A Glimpse

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1. Though the Last Glimpse of Erin With Sorrow I See Though the last glimpse of Erin with sorrow I see, Yet wherever thou art shall seem Erin to me; In exile thy bosom shall still be my home, And thine eyes make my climate wherever we roam. To the gloom of some desert or cold rocky shore, Where the eye of the stranger can haunt […]...
2. Der mann im keller How cool and fair this cellar where My throne a dusky cask is; To do no thing but just to sing And drown the time my task is. The cooper he’s Resolved to please, And, answering to my winking, He fills me up Cup after cup For drinking, drinking, drinking. Begrudge me not This cosy […]...
3. A Passing Glimpse To Ridgely Torrence On Last Looking into His ‘Hesperides’ I often see flowers from a passing car That are gone before I can tell what they are. I want to get out of the train and go back To see what they were beside the track. I name all the flowers I am sure they […]...
4. Noises I woke up this morning With the city’s noises Fusing into my dream A pride of lions Roaring in anger The traffic, it must have been A hunter shouting something But I probably heard a street vendor For a moment, total silence Then a shot rings out in the wild Perhaps a car’s broken exhaust […]...
5. A rhine-land drinking song If our own life is the life of a flower (And that’s what some sages are thinking), We should moisten the bud with a health-giving flood And ’twill bloom all the sweeter Yes, life’s the completer For drinking, And drinking, And drinking. If it be that our life is a journey (As many wise folk […]...
6. Term At the last minute a word is waiting Not heard that way before and not to be Repeated or ever be remembered One that always had been a household word Used in speaking of the ordinary Everyday recurrences of living Not newly chosen or long considered Or a matter for comment afterward Who would ever […]...
7. Tin Wedding Whistle Though you know it anyhow Listen to me, darling, now, Proving what I need not prove How I know I love you, love. Near and far, near and far, I am happy where you are; Likewise I have never larnt How to be it where you aren’t. Far and wide, far and wide, I can […]...
8. Lawyer WHEN the jury files in to deliver a verdict after weeks of direct and cross examinations, hot clashes of lawyers and cool decisions of the judge, There are points of high silence-twiddling of thumbs is at an end-bailiffs near cuspidors take fresh chews of tobacco and wait-and the clock has a chance for its ticking […]...
9. Je Suis une table It has happened suddenly, By surprise, in an arbor, Or while drinking good coffee, After speaking, or before, That I dumbly inhabit A density; in language, There is nothing to stop it, For nothing retains an edge. Simple ignorance presents, Later, words for a function, But it is common pretense Of speech, by a convention, […]...
10. Prayer You talk o’ prayer an’ such – Well, I jest don’t know how; I guess I got as much Religion as a cow. I fight an’ drink an’ swear; Red hell I often raise, But never said a prayer In all my days. I’m honest, right enough; Don’t take no stock in crimes; I’m jest […]...
11. On The Bible Behold this little volume here inrolde: ‘Tis the Almighty’s present to the world: Hearken earth’s earth; each sencelesse thing can heare His Maker’s thunder, though it want an eare: God’s word is senior to his works, nay rather If rightly weigh’d the world may call it father; God spake, ’twas done; this great foundation Is […]...
12. Golden Silence I told her I loved her and begged but a word, One dear little word, that would be For me by all odds the most sweet ever heard, But never a word said she! I raged at her then, and I said she was cold; I swore she was nothing to me; I prayed her […]...
13. Mist Forms THE SHEETS of night mist travel a long valley. I know why you came at sundown in a scarf mist. What was it we touched asking nothing and asking all? How many times can death come and pay back what we saw? In the oath of the sod, the lips that swore, In the oath […]...
14. Aware When I found the door I found the vine leaves Speaking among themselves in abundant Whispers. My presence made them Hush their green breath, Embarrassed, the way Humans stand up, buttoning their jackets, Acting as if they were leaving anyway, as if The conversation had ended Just before you arrived. I liked The glimpse I […]...
