He Has Lived In Many Houses

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1. Houses chapter IX A mason came forth and said, “Speak to us of Houses.” And he answered and said: Build of your imaginings a bower in the wilderness ere you build a house within the city walls. For even as you have home-comings in your twilight, so has the wanderer in you, the ever distant and alone. Your […]...
2. Clowns' Houses BENEATH the flat and paper sky The sun, a demon’s eye, Glowed through the air, that mask of glass; All wand’ring sounds that pass Seemed out of tune, as if the light Were fiddle-strings pulled tight. The market-square with spire and bell Clanged out the hour in Hell; The busy chatter of the heat Shrilled […]...
3. The Houses ‘Twixt my house and thy house the pathway is broad, In thy house or my house is half the world’s hoard; By my house and thy house hangs all the world’s fate, On thy house and my house lies half the world’s hate. For my house and thy house no help shall we find Save […]...
4. 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: […]...
5. Half-And-Half You can’t be, says a Palestinian Christian On the first feast day after Ramadan. So, half-and-half and half-and-half. He sells glass. He knows about broken bits, Chips. If you love Jesus you can’t love Anyone else. Says he. At his stall of blue pitchers on the Via Dolorosa, He’s sweeping. The rubbed stones Feel holy. […]...
6. A Radio With Guts it was on the 2nd floor on Coronado Street I used to get drunk And throw the radio through the window While it was playing, and, of course, It would break the glass in the window And the radio would sit there on the roof Still playing And I’d tell my woman, “Ah, what a […]...
7. I Have Lived With Shades I I have lived with Shades so long, So long have talked to them, I sped to street and throng, That sometimes they In their dim style Will pause awhile To hear my say; II And take me by the hand, And lead me through their rooms In the To-Be, where Dooms Half-wove and shapeless […]...
8. The last Night that She lived The last Night that She lived It was a Common Night Except the Dying this to Us Made Nature different We noticed smallest things Things overlooked before By this great light upon our Minds Italicized as ’twere. As We went out and in Between Her final Room And Rooms where Those to be alive Tomorrow […]...
9. Houses (For Aline) When you shall die and to the sky Serenely, delicately go, Saint Peter, when he sees you there, Will clash his keys and say: “Now talk to her, Sir Christopher! And hurry, Michelangelo! She wants to play at building, And you’ve got to help her play!” Every architect will help erect A palace […]...
10. God's Light-Houses 1 When night falls on the earth, the sea 2 From east to west lies twinkling bright 3 With shining beams from beacons high 4 Which flash afar a friendly light. 5 The sailor’s eyes, like eyes in prayer, 6 Turn unto them for guiding ray: 7 If storms obscure their radiance, 8 The great […]...
11. At the Window The pine-trees bend to listen to the autumn wind as it mutters Something which sets the black poplars ashake with hysterical laughter; While slowly the house of day is closing its eastern shutters. Further down the valley the clustered tombstones recede, Winding about their dimness the mist’s grey cerements, after The street lamps in the […]...
12. The End It is time for me to go, mother; I am going. When in the paling darkness of the lonely dawn you stretch out Your arms for your baby in the bed, I shall say, “Baby is not Here!”-mother, I am going. I shall become a delicate draught of air and caress you and I shall […]...
13. I know some lonely Houses off the Road I know some lonely Houses off the Road A Robber’d like the look of Wooden barred, And Windows hanging low, Inviting to A Portico, Where two could creep One hand the Tools The other peep To make sure All’s Asleep Old fashioned eyes Not easy to surprise! How orderly the Kitchen’d look, by night, With […]...
14. Wind and Window Flower LOVERS, forget your love, And list to the love of these, She a window flower, And he a winter breeze. When the frosty window veil Was melted down at noon, And the cagèd yellow bird Hung over her in tune, He marked her through the pane, He could not help but mark, And only passed […]...
15. This House Which Is Lived In This house which is lived in resounds With the chorus of voices bound in the press Of its generous, unconcealed blessings; Affection is neither distressed nor restrained, Nor caught in the intricate mesh of wicker And wire-ordered veins of its living construction, Contained within gentle, carbon-breathing walls. The halls are hung with wooded reminders that […]...
16. I lived on Dread I lived on Dread To Those who know The Stimulus there is In Danger Other impetus Is numb and Vitalless As ’twere a Spur upon the Soul A Fear will urge it where To go without the Sceptre’s aid Were Challenging Despair....
17. When Helen Lived We have cried in our despair That men desert, For some trivial affair Or noisy, insolent sport, Beauty that we have won From bitterest hours; Yet we, had we walked within Those topless towers Where Helen waked with her boy, Had given but as the rest Of the men and women of Troy, A word […]...
18. Chicago Poet I SALUTED a nobody. I saw him in a looking-glass. He smiled-so did I. He crumpled the skin on his forehead, frowning-so did I. Everything I did he did. I said, “Hello, I know you.” And I was a liar to say so. Ah, this looking-glass man! Liar, fool, dreamer, play-actor, Soldier, dusty drinker of […]...
19. Houses People who are afraid of themselves Multiply themselves into families And so divide themselves And so become less afraid. People who might have to go out Into clanging strangers’ laughter, Crowd under roofs, make compacts To no more than smile at each other. People who might meet their own faces Or surprise their own voices […]...
20. There was a land where lived no violets There was a land where lived no violets. A traveller at once demanded : “Why?” The people told him: “Once the violets of this place spoke thus: ‘Until some woman freely gives her lover To another woman We will fight in bloody scuffle.'” Sadly the people added: “There are no violets here.”...
