An Ancient To Ancients

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1. Before Day Come in this hour to set my spirit free When earth is no more mine though night goes out, And stretching forth these arms I cannot be Lord of winged sunrise and dim Arcady: When fieldward boys far off with clack and shout From orchards scare the birds in sudden rout, Come, ere my heart […]...
2. The Voice Of The Ancient Bard Youth of delight come hither. And see the opening morn, Image of truth new born. Doubt is fled & clouds of reason. Dark disputes & artful teazing, Folly is an endless maze, Tangled roots perplex her ways, How many have fallen there! They stumble all night over bones of the dead: And feel they know […]...
3. The Huntsmen Three jolly gentlemen, In coats of red, Rode their horses Up to bed. Three jolly gentlemen Snored till morn, Their horses champing The golden corn. Three jolly gentlemen At break of day, Came clitter-clatter down the stairs And galloped away....
4. The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner Part I It is an ancient Mariner, And he stoppeth one of three. ‘By thy long grey beard and glittering eye, Now wherefore stopp’st thou me? The bridegroom’s doors are opened wide, And I am next of kin; The guests are met, the feast is set: Mayst hear the merry din.’ He holds him with […]...
5. Rome: Building a New Street in the Ancient Quarter These numbered cliffs and gnarls of masonry Outskeleton Time’s central city, Rome; Whereof each arch, entablature, and dome Lies bare in all its gaunt anatomy. And cracking frieze and rotten metope Express, as though they were an open tome Top-lined with caustic monitory gnome; “Dunces, Learn here to spell Humanity!” And yet within these ruins’ […]...
6. Gentlemen lift the sea on a deformed request in a train lavatory Gentlemen lift the sea Be all of you the modern Muscular mountains Who with a scoop of biceptual crags Swoop down for an armful of ocean Leavening the dreadful pressures On the valleys of lyonnesse Gentlemen rape air with water Let the submarine nose round the moon […]...
7. The Ancient Town of Leith Ancient town of Leith, most wonderful to be seen, With your many handsome buildings, and lovely links so green, And the first buildings I may mention are the Courthouse and Town Hall, Also Trinity House, and the Sailors’ Home of Call. Then as for Leith Fort, it was erected in 1779, which is really grand, […]...
8. The Unborn Sometimes I can almost see, around our heads, Like gnats around a streetlight in summer, The children we could have, The glimmer of them. Sometimes I feel them waiting, dozing In some antechamber – servants, half- Listening for the bell. Sometimes I see them lying like love letters In the Dead Letter Office And sometimes, […]...
9. The King of Yellow Butterflies (A Poem Game.) The King of Yellow Butterflies, The King of Yellow Butterflies, The King of Yellow Butterflies, Now orders forth his men. He says “The time is almost here When violets bloom again.” Adown the road the fickle rout Goes flashing proud and bold, A down the road the fickle rout Goes flashing proud […]...
10. The Ancient Elf I am the maker, The builder, the breaker, The eagle-winged helper, The speedy forsaker! The lance and the lyre, The water, the fire, The tooth of oppression, The lip of desire! The snare and the wing, They honey, the sting! When you seek for me look For a different thing! I, careless and gay, Never […]...
11. The Ancient World Today the Masons are auctioning Their discarded pomp: a trunk of turbans, Gemmed and ostrich-plumed, and operetta costumes Labeled inside the collar “Potentate” And “Vizier.” Here their chairs, blazoned With the Masons’ sign, huddled Like convalescents, lean against one another On the grass. In a casket are rhinestoned poles The hierophants carried in parades; Here’s […]...
12. The Ancient Speech A Gaelic bard they praise who in fourteen adjectives Named the one indivisible soul of his glen; For what are the bens and the glens but manifold qualities, Immeasurable complexities of soul? What are these isles but a song sung by island voices? The herdsman sings ancestral memories And the song makes the singer wise, […]...
13. An Ancient Gesture I thought, as I wiped my eyes on the corner of my apron: Penelope did this too. And more than once: you can’t keep weaving all day And undoing it all through the night; Your arms get tired, and the back of your neck gets tight; And along towards morning, when you think it will […]...
