The Second Coming

Related poetry:

1. Coming Through The Rye Coming thro’ the rye, poor body, Coming thro’ the rye, She draiglet a’ her petticoatie Coming thro’ the rye. O, Jenny’s a’ wat, poor body; Jenny’s seldom dry; She draiglet a’ her petticoatie Coming thro’ the rye. Gin a body meet a body Coming thro’ the rye, Gin a body kiss a body – Need […]...
2. To Ireland In The Coming Times Know, that I would accounted be True brother of a company That sang, to sweeten Ireland’s wrong, Ballad and story, rann and song; Nor be I any less of them, Because the red-rose-bordered hem Of her, whose history began Before God made the angelic clan, Trails all about the written page. When Time began to […]...
3. Oh You Are Coming Oh you are coming, coming, coming, How will hungry Time put by the hours till then? But why does it anger my heart to long so For one man out of the world of men? Oh I would live in myself only And build my life lightly and still as a dream Are not my […]...
4. Making The Lion For All It's Got A Ballad I came home and found a lion in my room… [First draft of “The Lion for Real” CP 174-175] A lion met America In the road They stared at each other Two figures on the crossroads in the desert. America screamed The lion roared They leaped at each other America desperate to win Fighting with […]...
5. Love's Coming She had looked for his coming as warriors come, With the clash of arms and the bugle’s call; But he came instead with a stealthy tread, Which she did not hear at all. She had thought how his armor would blaze in the sun, As he rode like a prince to claim his bride: In […]...
6. So Long In Coming When shall I hear the thrushes sing, And see their graceful, round throats swelling? When shall I watch the bluebirds bring The straws and twiglets for their dwelling? When shall I hear among the trees The little martial partridge drumming? Oh! Hasten! Sights and sounds that please – The summer is so long in coming. […]...
7. If you were coming in the Fall If you were coming in the Fall, I’d brush the Summer by With half a smile, and half a spurn, As Housewives do, a Fly. If I could see you in a year, I’d wind the months in balls And put them each in separate Drawers, For fear the numbers fuse If only Centuries, delayed, […]...
8. Captivity The lion remembers the forest, The lion in chains; To the bird that is captive a vision Of woodland remains. One strains with his strength at the fetter, In impotent rage; One flutters in flights of a moment, And beats at the cage. If the lion were loosed from the fetter, To wander again; He […]...
9. A first Mute Coming A first Mute Coming In the Stranger’s House A first fair Going When the Bells rejoice A first Exchange of What hath mingled been For Lot exhibited to Faith alone...
10. Jerome Each day brings its toad, each night its dragon. Der heilige Hieronymus his lion is at the zoo Listens, listens. All the long, soft, summer day Dreams affright his couch, the deep boils like a pot. As the sun sets, the last patient rises, Says to him, Father, trembles, turns away. Often, to the lion, […]...
11. It's coming the postponeless Creature It’s coming the postponeless Creature It gains the Block and now it gains the Door Chooses its latch, from all the other fastenings Enters with a “You know Me Sir”? Simple Salute and certain Recognition Bold were it Enemy Brief were it friend Dresses each House in Crape, and Icicle And carries one out of […]...
12. Coming To This We have done what we wanted. We have discarded dreams, preferring the heavy industry Of each other, and we have welcomed grief And called ruin the impossible habit to break. And now we are here. The dinner is ready and we cannot eat. The meat sits in the white lake of its dish. The wine […]...
13. Sense Of Something Coming I am like a flag in the center of open space. I sense ahead the wind which is coming, and must live It through. While the things of the world still do not move: The doors still close softly, and the chimneys are full Of silence, The windows do not rattle yet, and the dust […]...
14. Dream Song 112: My framework is broken, I am coming to an end My framework is broken, I am coming to an end, God send it soon. When I had most to say My tongue clung to the roof I mean of my mouth. It is my Lady’s birthday Which must be honoured, and has been. God send It soon. I now must speak to my disciples, west […]...
