To A Friend Whose Work Has Come To Nothing

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1. It is easy to work when the soul is at play It is easy to work when the soul is at play But when the soul is in pain The hearing him put his playthings up Makes work difficult then It is simple, to ache in the Bone, or the Rind But Gimlets among the nerve Mangle daintier terribler Like a Panter in the Glove...
2. To A Friend Whose Work Has Come To Triumph Consider Icarus, pasting those sticky wintgs on, Testing that strange little tug at his shoulder blade, And think of that first flawless moment over the lawn Of the labyrinth. Think of the difference it made! There below are the trees, as awkward as camels; And here are the shocked starlings pumping past And think of […]...
3. Work chapter VII Then a ploughman said, “Speak to us of Work.” And he answered, saying: You work that you may keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth. For to be idle is to become a stranger unto the seasons, and to step out of life’s procession, that marches in majesty and proud submission […]...
4. Peace Ah, that Time could touch a form That could show what Homer’s age Bred to be a hero’s wage. ‘Were not all her life but storm Would not painters paint a form Of such noble lines,’ I said, ‘Such a delicate high head, All that sternness amid charm, All that sweetness amid strength?’ Ah, but […]...
5. Work And Contemplation The woman singeth at her spinning-wheel A pleasant chant, ballad or barcarole; She thinketh of her song, upon the whole, Far more than of her flax; and yet the reel Is full, and artfully her fingers feel With quick adjustment, provident control, The lines too subtly twisted to unroll Out to a perfect thread. I […]...
6. A Friend Sends Her Perfumed Carriage A friend sends her perfumed carriage And high-bred horses to fetch me. I decline the invitation of My old poetry and wine companion. I remember the happy days in the lost capital. We took our ease in the woman’s quarters. The Feast of Lanterns was elaborately celebrated – Folded pendants, emerald hairpins, brocaded girdles, New […]...
7. Work Let me but do my work from day to day, In field or forest, at the desk or loom, In roaring market-place or tranquil room; Let me but find it in my heart to say, When vagrant wishes beckon me astray, “This is my work; my blessing, not my doom; “Of all who live, I […]...
8. Woman Work I’ve got the children to tend The clothes to mend The floor to mop The food to shop Then the chicken to fry The baby to dry I got company to feed The garden to weed I’ve got shirts to press The tots to dress The can to be cut I gotta clean up this […]...
9. What Work Is We stand in the rain in a long line Waiting at Ford Highland Park. For work. You know what work is if you’re Old enough to read this you know what Work is, although you may not do it. Forget you. This is about waiting, Shifting from one foot to another. Feeling the light rain […]...
10. The Day's Work We now, held in captivity, Spring to our bondage nor grieve See now, how it is blesseder, Brothers, to give than receive! Keep trust, wherefore we were made, Paying the debt that we owe; For a clean thrust, and the shear of the blade, Will carry us where would go. The Ship that Found Herself. […]...
11. If anybody's friend be dead If anybody’s friend be dead It’s sharpest of the theme The thinking how they walked alive At such and such a time Their costume, of a Sunday, Some manner of the Hair A prank nobody knew but them Lost, in the Sepulchre How warm, they were, on such a day, You almost feel the date […]...
12. The White Room The obvious is difficult To prove. Many prefer The hidden. I did, too. I listened to the trees. They had a secret Which they were about to Make known to me And then didn’t. Summer came. Each tree On my street had its own Scheherazade. My nights Were a part of their wild Storytelling. We […]...
13. Sonnet V: Those Hours, That With Gentle Work Did Frame Those hours, that with gentle work did frame The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell, Will play the tyrants to the very same And that unfair which fairly doth excel; For never-resting time leads summer on To hideous winter, and confounds him there; Sap checked with frost, and lusty leaves quite gone, Beauty o’er-snowed […]...
