Are You Content?

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1. HIS CONTENT IN THE COUNTRY HERE, Here I live with what my board Can with the smallest cost afford; Though ne’er so mean the viands be, They well content my Prue and me: Or pea or bean, or wort or beet, Whatever comes, Content makes sweet. Here we rejoice, because no rent We pay for our poor tenement; Wherein we […]...
2. Content, To My Dearest Lucasia Content, the false World’s best disguise, The search and faction of the Wise, Is so abstruse and hid in night, That, like that Fairy Red-cross Knight, Who trech’rous Falshood for clear Truth had got, Men think they have it when they have it not. For Courts Content would gladly own, But she ne’re dwelt about […]...
3. Happy Is England! I Could Be Content Happy is England! I could be content To see no other verdure than its own; To feel no other breezes than are blown Through its tall woods with high romances blent; Yet do I sometimes feel a languishment For skies Italian, and an inward groan To sit upon an Alp as on a throne, And […]...
4. Middleton's Rouseabout Tall and freckled and sandy, Face of a country lout; This was the picture of Andy, Middleton’s Rouseabout. Type of a coming nation, In the land of cattle and sheep, Worked on Middleton’s station, ‘Pound a week and his keep.’ On Middleton’s wide dominions Plied the stockwhip and shears; Hadn’t any opinions, Hadn’t any ‘idears’. […]...
5. She's happy, with a new Content She’s happy, with a new Content That feels to her like Sacrament She’s busy with an altered Care As just apprenticed to the Air She’s tearful if she weep at all For blissful Causes Most of all That Heaven permit so meek as her To such a Fate to Minister....
6. Under Saturn Do not because this day I have grown saturnine Imagine that lost love, inseparable from my thought Because I have no other youth, can make me pine; For how should I forget the wisdom that you brought, The comfort that you made? Although my wits have gone On a fantastic ride, my horse’s flanks are […]...
7. The Garret Come, let us pity those who are better off than we are. Come, my friend, and remember that the rich have butlers and no friends, And we have friends and no butlers. Come, let us pity the married and the unmarried. Dawn enters with little feet like a gilded Pavlova And I am near my […]...
8. Forget Forget the suffering You caused others. Forget the suffering Others caused you. The waters run and run, Springs sparkle and are done, You walk the earth you are forgetting. Sometimes you hear a distant refrain. What does it mean, you ask, who is singing? A childlike sun grows warm. A grandson and a great-grandson are […]...
9. The Idea of Ancestry Taped to the wall of my cell are 47 pictures: 47 black Faces: my father, mother, grandmothers (1 dead), grand- Fathers (both dead), brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, Cousins (1st and 2nd), nieces, and nephews. They stare Across the space at me sprawling on my bunk. I know Their dark eyes, they know mine. I know […]...
10. In Memory Of Alfred Pollexfen Five-and-twenty years have gone Since old William pollexfen Laid his strong bones down in death By his wife Elizabeth In the grey stone tomb he made. And after twenty years they laid In that tomb by him and her His son George, the astrologer; And Masons drove from miles away To scatter the Acacia spray […]...
11. Imanuel Ehrenhardt I began with Sir William Hamilton’s lectures. Then studied Dugald Stewart; And then John Locke on the Understanding, And then Descartes, Fichte and Schelling, Kant and then Schopenhauer Books I borrowed from old Judge Somers. All read with rapturous industry Hoping it was reserved to me To grasp the tail of the ultimate secret, And […]...
12. Content WHO are exiles? As for me Where beneath the diamond dome Lies the light on hill or tree, There my palace is and home. Who are lonely lacking care? Here the winds are living, press Close on bosom, lips and hair- Well I know their soft caress. Sad or fain no more to live? I […]...
13. Easter Morning I have a life that did not become, That turned aside and stopped, Astonished: I hold it in me like a pregnancy or As on my lap a child Not to grow old but dwell on It is to his grave I most Frequently return and return To ask what is wrong, what was Wrong, […]...
