The Dark and the Fair
A roaring company that festive night;
The beast of dialectic dragged his chains,
Prowling from chair to chair is the smoking light,
While the snow hissed against the windowpanes.
Our politics, our science, and our faith
Were whiskey on the tongue; I, being rent
By the fierce divisions of our time, cried death
And death again, and my own dying meant.
Out of her secret life, the griffin-land
Where ivory empires build their stage she came,
Putting in mine her small impulsive hand,
Five-fingered gift, and the palm not tame.
The moment clanged: beauty and terror danced
Tot he wild vibration of a sister-bell,
Whose unremitting stroke discountenanced
The marvel that the mirrors blazed to tell.
A darker image took this fairer form
Who once, in the purgatory of my pride,
When innocence betrayed me in a room
Of mocking elders, swept handsome to my side,
Until we rose together, arm in arm,
And fled together back into the world.
What brought her now, in the semblance of the warm,
Out of cold spaces, damned by colder blood?
That furied woman did me grievous wrong,
But does it matter much, given our years?
We learn, as the thread plays out, that we belong
Less to what flatters us than to what scars;
So, freshly turning, as the turn condones,
For her I killed the propitiatory bird,
Kissing her down. Peace to her bitter bones,
Who taught me the serpent’s word, but yet the word.
Related poetry:
- Peter Quince At The Clavier I Just as my fingers on these keys Make music, so the self-same sounds On my spirit make a music, too. Music is feeling, then, not sound; And thus it is that what I feel, Here in this room, desiring you, Thinking of your blue-shadowed silk, Is music. It is like the strain Waked in […]...
- 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, […]...
- Fair Weather This level reach of blue is not my sea; Here are sweet waters, pretty in the sun, Whose quiet ripples meet obediently A marked and measured line, one after one. This is no sea of mine. that humbly laves Untroubled sands, spread glittering and warm. I have a need of wilder, crueler waves; They sicken […]...
- No Lilies For Lisette Said the Door: “She came in With no shadow of sin; Turned the key in the lock, Slipped out of her frock, The robe she liked best When for supper she dressed. Then a letter she tore. . . What a wan look she wore!” Said the Door. Said the Chair: “She sat down With […]...
- The Dark House Where a faint light shines alone, Dwells a Demon I have known. Most of you had better say “The Dark House,” and go your way. Do not wonder if I stay. For I know the Demon’s eyes And their lure that never dies. Banish all your fond alarms, For I know the foiling charms Of […]...
- Fair Elanor The bell struck one, and shook the silent tower; The graves give up their dead: fair Elenor Walk’d by the castle gate, and lookиd in. A hollow groan ran thro’ the dreary vaults. She shriek’d aloud, and sunk upon the steps, On the cold stone her pale cheeks. Sickly smells Of death issue as from […]...
- Sonnet 42 – 'My future will not copy fair my past' ‘My future will not copy fair my past’- I wrote that once; and thinking at my side My ministering life-angel justified The word by his appealing look upcast To the white throne of God, I turned at last, And there, instead, saw thee, not unallied To angels in thy soul! Then I, long tried By […]...
- The Door in the Dark In going from room to room in the dark, I reached out blindly to save my face, But neglected, however lightly, to lace My fingers and close my arms in an arc. A slim door got in past my guard, And hit me a blow in the head so hard I had my native simile […]...
- The Fair Singer To make a final conquest of all me, Love did compose so sweet an Enemy, In whom both Beauties to my death agree, Joyning themselves in fatal Harmony; That while she with her Eyes my Heart does bind, She with her Voice might captivate my Mind. I could have fled from One but singly fair: […]...
- Bards of Passion and of Mirth, written on the Blank Page before Beaumont and Fletcher's Tragi-Comedy 'The Fair Maid of the Inn' BARDS of Passion and of Mirth, Ye have left your souls on earth! Have ye souls in heaven too, Doubled-lived in regions new? Yes, and those of heaven commune With the spheres of sun and moon; With the noise of fountains wondrous, And the parle of voices thund’rous; With the whisper of heaven’s trees And […]...
