World Below the Brine, The
THE world below the brine;
Forests at the bottom of the sea-the branches and leaves,
Sea-lettuce, vast lichens, strange flowers and seeds-the thick tangle, the openings,
and
the pink turf,
Different colors, pale gray and green, purple, white, and gold-the play of light
through
the water,
Dumb swimmers there among the rocks-coral, gluten, grass, rushes-and the aliment
of
the swimmers,
Sluggish existences grazing there, suspended, or slowly crawling close to the bottom,
The sperm-whale at the surface, blowing air and spray, or disporting with his flukes,
The leaden-eyed shark, the walrus, the turtle, the hairy sea-leopard, and the sting-ray;
Passions there-wars, pursuits, tribes-sight in those ocean-depths-breathing
that
thick-breathing air, as so many do;
The change thence to the sight here, and to the subtle air breathed by beings like us, who
walk
this sphere;
The change onward from ours, to that of beings who walk other spheres.
Related poetry:
- The Walrus And The Carpenter Tweedledee said to Alice, “You like poetry-“ “Ye-es, pretty well-some poetry,” Alice said doubtfully. “What shall I repeat to her,” said Tweedledee, looking round at Tweedledum with great solemn eyes. “‘The Walrus and the Carpenter’ is the longest,” Tweedledum replied, Giving his brother an affectionate hug. Tweedledee began instantly: The Walrus And The Carpenter The […]...
- Passing away, saith the World Passing away, saith the World, passing away: Chances, beauty and youth, sapp’d day by day: Thy life never continueth in one stay. Is the eye waxen dim, is the dark hair changing to grey That hath won neither laurel nor bay? I shall clothe myself in Spring and bud in May: Thou, root-stricken, shalt not […]...
- Love Calls Us To The Things Of This World The eyes open to a cry of pulleys, And spirited from sleep, the astounded soul Hangs for a moment bodiless and simple As false dawn. Outside the open window The morning air is all awash with angels. Some are in bed-sheets, some are in blouses, Some are in smocks: but truly there they are. Now […]...
- Absence HERE, ever since you went abroad, If there be change no change I see: I only walk our wonted road, The road is only walk’d by me. Yes; I forgot; a change there is Was it of that you bade me tell? I catch at times, at times I miss The sight, the tone, I […]...
- The Breath Of Night The moon rises. The red cubs rolling In the ferns by the rotten oak Stare over a marsh and a meadow To the farm’s white wisp of smoke. A spark burns, high in heaven. Deer thread the blossoming rows Of the old orchard, rabbits Hop by the well-curb. The cock crows From the tree by […]...
- Sojourns in the Parallel World We live our lives of human passions, Cruelties, dreams, concepts, Crimes and the exercise of virtue In and beside a world devoid Of our preoccupations, free From apprehension though affected, Certainly, by our actions. A world Parallel to our own though overlapping. We call it “Nature”; only reluctantly Admitting ourselves to be “Nature” too. Whenever […]...
- Spring comes on the World Spring comes on the World I sight the Aprils Hueless to me until thou come As, till the Bee Blossoms stand negative, Touched to Conditions By a Hum....
- Song on the End of the World On the day the world ends A bee circles a clover, A Fisherman mends a glimmering net. Happy porpoises jump in the sea, By the rainspout young sparrows are playing And the snake is gold-skinned as it it should always be. On the day the world ends Women walk through fields under their umbrellas A […]...
- Dream Song 74: Henry hates the world. What the world to Henry Henry hates the world. What the world to Henry Did will not bear thought. Feeling no pain, Henry stabbed his arm and wrote a letter Explaining how bad it had been In this world. Old yellow, in a gown Might have made a difference, ‘these lower beauties’, And chartreuse could have mattered “Kyoto, Toledo, Benares—the […]...
- What News Here, ever since you went abroad, If there be change, no change I see, I only walk our wonted road, The road is only walkt by me. Yes; I forgot; a change there is; Was it of that you bade me tell? I catch at times, at times I miss The sight, the tone, I […]...
- In The Days When The World Was Wide The world is narrow and ways are short, and our lives are dull and slow, For little is new where the crowds resort, and less where the wanderers go; Greater, or smaller, the same old things we see by the dull road-side And tired of all is the spirit that sings Of the days when […]...
