Fly oft away and vanish if I sleep,
Nor to my fowling-net will one return:
Is the thing ever ours we cannot keep?-
But their souls go not out into the deep.
What matter if with changed song they come back?
Old strength nor yet fresh beauty shall they lack.
2.
Gloriously wasteful, O my Lord, art thou!
Sunset faints after sunset into the night,
Splendorously dying from thy window-sill-
For ever. Sad our poverty doth bow
Before the riches of thy making might:
Sweep from thy space thy systems at thy will-
In thee the sun sets every sunset still.
3.
And in the perfect time, O perfect God,
When we are in our home, our natal home,
When joy shall carry every sacred load,
And from its life and peace no heart shall roam,
What if thou make us able to make like thee-
To light with moons, to clothe with greenery,
To hang gold sunsets o’er a rose and purple sea!
4.
Then to his neighbour one may call out, ‘Come!
Brother, come hither-I would show you a thing;’
And lo, a vision of his imagining,
Informed of thought which else had rested dumb,
Before the neighbour’s truth-delighted eyes,
In the great æther of existence rise,
And two hearts each to each the closer cling!
5.
We make, but thou art the creating core.
Whatever thing I dream, invent, or feel,
Thou art the heart of it, the atmosphere.
Thou art inside all love man ever bore;
Yea, the love itself, whatever thing be dear.
Man calls his dog, he follows at his heel,
Because thou first art love, self-caused, essential, mere.
6.
This day be with me, Lord, when I go forth,
Be nearer to me than I am able to ask.
In merriment, in converse, or in task,
Walking the street, listening to men of worth,
Or greeting such as only talk and bask,
Be thy thought still my waiting soul around,
And if He come, I shall be watching found.
7.
What if, writing, I always seem to leave
Some better thing, or better way, behind,
Why should I therefore fret at all, or grieve!
The worse I drop, that I the better find;
The best is only in thy perfect mind.
Fallen threads I will not search for-I will weave.
Who makes the mill-wheel backward strike to grind!
8.
Be with me, Lord. Keep me beyond all prayers:
For more than all my prayers my need of thee,
And thou beyond all need, all unknown cares;
What the heart’s dear imagination dares,
Thou dost transcend in measureless majesty
All prayers in one-my God, be unto me
Thy own eternal self, absolutely.
9.
Where should the unknown treasures of the truth
Lie, but there whence the truth comes out the most-
In the Son of man, folded in love and ruth?
Fair shore we see, fair ocean; but behind
Lie infinite reaches bathing many a coast-
The human thought of the eternal mind,
Pulsed by a living tide, blown by a living wind.
10.
Thou, healthful Father, art the Ancient of Days,
And Jesus is the eternal youth of thee.
Our old age is the scorching of the bush
By life’s indwelling, incorruptible blaze.
O Life, burn at this feeble shell of me,
Till I the sore singed garment off shall push,
Flap out my Psyche wings, and to thee rush.
11.
But shall I then rush to thee like a dart?
Or lie long hours æonian yet betwixt
This hunger in me, and the Father’s heart?-
It shall be good, how ever, and not ill;
Of things and thoughts even now thou art my next;
Sole neighbour, and no space between, thou art-
And yet art drawing nearer, nearer still.
12.
Therefore, my brothers, therefore, sisters dear,
However I, troubled or selfish, fail
In tenderness, or grace, or service clear,
I every moment draw to you more near;
God in us from our hearts veil after veil
Keeps lifting, till we see with his own sight,
And all together run in unity’s delight.
13.
I love thee, Lord, for very greed of love-
Not of the precious streams that towards me move,
But of the indwelling, outgoing, fountain store.
Than mine, oh, many an ignorant heart loves more!
Therefore the more, with Mary at thy feet,
I must sit worshipping-that, in my core,
Thy words may fan to a flame the low primeval heat.
14.
Oh my beloved, gone to heaven from me!
I would be rich in love to heap you with love;
I long to love you, sweet ones, perfectly-
Like God, who sees no spanning vault above,
No earth below, and feels no circling air-
Infinitely, no boundary anywhere.
I am a beast until I love as God doth love.
15.
Ah, say not, ’tis but perfect self I want
But if it were, that self is fit to live
Whose perfectness is still itself to scant,
Which never longs to have, but still to give.
A self I must have, or not be at all:
Love, give me a self self-giving-or let me fall
To endless darkness back, and free me from life’s thrall.
16.
‘Back,’ said I! Whither back? How to the dark?
From no dark came I, but the depths of light;
From the sun-heart I came, of love a spark:
What should I do but love with all my might?
To die of love severe and pure and stark,
Were scarcely loss; to lord a loveless height-
That were a living death, damnation’s positive night.
17.
But love is life. To die of love is then
The only pass to higher life than this.
All love is death to loving, living men;
All deaths are leaps across clefts to the abyss.
Our life is the broken current, Lord, of thine,
Flashing from morn to morn with conscious shine-
Then first by willing death self-made, then life divine.
18.
I love you, my sweet children, who are gone
Into another mansion; but I know
I love you not as I shall love you yet.
I love you, sweet dead children; there are none
In the land to which ye vanished to go,
Whose hearts more truly on your hearts are set-
Yet should I die of grief to love you only so.
19.
‘I am but as a beast before thee, Lord.’-
Great poet-king, I thank thee for the word.-
Leave not thy son half-made in beastly guise-
Less than a man, with more than human cries-
An unshaped thing in which thyself cries out!
Finish me, Father; now I am but a doubt;
Oh! make thy moaning thing for joy to leap and shout.
20.
Let my soul talk to thee in ordered words,
O king of kings, O lord of only lords!-
When I am thinking thee within my heart,
From the broken reflex be not far apart.
The troubled water, dim with upstirred soil,
Makes not the image which it yet can spoil:-
Come nearer, Lord, and smooth the wrinkled coil.
21.
O Lord, when I do think of my departed,
I think of thee who art the death of parting;
Of him who crying Father breathed his last,
Then radiant from the sepulchre upstarted.-
Even then, I think, thy hands and feet kept smarting:
With us the bitterness of death is past,
But by the feet he still doth hold us fast.
22.
Therefore our hands thy feet do hold as fast.
We pray not to be spared the sorest pang,
But only-be thou with us to the last.
Let not our heart be troubled at the clang
Of hammer and nails, nor dread the spear’s keen fang,
Nor the ghast sickening that comes of pain,
Nor yet the last clutch of the banished brain.
23.
Lord, pity us: we have no making power;
Then give us making will, adopting thine.
Make, make, and make us; temper, and refine.
Be in us patience-neither to start nor cower.
Christ, if thou be not with us-not by sign,
But presence, actual as the wounds that bleed-
We shall not bear it, but shall die indeed.
24.
O Christ, have pity on all men when they come
Unto the border haunted of dismay;
When that they know not draweth very near-
The other thing, the opposite of day,
Formless and ghastly, sick, and gaping-dumb,
Before which even love doth lose his cheer:
O radiant Christ, remember then thy fear.
25.
Be by me, Lord, this day. Thou know’st I mean-
Lord, make me mind thee. I herewith forestall
My own forgetfulness, when I stoop to glean
The corn of earth-which yet thy hand lets fall.
Be for me then against myself. Oh lean
Over me then when I invert my cup;
Take me, if by the hair, and lift me up.
26.
Lord of essential life, help me to die.
To will to die is one with highest life,
The mightiest act that to Will’s hand doth lie-
Born of God’s essence, and of man’s hard strife:
God, give me strength my evil self to kill,
And die into the heaven of thy pure will.-
Then shall this body’s death be very tolerable.
27.
As to our mothers came help in our birth-
Not lost in lifing us, but saved and blest-
Self bearing self, although right sorely prest,
Shall nothing lose, but die and be at rest
In life eternal, beyond all care and dearth.
God-born then truly, a man does no more ill,
Perfectly loves, and has whate’er he will.
28.
As our dear animals do suffer less
Because their pain spreads neither right nor left,
Lost in oblivion and foresightlessness-
Our suffering sore by faith shall be bereft
Of all dismay, and every weak excess.
