Dying Speech of an Old Philosopher

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1. On His Seventy-fifth Birthday I strove with none, for none was worth my strife; Nature I loved, and next to Nature, Art; I warmed both hands before the fire of Life; It sinks, and I am ready to depart....
2. The Dying Christian to His Soul Vital spark of heav’nly flame! Quit, O quit this mortal frame: Trembling, hoping, ling’ring, flying, O the pain, the bliss of dying! Cease, fond Nature, cease thy strife, And let me languish into life. Hark! they whisper; angels say, Sister Spirit, come away! What is this absorbs me quite? Steals my senses, shuts my sight, […]...
3. Part Of Speech …and when “the future” is uttered, swarms of mice Rush out of the Russian language and gnaw a piece Of ripened memory which is twice As hole-ridden as real cheese. After all these years it hardly matters who Or what stands in the corner, hidden by heavy drapes, And your mind resounds not with a […]...
4. The Philosopher “Enough of thought, philosopher! Too long hast thou been dreaming Unlightened, in this chamber drear, While summer’s sun is beaming! Space – sweeping soul, what sad refrain Concludes thy musings once again? “Oh, for the time when I shall sleep Without identity, And never care how rain may steep, Or snow may cover me! No […]...
5. Sonnet 13 – And wilt thou have me fashion into speech And wilt thou have me fashion into speech The love I bear thee, finding words enough, And hold the torch out, while the winds are rough, Between our faces, to cast light on each?- I drop it at thy feet. I cannot teach My hand to hold my spirit so far off From myself-me-that I […]...
6. These are the Signs to Nature's Inns These are the Signs to Nature’s Inns Her invitation broad To Whosoever famishing To taste her mystic Bread These are the rites of Nature’s House The Hospitality That opens with an equal width To Beggar and to Bee For Sureties of her staunch Estate Her undecaying Cheer The Purple in the East is set And […]...
7. Daylight is Dying The daylight is dying Away in the west, The wild birds are flying In silence to rest; In leafage and frondage Where shadows are deep, They pass to its bondage The kingdom of sleep And watched in their sleeping By stars in the height, They rest in your keeping, O wonderful night. When night doth […]...
8. The Daylight is Dying The daylight is dying Away in the west, The wild birds are flying In silence to rest; In leafage and frondage Where shadows are deep, They pass to its bondage – The kingdom of sleep. And watched in their sleeping By stars in the height, They rest in your keeping, Oh, wonderful night. When night […]...
9. Dying! Dying in the night! Dying! Dying in the night! Won’t somebody bring the light So I can see which way to go Into the everlasting snow? And “Jesus”! Where is Jesus gone? They said that Jesus always came Perhaps he doesn’t know the House This way, Jesus, Let him pass! Somebody run to the great gate And see if […]...
10. Farmer, Dying for Hank and Nancy Seven thousand acres of grass have faded yellow From his cough. These limp days, his anger, Legend forty years from moon to Stevensville, Lives on, just barely, in a Great Falls whore. Cruel times, he cries, cruel winds. His geese roam Unattended in the meadow. The gold last leaves Of cottonwoods […]...
11. The Philosopher And what are you that, wanting you, I should be kept awake As many nights as there are days With weeping for your sake? And what are you that, missing you, As many days as crawl I should be listening to the wind And looking at the wall? I know a man that’s a braver […]...
12. Mr. Philosopher Old Mr. Philosopher Comes for Ben and Claire, An ugly man, a tall man, With bright-red hair. The books that he’s written No one can read. “In fifty years they’ll understand: Now there’s no need. “All that matters now Is getting the fun. Come along, Ben and Claire; Plenty to be done.” Then old Philosopher, […]...
13. Lover's Gifts XLIII: Dying, You Have Left Behind Dying, you have left behind you the great sadness of the Eternal In my life. You have painted my thought’s horizon with the sunset Colours of your departure, leaving a track of tears across the Earth to love’s heaven. Clasped in your dear arms, life and death United in me in a marriage bond. I […]...
14. Promise This When You be Dying Promise This When You be Dying Some shall summon Me Mine belong Your latest Sighing Mine to Belt Your Eye Not with Coins though they be Minted From an Emperor’s Hand Be my lips the only Buckle Your low Eyes demand Mine to stay when all have wandered To devise once more If the Life […]...
15. 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, […]...
16. The Philosopher, the Young Man, and his Statue A Fond Athenian Mother brought A Sculptor to indulge her Thought, And carve her Only Son; Who to such strange perfection wrought, That every Eye the Statue caught Nor ought was left undone. A youthful Smile adorn’d the Face, The polish gave that Smile a Grace; And through the Marble reigns (Which well the Artist’s […]...
17. Careless Philosopher's Soliloquy I rise when I please, when I please I lie down, Nor seek, what I care not a rush for, renown; The rattle called wealth I have learnt to despise, Nor aim to be either important or wise. Let women & children & children-like men Pursue the false trollop the world has called fame. Who […]...
18. Remorse For Intemperate Speech I ranted to the knave and fool, But outgrew that school, Would transform the part, Fit audience found, but cannot rule My fanatic heart. I sought my betters: though in each Fine manners, liberal speech, Turn hatred into sport, Nothing said or done can reach My fanatic heart. Out of Ireland have we come. Great […]...
19. I fear a Man of frugal Speech I fear a Man of frugal Speech I fear a Silent Man Haranguer I can overtake Or Babbler entertain But He who weigheth While the Rest Expend their furthest pound Of this Man I am wary I fear that He is Grand...
20. Speech is one symptom of Affection Speech is one symptom of Affection And Silence one The perfectest communication Is heard of none Exists and its indorsement Is had within Behold, said the Apostle, Yet had not seen!...
