The house where I was born (02)

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1. The house where I was born (01) I woke up, it was the house where I was born, Sea foam splashed against the rock, Not a single bird, only the wind to open and close the wave, Everywhere on the horizon the smell of ashes, As if the hills were hiding a fire That somewhere else was burning up a universe. I […]...
2. The house where I was born (04) Another time. It was still night. Water slid Silently on the black ground, And I knew that my only task would be To remember, and I laughed, I bent down, I took from the mud A pile of branches and leaves, I lifted up the whole dripping mass In arms I held close to my […]...
3. The house where I was born (03) I woke up, it was the house where I was born, It was night, trees were crowding On all sides around our door, I was alone on the doorstep in the cold wind, No, not alone, for two huge beings Were speaking to each other above me, through me. One, behind, an old woman, stooped, […]...
4. The house where I was born (10) And then life; and once again A house where I was born. Around us The granary above what once had been a church, The gentle play of shadow from the dawn clouds, And in us that smell of the dry straw That had seemed to be waiting for us From the moment the last sack, […]...
5. The house where I was born (07) I remember, it was a morning, in summer, The window was half-open, I drew near, I could see my father at the end of the garden. He was motionless, looking for something, I could not tell what, or where, beyond the world, His body was already bent over, but his gaze Was lifted toward the […]...
6. The house where I was born (09) And then the day came When I heard the extraordinary lines in Keats, The evocation of Ruth “when, sick for home, She stood in tears amid the alien corn.” I did not need to search for the meaning Of these words, For it was in me since childhood, I had only to recognize and to […]...
7. The house where I was born (06) I woke up, but I was travelling, The train had rolled throughout the night, It was now going toward huge clouds That were standing, packed together, down there, Dawn rent from time to time by forks of lightning. I watched the advent of the world In the bushes of the embankment; and all at once […]...
8. The house where I was born (05) In the same dream I am lying in the hollow of a boat, My forehead and eyes against the curved planks Where I can hear the undercurrents Striking the bottom of the boat. All at once, the prow rises up, And I think that we’ve come to the estuary, But I keep my eyes against […]...
9. The house where I was born (08) I open my eyes, yes, it’s the house where I was born, Exactly as it was and nothing more. The same small dining room whose window Gives onto a peach tree that never grows. A man and a woman are seated At this window, facing one another, They are talking, for once. And the child […]...
10. Dream Song 123: Daples my floor the eastern sun, my house faces north Dapples my floor the eastern sun, my house faces north, I have nothing to say except that it dapples my floor And it would dapple me If I lay on that floor, as-well-forthwith I have done, trying well to mount a thought Not carelessly In times forgotten, except by the New York Times Which can’t […]...
11. Upon A House Shaken By The Land Agitation How should the world be luckier if this house, Where passion and precision have been one Time out of mind, became too ruinous To breed the lidleSs eye that loves the sun? And the sweet laughing eagle thoughts that grow Where wings have memory of wings, and all That comes of the best knit to […]...
12. The House with Nobody in It Whenever I walk to Suffern along the Erie track I go by a poor old farmhouse with its shingles broken and black. I suppose I’ve passed it a hundred times, but I always stop for A minute And look at the house, the tragic house, the house with nobody in It. I never have seen […]...
13. The House In The Woods At the back of the houses there is the wood. While there is a leaf of summer left, the wood Makes sounds I can put somewhere in my song, Has paths I can walk, when I wake, to good Or evil: to the cage, to the oven, to the House In the Wood. It is […]...
14. The House Of Dust: Part 02: 07: Two Lovers: Overtones Two lovers, here at the corner, by the steeple, Two lovers blow together like music blowing: And the crowd dissolves about them like a sea. Recurring waves of sound break vaguely about them, They drift from wall to wall, from tree to tree. ‘Well, am I late?’ Upward they look and laugh, They look at […]...