- The Dark Hour And now, when merry winds do blow, And rain makes trees look fresh, An overpowering staleness holds This mortal flesh. Though well I love to feel the rain, And be by winds well blown The mystery of mortal life Doth press me down. And, In this mood, come now what will, Shine Rainbow, Cuckoo call; […]...
- My Husbands My first I wed when just sixteen And he was sixty-five. He treated me like any queen The years he was alive. Oh I betrayed him on the sly, Like any other bitch, And how I longed for him to die And leave me young and rich! My second is a gigolo I took when […]...
- A Challenge To The Dark shot in the eye Shot in the brain Shot in the ass Shot like a flower in the dance Amazing how death wins hands down Amazing how much credence is given to idiot forms of life Amazing how laughter has been drowned out Amazing how viciousness is such a constant I must soon declare my […]...
- Dark August So much rain, so much life like the swollen sky Of this black August. My sister, the sun, Broods in her yellow room and won’t come out. Everything goes to hell; the mountains fume Like a kettle, rivers overrun; still, She will not rise and turn off the rain. She is in her room, fondling […]...
- The Dark Cavalier I am the Dark Cavalier; I am the Last Lover: My arms shall welcome you when other arms are tired; I stand to wait for you, patient in the darkness, Offering forgetfulness of all that you desired. I ask no merriment, no pretense of gladness, I can love heavy lids and lips without their rose; […]...
- Oh It is snowing and death bugs me As stubborn as insomnia. The fierce bubbles of chalk, The little white lesions Settle on the street outside. It is snowing and the ninety Year old woman who was combing Out her long white wraith hair Is gone, embalmed even now, Even tonight her arms are smooth Muskets […]...
- Another Dark Lady Think not, because I wonder where you fled, That I would lift a pin to see you there; You may, for me, be prowling anywhere, So long as you show not your little head: No dark and evil story of the dead Would leave you less pernicious or less fair- Not even Lilith, with her […]...
- Dark Trinity Said I to Pain: “You would not dare Do ill to me.” Said Pain: “Poor fool! Why should I care Whom you may be? To clown and king alike I bring My meed of bane; Why should you shirk my chastening?” Said Pain. Said I to Grief: “No tears have I, Go on your way.” […]...
- On The Death Of A Fair Infant Dying Of A Cough I O fairest flower no sooner blown but blasted, Soft silken Primrose fading timelesslie, Summers chief honour if thou hadst outlasted Bleak winters force that made thy blossome drie; For he being amorous on that lovely die That did thy cheek envermeil, thought to kiss But kill’d alas, and then bewayl’d his fatal bliss. II […]...
- Robinson The dog stops barking after Robinson has gone. His act is over. The world is a gray world, Not without violence, and he kicks under the grand piano, The nightmare chase well under way. The mirror from Mexico, stuck to the wall, Reflects nothing at all. The glass is black. Robinson alone provides the image […]...
- Childe Roland To The Dark Tower Came I. My first thought was, he lied in every word, That hoary cripple, with malicious eye Askance to watch the working of his lie On mine, and mouth scarce able to afford Suppression of the glee, that pursed and scored Its edge, at one more victim gained thereby. II. What else should he be set […]...
- Senlin: His Dark Origins 1 Senlin sits before us, and we see him. He smokes his pipe before us, and we hear him. Is he small, with reddish hair, Does he light his pipe with meditative stare, And a pointed flame reflected in both eyes? Is he sad and happy and foolish and wise? Did no one see him […]...
- Fair And Unfair The beautiful is fair. The just is fair. Yet one is commonplace and one is rare, One everywhere, one scarcely anywhere. So fair unfair a world. Had we the wit To use the surplus for the deficit, We’d make a fairer fairer world of it....
- 68. The Holy Fair UPON 1 a simmer Sunday morn When Nature’s face is fair, I walked forth to view the corn, An’ snuff the caller air. The rising sun owre Galston muirs Wi’ glorious light was glintin; The hares were hirplin down the furrs, The lav’rocks they were chantin Fu’ sweet that day. As lightsomely I glowr’d abroad, […]...
- Chant For Dark Hours Some men, some men Cannot pass a Book shop. (Lady, make your mind up, and wait your life away.) Some men, some men Cannot pass a Crap game. (He said he’d come at moonrise, and here’s another day!) Some men, some men Cannot pass a Bar-room. (Wait about, and hang about, and that’s the way […]...
