Take Back the Virgin Page

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1. PUBLISHERS And then they pretend like owls With marble eyes and wizened stupidity I do not know why they cannot perceive True art But I will write Until sand evaporates And the moon consumes the sun I will write Even for the sake of art For myself and for those who feel Reading could lift them […]...
2. The Virgin Mother WHO is that goddess to whom men should pray, But her from whom their hearts have turned away, Out of whose virgin being they were born, Whose mother nature they have named with scorn Calling its holy substance common clay. Yet from this so despised earth was made The milky whiteness of those queens who […]...
3. The Missal Makers To visit the Escurial We took a motor bus, And there a guide mercurial Took charge of us. He showed us through room after room, And talked hour after hour, Of place, crypt and royal tomb, Of pomp and power. But in bewilderment of grace What pleased me most of all Were ancient missals proud […]...
4. Virgin Youth Now and again All my body springs alive, And the life that is polarised in my eyes, That quivers between my eyes and mouth, Flies like a wild thing across my body, Leaving my eyes half-empty, and clamorous, Filling my still breasts with a flush and a flame, Gathering the soft ripples below my breast […]...
5. The Virgin Mother My little love, my darling, You were a doorway to me; You let me out of the confines Into this strange countrie, Where people are crowded like thistles, Yet are shapely and comely to see. My little love, my dearest Twice have you issued me, Once from your womb, sweet mother, Once from myself, to […]...
6. My Book Before I drink myself to death, God, let me finish up my Book! At night, I fear, I fight for breath, And wake up whiter than a spook; And crawl off to a bistro near, And drink until my brain is clear. Rare Absinthe! Oh, it gives me strength To write and write; and so […]...
7. Lines Draw a line. Write a line. There. Stay in line, hold the line, a glance Between the lines is fine but don’t Turn corners, cross, cut in, go over Or out, between two points of no Return’s a line of flight, between Two points of view’s a line of vision. But a line of thought […]...
8. THE PAGE AND THE MILLER'S DAUGHTER PAGE. WHERE goest thou? Where? Miller’s daughter so fair! Thy name, pray? MILLER’S DAUGHTER. ‘Tis Lizzy. PAGE. Where goest thou? Where? With the rake in thy hand? MILLER’S DAUGHTER. Father’s meadows and land To visit, I’m busy. PAGE. Dost go there alone? MILLER’S DAUGHTER. By this rake, sir, ’tis shown That we’re making the hay; […]...
9. My Masterpiece It’s slim and trim and bound in blue; Its leaves are crisp and edged with gold; Its words are simple, stalwart too; Its thoughts are tender, wise and bold. Its pages scintillate with wit; Its pathos clutches at my throat: Oh, how I love each line of it! That Little Book I Never Wrote. In […]...
10. She Walks In Beauty She walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies; And all that’s best of dark and bright Meet in her aspect and her eyes: Thus mellowed to that tender light Which heaven to gaudy day denies. One shade the more, one ray the less, Had half impaired the nameless grace Which […]...
11. Dreams Are Best I just think that dreams are best, Just to sit and fancy things; Give your gold no acid test, Try not how your silver rings; Fancy women pure and good, Fancy men upright and true: Fortressed in your solitude, Let Life be a dream to you. For I think that Thought is all; Truth’s a […]...
12. The Mole Said he: “I’ll dive deep in the Past, And write a book of direful days When summer skies were overcast With smoke of humble hearths ablaze; When War was rampant in the land, And poor folk cowered in the night, While ruin gaped on every hand – Of ravishing and wrath I’ll write.” Ten years […]...
13. The Black Virgin One in thy thousand statues we salute thee On all thy thousand thrones acclaim and claim Who walk in forest of thy forms and faces Walk in a forest calling on one name And, most of all, how this thing may be so Who know thee not are mystified to know That one cries “Here […]...
