The Choral Union

Related poetry:

1. Hallelujah: A Sestina A wind’s word, the Hebrew Hallelujah. I wonder they never gave it to a boy (Hal for short) boy with wind-wild hair. It means Praise God, as well it should since praise Is what God’s for. Why didn’t they call my father Hallelujah instead of Ebenezer? Eben, of course, but christened Ebenezer, Product of Nova […]...
2. For the Union Dead “Relinquunt Omnia Servare Rem Publicam.” The old South Boston Aquarium stands In a Sahara of snow now. Its broken windows are boarded. The bronze weathervane cod has lost half its scales. The airy tanks are dry. Once my nose crawled like a snail on the glass; My hand tingled To burst the bubbles Drifting from […]...
3. The Wreck Of The 'Derry Castle&#039 Day of ending for beginnings! Ocean hath another innings, Ocean hath another score; And the surges sing his winnings, And the surges shout his winnings, And the surges shriek his winnings, All along the sullen shore. Sing another dirge in wailing, For another vessel sailing With the shadow-ships at sea; Shadow-ships for ever sinking Shadow-ships […]...
4. Der mann im keller How cool and fair this cellar where My throne a dusky cask is; To do no thing but just to sing And drown the time my task is. The cooper he’s Resolved to please, And, answering to my winking, He fills me up Cup after cup For drinking, drinking, drinking. Begrudge me not This cosy […]...
5. Act of Union I To-night, a first movement, a pulse, As if the rain in bogland gathered head To slip and flood: a bog-burst, A gash breaking open the ferny bed. Your back is a firm line of eastern coast And arms and legs are thrown Beyond your gradual hills. I caress The heaving province where our past […]...
6. EPIPHANIAS THE three holy kings with their star’s bright ray, They eat and they drink, but had rather not pay; They like to eat and drink away, They eat and drink, but had rather not pay. The three holy kings have all come here, In number not four, but three they appear; And if a fourth […]...
7. It Is Much Women of night life amid the lights Where the line of your full, round throats Matches in gleam the glint of your eyes And the ring of your heart-deep laughter: It is much to be warm and sure of to-morrow. Women of night life along the shadows, Lean at your throats and skulking the walls, […]...
8. A Day At Union Station Departure At last, I’m leaving the familiar roof! I’m undeterred by rain and wind. This presentation should be quite a feather In my cap. Eager, I clutch my ticket. I’m going places. Not letting any grass Grow, not under these clever feet! Pigeons We admire one another’s tiny coral feet. Coooooo, coooooo under the roof. […]...
9. Union and Liberty FLAG of the heroes who left us their glory, Borne through their battle-fields’ thunder and flame, Blazoned in song and illumined in story, Wave o’er us all who inherit their fame! Up with our banner bright, Sprinkled with starry light, Spread its fair emblems from mountain to shore, While through the sounding sky Loud rings […]...
10. A rhine-land drinking song If our own life is the life of a flower (And that’s what some sages are thinking), We should moisten the bud with a health-giving flood And ’twill bloom all the sweeter Yes, life’s the completer For drinking, And drinking, And drinking. If it be that our life is a journey (As many wise folk […]...
11. FACES IN A CROWD The women are all wearing imitation silk scarves, Blackpool or Biarritz, sipping Woman, masticating The morning’s post, new babies and bathrooms, going To file, snip, fiddle and smile through fish-eyes, Crinkly green gloss, store it in stocking-tops For next year abroad, that Pill, so perfect! Flashing smiles from shiny domes and polished eye-lenses, The men […]...
12. I Stood With the Dead I Stood with the Dead, so forsaken and still: When dawn was grey I stood with the Dead. And my slow heart said, ‘You must kill, you must kill: ‘Soldier, soldier, morning is red’. On the shapes of the slain in their crumpled disgrace I stared for a while through the thin cold rain… ‘O […]...
13. Lowly Laureate O Sacred Muse, my lyre excuse! – My verse is vagrant singing; Rhyme I invoke for simple folk Of penny-wise upbringing: For Grannies grey to paste away Within an album cover; For maids in class to primly pass, And lads to linger over. I take the clay of every day And mould it in my […]...
