Satires of Circumstance in Fifteen Glimpses VIII: In the St

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1. October Books litter the bed, Leaves the lawn. It Lightly rains. Fall has Come: unpatterned, in The shedding leaves. The maples ripen. Apples Come home crisp in bags. This pear tastes good. It rains lightly on the Random leaf patterns. The nimbus is spread Above our island. Rain Lightly patters on un- Shed leaves. The books […]...
2. To Lucy, Countess of Bedford, with John Donne's Satires Lucy, you brightness of our sphere, who are Life of the Muses’ day, their morning star! If works, not th’ author’s, their own grace should look, Whose poems would not wish to be your book? But these, desir’d by you, the maker’s ends Crown with their own. Rare poems ask rare friends. Yet satires, since […]...
3. Matthew VIII,28 ff Rabbi, we Gadarenes Are not ascetics; we are fond of wealth and possessions. Love, as You call it, we obviate by means Of the planned release of aggressions. We have deep faith in properity. Soon, it is hoped, we will reach our full potential. In the light of our gross product, the practice of charity […]...
4. Alone and in a Circumstance Alone and in a Circumstance Reluctant to be told A spider on my reticence Assiduously crawled And so much more at Home than I Immediately grew I felt myself a visitor And hurriedly withdrew Revisiting my late abode With articles of claim I found it quietly assumed As a Gymnasium Where Tax asleep and Title […]...
5. Curious Circumstance The sailorman’s child And the girl of the witch They can’t be defiled By touching pitch. The sailorman’s son Had a ship for a nursery; The other one Was baptised by sorcery. Although he’s shipped To the Persian Gulf, her Body’s been dipped In burning sulphur....
6. Now I sit here on the 2nd floor Hunched over in yellow Pajamas Still pretending to be A writer. Some damned gall, At 71, My brain cells eaten Away by Life. Rows of books Behind me, I scratch my thinning Hair And search for the Word. For decades now I have infuriated the Ladies, The critics, […]...
7. Fifteen False Propositions Against God – Section XIV If the diamond ring turns brass Mama’s going to buy you a looking glass Marianne Moore and Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams Going on a picnic together when they were all students at the University of Pennsylvania Now they are all over seventy and the absent baby Is a mirror sheltering their image....
8. 43. Song-O Leave Novels! O LEAVE novels, 1 ye Mauchline belles, Ye’re safer at your spinning-wheel; Such witching books are baited hooks For rakish rooks, like Rob Mossgiel; Your fine Tom Jones and Grandisons, They make your youthful fancies reel; They heat your brains, and fire your veins, And then you’re prey for Rob Mossgiel. Beware a tongue that’s […]...
9. Chicks THE CHICK in the egg picks at the shell, cracks open one oval world, and enters another oval world. “Cheep… cheep… cheep” is the salutation of the newcomer, the emigrant, the casual at the gates of the new world. “Cheep… cheep” … from oval to oval, sunset to sunset, star to star. It is at […]...
10. Kreisler SELL me a violin, mister, of old mysterious wood. Sell me a fiddle that has kissed dark nights on the forehead where men kiss sisters they love. Sell me dried wood that has ached with passion clutching the knees and arms of a storm. Sell me horsehair and rosin that has sucked at the breasts […]...
11. 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 […]...
12. Song (Sylvia The Fair, In The Bloom Of Fifteen) Sylvia the fair, in the bloom of fifteen, Felt an innocent warmth as she lay on the green: She had heard of a pleasure, and something she guessed By the towsing and tumbling and touching her breast: She saw the men eager, but was at a loss What they meant by their sighing and kissing […]...
13. May and the Poets There is May in books forever; May will part from Spenser never; May’s in Milton, May’s in Prior, May’s in Chaucer, Thomson, Dyer; May’s in all the Italian books: She has old and modern nooks, Where she sleeps with nymphs and elves, In happy places they call shelves, And will rise and dress your rooms […]...