14. Ancient Music Winter is icummen in, Lhude sing Goddamm. Raineth drop and staineth slop, And how the wind doth ramm! Sing: Goddamm. Skiddeth bus and sloppeth us, An ague hath my ham. Freezeth river, turneth liver, Damn you, sing: Goddamm. Goddamm, Goddamm, ’tis why I am, Goddamm, So ‘gainst the winter’s balm. Sing goddamm, damm, sing Goddamm. […]...
15. Ancient History Adam, a brown old vulture in the rain, Shivered below his wind-whipped olive-trees; Huddling sharp chin on scarred and scraggy knees, He moaned and mumbled to his darkening brain; ‘He was the grandest of them all was Cain! ‘A lion laired in the hills, that none could tire: ‘Swift as a stag: a stallion of […]...
16. And Did Those Feet In Ancient Time And did those feet in ancient time Walk upon England’s mountains green? And was the holy Lamb of God On England’s pleasant pastures seen? And did the Countenance Divine Shine forth upon our clouded hills? And was Jerusalem builded here Among these dark satanic mills? Bring me my bow of burning gold! Bring me my […]...
17. Go, Little Book – The Ancient Phrase GO, little book – the ancient phrase And still the daintiest – go your ways, My Otto, over sea and land, Till you shall come to Nelly’s hand. How shall I your Nelly know? By her blue eyes and her black brow, By her fierce and slender look, And by her goodness, little book! What […]...
18. The Lilac is an ancient shrub The Lilac is an ancient shrub But ancienter than that The Firmamental Lilac Upon the Hill tonight The Sun subsiding on his Course Bequeaths this final Plant To Contemplation not to Touch The Flower of Occident. Of one Corolla is the West The Calyx is the Earth The Capsules burnished Seeds the Stars The Scientist […]...
19. According To The Formulas Of Ancient Grecosyrian Magi “What distillate can be discovered from herbs Of a witching brew,” said an aesthete, “what distillate prepared according To the formulas of ancient Grecosyrian magi Which for a day (if no longer Its potency can last), or even for a short time Can bring my twenty three years to me Again; can bring my friend […]...
20. There is a Languor of the Life There is a Languor of the Life More imminent than Pain ‘Tis Pain’s Successor When the Soul Has suffered all it can A Drowsiness diffuses A Dimness like a Fog Envelops Consciousness As Mists obliterate a Crag. The Surgeon does not blanch at pain His Habit is severe But tell him that it ceased to […]...
21. A Song Of A Young Lady To Her Ancient Lover Ancient Person, for whom I All the flattering youth defy, Long be it e’er thou grow old, Aching, shaking, crazy cold; But still continue as thou art, Ancient Person of my heart. On thy withered lips and dry, Which like barren furrows lie, Brooding kisses I will pour, Shall thy youthful heart restore, Such kind […]...
22. An Army Corps on the March WITH its cloud of skirmishers in advance, With now the sound of a single shot, snapping like a whip, and now an irregular volley, The swarming ranks press on and on, the dense brigades press on; Glittering dimly, toiling under the sun-the dust-cover’d men, In columns rise and fall to the undulations of the ground, […]...
23. Governors On Sominex It had been four days of no weather As if nature had conceded its genius to the indoors. They’d closed down the Bureau of Sad Endings And my wife sat on the couch and read the paper out loud. The evening edition carried the magic death of a child Backlit by a construction site sunrise […]...
24. Hold Hard, These Ancient Minutes In The Cuckoo's Month Hold hard, these ancient minutes in the cuckoo’s month, Under the lank, fourth folly on Glamorgan’s hill, As the green blooms ride upward, to the drive of time; Time, in a folly’s rider, like a county man Over the vault of ridings with his hound at heel, Drives forth my men, my children, from the […]...
25. As I Step Over A Puddle At The End Of Winter, I Think Of An Ancient Chinese Governor And how can I, born in evil days And fresh from failure, ask a kindness of Fate? Written A. D. 819 Po Chu-i, balding old politician, What’s the use? I think of you, Uneasily entering the gorges of the Yang-Tze, When you were being towed up the rapids Toward some political job or other In […]...
26. A Sign-Seeker I MARK the months in liveries dank and dry, The day-tides many-shaped and hued; I see the nightfall shades subtrude, And hear the monotonous hours clang negligently by. I view the evening bonfires of the sun On hills where morning rains have hissed; The eyeless countenance of the mist Pallidly rising when the summer droughts […]...