14. The feet of people walking home The feet of people walking home With gayer sandals go The Crocus til she rises The Vassal of the snow The lips at Hallelujah Long years of practise bore Til bye and bye these Bargemen Walked singing on the shore. Pearls are the Diver’s farthings Extorted from the Sea Pinions the Seraph’s wagon Pedestrian once […]...
15. The Mourners I look into the aching womb of night; I look across the mist that masks the dead; The moon is tired and gives but little light, The stars have gone to bed. The earth is sick and seems to breathe with pain; A lost wind whimpers in a mangled tree; I do not see the […]...
16. A Child's Prayer For Morn, my dome of blue, For Meadows, green and gay, And Birds who love the twilight of the leaves, Let Jesus keep me joyful when I pray. For the big Bees that hum And hide in bells of flowers; For the winding roads that come To Evening’s holy door, May Jesus bring me grateful […]...
17. Fifteen False Propositions Against God – Section XIII Hush now baby don’t say a word Mama’s going to buy you a mocking bird The third Joyful mystery. The joy that descends on you when all the trees are cut down And all the fountains polluted and you are still alive waiting For an absent savior. The third Joyful mystery. If the mocking bird […]...
18. Footsteps of Angels When the hours of Day are numbered, And the voices of the Night Wake the better soul, that slumbered, To a holy, calm delight; Ere the evening lamps are lighted, And, like phantoms grim and tall, Shadows from the fitful firelight Dance upon the parlor wall; Then the forms of the departed Enter at the […]...
19. The Grey Rock Poets with whom I learned my trade. Companions of the Cheshire Cheese, Here’s an old story I’ve remade, Imagining ‘twould better please Your cars than stories now in fashion, Though you may think I waste my breath Pretending that there can be passion That has more life in it than death, And though at bottling […]...
20. Footnote To Howl Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! The world is holy! The soul is holy! The skin is holy! The nose is holy! The tongue and cock and hand and asshole holy! Everything is holy! everybody’s holy! everywhere is holy! everyday is in eternity! Everyman’s an angel! […]...
21. Chiang Chin Chiu See the waters of the Yellow River leap down from Heaven, Roll away to the deep sea and never turn again! See at the mirror In the High Hall Aged men bewailing white locks – In the morning, threads of silk, In the evening flakes of snow. Snatch the joys Of life as they come […]...
22. Back Yard Shine on, O moon of summer. Shine to the leaves of grass, catalpa and oak, All silver under your rain to-night. An Italian boy is sending songs to you to-night from an accordion. A Polish boy is out with his best girl; they marry next month; to-night they are throwing you kisses. An old man […]...
23. THE FUNERAL RITES OF THE ROSE The Rose was sick, and smiling died; And, being to be sanctified, About the bed, there sighing stood The sweet and flowery sisterhood. Some hung the head, while some did bring, To wash her, water from the spring; Some laid her forth, while others wept, But all a solemn fast there kept. The holy sisters […]...
24. Presences This night has been so strange that it seemed As if the hair stood up on my head. From going-down of the sun I have dreamed That women laughing, or timid or wild, In rustle of lace or silken stuff, Climbed up my creaking stair. They had read All I had rhymed of that monstrous […]...
25. American Football Hallelujah! It works. We blew the shit out of them. We blew the shit right back up their own ass And out their fucking ears. It works. We blew the shit out of them. They suffocated in their own shit! Hallelujah. Praise the Lord for all good things. We blew them into fucking shit. They […]...
26. Sonnet 11 Apart sweet women (for whom Heaven be blessed), Comrades, you cannot think how thin and blue Look the leftovers of mankind that rest, Now that the cream has been skimmed off in you. War has its horrors, but has this of good That its sure processes sort out and bind Brave hearts in one intrepid […]...
27. Concert Party (EGYPTIAN BASE CAMP) They are gathering round…. Out of the twilight; over the grey-blue sand, Shoals of low-jargoning men drift inward to the sound – The jangle and throb of a piano… tum-ti-tum… Drawn by a lamp, they come Out of the glimmering lines of their tents, over the shuffling sand. O sing us the […]...