14. Charms She walks as lightly as the fly Skates on the water in July. To hear her moving petticoat For me is music’s highest note. Stones are not heard, when her feet pass, No more than tumps of moss or grass. When she sits still, she’s like the flower To be a butterfly next hour. The […]...
15. Four-Foot Shelf ‘Come, see,’ said he, ‘my four-foot shelf, A forty volume row; And every one I wrote myself, But that, of course, you know.’ I stared, I searched a memory dim, For though an author too, Somehow I’d never heard of him, None of his books I knew. Said I: ‘I’d like to borrow one, Fond […]...
16. The Poet VIII He is a link between this and the coming world. He is A pure spring from which all thirsty souls may drink. He is a tree watered by the River of Beauty, bearing Fruit which the hungry heart craves; He is a nightingale, soothing the depressed Spirit with his beautiful melodies; He is a white […]...
17. Lover's Gifts XLII: Are You a Mere Picture Are you a mere picture, and not as true as those stars, true as This dust? They throb with the pulse of things, but you are Immensely aloof in your stillness, painted form. The day was when you walked with me, your breath warm, your Limbs singing of life. My world found its speech in […]...
18. Narcissus Encircled by her arms as by a shell, She hears her being murmur, While forever he endures The outrage of his too pure image… Wistfully following their example, Nature re-enters herself; Contemplating its own sap, the flower Becomes too soft, and the boulder hardens… It’s the return of all desire that enters Toward all life […]...
19. The Book of Urizen: Chapter VIII 1. Urizen explor’d his dens Mountain, moor, & wilderness, With a globe of fire lighting his journey A fearful journey, annoy’d By cruel enormities: forms Of life on his forsaken mountains 2. And his world teemd vast enormities Frightning; faithless; fawning Portions of life; similitudes Of a foot, or a hand, or a head Or […]...
20. RESTLESS LOVE THROUGH rain, through snow, Through tempest go! ‘Mongst streaming caves, O’er misty waves, On, on! still on! Peace, rest have flown! Sooner through sadness I’d wish to be slain, Than all the gladness Of life to sustain All the fond yearning That heart feels for heart, Only seems burning To make them both smart. How […]...
21. Song VIII: While Ye Deemed Him A-Sleeping Love is enough: while ye deemed him a-sleeping, There were signs of his coming and sounds of his feet; His touch it was that would bring you to weeping, When the summer was deepest and music most sweet: In his footsteps ye followed the day to its dying, Ye went forth by his gown-skirts the […]...
22. The happy household It’s when the birds go piping and the daylight slowly breaks, That, clamoring for his dinner, our precious baby wakes; Then it’s sleep no more for baby, and it’s sleep no more for me, For, when he wants his dinner, why it’s dinner it must be! And of that lacteal fluid he partakes with great […]...
23. Lightly Come or Lightly Go Lightly come or lightly go: Though thy heart presage thee woe, Vales and many a wasted sun, Oread let thy laughter run, Till the irreverent mountain air Ripple all thy flying hair. Lightly, lightly – ever so: Clouds that wrap the vales below At the hour of evenstar Lowliest attendants are; Love and laughter song-confessed […]...
24. If any sink, assure that this, now standing If any sink, assure that this, now standing Failed like Themselves and conscious that it rose Grew by the Fact, and not the Understanding How Weakness passed or Force arose Tell that the Worst, is easy in a Moment Dread, but the Whizzing, before the Ball When the Ball enters, enters Silence Dying annuls the […]...
25. TO MIGNON OVER vale and torrent far Rolls along the sun’s bright car. Ah! he wakens in his course Mine, as thy deep-seated smart In the heart. Ev’ry morning with new force. Scarce avails night aught to me; E’en the visions that I see Come but in a mournful guise; And I feel this silent smart In […]...
