Atavism

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1. The Winners What the moral? Who rides may read. When the night is thick and the tracks are blind A friend at a pinch is a friend, indeed, But a fool to wait for the laggard behind. Down to Gehenna or up to the Throne, He travels the fastest who travels alone. White hands cling to the […]...
2. Atavism I was always afraid of Somes’s Pond: Not the little pond, by which the willow stands, Where laughing boys catch alewives in their hands In brown, bright shallows; but the one beyond. There, where the frost makes all the birches burn Yellow as cow-lilies, and the pale sky shines Like a polished shell between black […]...
3. A Ripple Song Once red ripple came to land In the golden sunset burning Lapped against a maiden’s hand, By the ford returning. Dainty foot and gentle breast Here, across, be glad and rest. “Maiden, wait,” the ripplee saith; “Wait awhile, for I am Death!” “Where my lover calls I go Shame it were to treat him coldly […]...
4. I, Whom Apollo Somtime Visited I, WHOM Apollo sometime visited, Or feigned to visit, now, my day being done, Do slumber wholly; nor shall know at all The weariness of changes; nor perceive Immeasurable sands of centuries Drink of the blanching ink, or the loud sound Of generations beat the music down....
5. Dedication In youth I longed to paint The loveliness I saw; And yet by dire constraint I had to study Law. But now all that is past, And I have no regret, For I am free at last Law to forget. To beauty newly born With brush and tube I play; And though my daubs you […]...
6. Ordeal LOVE and pity are pleading with me this hour. What is this voice that stays me forbidding to yield, Offering beauty, love, and immortal power, Æons away in some far-off heavenly field? Though I obey thee, Immortal, my heart is sore. Though love be withdrawn for love it bitterly grieves: Pity withheld in the breast […]...
7. Friend Art thou abroad on this stormy night On thy journey of love, my friend? The sky groans like one in despair. I have no sleep tonight. Ever and again I open my door and look out on The darkness, my friend! I can see nothing before me. I wonder where lies thy path! By what […]...
8. The Red Poppy The great thing Is not having A mind. Feelings: Oh, I have those; they Govern me. I have A lord in heaven Called the sun, and open For him, showing him The fire of my own heart, fire Like his presence. What could such glory be If not a heart? Oh my brothers and sisters, […]...
9. Mother, Among The Dustbins Mother, among the dustbins and the manure I feel the measure of my humanity, an allure As of the presence of God, I am sure In the dustbins, in the manure, in the cat at play, Is the presence of God, in a sure way He moves there. Mother, what do you say? I too […]...
10. A precious mouldering pleasure 'tis A precious mouldering pleasure ’tis To meet an Antique Book In just the Dress his Century wore A privilege I think His venerable Hand to take And warming in our own A passage back or two to make To Times when he was young His quaint opinions to inspect His thought to ascertain On Themes […]...
11. Villanelle of Change Since Persia fell at Marathon, The yellow years have gathered fast: Long centuries have come and gone. And yet (they say) the place will don A phantom fury of the past, Since Persia fell at Marathon; And as of old, when Helicon Trembled and swayed with rapture vast (Long centuries have come and gone), This […]...
12. A Jewish Cemetery In Germany On a little hill amid fertile fields lies a small cemetery, A Jewish cemetery behind a rusty gate, hidden by shrubs, Abandoned and forgotten. Neither the sound of prayer Nor the voice of lamentation is heard there For the dead praise not the Lord. Only the voices of our children ring out, seeking graves and […]...
13. Saints In our family, there were two saints, My aunt and my grandmother. But their lives were different. My grandmother’s was tranquil, even at the end. She was like a person walking in calm water; For some reason The sea couldn’t bring itself to hurt her. When my aunt took the same path, The waves broke […]...
14. 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, […]...
15. When Bryan Speaks When Bryan speaks, the town’s a hive. From miles around, the autos drive. The sparrow chirps. The rooster crows. The place is kicking and alive. When Bryan speaks, the bunting glows. The raw procession onward flows. The small dogs bark. The children laugh A wind of springtime fancy blows. When Bryan speaks, the wigwam shakes. […]...
16. 30 Cents, Two Transfers, Love Thinking hard about you I got on the bus And paid 30 cents car fare And asked the driver for two transfers Before discovering That I was Alone....
17. Morning You know how it is waking From a dream certain you can fly And that someone, long gone, returned And you are filled with longing, For a brief moment, to drive off The road and feel nothing Or to see the loved one and feel Everything. Perhaps one morning, Taking brush to hair you’ll wonder […]...
18. The Fly Little Fly Thy summers play, My thoughtless hand Has brush’d away. Am not I A fly like thee? Or art not thou A man like me? For I dance And drink & sing; Till some blind hand Shall brush my wing. If thought is life And strength & breath; And the want Of thought is […]...
19. Into My Own One of my wishes is that those dark trees, So old and firm they scarcely show the breeze, Were not, as ’twere, the merest mask of gloom, But stretched away unto th eedge of doom. I should not be withheld but that some day Into their vastness I should steal away, Fearless of ever finding […]...
20. You Who Never Arrived You who never arrived In my arms, Beloved, who were lost From the start, I don’t even know what songs Would please you. I have given up trying To recognize you in the surging wave of the next Moment. All the immense Images in me the far-off, deeply-felt landscape, Cities, towers, and bridges, and unsuspected […]...
21. Where Lies The Land To Which The Ship Would Go Where lies the land to which the ship would go? Far, far ahead, is all her seamen know. And where the land she travels from? Away, Far, far behind, is all that they can say. On sunny noons upon the deck’s smooth face, Linked arm in arm, how pleasant here to pace! Or, o’er the […]...
