The Source

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1. Before the Battle Music of whispering trees Hushed by a broad-winged breeze Where shaken water gleams; And evening radiance falling With reedy bird-notes calling. O bear me safe through dark, you low-voiced streams. I have no need to pray That fear may pass away; I scorn the growl and rumble of the fight That summons me from cool […]...
2. Twas One of Those Dreams ‘TWAS one of those dreams, that by music are brought, Like a bright summer haze, o’er the poet’s warm thought When, lost in the future, his soul wanders on, And all of this life, but its sweetness, is gone. The wild notes he heard o’er the water were those He had taught to sing Erin’s […]...
3. The Source The sleep that flits on baby’s eyes-does anybody know from where It comes? Yes, there is a rumour that it has its dwelling where, In the fairy village among shadows of the forest dimly lit with Glow-worms, there hang two shy buds of enchantment. From there it Comes to kiss baby’s eyes. The smile that […]...
4. Timber Wings THERE was a wild pigeon came often to Hinkley’s timber. Gray wings that wrote their loops and triangles on the walnuts and the hazel. There was a wild pigeon. There was a summer came year by year to Hinkley’s timber. Rainy months and sunny and pigeons calling and one pigeon best of all who came. […]...
5. Unknown Bird Out of the dry days Through the dusty leaves Far across the valley Those few notes never Heard here before One fluted phrase Floating over its Wandering secret All at once wells up Somewhere else And is gone before it Goes on fallen into Its own echo leaving A hollow through the air That is […]...
6. Such Singing in the Wild Branches It was spring And finally I heard him Among the first leaves – Then I saw him clutching the limb In an island of shade With his red-brown feathers All trim and neat for the new year. First, I stood still And thought of nothing. Then I began to listen. Then I was filled with […]...
7. Late Leaves THE leaves are falling; so am I; The few late flowers have moisture in the eye; So have I too. Scarcely on any bough is heard Joyous, or even unjoyous, bird The whole wood through. Winter may come: he brings but nigher His circle (yearly narrowing) to the fire Where old friends meet. Let him; […]...
8. The Cuckoo The cuckoo, like a hawk in flight, With narrow pointed wings Whews o’er our heads-soon out of sight And as she flies she sings: And darting down the hedgerow side She scares the little bird Who leaves the nest it cannot hide While plaintive notes are heard. I’ve watched it on an old oak tree […]...
9. Absences It’s snowing this afternoon and there are no flowers. There is only this sound of falling, quiet and remote, Like the memory of scales descending the white keys Of a childhood piano outside the window, palms! And the heavy head of the cereus, inclining, Soon to let down its white or yellow-white. Now, only these […]...
10. A Song of Autumn ‘WHERE shall we go for our garlands glad At the falling of the year, When the burnt-up banks are yellow and sad, When the boughs are yellow and sere? Where are the old ones that once we had, And when are the new ones near? What shall we do for our garlands glad At the […]...
11. Music The neighbour sits in his window and plays the flute. From my bed I can hear him, And the round notes flutter and tap about the room, And hit against each other, Blurring to unexpected chords. It is very beautiful, With the little flute-notes all about me, In the darkness. In the daytime, The neighbour […]...
12. Music I tied together A few slender reeds, cut Notches to breathe across and made Such music you stood Shock still and then Followed as I wandered growing Moment by moment Slant-eyes and shaggy, my feet Slamming over the rocks, growing Hard as horn, and there You were behind me, drowning In the music, letting The […]...
13. At Great Pond At Great Pond The sun, rising, Scrapes his orange breast On the thick pines, And down tumble A few orange feathers into The dark water. On the far shore A white bird is standing Like a white candle – Or a man, in the distance, In the clasp of some meditation – While all around […]...
14. Sonnet to the Nightingale O nightingale that on yon blooming spray Warblest at eve, when all the woods are still, Thou with fresh hopes the Lover’s heart dost fill, While the jolly Hours lead on propitious May. Thy liquid notes that close the eye of Day, First heard before the shallow cuckoo’s bill, Portend success in love. O if […]...
