Resolutions

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1. Resolutions Each New Year’s Eve I used to brood On my misdoings of the past, And vowed: “This year I’ll be so good – Well, haply better than the last.” My record of reforms I read To Mum who listened sweetly to it: “Why plan all this, my son?” she said; “Just do it.” Of her […]...
2. 373. Song-The Slave's Lament IT was in sweet Senegal that my foes did me enthral, For the lands of Virginia,-ginia, O: Torn from that lovely shore, and must never see it more; And alas! I am weary, weary O: Torn from that lovely shore, and must never see it more; And alas! I am weary, weary O. All on […]...
3. The Rhyme of the O'Sullivan Pro Bono Publico Went out the streets to scan, And marching to and fro He met a seedy man, Who did a tale unfold In solemn tones and slow And this is what he told Pro Bono Publico. “For many years I led The people’s onward march; I was the ‘Fountain Head’, The ‘Democratic Arch’. […]...
4. We thirst at first 'tis Nature's Act We thirst at first ’tis Nature’s Act And later when we die A little Water supplicate Of fingers going by It intimates the finer want Whose adequate supply Is that Great Water in the West Termed Immortality...
5. From the Antique It’s a weary life, it is, she said: Doubly blank in a woman’s lot: I wish and I wish I were a man: Or, better then any being, were not: Were nothing at all in all the world, Not a body and not a soul: Not so much as a grain of dust Or a […]...
6. New Year's Morning Only a night from old to new! Only a night, and so much wrought! The Old Year’s heart all weary grew, But said: The New Year rest has brought.” The Old Year’s hopes its heart laid down, As in a grave; but trusting, said: “The blossoms of the New Year’s crown Bloom from the ashes […]...
7. Resolution People are still expecting this annus horribilis To close its black box of monstrosities; If I asked you about resolutions You’d probably give me that look And say “May this year fare us well.” I would know the answer too well And you, carefully folding the question, Tuck it back into my pocket and zip […]...
8. Shells Reaching down arm-deep into bright water I gathered on white sand under waves Shells, drifted up on beaches where I alone Inhabit a finite world of years and days. I reached my arm down a myriad years To gather treasure from the yester-milliennial sea-floor, Held in my fingers forms shaped on the day of creation. […]...
9. A Calendar of Sonnets: February Still lie the sheltering snows, undimmed and white; And reigns the winter’s pregnant silence still; No sign of spring, save that the catkins fill, And willow stems grow daily red and bright. These are days when ancients held a rite Of expiation for the old year’s ill, And prayer to purify the new year’s will: […]...
10. The House Of Dust: Part 02: 09: Interlude The days, the nights, flow one by one above us, The hours go silently over our lifted faces, We are like dreamers who walk beneath a sea. Beneath high walls we flow in the sun together. We sleep, we wake, we laugh, we pursue, we flee. We sit at tables and sip our morning coffee, […]...
11. Home's Kid (For Glenn) This time I know I will never see him again. For a time he played the game, like a child experimenting with blocks, building towers and fortresses but never bridges. Bridges are hard. Invariably his feet would slip, before he found the acceptance parents had denied and other children refused him. Acceptance he couldn’t recognise […]...
12. Bath-Song Sing hey! For the bath at close of day That washes the weary mud away A loon is he that will not sing O! Water Hot is a noble thing! O! Sweet is the sound of falling rain, And the brook that leaps from hill to plain; But better then rain or rippling streams Is […]...
13. Sonnet (1928) I am in need of music that would flow Over my fretful, feeling finger-tips, Over my bitter-tainted, trembling lips, With melody, deep, clear, and liquid-slow. Oh, for the healing swaying, old and low, Of some song sung to rest the tired dead, A song to fall like water on my head, And over quivering limbs, […]...
14. Water I was born in a drouth year. That summer My mother waited in the house, enclosed In the sun and the dry ceaseless wind, For the men to come back in the evenings, Bringing water from a distant spring. Veins of leaves ran dry, roots shrank. And all my life I have dreaded the return […]...