22. Patches Mother focused with a frown The part of me where I sit down. Said she: “Your pants are wearing through; Let me sew on a patch for you.” And so she did, of azure blue. My britches were of sober grey, And when I went to school next day, The fellows said: “Excuse our smile: […]...
23. On the Building of Springfield Let not our town be large, remembering That little Athens was the Muses’ home, That Oxford rules the heart of London still, That Florence gave the Renaissance to Rome. Record it for the grandson of your son – A city is not builded in a day: Our little town cannot complete her soul Till countless […]...
24. In Memory of a Child I The angels guide him now, And watch his curly head, And lead him in their games, The little boy we led. II He cannot come to harm, He knows more than we know, His light is brighter far Than daytime here below. III His path leads on and on, Through pleasant lawns and flowers, […]...
25. Hymn To Eros O Eros, silently smiling one, hear me. Let the shadow of thy wings Brush me. Let thy presence Enfold me, as if darkness Were swandown. Let me see that darkness Lamp in hand, This country become The other country Sacred to desire. Drowsy god, Slow the wheels of my thought So that I listen only […]...
26. There is a Zone whose even Years There is a Zone whose even Years No Solstice interrupt Whose Sun constructs perpetual Noon Whose perfect Seasons wait Whose Summer set in Summer, till The Centuries of June And Centuries of August cease And Consciousness is Noon....
27. Impression De Voyage The sea was sapphire coloured, and the sky Burned like a heated opal through the air; We hoisted sail; the wind was blowing fair For the blue lands that to the eastward lie. From the steep prow I marked with quickening eye Zakynthos, every olive grove and creek, Ithaca’s cliff, Lycaon’s snowy peak, And all […]...
28. The God Of Common-Sense My Daddy used to wallop me for every small offense: “Its takes a hair-brush back,” said he, “to teach kids common-sense.” And still to-day I scarce can look a hair-brush in the face. Without I want in sympathy to pat a tender place. For Dad declared with unction: “Spare the brush and spoil the brat.” […]...
29. Fading All in the beautiful Autumn weather One thought lingers with me and stays; Death and winter are coming together, Though both are veiled by the amber haze I look on the forest of royal splendour! I look on the face in my quiet room; A face all beautiful, sad and tender, And both are stamped […]...
30. THE KISS: A DIALOGUE 1 Among thy fancies, tell me this, What is the thing we call a kiss? 2 I shall resolve ye what it is: It is a creature born and bred Between the lips, all cherry-red, By love and warm desires fed, CHOR. And makes more soft the bridal bed. 2 It is an active flame, […]...
31. Noon Walk On The Asylum Lawn The summer sun ray Shifts through a suspicious tree. Though I walk through the valley of the shadow It sucks the air And looks around for me. The grass speaks. I hear green chanting all day. I will fear no evil, fear no evil The blades extend And reach my way. The sky breaks. It […]...
32. In A Gondola The moth’s kiss, first! Kiss me as if you made believe You were not sure, this eve, How my face, your flower, had pursed Its petals up; so, here and there You brush it, till I grow aware Who wants me, and wide open I burst. The bee’s kiss, now! Kiss me as if you […]...
33. Not In A Silver Casket Cool With Pearls Not in a silver casket cool with pearls Or rich with red corundum or with blue, Locked, and the key withheld, as other girls Have given their loves, I give my love to you; Not in a lovers’-knot, not in a ring Worked in such fashion, and the legend plain- Semper fidelis, where a secret […]...
34. On Going Back To The Street After Viewing An Art Show they talk down through The centuries to us, And this we need more and more, The statues and paintings In midnight age As we go along Holding dead hands. And we would say Rather than delude the knowing: A damn good show, But hardly enough for a horse to eat, And out on the sunshine […]...
35. Nor We Of Her To Him He said no word of her to us Nor we of her to him, But oh it saddened us to see How wan he grew and thin. We said: she eats him day and night And draws the blood from him, We did not know but said we thought This was why he grew thin. […]...
36. Patience Taught By Nature ‘O DREARY life,’ we cry, ‘ O dreary life! ‘ And still the generations of the birds Sing through our sighing, and the flocks and herds Serenely live while we are keeping strife With Heaven’s true purpose in us, as a knife Against which we may struggle! Ocean girds Unslackened the dry land, savannah-swards Unweary […]...
37. Psalm 29 Storm and thunder. Give to the Lord, ye sons of fame, Give to {he Lord renown and power, Ascribe due honors to his name, And his eternal might adore. The Lord proclaims his power aloud Over the ocean and the land; His voice divides the wat’ry cloud, And lightnings blaze at his command. He speaks, […]...
38. Duty Surviving Self-Love Unchanged within, to see all changed without, Is a blank lot and hard to bear, no doubt. Yet why at others’ Wanings should’st thou fret? Then only might’st thou feel a just regret, Hadst thou withheld thy love or hid thy light In selfish forethought of neglect and slight. O wiselier then, from feeble yearnings […]...
39. Not the Pilot NOT the pilot has charged himself to bring his ship into port, though beaten back, and many times baffled; Not the path-finder, penetrating inland, weary and long, By deserts parch’d, snows-chill’d, rivers wet, perseveres till he reaches his destination, More than I have charged myself, heeded or unheeded, to compose a free march for These […]...
40. Cigarettes And Whiskey And Wild, Wild Women (from a song) Perhaps I was born kneeling, Born coughing on the long winter, Born expecting the kiss of mercy, Born with a passion for quickness And yet, as things progressed, I learned early about the stockade Or taken out, the fume of the enema. By two or three I learned not to kneel, Not […]...