His presence shall be better in our pain,
Than even self-absence to the weaker brain.
29.
‘Father, let this cup pass.’ He prayed-was heard.
What cup was it that passed away from him?
Sure not the death-cup, now filled to the brim!
There was no quailing in the awful word;
He still was king of kings, of lords the lord:-
He feared lest, in the suffering waste and grim,
His faith might grow too faint and sickly dim.
30.
Thy mind, my master, I will dare explore;
What we are told, that we are meant to know.
Into thy soul I search yet more and more,
Led by the lamp of my desire and woe.
If thee, my Lord, I may not understand,
I am a wanderer in a houseless land,
A weeping thirst by hot winds ever fanned.
31.
Therefore I look again-and think I see
That, when at last he did cry out, ‘My God,
Why hast thou me forsaken?’ straight man’s rod
Was turned aside; for, that same moment, he
Cried ‘Father!’ and gave up will and breath and spirit
Into his hands whose all he did inherit-
Delivered, glorified eternally.
Too happy, happy tree,
Thy branches ne’er remember
Their green felicity:
The north cannot undo them
With a sleety whistle through them;
Nor frozen thawings glue them
From budding at the prime.
2.
In drear-nighted December,
Too happy, happy brook,
Thy bubblings ne’er remember
Apollo’s summer look;
But with a sweet forgetting,
They stay their crystal fretting,
Never, never petting
About the frozen time.
3.
Ah! would ’twere so with many
A gentle girl and boy!
But were there ever any
Writhed not at passed joy?
The feel of not to feel it,
When there is none to heal it
Nor numbed sense to steel it,
Was never said in rhyme.
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Barum, Barum, Barum, Barum, Barum, Barum, Baree,
You’re booked to ride your capping race to-day at Coulterlee,
You’re booked to ride Vindictive, for all the world to see,
To keep him straight, to keep him first, and win the run for me.
Barum, Barum,’ etc.
2
She clasped her new-born baby, poor Lorraine, Lorraine, Lorree,
‘I cannot ride Vindictive, as any man might see,
And I will not ride Vindictive, with this baby on my knee;
He’s killed a boy, he’s killed a man, and why must he kill me?’
3
‘Unless you ride Vindictive, Lorraine, Lorraine, Lorree,
Unless you ride Vindictive to-day at Coulterlee,
And land him safe across the brook, and win the blank for me,
It’s you may keep your baby, for you’ll get no keep from me.’
4
‘That husbands could be cruel,’ said Lorraine, Lorraine, Lorree,
‘That husbands could be cruel, I have known for seasons three;
But oh! to ride Vindictive while a baby cries for me,
And be killed across a fence at last for all the world to see!’
5
She mastered young Vindictive-Oh! the gallant lass was she,
And kept him straight and won the race as near as near could be;
But he killed her at the brook against a pollard willow-tree,
Oh! he killed her at the brook, the brute, for all the world to see,
And no one but the baby cried for poor Lorraine, Lorree.
Last poem written in illness.
Colorado, U.S.A.
June 1874.
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The riches of Flora are lavishly strown,
The air is all softness, and crystal the streams,
The West is resplendently clothed in beams.
2.
O come! let us haste to the freshening shades,
The quaintly carv’d seats, and the opening glades;
Where the faeries are chanting their evening hymns,
And in the last sun-beam the sylph lightly swims.
3.
And when thou art weary I’ll find thee a bed,
Of mosses and flowers to pillow thy head:
And there Georgiana I’ll sit at thy feet,
While my story of love I enraptur’d repeat.
4.
So fondly I’ll breathe, and so softly I’ll sigh,
Thou wilt think that some amorous Zephyr is nigh:
Yet no — as I breathe I will press thy fair knee,
And then thou wilt know that the sigh comes from me.
5.
Ah! why dearest girl should we lose all these blisses?
That mortal’s a fool who such happiness misses:
So smile acquiescence, and give me thy hand,
With love-looking eyes, and with voice sweetly bland.
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You are still small, in your fourth year.
We stand watching the yellow leaves go queer,
flapping in the winter rain.
falling flat and washed. And I remember
mostly the three autumns you did not live here.
They said I’d never get you back again.
I tell you what you’ll never really know:
all the medical hypothesis
that explained my brain will never be as true as these
struck leaves letting go.
I, who chose two times
to kill myself, had said your nickname
the mewling mouths when you first came;
until a fever rattled
in your throat and I moved like a pantomine
above your head. Ugly angels spoke to me. The blame,
I heard them say, was mine. They tattled
like green witches in my head, letting doom
leak like a broken faucet;
as if doom had flooded my belly and filled your bassinet,
an old debt I must assume.
Death was simpler than I’d thought.
The day life made you well and whole
I let the witches take away my guilty soul.
I pretended I was dead
until the white men pumped the poison out,
putting me armless and washed through the rigamarole
of talking boxes and the electric bed.
I laughed to see the private iron in that hotel.
Today the yellow leaves
go queer. You ask me where they go I say today believed
in itself, or else it fell.
Today, my small child, Joyce,
love your self’s self where it lives.
There is no special God to refer to; or if there is,
why did I let you grow
in another place. You did not know my voice
when I came back to call. All the superlatives
of tomorrow’s white tree and mistletoe
will not help you know the holidays you had to miss.
The time I did not love
myself, I visited your shoveled walks; you held my glove.
There was new snow after this.
2.
They sent me letters with news
of you and I made moccasins that I would never use.
When I grew well enough to tolerate
myself, I lived with my mother, the witches said.
But I didn’t leave. I had my portrait
done instead.
Part way back from Bedlam
I came to my mother’s house in Gloucester,
Massachusetts. And this is how I came
to catch at her; and this is how I lost her.
I cannot forgive your suicide, my mother said.
And she never could. She had my portrait
done instead.
I lived like an angry guest,
like a partly mended thing, an outgrown child.
I remember my mother did her best.
She took me to Boston and had my hair restyled.
Your smile is like your mother’s, the artist said.
I didn’t seem to care. I had my portrait
done instead.
There was a church where I grew up
with its white cupboards where they locked us up,
row by row, like puritans or shipmates
singing together. My father passed the plate.
Too late to be forgiven now, the witches said.
I wasn’t exactly forgiven. They had my portrait
done instead.
3.
All that summer sprinklers arched
over the seaside grass.
We talked of drought
while the salt-parched
field grew sweet again. To help time pass
I tried to mow the lawn
and in the morning I had my portrait done,
holding my smile in place, till it grew formal.
Once I mailed you a picture of a rabbit
and a postcard of Motif number one,
as if it were normal
to be a mother and be gone.
They hung my portrait in the chill
north light, matching
me to keep me well.
Only my mother grew ill.
She turned from me, as if death were catching,
as if death transferred,
as if my dying had eaten inside of her.
That August you were two, by I timed my days with doubt.
On the first of September she looked at me
and said I gave her cancer.
They carved her sweet hills out
and still I couldn’t answer.
4.
That winter she came
part way back
from her sterile suite
of doctors, the seasick
cruise of the X-ray,
the cells’ arithmetic
gone wild. Surgery incomplete,
the fat arm, the prognosis poor, I heard
them say.
During the sea blizzards
she had here
own portrait painted.
A cave of mirror
placed on the south wall;
matching smile, matching contour.
And you resembled me; unacquainted
with my face, you wore it. But you were mine
after all.
I wintered in Boston,
childless bride,
nothing sweet to spare
with witches at my side.
I missed your babyhood,
tried a second suicide,
tried the sealed hotel a second year.
On April Fool you fooled me. We laughed and this
was good.
5.
I checked out for the last time
on the first of May;
graduate of the mental cases,
with my analysts’s okay,
my complete book of rhymes,
my typewriter and my suitcases.
All that summer I learned life
back into my own
seven rooms, visited the swan boats,
the market, answered the phone,
served cocktails as a wife
should, made love among my petticoats
and August tan. And you came each
weekend. But I lie.
