1991-I

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1. 1991-II The ewes crowd to the mangers; Their bellies widen, sag; Their udders tighten. Soon The little voices cry In morning cold. Soon now The garden must be worked, Laid off in rows, the seed Of life to come brought down Into the dark to rest, Abide awhile alone, And rise. Soon, soon again The cropland […]...
2. For The Future Planting trees early in spring, We make a place for birds to sing In time to come. How do we know? They are singing here now. There is no other guarantee That singing will ever be....
3. MID-DECEMBER A full moon shines Over the morning frost; The lanes are full of late-fallen leaves; Walking across the mulch Is almost as tricky As treading over ice. In town the carol-singers are in Crowding the shopping-mall, While a group of muffled musicians Play by the outside market. This year but two robins On the early […]...
4. TO LEEDS BIG ISSUE SELLERS When I come from the Smoke to visit my son on the ward I see you everywhere: by the station, by the neon sign of ‘Squares’ By every shopping mall. Leeds seems to have more of you than anywhere: How do you stand there for so many hours in freezing winds When most you solicit […]...
5. The Two Streams Behold the rocky wall That down its sloping sides Pours the swift rain-drops, blending, as they fall, In rushing river-tides! Yon stream, whose sources run Turned by a pebble’s edge, Is Athabasca, rolling toward the sun Through the cleft mountain-ledge. The slender rill had strayed, But for the slanting stone, To evening’s ocean, with the […]...
6. A Supermarket In California What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whit – Man, for I walked down the sidestreets under the trees With a headache self-conscious looking at the full moon. In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of Your enumerations! What peaches and what penumbras! Whole fam […]...
7. The Land of Counterpane When I was sick and lay a-bed, I had two pillows at my head, And all my toys beside me lay, To keep me happy all the day. And sometimes for an hour or so I watched my leaden soldiers go, With different uniforms and drills, Among the bed-clothes, through the hills; And sometimes sent […]...
8. Scenic Route For Lucy, who called them “ghost houses.” Someone was always leaving And never coming back. The wooden houses wait like old wives Along this road; they are everywhere, Abandoned, leaning, turning gray. Someone always traded The lonely beauty Of hemlock and stony lakeshore For survival, packed up his life And drove off to the city. […]...
9. No Road Since we agreed to let the road between us Fall to disuse, And bricked our gates up, planted trees to screen us, And turned all time’s eroding agents loose, Silence, and space, and strangers – our neglect Has not had much effect. Leaves drift unswept, perhaps; grass creeps unmown; No other change. So clear it […]...
10. Wimborne minster though there’s not much faith left And very little snow This scene of wimborne minster Still makes its christmas show The building’s warm proportions Its sense of move-me-not Catches this winter pagan On a most forgiving spot Christmas itself unwinds Back to that moment when Mind first let a light in And darkness cried amen […]...
11. An Address to Shakespeare Immortal! William Shakespeare, there’s none can you excel, You have drawn out your characters remarkably well, Which is delightful for to see enacted upon the stage For instance, the love-sick Romeo, or Othello, in a rage; His writings are a treasure, which the world cannot repay, He was the greatest poet of the past or […]...
12. The Flower of Liberty WHAT flower is this that greets the morn, Its hues from Heaven so freshly born? With burning star and flaming band It kindles all the sunset land: Oh tell us what its name may be, Is this the Flower of Liberty? It is the banner of the free, The starry Flower of Liberty! In savage […]...
13. The arrival of spring (cathe waller) on the last day of winter i went to bed Harsh winds rainstorms beating my head Houses trees with a sucked-out look New year flaked from the old one’s hook Then overnight such a change of heart Spring come home with her confectionery cart Hundreds-and-thousands strewn in the breeze Houses sampling them as well as […]...
14. Sweet safe Houses Sweet safe Houses Glad gay Houses Sealed so stately tight Lids of Steel on Lids of Marble Locking Bare feet out Brooks of Plush in Banks of Satin Not so softly fall As the laughter and the whisper From their People Pearl No Bald Death affront their Parlors No Bold Sickness come To deface their […]...
15. Long Distance II Though my mother was already two years dead Dad kept her slippers warming by the gas, Put hot water bottles her side of the bed And still went to renew her transport pass. You couldn’t just drop in. You had to phone. He’d put you off an hour to give him time To clear away […]...
16. There Is a Solemn Wind Tonight There is a solemn wind to-night That sings of solemn rain; The trees that have been quiet so long Flutter and start again. The slender trees, the heavy trees, The fruit trees laden and proud, Lift up their branches to the wind That cries to them so loud. The little bushes and the plants Bow […]...
17. At Bessemer 19 years old and going nowhere, I got a ride to Bessemer and walked The night road toward Birmingham Passing dark groups of men cursing The end of a week like every week. Out of town I found a small grove Of trees, high narrow pines, and I Sat back against the trunk of one […]...
18. Into My Own One of my wishes is that those dark trees, So old and firm they scarcely show the breeze, Were not, as ’twere, the merest mask of gloom, But stretched away unto th eedge of doom. I should not be withheld but that some day Into their vastness I should steal away, Fearless of ever finding […]...
19. My Land and I They have eaten their fill at your tables spread, Like friends since the land was won; And they rise with a cry of “Australia’s dead!” With the wheeze of “Australia’s done!” Oh, the theme is stale, but they tell the tale (How the weak old tale will keep!) Like the crows that croak on a […]...
20. Of The Ever-Changing Agitation In The Air The man held his hands to his heart as he danced. He slacked and swirled. The doorways of the little city Blurred. Something Leaked out, Kindling the doorframes up, Making each entranceway Less true. And darkness gathered Although it does not fall. . . And the little dance, Swinging this human all down the alleyway, […]...
