Church And State

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1. The Church-Bell As I was lying in my bed I heard the church-bell ring; Before one solemn word was said A bird began to sing. I heard a dog begin to bark And a bold crowing cock; The bell, between the cold and dark, Tolled. It was five o’clock. The church-bell tolled, and the bird sang, A […]...
2. Diary of a Church Mouse Here among long-discarded cassocks, Damp stools, and half-split open hassocks, Here where the vicar never looks I nibble through old service books. Lean and alone I spend my days Behind this Church of England baize. I share my dark forgotten room With two oil-lamps and half a broom. The cleaner never bothers me, So here […]...
3. Some keep the Sabbath going to Church Some keep the Sabbath going to Church I keep it, staying at Home With a Bobolink for a Chorister And an Orchard, for a Dome Some keep the Sabbath in Surplice I just wear my Wings And instead of tolling the Bell, for Church, Our little Sexton sings. God preaches, a noted Clergyman And the […]...
4. Jacke-On-Both-Sides I hold as fayth What Rome’s Church sayth Where the King’s head, That flock’s misled Where th’ Altar’s drest That People’s blest Who shuns the Masse Hee’s but an Asse Who Charity preach They Heav’n soone reach On Fayth t’rely, ‘Tis heresy What England’s Church allows My Conscience disavowes; That Church can have no seame; […]...
5. In Church I love the church: its labara, Its silver vessels, its candleholders, The lights, the ikons, the pulpit. Whenever I go there, into a church of the Greeks, With its aroma of incense, Its liturgical chanting and harmony, The majestic presence of the priests, Dazzling in their ornate vestments, The solemn rhythm of their gestures- My […]...
6. Christmas party at the South Danbury Church December twenty-first We gather at the white Church festooned Red and green, the tree flashing Green-red lights beside the altar. After the children of Sunday School Recite Scripture, sing songs, And scrape out solos, They retire to dress for the finale, To perform the pageant Again: Mary and Joseph kneeling Cradleside, Three Kings, Shepherds and […]...
7. The Bishop Orders His Tomb At Saint Praxed's Church Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity! Draw round my bed: is Anselm keeping back? Nephews sons mine ah God, I know not! Well She, men would have to be your mother once, Old Gandolf envied me, so fair she was! What’s done is done, and she is dead beside, Dead long ago, and I am Bishop […]...
8. The Church On Comiaken Hill for Sydney Pettit The lines are keen against today’s bad sky About to rain. We’re white and understand Why Indians sold butter for the funds To build this church. Four hens and a rooster Huddle on the porch. We are dark And know why no one climbed to pray. The priest Who did his best […]...
9. Modern Love XIX: No State Is Enviable No state is enviable. To the luck alone Of some few favoured men I would put claim. I bleed, but her who wounds I will not blame. Have I not felt her heart as ’twere my own Beat thro’ me? could I hurt her? heaven and hell! But I could hurt her cruelly! Can I […]...
10. Neighbours My neighbour has a field of wheat And I a rood of vine; And he will give me bread to eat, And I will give him wine. And so we are a jolly pair, Contentedly unwed, Singing with supper as we share Red wine and crusty bread. Now venison is mighty meat And so is […]...
11. A Boy in Church “Gabble-gabble,… brethren,… gabble-gabble!” My window frames forest and heather. I hardly hear the tuneful babble, Not knowing nor much caring whether The text is praise or exhortation, Prayer or thanksgiving, or damnation. Outside it blows wetter and wetter, The tossing trees never stay still. I shift my elbows to catch better The full round sweep […]...
12. I Didn't Go To Church Today I didn’t go to church today, I trust the Lord to understand. The surf was swirling blue and white, The children swirling on the sand. He knows, He knows how brief my stay, How brief this spell of summer weather, He knows when I am said and done We’ll have plenty of time together....
13. MEN MIND NO STATE IN SICKNESS That flow of gallants which approach To kiss thy hand from out the coach; That fleet of lackeys which do run Before thy swift postilion; Those strong-hoof’d mules, which we behold Rein’d in with purple, pearl, and gold, And shed with silver, prove to be The drawers of the axle-tree; Thy wife, thy children, and […]...
