The Choice

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1. The Choice Life, come to me in no pale guise and ashen, I care not for thee in such placid fashion! I would share widely, Life, In all thy joy and strife, Would sound thy deeps and reach thy highest passion, With thy delight and with thy suffering rife. Whether I bide with thee in cot or […]...
2. A Choice They please me not these solemn songs That hint of sermons covered up. ‘T is true the world should heed its wrongs, But in a poem let me sup, Not simples brewed to cure or ease Humanity’s confessed disease, But the spirit-wine of a singing line, Or a dew-drop in a honey cup!...
3. The Choice He’d have given me rolling lands, Houses of marble, and billowing farms, Pearls, to trickle between my hands, Smoldering rubies, to circle my arms. You – you’d only a lilting song, Only a melody, happy and high, You were sudden and swift and strong- Never a thought for another had I. He’d have given me […]...
4. The Choice Some inherit manly beauty, Some come into worldly wealth; Some have lofty sense of duty, Others boast exultant health. Though the pick may be confusing, Health, wealth, charm or character, If you had the chance of choosing Which would you prefer? I’m not sold on body beauty, Though health I appreciate; Character and sense of […]...
5. Growing Old In some summers there is so much fruit, The peasants decide not to reap any more. Not having reaped you, oh my days, My nights, have I let the slow flames Of your lovely produce fall into ashes? My nights, my days, you have borne so much! All your branches have retained the gesture Of […]...
6. Remorse THE HORSE’S name was Remorse. There were people said, “Gee, what a nag!” And they were Edgar Allan Poe bugs and so They called him Remorse. When he was a gelding He flashed his heels to other ponies And threw dust in the noses of other ponies And won his first race and his second […]...
7. Remorse is Memory awake Remorse is Memory awake Her Parties all astir A Presence of Departed Acts At window and at Door Its Past set down before the Soul And lighted with a Match Perusal to facilitate And help Belief to stretch Remorse is cureless the Disease Not even God can heal For ’tis His institution and The Adequate […]...
8. Vacillation I Between extremities Man runs his course; A brand, or flaming breath. Comes to destroy All those antinomies Of day and night; The body calls it death, The heart remorse. But if these be right What is joy? II A tree there is that from its topmost bough Is half all glittering flame and half […]...
9. Love's Reality I walk, I trust, with open eyes; I’ve travelled half my worldly course; And in the way behind me lies Much vanity and some remorse; I’ve lived to feel how pride may part Spirits, tho’ matched like hand and glove; I’ve blushed for love’s abode, the heart; But have not disbelieved in love; Nor unto […]...
10. Man And The Echo Man. In a cleft that’s christened Alt Under broken stone I halt At the bottom of a pit That broad noon has never lit, And shout a secret to the stone. All that I have said and done, Now that I am old and ill, Turns into a question till I lie awake night after […]...
11. An Answer If all the year was summer-time, And all the aim of life Was just to lilt on like a rhyme – Then I would be your wife. If all the days were August days, And crowned with golden weather, How happy then through green-clad ways We two could stray together! If all the nights were […]...
12. In Three Days I. So, I shall see her in three days And just one night, but nights are short, Then two long hours, and that is morn. See how I come, unchanged, unworn! Feel, where my life broke off from thine, How fresh the splinters keep and fine, – Only a touch and we combine! II. Too […]...
13. Psalm 39 part 2 v.4-7 C. M. The vanity of man as mortal. Teach me the measure of my days, Thou Maker of my frame; I would survey life’s narrow space, And learn how frail I am. A span is all that we can boast, An inch or two of time; Man is but vanity and dust In all […]...
14. Hard Luck I left the course, and by my side There walked a ruined tout A hungry creature, evil-eyed, Who poured this story out. “You see,” he said, “there came a swell To Kensington today, And, if I picked the winners well, A crown at least he’s pay. “I picked three winners straight, I did; I filled […]...
15. Endless Time Time is endless in thy hands, my lord. There is none to count thy minutes. Days and nights pass and ages bloom and fade like flowers. Thou knowest how to wait. Thy centuries follow each other perfecting a small wild flower. We have no time to lose, And having no time we must scramble for […]...
16. 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 […]...
17. Halsted Street Car COME you, cartoonists, Hang on a strap with me here At seven o’clock in the morning On a Halsted street car. Take your pencils And draw these faces. Try with your pencils for these crooked faces, That pig-sticker in one corner his mouth That overall factory girl her loose cheeks. Find for your pencils A […]...
18. 16-bit Intel 8088 chip with an Apple Macintosh You can’t run Radio Shack programs In its disc drive. Nor can a Commodore 64 Drive read a file You have created on an IBM Personal Computer. Both Kaypro and Osborne computers use The CP/M operating system But can’t read each other’s Handwriting For they format (write On) discs in different […]...
19. 530. Song-Yonder pomp of costly fashion MARK yonder pomp of costly fashion Round the wealthy, titled bride: But when compar’d with real passion, Poor is all that princely pride. Mark yonder, &c. (four lines repeated). What are the showy treasures, What are the noisy pleasures? The gay, gaudy glare of vanity and art: The polish’d jewels’ blaze May draw the wond’ring […]...