- The World's All Right Be honest, kindly, simple, true; Seek good in all, scorn but pretence; Whatever sorrow come to you, Believe in Life’s Beneficence! The World’s all right; serene I sit, And cease to puzzle over it. There’s much that’s mighty strange, no doubt; But Nature knows what she’s about; And in a million years or so We’ll […]...
- To put this World down, like a Bundle To put this World down, like a Bundle And walk steady, away, Requires Energy possibly Agony ‘Tis the Scarlet way Trodden with straight renunciation By the Son of God Later, his faint Confederates Justify the Road Flavors of that old Crucifixion Filaments of Bloom, Pontius Pilate sowed Strong Clusters, from Barabbas’ Tomb Sacrament, Saints partook […]...
- A Wicker Basket Comes the time when it’s later And onto your table the headwaiter Puts the bill, and very soon after Rings out the sound of lively laughter Picking up change, hands like a walrus, And a face like a barndoor’s, And a head without any apparent size, Nothing but two eyes So that’s you, man, Or […]...
- The World Wee falsely think it due unto our friends, That we should grieve for their too early ends: He that surveys the world with serious eys, And stripps Her from her grosse and weak disguise, Shall find ’tis injury to mourn their fate; He only dy’s untimely who dy’s Late. For if ’twere told to children […]...
- Voices at the Window Who is it that, this dark night, Underneath my window plaineth? It is one who from thy sight Being, ah, exiled, disdaineth Every other vulgar light. Why, alas, and are you he? Be not yet those fancies changeed? Dear, when you find change in me, Though from me you be estranged, Let my change to […]...
- Turn, O Libertad TURN, O Libertad, for the war is over, (From it and all henceforth expanding, doubting no more, resolute, sweeping the world,) Turn from lands retrospective, recording proofs of the past; From the singers that sing the trailing glories of the past; From the chants of the feudal world-the triumphs of kings, slavery, caste; Turn to […]...
- World Was In The Face Of The Beloved World was in the face of the beloved, But suddenly it poured out and was gone: World is outside, world can not be grasped. Why didn’t I, from the full, beloved face As I raised it to my lips, why didn’t I drink World, so near that I couldn’t almost taste it? Ah, I drank. […]...
- The Great Fires Love is apart from all things. Desire and excitement are nothing beside it. It is not the body that finds love. What leads us there is the body. What is not love provokes it. What is not love quenches it. Love lays hold of everything we know. The passions which are called love Also change […]...
- The World And I This is not exactly what I mean Any more than the sun is the sun. But how to mean more closely If the sun shines but approximately? What a world of awkwardness! What hostile implements of sense! Perhaps this is as close a meaning As perhaps becomes such knowing. Else I think the world and […]...
- One World “The worlds in which we live are two The world ‘I am’ and the world ‘I do.'” The worlds in which we live at heart are one, The world “I am,” the fruit of “I have done”; And underneath these worlds of flower and fruit, The world “I love,” the only living root....
- Wars IN the old wars drum of hoofs and the beat of shod feet. In the new wars hum of motors and the tread of rubber tires. In the wars to come silent wheels and whirr of rods not Yet dreamed out in the heads of men. In the old wars clutches of short swords and […]...
- The Stand-Ins In the dream The swastika is neon And flashes like a strobe light Into my eyes, all colors, All vibrations And I see the killer in him And he turns on an oven, An oven, an oven, an oven, And on a pie plate he sticks In my Yellow Star And then Then when it […]...
- God's World O world, I cannot hold thee close enough! Thy winds, thy wide grey skies! Thy mists, that roll and rise! Thy woods, this autumn day, that ache and sag And all but cry with colour! That gaunt crag To crush! To lift the lean of that black bluff! World, World, I cannot get thee close […]...
- To The Accuser Who is The God of This World Truly My Satan thou art but a Dunce And dost not know the Garment from the Man Every Harlot was a Virgin once Nor canst thou ever change Kate into Nan Tho thou art Worship’d by the Names Divine Of Jesus & Jehovah thou art still The Son of Morn in weary Nights decline The […]...
- So Many Blood-Lakes We have now won two world-wars, neither of which concerned us, we were Slipped in. We have levelled the powers Of Europe, that were the powers of the world, into rubble and Dependence. We have won two wars and a third is comming. This one will not be so easy. We were at ease while […]...