14. The Old Man's Comforts and how he gained them You are old, Father William, the young man cried, The few locks which are left you are grey; You are hale, Father William, a hearty old man, Now tell me the reason I pray. In the days of my youth, Father William replied, I remember’d that youth would fly fast, And abused not my health […]...
15. Salvage GUNS on the battle lines have pounded now a year Between Brussels and Paris. And, William Morris, when I read your old chapter on The great arches and naves and little whimsical Corners of the Churches of Northern France Brr-rr! I’m glad you’re a dead man, William Morris, I’m glad You’re down in the damp […]...
16. The Man from Goondiwindi, Q I This is the sunburnt bushman who Came down from Goondiwindi, Q. II This is the Push from Waterloo That spotted the sunburnt bushman who Came down from Goondiwindi, Q. III These are the wealthy uncles two, Part of the Push from Waterloo That spotted the sunburnt bushman who Came down from Goondiwindi, Q. IV […]...
17. Mirage How is it that, being gone, you fill my days, And all the long nights are made glad by thee? No loneliness is this, nor misery, But great content that these should be the ways Whereby the Fancy, dreaming as she strays, Makes bright and present what she would would be. And who shall say […]...
18. William Rufus The reign of King William the Second Were an uninteresting affair There’s only two things that’s remembered of him That’s his sudden death and his red hair. He got his red hair from his Mother, The crown that he wore were his Dad’s, And the arrow that came at the end of his reign Were […]...
19. Exchanging Hats Unfunny uncles who insist In trying on a lady’s hat, oh, even if the joke falls flat, We share your slight transvestite twist In spite of our embarrassment. Costume and custom are complex. The headgear of the other sex Inspires us to experiment. Anandrous aunts, who, at the beach With paper plates upon your laps, […]...
20. Familiarity Familiarity some claim Can breed contempt, So from it let it be your aim To be exempt. Let no one exercise his brawn To slap your back, Lest he forget your name is John, And call you Jack. To those who crash your private pew Be sour as krout; Don’t let them see the real […]...
21. The Riddle of the World Know then thyself, presume not God to scan The proper study of Mankind is Man. Placed on this isthmus of a middle state, A Being darkly wise, and rudely great: With too much knowledge for the Sceptic side, With too much weakness for the Stoic’s pride, He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest; […]...
22. Ode For Mrs. William Settle In Lake Forest, a suburb of Chicago, A woman sits at her desk to write Me a letter. She holds a photograph Of me up to the light, one taken 17 years ago in a high school class In Providence. She sighs, and the sigh Smells of mouthwash and tobacco. If she were writing by […]...
23. Heredity How you became a poet’s a mystery! Wherever did you get your talent from? I say: I had two uncles, Joe and Harry- One was a stammerer, the other dumb....
24. Request to a Year If the year is meditating a suitable gift, I should like it to be the attitude Of my great – great – grandmother, Legendary devotee of the arts, Who having eight children And little opportunity for painting pictures, Sat one day on a high rock Beside a river in Switzerland And from a difficult distance […]...
25. The Judgement The Judge looked down, his face was grim, He scratched his ear; The gangster’s moll looked up at him With eyes of fear. She thought: ‘This guy in velvet gown, With balding pate, Who now on me is looking down, Can seal my fate.’ The Judge thought: ‘Fifteen years or ten I might decree. Just […]...
26. The Snowman in the Yard (For Thomas Augustine Daly) The Judge’s house has a splendid porch, with pillars And steps of stone, And the Judge has a lovely flowering hedge that came from across The seas; In the Hales’ garage you could put my house and everything I own, And the Hales have a lawn like an emerald and a […]...
27. The Dead-Beat He dropped, more sullenly than wearily, Lay stupid like a cod, heavy like meat, And none of us could kick him to his feet; Just blinked at my revolver, blearily; Didn’t appear to know a war was on, Or see the blasted trench at which he stared. “I’ll do ’em in,” he whined, “If this […]...