15. Some Rainbow coming from the Fair! Some Rainbow coming from the Fair! Some Vision of the World Cashmere I confidently see! Or else a Peacock’s purple Train Feather by feather on the plain Fritters itself away! The dreamy Butterflies bestir! Lethargic pools resume the whir Of last year’s sundered tune! From some old Fortress on the sun Baronial Bees march one […]...
16. Blanche Sweet MOVING-PICTURE ACTRESS (After seeing the reel called “Oil and Water.”) Beauty has a throne-room In our humorous town, Spoiling its hob-goblins, Laughing shadows down. Rank musicians torture Ragtime ballads vile, But we walk serenely Down the odorous aisle. We forgive the squalor And the boom and squeal For the Great Queen flashes From the moving […]...
17. The Lion and the Lamb I saw a Tiger’s golden flank, I saw what food he ate, By a desert spring he drank; The Tiger’s name was Hate. Then I saw a placid Lamb Lying fast asleep; Like a river from its dam Flashed the Tiger’s leap. I saw a lion tawny-red, Terrible and brave; The Tiger’s leap overhead Broke […]...
18. Alfred Lord Tennyson – The Coming Of Arthur Leodogran, the King of Cameliard, Had one fair daughter, and none other child; And she was the fairest of all flesh on earth, Guinevere, and in her his one delight. For many a petty king ere Arthur came Ruled in this isle, and ever waging war Each upon other, wasted all the land; And still […]...
19. First We Take Manhattan They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom For trying to change the system from within I’m coming now, I’m coming to reward them First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin. I’m guided by a signal in the heavens I’m guided by this birthmark on my skin I’m guided by the beauty of our […]...
20. The Glove – A Tale Before his lion-court, Impatient for the sport, King Francis sat one day; The peers of his realm sat around, And in balcony high from the ground Sat the ladies in beauteous array. And when with his finger he beckoned, The gate opened wide in a second, And in, with deliberate tread, Enters a lion dread, […]...
21. For K. J., Leaving and Coming Back August First: it was a year ago We drove down from St.-Guilhem-le-Désert To open the house in St. Guiraud Rented unseen. I’d stay; you’d go; that’s where Our paths diverged. I’d settle down to work, You’d start the next month of your Wanderjahr. I turned the iron key in the rusted lock (it came, like […]...
22. The Little Girl Found All the night in woe, Lyca’s parents go: Over vallies deep. While the desarts weep. Tired and woe-begone. Hoarse with making moan: Arm in arm seven days. They trac’d the desert ways. Seven nights they sleep. Among shadows deep: And dream they see their child Starvdd in desart wild. Pale thro’ pathless ways The fancied […]...
23. Parted Sleepless I listen to the surge and drone And drifting roar of the town’s undertone; Till through quiet falling rain I hear the bells Tolling and chiming their brief tune that tells Day’s midnight end. And from the day that’s over No flashes of delight I can recover; But only dreary winter streets, and faces […]...
24. The Lion The Lion, the Lion, he dwells in the Waste, He has a big head and a very small waist; But his shoulders are stark, and his jaws they are grim, And a good little child will not play with him....
25. I Went Down into the Desert I went down into the desert To meet Elijah- Arisen from the dead. I thought to. find him in an echoing cave; For so my dream had said. I went down into the desert To meet John the Baptist. I walked with feet that bled, Seeking that prophet lean and brown and bold. I spied […]...
26. Sudden Things A storm was coming, that was why it was dark. The wind was blowing the fronds of the palm trees off. They were maples. I looked out the window across the big lawn. The house was huge, full of children and old people. The lion was loose. Either because of the wind, or by malevolent […]...
27. I Have Dreamed of You so Much I have dreamed of you so much that you are no longer real. Is there still time for me to reach your breathing body, to kiss your mouth and make Your dear voice come alive again? I have dreamed of you so much that my arms, grown used to being crossed on my Chest as […]...