15. Mirage How is it that, being gone, you fill my days, And all the long nights are made glad by thee? No loneliness is this, nor misery, But great content that these should be the ways Whereby the Fancy, dreaming as she strays, Makes bright and present what she would would be. And who shall say […]...
16. A Teamster's Farewell Sobs En Route to a Penitentiary GOOD-BY now to the streets and the clash of wheels and Locking hubs, The sun coming on the brass buckles and harness knobs. The muscles of the horses sliding under their heavy Haunches, Good-by now to the traffic policeman and his whistle, The smash of the iron hoof on […]...
17. Brave Coward Elisabeth imagines I’ve A yellow streak She deems I have no dash and drive, Jest dogoned weak. ‘A man should be a man,’ says Liz ‘Trade blow for blow.’ Poor kid! What my position is She jest don’t know. She jest don’t know my old man killed, Yea, slew and slew. As steamy blood he […]...
18. Grand-Pa's Whim While for me gapes the greedy grave It don’t make sense That I should have a crazy crave To paint our fence. Yet that is what I aim to do, Though dim my sight: Jest paint them aged pickets blue, Or green or white. Jest squat serenely in the sun Wi’ brush an’ paint, An’ […]...
19. The house where I was born (03) I woke up, it was the house where I was born, It was night, trees were crowding On all sides around our door, I was alone on the doorstep in the cold wind, No, not alone, for two huge beings Were speaking to each other above me, through me. One, behind, an old woman, stooped, […]...
20. The Verdicts Not in the thick of the fight, Not in the press of the odds, Do the heroes come to their height, Or we know the demi-gods. That stands over till peace. We can only perceive Men returned from the seas, Very grateful for leave. They grant us sudden days Snatched from their business of war; […]...
21. We Two Boys Together Clinging WE two boys together clinging, One the other never leaving, Up and down the roads going-North and South excursions making, Power enjoying-elbows stretching-fingers clutching, Arm’d and fearless-eating, drinking, sleeping, loving, No law less than ourselves owning-sailing, soldiering, thieving, threatening, Misers, menials, priests alarming-air breathing, water drinking, on the turf or the sea-beach dancing, Cities wrenching, […]...
22. Spain 1873-'74 OUT of the murk of heaviest clouds, Out of the feudal wrecks, and heap’d-up skeletons of kings, Out of that old entire European debris-the shatter’d mummeries, Ruin’d cathedrals, crumble of palaces, tombs of priests, Lo! Freedom’s features, fresh, undimm’d, look forth-the same immortal face looks forth; (A glimpse as of thy mother’s face, Columbia, A […]...
23. Alone And Drinking Under The Moon Amongst the flowers I Am alone with my pot of wine Drinking by myself; then lifting My cup I asked the moon To drink with me, its reflection And mine in the wine cup, just The three of us; then I sigh For the moon cannot drink, And my shadow goes emptily along With me […]...
24. When I heard at the Close of the Day WHEN I heard at the close of the day how my name had been receiv’d with plaudits in the capitol, still it was not a happy night for me that follow’d; And else, when I carous’d, or when my plans were accomplish’d, still I was not happy; But the day when I rose at dawn […]...
25. 16-bit Intel 8088 chip with an Apple Macintosh You can’t run Radio Shack programs In its disc drive. Nor can a Commodore 64 Drive read a file You have created on an IBM Personal Computer. Both Kaypro and Osborne computers use The CP/M operating system But can’t read each other’s Handwriting For they format (write On) discs in different […]...
26. On Leaving Some Friends At An Early Hour Give me a golden pen, and let me lean On heaped-up flowers, in regions clear, and far; Bring me a tablet whiter than a star, Or hand of hymning angel, when ’tis seen The silver strings of heavenly harp atween: And let there glide by many a pearly car Pink robes, and wavy hair, and […]...