15. The House Of Dust: Part 02: 05: Retrospect Round white clouds roll slowly above the housetops, Over the clear red roofs they flow and pass. A flock of pigeons rises with blue wings flashing, Rises with whistle of wings, hovers an instant, And settles slowly again on the tarnished grass. And one old man looks down from a dusty window And sees the […]...
16. The House Of Dust: Part 03: 08: Coffins: Interlude Wind blows. Snow falls. The great clock in its tower Ticks with reverberant coil and tolls the hour: At the deep sudden stroke the pigeons fly. . . The fine snow flutes the cracks between the flagstones. We close our coats, and hurry, and search the sky. We are like music, each voice of it […]...
17. Everything Lately the wind burns The last leaves and evening Comes too late to be Of use, lately I learned That the year has turned Its face to winter And nothing I say or do Can change anything. So I sleep late and waken Long after the sun has risen In an empty house and walk […]...
18. City Dead-House, The BY the City Dead-House, by the gate, As idly sauntering, wending my way from the clangor, I curious pause-for lo! an outcast form, a poor dead prostitute brought; Her corpse they deposit unclaim’d-it lies on the damp brick pavement; The divine woman, her body-I see the Body-I look on it alone, That house once full […]...
19. House On A Cliff Indoors the tang of a tiny oil lamp. Outdoors The winking signal on the waste of sea. Indoors the sound of the wind. Outdoors the wind. Indoors the locked heart and the lost key. Outdoors the chill, the void, the siren. Indoors The strong man pained to find his red blood cools, While the blind […]...
20. The House Of Dust: Part 01: 07: Midnight; bells toll, and along the cloud-high towers Midnight; bells toll, and along the cloud-high towers The golden lights go out. . . The yellow windows darken, the shades are drawn, In thousands of rooms we sleep, we await the dawn, We lie face down, we dream, We cry aloud with terror, half rise, or seem To stare at the ceiling or walls. […]...
21. My House I have a house I’ve lived in long: I can’t recall my going in. ‘Twere better bartered for a song Ere ruin, rot and rust begin. When it was fresh and fine and fair, I used it with neglect, I fear; But now I husband it with care And cherish it form year to year. […]...
22. TO THE GENIUS OF HIS HOUSE Command the roof, great Genius, and from thence Into this house pour down thy influence, That through each room a golden pipe may run Of living water by thy benizon; Fulfil the larders, and with strength’ning bread Be ever-more these bins replenished. Next, like a bishop consecrate my ground, That lucky fairies here may dance […]...
23. To L. H. B. (1894-1915 ) Last night for the first time since you were dead I walked with you, my brother, in a dream. We were at home again beside the stream Fringed with tall berry bushes, white and red. “Don’t touch them: they are poisonous,” I said. But your hand hovered, and I saw a beam Of strange, bright […]...
24. The Laughter Of Women The laughter of women sets fire To the Halls of Injustice And the false evidence burns To a beautiful white lightness It rattles the Chambers of Congress And forces the windows wide open So the fatuous speeches can fly out The laughter of women wipes the mist From the spectacles of the old; It infects […]...
25. 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 […]...
26. The Native-Born We’ve drunk to the Queen God bless her! We’ve drunk to our mothers’ land; We’ve drunk to our English brother, (But he does not understand); We’ve drunk to the wide creation, And the Cross swings low for the mom, Last toast, and of Obligation, A health to the Native-born! They change their skies above them, […]...
27. This House Which Is Lived In This house which is lived in resounds With the chorus of voices bound in the press Of its generous, unconcealed blessings; Affection is neither distressed nor restrained, Nor caught in the intricate mesh of wicker And wire-ordered veins of its living construction, Contained within gentle, carbon-breathing walls. The halls are hung with wooded reminders that […]...
28. Doom is the House without the Door Doom is the House without the Door ‘Tis entered from the Sun And then the Ladder’s thrown away, Because Escape is done ‘Tis varied by the Dream Of what they do outside Where Squirrels play and Berries die And Hemlocks bow to God...
