I Went Down into the Desert

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1. I walked in a desert I walked in a desert. And I cried, “Ah, God, take me from this place!” A voice said, “It is no desert.” I cried, “Well, But The sand, the heat, the vacant horizon.” A voice said, “It is no desert.”...
2. Until the Desert knows Until the Desert knows That Water grows His Sands suffice But let him once suspect That Caspian Fact Sahara dies Utmost is relative Have not or Have Adjacent sums Enough the first Abode On the familiar Road Galloped in Dreams...
3. Rangipo Desert Whangaehu waters, hot-spilled from the cauldron Of Crater Lake, swirling mud-green from the cup Between Tahurangi and Pyramid Peak, Sulphurous, sibilant among purer daughters Of the snow-line, Plunging eastwards down broken-faced ravines, Boiling between razor-edged ridges, Breasting a broken, blackened ghostscape To desert Rangipo. Where these waters slow their rush And ease the dragon’s fire […]...
4. In the desert In the desert I saw a creature, naked, bestial, Who, squatting upon the ground, Held his heart in his hands, And ate of it. I said: “Is it good, friend?” “It is bitter – bitter,” he answered; “But I like it Because it is bitter, And because it is my heart.”...
5. Desert Places Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast In a field I looked into going past, And the ground almost covered smooth in snow, But a few weeds and stubble showing last. The woods around it have it-it is theirs. All animals are smothered in their lairs. I am too absent-spirited to count; The loneliness […]...
6. Sonnet 11 – And therefore if to love can be desert And therefore if to love can be desert, I am not all unworthy. Cheeks as pale As these you see, and trembling knees that fail To bear the burden of a heavy heart,- This weary minstrel-life that once was girt To climb Aornus, and can scarce avail To pipe now ‘gainst the valley nightingale A […]...
7. On the desert On the desert A silence from the moon’s deepest valley. Fire rays fall athwart the robes Of hooded men, squat and dumb. Before them, a woman Moves to the blowing of shrill whistles And distant thunder of drums, While mystic things, sinuous, dull with terrible colour, Sleepily fondle her body Or move at her will, […]...
8. What the Miner in the Desert Said The moon’s a brass-hooped water-keg, A wondrous water-feast. If I could climb the ridge and drink And give drink to my beast; If I could drain that keg, the flies Would not be biting so, My burning feet be spry again, My mule no longer slow. And I could rise and dig for ore, And […]...
9. First Sight Lambs that learn to walk in snow When their bleating clouds the air Meet a vast unwelcome, know Nothing but a sunless glare. Newly stumbling to and fro All they find, outside the fold, Is a wretched width of cold. As they wait beside the ewe, Her fleeces wetly caked, there lies Hidden round them, […]...
10. Awake To Smile When I blink sunshine in my eyes And hail the amber morn, Before the rosy dew-drop dries With sparkle on the thorn; When boughs with robin rapture ring, And bees hum in the may, Then call me young, with heart of Spring, Though I be grey. But when no more I know the joy And […]...
11. Prayer for Children Gracious Lord, our children see, By Thy mercy we are free; But shall these, alas! remain Subjects still of Satan’s reign? Israel’s young ones, when of old Pharaoh threaten’d to withhold, Then Thy messenger said, “No; Let the children also go!” When the angel of the Lord, Drawing forth his dreadful sword, Slew with an […]...
12. Put up my lute! Put up my lute! What of my Music! Since the sole ear I cared to charm Passive as Granite laps My Music Sobbing will suit as well as psalm! Would but the “Memnon” of the Desert Teach me the strain That vanquished Him When He surrendered to the Sunrise Maybe that would awaken them!...
13. In The Kalahari Desert The sun rose like a tarnished Looking-glass to catch the sun And flash His hot message At the missionaries below Isabella and the Rev. Roger Price, And the Helmores with a broken axle Left, two days behind, at Fever Ponds. The wilderness was full of home: A glinting beetle on its back Struggled like an […]...