21. Wisdom of Hafiz: the Philosopher Takes to Racing My son, if you go to the races to battle with Ikey and Mo, Remember, it’s seldom the pigeon can pick out the eye of the crow; Remember, they live by the business; remember, my son, and go slow. If ever an owner should tell you, “Back mine” don’t you be such a flat. He […]...
22. Of Silken Speech and Specious Shoe Of Silken Speech and Specious Shoe A Traitor is the Bee His service to the newest Grace Present continually His Suit a chance His Troth a Term Protracted as the Breeze Continual Ban propoundeth He Continual Divorce....
23. This Chasm, Sweet, upon my life This Chasm, Sweet, upon my life I mention it to you, When Sunrise through a fissure drop The Day must follow too. If we demur, its gaping sides Disclose as ’twere a Tomb Ourself am lying straight wherein The Favorite of Doom. When it has just contained a Life Then, Darling, it will close And […]...
24. TO HIS DYING BROTHER, MASTER WILLIAM HERRICK Life of my life, take not so soon thy flight, But stay the time till we have bade good-night. Thou hast both wind and tide with thee; thy way As soon dispatch’d is by the night as day. Let us not then so rudely henceforth go Till we have wept, kiss’d, sigh’d, shook hands, or […]...
25. The Dying Words Of Stonewall Jackson “Order A. P. Hill to prepare for battle.” “Tell Major Hawks to advance the Commissary train.” “Let us cross the river and rest in the shade.” The stars of Night contain the glittering Day And rain his glory down with sweeter grace Upon the dark World’s grand, enchanted face All loth to turn away. And […]...
26. Severer Service of myself Severer Service of myself I hastened to demand To fill the awful Vacuum Your life had left behind I worried Nature with my Wheels When Hers had ceased to run When she had put away Her Work My own had just begun. I strove to weary Brain and Bone To harass to fatigue The glittering […]...
27. On The Death Of A Fair Infant Dying Of A Cough I O fairest flower no sooner blown but blasted, Soft silken Primrose fading timelesslie, Summers chief honour if thou hadst outlasted Bleak winters force that made thy blossome drie; For he being amorous on that lovely die That did thy cheek envermeil, thought to kiss But kill’d alas, and then bewayl’d his fatal bliss. II […]...
28. At leisure is the Soul At leisure is the Soul That gets a Staggering Blow The Width of Life before it spreads Without a thing to do It begs you give it Work But just the placing Pins Or humblest Patchwork Children do To Help its Vacant Hands...
29. I've seen a Dying Eye I’ve seen a Dying Eye Run round and round a Room In search of Something as it seemed Then Cloudier become And then obscure with Fog And then be soldered down Without disclosing what it be ‘Twere blessed to have seen...
30. Those dying then Those dying then, Knew where they went They went to God’s Right Hand That Hand is amputated now And God cannot be found The abdication of Belief Makes the Behavior small Better an ignis fatuus Than no illume at all...
31. The Child Dying Unfriendly friendly universe, I pack your stars into my purse, And bid you so farewell. That I can leave you, quite go out, Go out, go out beyond all doubt, My father says, is the miracle. You are so great, and I so small: I am nothing, you are all: Being nothing, I can take […]...
32. To An Athlete Dying Young The time you won your town the race We chaired you through the market-place; Man and boy stood cheering by, And home we brought you shoulder-high. To-day, the road all runners come, Shoulder-high we bring you home, And set you at your threshold down, Townsman of a stiller town. Smart lad, to slip betimes away […]...
33. The Dying Of Pere Pierre “. . . with two other priests; the same night he died, And was buried by the shores of the lake that bears his name.” Chronicle. “Nay, grieve not that ye can no honour give To these poor bones that presently must be But carrion; since I have sought to live Upon God’s earth, as […]...
34. O Living Always-Always Dying O LIVING always-always dying! O the burials of me, past and present! O me, while I stride ahead, material, visible, imperious as ever! O me, what I was for years, now dead, (I lament not-I am content;) O to disengage myself from those corpses of me, which I turn and look at, where I cast […]...
35. To Laura (Mystery Of Reminiscence) Who and what gave to me the wish to woo thee Still, lip to lip, to cling for aye unto thee? Who made thy glances to my soul the link Who bade me burn thy very breath to drink My life in thine to sink? As from the conqueror’s unresisted glaive, Flies, without strife subdued, […]...
36. 'Tis not that Dying hurts us so ‘Tis not that Dying hurts us so ‘Tis Living hurts us more But Dying is a different way A Kind behind the Door The Southern Custom of the Bird That ere the Frosts are due Accepts a better Latitude We are the Birds that stay. The Shrivers round Farmers’ doors For whose reluctant Crumb We […]...
37. Dying! To be afraid of thee Dying! To be afraid of thee One must to thine Artillery Have left exposed a Friend Than thine old Arrow is a Shot Delivered straighter to the Heart The leaving Love behind. Not for itself, the Dust is shy, But, enemy, Beloved be Thy Batteries divorce. Fight sternly in a Dying eye Two Armies, Love […]...
38. Not all die early, dying young Not all die early, dying young Maturity of Fate Is consummated equally In Ages, or a Night A Hoary Boy, I’ve known to drop Whole statured by the side Of Junior of Fourscore ’twas Act Not Period that died....
39. Wolfe demanded during dying Wolfe demanded during dying “Which obtain the Day”? “General, the British” “Easy” Answered Wolfe “to die” Montcalm, his opposing Spirit Rendered with a smile “Sweet” said he “my own Surrender Liberty’s beguile”...
40. The Dying need but little, Dear The Dying need but little, Dear, A Glass of Water’s all, A Flower’s unobtrusive Face To punctuate the Wall, A Fan, perhaps, a Friend’s Regret And Certainty that one No color in the Rainbow Perceive, when you are gone....