21. The Oven Bird There is a singer everyone has heard, Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird, Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again. He says that leaves are old and that for flowers Mid-summer is to spring as one to ten. He says the early petal-fall is past When pear and cherry bloom went down in […]...
22. Lights Out “Lights out” along the land, “Lights out” upon the sea. The night must put her hiding hand O’er peaceful towns where children sleep, And peaceful ships that darkly creep Across the waves, as if they were not free. The dragons of the air, The hell-hounds of the deep, Lurking and prowling everywhere, Go forth to […]...
23. Liberty Enlightening the World Thou warden of the western gate, above Manhatten Bay, The fogs of doubt that hid thy face are driven clean away: Thine eyes at last look far and clear, thou liftest high thy hand To spread the light of liberty world-wide for every land. No more thou dreamest of a peace reserved alone for thee, […]...
24. Under the Violets HER hands are cold; her face is white; No more her pulses come and go; Her eyes are shut to life and light; Fold the white vesture, snow on snow, And lay her where the violets blow. But not beneath a graven stone, To plead for tears with alien eyes; A slender cross of wood […]...
25. To Mary Wollstonecraft The lilly cheek, the “purple light of love,” The liquid lustre of the melting eye, Mary! of these the Poet sung, for these Did Woman triumph! with no angry frown View this degrading conquest. At that age No MAID OF ARC had snatch’d from coward man The heaven-blest sword of Liberty; thy sex Could boast […]...
26. Death Nor dread nor hope attend A dying animal; A man awaits his end Dreading and hoping all; Many times he died, Many times rose again. A great man in his pride Confronting murderous men Casts derision upon Supersession of breath; He knows death to the bone – Man has created death....
27. The Spring And The Fall In the spring of the year, in the spring of the year, I walked the road beside my dear. The trees were black where the bark was wet. I see them yet, in the spring of the year. He broke me a bough of the blossoming peach That was out of the way and hard […]...
28. The Onset Always the same, when on a fated night At last the gathered snow lets down as white As may be in dark woods, and with a song It shall not make again all winter long Of hissing on the yet uncovered ground, I almost stumble looking up and round, As one who overtaken by the […]...
29. Waves I saw a tiny God Sitting Under a bright blue umbrella That had white tassels And forked ribs of gold. Below him His little world Lay open to the sun. The shadow of His hat Lay upon a city. When he stretched forth His hand A lake became a dark tremble. When he kicked up […]...
30. The Song of the Pilgrims (Halted around the fire by night, after moon-set, they sing this beneath the trees.) What light of unremembered skies Hast thou relumed within our eyes, Thou whom we seek, whom we shall find? . . . A certain odour on the wind, Thy hidden face beyond the west, These things have called us; on a […]...
31. He Remembers Forgotten Beauty When my arms wrap you round I press My heart upon the loveliness That has long faded from the world; The jewelled crowns that kings have hurled In shadowy pools, when armies fled; The love-tales wrought with silken thread By dreaming ladies upon cloth That has made fat the murderous moth; The roses that of […]...
32. A Descriptive Poem on the Silvery Tay Beautiful silvery Tay, With your landscapes, so lovely and gay, Along each side of your waters, to Perth all the way; No other river in the world has got scenery more fine, Only I am told the beautiful Rhine, Near to Wormit Bay, it seems very fine, Where the Railway Bridge is towering above its […]...
33. The Expiration So, so, break off this last lamenting kiss, Which sucks two souls, and vapors both away, Turn thou ghost that way, and let me turn this, And let our selves benight our happiest day, We ask none leave to love; nor will we owe Any, so cheap a death, as saying, Go; Go; and if […]...
34. Ulster The dark eleventh hour Draws on and sees us sold To every evil power We fought against of old. Rebellion, rapine hate Oppression, wrong and greed Are loosed to rule our fate, By England’s act and deed. The Faith in which we stand, The laws we made and guard, Our honour, lives, and land Are […]...
35. A Song of the White Men 1899 Now, this is the cup the White Men drink When they go to right a wrong, And that is the cup of the old world’s hate Cruel and strained and strong. We have drunk that cup and a bitter, bitter cup And tossed the dregs away. But well for the world when the White […]...
36. A Dream of Trees There is a thing in me that dreamed of trees, A quiet house, some green and modest acres A little way from every troubling town, A little way from factories, schools, laments. I would have time, I thought, and time to spare, With only streams and birds for company. To build out of my life […]...
37. Jacob Godbey How did you feel, you libertarians, Who spent your talents rallying noble reasons Around the saloon, as if Liberty Was not to be found anywhere except at the bar Or at a table, guzzling? How did you feel, Ben Pantier, and the rest of you, Who almost stoned me for a tyrant, Garbed as a […]...
38. O Word I Love to Sing O word I love to sing! thou art too tender For all the passions agitating me; For all my bitterness thou art too tender, I cannot pour my red soul into thee. O haunting melody! thou art too slender, Too fragile like a globe of crystal glass; For all my stormy thoughts thou art too […]...
39. Long, too Long, O Land! LONG, too long, O land, Traveling roads all even and peaceful, you learn’d from joys and prosperity only; But now, ah now, to learn from crises of anguish-advancing, grappling with direst fate, and recoiling not; And now to conceive, and show to the world, what your children en-masse really are; (For who except myself has […]...
40. Youth And Beauty I bought a dishmop – Having no daughter – For they had twisted Fine ribbons of shining copper About white twine And made a tousled head Of it, fastened it Upon a turned ash stick Slender at the neck Straight, tall – When tied upright On the brass wallbracket To be a light for me […]...