Helen all Alone

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1. Quebec -1908 Of old, like Helen, guerdon of the strong Like Helen fair, like Helen light of word, “The spoils unto the conquerors belong. Who winneth me must win me by the sword.” Grown old, like Helen, once the jealous prize That strong men battled for in savage hate, Can she look forth with unregretful eyes, […]...
2. Menelaus and Helen I Hot through Troy’s ruin Menelaus broke To Priam’s palace, sword in hand, to sate On that adulterous whore a ten years’ hate And a king’s honour. Through red death, and smoke, And cries, and then by quieter ways he strode, Till the still innermost chamber fronted him. He swung his sword, and crashed into […]...
3. Helen of Tyre What phantom is this that appears Through the purple mist of the years, Itself but a mist like these? A woman of cloud and of fire; It is she; it is Helen of Tyre, The town in the midst of the seas. O Tyre! in thy crowded streets The phantom appears and retreats, And the […]...
4. To Helen 1 Helen, thy beauty is to me Like those Nicæan barks of yore, That gently, o’er a perfumed sea, The weary, wayworn wanderer bore To his own native shore. On desperate seas long wont to roam, Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face, Thy Naiad airs have brought me home To the glory that was Greece And […]...
5. When Helen Lived We have cried in our despair That men desert, For some trivial affair Or noisy, insolent sport, Beauty that we have won From bitterest hours; Yet we, had we walked within Those topless towers Where Helen waked with her boy, Had given but as the rest Of the men and women of Troy, A word […]...
6. Helen In Hollywood When she goes to Hollywood She is an angel. She writes in red red lipstick On the window of her body, Long for me, oh need me! Parts her lips like a lotus. Opening night she stands, poised On her carpet, luminescent, Young men humming All around her. She is flying. Her high heels are […]...
7. The New Helen Where hast thou been since round the walls of Troy The sons of God fought in that great emprise? Why dost thou walk our common earth again? Hast thou forgotten that impassioned boy, His purple galley and his Tyrian men And treacherous Aphrodite’s mocking eyes? For surely it was thou, who, like a star Hung […]...
8. Aunt Helen MISS HELEN SLINGSBY was my maiden aunt, And lived in a small house near a fashionable square Cared for by servants to the number of four. Now when she died there was silence in heaven And silence at her end of the street. The shutters were drawn and the undertaker wiped his feet- He was […]...
9. Sonnet LXV Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea, But sad mortality o’er-sways their power, How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea, Whose action is no stronger than a flower? O, how shall summer’s honey breath hold out Against the wreckful siege of battering days, When rocks impregnable are not so stout, Nor […]...
10. Sonnet 65: Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea, But sad mortality o’ersways their power, How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea, Whose action is no stronger than a flower? O, how shall summer’s honey breath hold out Against the wrackful siege of batt’ring days, When rocks impregnable are not so stout, Nor […]...
11. Rosalind and Helen: a Modern Eclogue ROSALIND, HELEN, and her Child. SCENE. The Shore of the Lake of Como. HELEN Come hither, my sweet Rosalind. ‘T is long since thou and I have met; And yet methinks it were unkind Those moments to forget. Come, sit by me. I see thee stand By this lone lake, in this far land, Thy […]...
12. Letter to My Lover After Seven Years You gave me the child That seamed my belly & stitched up my life. You gave me: one book of love poems, Five years of peace & two of pain. You gave me darkness, light, laughter & the certain knowledge That we someday die. You gave me seven years During which the cells of my […]...
13. The Runcorn Ferry On the banks of the Mersey, o’er on Cheshire side, Lies Runcorn that’s best known to fame By Transporter Bridge as takes folks over t’stream, Or else brings them back across same. In days afore Transporter Bridge were put up, A ferryboat lay in the slip, And old Ted the boatman would row folks across […]...