- Metonymy as an Approach to a Real World Whether what we sense of this world Is the what of this world only, or the what Of which of several possible worlds which what? something of what we sense May be true, may be the world, what it is, what we sense. For the rest, a truce is possible, the tolerance Of travelers, eating […]...
- The World is with Me The world is with me, and its many cares, Its woes its wants the anxious hopes and fears That wait on all terrestrial affairs The shades of former and of future years Forboding fancies and prophetic tears, Quelling a spirit that was once elate. Heavens! what a wilderness the world appears, Where youth, and mirth, […]...
- World, Take Good Notice WORLD, take good notice, silver stars fading, Milky hue ript, weft of white detaching, Coals thirty-eight, baleful and burning, Scarlet, significant, hands off warning, Now and henceforth flaunt from these shores. 5...
- They are all Gone into the World of Light 1 They are all gone into the world of light! 2 And I alone sit ling’ring here; 3 Their very memory is fair and bright, 4 And my sad thoughts doth clear. 5 It glows and glitters in my cloudy breast, 6 Like stars upon some gloomy grove, 7 Or those faint beams in which […]...
- The End of the World Here, at the end of the world, The flowers bleed As if they were hearts, The hearts ooze a darkness Like india ink, & poets dip their pens in & they write. “Here, at the end of the world,” They write, Not knowing what it means. “Here, where the sky nurses on black milk, Where […]...
- The House In The Woods At the back of the houses there is the wood. While there is a leaf of summer left, the wood Makes sounds I can put somewhere in my song, Has paths I can walk, when I wake, to good Or evil: to the cage, to the oven, to the House In the Wood. It is […]...
- Looking, Walking, Being “The World is not something to Look at, it is something to be in.” Mark Rudman I look and look. Looking’s a way of being: one becomes, Sometimes, a pair of eyes walking. Walking wherever looking takes one. The eyes Dig and burrow into the world. They touch Fanfare, howl, madrigal, clamor. World and the […]...
- A Sickness of this World it most occasions A Sickness of this World it most occasions When Best Men die. A Wishfulness their far Condition To occupy. A Chief indifference, as Foreign A World must be Themselves forsake contented, For Deity....
- Thick-Sprinkled Bunting THICK-SPRINKLED bunting! Flag of stars! Long yet your road, fateful flag!-long yet your road, and lined with bloody death! For the prize I see at issue, at last is the world! All its ships and shores I see, interwoven with your threads, greedy banner! -Dream’d again the flags of kings, highest born, to flaunt unrival’d? […]...
- To the Garden the World TO the garden, the world, anew ascending, Potent mates, daughters, sons, preluding, The love, the life of their bodies, meaning and being, Curious, here behold my resurrection, after slumber; The revolving cycles, in their wide sweep, have brought me again, Amorous, mature-all beautiful to me-all wondrous; My limbs, and the quivering fire that ever plays […]...
- As I Walk These Broad, Majestic Days AS I walk these broad, majestic days of peace, (For the war, the struggle of blood finish’d, wherein, O terrific Ideal! Against vast odds, having gloriously won, Now thou stridest on-yet perhaps in time toward denser wars, Perhaps to engage in time in still more dreadful contests, dangers, Longer campaigns and crises, labors beyond all […]...
- Prairie-Grass Dividing, The THE prairie-grass dividing-its special odor breathing, I demand of it the spiritual corresponding, Demand the most copious and close companionship of men, Demand the blades to rise of words, acts, beings, Those of the open atmosphere, coarse, sunlit, fresh, nutritious, Those that go their own gait, erect, stepping with freedom and command-leading, not following, Those […]...
- Oh, Could We Do With This World of Ours Oh, could we do with this world of ours As thou dost with thy garden bowers, Reject the weeds and keep the flowers, What a heaven on earth we’d make it! So bright a dwelling should be our own, So warranted free from sigh or frown, That angels soon would be coming down, By the […]...
- Before The World Was Made If I make the lashes dark And the eyes more bright And the lips more scarlet, Or ask if all be right From mirror after mirror, No vanity’s displayed: I’m looking for the face I had Before the world was made. What if I look upon a man As though on my beloved, And my […]...