14. Sonnet 5: Those hours, that with gentle work did frame Those hours, that with gentle work did frame The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell, Will play the tyrants to the very same And that unfair which fairly doth excel; For never-resting Time leads summer on To hideous winter and confounds him there, Sap checked with frost and lusty leaves quite gone, Beauty o’ersnowed […]...
15. The Has-Been A STONE face higher than six horses stood five thousand Years gazing at the world seeming to clutch a secret. A boy passes and throws a niggerhead that chips off the End of the nose from the stone face; he lets fly a Mud ball that spatters the right eye and cheek of the Old […]...
16. Work Gangs BOX cars run by a mile long. And I wonder what they say to each other When they stop a mile long on a sidetrack. Maybe their chatter goes: I came from Fargo with a load of wheat up to the danger line. I came from Omaha with a load of shorthorns and they splintered […]...
17. In Memoriam A. H. H.: 118. Contemplate all this work of Tim Contemplate all this work of Time, The giant labouring in his youth; Nor dream of human love and truth, As dying Nature’s earth and lime; But trust that those we call the dead Are breathers of an ampler day For ever nobler ends. They say, The solid earth whereon we tread In tracts of fluent […]...
18. Work and Play The swallow of summer, she toils all the summer, A blue-dark knot of glittering voltage, A whiplash swimmer, a fish of the air. But the serpent of cars that crawls through the dust In shimmering exhaust Searching to slake Its fever in ocean Will play and be idle or else it will bust. The swallow […]...
19. 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!...
20. HIS AGE:DEDICATED TO HIS PECULIAR FRIEND, MR JOHN WICKES, UNDER THE NAME OFPOSTUMUS Ah, Posthumus! our years hence fly And leave no sound: nor piety, Or prayers, or vow Can keep the wrinkle from the brow; But we must on, As fate does lead or draw us; none, None, Posthumus, could e’er decline The doom of cruel Proserpine. The pleasing wife, the house, the ground Must all be […]...
21. Stanzas to a Friend AH! think no more that Life’s delusive joys, Can charm my thoughts from FRIENDSHIP’S dearer claim; Or wound a heart, that scarce a wish employs, For age to censure, or discretion blame. Tir’d of the world, my weary mind recoils From splendid scenes, and transitory joys; From fell Ambition’s false and fruitless toils, From hope […]...
22. To A Friend Who Sent Me Some Roses As late I rambled in the happy fields, What time the skylark shakes the tremulous dew From his lush clover covert;-when anew Adventurous knights take up their dinted shields; I saw the sweetest flower wild nature yields, A fresh-blown musk-rose; ’twas the first that threw Its sweets upon the summer: graceful it grew As is […]...
23. The Tree I stood still and was a tree amid the wood, Knowing the truth of things unseen before; Of Daphne and the laurel bow And that god-feasting couple old That grew elm-oak amid the wold. ‘Twas not until the gods had been Kindly entreated, and been brought within Unto the hearth of their heart’s home That […]...
24. I Now, O Friend, Whom Noiselessly The Snows I NOW, O friend, whom noiselessly the snows Settle around, and whose small chamber grows Dusk as the sloping window takes its load: * * * * * The kindly hill, as to complete our hap, Has ta’en us in the shelter of her lap; Well sheltered in our slender grove of trees And ring […]...
25. Inscriptions for a Friend's House THE HOUSE The cornerstone in Truth is laid, The guardian walls of Honour made, The roof of Faith is built above, The fire upon the hearth is Love: Though rains descend and loud winds call, This happy house shall never fall. THE DOORSTEAD The lintel low enough to keep out pomp and pride: The threshold […]...
26. To A Friend Going Blind Today, because I couldn’t find the shortcut through, I had to walk this town’s entire inner Perimeter to find Where the medieval walls break open In an eighteenth century Arch. The yellow valley flickered on and off Through cracks and the gaps For guns. Bruna is teaching me To cut a pattern. Saturdays we buy […]...