29. The House Of Dust: Part 01: 05: The snow floats down upon us, mingled with rain The snow floats down upon us, mingled with rain. . . It eddies around pale lilac lamps, and falls Down golden-windowed walls. We were all born of flesh, in a flare of pain, We do not remember the red roots whence we rose, But we know that we rose and walked, that after a while […]...
30. The Harlot's House We caught the tread of dancing feet, We loitered down the moonlit street, And stopped beneath the harlot’s house. Inside, above the din and fray, We heard the loud musicians play The ‘Treues Liebes Herz’ of Strauss. Like strange mechanical grotesques, Making fantastic arabesques, The shadows raced across the blind. We watched the ghostly dancers […]...
31. The River In my first sleep I came to the river And looked down Through the clear water – Only in dream Water so pure, Laced and undulant Lines of flow On its rocky bed Water of life Streaming for ever. A house was there Beside the river And I, arrived, An expected guest About to explore […]...
32. The House Of Dust: Part 03: 02: The Screen Maiden You read-what is it, then that you are reading? What music moves so silently in your mind? Your bright hand turns the page. I watch you from my window, unsuspected: You move in an alien land, a silent age. . . . . . The poet-what was his name-? Tokkei-Tokkei- The poet walked alone in […]...
33. The Robe of Christ (For Cecil Chesterton) At the foot of the Cross on Calvary Three soldiers sat and diced, And one of them was the Devil And he won the Robe of Christ. When the Devil comes in his proper form To the chamber where I dwell, I know him and make the Sign of the Cross Which […]...
34. The House Of Dust: Part 03: 06: Portrait Of One Dead This is the house. On one side there is darkness, On one side there is light. Into the darkness you may lift your lanterns- O, any number-it will still be night. And here are echoing stairs to lead you downward To long sonorous halls. And here is spring forever at these windows, With roses on […]...
35. No man saw awe, nor to his house No man saw awe, nor to his house Admitted he a man Though by his awful residence Has human nature been. Not deeming of his dread abode Till laboring to flee A grasp on comprehension laid Detained vitality. Returning is a different route The Spirit could not show For breathing is the only work To […]...
36. The House Of Dust: Part 03: 03: Haunted Chambers The lamplit page is turned, the dream forgotten; The music changes tone, you wake, remember Deep worlds you lived before,-deep worlds hereafter Of leaf on falling leaf, music on music, Rain and sorrow and wind and dust and laughter. Helen was late and Miriam came too soon. Joseph was dead, his wife and children starving. […]...
37. In Memoriam A. H. H.: 7. Dark house, by which once more I s Dark house, by which once more I stand Here in the long unlovely street, Doors, where my heart was used to beat So quickly, waiting for a hand, A hand that can be clasp’d no more Behold me, for I cannot sleep, And like a guilty thing I creep At earliest morning to the door. […]...
38. The Props assist the House The Props assist the House Until the House is built And then the Props withdraw And adequate, erect, The House support itself And cease to recollect The Auger and the Carpenter Just such a retrospect Hath the perfected Life A past of Plank and Nail And slowness then the Scaffolds drop Affirming it a Soul....
39. The Day Is Gone, And All Its Sweets Are Gone The day is gone, and all its sweets are gone! Sweet voice, sweet lips, soft hand, and softer breast, Warm breath, light whisper, tender semitone, Bright eyes, accomplished shape, and lang’rous waist! Faded the flower and all its budded charms, Faded the sight of beauty from my eyes, Faded the shape of beauty from my […]...
40. Lohengrin Back to the mystic shore beyond the main The mystic craft has sped, and left no trace. Ah, nevermore may she behold his face, Nor touch his hand, nor hear his voice again! With hidden front she crouches; all in vain The proffered balm. A vessel nears the place; They bring her young, lost brother; […]...