Springfield Magical

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1. On the Building of Springfield Let not our town be large, remembering That little Athens was the Muses’ home, That Oxford rules the heart of London still, That Florence gave the Renaissance to Rome. Record it for the grandson of your son – A city is not builded in a day: Our little town cannot complete her soul Till countless […]...
2. 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 […]...
3. THE ARSENAL AT SPRINGFIELD This is the Arsenal. From floor to ceiling, Like a huge organ, rise the burnished arms; But front their silent pipes no anthem pealing Startles the villages with strange alarms. Ah! what a sound will rise, how wild and dreary, When the death-angel touches those swift keys What loud lament and dismal Miserere Will mingle […]...
4. The Summer Sun Shone Round Me THE summer sun shone round me, The folded valley lay In a stream of sun and odour, That sultry summer day. The tall trees stood in the sunlight As still as still could be, But the deep grass sighed and rustled And bowed and beckoned me. The deep grass moved and whispered And bowed and […]...
5. The King “Farewell, Romance!” the Cave-men said; “With bone well carved he went away, Flint arms the ignoble arrowhead, And jasper tips the spear to-day. Changed are the Gods of Hunt and Dance, And he with these. Farewell, Romance!” “Farewell, Romance!” the Lake-folk sighed; “We lift the weight of flatling years; The caverns of the mountain-side Hold […]...
6. Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight In Springfield, Illinois IT is portentious, and a thing of state That here at midnight, in our little town A mourning figure walks, and will not rest, Near the old court-house, pacing up and down. Or by his homestead, or by shadowed yards He lingers where his children used to play, Or through the market, […]...
7. 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 […]...
8. Take Back the Virgin Page Written on Returning a Blank Book Take back the virgin page, White and unwritten still; Some hand, more calm and sage, The leaf must fill. Thoughts come, as pure as light Pure as even you require; But, oh! each word I write Love turns to fire. Yet let me keep the book: Oft shall my […]...
9. The Little Girl Lost In futurity I prophesy see. That the earth from sleep. (Grave the sentence deep) Shall arise and seek For her maker meek: And the desart wild Become a garden mild. In the southern clime, Where the summers prime Never fades away; Lovely Lyca lay. Seven summers old Lovely Lyca told, She had wandered long. Hearing […]...
10. A Brook in the City The firm house lingers, though averse to square With the new city street it has to wear A number in. But what about the brook That held the house as in an elbow-crook? I ask as one who knew the brook, its strength And impulse, having dipped a finger length And made it leap my […]...
11. Keats The young Endymion sleeps Endymion’s sleep; The shepherd-boy whose tale was left half told! The solemn grove uplifts its shield of gold To the red rising moon, and loud and deep The nightingale is singing from the steep; It is midsummer, but the air is cold; Can it be death? Alas, beside the fold A […]...
12. Sonnet V A tide of beauty with returning May Floods the fair city; from warm pavements fume Odors endeared; down avenues in bloom The chestnut-trees with phallic spires are gay. Over the terrace flows the thronged cafe; The boulevards are streams of hurrying sound; And through the streets, like veins when they abound, The lust for pleasure […]...
13. Picture-Books in Winter Summer fading, winter comes Frosty mornings, tingling thumbs, Window robins, winter rooks, And the picture story-books. Water now is turned to stone Nurse and I can walk upon; Still we find the flowing brooks In the picture story-books. All the pretty things put by, Wait upon the children’s eye, Sheep and shepherds, trees and crooks, […]...
14. 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 […]...
15. Song from Judith 3 BALKIS was in her marble town, And shadow over the world came down. Whiteness of walls, towers and piers, That all day dazzled eyes to tears, Turned from being white-golden flame, And like the deep-sea blue became. Balkis into her garden went; Her spirit was in discontent Like a torch in restless air. Joylessly she […]...