28. The Revolutionary Look at them standing there in authority The pale-faces, As if it could have any effect any more. Pale-face authority, Caryatids, Pillars of white bronze standing rigid, lest the skies fall. What a job they’ve got to keep it up. Their poor, idealist foreheads naked capitals To the entablature of clouded heaven. When the skies […]...
29. White Christmas My folks think I’m a serving maid Each time I visit home; They do not dream I ply a trade As old as Greece or Rome; For if they found I’d fouled their name And was not white as snow, I’m sure that they would die of shame. . . Please, God, they’ll never know. […]...
30. A Dog Has Died My dog has died. I buried him in the garden Next to a rusted old machine. Some day I’ll join him right there, But now he’s gone with his shaggy coat, His bad manners and his cold nose, And I, the materialist, who never believed In any promised heaven in the sky For any human […]...
31. The Send-Off Down the close, darkening lanes they sang their way To the siding-shed, And lined the train with faces grimly gay. Their breasts were stuck all white with wreath and spray As men’s are, dead. Dull porters watched them, and a casual tramp Stood staring hard, Sorry to miss them from the upland camp. Then, unmoved, […]...
32. Psalm 47 Christ ascending and reigning. O for a shout of sacred joy To God the sovereign King! Let every land their tongues employ, And hymns of triumph sing. Jesus our God ascends on high, His heav’nly guards around Attend him rising through the sky, With trumpets’ joyful sound. While angels shout and praise their King, Let […]...
33. Preludium to America The shadowy Daughter of Urthona stood before red Orc, When fourteen suns had faintly journey’d o’er his dark abode: His food she brought in iron baskets, his drink in cups of iron: Crown’d with a helmet and dark hair the nameless female stood; A quiver with its burning stores, a bow like that of night, […]...
34. The Rain I hear leaves drinking rain; I hear rich leaves on top Giving the poor beneath Drop after drop; ‘Tis a sweet noise to hear These green leaves drinking near. And when the Sun comes out, After this Rain shall stop, A wondrous Light will fill Each dark, round drop; I hope the Sun shines bright; […]...
35. Home I came back late and tired last night Into my little room, To the long chair and the firelight And comfortable gloom. But as I entered softly in I saw a woman there, The line of neck and cheek and chin, The darkness of her hair, The form of one I did not know Sitting […]...
36. I Dreamed I Moved Among The Elysian Fields I dreamed I moved among the Elysian fields, In converse with sweet women long since dead; And out of blossoms which that meadow yields I wove a garland for your living head. Danai, that was the vessel for a day Of golden Jove, I saw, and at her side, Whom Jove the Bull desired and […]...
37. Spanish Women The Spanish women don’t wear slacks Because their hips are too enormous. ‘Tis true each bulbous bosom lacks No inspiration that should warm us; But how our ardor seems to freeze When we behold their bulgy knees! Their starry eyes and dusky hair, Their dazzling teeth in smile so gracious, I love, but oh I […]...
38. The Harlequin Of Dreams Swift, through some trap mine eyes have never found, Dim-panelled in the painted scene of Sleep, Thou, giant Harlequin of Dreams, dost leap Upon my spirit’s stage. Then Sight and Sound, Then Space and Time, then Language, Mete and Bound, And all familiar Forms that firmly keep Man’s reason in the road, change faces, peep […]...
39. WHEN HE WOULD HAVE HIS VERSES READ In sober mornings, do not thou rehearse The holy incantation of a verse; But when that men have both well drunk, and fed, Let my enchantments then be sung or read. When laurel spirts i’ th’ fire, and when the hearth Smiles to itself, and gilds the roof with mirth; When up the Thyrse is […]...
40. John Evereldown “Where are you going to-night, to-night, Where are you going, John Evereldown? There’s never the sign of a star in sight, Nor a lamp that’s nearer than Tilbury Town. Why do you stare as a dead man might? Where are you pointing away from the light? And where are you going to-night, to-night, Where are […]...