Elegy for an Enemy

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1. My enemy my friend My enemy my friend Whom I know without compromise, When I listened to the Deconstructions avowed of you As your brand of pernicious Lies I was ashamed. I know where you situate In matters that joined us In vigorous hand to hand (and at times bloody) debate, I know where you opposed my Belated philosophies […]...
2. To My Enemy Let those who will of friendship sing, And to its guerdon grateful be, But I a lyric garland bring To crown thee, O, mine enemy! Thanks, endless thanks, to thee I owe For that my lifelong journey through Thine honest hate has done for me What love perchance had failed to do. I had not […]...
3. Enemy of Death (For Rossana Sironi) You should not have Ripped out your image Taken from us, from the world, A portion of beauty. What can we do We enemies of death, Bent to your feet of rose, Your breast of violet? Not a word, not a scrap Of your last day, a No To earth’s things, a […]...
4. Dream Song 9: Deprived of his enemy, shrugged to a standstill Deprived of his enemy, shrugged to a standstill Horrible Henry, foaming. Fan their way Toward him who will In the high wood: the officers, their rest, With p. a. echoing: his girl comes, say, Conned in to test If he’s still human, see, Therefore she get on the Sheriff’s mike & howl ‘Come down, come […]...
5. Mine Enemy is growing old Mine Enemy is growing old I have at last Revenge The Palate of the Hate departs If any would avenge Let him be quick the Viand flits It is a faded Meat Anger as soon as fed is dead ‘Tis starving makes it fat...
6. The Enemy My youth was nothing but a black storm Crossed now and then by brilliant suns. The thunder and the rain so ravage the shores Nothing’s left of the fruit my garden held once. I should employ the rake and the plow, Having reached the autumn of ideas, To restore this inundated ground Where the deep […]...
7. The ravings which my enemy uttered I heard within my heart The ravings which my enemy uttered I heard within my heart; The secret thoughts he harbored against me I also perceived. His dog bit my foot, he showed me much injustice; I do not Bite him like a dog, I have bitten my own lip. Since I have penetrated into the secrets of individuals like […]...
8. Under the Greenwood Tree Under the greenwood tree Who loves to lie with me, And turn his merry note Unto the sweet bird’s throat, Come hither, come hither, come hither: Here shall he see No enemy But winter and rough weather. Who doth ambition shun, And loves to live i’ the sun, Seeking the food he eats, And pleas’d […]...
9. Elegy VIII: The Comparison As the sweet sweat of roses in a still, As that which from chafed musk-cats’ pores doth trill, As the almighty balm of th’ early East, Such are the sweat drops of my mistress’ breast, And on her brow her skin such lustre sets, They seem no sweat drops, but pearl coronets. Rank sweaty froth […]...
10. NO FAULT IN WOMEN No fault in women, to refuse The offer which they most would chuse. No fault: in women, to confess How tedious they are in their dress; No fault in women, to lay on The tincture of vermilion; And there to give the cheek a dye Of white, where Nature doth deny. No fault in women, […]...
11. Elegy II: The Anagram Marry, and love thy Flavia, for she Hath all things whereby others beautious be, For, though her eyes be small, her mouth is great, Though they be ivory, yet her teeth be jet, Though they be dim, yet she is light enough, And though her harsh hair fall, her skin is rough; What though her […]...
12. Every Death Is Magic from the Enemy to Be Avenged My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Psalm 22 When fever burned the last light out of my daughter’s eyes, I swore to find and kill the ones to blame. Men Must mount the long boat in the dark with spears. At dawn, where the flowering spicebush hid my scent, I crouched. A […]...
13. Elegy VII Nature’s lay idiot, I taught thee to love, And in that sophistry, Oh, thou dost prove Too subtle: Foole, thou didst not understand The mystic language of the eye nor hand: Nor couldst thou judge the difference of the air Of sighs, and say, This lies, this sounds despair: Nor by th’ eyes water call […]...
