Last Invocation, The

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1. Invocation to Youth COME then, as ever, like the wind at morning! Joyous, O Youth, in the aged world renew Freshness to feel the eternities around it, Rain, stars and clouds, light and the sacred dew. The strong sun shines above thee: That strength, that radiance bring! If Winter come to Winter, When shall men hope for Spring?...
2. Invocation To The Muses Read by the poet at The Public Ceremonial of The Naional Institute Of Arts and Letters at Carnegie Hall, New York, January 18th, 1941. Great Muse, that from this hall absent for long Hast never been, Great Muse of Song, Colossal Muse of mighty Melody, Vocal Calliope, With thine august and contrapuntal brow And thy […]...
3. H. Baptism II Since, Lord, to thee A narrow way and little gate Is all the passage, on my infancy Thou didst lay hold, and antedate My faith in me. O let me still Write thee great God, and me a child: Let me be soft and supple to thy will, Small to my self, to others mild, […]...
4. Invocation Come down from heaven to meet me when my breath Chokes, and through drumming shafts of stifling death I stumble toward escape, to find the door Opening on morn where I may breathe once more Clear cock-crow airs across some valley dim With whispering trees. While dawn along the rim Of night’s horizon flows in […]...
5. Circles of Doors I LOVE him, I love him, ran the patter of her lips And she formed his name on her tongue and sang And she sent him word she loved him so much, So much, and death was nothing; work, art, home, All was nothing if her love for him was not first Of all; the […]...
6. Invocation Rarely, rarely, comest thou, Spirit of Delight! Wherefore hast thou left me now Many a day and night? Many a weary night and day ‘Tis since thou art fled away. How shall ever one like me Win thee back again? With the joyous and the free Thou wilt scoff at pain. Spirit false! thou hast […]...
7. Invocation This is for Elsa, also known as Liz, An ample-bosomed gospel singer: five Discrete malignancies in one full breast. This is for auburn Jacqueline, who is Celebrating fifty years alive, One since she finished chemotherapy. With fireworks on the fifteenth of July. This is for June, whose words are lean and mean As she is, […]...
8. Perished I called to the summer sun, “Come over the hills to-day! Unlock the rivers, and tell them to run, And kiss the snow-drifts and melt them away.” And the sun came over – a tardy lover – And unlocked the river, and told it to glide, And kissed the snow-drift till it fainted and died. […]...
9. Mama never forgets her birds Mama never forgets her birds, Though in another tree She looks down just as often And just as tenderly As when her little mortal nest With cunning care she wove If either of her “sparrows fall,” She “notices,” above....
10. Locked Doors For the angels who inhabit this town, Although their shape constantly changes, Each night we leave some cold potatoes And a bowl of milk on the windowsill. Usually they inhabit heaven where, By the way, no tears are allowed. They push the moon around like A boiled yam. The Milky Way is their hen With […]...
11. Hymn 22 part 2 Flesh and spirit. Rom. 8:1 What vain desires and passions vain Attend this mortal clay! Oft have they pierced my soul with pain, And drawn my heart astray. How have I wandered from my God! And, following sin and shame, In this vile world of flesh and blood Defiled my nobler frame! For ever blessed […]...
12. I look at the swaling sunset I look at the swaling sunset And wish I could go also Through the red doors beyond the black-purple bar. I wish that I could go Through the red doors where I could put off My shame like shoes in the porch, My pain like garments, And leave my flesh discarded lying Like luggage of […]...
13. Hymn 23 part 1 Absent from the body, and present with the Lord. 2 Cor. 5:8. Absent from flesh! O blissful thought! What unknown joys this moment brings! Freed from the mischiefs sin has brought, From pains, and fears, and all their springs. Absent from flesh! illustrious day! Surprising scene! triumphant stroke That rends the prison of my clay; […]...
14. Timer The smell of ammonia in the entrance hall. The racing bike. The junk mail. The timer switch whose single naked bulb Allowed us as far as the first floor. The backs of your legs As you went ahead of me up the stairs. The landing where we paused for breath And impatient key searching. The […]...
15. Sten There is a knocking in the skull, An endless silent shout Of something beating on a wall, And crying, “Let me out! ” That solitary prisoner Will never hear reply. No comrade in eternity Can hear the frantic cry. No heart can share the terror That haunts his monstrous dark. The light that filters through […]...
16. Mesmerism I. All I believed is true! I am able yet All I want, to get By a method as strange as new: Dare I trust the same to you? II. If at night, when doors are shut, And the wood-worm picks, And the death-watch ticks, And the bar has a flag of smut, And a […]...
17. Anna Who Was Mad Anna who was mad, I have a knife in my armpit. When I stand on tiptoe I tap out messages. Am I some sort of infection? Did I make you go insane? Did I make the sounds go sour? Did I tell you to climb out the window? Forgive. Forgive. Say not I did. Say […]...
18. The Prayer of Miriam Cohen From the wheel and the drift of Things Deliver us, Good Lord, And we will face the wrath of Kings, The faggot and the sword! Lay not thy Works before our eyes Nor vex us with thy Wars, Lest we should feel the straining skies O’ertrod by trampling stars. Hold us secure behind the gates […]...
19. From the Bush The Channel fog has lifted – And see where we have come! Round all the world we’ve drifted, A hundred years from “home”. The fields our parents longed for – Ah! we shall ne’er know how – The wealth that they were wronged for We’ll see as strangers now! The Dover cliffs have passed on […]...
20. The Chestnut Casts His Flambeaux The chestnut casts his flambeaux, and the flowers Stream from the hawthorn on the wind away, The doors clap to, the pane is blind with showers. Pass me the can, lad; there’s an end of May. There’s one spoilt spring to scant our mortal lot, One season ruined of your little store. May will be […]...
