The Actor

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1. Son He hurried away, young heart of joy, under our Devon sky! And I watched him go, my beautiful boy, and a weary woman was I. For my hair is grey, and his was gold; he’d the best of his life to live; And I’d loved him so, and I’m old, I’m old; and he’s all […]...
2. My Book Before I drink myself to death, God, let me finish up my Book! At night, I fear, I fight for breath, And wake up whiter than a spook; And crawl off to a bistro near, And drink until my brain is clear. Rare Absinthe! Oh, it gives me strength To write and write; and so […]...
3. Sonnet 23: As an unperfect actor on the stage As an unperfect actor on the stage Who with his fear is put beside his part, Or some fierce thing replete with too much rage, Whose strength’s abundance weakens his own heart, So I, for fear of trust, forget to say The perfect ceremony of love’s rite, And in mine own love’s strength seem to […]...
4. Gignol Addict of Punch and Judy shows I was when I was small; My kiddy laughter, I suppose, Rang louder than them all. The Judge with banter I would bait, The Copper was a wretch; But oh how I would hiss my hate For grim Jack Ketch. Although a grandsire grey I still Love Punch and […]...
5. The Choice Life, come to me in no pale guise and ashen, I care not for thee in such placid fashion! I would share widely, Life, In all thy joy and strife, Would sound thy deeps and reach thy highest passion, With thy delight and with thy suffering rife. Whether I bide with thee in cot or […]...
6. Shiela When I played my penny whistle on the braes above Lochgyle The heather bloomed about us, and we heard the peewit call; As you bent above your knitting something fey was in your smile, And fine and soft and slow the rain made silver on your shawl. Your cheeks were pink like painted cheeks, your […]...
7. Horace and Lydia Reconciled HORACE When you were mine in auld lang syne, And when none else your charms might ogle, I’ll not deny, Fair nymph, that I Was happier than a Persian mogul. LYDIA Before she came that rival flame! (Was ever female creature sillier?) In those good times, Bepraised in rhymes, I was more famed than Mother […]...
8. 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!...
9. Poet's Path My garden hath a slender path With ivy overgrown, A secret place where once would pace A pot all alone; I see him now with fretted brow, Plunged deep in thought; And sometimes he would write maybe, And sometimes he would not. A verse a day he used to say Keeps worry from the door; […]...
10. A Last Counsel COULD you not in silence borrow Strength to go from us ungrieving? All these hours of loving sorrow Only make more bitter leaving. You will go forth lonely, thinking Of the pain you leave behind you; From the golden sunlight shrinking For the earthly tears will blind you. Better, ah, if now we parted For […]...
11. Benjamin Franklin Franklin fathered bastards fourteen, (So I read in the New Yorker); If it’s true, in terms of courtin’ Benny must have been a corker. To be prudent I’ve aspired, And my passions I have mastered; So that I have never sired A single bastard. One of course can never know; But I think that if […]...
12. O Bitter Sprig! Confession Sprig! O BITTER sprig! Confession sprig! In the bouquet I give you place also-I bind you in, Proceeding no further till, humbled publicly, I give fair warning, once for all. I own that I have been sly, thievish, mean, a prevaricator, greedy, derelict, And I own that I remain so yet. What foul thought but I […]...
13. 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 […]...
14. A Rusty Nail I ran a nail into my hand, The wound was hard to heal; So bitter was the pain to stand I thought how it would feel, To have spikes thrust through hands and feet, Impaled by hammer beat. Then hoisted on a cross of oak Against the sullen sky, With all about the jeering follk […]...
15. The Under-Dogs What have we done, Oh Lord, that we Are evil starred? How have we erred and sinned to be So scourged and scarred? Lash us, Oh Lord, with scorpion whips, We can but run; But harken to our piteous lips: What have we done? How have we sinned to rouse your wrath, To earn your […]...
16. Love (I) Immortal love, authour of this great frame, Sprung from that beautie which can never fade; How hath man parcel’d out thy glorious name, And thrown it on that dust which thou hast made, While mortall love doth all the title gain! Which siding with invention, they together Bear all the sway, possessing heart and brain, […]...
17. Divine Device Would it be loss or gain To hapless human-kind If we could feel no pain Of body or of mind? Would it be for our good If we were calloused so, And God in mercy should End all our woe? I wonder and I doubt: It is my bright belief We should be poor without […]...
18. 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...
19. 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...
20. Blindness OUR true hearts are forever lonely: A wistfulness is in our thought: Our lights are like the dawns which only Seem bright to us and yet are not. Something you see in me I wis not: Another heart in you I guess: A stranger’s lips-but thine I kiss not, Erring in all my tenderness. I […]...
21. The Other One “Gather around me, children dear; The wind is high and the night is cold; Closer, little ones, snuggle near; Let’s seek a story of ages old; A magic tale of a bygone day, Of lovely ladies and dragons dread; Come, for you’re all so tired of play, We’ll read till it’s time to go to […]...
22. The Mole Said he: “I’ll dive deep in the Past, And write a book of direful days When summer skies were overcast With smoke of humble hearths ablaze; When War was rampant in the land, And poor folk cowered in the night, While ruin gaped on every hand – Of ravishing and wrath I’ll write.” Ten years […]...