You seldom came. I just pretended
you, small piglet, butterfly
girl with jelly bean cheeks,
disobedient three, my splendid
stranger. And I had to learn
why I would rather
die than love, how your innocence
would hurt and how I gather
guilt like a young intern
his symptons, his certain evidence.
That October day we went
to Gloucester the red hills
reminded me of the dry red fur fox
coat I played in as a child; stock still
like a bear or a tent,
like a great cave laughing or a red fur fox.
We drove past the hatchery,
the hut that sells bait,
past Pigeon Cove, past the Yacht Club, past Squall’s
Hill, to the house that waits
still, on the top of the sea,
and two portraits hung on the opposite walls.
6.
In north light, my smile is held in place,
the shadow marks my bone.
What could I have been dreaming as I sat there,
all of me waiting in the eyes, the zone
of the smile, the young face,
the foxes’ snare.
In south light, her smile is held in place,
her cheeks wilting like a dry
orchid; my mocking mirror, my overthrown
love, my first image. She eyes me from that face
that stony head of death
I had outgrown.
The artist caught us at the turning;
we smiled in our canvas home
before we chose our foreknown separate ways.
The dry redfur fox coat was made for burning.
I rot on the wall, my own
Dorian Gray.
And this was the cave of the mirror,
that double woman who stares
at herself, as if she were petrified
in time – two ladies sitting in umber chairs.
You kissed your grandmother
and she cried.
7.
I could not get you back
except for weekends. You came
each time, clutching the picture of a rabbit
that I had sent you. For the last time I unpack
your things. We touch from habit.
The first visit you asked my name.
Now you will stay for good. I will forget
how we bumped away from each other like marionettes
on strings. It wasn’t the same
as love, letting weekends contain
us. You scrape your knee. You learn my name,
wobbling up the sidewalk, calling and crying.
You can call me mother and I remember my mother again,
somewhere in greater Boston, dying.
I remember we named you Joyce
so we could call you Joy.
You came like an awkward guest
that first time, all wrapped and moist
and strange at my heavy breast.
I needed you. I didn’t want a boy,
only a girl, a small milky mouse
of a girl, already loved, already loud in the house
of herself. We named you Joy.
I, who was never quite sure
about being a girl, needed another
life, another image to remind me.
And this was my worst guilt; you could not cure
or soothe it. I made you to find me.
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सानस्रिनि, दे गेलेनि
मोजां मोन्नायखौ बेबादिनो फोरमायनि
नोँनि गोरबो आंनि गोरबो
2
हाथर्खिनि जोँब्लावनाय अख्रांआव
स्नि हाथर्खि जानानै
नोँनि आंनि थायब्रै मेगननि गेजेराव
बिलाइना होनि सोरां बुहुमाव
3
बयनिबो गोजौ हिमालय थिखिनियाव
गंसे फिरफिला बिरहोनि
नोँनि दाहा, आंनि दाहा
हिरा जालांगोन दिन्दां जिउआ
4
गांखं फुवारना बिरबायनो
गुफुर दाउथुनि महराव
हरै फैसालि, ओरै फैसालि जेरैबो
नोँनि आंनि मोनसे गोरबोजोँ
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And stay there
With stars.
Pure and sure
Stay awake
On this earth.
2
Joyless loveless
I think no one
Here on this earth.
Blame not anyone
For anything good or bad
And proceed ahead.
With sweet dreams
Get all bliss.
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କବାଟ ବଟ
ଘଟ ଭେଟ।
ବାଟ ଅଝଟ
କୂଟ ନାଟ।
ଅନ୍ଧାର ପଟ
ନଟ ଖଟ।
ଅଟ ସଙ୍କଟ
ହଟ ଚଟ।
ତପୋବନ, ଟିଟିଲାଗଡ,ବଲାଙ୍ଗୀର
21/03/2020
2
କରୋନା
ଯଦି ଖୋଜୁଛ ଛନ୍ଦ ଲୟ ଉପମା,
ମୋ କବିତା ମୂଳରୁ ପଢ ନି ଜମା।
ମୋ କବିତା ସିଧାସଳଖ ରୋକ୍ ଠୋକ୍,
ଜାଣେ ତୁମର ଅଭାବ ଆଉ କହେ
ତୁମର କ୍ଷତି ପାରିବ ନି କରି କରୋନା।
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But serve and help yourself.
Do your own duty sincerely and
Fulfill your dreams by yourself.
2
True love and
Self-discovery
Go side by side.
And poetry helps me
In fighting
Cruel society.
And I am battling
As you see with
My own inner demons.
My self-confidence
And my commitment
Are there to help me
In the round and round
Circuitous life.
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ଏତେ ଭଲ ଛୁଉଁଛି କିଆଁ!
ଆଉ ସେଇ କବିତା ଉପରେ
ଜବରଦସ୍ତ ମତ ବାଢି ଦେଉଛି କିଆଁ!
ଜାଣି ବି ସବୁ ଚୁପ୍
ଅଲାଜୁକ ମୋ ନାଁ!
2
ଟୁକେଲଟେ ହେଲେ ହେଇଥିଁତି
କହେଲା ଟଁକ,
କାଁହେଲାଜେ ବୋ ପଚରାଲିଁଜେ
କହେଲା ଦେଖୁଛ କି ନେଇଁ ଆଜ୍ଞା
ଜେନଟା ଜେନ୍ତା ଲେଖୁଛେ
ସୁରତା ବଲୁଛନ୍ ସଭେ।
ଆରୁ ମକେ!
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ଅତୀତ ମୋର
ଆଉ ମୁଁ
ଏଇଠି ସ୍ଥିତ।
ମୋ ଅତୀତ
ମୋ ବର୍ତ୍ତମାନ
ଆଉ ମୁଁ
ଜ୍ୱଳମାନ।
ଭାବସମୂହ
ସବୁ ବୈଚିତ୍ର୍ୟ।
ଭବିଷ୍ୟତ
ରଖିଛି ଧରି
ସବୁ ବିଶେଷତ୍ଵ
ସବୁ ସବୁ ନିଡସ୍ୱ।
2
ଦେଶ ବେଶ ଅଲୌକିକ
ପ୍ରବେଶ ପ୍ରସ୍ଥାନ ଆଉ
ମନ୍ତ୍ର ସୂତ୍ର ଶ୍ଲୋକ
ସବୁ ସବୁ ଜୀବନର
ଅଂଶବିଶେଷ।
ନିନ୍ଦା ପ୍ରଶଂସା
ହଁ ନାଇଁ
କାଳ ପରିସ୍ଥିତି
ସବୁ ସବୁ ତତ୍ତ୍ୱ
ଗୂଢ ଆଉ ରହସ୍ୟ।
ସବୁ ସବୁ ସ୍ୱତଃ ମୁକ୍ତ
ସବୁ ସବୁ ପ୍ରକୃତିଜନିତ।
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A poem for you.
A poem for you
And a poem for me
And a poem for the earth
A poem for time
Let me write
Let me write.
A life poem
A live poem
A poem for you
A poem for truth
A poem for me
A poem for time.
2
I write for you
A poem
I write for cloud
A poem
I write for love
A poem
I write for rain
And sun
I write and write
But not for fun.
And my write
More powerful,
More powerful than the gun.
I am your son.
3
I am your son
I am your son.
And my look is like
That of a ripe corn.
All like a wind blow
All like snow.
My write has a flowery perfume
My write war assume.
Not poor write my write
Not poor life my write
But all strong
Like the muscles of a young.
All love and all dove
Kind heart with friendship club.
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The river behind — blue and cool.
You told me, ‘Well, go to a convent,
Or go marry a fool…’
Princes always say that, being placid or fierce,
But I cherish this speech, short and poor —
Let it flow and shine through a thousand years,
Like from shoulders do mantles of fur.
2
And, as if in wrong occasion,
I said, ‘Thou,’ else…
And an easy smile of pleasure
Lit up dear face.
From such lapses, told or mental,
Every cheek would blaze.
I love you as forty gentle
Sisters love and bless.
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the pit, the cave where the sun lies down
and threatens never to rise,
when despair descends softly as the snow
covering all paths and choking roads:
then hawkfaced pain seized you
threw you so you fell with a sharp
cry, a knife tearing a bolt of silk.