20. The Three Monuments They hold their public meetings where Our most renowned patriots stand, One among the birds of the air, A stumpier on either hand; And all the popular statesmen say That purity built up the State And after kept it from decay; And let all base ambition be, For intellect would make us proud And pride […]...
21. Low at my problem bending Low at my problem bending, Another problem comes Larger than mine Serener Involving statelier sums. I check my busy pencil, My figures file away. Wherefore, my baffled fingers They perplexity?...
22. Double Ballade on the Nothingness of Things The big teetotum twirls, And epochs wax and wane As chance subsides or swirls; But of the loss and gain The sum is always plain. Read on the mighty pall, The weed of funeral That covers praise and blame, The – isms and the – anities, Magnificence and shame: “O Vanity of Vanities!” The Fates […]...
23. The Gardener XLII: O Mad, Superbly Drunk O mad, superbly drunk; If you kick open your doors and Play the fool in public; If you empty your bag in a night, And snap your fingers at prudence; If you walk in curious paths and Play with useless things; Reck not rhyme or reason; If unfurling your sails before the Storm you snap […]...
24. 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 […]...
25. The Red Blaze is the Morning The Red Blaze is the Morning The Violet is Noon The Yellow Day is falling And after that is none But Miles of Sparks at Evening Reveal the Width that burned The Territory Argent that Never yet consumed...
26. Wild Nights Wild Nights! Wild Nights Wild Nights! Were I with thee Wild Nights should be Our luxury! Futile the Winds To a Heart in port Done with the Compass Done with the Chart! Rowing in Eden Ah, the Sea! Might I but moor Tonight In Thee!...
27. They Will Say OF my city the worst that men will ever say is this: You took little children away from the sun and the dew, And the glimmers that played in the grass under the great sky, And the reckless rain; you put them between walls To work, broken and smothered, for bread and wages, To eat […]...
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. A House upon the Height A House upon the Height That Wagon never reached No Dead, were ever carried down No Peddler’s Cart approached Whose Chimney never smoked Whose Windows Night and Morn Caught Sunrise first and Sunset last Then held an Empty Pane Whose fate Conjecture knew No other neighbor did And what it was we never lisped Because […]...
30. Sonnet 43: When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see, For all the day they view things unrespected; But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee, And darkly bright, are bright in dark directed. Then thou, whose shadow shadows doth make bright, How would thy shadow’s form, form happy show To the clear […]...
31. Sonnet XLIII When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see, For all the day they view things unrespected; But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee, And darkly bright are bright in dark directed. Then thou, whose shadow shadows doth make bright, How would thy shadow’s form form happy show To the clear […]...
32. How many schemes may die How many schemes may die In one short Afternoon Entirely unknown To those they most concern The man that was not lost Because by accident He varied by a Ribbon’s width From his accustomed route The Love that would not try Because beside the Door It must be competitions Some unsuspecting Horse was tied Surveying […]...
33. A spring poem from bion One asketh: “Tell me, Myrson, tell me true: What’s the season pleaseth you? Is it summer suits you best, When from harvest toil we rest? Is it autumn with its glory Of all surfeited desires? Is it winter, when with story And with song we hug our fires? Or is spring most fair to you […]...
34. This Life Which Seems So Fair This Life, which seems so fair, Is like a bubble blown up in the air By sporting children’s breath, Who chase it everywhere And strive who can most motion it bequeath. And though it sometimes seem of its own might Like to an eye of gold to be fixed there, And firm to hover in […]...
35. The Men We Might Have Been When God’s wrath-cloud is o’er me, Affrighting heart and mind; When days seem dark before me, And days seem black behind; Those friends who think they know me Who deem their insight keen They ne’er forget to show me The man I might have been. He’s rich and independent, Or rising fast to fame; His […]...
36. Summer Nights Lamoni, Iowa The factory siren tells workers time to go home Tells them the evening has begun. When living with the tall man Whom I didn’t love, I would wander The streets, dreaming of Italy. Trekking the handful of avenues With him, he would say look there Between pink cobblestones, There’s manure like mortar. The […]...
37. The Remains I empty myself of the names of others. I empty my pockets. I empty my shoes and leave them beside the road. At night I turn back the clocks; I open the family album and look at myself as a boy. What good does it do? The hours have done their job. I say my […]...
38. Houses Of Dreams You took my empty dreams And filled them every one With tenderness and nobleness, April and the sun. The old empty dreams Where my thoughts would throng Are far too full of happiness To even hold a song. Oh, the empty dreams were dim And the empty dreams were wide, They were sweet and shadowy […]...
39. The Protest I say ‘e isn’t Remorse! ‘Ow do I know? Saw ‘im on Riccarton course Two year ago! Think I’d forget any ‘orse? Course ‘e’s The Crow! Bumper Maginnis and I After a “go”, Walkin’ our ‘orses to dry, I says “Hello! What’s that old black goin’ by?” Bumper says “Oh! That’s an old cuddy of […]...
40. Somewhere upon the general Earth Somewhere upon the general Earth Itself exist Today The Magic passive but extant That consecrated me Indifferent Seasons doubtless play Where I for right to be Would pay each Atom that I am But Immortality Reserving that but just to prove Another Date of Thee Oh God of Width, do not for us Curtail Eternity!...