In Former Songs

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1. Songs Dawn coming in over the fields Of darkness takes me by surprise And I look up from my solitary road Pleased not to be alone, the birds Now choiring from the orange groves Huddling to the low hills. But sorry That this night has ended, a night In which you spoke of how little love […]...
2. Stars, Songs, Faces GATHER the stars if you wish it so. Gather the songs and keep them. Gather the faces of women. Gather for keeping years and years. And then… Loosen your hands, let go and say good-by. Let the stars and songs go. Let the faces and years go. Loosen your hands and say good-by....
3. In Praise of Songs that Die AFTER HAVING READ A GREAT DEAL OF GOOD CURRENT POETRY IN THE MAGAZINES AND NEWSPAPERS Ah, they are passing, passing by, Wonderful songs, but born to die! Cries from the infinite human seas, Waves thrice-winged with harmonies. Here I stand on a pier in the foam Seeing the songs to the beach go home, Dying […]...
4. Home, My Little Children, Hear Are Songs For You COME, my little children, here are songs for you; Some are short and some are long, and all, all are new. You must learn to sing them very small and clear, Very true to time and tune and pleasing to the ear. Mark the note that rises, mark the notes that fall, Mark the time […]...
5. Songs of Joy Sing out, my soul, thy songs of joy; Sing as a happy bird will sing Beneath a rainbow’s lovely arch In the spring. Think not of death in thy young days; Why shouldst thou that grim tyrant fear? And fear him not when thou art old, And he is near. Strive not for gold, for […]...
6. Introduction to the Songs of Innocence Piping down the valleys wild, Piping songs of pleasant glee, On a cloud I saw a child, And he laughing said to me: ‘Pipe a song about a Lamb!’ So I piped with merry cheer. ‘Piper, pipe that song again;’ So I piped: he wept to hear. ‘Drop thy pipe, thy happy pipe; Sing thy […]...
7. Songs Of Innocence: Introduction Piping down the valleys wild Piping songs of pleasant glee On a cloud I saw a child. And he laughing said to me. Pipe a song about a Lamb: So I piped with merry chear, Piper, pipe that song again So I piped, he wept to hear. Drop thy pipe thy happy pipe Sing thy […]...
8. These Little Songs These little Songs, Found here and there, Floating in air By forest and lea, Or hill-side heather, In houses and throngs, Or down by the sea – Have come together, How, I can’t tell: But I know full well No witty goose-wing On an inkstand begot ’em; Remember each place And moment of grace, In […]...
9. Parting THERE’S no use in weeping, Though we are condemned to part: There’s such a thing as keeping A remembrance in one’s heart: There’s such a thing as dwelling On the thought ourselves have nurs’d, And with scorn and courage telling The world to do its worst. We’ll not let its follies grieve us, We’ll just […]...
10. Go, songs, for ended is our brief, sweet play Go, songs, for ended is our brief, sweet play; Go, children of swift joy and tardy sorrow: And some are sung, and that was yesterday, And some are unsung, and that may be tomorrow. Go forth; and if it be o’er stony way, Old joy can lend what newer grief must borrow: And it was […]...
11. Three Songs LOVE, thou art best of Human Joys, Our chiefest Happiness below; All other Pleasures are but Toys, Musick without Thee is but Noise, And Beauty but an empty Show. Heav’n, who knew best what Man wou’d move, And raise his Thoughts above the Brute; Said, Let him Be, and let him Love; That must alone […]...
12. SONGS SONGS are like painted window-panes! In darkness wrapp’d the church remains, If from the market-place we view it; Thus sees the ignoramus through it. No wonder that he deems it tame, And all his life ’twill be the same. But let us now inside repair, And greet the holy Chapel there! At once the whole […]...
13. The Songs of the Lathes 1918Being the Words of the Tune Hummed at Her Lathe by Mrs. L. Embsay, Widow The fans and the beltings they roar round me. The power is shaking the floor round me Till the lathes pick up their duty and the midnight-shift takes over. It is good for me to be here! Guns in Flanders […]...