21. There was a man who lived a life of fire There was a man who lived a life of fire. Even upon the fabric of time, Where purple becomes orange And orange purple, This life glowed, A dire red stain, indelible; Yet when he was dead, He saw that he had not lived....
22. Houses Of Dreams You took my empty dreams And filled them every one With tenderness and nobleness, April and the sun. The old empty dreams Where my thoughts would throng Are far too full of happiness To even hold a song. Oh, the empty dreams were dim And the empty dreams were wide, They were sweet and shadowy […]...
23. He lived the Life of Ambush He lived the Life of Ambush And went the way of Dusk And now against his subtle name There stands an Asterisk As confident of him as we Impregnable we are The whole of Immortality intrenched Within a star...
24. In The Naked Bed, In Plato's Cave In the naked bed, in Plato’s cave, Reflected headlights slowly slid the wall, Carpenters hammered under the shaded window, Wind troubled the window curtains all night long, A fleet of trucks strained uphill, grinding, Their freights covered, as usual. The ceiling lightened again, the slanting diagram Slid slowly forth. Hearing the milkman’s clop, His striving […]...
25. Village in Late Summer LIPS half-willing in a doorway. Lips half-singing at a window. Eyes half-dreaming in the walls. Feet half-dancing in a kitchen. Even the clocks half-yawn the hours And the farmers make half-answers....
26. How Robin and His Outlaws Lived in The Woods Robin and his merry men : Lived just like the birds; They had almost as many tracks as thoughts, : And whistles and songs as words. Up they were with the earliest sign Of the sun’s up-looking eye; But not an archer breakfasted Till he twinkled from the sky. All the morning they were wont […]...
27. Sweet safe Houses Sweet safe Houses Glad gay Houses Sealed so stately tight Lids of Steel on Lids of Marble Locking Bare feet out Brooks of Plush in Banks of Satin Not so softly fall As the laughter and the whisper From their People Pearl No Bald Death affront their Parlors No Bold Sickness come To deface their […]...
28. Sonnet 26 – I lived with visions for my company I lived with visions for my company Instead of men and women, years ago, And found them gentle mates, nor thought to know A sweeter music than they played to me. But soon their trailing purple was not free Of this world’s dust, their lutes did silent grow, And I myself grew faint and blind […]...
29. THE MUSAGETES IN the deepest nights of Winter To the Muses kind oft cried I: “Not a ray of morn is gleaming, Not a sign of daylight breaking; Bring, then, at the fitting moment, Bring the lamp’s soft glimm’ring lustre, ‘Stead of Phoebus and Aurora, To enliven my still labours!” Yet they left me in my slumbers, […]...
30. After Apple-Picking My long two-pointed ladder’s sticking through a tree Toward heaven still, And there’s a barrel that I didn’t fill Beside it, and there may be two or three Apples I didn’t pick upon some bough. But I am done with apple-picking now. Essence of winter sleep is on the night, The scent of apples: I […]...
31. Words For Departure Nothing was remembered, nothing forgotten. When we awoke, wagons were passing on the warm summer pavements, The window-sills were wet from rain in the night, Birds scattered and settled over chimneypots As among grotesque trees. Nothing was accepted, nothing looked beyond. Slight-voiced bells separated hour from hour, The afternoon sifted coolness And people drew together […]...
32. It Is Not A Word It is not a word spoken, Few words are said; Nor even a look of the eyes Nor a bend of the head, But only a hush of the heart That has too much to keep, Only memories waking That sleep so light a sleep....
33. Nantucket Flowers through the window Lavender and yellow Changed by white curtains- Smell of cleanliness- Sunshine of late afternoon- On the glass tray A glass pitcher, the tumbler Turned down, by which A key is lying – And the Immaculate white bed...
34. I Arise From Dreams Of Thee I arise from dreams of thee In the first sweet sleep of night, When the winds are breathing low, And the stars are shining bright I arise from dreams of thee, And a spirit in my feet Has led me who knows how? To thy chamber-window, sweet! The wandering airs they faint On the dark, […]...
35. The Indian Serenade I arise from dreams of thee In the first sweet sleep of night, When the winds are breathing low, And the stars are shining bright. I arise from dreams of thee, And a spirit in my feet Has led me – who knows how? To thy chamber-window, Sweet! The wandering airs they faint On the […]...
36. Hornet A red-hot needle Hangs out of him, he steers by it As if it were a rudder, he Would get in the house any way he could And then he would bounce from window To ceiling, buzzing and looking for you. Do not sleep for he is there wrapped in the curtain. Do not sleep […]...
37. Death In Leamington She died in the upstairs bedroom By the light of the ev’ning star That shone through the plate glass window From over Leamington Spa Beside her the lonely crochet Lay patiently and unstirred, But the fingers that would have work’d it Were dead as the spoken word. And Nurse came in with the tea-things Breast […]...
38. Slumber Song Some day, if I should ever lose you, Will you be able then to go to sleep Without me softly whispering above you Like night air stirring in the linden tree? Without my waking here and watching And saying words as tender as eyelids That come to rest weightlessly upon your breast, Upon your sleeping […]...
39. Thinking Of A Friend At Night In this evil year, autumn comes early… I walk by night in the field, alone, the rain clatters, The wind on my hat…And you? And you, my friend? You are standing maybe and seeing the sickle moon Move in a small arc over the forests And bivouac fire, red in the black valley. You are […]...
40. The Sleeper As Ann came in one summer’s day, She felt that she must creep, So silent was the clear cool house, It seemed a house of sleep. And sure, when she pushed open the door, Rapt in the stillness there, Her mother sat, with stooping head, Asleep upon a chair; Fast fast asleep; her two hands […]...