26. Sonnet VIII Oft as by chance, a little while apart The pall of empty, loveless hours withdrawn, Sweet Beauty, opening on the impoverished heart, Beams like the jewel on the breast of dawn: Not though high heaven should rend would deeper awe Fill me than penetrates my spirit thus, Nor all those signs the Patmian prophet saw […]...
27. Sonnet VIII MOre then most faire, full of the liuing fire, Kindled aboue vnto the maker neere: No eies buy ioyes, in which al powers conspire, That to the world naught else be counted deare. Thrugh your bright beams doth not ye blinded guest, Shoot out his darts to base affections wound: But Angels come to lead […]...
28. Sonnets viii THAT time of year thou may’st in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold Bare ruin’d choirs where late the sweet birds sang, In me thou see’st the twilight of such day As after Sunset fadeth in the West, Which by and by […]...
29. Sonnet VIII Music to hear, why hear’st thou music sadly? Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy. Why lovest thou that which thou receivest not gladly, Or else receivest with pleasure thine annoy? If the true concord of well-tuned sounds, By unions married, do offend thine ear, They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds […]...
30. Sonnet VIII As Daniel, bird-alone, in that far land, Kneeling in fervent prayer, with heart-sick eyes Turned thro’ the casement toward the westering skies; Or as untamed Elijah, that red brand Among the starry prophets; or that band And company of Faithful sanctities Who in all times, when persecutions rise, Cherish forgotten creeds with fostering hand: Such […]...
31. Joy and Sorrow chapter VIII Then a woman said, “Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow.” And he answered: Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears. And how else can it be? The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. […]...
32. Sonnet VIII: Why, Through Each Aching Vein Why, through each aching vein, with lazy pace Thus steals the languid fountain of my heart, While, from its source, each wild convulsive start Tears the scorch’d roses from my burning face? In vain, O Lesbian Vales! your charms I trace; Vain is the poet’s theme, the sculptor’s art; No more the Lyre its magic […]...
33. 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 […]...
34. Sonnet VIII: There's Nothing Grieves Me There’s nothing grieves me, but that Age should haste, That in my days I may not see thee old, That where those two clear sparkling eyes are plac’d Only two loop-holes then I might behold; That lovely, arched, ivory, polish’d brow Defac’d with wrinkles that I might but see; Thy dainty hair, so curl’d and […]...
35. A Man Young And Old: VIII. Summer And Spring We sat under an old thorn-tree And talked away the night, Told all that had been said or done Since first we saw the light, And when we talked of growing up Knew that we’d halved a soul And fell the one in t’other’s arms That we might make it whole; Then peter had a […]...
36. Lollingdon Downs VIII THE Kings go by with jewled crowns; Their horses gleam, their banners shake, their spears are many. The sack of many-peopled towns Is all their dream: The way they take Leaves but a ruin in the brake, And, in the furrow that the plowmen make, A stampless penny, a tale, a dream. The Merchants reckon […]...
37. Lover's Gifts VIII: There Is Room for You There is room for you. You are alone with your few sheaves of rice. My boat is crowded, it is heavily laden, but how can I turn you Away? Your young body is slim and swaying; there is a twinkling Smile in the edge of your eyes, and your robe is coloured like the Rain […]...
38. APPARENT DEATH WEEP, maiden, weep here o’er the tomb of Love; He died of nothing by mere chance was slain. But is he really dead? oh, that I cannot prove: A nothing, a mere chance, oft gives him life again. 1767-9....
39. The Lily Night after night Darkness Enters the face Of the lily Which, lightly, Closes its five walls Around itself, And its purse Of honey, And its fragrance, And is content To stand there In the garden, Not quite sleeping, And, maybe, Saying in lily language Some small words We can’t hear Even when there is no […]...
40. Sonnet VIII: Love, Born In Greece Love, born in Greece, of late fled from his native place, Forc’d by a tedious proof, that Turkish harden’d heart Is no fit mark to pierce with his fine pointed dart, And pleas’d with our soft peace, stayed here his flying race. But finding these north climes do coldly him embrace, Not used to frozen […]...