14. Songs of Battle Old as the world no other things so old; Nay, older than the world, else, how had sprung Such lusty strength in them when earth was young? Stand valor and its passion hot and bold, Insatiate of battle. How, else, told Blind men, born blind, that red was fitting tongue Mute, eloquent, to show how […]...
15. Four Songs Of Four Seasons I. WINTER IN NORTHUMBERLAND OUTSIDE the garden The wet skies harden; The gates are barred on The summer side: “Shut out the flower-time, Sunbeam and shower-time; Make way for our time,” Wild winds have cried. Green once and cheery, The woods, worn weary, Sigh as the dreary Weak sun goes home: A great wind grapples […]...
16. Love Songs In Age She kept her songs, they kept so little space, The covers pleased her: One bleached from lying in a sunny place, One marked in circles by a vase of water, One mended, when a tidy fit had seized her, And coloured, by her daughter – So they had waited, till, in widowhood She found them, […]...
17. Spirit whose Work is Done SPIRIT whose work is done! spirit of dreadful hours! Ere, departing, fade from my eyes your forests of bayonets; Spirit of gloomiest fears and doubts, (yet onward ever unfaltering pressing;) Spirit of many a solemn day, and many a savage scene! Electric spirit! That with muttering voice, through the war now closed, like a tireless […]...
18. Three Marching Songs I Remember all those renowned generations, They left their bodies to fatten the wolves, They left their homesteads to fatten the foxes, Fled to far countries, or sheltered themselves In cavern, crevice, or hole, Defending Ireland’s soul. Be still, be still, what can be said? My father sang that song, But time amends old wrong, […]...
19. Year of Meteors, 1859 '60 YEAR of meteors! brooding year! I would bind in words retrospective, some of your deeds and signs; I would sing your contest for the 19th Presidentiad; I would sing how an old man, tall, with white hair, mounted the scaffold in Virginia; (I was at hand-silent I stood, with teeth shut close-I watch’d; I stood […]...
20. Scented Herbage of My Breast SCENTED herbage of my breast, Leaves from you I yield, I write, to be perused best afterwards, Tomb-leaves, body-leaves, growing up above me, above death, Perennial roots, tall leaves-O the winter shall not freeze you, delicate leaves, Every year shall you bloom again-out from where you retired, you shall emerge again; O I do not […]...
21. Warble for Lilac-Time WARBLE me now, for joy of Lilac-time, Sort me, O tongue and lips, for Nature’s sake, and sweet life’s sake-and death’s the same as life’s, Souvenirs of earliest summer-birds’ eggs, and the first berries; Gather the welcome signs, (as children, with pebbles, or stringing shells;) Put in April and May-the hylas croaking in the ponds-the […]...
22. Color Caste Denomination Color Caste Denomination These are Time’s Affair Death’s diviner Classifying Does not know they are As in sleep All Hue forgotten Tenets put behind Death’s large Democratic fingers Rub away the Brand If Circassian He is careless If He put away Chrysalis of Blonde or Umber Equal Butterfly They emerge from His Obscuring What Death […]...
23. The Ancient Speech A Gaelic bard they praise who in fourteen adjectives Named the one indivisible soul of his glen; For what are the bens and the glens but manifold qualities, Immeasurable complexities of soul? What are these isles but a song sung by island voices? The herdsman sings ancestral memories And the song makes the singer wise, […]...
24. Two Songs From A Play I I saw a staring virgin stand Where holy Dionysus died, And tear the heart out of his side. And lay the heart upon her hand And bear that beating heart away; Of Magnus Annus at the spring, As though God’s death were but a play. Another Troy must rise and set, Another lineage feed […]...
25. Dunce Songs : 9 Love me little, love me long, Then we neither can be wrong: You in giving, I in taking; There is nor a heart breaking But remembers one touch, Or maybe seven, of too much. Love me more than halfway, though. Let me think, then let me know. And I promise you the same: A little […]...