My father heard the crash but paid
no mind, napping after lunch
yet fifteen hundred miles north
I heard and dropped a dish.
Your pain sunk talons in my skull
and crouched there cawing, heavy
as a great vessel filled with water,
oil or blood, till suddenly next day
the weight lifted and I knew your mind
had guttered out like the Chanukah
candles that burn so fast, weeping
veils of wax down the chanukiya.
Those candles were laid out,
friends invited, ingredients bought
for latkes and apple pancakes,
that holiday for liberation
and the winter solstice
when tops turn like little planets.
Shall you have all or nothing
take half or pass by untouched?
Nothing you got, Nun said the dreydl
as the room stopped spinning.
The angel folded you up like laundry
your body thin as an empty dress.
Your clothes were curtains
hanging on the window of what had
been your flesh and now was glass.
Outside in Florida shopping plazas
loudspeakers blared Christmas carols
and palm trees were decked with blinking
lights. Except by the tourist
hotels, the beaches were empty.
Pelicans with pregnant pouches
flapped overhead like pterodactyls.
In my mind I felt you die.
First the pain lifted and then
you flickered and went out.
2.
I walk through the rooms of memory.
Sometimes everything is shrouded in dropcloths,
every chair ghostly and muted.
Other times memory lights up from within
bustling scenes acted just the other side
of a scrim through which surely I could reach
my fingers tearing at the flimsy curtain
of time which is and isn’t and will be
the stuff of which we’re made and unmade.
In sleep the other night I met you, seventeen
your first nasty marriage just annulled,
thin from your abortion, clutching a book
against your cheek and trying to look
older, trying to took middle class,
trying for a job at Wanamaker’s,
dressing for parties in cast off
stage costumes of your sisters. Your eyes
were hazy with dreams. You did not
notice me waving as you wandered
past and I saw your slip was showing.
You stood still while I fixed your clothes,
as if I were your mother. Remember me
combing your springy black hair, ringlets
that seemed metallic, glittering;
remember me dressing you, my seventy year
old mother who was my last dollbaby,
giving you too late what your youth had wanted.
3.
What is this mask of skin we wear,
what is this dress of flesh,
this coat of few colors and little hair?
This voluptuous seething heap of desires
and fears, squeaking mice turned up
in a steaming haystack with their babies?
This coat has been handed down, an heirloom
this coat of black hair and ample flesh,
this coat of pale slightly ruddy skin.
This set of hips and thighs, these buttocks
they provided cushioning for my grandmother
Hannah, for my mother Bert and for me
and we all sat on them in turn, those major
muscles on which we walk and walk and walk
over the earth in search of peace and plenty.
My mother is my mirror and I am hers.
What do we see? Our face grown young again,
our breasts grown firm, legs lean and elegant.
Our arms quivering with fat, eyes
set in the bark of wrinkles, hands puffy,
our belly seamed with childbearing,
Give me your dress that I might try it on.
Oh it will not fit you mother, you are too fat.
I will not fit you mother.
I will not be the bride you can dress,
the obedient dutiful daughter you would chew,
a dog’s leather bone to sharpen your teeth.
You strike me sometimes just to hear the sound.
Loneliness turns your fingers into hooks
barbed and drawing blood with their caress.
My twin, my sister, my lost love,
I carry you in me like an embryo
as once you carried me.
4.
What is it we turn from, what is it we fear?
Did I truly think you could put me back inside?
Did I think I would fall into you as into a molten
furnace and be recast, that I would become you?
What did you fear in me, the child who wore
your hair, the woman who let that black hair
grow long as a banner of darkness, when you
a proper flapper wore yours cropped?
You pushed and you pulled on my rubbery
flesh, you kneaded me like a ball of dough.
Rise, rise, and then you pounded me flat.
Secretly the bones formed in the bread.
I became willful, private as a cat.
You never knew what alleys I had wandered.
You called me bad and I posed like a gutter
queen in a dress sewn of knives.
All I feared was being stuck in a box
with a lid. A good woman appeared to me
indistinguishable from a dead one
except that she worked all the time.
Your payday never came. Your dreams ran
with bright colors like Mexican cottons
that bled onto the drab sheets of the day
and would not bleach with scrubbing.
My dear, what you said was one thing
but what you sang was another, sweetly
subversive and dark as blackberries
and I became the daughter of your dream.
This body is your body, ashes now
and roses, but alive in my eyes, my breasts,
my throat, my thighs. You run in me
a tang of salt in the creek waters of my blood,
you sing in my mind like wine. What you
did not dare in your life you dare in mine.
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Like dazzling star
Life with nature
Lovely dear.
2
Oh, it’s life
And everything.
Come in
And live.
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I would be handled by thy nursing arms
After thy will, not my infant alarms.
Hurt me thou wilt-but then more loving still,
If more can be and less, in love’s perfect zone!
My fancy shrinks from least of all thy harms,
But do thy will with me-I am thine own.
2.
Some things wilt thou not one day turn to dreams?
Some dreams wilt thou not one day turn to fact?
The thing that painful, more than should be, seems,
Shall not thy sliding years with them retract-
Shall fair realities not counteract?
The thing that was well dreamed of bliss and joy-
Wilt thou not breathe thy life into the toy?
3.
I have had dreams of absolute delight,
Beyond all waking bliss-only of grass,
Flowers, wind, a peak, a limb of marble white;
They dwell with me like things half come to pass,
True prophecies:-when I with thee am right,
If I pray, waking, for such a joy of sight,
Thou with the gold, wilt not refuse the brass.
4.
I think I shall not ever pray for such;
Thy bliss will overflood my heart and brain,
And I want no unripe things back again.
Love ever fresher, lovelier than of old-
How should it want its more exchanged for much?
Love will not backward sigh, but forward strain,
On in the tale still telling, never told.
5.
What has been, shall not only be, but is.
The hues of dreamland, strange and sweet and tender
Are but hint-shadows of full many a splendour
Which the high Parent-love will yet unroll
Before his child’s obedient, humble soul.
Ah, me, my God! in thee lies every bliss
Whose shadow men go hunting wearily amiss.
6.
Now, ere I sleep, I wonder what I shall dream.
Some sense of being, utter new, may come
Into my soul while I am blind and dumb-
With shapes and airs and scents which dark hours teem,
Of other sort than those that haunt the day,
Hinting at precious things, ages away
In the long tale of us God to himself doth say.
7.
Late, in a dream, an unknown lady I saw
Stand on a tomb; down she to me stepped thence.
‘They tell me,’ quoth I, ‘thou art one of the dead!’
And scarce believed for gladness the yea she said;
A strange auroral bliss, an arctic awe,
A new, outworldish joy awoke intense,
To think I talked with one that verily was dead.
8.
Thou dost demand our love, holy Lord Christ,
And batest nothing of thy modesty;-
Thou know’st no other way to bliss the highest
Than loving thee, the loving, perfectly.
Thou lovest perfectly-that is thy bliss:
We must love like thee, or our being miss-
So, to love perfectly, love perfect Love, love thee.
9.
Here is my heart, O Christ; thou know’st I love thee.
But wretched is the thing I call my love.
O Love divine, rise up in me and move me-
I follow surely when thou first dost move.
To love the perfect love, is primal, mere
Necessity; and he who holds life dear,
Must love thee every hope and heart above.
10.
Might I but scatter interfering things-
Questions and doubts, distrusts and anxious pride,
And in thy garment, as under gathering wings,
Nestle obedient to thy loving side,
Easy it were to love thee. But when thou
Send’st me to think and labour from thee wide,
Love falls to asking many a why and how.
11.
Easier it were, but poorer were the love.
Lord, I would have me love thee from the deeps-
Of troubled thought, of pain, of weariness.
Through seething wastes below, billows above,
My soul should rise in eager, hungering leaps;
Through thorny thicks, through sands unstable press-
Out of my dream to him who slumbers not nor sleeps.
12.