14. The Fury Of Cooks Herbs, garlic, Cheese, please let me in! Souffles, salad, Parker House rolls, Please let me in! Cook Helen, Why are you so cross, Why is your kitchen verboten? Couldn’t you just teach me To bake a potato, To bake a potato, That charm, That young prince? No! No! This is my county! You shout silently. […]...
15. To Helen 2 I saw thee once – once only – years ago: I must not say how many – but not many. It was a July midnight; and from out A full-orbed moon, that, like thine own soul, soaring, Sought a precipitate pathway up through heaven, There fell a silvery-silken veil of light, With quietude, and sultriness, […]...
16. Perinde AC Cadaver In a vision Liberty stood By the childless charm-stricken bed Where, barren of glory and good, Knowing nought if she would not or would, England slept with her dead. Her face that the foam had whitened, Her hands that were strong to strive, Her eyes whence battle had lightened, Over all was a drawn shroud […]...
17. The Song of the Beasts (Sung, on one night, in the cities, in the darkness.) Come away! Come away! Ye are sober and dull through the common day, But now it is night! It is shameful night, and God is asleep! (Have you not felt the quick fires that creep Through the hungry flesh, and the lust of delight, And […]...
18. Limbo The sole true Something This! In Limbo Den It frightens Ghosts as Ghosts here frighten men For skimming in the wake it mock’d the care Of the old Boat-God for his Farthing Fare ; Tho’ Irus’ Ghost itself he ne’er frown’d blacker on, The skin and skin-pent Druggist crost the Acheron, Styx, and with Puriphlegethon […]...
19. Taking His Chance They stood by the door of the Inn on the Rise; May Carney looked up in the bushranger’s eyes: ‘Oh! why did you come? it was mad of you, Jack; You know that the troopers are out on your track.’ A laugh and a shake of his obstinate head ‘I wanted a dance, and I’ll […]...
20. A Child of the Snows There is heard a hymn when the panes are dim, And never before or again, When the nights are strong with a darkness long, And the dark is alive with rain. Never we know but in sleet and in snow, The place where the great fires are, That the midst of the earth is a […]...
21. The Book of Urizen: Chapter III 1. The voice ended, they saw his pale visage Emerge from the darkness; his hand On the rock of eternity unclasping The Book of brass. Rage siez’d the strong 2. Rage, fury, intense indignation In cataracts of fire blood & gall In whirlwinds of sulphurous smoke: And enormous forms of energy; All the seven deadly […]...
22. Teeth English Teeth, English Teeth! Shining in the sun A part of British heritage Aye, each and every one. English Teeth, Happy Teeth! Always having fun Clamping down on bits of fish And sausages half done. English Teeth! HEROES’ Teeth! Hear them click! and clack! Let’s sing a song of praise to them – Three Cheers […]...
23. A New Year's Message To Joseph Mazzini Send the stars light, but send not love to me. Shelley. I Out of the dawning heavens that hear Young wings and feet of the new year Move through their twilight, and shed round Soft showers of sound, Soothing the season with sweet rain, If greeting come to make me fain, What is it I […]...
24. Helen All Greece hates The still eyes in the white face, The lustre as of olives Where she stands, And the white hands. All Greece reviles The wan face when she smiles, Hating it deeper still When it grows wan and white, Remembering past enchantments And past ills. Greece sees, unmoved, God’s daughter, born of love, […]...
25. To Helen (After Valery) O Sea! … ‘Tis I, risen from death once more To hear the waves’ harmonious roar And see the galleys, sharp, in dawn’s great awe Raised from the dark by the rising and gold oar. My fickle hands sufficed to summon kings Their salt beards amused my fingers, deft and pure. I wept. […]...
26. Oscar Hummel I staggered on through darkness, There was a hazy sky, a few stars Which I followed as best I could. It was nine o’clock, I was trying to get home. But somehow I was lost, Though really keeping the road. Then I reeled through a gate and into a yard, And called at the top […]...