14. Cheerfulness Taught By Reason I THINK we are too ready with complaint In this fair world of God’s. Had we no hope Indeed beyond the zenith and the slope Of yon gray blank of sky, we might grow faint To muse upon eternity’s constraint Round our aspirant souls; but since the scope Must widen early, is it well to […]...
15. Ring Out Your Bells Ring out your bells, let mourning shows be spread; For Love is dead All love is dead, infected With plague of deep disdain; Worth, as nought worth, rejected, And Faith fair scorn doth gain. From so ungrateful fancy, From such a female franzy, From them that use men thus, Good Lord, deliver us! Weep, neighbours, […]...
16. I WHo All The Winter Through I WHO all the winter through Cherished other loves than you, And kept hands with hoary policy in marriage-bed and pew; Now I know the false and true, For the earnest sun looks through, And my old love comes to meet me in the dawning and the dew. Now the hedged meads renew Rustic odour, […]...
17. A Tree Song (A. D. 1200) Of all the trees that grow so fair, Old England to adorn, Greater are none beneath the Sun, Than Oak, and Ash, and Thorn. Sing Oak, and Ash, and Thorn, good sirs, (All of a Midsummer morn!) Surely we sing no little thing, In Oak, and Ash, and Thorn! Oak of the […]...
18. Psalm 107 part 1 Israel led to Canaan, and Christians to heaven. Give thanks to God; he reigns above; Kind are his thoughts, his name is Love; His mercy ages past have known, And ages long to come shall own. Let the redeemed of the Lord The wonders of his grace record; Isr’el, the nation whom he chose, And […]...
19. When Hope but made Tranquillity be felt (fragment) When Hope but made Tranquillity be felt A Flight of Hopes for ever on the wing But made Tranquillity a conscious Thing And wheeling round and round in sportive coil Fann’d the calm air upon the brow of Toil...
20. Song VI: Cherish Life that Abideth Love is enough: cherish life that abideth, Lest ye die ere ye know him, and curse and misname him; For who knows in what ruin of all hope he hideth, On what wings of the terror of darkness he rideth? And what is the joy of man’s life that ye blame him For his bliss […]...
21. No Man can compass a Despair No Man can compass a Despair As round a Goalless Road No faster than a Mile at once The Traveller proceed Unconscious of the Width Unconscious that the Sun Be setting on His progress So accurate the One At estimating Pain Whose own has just begun His ignorance the Angel That pilot Him along...
22. The Egg-Shell The wind took off with the sunset The fog came up with the tide, When the Witch of the North took an Egg-shell With a little Blue Devil inside. “Sink,” she said, “or swim,” she said, “It’s all you will bet from me. And that is the finish of him!” she said And the Egg-shell […]...
23. Bridal Ballad The ring is on my hand, And the wreath is on my brow; Satin and jewels grand Are all at my command, And I am happy now. And my lord he loves me well; But, when first he breathed his vow, I felt my bosom swell – For the words rang as a knell, And […]...
24. Gypsy Jill They’re hanging Bill at eight o’ clock, And millions will applaud. He killed, and so they have to kill, Such is the will of God. His brother Tom is on my bed To keep me comforted. I see his bleary, blotchy face, I hear his sodden snore. He plans that he can take Bill’s place; […]...
25. Affinity YOU and I have found the secret way, None can bar our love or say us nay: All the world may stare and never know You and I are twined together so. You and I for all his vaunted width Know the giant Space is but a myth; Over miles and miles of pure deceit […]...
26. Indifference When I am dead I will not care Forever more, If sky be radiantly fair Or tempest roar. If my life-hoard in sin be spent, My wife re-wed, I’ll be so damned indifferent When I am dead. When I meet up with dusty doom What if I rest In common ditch or marble tomb, If […]...
27. Cacoethes Scribendi If all the trees in all the woods were men; And each and every blade of grass a pen; If every leaf on every shrub and tree Turned to a sheet of foolscap; every sea Were changed to ink, and all earth’s living tribes Had nothing else to do but act as scribes, And for […]...