15. To The Nightingale O Nightingale! that on yon bloomy spray Warblest at eve, when all the woods are still, Thou with fresh hope the lover’s heart dost fill, While the jolly hours lead on propitious May. Thy liquid notes that close the eye of day, First heard before the shallow cuckoo’s bill, Portend success in love; O, if […]...
16. Wanting The Moon Not the moon. A flower On the other side of the water. The water sweeps past in flood, Dragging a whole tree by the hair, A barn, a bridge. The flower Sings on the far bank. Not a flower, a bird calling Hidden among the darkest trees, music Over the water, making a silence Out […]...
17. The Waradgery Tribe Harried we were, and spent, Broken and falling, Ere as the cranes we went, Crying and calling. Summer shall see the bird Backward returning; Never shall there be heard Those, who went yearning. Emptied of us the land; Ghostly our going; Fallen like spears the hand Dropped in the throwing. We are the lost who […]...
18. A Blackbird Singing It seems wrong that out of this bird, Black, bold, a suggestion of dark Places about it, there yet should come Such rich music, as though the notes’ Ore were changed to a rare metal At one touch of that bright bill. You have heard it often, alone at your desk In a green April, […]...
19. IN THE SMALL HOURS Blue diaphane, tobacco smoke Serpentine on wet film and wood glaze, Mutes chrome, wreathes velvet drapes, Dims the cave of mirrors. Ghost fingers Comb seaweed hair, stroke acquamarine veins Of marooned mariners, captives Of Circe’s sultry notes. The barman Dispenses igneous potions? Somnabulist, the band plays on. Cocktail mixer, silvery fish Dances for limpet clients. […]...
20. Interview The ladies men admire, I’ve heard, Would shudder at a wicked word. Their candle gives a single light; They’d rather stay at home at night. They do not keep awake till three, Nor read erotic poetry. They never sanction the impure, Nor recognize an overture. They shrink from powders and from paints… So far, I’ve […]...
21. I Know I Am But Summer To Your Heart I know I am but summer to your heart, And not the full four seasons of the year; And you must welcome from another part Such noble moods as are not mine, my dear. No gracious weight of golden fruits to sell Have I, nor any wise and wintry thing; And I have loved you […]...
22. The Oven Bird There is a singer everyone has heard, Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird, Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again. He says that leaves are old and that for flowers Mid-summer is to spring as one to ten. He says the early petal-fall is past When pear and cherry bloom went down in […]...
23. Sonnet 03: Mindful Of You The Sodden Earth In Spring Mindful of you the sodden earth in spring, And all the flowers that in the springtime grow, And dusty roads, and thistles, and the slow Rising of the round moon, all throats that sing The summer through, and each departing wing, And all the nests that the bared branches show, And all winds that in […]...
24. 1861 AARM’D year! year of the struggle! No dainty rhymes or sentimental love verses for you, terrible year! Not you as some pale poetling, seated at a desk, lisping cadenzas piano; But as a strong man, erect, clothed in blue clothes, advancing, carrying a rifle on your shoulder, With well-gristled body and sunburnt face and hands-with […]...
25. A Child's Laughter ALL the bells of heaven may ring, All the birds of heaven may sing, All the wells on earth may spring, All the winds on earth may bring All sweet sounds together – Sweeter far than all things heard, Hand of harper, tone of bird, Sound of woods at sundawn stirred, Welling water’s winsome word, […]...
26. Water I was born in a drouth year. That summer My mother waited in the house, enclosed In the sun and the dry ceaseless wind, For the men to come back in the evenings, Bringing water from a distant spring. Veins of leaves ran dry, roots shrank. And all my life I have dreaded the return […]...
27. Loud Music My stepdaughter and I circle round and round. You see, I like the music loud, the speakers Throbbing, jam-packing the room with sound whether Bach or rock and roll, the volume cranked up so Each bass notes is like a hand smacking the gut. But my stepdaughter disagrees. She is four And likes the music […]...