14. The Maid Of Orleans Humanity’s bright image to impair. Scorn laid thee prostrate in the deepest dust; Wit wages ceaseless war on all that’s fair, In angel and in God it puts no trust; The bosom’s treasures it would make its prey, Besieges fancy, dims e’en faith’s pure ray. Yet issuing like thyself from humble line, Like thee a […]...
15. The House Was Quiet And The World Was Calm The house was quiet and the world was calm. The reader became the book; and summer night Was like the conscious being of the book. The house was quiet and the world was calm. The words were spoken as if there was no book, Except that the reader leaned above the page, Wanted to lean, […]...
16. The Dragon-Fly Life (priest and poet say) is but a dream; I wish no happier one than to be laid Beneath a cool syringa’s scented shade, Or wavy willow, by the running stream, Brimful of moral, where the dragon-fly, Wanders as careless and content as I. Thanks for this fancy, insect king, Of purple crest and filmy […]...
17. When I read the Book WHEN I read the book, the biography famous, And is this, then, (said I,) what the author calls a man’s life? And so will some one, when I am dead and gone, write my life? (As if any man really knew aught of my life; Why, even I myself, I often think, know little or […]...
18. A Word dropped careless on a Page A Word dropped careless on a Page May stimulate an eye When folded in perpetual seam The Wrinkled Maker lie Infection in the sentence breeds We may inhale Despair At distances of Centuries From the Malaria...
19. To His Worthy Friend Doctor Witty Upon His Translation Of The Popular Errors Sit further, and make room for thine own fame, Where just desert enrolles thy honour’d Name The good Interpreter. Some in this task Take of the Cypress vail, but leave a mask, Changing the Latine, but do more obscure That sence in English which was bright and pure. So of Translators they are Authors grown, […]...
20. I'd Mourn the Hopes I’d mourn the hopes that leave me, If thy smiles had left me too; I’d weep when friends deceive me, If thou wert, like them, untrue. But while I’ve thee before me, With heart so warm and eyes so bright, No clouds can linger o’er me, That smile turns them all to light. ‘Tis not […]...
21. The Blessed Virgin Compared To The Air We Breathe Wild air, world-mothering air, Nestling me everywhere, That each eyelash or hair Girdles; goes home betwixt The fleeciest, frailest-flixed Snowflake; that ‘s fairly mixed With, riddles, and is rife In every least thing’s life; This needful, never spent, And nursing element; My more than meat and drink, My meal at every wink; This air, which, […]...
22. Parable For A Certain Virgin Oh, ponder, friend, the porcupine; Refresh your recollection, And sit a moment, to define His means of self-protection. How truly fortified is he! Where is the beast his double In forethought of emergency And readiness for trouble? Recall his figure, and his shade- How deftly planned and clearly For slithering through the dappled glade Unseen, […]...
23. An Epitaph Upon A Virgin Here a solemn fast we keep, While all beauty lies asleep; Hushed be all things, no noise here, But the toning of a tear, Or the sigh of such as bring Cowslips for her covering....
24. If Thou'lt Be Mine If thou’lt be mine, the treasures of air, Of earth, and sea, shall lie at thy feet; Whatever in Fancy’s eye looks fair, Or in Hope’s sweet music sounds most sweet, Shall be ours if thou wilt be mine, love! Bright flowers shall bloom wherever we rove, A voice divine shall talk in each stream; […]...
25. In Youth Milton, our noblest poet, in the grace Of youth, in those fair eyes and clustering hair, That brow untouched by one faint line of care, To mar its openness, we seem to trace The front of the first lord of the human race, Mid thine own Paradise portrayed so fair, Ere Sin or Sorrow scathed […]...
26. When Cold in the Earth When cold in the earth lies the friend thou hast loved, Be his faults and his follies forgot by thee then; Or, if from their slumber the veil be removed, Weep o’er them in silence, and close it again. And oh! if ’tis pain to remember how far From the pathways of light he was […]...
27. Bards of Passion and of Mirth, written on the Blank Page before Beaumont and Fletcher's Tragi-Comedy 'The Fair Maid of the Inn&#039 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 […]...