14. Elegy Since I lost you, my darling, the sky has come near, And I am of it, the small sharp stars are quite near, The white moon going among them like a white bird among snow-berries, And the sound of her gently rustling in heaven like a bird I hear. And I am willing to come […]...
15. Elegy Too proud to die; broken and blind he died The darkest way, and did not turn away, A cold kind man brave in his narrow pride On that darkest day. Oh, forever may He lie lightly, at last, on the last, crossed Hill, under the grass, in love, and there grow Young among the long […]...
16. Singapore They grouped together about the chief And each one looked at his mate, Ashamed to think that Australian men Should meet such bitter fate! And black was the wrath in each hot heart And savage oaths they swore As they thought of how they had all been ditched By “Impregnable” Singapore. In her vaunted place […]...
17. Elegy The page opens to snow on a field: boot-holed month, black hour The bottle in your coat half voda half winter light. To what and to whom does one say yes? If God were the uncertain, would you cling to him? Beneath a tattoo of stars the gate open, so silent so like a tomb. […]...
18. To Earthward Love at the lips was touch As sweet as I could bear; And once that seemed too much; I lived on air That crossed me from sweet things, The scent of was it musk From hidden grapevine springs Down hill at dusk? I had the swirl and ache From sprays of honeysuckle That when they’re […]...
19. Assurance Last night I slept, and when I woke her kiss Still floated on my lips. For we had strayed Together in my dream, through some dim glade, Where the shy moonbeams scarce dared light our bliss. The air was dank with dew, between the trees, The hidden glow-worms kindled and were spent. Cheek pressed to […]...
20. Mortal Enemy Let another cross his way- She’s the one will do the weeping! Little need I fear he’ll stray Since I have his heart in keeping- Let another hail him dear- Little chance that he’ll forget me! Only need I curse and fear Her he loved before he met me....
21. Elegy Written In A Country Churchyard The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, The lowing herd wind slowly o’er the lea, The ploughman homeward plods his weary way, And leaves the world to darkness and to me. Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, And all the air a solemn stillness holds, Save where the beetle wheels his droning […]...
22. Elegy IV: The Perfume Once, and but once found in thy company, All thy supposed escapes are laid on me; And as a thief at bar is questioned there By all the men that have been robed that year, So am I (by this traiterous means surprized) By thy hydroptic father catechized. Though he had wont to search with […]...
23. Enemy Conscript What are we fighting for, We fellows who go to war? Fighting for Freedom’s sake! (You give me the belly-ache.) Freedom to starve or slave! Freedom! aye, in the grave. Fighting for “hearth and home,” Who haven’t an inch of loam? Hearth? Why even a byre Can only be ours for hire. Dying for future […]...
24. Elegy For My Father HLF, August 8, 1918-August 22, 1997 “Bequeath us to no earthly shore until Is answered in the vortex of our grave The seal’s wide spindrift gaze towards paradise.” -Hart Crane, “Voyages” “If a lion could talk, we couldn’t understand it” -Ludwig Wittgenstein Under the ocean that stretches out wordlessly Past the long edge of the […]...
25. Elegy I: Jealousy Fond woman, which wouldst have thy husband die, And yet complain’st of his great jealousy; If swol’n with poison, he lay in his last bed, His body with a sere-bark covered, Drawing his breath, as thick and short, as can The nimblest crocheting musician, Ready with loathsome vomiting to spew His soul out of one […]...
26. Elegy XVIII: Love's Progress Who ever loves, if he do not propose The right true end of love, he’s one that goes To sea for nothing but to make him sick. Love is a bear-whelp born: if we o’erlick Our love, and force it new strange shapes to take, We err, and of a lump a monster make. Were […]...
27. Slough Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough! It isn’t fit for humans now, There isn’t grass to graze a cow. Swarm over, Death! Come, bombs and blow to smithereens Those air – conditioned, bright canteens, Tinned fruit, tinned meat, tinned milk, tinned beans, Tinned minds, tinned breath. Mess up the mess they call a town- […]...
