The Stretcher-Bearer

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1. Stretcher Case He woke; the clank and racket of the train Kept time with angry throbbings in his brain. Then for a while he lapsed and drowsed again. At last he lifted his bewildered eyes And blinked, and rolled them sidelong; hills and skies, Heavily wooded, hot with August haze, And, slipping backward, golden for his gaze, […]...
2. Hawker, the Standard Bearer The grey gull sat on a floating whale, On a floating whale sat he, And he told his tale of the storm and the gale, And the ships that he saw with steam and sail, As he flew by the Northern Sea. “I have seen a sign that is strange and new, That I never […]...
3. Whats The Use Of A Title? They dont make it The beautiful die in flame – Sucide pills, rat poison, rope what – Ever… They rip their arms off, Throw themselves out of windows, They pull their eyes out of the sockets, Reject love Reject hate Reject, reject. They do’nt make it The beautiful can’t endure, They are butterflies They are […]...
4. New Year's Chimes What is the song the stars sing? (And a million songs are as song of one) This is the song the stars sing: (Sweeter song’s none) One to set, and many to sing, (And a million songs are as song of one) One to stand, and many to cling, The many things, and the one […]...
5. Humdrum IF I had a million lives to live and a million deaths to die in a million humdrum worlds, I’d like to change my name and have a new house number to go by each and every time I died and started life all over again. I wouldn’t want the same name every time and […]...
6. The Telephone To-night in million-voiced London I Was lonely as the million-pointed sky Until your single voice. Ah! So the sun Peoples all heaven, although he be but one....
7. Le Gout du Néant Morne esprit, autrefois amoureux de la lutte, L’Espoir, dont l’éperon attisait ton ardeur, Ne veut plus t’enfourcher! Couche-toi sans pudeur, Vieux cheval dont le pied à chaque obstacle bute. Résigne-toi, mon coeur; dors ton sommeil de brute. Esprit vaincu, fourbu! Pour toi, vieux maraudeur, L’amour n’a plus de gout, non plus que la dispute; Adieu […]...
8. I Keep Six Honest I keep six honest serving-men (They taught me all I knew); Their names are What and Why and When And How and Where and Who. I send them over land and sea, I send them east and west; But after they have worked for me, I give them all a rest. I let them rest […]...
9. Sonnet 38 – First time he kissed me, he but only kissed First time he kissed me, he but only kissed The fingers of this hand wherewith I write; And ever since, it grew more clean and white, Slow to world-greetings, quick with its ‘Oh, list,’ When the angels speak. A ring of amethyst I could not wear here, plainer to my sight, Than that first kiss. […]...
10. Cotton Song Come, brother, come. Lets lift it; Come now, hewit! roll away! Shackles fall upon the Judgment Day But lets not wait for it. God’s body’s got a soul, Bodies like to roll the soul, Cant blame God if we dont roll, Come, brother, roll, roll! Cotton bales are the fleecy way, Weary sinner’s bare feet […]...
11. Gold Leaves Lo! I am come to autumn, When all the leaves are gold; Grey hairs and golden leaves cry out The year and I are old. In youth I sought the prince of men, Captain in cosmic wars, Our Titan, even the weeds would show Defiant, to the stars. But now a great thing in the […]...
12. Old Boy Scout A bonny bird I found today Mired in a melt of tar; Its silky breast was silver-grey, Its wings were cinnabar. So still it lay right in the way Of every passing car. Yet as I gently sought to pry It loose, it glared at me; You would have thought its foe was I, It […]...
13. The World's All Right Be honest, kindly, simple, true; Seek good in all, scorn but pretence; Whatever sorrow come to you, Believe in Life’s Beneficence! The World’s all right; serene I sit, And cease to puzzle over it. There’s much that’s mighty strange, no doubt; But Nature knows what she’s about; And in a million years or so We’ll […]...
14. Killers I AM singing to you Soft as a man with a dead child speaks; Hard as a man in handcuffs, Held where he cannot move: Under the sun Are sixteen million men, Chosen for shining teeth, Sharp eyes, hard legs, And a running of young warm blood in their wrists. And a red juice runs […]...
15. Ford o' Kabul River Kabul town’s by Kabul river Blow the bugle, draw the sword There I lef’ my mate for ever, Wet an’ drippin’ by the ford. Ford, ford, ford o’ Kabul river, Ford o’ Kabul river in the dark! There’s the river up and brimmin’, an’ there’s ‘arf a squadron swimmin’ ‘Cross the ford o’ Kabul river […]...
16. The Quest I sought Him on the purple seas, I sought Him on the peaks aflame; Amid the gloom of giant trees And canyons lone I called His name; The wasted ways of earth I trod: In vain! In vain! I found not God. I sought Him in the hives of men, The cities grand, the hamlets […]...
17. Room 4: The Painter Chap He gives me such a bold and curious look, That young American across the way, As if he’d like to put me in a book (Fancies himself a poet, so they say.) Ah well! He’ll make no “document” of me. I lock my door. Ha! ha! Now none shall see. . . . Pictures, just […]...