15. The singing in god's acre Out yonder in the moonlight, wherein God’s Acre lies, Go angels walking to and fro, singing their lullabies. Their radiant wings are folded, and their eyes are bended low, As they sing among the beds whereon the flowers delight to grow, “Sleep, oh, sleep! The Shepherd guardeth His sheep. Fast speedeth the night away, Soon […]...
16. Autumn River Song The moon shimmers in green water. White herons fly through the moonlight. The young man hears a girl gathering water-chestnuts: Into the night, singing, they paddle home together....
17. Song Of The Sardine A fat man sat in an orchestra stall and his cheeks were wet with tears, As he gazed at the primadonna tall, whom he hadn’t seen in years. “Oh don’t you remember” he murmured low “that Spring in Montparnasse, When hand in hand we used to go to our nightly singing class. Ah me those […]...
18. Villages and Plains the Streams Flow Through You too return, along with days gone, And flow again, my blue rivers, To carry on the songs of washerwomen, Fishermen’s nets and grey wooden bridges. Clear blue nights, smelling warm, Streams of thin mist off the meadow drift in With distinct hoof-stomps from a fettered horse. To carry off rioting spring thaws, Willows torn […]...
19. Dance-Hall Girls Where are the dames I used to know In Dawson in the days of yore? Alas, it’s fifty years ago, And most, I guess, have “gone before.” The swinging scythe is swift to mow Alike the gallant and the fair; And even I, with gouty toe, Am glad to fill a rocking chair. Ah me, […]...
20. The Village Atheist Ye young debaters over the doctrine Of the soul’s immortality I who lie here was the village atheist, Talkative, contentious, versed in the arguments Of the infidels. But through a long sickness Coughing myself to death I read the Upanishads and the poetry of Jesus. And they lighted a torch of hope and intuition And […]...
21. From a Railway Carriage Faster than fairies, faster than witches, Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches; And charging along like troops in a battle All through the meadows the horses and cattle: All of the sights of the hill and the plain Fly as thick as driving rain; And ever again, in the wink of an eye, Painted stations […]...
22. CELEBRITY [A satire on his own Sorrows of Werther.] ON bridges small and bridges great Stands Nepomucks in ev’ry state, Of bronze, wood, painted, or of stone, Some small as dolls, some giants grown; Each passer must worship before Nepomuck, Who to die on a bridge chanced to have the ill luck, When once a man […]...
23. Understanding The years of my youth, my sensual life How clearly I see their meaning now. What needless repentances, how futile…. But I did not understand the meaning then. In the dissolute life of my youth The desires of my poetry were being formed, The scope of my art was being plotted. This is why my […]...
24. Cockroach Roach, foulest of creatures, Who attacks with yellow teeth And an army of cousins big as shoes, You are lumps of coal that are mechanized And when I turn on the light you scuttle Into the corners and there is this hiss upon the land. Yet I know you are only the common angel Turned […]...
25. Corn Grinders O little mouse, why dost thou cry While merry stars laugh in the sky? Alas! alas! my lord is dead! Ah, who will ease my bitter pain? He went to seek a millet-grain In the rich farmer’s granary shed; They caught him in a baited snare, And slew my lover unaware: Alas! alas! my lord […]...
26. Request to a Year If the year is meditating a suitable gift, I should like it to be the attitude Of my great – great – grandmother, Legendary devotee of the arts, Who having eight children And little opportunity for painting pictures, Sat one day on a high rock Beside a river in Switzerland And from a difficult distance […]...
27. In Three Days I. So, I shall see her in three days And just one night, but nights are short, Then two long hours, and that is morn. See how I come, unchanged, unworn! Feel, where my life broke off from thine, How fresh the splinters keep and fine, – Only a touch and we combine! II. Too […]...