28. 135. Epigram on Rough Roads I’M now arrived-thanks to the gods!- Thro’ pathways rough and muddy, A certain sign that makin roads Is no this people’s study: Altho’ Im not wi’ Scripture cram’d, I’m sure the Bible says That heedless sinners shall be damn’d, Unless they mend their ways....
29. Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady What beck’ning ghost, along the moon-light shade Invites my steps, and points to yonder glade? ‘Tis she! but why that bleeding bosom gor’d, Why dimly gleams the visionary sword? Oh ever beauteous, ever friendly! tell, Is it, in heav’n, a crime to love too well? To bear too tender, or too firm a heart, To […]...
30. Pigtail When all the women in the transport Had their heads shaved Four workmen with brooms made of birch twigs Swept up And gathered up the hair Behind clean glass The stiff hair lies Of those suffocated in gas chambers There are pins and side combs In this hair The hair is not shot through with […]...
31. In The Gold Room – A Harmony Her ivory hands on the ivory keys Strayed in a fitful fantasy, Like the silver gleam when the poplar trees Rustle their pale-leaves listlessly, Or the drifting foam of a restless sea When the waves show their teeth in the flying breeze. Her gold hair fell on the wall of gold Like the delicate gossamer […]...
32. Hate My enemy came nigh, And I Stared fiercely in his face. My lips went writhing back in a grimace, And stern I watched him with a narrow eye. Then, as I turned away, my enemy, That bitter heart and savage, said to me: “Some day, when this is past, When all the arrows that we […]...
33. Duino Elegies: The Tenth Elegy That some day, emerging at last from the terrifying vision I may burst into jubilant praise to assenting angels! That of the clear-struck keys of the heart not one may fail To sound because of a loose, doubtful or broken string! That my streaming countenance may make me more resplendent That my humble weeping change […]...
34. Elegy It’s not that the Muse feels like clamming up, It’s more like high time for the lad’s last nap. And the scarf-waving lass who wished him the best Drives a steamroller across his chest. And the words won’t rise either like that rod Or like logs to rejoin their old grove’s sweet rot, And, like […]...
35. Elegy XVI: On His Mistress By our first strange and fatal interview, By all desires which thereof did ensue, By our long starving hopes, by that remorse Which my words’ masculine persuasive force Begot in thee, and by the memory Of hurts, which spies and rivals threatened me, I calmly beg: but by thy father’s wrath, By all pains, which […]...
36. Elegy to the Memory of David Garrick, Esq DEAR SHADE OF HIM, who grac’d the mimick scene, And charm’d attention with resistless pow’r; Whose wond’rous art, whose fascinating mien, Gave glowing rapture to the short-liv’d hour! Accept the mournful verse, the ling’ring sigh, The tear that faithful Mem’ry stays to shed; The SACRED TEAR, that from Reflection’s eye, Drops on the ashes of […]...
37. Elegy Let them bury your big eyes In the secret earth securely, Your thin fingers, and your fair, Soft, indefinite-colored hair,- All of these in some way, surely, From the secret earth shall rise; Not for these I sit and stare, Broken and bereft completely; Your young flesh that sat so neatly On your little bones […]...
38. La Regina Avrillouse Lady of rich allure, Queen of the spring’s embrace, Your arms are long like boughs of ash, Mid laugh-broken streams, spirit of rain unsure, Breath of the poppy flower, All the wood thy bower And the hills thy dwelling-place. This will I no more dream; Warm is thy arm’s allure, Warm is the gust of […]...
39. Dream Song 324: An Elegy for W. C. W., the lovely man Henry in Ireland to Bill underground: Rest well, who worked so hard, who made a good sound Constantly, for so many years: Your high-jinks delighted the continents & our ears: You had so many girls your life was a triumph And you loved your one wife. At dawn you rose & wrote—the books poured forth— […]...
40. Elegy V: His Picture Here take my picture; though I bid farewell, Thine, in my heart, where my soul dwells, shall dwell. ‘Tis like me now, but I dead, ’twill be more When we are shadows both than ’twas before. When weather-beaten I come back, my hand Perhaps with rude oars torn, or sunbeams tanned, My face and breast […]...