28. The Coming Of Wisdom With Time Though leaves are many, the root is one; Through all the lying days of my youth I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun; Now I may wither into the truth....
29. Circe's Grief In the end, I made myself Known to your wife as A god would, in her own house, in Ithaca, a voice Without a body: she Paused in her weaving, her head turning First to the right, then left Though it was hopeless of course To trace that sound to any Objective source: I doubt […]...
30. Coming Close Take this quiet woman, she has been Standing before a polishing wheel For over three hours, and she lacks Twenty minutes before she can take A lunch break. Is she a woman? Consider the arms as they press The long brass tube against the buffer, They are striated along the triceps, The three heads of […]...
31. The Concert No, I will go alone. I will come back when it’s over. Yes, of course I love you. No, it will not be long. Why may you not come with me?- You are too much my lover. You would put yourself Between me and song. If I go alone, Quiet and suavely clothed, My body […]...
32. To a Lady on Her Coming to North-America Indulgent muse! my grov’ling mind inspire, And fill my bosom with celestial fire. See from Jamaica’s fervid shore she moves, Like the fair mother of the blooming loves, When from above the Goddess with her hand Fans the soft breeze, and lights upon the land; Thus she on Neptune’s wat’ry realm reclin’d Appear’d, and thus […]...
33. Moving On In this war we’re always moving, Moving on; When we make a friend another friend has gone; Should a woman’s kindly face Make us welcome for a space, Then it’s boot and saddle, boys, we’re Moving on. In the hospitals they’re moving, Moving on; They’re here today, tomorrow they are gone; When the bravest and […]...
34. The Thought-Fox I imagine this midnight moment’s forest: Something else is alive Beside the clock’s loneliness And this blank page where my fingers move. Through the window I see no star: Something more near Though deeper within darkness Is entering the loneliness: Cold, delicately as the dark snow, A fox’s nose touches twig, leaf; Two eyes serve […]...
35. Elegy For My Father HLF, August 8, 1918-August 22, 1997 “Bequeath us to no earthly shore until Is answered in the vortex of our grave The seal’s wide spindrift gaze towards paradise.” -Hart Crane, “Voyages” “If a lion could talk, we couldn’t understand it” -Ludwig Wittgenstein Under the ocean that stretches out wordlessly Past the long edge of the […]...
36. Democracy It’s coming through a hole in the air, from those nights in Tiananmen Square. It’s coming from the feel that it ain’t exactly real, or it’s real, but it ain’t exactly there. From the wars against disorder, from the sirens night and day, from the fires of the homeless, from the ashes of the gay: […]...
37. The Rat's Tight Schedule A man stumbled on some rat droppings. Hey, who put those there? That’s dangerous, he said. His wife said, those are pieces of a rat. Wait, he’s coming apart, he’s all over the floor, said the Husband. He can’t help it; you don’t think he wants to drop pieces of Himself all over the floor, […]...
38. The Song of the Borderguard The man with his lion under the shed of wars Sheds his belief as if he shed tears. The sound of words waits – A barbarian host at the borderline of sense. The enamord guards desert their posts Harkening to the lion-smell of a poem That rings in their ears. -Dreams, a certain guard said […]...
39. This Beautiful Black Marriage Photograph negative Her black arm: a diving porpoise, Sprawled across the ice-banked pillow. Head: a sheet of falling water. Her legs: icicle branches breaking into light. This woman, Photographed sleeping. The man, Making the photograph in the acid pan of his brain. Sleep stain them both, As if cloudy semen Rubbed shiningly over the surface […]...
40. THE OCCULTATION OF ORION I saw, as in a dream sublime, The balance in the hand of Time. O’er East and West its beam impended; And day, with all its hours of light, Was slowly sinking out of sight, While, opposite, the scale of night Silently with the stars ascended. Like the astrologers of eld, In that bright vision […]...