27. My friend attacks my friend! My friend attacks my friend! Oh Battle picturesque! Then I turn Soldier too, And he turns Satirist! How martial is this place! Had I a mighty gun I think I’d shoot the human race And then to glory run!...
28. On the Religious Memory of Mrs. Catherine Thomson, my Christian Friend, Deceased Dec. 16, 1646 When Faith and Love, which parted from thee never, Had ripened thy just soul to dwell with God, Meekly thou didst resign this earthly load Of death, called life, which us from life doth sever. Thy works, and alms, and all thy good endeavour, Stayed not behind, nor in the grave were trod; But, as […]...
29. Transformations (service resettlement courses at studio fronceri – west wales) And the swords came in their varying degrees Of shininess and sharpness – some never Having lost their pristine feel – others with blunt Tips and broken blades – a few so steeped in blood A dried rustiness still stained them – and those wilted At […]...
30. To A Friend Concerning Several Ladies You know there is not much That I desire, a few chrysanthemums Half lying on the grass, yellow And brown and white, the Talk of a few people, the trees, An expanse of dried leaves perhaps With ditches among them. But there comes Between me and these things A letter Or even a look-well placed, […]...
31. On A Political Prisoner She that but little patience knew, From childhood on, had now so much A grey gull lost its fear and flew Down to her cell and there alit, And there endured her fingers’ touch And from her fingers ate its bit. Did she in touching that lone wing Recall the years before her mind Became […]...
32. A Friend's Illness Sickness brought me this Thought, in that scale of his: Why should I be dismayed Though flame had burned the whole World, as it were a coal, Now I have seen it weighed Against a soul?...
33. A PARANAETICALL, OR ADVISIVE VERSETO HIS FRIEND, MR JOHN WICKS Is this a life, to break thy sleep, To rise as soon as day doth peep? To tire thy patient ox or ass By noon, and let thy good days pass, Not knowing this, that Jove decrees Some mirth, t’ adulce man’s miseries? No; ’tis a life to have thine oil Without extortion from thy […]...
34. A Dead Friend I. Gone, O gentle heart and true, Friend of hopes foregone, Hopes and hopeful days with you Gone? Days of old that shone Saw what none shall see anew, When we gazed thereon. Soul as clear as sunlit dew, Why so soon pass on, Forth from all we loved and knew Gone? II. Friend of […]...
35. Mrs. Sibley The secret of the stars, gravitation. The secret of the earth, layers of rock. The secret of the soil, to receive seed. The secret of the seed, the germ. The secret of man, the sower. The secret of woman, the soil. My secret: Under a mound that you shall never find....
36. Work And Joy Each day I live I thank the Lord I do the work I love; And in it find a rich reward, All price and praise above. For few may do the work they love, The fond unique employ, That fits them as a hand a glove, And gives them joy. Oh gentlefolk, do you and […]...
37. The Hinterland You speak to me, but does your speech With truest truth your thought convey? I listen to your words and each Is what I wait to hear you say. The pattern that your lips reveal, How does it measure with your mind? What undertones do you conceal? Your smile is sweet – but what’s behind? […]...
38. Do You Want Affidavits? THERE’S a hole in the bottom of the sea. Do you want affidavits? There’s a man in the moon with money for you. Do you want affidavits? There are ten dancing girls in a sea-chamber off Nantucket waiting for you. There are tall candles in Timbuctoo burning penance for you. There are-anything else? Speak now-for […]...
39. Work I caught rumours of some internal hearing Then you appeared with tears squeezing your eyes, Hands scrunched up like a child’s, rice paper skin. That work mates complained was a big surprise As you were office sunshine, shafted no-one, And turned your quick mind to the broadest cause. But there you were, a whisper finished…gone, […]...
40. The Lover Pleads With His Friend For Old Friends Though you are in your shining days, Voices among the crowd And new friends busy with your praise, Be not unkind or proud, But think about old friends the most: Time’s bitter flood will rise, Your beauty perish and be lost For all eyes but these eyes....