14. Kallundborg Church ( From The Tent on the Beach) “Tie stille, barn min! Imorgen kommer Fin, Fa’er din, Og gi’er dich Esbern Snares öine og hjerte at lege med!” Zealand Rhyme. “BUILD at Kallundborg by the sea A church as stately as church may be, And there shalt thou wed my daughter fair,” Said the Lord of Nesvek to Esbern Snare. And the Baron […]...
15. The Church-Builder The church flings forth a battled shade Over the moon-blanched sward: The church; my gift; whereto I paid My all in hand and hoard; Lavished my gains With stintless pains To glorify the Lord. I squared the broad foundations in Of ashlared masonry; I moulded mullions thick and thin, Hewed fillet and ogee; I circleted […]...
16. Church Going Once I am sure there’s nothing going on I step inside, letting the door thud shut. Another church: matting, seats, and stone, And little books; sprawlings of flowers, cut For Sunday, brownish now; some brass and stuff Up at the holy end; the small neat organ; And a tense, musty, unignorable silence, Brewed God knows […]...
17. At The Smithville Methodist Church It was supposed to be Arts & Crafts for a week, But when she came home With the “Jesus Saves” button, we knew what art Was up, what ancient craft. She liked her little friends. She liked the songs They sang when they weren’t Twisting and folding paper into dolls. What could be so bad? […]...
18. The World State Oh, how I love Humanity, With love so pure and pringlish, And how I hate the horrid French, Who never will be English! The International Idea, The largest and the clearest, Is welding all the nations now, Except the one that’s nearest. This compromise has long been known, This scheme of partial pardons, In ethical […]...
19. Dream Song 57: In a state of chortle sin once he reflected In a state of chortle sin—once he reflected, Swilling tomato juice—live I, and did More than my thirstier years. To Hell then will it maul me? for good talk, And gripe of retail loss? I dare say not. I don’t thínk there’s that place Save sullen here, wherefrom she flies tonight Retrieving her whole body, […]...
20. Sonnet 124: If my dear love were but the child of state If my dear love were but the child of state, It might for Fortune’s bastard be unfathered, As subject to Time’s love or to Time’s hate, Weeds among weeds, or flowers with flowers gathered. No, it was builded far from accident; It suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls Under the blow of thralled discontent, […]...
21. Unlyric Love Song It is time to give that-of-myself which I could not at first: To offer you now at last my least and my worst: Minor, absurd preserves, The shell’s end-curves, A document kept at the back of a drawer, A tin hidden under the floor, Recalcitrant prides and hesitations: To pile them carefully in a desparate […]...
22. He came unto His own, and His own received Him not As Christ the Lord was passing by, He came, one night, to a cottage door. He came, a poor man, to the poor; He had no bed whereon to lie. He asked in vain for a crust of bread, Standing there in the frozen blast. The door was locked and bolted fast. ‘Only a beggar!’ […]...
23. The British Church I joy, dear mother, when I view Thy perfect lineaments, and hue Both sweet and bright. Beauty in thee takes up her place, And dates her letters from thy face, When she doth write. A fine aspect in fit array, Neither too mean nor yet too gay, Shows who is best. Outlandish looks may not […]...
24. Church Music Sweetest of sweets, I thank you: when displeasure Did through my body wound my mind, You took me thence, and in your house of pleasure A dainty lodging me assigned. Now I in you without a body move, Rising and falling with your wings: We both together sweetly live and love, Yet say sometimes, “God […]...
25. 289. Song-Awa', Whigs, Awa&#039 Chorus.-Awa’ Whigs, awa’! Awa’ Whigs, awa’! Ye’re but a pack o’ traitor louns, Ye’ll do nae gude at a’. OUR thrissles flourish’d fresh and fair, And bonie bloom’d our roses; But Whigs cam’ like a frost in June, An’ wither’d a’ our posies. Awa’ Whigs, &c. Our ancient crown’s fa’en in the dust- Deil blin’ […]...
26. The Logic Of This State Marking time in pencil strokes across a virgin page And waiting for coincidence of heart-beat and second-hand, Keying to the electronic blips that phase The passing time; visionary states of grace Do not deluge to stupefy a mounting conscience, Prescience would ease the wait and melt The phlegm of apprehension clotted In the membranes of […]...