I do not fear the greatness of thy command-
To keep heart-open-house to brother men;
But till in thy God’s love perfect I stand,
My door not wide enough will open. Then
Each man will be love-awful in my sight;
And, open to the eternal morning’s might,
Each human face will shine my window for thy light.
13.
Make me all patience and all diligence;
Patience, that thou mayst have thy time with me;
Diligence, that I waste not thy expense
In sending out to bring me home to thee.
What though thy work in me transcends my sense-
Too fine, too high, for me to understand-
I hope entirely. On, Lord, with thy labour grand.
14.
Lest I be humbled at the last, and told
That my great labour was but for my peace
That not for love or truth had I been bold,
But merely for a prisoned heart’s release;
Careful, I humble me now before thy feet:
Whate’er I be, I cry, and will not cease-
Let me not perish, though favour be not meet.
15.
For, what I seek thou knowest I must find,
Or miserably die for lack of love.
I justify thee: what is in thy mind,
If it be shame to me, all shame above.
Thou know’st I choose it-know’st I would not shove
The hand away that stripped me for the rod-
If so it pleased my Life, my love-made-angry God.
16.
I see a door, a multitude near by,
In creed and quarrel, sure disciples all!
Gladly they would, they say, enter the hall,
But cannot, the stone threshold is so high.
From unseen hand, full many a feeding crumb,
Slow dropping o’er the threshold high doth come:
They gather and eat, with much disputing hum.
17.
Still and anon, a loud clear voice doth call-
‘Make your feet clean, and enter so the hall.’
They hear, they stoop, they gather each a crumb.
Oh the deaf people! would they were also dumb!
Hear how they talk, and lack of Christ deplore,
Stamping with muddy feet about the door,
And will not wipe them clean to walk upon his floor!
18.
But see, one comes; he listens to the voice;
Careful he wipes his weary dusty feet!
The voice hath spoken-to him is left no choice;
He hurries to obey-that only is meet.
Low sinks the threshold, levelled with the ground;
The man leaps in-to liberty he’s bound.
The rest go talking, walking, picking round.
19.
If I, thus writing, rebuke my neighbour dull,
And talk, and write, and enter not the door,
Than all the rest I wrong Christ tenfold more,
Making his gift of vision void and null.
Help me this day to be thy humble sheep,
Eating thy grass, and following, thou before;
From wolfish lies my life, O Shepherd, keep.
20.
God, help me, dull of heart, to trust in thee.
Thou art the father of me-not any mood
Can part me from the One, the verily Good.
When fog and failure o’er my being brood.
When life looks but a glimmering marshy clod,
No fire out flashing from the living God-
Then, then, to rest in faith were worthy victory!
21.
To trust is gain and growth, not mere sown seed!
Faith heaves the world round to the heavenly dawn,
In whose great light the soul doth spell and read
Itself high-born, its being derived and drawn
From the eternal self-existent fire;
Then, mazed with joy of its own heavenly breed,
Exultant-humble falls before its awful sire.
22.
Art thou not, Jesus, busy like to us?
Thee shall I image as one sitting still,
Ordering all things in thy potent will,
Silent, and thinking ever to thy father,
Whose thought through thee flows multitudinous?
Or shall I think of thee as journeying, rather,
Ceaseless through space, because thou everything dost fill?
23.
That all things thou dost fill, I well may think-
Thy power doth reach me in so many ways.
Thou who in one the universe dost bind,
Passest through all the channels of my mind;
The sun of thought, across the farthest brink
Of consciousness thou sendest me thy rays;
Nor drawest them in when lost in sleep I sink.
24.
So common are thy paths, thy coming seems
Only another phase oft of my me;
But nearer is my I, O Lord, to thee,
Than is my I to what itself it deems;
How better then couldst thou, O master, come,
Than from thy home across into my home,
Straight o’er the marches that I cannot see!
25.
Marches?-‘Twixt thee and me there’s no division,
Except the meeting of thy will and mine,
The loves that love, the wills that will the same.
Where thine meets mine is my life’s true condition;
Yea, only there it burns with any flame.
Thy will but holds me to my life’s fruition.
O God, I would-I have no mine that is not thine.
26.
I look for thee, and do not see thee come.-
If I could see thee, ’twere a commoner thing,
And shallower comfort would thy coming bring.
Earth, sea, and air lie round me moveless dumb,
Never a tremble, an expectant hum,
To tell the Lord of Hearts is drawing near:
Lo! in the looking eyes, the looked for Lord is here.
27.
I take a comfort from my very badness:
It is for lack of thee that I am bad.
How close, how infinitely closer yet
Must I come to thee, ere I can pay one debt
Which mere humanity has on me set!
‘How close to thee!’-no wonder, soul, thou art glad!
Oneness with him is the eternal gladness.
28.
What can there be so close as making and made?
Nought twinned can be so near; thou art more nigh
To me, my God, than is this thinking I
To that I mean when I by me is said;
Thou art more near me, than is my ready will
Near to my love, though both one place do fill;-
Yet, till we are one,-Ah me! the long until!
29.
Then shall my heart behold thee everywhere.
The vision rises of a speechless thing,
A perfectness of bliss beyond compare!
A time when I nor breathe nor think nor move,
But I do breathe and think and feel thy love,
The soul of all the songs the saints do sing!-
And life dies out in bliss, to come again in prayer.
30.
In the great glow of that great love, this death
Would melt away like a fantastic cloud;
I should no more shrink from it than from the breath
That makes in the frosty air a nimbus-shroud;
Thou, Love, hast conquered death, and I aloud
Should triumph over him, with thy saintly crowd,
That where the Lamb goes ever followeth.
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in the corner of my faithless eyes
seven magpies have stolen away
the morning star.
Glory, glory! The rising sun
crowns the cathedral
in this town stopped still
in awe of blazing malachite.
Reborn are the winged shades
in the rookeries
to haunt dear heaven
with their pained pterodactyl cries.
Reborn are the grey pigeons
on the old market square
quarrelling with their enemies,
the dirty sparrows.
2.
Sancho, my old friend,
is it time to embrace more love,
to sit with the ageing harlots
mid the pews of Saint Anne,
though the heft on our backs
is heavier than the rood,
than the silent sermons
of characters stained in glass?
I’ve two coins in my pocket
as poisonous as lead,
enough for a flask of rum
or Hungarian wine.
Let’s park our gaunt donkey
beneath the Baroque clouds,
then limp back to the inn
for as long as there is time…
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ତୋର ଥିଲା ନା
ଥିଲା ଅପରପକ୍ଷର!
ଏତିକିମାତ୍ର
ଜାଣିବାକୁ ଆମେ
ଏଠି ହାଜର।
ହେଲେ ଏଠି ତ
ଖାଲି ଅନ୍ଧାର।
2
ଆସ୍ତେ ଆସ୍ତେ ଅକାମୀ ହୋଇ ବସୁଛି
ସବୁ ଶିରାପ୍ରଶିରା ନାଡିଗ୍ରନ୍ଥି।
ଆସ୍ତେ ଆସ୍ତେ ବୁଜି ହୋଇଯାଉଛି
ପୃଥିବୀର ପାଖୁଡାସବୁ।
ମୁଁ ରହିଯାଉଛି ମୋଠି।
କିଏ କୋଉଠି?
ହେଉ ନି ବୁଝି
ଆଉ କଣ ସବୁ ଅଛି!
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The divine, the purifier,
And what not you are, dear.
For me, you are
All-pervading beauty.
My love, my truth,
Wait there, I am
Going to you.
2.
You are my wealth,
You are my security,
I am here my dear,
Without any fear.
With your order,
I am here my master,
And we are here
For each other.
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ଗଜାନନ ମିଶ୍ର
ଅନୁମତି ଦିଅ, ବାପା,
ମୋ ହିସାବରେ ବଂଚିବାକୁ ଚାହେଁ ମୁଁ
ଏ ଆକାଶ ତଳେ, ଏ ପ୍ରକୃତି କୋଳରେ।
ଚାହେଁ ନା ଦେବାକୁ ଚୋର ଥଣ୍ଟଙ୍କୁ
ପଇସାଟିଏ ଆଉ।
ବାପା, ବଡ ଥଣ୍ଟ ଅଛି କି କୋଉଠି କିଏ
ବଳି ସରକାରଠାରୁ?