28. Camouflage Beside the bare and beaten track of travelling flocks and herds The woodpecker went tapping on, the postman of the birds, “I’ve got a letter here,” he said, “that no one’s understood, Addressed as follows: ‘To the bird that’s like a piece of wood.’ “The soldier bird got very cross it wasn’t meant for her; […]...
29. When Malindy Sings G’way an’ quit dat noise, Miss Lucy Put dat music book away; What’s de use to keep on tryin’? Ef you practise twell you’re gray, You cain’t sta’t no notes a-flyin’ Lak de ones dat rants and rings F’om de kitchen to de big woods When Malindy sings. You ain’t got de nachel o’gans Fu’ […]...
30. Song For Saint Cecilia's Day, 1687 From Harmony, from heavenly Harmony This universal frame began: When nature underneath a heap Of jarring atoms lay And could not heave her head, The tuneful voice was heard from high, Arise, ye more than dead! Then cold, and hot, and moist, and dry In order to their stations leap, And Music’s power obey. From […]...
31. The Happy Child I saw this day sweet flowers grow thick But not one like the child did pick. I heard the packhounds in green park But no dog like the child heard bark. I heard this day bird after bird But not one like the child has heard. A hundred butterflies saw I But not one like […]...
32. Music To Me Is Like Days Once played to attentive faces Music has broken its frame Its bodice of always-weak laces The entirely promiscuous art Pours out in public spaces Accompanying everything, the selections Of sex and war, the rejections. To jeans-wearers in zipped sporrans It transmits an ideal body Continuously as theirs age. Warrens Of plastic tiles and mesh throats […]...
33. The Bells of Malines AUGUST 17, 1914 The gabled roofs of old Malines Are russet red and gray and green, And o’er them in the sunset hour Looms, dark and huge, St. Rombold’s tower. High in that rugged nest concealed, The sweetest bells that ever pealed, The deepest bells that ever rung, The lightest bells that ever sung, Are […]...
34. Old Song TIS a dull sight To see the year dying, When winter winds Set the yellow wood sighing: Sighing, O sighing! When such a time cometh I do retire Into an old room Beside a bright fire: O, pile a bright fire! And there I sit Reading old things, Of knights and lorn damsels, While the […]...
35. The Spring And The Fall In the spring of the year, in the spring of the year, I walked the road beside my dear. The trees were black where the bark was wet. I see them yet, in the spring of the year. He broke me a bough of the blossoming peach That was out of the way and hard […]...
36. Longfellow In a great land, a new land, a land full of labour And riches and confusion, Where there were many running to and fro, and Shouting, and striving together, In the midst of the hurry and the troubled noise, I heard the voice of one singing. “What are you doing there, O man, singing Quietly […]...
37. Come Home! When wintry winds are no more heard, And joy’s in every bosom, When summer sings in every bird, And shines in every blossom, When happy twilight hours are long, Come home, my love, and think no wrong! When berries gleam above the stream And half the fields are yellow, Come back to me, my joyous […]...
38. I heard a bird at dawn I heard a bird at dawn Singing sweetly on a tree, That the dew was on the lawn, And the wind was on the lea; But I didn’t listen to him, For he didn’t sing to me. I didn’t listen to him, For he didn’t sing to me That the dew was on the lawn […]...
39. Autumn: A Dirge The warm sun is falling, the bleak wind is wailing, The bare boughs are sighing, the pale flowers are dying, And the Year On the earth is her death-bed, in a shroud of leaves dead, Is lying. Come, Months, come away, From November to May, In your saddest array; Follow the bier Of the dead […]...
40. Knoxville Tennessee I always like summer Best You can eat fresh corn From daddy’s garden And okra And greens And cabbage And lots of Barbeque And buttermilk And homemade ice-cream At the church picnic And listen to Gospel music Outside At the church Homecoming And go to the mountains with Your grandmother And go barefooted And be […]...