27. Willard Fluke My wife lost her health, And dwindled until she weighed scarce ninety pounds. Then that woman, whom the men Styled Cleopatra, came along. And we we married ones All broke our vows, myself among the rest. Years passed and one by one Death claimed them all in some hideous form, And I was borne along […]...
28. GARAGE SALE I sold her bed for a song. A song of yearning like an orphan’s. Or the one knives carve into bread. But the un-broken bread Song too. For the song that rivers Sing to the ferryman’s oars. With that dread in it. For a threadbare tune: garroted, Chest-choked, cheap. A sparrow’s, beggar’s, a foghorn’s call. […]...
29. Fata Morgana O sweet illusions of song That tempt me everywhere, In the lonely fields, and the throng Of the crowded thoroughfare! I approach and ye vanish away, I grasp you, and ye are gone; But ever by night and by day, The melody soundeth on. As the weary traveller sees In desert or prairie vast, Blue […]...
30. Litany You are the bread and the knife, The crystal goblet and the wine… – Jacques Crickillon You are the bread and the knife, The crystal goblet and the wine. You are the dew on the morning grass And the burning wheel of the sun. You are the white apron of the baker, And the marsh […]...
31. Elmer Karr What but the love of God could have softened And made forgiving the people of Spoon River Toward me who wronged the bed of Thomas Merritt And murdered him beside? Oh, loving hearts that took me in again When I returned from fourteen years in prison! Oh, helping hands that in the church received me, […]...
32. To The Right Honourable William, Earl Of Dartmouth, His Majesty's Principal Secretary Of The State For North-America HAIL, happy day, when, smiling like the morn, Fair Freedom rose New-England to adorn: The northern clime beneath her genial ray, Dartmouth, congratulates thy blissful sway: Elate with hope her race no longer mourns, Each soul expands, each grateful bosom burns, While in thine hand with pleasure we behold The silken reins, and Freedom’s charms […]...
33. But Not Forgotten I think, no matter where you stray, That I shall go with you a way. Though you may wander sweeter lands, You will not soon forget my hands, Nor yet the way I held my head, Nor all the tremulous things I said. You still will see me, small and white And smiling, in the […]...
34. A Sad State Of Freedom You waste the attention of your eyes, The glittering labour of your hands, And knead the dough enough for dozens of loaves Of which you’ll taste not a morsel; You are free to slave for others You are free to make the rich richer. The moment you’re born They plant around you Mills that grind […]...
35. Knoxville Tennessee I always like summer Best You can eat fresh corn From daddy’s garden And okra And greens And cabbage And lots of Barbeque And buttermilk And homemade ice-cream At the church picnic And listen to Gospel music Outside At the church Homecoming And go to the mountains with Your grandmother And go barefooted And be […]...
36. State's Attorney Fallas I, the scourge-wielder, balance-wrecker, Smiter with whips and swords; I, hater of the breakers of the law; I, legalist, inexorable and bitter, Driving the jury to hang the madman, Barry Holden, Was made as one dead by light too bright for eyes, And woke to face a Truth with bloody brow: Steel forceps fumbled by […]...
37. Sunt Leones The lions who ate the Christians on the sands of the arena By indulging native appetites played was now been seen a Not entirely negligible part In consolidating at the very start The position of the Early Christian Church. Initiatory rights are always bloody In the lions, it appears From contemporary art, made a study […]...
38. Bacchus Bring me wine, but wine which never grew In the belly of the grape, Or grew on vine whose tap-roots, reaching through Under the Andes to the Cape, Suffer no savor of the earth to scape. Let its grapes the morn salute From a nocturnal root, Which feels the acrid juice Of Styx and Erebus; […]...
39. 410. Epigram-Kirk and State Excisemen YE men of wit and wealth, why all this sneering ‘Gainst poor Excisemen? Give the cause a hearing: What are your Landlord’s rent-rolls?-Taxing ledgers! What Premiers?-What ev’n Monarchs?-Mighty Gaugers! Nay, what are Priests? (those seeming godly wise-men,) What are they, pray, but Spiritual Excisemen!...
40. The Ghost Of Roger Casement O what has made that sudden noise? What on the threshold stands? It never crossed the sea because John Bull and the sea are friends; But this is not the old sea Nor this the old seashore. What gave that roar of mockery, That roar in the sea’s roar? The ghost of Roger Casement Is […]...