27. Jack London and O. Henry BOTH were jailbirds; no speechmakers at all; speaking best with one foot on a brass rail; a beer glass in the left hand and the right hand employed for gestures. And both were lights snuffed out… no warning… no lingering: Who knew the hearts of these boozefighters?...
28. The Secret She sought to breathe one word, but vainly; Too many listeners were nigh; And yet my timid glance read plainly The language of her speaking eye. Thy silent glades my footstep presses, Thou fair and leaf-embosomed grove! Conceal within thy green recesses From mortal eye our sacred love! Afar with strange discordant noises, The busy […]...
29. Good and Bad Children Children, you are very little, And your bones are very brittle; If you would grow great and stately, You must try to walk sedately. You must still be bright and quiet, And content with simple diet; And remain, through all bewild’ring, Innocent and honest children. Happy hearts and happy faces, Happy play in grassy places […]...
30. The Logical Vegetarian “Why shouldn’t I have a purely vegetarian drink? Why shouldn’t I take vegetables in their highest form, so to speak? The modest vegetarians ought to stick to wine or beer, plain vegetable drinks, instead of filling their goblets with the blood of bulls and elephants, as all conventional meat-eaters do, I suppose” Dalroy. You will […]...
31. Come down, O Maid COME down, O maid, from yonder mountain height: What pleasure lives in height (the shepherd sang), In height and cold, the splendour of the hills? But cease to move so near the Heavens, and cease To glide a sunbeam by the blasted Pine, To sit a star upon the sparkling spire; And come, for Love […]...
32. 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 […]...
33. The Married Lover Why, having won her, do I woo? Because her spirit’s vestal grace Provokes me always to pursue, But, spirit-like, eludes embrace; Because her womanhood is such That, as on court-days subjects kiss The Queen’s hand, yet so near a touch Affirms no mean familiarness; Nay, rather marks more fair the height Which can with safety […]...
34. Externalism The Greatest Writer of to-day (With Maupassant I almost set him) Said to me in a weary way, The last occasion that I met him: “Old chap, this world is more and more Becoming bourgeois, blasé, blousy: Thank God I’ve lived so long before It got so definitely lousy.” Said I: “Old chap, I don’t […]...
35. THE WAKE Come, Anthea, let us two Go to feast, as others do: Tarts and custards, creams and cakes, Are the junkets still at wakes; Unto which the tribes resort, Where the business is the sport: Morris-dancers thou shalt see, Marian, too, in pageantry; And a mimic to devise Many grinning properties. Players there will be, and […]...
36. In Love For Long I’ve been in love for long With what I cannot tell And will contrive a song For the intangible That has no mould or shape, From which there’s no escape. It is not even a name, Yet is all constancy; Tried or untried, the same, It cannot part from me; A breath, yet as still […]...
37. A Prayer ‘Mid the discordant noises of the day I hear thee calling; I stumble as I fare along Earth’s way; keep me from falling. Mine eyes are open but they cannot see for gloom of night: I can no more than lift my heart to thee for inward light. The wild and fiery passion of my […]...
38. Luck once We were young At this Machine. . . Drinking Smoking Typing It was a most Splendid Miraculous Time Still Is Only now Instead of Moving toward Time It Moves toward Us Makes each word Drill Into the Paper Clear Fast Hard Feeding a Closing Space....
39. The wanderer Upon a mountain height, far from the sea, I found a shell, And to my listening ear the lonely thing Ever a song of ocean seemed to sing, Ever a tale of ocean seemed to tell. How came the shell upon that mountain height? Ah, who can say Whether there dropped by some too careless […]...
40. Waiting For The Barbarians What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum? The barbarians are due here today. Why isn’t anything happening in the senate? Why do the senators sit there without legislating? Because the barbarians are coming today. What laws can the senators make now? Once the barbarians are here, they’ll do the legislating. Why did our […]...