28. Flame-Heart So much have I forgotten in ten years, So much in ten brief years! I have forgot What time the purple apples come to juice, And what month brings the shy forget-me-not. I have forgot the special, startling season Of the pimento’s flowering and fruiting; What time of year the ground doves brown the fields […]...
29. The Change POOR River, now thou’rt almost dry, What Nymph, or Swain, will near thee lie? Since brought, alas! to sad Decay, What Flocks, or Herds, will near thee stay? The Swans, that sought thee in thy Pride, Now on new Streams forgetful ride: And Fish, that in thy Bosom lay, Chuse in more prosp’rous Floods to […]...
30. The Last Man All worldly shapes shall melt in gloom, The Sun himself must die, Before this mortal shall assume Its Immortality! I saw a vision in my sleep That gave my spirit strength to sweep Adown the gulf of Time! I saw the last of human mould, That shall Creation’s death behold, As Adam saw her prime! […]...
31. The Source There in the fringe of trees between The upper field and the edge of the one Below it that runs above the valley One time I heard in the early Days of summer the clear ringing Six notes that I knew were the opening Of the Fingal’s Cave Overture I heard them again and again […]...
32. A Greek Girl I may not weep, not weep, and he is dead. A weary, weary weight of tears unshed Through the long day in my sad heart I bear; The horrid sun with all unpitying glare Shines down into the dreary weaving-room, Where clangs the ceaseless clatter of the loom, And ceaselessly deft maiden-fingers weave The fine-wrought […]...
33. Work for Immortality Some Work for Immortality The Chiefer part, for Time He Compensates immediately The former Checks on Fame Slow Gold but Everlasting The Bullion of Today Contrasted with the Currency Of Immortality A Beggar Here and There Is gifted to discern Beyond the Broker’s insight One’s Money One’s the Mine –...
34. The Caged Thrush Freed and Home Again (Villanelle) “Men know but little more than we, Who count us least of things terrene, How happy days are made to be! “Of such strange tidings what think ye, O birds in brown that peck and preen? Men know but little more than we! “When I was borne from yonder tree In bonds to them, I […]...
35. I see around me tombstones grey I see around me tombstones grey Stretching their shadows far away. Beneath the turf my footsteps tread Lie low and lone the silent dead – Beneath the turf – beneath the mould – Forever dark, forever cold – And my eyes cannot hold the tears That memory hoards from vanished years For Time and Death […]...
36. In these quiet moments In these quiet moments before the night Softens the mountains of the South And deflates the clouds That float beneath their peaks, The dying sun’s rich, peach glow Deepens in the gathering gloom. There, where the mists stretch A false horizon between the sea And the land’s end Aratika glides across the trackless strait And […]...
37. Now, O Now in This Brown Land Now, O now, in this brown land Where Love did so sweet music make We two shall wander, hand in hand, Forbearing for old friendship’ sake, Nor grieve because our love was gay Which now is ended in this way. A rogue in red and yellow dress Is knocking, knocking at the tree; And all […]...
38. The Collision in the English Channel ‘Twas on a Sunday morning, and in the year of 1888, The steamer “Saxmundham,” laden with coal and coke for freight, Was run into amidships by the Norwegian barque “Nor,” And sunk in the English Channel, while the storm fiend did roar. She left Newcastle on Friday, in November, about two o’clock, And proceeded well […]...
39. To an Online Friend May be the whole thing was a dream, Pinched myself awake this morn, To check if you are there, virtually, And felt your sudden absence online! Be sure you will always exist, In a special place in my heart, Your smile in pixels is so sweet, But, no, you are too good to be true! […]...
40. A Calendar of Sonnets: December The lakes of ice gleam bluer than the lakes Of water ‘neath the summer sunshine gleamed: Far fairer than when placidly it streamed, The brook its frozen architecture makes, And under bridges white its swift way takes. Snow comes and goes as messenger who dreamed Might linger on the road; or one who deemed His […]...