18. The Artist All day with brow of anxious thought The dictionary through, Amid a million words he sought The sole one that would do. He wandered on from pub to pub Yet never ceased to seek With burning brain and pencil stub The Word Unique. Said he: ‘I’ll nail it down or die. Oh Heaven help me, […]...
19. The wounded angel (from a painting by hugo simberg) Those who bear the wounded angel Are they honoured or destroyed Far beyond their comprehension Are the warfares of the void Angels have a sheen to lift them Well above the bloody battles Human beings give their hurts to Divines don’t need such tittle-tattles Yet this angel has been […]...
20. The End of the World Here, at the end of the world, The flowers bleed As if they were hearts, The hearts ooze a darkness Like india ink, & poets dip their pens in & they write. “Here, at the end of the world,” They write, Not knowing what it means. “Here, where the sky nurses on black milk, Where […]...
21. A Million Young Workmen, 1915 A MILLION young workmen straight and strong lay stiff on the grass and roads, And the million are now under soil and their rottening flesh will in the years feed roots of blood-red roses. Yes, this million of young workmen slaughtered one another and never saw their red hands. And oh, it would have been […]...
22. 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 […]...
23. Cacoethes Scribendi If all the trees in all the woods were men; And each and every blade of grass a pen; If every leaf on every shrub and tree Turned to a sheet of foolscap; every sea Were changed to ink, and all earth’s living tribes Had nothing else to do but act as scribes, And for […]...
24. 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, […]...
25. Statistics NAPOLEON shifted, Restless in the old sarcophagus And murmured to a watchguard: “Who goes there?” “Twenty-one million men, Soldiers, armies, guns, Twenty-one million Afoot, horseback, In the air, Under the sea.” And Napoleon turned to his sleep: “It is not my world answering; It is some dreamer who knows not The world I marched in […]...
26. The Last of the Light Brigade 1891 There were thirty million English who talked of England’s might, There were twenty broken troopers who lacked a bed for the night. They had neither food nor money, they had neither service nor trade; They were only shiftless soldiers, the last of the Light Brigade. They felt that life was fleeting; they kuew not […]...
27. 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 […]...
28. Two Strangers Breakfast THE LAW says you and I belong to each other, George. The law says you are mine and I am yours, George. And there are a million miles of white snowstorms, a million furnaces of hell, Between the chair where you sit and the chair where I sit. The law says two strangers shall eat […]...
29. Crepuscule du Matin All night I wrestled with a memory Which knocked insurgent at the gates of thought. The crumbled wreck of years behind has wrought Its disillusion; now I only cry For peace, for power to forget the lie Which hope too long has whispered. So I sought The sleep which would not come, and night was […]...
30. A Grain Of Sand If starry space no limit knows And sun succeeds to sun, There is no reason to suppose Our earth the only one. ‘Mid countless constellations cast A million worlds may be, With each a God to bless or blast And steer to destiny. Just think! A million gods or so To guide each vital stream, […]...
31. The Sewing-Girl The humble garret where I dwell Is in that Quarter called the Latin; It isn’t spacious truth to tell, There’s hardly room to swing a cat in. But what of that! It’s there I fight For food and fame, my Muse inviting, And all the day and half the night You’ll find me writing, writing, […]...
32. Tick-Tock Tick-tocking in my ear My dollar clock I hear. ‘Arise,’ it seems to say: ‘Behold another day To grasp the golden key Of Opportunity; To turn the magic lock Tick-tock! ‘Another day to gain Some goal you sought in vain; To sing a sweeter song, Perchance to right a wrong; To win a height unscaled […]...
33. 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...
34. Disarmament One spake amid the nations, “Let us cease From darkening with strife the fair World’s light, We who are great in war be great in peace. No longer let us plead the cause by might.” But from a million British graves took birth A silent voice the million spake as one “If ye have righted […]...
35. 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 […]...
36. Saddest Poem I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. Write, for instance: “The night is full of stars, And the stars, blue, shiver in the distance.” The night wind whirls in the sky and sings. I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. On nights […]...
37. Tonight I Can Write Tonight I can write the saddest lines. Write, for example, ‘The night is starry And the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.’ The night wind revolves in the sky and sings. Tonight I can write the saddest lines. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. Through nights like this one I […]...
38. Poor Poet ‘A man should write to please himself,’ He proudly said. Well, see his poems on the shelf, Dusty, unread. When he came to my shop each day, So peaked and cold, I’d sneak one of his books away And say ’twas sold. And then by chance he looked below, And saw a stack Of his […]...
39. 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...
40. The Song of O'Ruark, Prince of Breffni The valley lay smiling before me, Where lately I left her behind; Yet I trembled, and something hung o’er me, That sadden’d the joy of my mind. I look’d for the lamp which, she told me, Should shine when her Pilgrim return’d; But, though darkness began to infold me, No lamp from the battlements burn’d! […]...