16. Room 4: The Painter Chap He gives me such a bold and curious look, That young American across the way, As if he’d like to put me in a book (Fancies himself a poet, so they say.) Ah well! He’ll make no “document” of me. I lock my door. Ha! ha! Now none shall see. . . . Pictures, just […]...
17. XVII (Thinking, Tangling Shadows…) Thinking, tangling shadows in the deep solitude. You are far away too, oh farther than anyone. Thinking, freeing birds, dissolving images, Burying lamps. Belfry of fogs, how far away, up there! Stifling laments, milling shadowy hopes, Taciturn miller, Night falls on you face downward, far from the city. Your presence is foreign, as strange to […]...
18. Knucks IN Abraham Lincoln’s city, Where they remember his lawyer’s shingle, The place where they brought him Wrapped in battle flags, Wrapped in the smoke of memories From Tallahassee to the Yukon, The place now where the shaft of his tomb Points white against the blue prairie dome, In Abraham Lincoln’s city… I saw knucks In […]...
19. Dear Deborah They tell me that your heart Has been found in Iowa, Pumping along Interstate 35. Do you want it back? When the cold comes on This fast, it’s Iowa again- Where pollen disperses Evenly on the dented Fords, Where white houses sag By the town’s corn silos, Where people in the houses Sicken on corn […]...
20. I Dreamed Of Forest Alleys fair I. I DREAMED of forest alleys fair And fields of gray-flowered grass, Where by the yellow summer moon My Jenny seemed to pass. I dreamed the yellow summer moon, Behind a cedar wood, Lay white on fields of rippling grass Where I and Jenny stood. I dreamed – but fallen through my dream, In a […]...
21. On a Hill-top BEARDED with dewy grass the mountains thrust Their blackness high into the still grey light, Deepening to blue: far up the glimmering height In silver transience shines the starry dust. Silent the sheep about me; fleece by fleece They sleep and stir not: I with awe around Wander uncertain o’er the giant mound, A fire […]...
22. Fourth Floor, Dawn, Up All Night Writing Letters Pigeons shake their wings on the copper church roof Out my window across the street, a bird perched on the cross Surveys the city’s blue-grey clouds. Larry Rivers ‘ll come at 10 AM and take my picture. I’m taking Your picture, pigeons. I’m writing you down, Dawn. I’m immortalizing your exhaust, Avenue A bus. O […]...
23. The Dance In Breughel’s great picture, The Kermess, The dancers go round, they go round and Around, the squeal and the blare and the Tweedle of bagpipes, a bugle and fiddles Tipping their bellies, (round as the thick- Sided glasses whose wash they impound) Their hips and their bellies off balance To turn them. Kicking and rolling […]...
24. The White House Your door is shut against my tightened face, And I am sharp as steel with discontent; But I possess the courage and the grace To bear my anger proudly and unbent. The pavement slabs burn loose beneath my feet, A chafing savage, down the decent street; And passion rends my vitals as I pass, Where […]...
25. The Fairy Bridal-Hymn [This is the hymn to Eleanor, daughter of Mab and a golden drone, sung by the Locust choir when the fairy child marries her God, the yellow rose] This is a song to the white-armed one Cold in the breast as the frost-wrapped Spring, Whose feet are slow on the hills of life, Whose round […]...
26. Moonlight, summer moonlight ‘Tis moonlight, summer moonlight, All soft and still and fair; The solemn hour of midnight Breathes sweet thoughts everywhere, But most where trees are sending Their breezy boughs on high, Or stooping low are lending A shelter from the sky. And there in those wild bowers A lovely form is laid; Green grass and dew-steeped […]...
27. Mae Marsh, Motion Picture Actress I The arts are old, old as the stones From which man carved the sphinx austere. Deep are the days the old arts bring: Ten thousand years of yesteryear. II She is madonna in an art As wild and young as her sweet eyes: A frail dew flower from this hot lamp That is today’s […]...