28. Sonnet Reversed Hand trembling towards hand; the amazing lights Of heart and eye. They stood on supreme heights. Ah, the delirious weeks of honeymoon! Soon they returned, and, after strange adventures, Settled at Balham by the end of June. Their money was in Can. Pacs. B. Debentures, And in Antofagastas. Still he went Cityward daily; still she […]...
29. Psalm 82 God the supreme Governor; or, Magistrates warned. Among th’ assemblies of the great A greater Ruler takes his seat; The God of heav’n, as Judge, surveys Those gods on earth, and all their ways. Why will ye, then, frame wicked laws? Or why support th’ unrighteous cause? When will ye once defend the poor, That […]...
30. Hexameters William, my teacher, my friend! dear William and dear Dorothea! Smooth out the folds of my letter, and place it on desk or on table ; Place it on table or desk ; and your right hands loosely half-closing, Gently sustain them in air, and extending the digit didactic, Rest it a moment on each […]...
31. The Death Of Autumn When reeds are dead and a straw to thatch the marshes, And feathered pampas-grass rides into the wind Like aged warriors westward, tragic, thinned Of half their tribe, and over the flattened rushes, Stripped of its secret, open, stark and bleak, Blackens afar the half-forgotten creek,- Then leans on me the weight of the year, […]...
32. Psalm 75 Power and government from God alone. [Applied to the glorious Revolution by King William, or the happy accession of King George to the throne.] To thee, most Holy and most High, To thee we bring our thankful praise; Thy works declare thy name is nigh, Thy works of wonder and of grace. Britain was doomed […]...
33. Inscription 06 – For A Monument In The New For This is the place where William’s kingly power Did from their poor and peaceful homes expel, Unfriended, desolate, and shelterless, The habitants of all the fertile track Far as these wilds extend. He levell’d down Their little cottages, he bade their fields Lie barren, so that o’er the forest waste He might most royally pursue […]...
34. An Acre Of Grass Picture and book remain, An acre of green grass For air and exercise, Now strength of body goes; Midnight, an old house Where nothing stirs but a mouse. My temptation is quiet. Here at life’s end Neither loose imagination, Nor the mill of the mind Consuming its rag and bonc, Can make the truth known. […]...
35. Light Hearted William Light hearted William twirled His November moustaches And, half dressed, looked From the bedroom window Upon the spring weather. Heigh-ya! sighed he gaily Leaning out to see Up and down the street Where a heavy sunlight Lay beyond some blue shadows. Into the room he drew His head again and laughed To himself quietly Twirling […]...
36. You Remember Ellen You remember Ellen, our hamlet’s pride, How meekly she bless’d her humble lot, When the stranger, William, had made her his bride, And love was the light of their lowly cot. Together they toil’d through winds and rains, Till William, at length, in sadness said, “We must seek our fortune on other plains;” Then, sighing, […]...
37. Violet De Vere You’ve heard of Violet de Vere, strip-teaser of renown, Whose sitting-base out-faired the face of any girl in town; Well, she was haled before the Bench for breachin’ of the Peace, Which signifies araisin’ Cain, an’ beatin’ up the police. So there she stood before the Court of ruddy Judge McGraw Whom folks called Old […]...
38. Sandhill People I TOOK away three pictures. One was a white gull forming a half-mile arch from the pines toward Waukegan. One was a whistle in the little sandhills, a bird crying either to the sunset gone or the dusk come. One was three spotted waterbirds, zigzagging, cutting scrolls and jags, writing a bird Sanscrit of wing […]...
39. To Be Carved On A Stone At Thoor Ballylee I, the poet William Yeats, With old mill boards and sea-green slates, And smithy work from the Gort forge, Restored this tower for my wife George; And may these characters remain When all is ruin once again....
40. Lord Lundy Who was too Freely Moved to Tears, and thereby ruined his Political Career Lord Lundy from his earliest years Was far too freely moved to Tears. For instance if his Mother said, “Lundy! It’s time to go to Bed!” He bellowed like a Little Turk. Or if his father Lord Dunquerque Said “Hi!” in a […]...