Choriambics II

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1. Choriambics I Ah! not now, when desire burns, and the wind calls, and the suns of spring Light-foot dance in the woods, whisper of life, woo me to wayfaring; Ah! not now should you come, now when the road beckons, And good friends call, Where are songs to be sung, fights to be fought, yea! and the […]...
2. Adonis 1. Each of us like you Has died once, Has passed through drift of wood-leaves, Cracked and bent And tortured and unbent In the winter-frost, The burnt into gold points, Lighted afresh, Crisp amber, scales of gold-leaf, Gold turned and re-welded In the sun; Each of us like you Has died once, Each of us […]...
3. The Fisherman Although I can see him still. The freckled man who goes To a grey place on a hill In grey Connemara clothes At dawn to cast his flies, It’s long since I began To call up to the eyes This wise and simple man. All day I’d looked in the face What I had hoped […]...
4. Sonnets 03: Not With Libations, But With Shouts And Laughter Not with libations, but with shouts and laughter We drenched the altars of Love’s sacred grove, Shaking to earth green fruits, impatient after The launching of the colored moths of Love. Love’s proper myrtle and his mother’s zone We bound about our irreligious brows, And fettered him with garlands of our own, And spread a […]...
5. The dreams Two dreams came down to earth one night From the realm of mist and dew; One was a dream of the old, old days, And one was a dream of the new. One was a dream of a shady lane That led to the pickerel pond Where the willows and rushes bowed themselves To the […]...
6. The Hill Where are Elmer, Herman, Bert, Tom, and Charley, The weak of will, the strong of arm, the clown, the boozer, the fighter? All, all, are sleeping on the hill. One passed in a fever, One was burned in a mine, One was killed in a brawl, One died in jail, One fell from a bridge […]...
7. The brook I looked in the brook and saw a face – Heigh-ho, but a child was I! There were rushes and willows in that place, And they clutched at the brook as the brook ran by; And the brook it ran its own sweet way, As a child doth run in heedless play, And as it […]...
8. End, Middle, Beginning There was an unwanted child. Aborted by three modern methods She hung on to the womb, Hooked onto I Building her house into it And it was to no avail, To black her out. At her birth She did not cry, Spanked indeed, But did not yell Instead snow fell out of her mouth. As […]...
9. The Demiurge's Laugh It was far in the sameness of the wood; I was running with joy on the Demon’s trail, Though I knew what I hunted was no true god. I was just as the light was beginning to fail That I suddenly head all I needed to hear: It has lasted me many and many a […]...
10. The Little Black Boy My mother bore me in the southern wild, And I am black, but O! my soul is white. White as an angel is the English child: But I am black as if bereav’d of light. My mother taught me underneath a tree And sitting down before the heat of day. She took me on her […]...
11. Cold cold world in the night The deep deep night Do i dance Where mirror images Are lost within I bleed across The shattered hopes The ice reflections Would you That a child Might live, Without seeing their eyes Without hearing their cries Black in light Am i wandering In dreams Where only Shadows dance Oh, This cold […]...
12. The house where I was born (04) Another time. It was still night. Water slid Silently on the black ground, And I knew that my only task would be To remember, and I laughed, I bent down, I took from the mud A pile of branches and leaves, I lifted up the whole dripping mass In arms I held close to my […]...
13. Uncle Ananias His words were magic and his heart was true, And everywhere he wandered he was blessed. Out of all ancient men my childhood knew I choose him and I mark him for the best. Of all authoritative liars, too, I crown him loveliest. How fondly I remember the delight That always glorified him in the […]...
14. Dining-Room Tea When you were there, and you, and you, Happiness crowned the night; I too, Laughing and looking, one of all, I watched the quivering lamplight fall On plate and flowers and pouring tea And cup and cloth; and they and we Flung all the dancing moments by With jest and glitter. Lip and eye Flashed […]...
15. When You Are Old When you are old and grey and full of sleep, And nodding by the fire, take down this book, And slowly read, and dream of the soft look Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep; How many loved your moments of glad grace, And loved your beauty with love false or true, But […]...
16. Arrival Across a thousand miles of sea, a hundred leagues of land, Along a path I had not traced and could not understand, I travelled fast and far for this, to take thee by the hand. A pilgrim knowing not the shrine where he would bend his knee, A mariner without a dream of what his […]...
17. Success I think if you had loved me when I wanted; If I’d looked up one day, and seen your eyes, And found my wild sick blasphemous prayer granted, And your brown face, that’s full of pity and wise, Flushed suddenly; the white godhead in new fear Intolerably so struggling, and so shamed; Most holy and […]...
18. As a World Would Have It Shall I never make him look at me again? I look at him, I look my life at him, I tell him all I know the way to tell, But there he stays the same. Shall I never make him speak one word to me? Shall I never make him say enough to show My […]...
19. The Other Under my bowels, yellow with smoke, It waits. Under my eyes, those milk bunnies, It waits. It is waiting. It is waiting. Mr. Doppelganger. My brother. My spouse. Mr. Doppelganger. My enemy. My lover. When truth comes spilling out like peas It hangs up the phone. When the child is soothed and resting on the […]...
20. Danse Russe If when my wife is sleeping And the baby and Kathleen Are sleeping And the sun is a flame-white disc In silken mists Above shining trees,- If I in my north room Dance naked, grotesquely Before my mirror Waving my shirt round my head And singing softly to myself: “I am lonely, lonely, I was […]...