27. Lines Written In The Belief That The Ancient Roman Festival Of The Dead Was Called Ambarvalia Swings the way still by hollow and hill, And all the world’s a song; “She’s far,” it sings me, “but fair,” it rings me, “Quiet,” it laughs, “and strong!” Oh! spite of the miles and years between us, Spite of your chosen part, I do remember; and I go With laughter in my heart. So […]...
28. The Song Of Empedocles And you, ye stars, Who slowly begin to marshal, As of old, in the fields of heaven, Your distant, melancholy lines! Have you, too, survived yourselves? Are you, too, what I fear to become? You, too, once lived; You too moved joyfully Among august companions, In an older world, peopled by Gods, In a mightier […]...
29. One From One Leaves Two Higgledy piggledy, my black hen, She lays eggs for gentlemen. Gentlemen come every day To count what my black hen doth lay. If perchance she lays too many, They fine my hen a pretty penny; If perchance she fails to lay, The gentlemen a bonus pay. Mumbledy pumbledy, my red cow, She’s cooperating now. At […]...
30. Appeal Oh, I am very weary, Though tears no longer flow; My eyes are tires of weeping, My heart is sick of woe; My life is very lonely, My days pass heavily, I’m wearing of repining, Wilt thou not come to me? Oh, didst thou know my longings For thee, from day to day, My hopes, […]...
31. A Smuggler's Song If you wake at midnight, and hear a horse’s feet, Don’t go drawing back the blind, or looking in the street. Them that ask no questions isn’t told a lie. Watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by! Five and twenty ponies, Trotting through the dark Brandy for the Parson, ‘Baccy for the […]...
32. Cavalier Tunes: Marching Along Kentish Sir Byng stood for his King, Bidding the crop-headed Parliament swing: And, pressing a troop unable to stoop And see the rogues flourish and honest folk droop, Marched them along, fifty score strong, Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song. God for King Charles! Pym and such carles To the Devil that prompts ’em their treasonous […]...
33. "Why do I love" You, Sir? “Why do I love” You, Sir? Because The Wind does not require the Grass To answer Wherefore when He pass She cannot keep Her place. Because He knows and Do not You And We know not Enough for Us The Wisdom it be so The Lightning never asked an Eye Wherefore it shut when He […]...
34. On the Trek Oh, the weary, weary journey on the trek, day after day, With sun above and silent veldt below; And our hearts keep turning homeward to the youngsters far away, And the homestead where the climbing roses grow. Shall we see the flats grow golden with the ripening of the grain? Shall we hear the parrots […]...
35. The Doomed regard the Sunrise The Doomed regard the Sunrise With different Delight Because when next it burns abroad They doubt to witness it The Man to die tomorrow Harks for the Meadow Bird Because its Music stirs the Axe That clamors for his head Joyful to whom the Sunrise Precedes Enamored Day Joyful for whom the Meadow Bird Has […]...
36. 366. Song-The weary Pund o' Tow Chorus.-The weary pund, the weary pund, The weary pund o’ tow; I think my wife will end her life, Before she spin her tow. I BOUGHT my wife a stane o’ lint, As gude as e’er did grow, And a’ that she has made o’ that Is ae puir pund o’ tow. The weary pund, […]...
37. The Rover's Adieu weary lot is thine, fair maid, A weary lot is thine! To pull the thorn thy brow to braid, And press the rue for wine. A lightsome eye, a soldier’s mien, A feather of the blue, A doublet of the Lincoln green- No more of me ye knew, My Love! No more of me ye […]...
38. Too little way the House must lie Too little way the House must lie From every Human Heart That holds in undisputed Lease A white inhabitant Too narrow is the Right between Too imminent the chance Each Consciousness must emigrate And lose its neighbor once...
39. National Trust Bottomless pits. There’s on in Castleton, And stout upholders of our law and order One day thought its depth worth wagering on And borrowed a convict hush-hush from his warder And winched him down; and back, flayed, grey, mad, dumb. Not even a good flogging made him holler! O gentlemen, a better way to plumb […]...
40. From the Antique It’s a weary life, it is, she said: Doubly blank in a woman’s lot: I wish and I wish I were a man: Or, better then any being, were not: Were nothing at all in all the world, Not a body and not a soul: Not so much as a grain of dust Or a […]...