ବସିଲେ କହୁଛି ଦିଅ ଟଙ୍କା,
କାଶିଲେ କହୁଛି ଦିଅ ଟଙ୍କା,
ଚାଲିଲେ ବୁଲିଲେ କହୁଛି ଦିଅ ଟଙ୍କା।
ସ୍ପଷ୍ଟ ଭାଷାରେ କହିଦେବାକୁ ଚାହେଁ
ସରକାରକୁ, ସାକ୍ଷୀ ତୁମେ ବାପା,
ସରକାର, ସରକାର, ଓ ସରକାର,
ତୁମକୁ ମୋର ନାଇଁ ଦରକାର।
ସୂର୍ଯ୍ୟ ଦେଉଛି ଆଲୁଅ ମତେ,
ତୁମେ ଦେଉଛ ଖାଲି ଅନ୍ଧାର, ହେ ସରକାର!
ମୋ ସରକାର କହି ଭଣ୍ଡାଉଛ,
ମଦ ପାଣି ପିଆଇ ହୋସ ବୁଡାଉଛ,
ଗୋଡାଣିଆ ଚାମଚା ତିଆରିରେ ଲାଗି ପଡିଛ,
ଦିଅଁର ସବୁଖାଇ ସାରା ମାଟିକୁ ନଷ୍ଟଭ୍ରଷ୍ଟ କରୁଛ,
ହୋ ସରକାର, ତୁମକୁ ଜୁହାର, ଜୁହାର।
2
ସମୟ ସହିତ ଖର୍ଚ୍ଚ।
କାହାର ସମୟ?
ସତରେ ସରୁଛି ସମୟ
ନା ସରୁଛେ ଆମେ!
ଦେଖି ପାରୁଛେ
କଣ କିଛି
ଏଇ ସମୟରେ ଏଠି?
ନା ଆଖି ନାଇଁ!
ଉଠୁଛି କୋହ
ଉଛୁଳୁଛି ସ୍ନେହ
ପ୍ରାର୍ଥନାରେ ପଡୁଛି ଜଣା
କାହାଠି କେତେ ସମୟ ।
ସମୟର ସ୍ୱର
ବାରି ହେଉଛି ସ୍ପଷ୍ଟ ।
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Give it not a tear;
Sigh thou mayst, and bid it go
Any, any where.
2.
Do not look so sad, sweet one,–
Sad and fadingly;
Shed one drop then, it is gone,
O ’twas born to die!
3.
Still so pale? then, dearest, weep;
Weep, I’ll count the tears,
And each one shall be a bliss
For thee in after years.
4.
Brighter has it left thine eyes
Than a sunny rill;
And thy whispering melodies
Are tenderer still.
5.
Yet — as all things mourn awhile
At fleeting blisses,
E’en let us too! but be our dirge
A dirge of kisses.
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Beyond the print of my nervous fingers
Where they touched your moving head;
Your old skin puckering, your lungs’ breath
Grown baby short as you looked up last
At my face swinging over the human bed,
And somewhere you cried, let me go let me go.
You lay in the crate of your last death,
But were not you, not finally you.
They have stuffed her cheeks, I said;
This clay hand, this mask of Elizabeth
Are not true. From within the satin
And the suede of this inhuman bed,
Something cried, let me go let me go.
2.
They gave me your ash and bony shells,
Rattling like gourds in the cardboard urn,
Rattling like stones that their oven had blest.
I waited you in the cathedral of spells
And I waited you in the country of the living,
Still with the urn crooned to my breast,
When something cried, let me go let me go.
So I threw out your last bony shells
And heard me scream for the look of you,
Your apple face, the simple creche
Of your arms, the August smells
Of your skin. Then I sorted your clothes
And the loves you had left, Elizabeth,
Elizabeth, until you were gone.
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केन्ता करि खुजुछ?
निजके पचर
केते अन्धारे अछ!
अन्धारे केन
देबा कि नेबा
एतकि सेतकि हिसाब
2
केन खुजुछजे
नेइ पउछ!
आरु खुजुछ
काणा?
काणा आए तमे?
करुछ काणा?
अछे किए
केन्ता हिसाबे केन!
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केन्ता करि खुजुछ?
निजके पचर
केते अन्धारे अछ!
अन्धारे केन
देबा कि नेबा
एतकि सेतकि हिसाब
2
केन खुजुछजे
नेइ पउछ!
आरु खुजुछ
काणा?
काणा आए तमे?
करुछ काणा?
अछे किए
केन्ता हिसाबे केन!
Leave a Reply
Let me tell
In all white form.
But mind it,
The color of ignorance
Is not black.
2.
I am being charged
What I am not.
But what I am
Not known to
Anyone here.
3.
How many world
I can’t say.
And why should
I say.
4.
You said reddish,
Not like that, though.
5.
Come a enjoy,
Called perfect –
A day.
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That fly behind the daylight, foxed with air;
Or piercing, like the quince-bright, bitter slats
Of sun gone thrusting under Harbour’s hair.
So Time, the wave, enfolds me in its bed,
Or Time, the bony knife, it runs me through.
‘Skulker, take heart,’ I thought my own heart said.
‘The flood, the blade go by – Time flows, not you!’
Vilely, continuously, stupidly,
Time takes me, drills me, drives through bone and vein,
So water bends the seaweeds in the sea,
The tide goes over, but the weeds remain.
Time, you must cry farewell, take up the track,
And leave this lovely moment at your back!
II
Time leaves the lovely moment at his back,
Eager to quench and ripen, kiss or kill;
To-morrow begs him, breathless for his lack,
Or beauty dead entreats him to be still.
His fate pursues him; he must open doors,
Or close them, for that pale and faceless host
Without a flag, whose agony implores
Birth to be flesh, or funeral, to be ghost.
Out of all reckoning, out of dark and light,
Over the edges of dead Nows and Heres,
Blindly and softly, as a mistress might,
He keeps appointments with a million years.
I and the moment laugh, and let him go,
Leaning against his golden undertow.
III
Leaning against the golden undertow,
Backward, I saw the birds begin to climb
with bodies hailstone-clear, and shadows flow,
Fixed in a sweet meniscus, out of Time,
Out of the torrent, like the fainter land
Lensed in a bubble’s ghostly camera,
The lighted beach, the sharp and china sand
Glitters and waters and peninsula –
The moment’s world it was; and I was part,
Fleshless and ageless, changeless and made free.
‘Fool, would you leave this country?’ cried my heart,
But I was taken by the suck of sea.
The gulls go down, the body dies and rots,
And Time flows past them like a hundred yachts.
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It rings out from the house of my mother and father
In Sham. The geography of my body changes.
The cells of my blood become green.
My alphabet is green.
In Sham. A new mouth emerges for my mouth
A new voice emerges for my voice
And my fingers
Become a tribe
2
I return to Damascus
Riding on the backs of clouds
Riding the two most beautiful horses in the world
The horse of passion.
The horse of poetry.
I return after sixty years
To search for my umbilical cord,
For the Damascene barber who circumcised me,
For the midwife who tossed me in the basin under the bed
And received a gold lira from my father,
She left our house
On that day in March of 1923
Her hands stained with the blood of the poem…
3
I return to the womb in which I was formed . . .
To the first book I read in it . . .
To the first woman who taught me
The geography of love . . .
And the geography of women . . .
4
I return
After my limbs have been strewn across all the continents
And my cough has been scattered in all the hotels
After my mother’s sheets scented with laurel soap
I have found no other bed to sleep on . . .
And after the “bride” of oil and thyme
That she would roll up for me
No longer does any other ‘bride’ in the world please me
And after the quince jam she would make with her own hands
I am no longer enthusiastic about breakfast in the morning
And after the blackberry drink that she would make
No other wine intoxicates me . . .