27. The Rowers The banked oars fell an hundred strong, And backed and threshed and ground, But bitter was the rowers’ song As they brought the war-boat round. They had no heart for the rally and roar That makes the whale-bath smoke When the great blades cleave and hold and leave As one on the racing stroke. They […]...
28. A Song of the White Men 1899 Now, this is the cup the White Men drink When they go to right a wrong, And that is the cup of the old world’s hate Cruel and strained and strong. We have drunk that cup and a bitter, bitter cup And tossed the dregs away. But well for the world when the White […]...
29. Adrift! A little boat adrift! Adrift! A little boat adrift! And night is coming down! Will no one guide a little boat Unto the nearest town? So Sailors say on yesterday Just as the dusk was brown One little boat gave up its strife And gurgled down and down. So angels say on yesterday Just as the dawn was red […]...
30. Helen of Troy Does Countertop Dancing The world is full of women Who’d tell me I should be ashamed of myself If they had the chance. Quit dancing. Get some self-respect And a day job. Right. And minimum wage, And varicose veins, just standing In one place for eight hours Behind a glass counter Bundled up to the neck, instead of […]...
31. Girl (three) and the black horse i want to hold the horse’s string Cried the girl (three) stamping her foot Told by adults she was much too young The black horse stood staring at the wall It worries us you may get hurt The adults whispered – meaning to offer Comfort to the little madam (not convinced) The black horse stood […]...
32. The Child Dying Unfriendly friendly universe, I pack your stars into my purse, And bid you so farewell. That I can leave you, quite go out, Go out, go out beyond all doubt, My father says, is the miracle. You are so great, and I so small: I am nothing, you are all: Being nothing, I can take […]...
33. Contraband The tree of knowledge was the tree of reason. That’s why the taste of it Drove us from Eden. That fruit Was meant to be dried and milled to a fine powder For use a pinch at a time, a condiment. God had probably planned to tell us later About this new pleasure. We stuffed […]...
34. Limbo Fishermen at Ballyshannon Netted an infant last night Along with the salmon. An illegitimate spawning, A small one thrown back To the waters. But I’m sure As she stood in the shallows Ducking him tenderly Till the frozen knobs of her wrists Were dead as the gravel, He was a minnow with hooks Tearing her […]...
35. Two Look at Two Love and forgetting might have carried them A little further up the mountain side With night so near, but not much further up. They must have halted soon in any case With thoughts of a path back, how rough it was With rock and washout, and unsafe in darkness; When they were halted by a […]...
36. The Fires Men make them fires on the hearth Each under his roof-tree, And the Four Winds that rule the earth They blow the smoke to me. Across the high hills and the sea And all the changeful skies, The Four Winds blow the smoke to me Till the tears are in my eyes. Until the tears […]...
37. Sonnet LVIII That god forbid that made me first your slave, I should in thought control your times of pleasure, Or at your hand the account of hours to crave, Being your vassal, bound to stay your leisure! O, let me suffer, being at your beck, The imprison’d absence of your liberty; And patience, tame to sufferance, […]...
38. Sonnet 58: That god forbid, that made me first your slave That god forbid, that made me first your slave, I should in thought control your times of pleasure, Or at your hand th’ account of hours to crave, Being your vassal bound to stay your leisure! O, let me suffer, being at your beck, Th’ imprisoned absence of your liberty, And patience tame to sufferance, […]...
39. Reproach Had I but known yesterday, Helen, you could discharge the ache Out of the cloud; Had I known yesterday you could take The turgid electric ache away, Drink it up with your proud White body, as lovely white lightning Is drunk from an agonised sky by the earth, I might have hated you, Helen. But […]...
40. Traveling Through The Dark Traveling through the dark I found a deer Dead on the edge of the Wilson River road. It is usually best to roll them into the canyon: That road is narrow; to swerve might make more dead. By glow of the tail-light I stumbled back of the car And stood by the heap, a doe, […]...