind that would unscrew the mountain Or stars like apricot tarts strolling Aimlessly along the […]...
28. "Mike Teavee…&quot The most important thing we’ve learned, So far as children are concerned, Is never, NEVER, NEVER let Them near your television set Or better still, just don’t install The idiotic thing at all. In almost every house we’ve been, We’ve watched them gaping at the screen. They loll and slop and lounge about, And stare […]...
29. Television The most important thing we’ve learned, So far as children are concerned, Is never, NEVER, NEVER let Them near your television set Or better still, just don’t install The idiotic thing at all. In almost every house we’ve been, We’ve watched them gaping at the screen. They loll and slop and lounge about, And stare […]...
30. A happy lip breaks sudden A happy lip breaks sudden It doesn’t state you how It contemplated smiling Just consummated now But this one, wears its merriment So patient like a pain Fresh gilded to elude the eyes Unqualified, to scan...
31. Dunce At school I never gained a prize, Proving myself the model ass; Yet how I watched the wistful eyes, And cheered my mates who topped the class. No envy in my heart I found, Yet bone was worthier to own Those precious books in vellum bound, Than I, a dreamer and a drone. No prize […]...
32. Book Borrower I am a mild man, you’ll agree, But red my rage is, When folks who borrow books from me Turn down their pages. Or when a chap a book I lend, And find he’s loaned it Without permission to a friend – As if he owned it. But worst of all I hate those crooks […]...
33. What Counsel Has the Hooded Moon What counsel has the hooded moon Put in thy heart, my shyly sweet, Of Love in ancient plenilune, Glory and stars beneath his feet – A sage that is but kith and kin With the comedian Capuchin? Believe me rather that am wise In disregard of the divine, A glory kindles in those eyes Trembles […]...
34. Five-Per-Cent Because I have ten thousand pounds I sit upon my stern, And leave my living tranquilly for other folks to earn. For in some procreative way that isn’t very clear, Ten thousand pounds will breed, they say, five hundred every year. So as I have a healthy hate of economic strife, I mean to stand […]...
35. This Consciousness that is aware This Consciousness that is aware Of Neighbors and the Sun Will be the one aware of Death And that itself alone Is traversing the interval Experience between And most profound experiment Appointed unto Men How adequate unto itself Its properties shall be Itself unto itself and none Shall make discovery. Adventure most unto itself The […]...
36. The Home-Coming My boy’s come back; he’s here at last; He came home on a special train. My longing and my ache are past, My only son is back again. He’s home with music, flags and flowers; With peace and joy my heart’s abrim; He got here in the morning hours With half the town to welcome […]...
37. Graceland TOMB of a millionaire, A multi-millionaire, ladies and gentlemen, Place of the dead where they spend every year The usury of twenty-five thousand dollars For upkeep and flowers To keep fresh the memory of the dead. The merchant prince gone to dust Commanded in his written will Over the signed name of his last testament […]...
38. About The Sheltered Garden Ground ABOUT the sheltered garden ground The trees stand strangely still. The vale ne’er seemed so deep before, Nor yet so high the hill. An awful sense of quietness, A fulness of repose, Breathes from the dewy garden-lawns, The silent garden rows. As the hoof-beats of a troop of horse Heard far across a plain, A […]...
39. Horatio His portrait hung upon the wall. Oh how at us he used to stare. Each Sunday when I made my call! And when one day it wasn’t there, Quite quick I seemed to understand The light was green to hold her hand. Her eyes were amorously lit; I knew she wouldn’t mind at all. Yet […]...
40. Four-Foot Shelf ‘Come, see,’ said he, ‘my four-foot shelf, A forty volume row; And every one I wrote myself, But that, of course, you know.’ I stared, I searched a memory dim, For though an author too, Somehow I’d never heard of him, None of his books I knew. Said I: ‘I’d like to borrow one, Fond […]...