5
I enter the courtyard of the Umayyad Mosque
And greet everyone in it
Corner to . . . corner
Tile to . . . tile
Dove to . . . dove
I wander in the gardens of Kufi script
And pluck beautiful flowers of God’s words
And hear with my eye the voice of the mosaics
And the music of agate prayer beads
A state of revelation and rapture overtakes me,
So I climb the steps of the first minaret that encounters me
Calling:
“Come to the jasmine”
“Come to the jasmine”
6
Returning to you
Stained by the rains of my longing
Returning to fill my pockets
With nuts, green plums, and green almonds
Returning to my oyster shell
Returning to my birth bed
For the fountains of Versailles
Are no compensation for the Fountain Café
And Les Halles in Paris
Is no compensation for the Friday market
And Buckingham Palace in London
Is no compensation for Azem Palace
And the pigeons of San Marco in Venice
Are no more blessed than the doves in the Umayyad Mosque
And Napoleon’s tomb in Les Invalides
Is no more glorious than the tomb of Salah al-Din Al-Ayyubi…
7
I wander in the narrow alleys of Damascus.
Behind the windows, honeyed eyes awake
And greet me . . .
The stars wear their gold bracelets
And greet me
And the pigeons alight from their towers
And greet me
And the clean Shami cats come out
Who were born with us . . .
Grew up with us . . .
And married with us . . .
To greet me . . .
8
I immerse myself in the Buzurriya Souq
Set a sail in a cloud of spices
Clouds of cloves
And cinnamon . . .
And camomile . . .
I perform ablutions in rose water once.
And in the water of passion many times . . .
And I forget—while in the Souq al-‘Attarine—
All the concoctions of Nina Ricci . . .
And Coco Chanel . . .
What are you doing to me Damascus?
How have you changed my culture? My aesthetic taste?
For I have been made to forget the ringing of cups of licorice
The piano concerto of Rachmaninoff . . .
How do the gardens of Sham transform me?
For I have become the first conductor in the world
That leads an orchestra from a willow tree!!
9
I have come to you . . .
From the history of the Damascene rose
That condenses the history of perfume . . .
From the memory of al-Mutanabbi
That condenses the history of poetry . . .
I have come to you . . .
From the blossoms of bitter orange . . .
And the dahlia . . .
And the narcissus . . .
And the ‘nice boy’ . . .
That first taught me drawing . . .
I have come to you . . .
From the laughter of Shami women
That first taught me music . . .
And the beginning of adolesence
From the spouts of our alley
That first taught me crying
And from my mother’s prayer rug
That first taught me
The path to God . . .
10
I open the drawers of memory
One . . . then another
I remember my father . . .
Coming out of his workshop on Mu’awiya Alley
I remember the horse-drawn carts . . .
And the sellers of prickly pears . . .
And the cafés of al-Rubwa
That nearly—after five flasks of ‘araq—
Fall into the river
I remember the colored towels
As they dance on the door of Hammam al-Khayyatin
As if they were celebrating their national holiday.
I remember the Damascene houses
With their copper doorknobs
And their ceilings decorated with glazed tiles
And their interior courtyards
That remind you of descriptions of heaven . . .
11
The Damascene House
Is beyond the architectural text
The design of our homes . . .
Is based on an emotional foundation
For every house leans . . . on the hip of another
And every balcony . . .
Extends its hand to another facing it
Damascene houses are loving houses . . .
They greet one another in the morning . . .
And exchange visits . . .
Secretly—at night . . .
12
When I was a diplomat in Britain
Thirty years ago
My mother would send letters at the beginning of Spring
Inside each letter . . .
A bundle of tarragon . . .
And when the English suspected my letters
They took them to the laboratory
And turned them over to Scotland Yard
And explosives experts.
And when they grew weary of me . . . and my tarragon
They would ask: Tell us, by god . . .
What is the name of this magical herb that has made us dizzy?
Is it a talisman?
Medicine?
A secret code?
What is it called in English?
I said to them: It’s difficult for me to explain…
For tarragon is a language that only the gardens of Sham speak
It is our sacred herb . . .
Our perfumed eloquence
And if your great poet Shakespeare had known of tarragon
His plays would have been better . . .
In brief . . .
My mother is a wonderful woman . . . she loves me greatly . . .
And whenever she missed me
She would send me a bunch of tarragon . . .
Because for her, tarragon is the emotional equivalent
To the words: my darling . . .
And when the English didn’t understand one word of my poetic argument . . .
They gave me back my tarragon and closed the investigation . . .
13
From Khan Asad Basha
Abu Khalil al-Qabbani emerges . . .
In his damask robe . . .
And his brocaded turban . . .
And his eyes haunted with questions . . .
Like Hamlet’s
He attempts to present an avant-garde play
But they demand Karagoz’s tent . . .
He tries to present a text from Shakespeare
They ask him about the news of al-Zir . . .
He tries to find a single female voice
To sing with him . . .
“Oh That of Sham”
They load up their Ottoman rifles,
And fire into every rose tree
That sings professionally . . .
He tries to find a single woman
To repeat after him:
“Oh bird of birds, oh dove”
They unsheathe their knives
And slaughter all the descendents of doves . . .
And all the descendents of women . . .
After a hundred years . . .
Damascus apologized to Abu Khalil al-Qabbani
And they erected a magnificent theater in his name.
14
I put on the jubbah of Muhyi al-Din Ibn al-Arabi
I descend from the peak of Mt. Qassiun
Carrying for the children of the city . . .
Peaches
Pomegranates
And sesame halawa . . .
And for its women . . .
Necklaces of turquoise . . .
And poems of love . . .
I enter . . .
A long tunnel of sparrows
Gillyflowers . . .
Hibiscus . . .
Clustered jasmine . . .
And I enter the questions of perfume . . .
And my schoolbag is lost from me
And the copper lunch case . . .
In which I used to carry my food . . .
And the blue beads
That my mother used to hang on my chest
So People of Sham
He among you who finds me . . .
let him return me to Umm Mu’ataz
And God’s reward will be his
I am your green sparrow . . . People of Sham
So he among you who finds me . . .
let him feed me a grain of wheat . . .
I am your Damascene rose . . . People of Sham
So he among you who finds me . . .
let him place me in the first vase . . .
I am your mad poet . . . People of Sham
So he among you who sees me . . .
let him take a souvenir photograph of me
Before I recover from my enchanting insanity . . .
I am your fugitive moon . . . People of Sham
So he among you who sees me . . .
Let him donate to me a bed . . . and a wool blanket . . .
Because I haven’t slept for centuries
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उस पार न जाने क्या होगा!
यह चाँद उदित होकर नभ में
कुछ ताप मिटाता जीवन का,
लहरालहरा यह शाखाएँ
कुछ शोक भुला देती मन का,
कल मुर्झानेवाली कलियाँ
हँसकर कहती हैं मगन रहो,
बुलबुल तरु की फुनगी पर से
संदेश सुनाती यौवन का,
तुम देकर मदिरा के प्याले
मेरा मन बहला देती हो,
उस पार मुझे बहलाने का
उपचार न जाने क्या होगा!
इस पार, प्रिये मधु है तुम हो,
उस पार न जाने क्या होगा!
2
जग में रस की नदियाँ बहती,
रसना दो बूंदें पाती है,
जीवन की झिलमिलसी झाँकी
नयनों के आगे आती है,
स्वरतालमयी वीणा बजती,
मिलती है बस झंकार मुझे,
मेरे सुमनों की गंध कहीं
यह वायु उड़ा ले जाती है;
ऐसा सुनता, उस पार, प्रिये,
ये साधन भी छिन जाएँगे;
तब मानव की चेतनता का
आधार न जाने क्या होगा!
इस पार, प्रिये मधु है तुम हो,
उस पार न जाने क्या होगा!
3
प्याला है पर पी पाएँगे,
है ज्ञात नहीं इतना हमको,
इस पार नियति ने भेजा है,
असमर्थबना कितना हमको,
कहने वाले, पर कहते है,
हम कर्मों में स्वाधीन सदा,
करने वालों की परवशता
है ज्ञात किसे, जितनी हमको?