21. Teddy Bear O Teddy Bear! with your head awry And your comical twisted smile, You rub your eyes do you wonder why You’ve slept such a long, long while? As you lay so still in the cupboard dim, And you heard on the roof the rain, Were you thinking. . . what has become of him? And […]...
22. Commemoration When first your glory shone upon my face My body kindled to a mighty flame, And burnt you yielding in my hot embrace Until you swooned to love, breathing my name. And wonder came and filled our night of sleep, Like a new comet crimsoning the sky; And stillness like the stillness of the deep […]...
23. Air And Angels Twice or thrice had I loved thee, Before I knew thy face or name, So in a voice, so in a shapeless flame, Angels affect us oft, and worship’d be; Still when, to where thou wert, I came, Some lovely glorious nothing I did see. But since my soul, whose child love is, Takes limbs […]...
24. Ante Aram Before thy shrine I kneel, an unknown worshipper, Chanting strange hymns to thee and sorrowful litanies, Incense of dirges, prayers that are as holy myrrh. Ah, goddess, on thy throne of tears and faint low sighs, Weary at last to theeward come the feet that err, And empty hearts grown tired of the world’s vanities. […]...
25. A Song of Autumn ‘WHERE shall we go for our garlands glad At the falling of the year, When the burnt-up banks are yellow and sad, When the boughs are yellow and sere? Where are the old ones that once we had, And when are the new ones near? What shall we do for our garlands glad At the […]...
26. Recollection THROUGH the blue shadowy valley I hastened in a dream: Flower rich the night, flower soft the air, a blue flower the stream I hurried over before I came to the cabin door, Where the orange flame-glow danced within on the beaten floor. And the lovely mother who drooped by the sleeping child arose: And […]...
27. The Scissors-Grinder The old man had his box and wheel For grinding knives and shears. No doubt his bell in village streets Was joy to children’s ears. And I bethought me of my youth When such men came around, And times I asked them in, quite sure The scissors should be ground. The old man turned and […]...
28. Song Of A Dream ONCE in the dream of a night I stood Lone in the light of a magical wood, Soul-deep in visions that poppy-like sprang; And spirits of Truth were the birds that sang, And spirits of Love were the stars that glowed, And spirits of Peace were the streams that flowed In that magical wood in […]...
29. The Poppy To Monica Summer set lip to earth’s bosom bare, And left the flushed print in a poppy there: Like a yawn of fire from the grass it came, And the fanning wind puffed it to flapping flame. With burnt mouth, red like a lion’s, it drank The blood of the sun as he slaughtered sank, […]...
30. Corona Autunm eats its leaf out of my hand: we are friends. From the nuts we shell time and we teach it to walk: Then time returns to the shell. In the mirror it’s Sunday, In dream there is room for sleeping, Our mouths speak the truth. My eye moves down to the sex of my […]...
31. On A Picture Of A Black Centaur By Edmund Dulac Your hooves have stamped at the black margin of the wood, Even where horrible green parrots call and swing. My works are all stamped down into the sultry mud. I knew that horse-play, knew it for a murderous thing. What wholesome sun has ripened is wholesome food to eat, And that alone; yet I, being […]...
32. Poem In October It was my thirtieth year to heaven Woke to my hearing from harbour and neighbour wood And the mussel pooled and the heron Priested shore The morning beckon With water praying and call of seagull and rook And the knock of sailing boats on the net webbed wall Myself to set foot That second In […]...
33. EIGHT EPITAPHS I. You liked your scrolls? — Here they are. The manuscript of your book? — Here it is. Your wine and figs? — Here they are. The portrait of your wife? — Here it is. Your garden and your house? — Here they are. The box you never opened? — Here it is. You are […]...
34. The Path RUNNING along a bank, a parapet That saves from the precipitous wood below The level road, there is a path. It serves Children for looking down the long smooth steep, Between the legs of beech and yew, to where A fallen tree checks the sight: while men and women Content themselves with the road and […]...
35. The Corridor It may have been the pride in me for aught I know, or just a patronizing whim; But call it freak of fancy, or what not, I cannot hide the hungry face of him. I keep a scant half-dozen words he said, And every now and then I lose his name; He may be living […]...
36. The Identification So you think its Stephen? Then I’d best make sure Be on the safe side as it were. Ah, theres been a mistake. The hair You see, its black, now Stephens fair… Whats that? The explosion? Of course, burnt black. Silly of me. I should have known. Then lets get on. The face, is that […]...
37. The Song Of The Widow In the beginning life was good to me; It held me warm and gave me courage. That this is granted all while in their youth, How could I then have known of this. I never knew what living was. But suddenly it was just year on year, No more good, no more new, no more […]...
38. 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 […]...
39. Variation On The Word Sleep I would like to watch you sleeping, Which may not happen. I would like to watch you, Sleeping. I would like to sleep With you, to enter Your sleep as its smooth dark wave Slides over my head And walk with you through that lucent Wavering forest of bluegreen leaves With its watery sun & […]...
40. The Spanish Needle Lovely dainty Spanish needle With your yellow flower and white, Dew bedecked and softly sleeping, Do you think of me to-night? Shadowed by the spreading mango, Nodding o’er the rippling stream, Tell me, dear plant of my childhood, Do you of the exile dream? Do you see me by the brook’s side Catching crayfish ‘neath […]...