28. She Gathered Lilacs, for Beth She gathered lilacs And arrayed them in her hair; Tonight, she taught the wind to be free. She kept her secrets In a silver locket; Her companions were starlight and mystery. She danced all night To the beat of her heart; With her tears she imbued the sea. She hid her despair In a crystal […]...
29. The Lilly The modest Rose puts forth a thorn: The humble Sheep. a threatning horn: While the Lily white, shall in Love delight, Nor a thorn nor a threat stain her beauty bright...
30. Corn Grinders O little mouse, why dost thou cry While merry stars laugh in the sky? Alas! alas! my lord is dead! Ah, who will ease my bitter pain? He went to seek a millet-grain In the rich farmer’s granary shed; They caught him in a baited snare, And slew my lover unaware: Alas! alas! my lord […]...
31. O Singer in Brown O, singer in brown! O, bird o’ th’ morn! O, heart of delight In th’ deep o’ th’ thorn! Glad is thy song Thou joy o’ th’ morn, Thou palpitant throat In the heart o’ th’ thorn! Thy song of the nest, O, sweet o’ th’ morn! A nest and an egg In the thick […]...
32. 439. Song-My Spouse Nancy “HUSBAND, husband, cease your strife, Nor longer idly rave, Sir; Tho’ I am your wedded wife Yet I am not your slave, Sir.” “One of two must still obey, Nancy, Nancy; Is it Man or Woman, say, My spouse Nancy?’ “If ’tis still the lordly word, Service and obedience; I’ll desert my sov’reign lord, And […]...
33. 430. Song-Dainty Davie NOW rosy May comes in wi’ flowers, To deck her gay, green-spreading bowers; And now comes in the happy hours, To wander wi’ my Davie. Chorus.-Meet me on the warlock knowe, Dainty Davie, Dainty Davie; There I’ll spend the day wi’ you, My ain dear Dainty Davie. The crystal waters round us fa’, The merry […]...
34. Unlyric Love Song It is time to give that-of-myself which I could not at first: To offer you now at last my least and my worst: Minor, absurd preserves, The shell’s end-curves, A document kept at the back of a drawer, A tin hidden under the floor, Recalcitrant prides and hesitations: To pile them carefully in a desparate […]...
35. A Nervous Governor-General We read in the press that Lord Northcote is here To take up Lord Tennyson’s mission. ‘Tis pleasant to find they have sent us a Peer, And a man of exalted position. It’s his business to see that the Radical horde From loyalty’s path does not swerve us; But his tastes, and the task, don’t […]...
36. The Revenge – A Ballad of the Fleet At Flores in the Azores Sir Richard Grenville lay, And a pinnace, like a fluttered bird, came flying from far away: ‘Spanish ships of war at sea! we have sighted’ Then sware Lord Thomas Howard: ”Fore God I am no coward; But I cannot meet them here, for my ships are out of gear, And […]...
37. Philomela The nightingale, as soon as April bringeth Unto her rested sense a perfect waking, While late bare earth, proud of new clothing, springeth, Sings out her woes, a thorn her song-book making, And, mournfully bewailing, Her throat in tunes expresseth What grief her breast oppresseth, For Tereus’ force on her chaste will prevailing. O Philomela […]...
38. Sardis (Revelations, iii. 1-6) “Write to Sardis,” saith the Lord, “And write what He declares, He whose Spirit, and whose word, Upholds the seven stars: All thy works and ways I search, Find thy zeal and love decay’d; Thou art call’d a living church, But thou art cold and dead. “Watch, remember, seek, and strive, Exert […]...
39. Song (Go And Catch A Falling Star) Go and catch a falling star, Get with child a mandrake root, Tell me where all past years are, Or who cleft the Devil’s foot, Teach me to hear mermaids singing, Or to keep off envy’s stinging, And find What wind Serves to advance an honest mind. If thou be’st born to strange sights, Things […]...
40. The Human Face I. Soon Of all the springtimes of the world This one is the ugliest Of all of my ways of being To be trusting is the best Grass pushes up snow Like the stone of a tomb But I sleep within the storm And awaken eyes bright Slowness, brief time ends Where all streets must […]...