21. All All And All The Dry Worlds Lever I All all and all the dry worlds lever, Stage of the ice, the solid ocean, All from the oil, the pound of lava. City of spring, the governed flower, Turns in the earth that turns the ashen Towns around on a wheel of fire. How now my flesh, my naked fellow, Dug of the […]...
22. Horse Fiddle FIRST I would like to write for you a poem to be shouted in the teeth of a strong wind. Next I would like to write one for you to sit on a hill and read down the river valley on a late summer afternoon, reading it in less than a whisper to Jack on […]...
23. Psalm 130 Pardoning grace. Out of the deeps of long distress, The borders of despair, I sent my cries to seek thy grace, My groans to move thine ear. Great God, should thy severer eye, And thine impartial hand, Mark and revenge iniquity, No mortal flesh could stand. But there are pardons with my God For crimes […]...
24. Sonnet LXV Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea, But sad mortality o’er-sways their power, How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea, Whose action is no stronger than a flower? O, how shall summer’s honey breath hold out Against the wreckful siege of battering days, When rocks impregnable are not so stout, Nor […]...
25. Please Master Please master can I touch your cheeck Please master can I kneel at your feet Please master can I loosen your blue pants Please master can I gaze at your golden haired belly Please master can I have your thighs bare to my eyes Please master can I take off my clothes below your chair […]...
26. Ears In The Turrets Hear Ears in the turrets hear Hands grumble on the door, Eyes in the gables see The fingers at the locks. Shall I unbolt or stay Alone till the day I die Unseen by stranger-eyes In this white house? Hands, hold you poison or grapes? Beyond this island bound By a thin sea of flesh And […]...
27. Sonnet 65: Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea, But sad mortality o’ersways their power, How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea, Whose action is no stronger than a flower? O, how shall summer’s honey breath hold out Against the wrackful siege of batt’ring days, When rocks impregnable are not so stout, Nor […]...
28. Alone With Everybody the flesh covers the bone And they put a mind In there and Sometimes a soul, And the women break Vases against the walls And the men drink too Much And nobody finds the One But keep Looking Crawling in and out Of beds. Flesh covers The bone and the Flesh searches For more than […]...
29. Hymn To Life The hair falling on your forehead suddenly lifted. Suddenly something stirred on the ground. The trees are whispering in the dark. Your bare arms will be cold. Far off where we can’t see, the moon must be rising. It hasn’t reached us yet, slipping through the leaves to light up your shoulder. But I know […]...
30. Psalm 16 part 3 Courage in death, and hope of the resurrection. When God is nigh, my faith is strong; His arm is my almighty prop: Be glad, my heart; rejoice, my tongue; My dying flesh shall rest in hope. Though in the dust I lay my head, Yet, gracious God, thou wilt not leave My soul for ever […]...
31. The Dark Hour And now, when merry winds do blow, And rain makes trees look fresh, An overpowering staleness holds This mortal flesh. Though well I love to feel the rain, And be by winds well blown The mystery of mortal life Doth press me down. And, In this mood, come now what will, Shine Rainbow, Cuckoo call; […]...
32. The Frost-King – Song 1 We are sending you, dear flowers Forth alone to die, Where your gentle sisters may not weep O’er the cold graves where you lie; But you go to bring them fadeless life In the bright homes where they dwell, And you softly smile that’t is so, As we sadly sing farewell. O plead with gentle […]...
33. To My Wife – With A Copy Of My Poems I can write no stately proem As a prelude to my lay; From a poet to a poem I would dare to say. For if of these fallen petals One to you seem fair, Love will waft it till it settles On your hair. And when wind and winter harden All the loveless land, It […]...
34. Before I Knocked Before I knocked and flesh let enter, With liquid hands tapped on the womb, I who was as shapeless as the water That shaped the Jordan near my home Was brother to Mnetha’s daughter And sister to the fathering worm. I who was deaf to spring and summer, Who knew not sun nor moon by […]...
35. Aftermath I learnt to write to you in happier days, And every letter was a piece I chipped From off my heart, a fragment newly clipped From the mosaic of life; its blues and grays, Its throbbing reds, I gave to earn your praise. To make a pavement for your feet I stripped My soul for […]...
36. To Mary, On Receiving Her Picture This faint resemblance of thy charms, (Though strong as mortal art could give,) My constant heart of fear disarms, Revives my hopes, and bids me live. Here, I can trace the locks of gold Which round thy snowy forehead wave; The cheeks which sprung from Beauty’s mould, The lips, which made me Beauty’s slave. Here […]...
37. A Lament My thoughts hold mortal strife; I do detest my life, And with lamenting cries Peace to my soul to bring Oft call that prince which here doth monarchize: But he, grim grinning King, Who caitiffs scorns, and doth the blest surprise, Late having decked with beauty’s rose his tomb, Disdains to crop a weed, and […]...
38. The Poet's Love-Song In noon-tide hours, O Love, secure and strong, I need thee not; mad dreams are mine to bind The world to my desire, and hold the wind A voiceless captive to my conquering song. I need thee not, I am content with these: Keep silence in thy soul, beyond the seas! But in the desolate […]...
39. The Children of the Night For those that never know the light, The darkness is a sullen thing; And they, the Children of the Night, Seem lost in Fortune’s winnowing. But some are strong and some are weak, And there’s the story. House and home Are shut from countless hearts that seek World-refuge that will never come. And if there […]...
40. The Immortal Part When I meet the morning beam, Or lay me down at night to dream, I hear my bones within me say, “Another night, another day. “When shall this slough of sense be cast, This dust of thoughts be laid at last, The man of flesh and soul be slain And the man of bone remain? […]...