26. 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 […]...
27. Psalm 49 part 1 v.6-14 C. M. Pride and death; or, The vanity of life and riches. Why doth the man of riches grow To insolence and pride, To see his wealth and honors flow With every rising tide? [Why doth he treat the poor with scorn, Made of the self-same clay, And boast as though his flesh was […]...
28. Slumber Songs I Sleep, little eyes That brim with childish tears amid thy play, Be comforted! No grief of night can weigh Against the joys that throng thy coming day. Sleep, little heart! There is no place in Slumberland for tears: Life soon enough will bring its chilling fears And sorrows that will dim the after years. […]...
29. The Three Songs The poet sang of a battle-field Where doughty deeds were done, Where stout blows rang on helm and shield And a kingdom’s fate was spun With the scarlet thread of victory, And honor from death’s grim revelry Like a flame-red flower was won! So bravely he sang that all who heard With the sting of […]...
30. Supernatural Songs I. Ribh at the Tomb of Baile and Aillinn Because you have found me in the pitch-dark night With open book you ask me what I do. Mark and digest my tale, carry it afar To those that never saw this tonsured head Nor heard this voice that ninety years have cracked. Of Baile and […]...
31. Love Sonnet XVII I do not love you as if you were a salt rose, or topaz Or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off. I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, In secret, between the shadow and the soul. I love you as the plant that never blooms But carries in itself […]...
32. XVII (I do not love you…) I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz, Or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off. I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, In secret, between the shadow and the soul. I love you as the plant that never blooms But carries in itself the light […]...
33. Fruit of the Flower My father is a quiet man With sober, steady ways; For simile, a folded fan; His nights are like his days. My mother’s life is puritan, No hint of cavalier, A pool so calm you’re sure it can Have little depth to fear. And yet my father’s eyes can boast How full his life has […]...
34. Three Songs To The One Burden I The Roaring Tinker if you like, But Mannion is my name, And I beat up the common sort And think it is no shame. The common breeds the common, A lout begets a lout, So when I take on half a score I knock their heads about. From mountain to mountain ride the fierce […]...
35. So Long 1 TO conclude-I announce what comes after me; I announce mightier offspring, orators, days, and then, for the present, depart. I remember I said, before my leaves sprang at all, I would raise my voice jocund and strong, with reference to consummations. When America does what was promis’d, When there are plentiful athletic bards, inland […]...
36. Great are the Myths 1 GREAT are the myths-I too delight in them; Great are Adam and Eve-I too look back and accept them; Great the risen and fallen nations, and their poets, women, sages, inventors, rulers, warriors, and priests. Great is Liberty! great is Equality! I am their follower; Helmsmen of nations, choose your craft! where you sail, […]...
37. A Mystic As Soldier I lived my days apart, Dreaming fair songs for God; By the glory in my heart Covered and crowned and shod. Now God is in the strife, And I must seek Him there, Where death outnumbers life, And fury smites the air. I walk the secret way With anger in my brain. O music through […]...
38. Songs For A Colored Singer I A washing hangs upon the line, but it’s not mine. None of the things that I can see belong to me. The neighbors got a radio with an aerial; we got a little portable. They got a lot of closet space; we got a suitcase. I say, “Le Roy, just how much are we […]...
39. He lived the Life of Ambush He lived the Life of Ambush And went the way of Dusk And now against his subtle name There stands an Asterisk As confident of him as we Impregnable we are The whole of Immortality intrenched Within a star...
40. Potato Blossom Songs and Jigs RUM tiddy um, tiddy um, tiddy um tum tum. My knees are loose-like, my feet want to sling their selves. I feel like tickling you under the chin-honey-and a-asking: Why Does a Chicken Cross the Road? When the hens are a-laying eggs, and the roosters pluck-pluck-put-akut and you-honey-put new potatoes and gravy on the table, […]...