28. The World 1 I saw Eternity the other night, 2 Like a great ring of pure and endless light, 3 All calm, as it was bright; 4 And round beneath it, Time in hours, days, years, 5 Driv’n by the spheres 6 Like a vast shadow mov’d; in which the world 7 And all her train were […]...
29. Crying to be written Dawn has reached the ridges to the north and a thin Line of light chased the night west; it is the best Time of day for me – a cup of coffee, Benson & Scud Pretending to sleep in their baskets at my feet, I am seated, ready to write knowing the lounge fire Is […]...
30. In Memoriam A. H. H.: 11. Calm is the morn without a sound Calm is the morn without a sound, Calm as to suit a calmer grief, And only thro’ the faded leaf The chestnut pattering to the ground: Calm and deep peace on this high wold, And on these dews that drench the furze. And all the silvery gossamers That twinkle into green and gold: Calm and […]...
31. We May Roam Through This World We may roam through this world, like a child at a feast, Who but sips of a sweet, and then flies to the rest; And, when pleasure begins to grow dull in the east, We may order our wings and be off to the west: But if hearts that feel, and eyes that smile, Are […]...
32. The Wandering Bard What life like that of the bard can be The wandering bard, who roams as free As the mountain lark that o’er him sings, And, like that lark a music brings, Within him, where’er he comes or goes A fount that for ever flows! The world’s to him like some playground, Where fairies dance their […]...
33. Amoretti III: The Sovereign Beauty The sovereign beauty which I do admire, Witness the world how worthy to be praised: The light whereof hath kindled heavenly fire In my frail spirit, by her from baseness raised; That being now with her huge brightness dazed, Base thing I can no more endure to view; But looking still on her, I stand […]...
34. Oh! Had We Some Bright Little Isle of Our Own Oh! had we some bright little isle of our own, In a blue summer ocean, far off and alone, Where a leaf never dies in the still blooming bowers, And the bee banquets on through a whole year of flowers; Where the sun loves to pause With so fond a delay, That the night only […]...
35. Psalm 119 part 4 Instruction from scripture. Ver. 9 How shall the young secure their hearts, And guard their lives from sin? Thy word the choicest rules imparts To keep the conscience clean. Ver. 130 When once it enters to the mind, It spreads such light abroad, The meanest souls instruction find, And raise their thoughts to God. Ver. […]...
36. Over The Alley Here in my office I sit and write Hour on hour, and day on day, With no one to speak to from morn till night, Though I have a neighbour just over the way. Across the alley that yawns between A maiden sits sewing the whole day long; A face more lovely is seldom seen […]...
37. Lines on Hearing it Declared that No Women Were So Handsome as the English BEAUTY, the attribute of Heaven! In various forms to mortals given, With magic skill enslaves mankind, As sportive fancy sways the mind. Search the wide world, go where you will, VARIETY pursues you still; Capricious Nature knows no bound, Her unexhausted gifts are found In ev’ry clime, in ev’ry face, Each has its own peculiar […]...
38. Gandalf's Song of Lorien In Dwimordene, in Lorien Seldom have walked the feet of men, Few mortal eyes have seen the light That lies there ever, long and bright. Galadriel! Galadriel! Clear is the water of your well; White is the stars in your white hand; Unmarred, unstained is leaf and land In Dwimordene, in Lorien More fair than […]...
39. To An Old Mate Old Mate! In the gusty old weather, When our hopes and our troubles were new, In the years spent in wearing out leather, I found you unselfish and true I have gathered these verses together For the sake of our friendship and you. You may think for awhile, and with reason, Though still with a […]...
40. Is White a Color? White, pristine, unblemished They say it is not a color I love white mists, clouds Lingering on blue mountains. White, no shades No off white, cream Pure as snow on shimmering peaks Is my favorite sight. Nurses, priests, politicians Are bound, chained to white White nebulous clouds Evoke deep nostalgic thoughts. They swaddled my father […]...