- Julian Scott Toward the last The truth of others was untruth to me; The justice of others injustice to me; Their reasons for death, reasons with me for life; Their reasons for life, reasons with me for death; I would have killed those they saved, And save those they killed. And I saw how a god, if […]...
- The House Of Dust: Part 03: 06: Portrait Of One Dead This is the house. On one side there is darkness, On one side there is light. Into the darkness you may lift your lanterns- O, any number-it will still be night. And here are echoing stairs to lead you downward To long sonorous halls. And here is spring forever at these windows, With roses on […]...
- 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 […]...
- The Last Rose ‘O WHICH is the last rose?’ A blossom of no name. At midnight the snow came; At daybreak a vast rose, In darkness unfurl’d, O’er-petall’d the world. Its odourless pallor Blossom’d forlorn, Till radiant valour Establish’d the morn Till the night Was undone In her fight With the sun. The brave orb in state rose, […]...
- 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 […]...
- 418. Song-O were my love you lilac fair O WERE my love yon Lilac fair, Wi’ purple blossoms to the Spring, And I, a bird to shelter there, When wearied on my little wing! How I wad mourn when it was torn By Autumn wild, and Winter rude! But I wad sing on wanton wing, When youthfu’ May its bloom renew’d. O gin […]...
- Fill the Bumper Fair Fill the bumper fair! Every drop we sprinkle O’er the brow of Care Smooths away a wrinkle. Wit’s electric flame Ne’er so swiftly passes, As when through the frame It shoots from brimming glasses. Fill the bumper fair! Every drop we sprinkle O’er the brow of Care Smooths away a wrinkle. Sages can, they say, […]...
- Messy Room Whosever room this is should be ashamed! His underwear is hanging on the lamp. His raincoat is there in the overstuffed chair, And the chair is becoming quite mucky and damp. His workbook is wedged in the window, His sweater’s been thrown on the floor. His scarf and one ski are beneath the TV, And […]...
- Tired And Unhappy, You Think Of Houses Tired and unhappy, you think of houses Soft-carpeted and warm in the December evening, While snow’s white pieces fall past the window, And the orange firelight leaps. A young girl sings That song of Gluck where Orpheus pleads with Death; Her elders watch, nodding their happiness To see time fresh again in her self-conscious eyes: […]...
- Solace There was a rose that faded young; I saw its shattered beauty hung Upon a broken stem. I heard them say, “What need to care With roses budding everywhere?” I did not answer them. There was a bird, brought down to die; They said, “A hundred fill the sky- What reason to be sad?” There […]...
- Sonnet 06: Bluebeard This door you might not open, and you did; So enter now, and see for what slight thing You are betrayed…. Here is no treasure hid No cauldron, no clear crystal mirroring The sought-for truth, no heads of women slain For greed like yours, no writhings of distress But only what you see…. Look yet […]...
- French Leave No servile little fear shall daunt my will This morning. I have courage steeled to say I will be lazy, conqueringly still, I will not lose the hours in toil this day. The roaring world without, careless of souls, Shall leave me to my placid dream of rest, My four walls shield me from its […]...
- 428. Song-Phillis the Queen o' the fair ADOWN winding Nith I did wander, To mark the sweet flowers as they spring; Adown winding Nith I did wander, Of Phillis to muse and to sing. Chorus.-Awa’ wi’ your belles and your beauties, They never wi’ her can compare, Whaever has met wi’ my Phillis, Has met wi’ the queen o’ the fair. The […]...
- But for the Grace of God “There, but for the grace of God, goes…” There is a question that I ask, And ask again: What hunger was half-hidden by the mask That he wore then? There was a word for me to say That I said not; And in the past there was another day That I forgot: A dreary, cold, […]...
- Dark Truth Birds have no consciousness of doom: Yon thrush that serenades me daily From scented snow of hawthorn bloom Would not trill out his glee so gaily, Could he foretell his songful breath Would sadly soon be stilled in death. Yon lambs that frolic on the lea And incarnate the joy of life, Would scarce disport […]...