23. Fear I know how father’s strap would feel, If ever I were caught, So mother’s jam I did not steal, Though theft was in my thought. Then turned fourteen and full of pitch, Of love I was afraid, And did not dare to dally with Our pretty parlour maid. And so it is and always was, […]...
24. Vain Venture To have a business of my own With toil and tears, I wore my fingers to the bone For weary years. With stoic heart, for sordid gold In patient pain My life and liberty I sold For others gain. I scrimped and scraped, as cent by cent My savings grew; I found a faded shop […]...
25. Ignorance Oh happy he who cannot see With scientific eyes; Who does not know how flowers grow, And is not planet wise; Content to find with simple mind Joys as they are: To whom a rose is just a rose, A star a star. It is not good, I deem, to brood On things beyond our […]...
26. The Oldest Song “These were never your true love’s eyes. Why do you feign that you love them? You that broke from their constancies, And the wide calm brows above them! This was never your true love’s speech. Why do you thrill when you hear it? You that have ridden out of its reach The width of the […]...
27. God's Battleground God dwells in you; in pride and shame, In all you do to blight or bless; In all you are of praise and blame, In beauty or in ugliness. “Divine Creation” – What a fraud! God did not make you. . . You make God. God lives in me, in all I feel Of love […]...
28. Happiness Happiness, to some, elation; Is, to others, mere stagnation. Days of passive somnolence, At its wildest, indolence. Hours of empty quietness, No delight, and no distress. Happiness to me is wine, Effervescent, superfine. Full of tang and fiery pleasure, Far too hot to leave me leisure For a single thought beyond it. Drunk! Forgetful! This […]...
29. Sonnet XXVIII: To Such As Say To such as say thy love I overprize, And do not stick to term my praises folly, Against these folks, that think themselves so wise, I thus oppose my Reason’s forces wholly, Though I give more than well affords my state, In which expense the most suppose me vain, Which yields them nothing at the […]...
30. The Gentlest Lady They say He was a serious child, And quiet in His ways; They say the gentlest lady smiled To hear the neighbors’ praise. The coffers of her heart would close Upon their smaliest word. Yet did they say, “How tall He grows!” They thought she had not heard. They say upon His birthday eve She’d […]...
31. Life's Harmonies Let no man pray that he know not sorrow, Let no soul ask to be free from pain, For the gall of to-day is the sweet of to-morrow, And the moment’s loss is the lifetime’s gain. Through want of a thing does its worth redouble, Through hunger’s pangs does the feast content, And only the […]...
32. Striving Striving is life, yet life is striving; I fight to live, yet live to fight; The vital urge is in my driving, Yet I must drive with all my might: Each day a battle, and the fray Stoutly renewed the coming day. A am myself – yet when I strive I build a self that’s […]...
33. A Song Of Success Ho! we were strong, we were swift, we were brave. Youth was a challenge, and Life was a fight. All that was best in us gladly we gave, Sprang from the rally, and leapt for the height. Smiling is Love in a foam of Spring flowers: Harden our hearts to him on let us press! […]...
34. Upon a Fit of Sickness Twice ten years old not fully told Since nature gave me breath, My race is run, my thread spun, Lo, here is fatal death. All men must die, and so must I; This cannot be revoked. For Adam’s sake this word God spake When he so high provoked. Yet live I shall, this life’s but […]...
35. The Appology ‘Tis true I write and tell me by what Rule I am alone forbid to play the fool To follow through the Groves a wand’ring Muse And fain’d Idea’s for my pleasures chuse Why shou’d it in my Pen be held a fault Whilst Mira paints her face, to paint a thought Whilst Lamia to […]...
36. A Curse For A Nation I heard an angel speak last night, And he said ‘Write! Write a Nation’s curse for me, And send it over the Western Sea.’ I faltered, taking up the word: ‘Not so, my lord! If curses must be, choose another To send thy curse against my brother. ‘For I am bound by gratitude, By love […]...
37. The Hinterland You speak to me, but does your speech With truest truth your thought convey? I listen to your words and each Is what I wait to hear you say. The pattern that your lips reveal, How does it measure with your mind? What undertones do you conceal? Your smile is sweet – but what’s behind? […]...
38. Why Should A Foolish Marriage Vow Why should a foolish marriage vow, Which long ago was made, Oblige us to each other now When passion is decay’d? We lov’d, and we lov’d, as long as we could, Till our love was lov’d out in us both: But our marriage is dead, when the pleasure is fled: ‘Twas pleasure first made it […]...
39. Beauty Clear and Fair BEAUTY clear and fair, Where the air Rather like a perfume dwells; Where the violet and the rose Their blue veins and blush disclose, And come to honour nothing else: Where to live near And planted there Is to live, and still live new; Where to gain a favour is More than light, perpetual bliss […]...
40. Without You My Pillow gazes upon me at night Empty as a gravestone; I never thought it would be so bitter To be alone, Not to lie down asleep in your hair. I lie alone in a silent house, The hanging lamp darkened, And gently stretch out my hands To gather in yours, And softly press my […]...