28. John Horace Burleson I won the prize essay at school Here in the village, And published a novel before I was twenty-five. I went to the city for themes and to enrich my art; There married the banker’s daughter, And later became president of the bank- Always looking forward to some leisure To write an epic novel of […]...
29. On Sitting Down To Read King Lear Once Again O golden-tongued Romance with serene lute! Fair plumed Syren! Queen of far away! Leave melodizing on this wintry day, Shut up thine olden pages, and be mute: Adieu! for once again the fierce dispute, Betwixt damnation and impassion’d clay Must I burn through; once more humbly assay The bitter-sweet of this Shakespearian fruit. Chief Poet! […]...
30. Written Before Re-Reading King Lear O golden-tongued Romance with serene lute! Fair plumed Syren! Queen of far away! Leave melodizing on this wintry day, Shut up thine olden pages, and be mute. Adieu! for once again the fierce dispute Betwixt damnation and impassioned clay Must I burn through; once more humbly assay The bitter-sweet of this Shakespearian fruit. Chief Poet! […]...
31. Epitaphs For Two Players I. EDWIN BOOTH An old actor at the Player’s Club told me that Edwin Booth first impersonated Hamlet when a barnstormer in California. There were few theatres, but the hotels were provided with crude assembly rooms for strolling players. The youth played in the blear hotel. The rafters gleamed with glories strange. And winds of […]...
32. The House Of Dust: Part 01: 07: Midnight; bells toll, and along the cloud-high towers Midnight; bells toll, and along the cloud-high towers The golden lights go out. . . The yellow windows darken, the shades are drawn, In thousands of rooms we sleep, we await the dawn, We lie face down, we dream, We cry aloud with terror, half rise, or seem To stare at the ceiling or walls. […]...
33. The Sad Mother Sleep, sleep, my beloved, Without worry, without fear, Although my soul does not sleep, Although I do not rest. Sleep, sleep, and in the night May your whispers be softer Than a leaf of grass, Or the silken fleece of lambs. May my flesh slumber in you, My worry, my trembling. In you, may my […]...
34. Lines Written in Kensington Gardens In this lone, open glade I lie, Screen’d by deep boughs on either hand; And at its end, to stay the eye, Those black-crown’d, red-boled pine-trees stand! Birds here make song, each bird has his, Across the girdling city’s hum. How green under the boughs it is! How thick the tremulous sheep-cries come! Sometimes a […]...
35. At the Vietnam War Memorial Black granite stretches its harsh, tapering wings Up to pedestrian-level grass But sucks me down, here, at the intersection of names. I forgive, I must, though I wish something Could heal this wound in the earth. Behold, all theorists, the price of theory: Extreme unction by napalm and blood, Vets shipped home whole or in […]...
36. April Rise If ever I saw blessing in the air I see it now in this still early day Where lemon-green the vaporous morning drips Wet sunlight on the powder of my eye. Blown bubble-film of blue, the sky wraps round Weeds of warm light whose every root and rod Splutters with soapy green, and all the […]...
37. Picture-Show And still they come and go: and this is all I know – That from the gloom I watch an endless picture-show, Where wild or listless faces flicker on their way, With glad or grievous hearts I’ll never understand Because Time spins so fast, and they’ve no time to stay Beyond the moment’s gesture of […]...
38. City Trees The trees along this city street, Save for the traffic and the trains, Would make a sound as thin and sweet As trees in country lanes. And people standing in their shade Out of a shower, undoubtedly Would hear such music as is made Upon a country tree. Oh, little leaves that are so dumb […]...
39. Sonnet XLVII Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took, And each doth good turns now unto the other: When that mine eye is famish’d for a look, Or heart in love with sighs himself doth smother, With my love’s picture then my eye doth feast And to the painted banquet bids my heart; Another time […]...
40. Sonnet 47: Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took, And each doth good turns now unto the other, When that mine eye is famished for a look, Or heart in love with sighs himself doth smother, With my love’s picture then my eye doth feast And to the painted banquet bids my heart; Another time […]...