कह तो सकते हैं, कहकर ही
कुछ दिल हलका कर लेते हैं,
उस पार अभागे मानव का
अधिकार न जाने क्या होगा!
इस पार, प्रिये मधु है तुम हो,
उस पार न जाने क्या होगा!
4
कुछ भी न किया था जब उसका,
उसने पथ में काँटे बोये,
वे भार दिए धर कंधों पर,
जो रो-रोकर हमने ढोए;
महलों के सपनों के भीतर
जर्जर खँडहर का सत्य भरा,
उर में ऐसी हलचल भर दी,
दो रात न हम सुख से सोए;
अब तो हम अपने जीवन भर
उस क्रूर कठिन को कोस चुके;
उस पार नियति का मानव से
व्यवहार न जाने क्या होगा!
इस पार, प्रिये मधु है तुम हो,
उस पार न जाने क्या होगा!
5
संसृति के जीवन में, सुभगे
ऐसी भी घड़ियाँ आएँगी,
जब दिनकर की तमहर किरणे
तम के अन्दर छिप जाएँगी,
जब निज प्रियतम का शव, रजनी
तम की चादर से ढक देगी,
तब रवि-शशि-पोषित यह पृथ्वी
कितने दिन खैर मनाएगी!
जब इस लंबे-चौड़े जग का
अस्तित्व न रहने पाएगा,
तब हम दोनो का नन्हा-सा
संसार न जाने क्या होगा!
इस पार, प्रिये मधु है तुम हो,
उस पार न जाने क्या होगा!
6
ऐसा चिर पतझड़ आएगा
कोयल न कुहुक फिर पाएगी,
बुलबुल न अंधेरे में गागा
जीवन की ज्योति जगाएगी,
अगणित मृदु-नव पल्लव के स्वर
‘मरमर’ न सुने फिर जाएँगे,
अलि-अवली कलि-दल पर गुंजन
करने के हेतु न आएगी,
जब इतनी रसमय ध्वनियों का
अवसान, प्रिये, हो जाएगा,
तब शुष्क हमारे कंठों का
उद्गार न जाने क्या होगा!
इस पार, प्रिये मधु है तुम हो,
उस पार न जाने क्या होगा!
7
सुन काल प्रबल का गुरु-गर्जन
निर्झरिणी भूलेगी नर्तन,
निर्झर भूलेगा निज ‘टलमल’,
सरिता अपना ‘कलकल’ गायन,
वह गायक-नायक सिन्धु कहीं,
चुप हो छिप जाना चाहेगा,
मुँह खोल खड़े रह जाएँगे
गंधर्व, अप्सरा, किन्नरगण;
संगीत सजीव हुआ जिनमें,
जब मौन वही हो जाएँगे,
तब, प्राण, तुम्हारी तंत्री का
जड़ तार न जाने क्या होगा!
इस पार, प्रिये मधु है तुम हो,
उस पार न जाने क्या होगा!
8
उतरे इन आखों के आगे
जो हार चमेली ने पहने,
वह छीन रहा, देखो, माली,
सुकुमार लताओं के गहने,
दो दिन में खींची जाएगी
ऊषा की साड़ी सिन्दूरी,
पट इन्द्रधनुष का सतरंगा
पाएगा कितने दिन रहने;
जब मूर्तिमती सत्ताओं की
शोभा-सुषमा लुट जाएगी,
तब कवि के कल्पित स्वप्नों का
श्रृंगार न जाने क्या होगा!
इस पार, प्रिये मधु है तुम हो,
उस पार न जाने क्या होगा!
9
दृग देख जहाँ तक पाते हैं,
तम का सागर लहराता है,
फिर भी उस पार खड़ा कोई
हम सब को खींच बुलाता है;
मैं आज चला तुम आओगी
कल, परसों सब संगीसाथी,
दुनिया रोती-धोती रहती,
जिसको जाना है, जाता है;
मेरा तो होता मन डगडग,
तट पर ही के हलकोरों से!
जब मैं एकाकी पहुँचूँगा
मँझधार, न जाने क्या होगा!
इस पार, प्रिये मधु है तुम हो,
उस पार न जाने क्या होगा!
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मैं मधुशाला की मधुबाला!
मैं मधु-विक्रेता को प्यारी,
मधु के धट मुझपर बलिहारी,
प्यालों की मैं सुषमा सारी,
मेरा रुख देखा करती है
मधु-प्यासे नयनों की माला।
मैं मधुशाला की मधुबाला!
2
इस नीले अंचल की छाया
में जग-ज्वाला का झुलसाया
आकर शीतल करता काया,
मधु-मरहम का मैं लेपन कर
अच्छा करती उर का छाला।
मैं मधुशाला की मधुबाला!
3
मधुघट ले जब करती नर्तन,
मेरे नूपुर के छम-छनन
में लय होता जग का क्रंदन,
झूमा करता मानव जीवन
का क्षण-क्षण बनकर मतवाला।
मैं मधुशाला की मधुबाला!
4
मैं इस आँगन की आकर्षण,
मधु से सिंचित मेरी चितवन,
मेरी वाणी में मधु के कण,
मदमत्त बनाया मैं करती,
यश लूटा करती मधुशाला।
मैं मधुशाला की मधुबाला!
5
था एक समय, थी मधुशाला,
था मिट्टी का घट, था प्याला,
थी, किन्तु, नहीं साकीबाला,
था बैठा ठाला विक्रेता
दे बंद कपाटों पर ताला।
मैं मधुशाला की मधुबाला!
6
तब इस घर में था तम छाया,
था भय छाया, था भ्रम छाया,
था मातम छाया, गम छाया,
ऊषा का दीप लिए सर पर,
मैं आई करती उजियाला।
मैं मधुशाला की मधुबाला!
7
सोने की मधुशाना चमकी,
माणित द्युति से मदिरा दमकी,
मधुगंध दिशाओं में चमकी,
चल पड़ा लिए कर में प्याला
प्रत्येक सुरा पीनेवाला।
मैं मधुशाला की मधुबाला!
8
थे मदिरा के मृत-मूक घड़े,
थे मूर्ति सदृश मधुपात्र खड़े,
थे जड़वत् प्याले भूमि पड़े,
जादू के हाथों से छूकर
मैंने इनमें जीवन डाला।
मैं मधुशाला की मधुबाला!
9
मुझको छूकर मधुघट छलके,
प्याले मधु पीने को ललके ,
मालिक जागा मलकर पलकें,
अँगड़ाई लेकर उठ बैठी
चिर सुप्त विमूर्च्छित मधुशाला।
मैं मधुशाला की मधुबाला!
10
प्यासे आए, मैंने आँका,
वातायन से मैंने झाँका,
पीनेवालों का दल बाँका,
उत्कंठित स्वर से बोल उठा,
‘कर दे पागल, भर दे प्याला!’
मैं मधुशाला की मधुबाला!
11
खुल द्वार गए मदिरालय के,
नारे लगते मेरी जय के,
मिट चिह्न गए चिंता भय के,
हर ओर मचा है शोर यही,
‘ला-ला मदिरा ला-ला’!,
मैं मधुशाला की मधुबाला!
12
हर एक तृप्ति का दास यहाँ,
पर एक बात है खास यहाँ,
पीने से बढ़ती प्यास यहाँ,
सौभाग्य मगर मेरा देखो,
देने से बढ़ती है हाला!
मैं मधुशाला की मधुबाला!
13
चाहे जितना मैं दूँ हाला,
चाहे जितना तू पी प्याला,
चाहे जितना बन मतवाला,
सुन, भेद बताती हूँ अन्तिम,
यह शांत नही होगी ज्वाला।
मैं मधुशाला की मधुबाला!
14
मधु कौन यहाँ पीने आता,
है किसका प्यालों से नाता,
जग देख मुझे है मदमाता,
जिसके चिर तंद्रिल नयनों पर
तनती मैं स्वप्नों का जाला।
मैं मधुशाला की मधुबाला!
15
यह स्वप्न-विनिर्मित मधुशाला,
यह स्वप्न रचित मधु का प्याला,
स्वप्निल तृष्णा, स्वप्निल हाला,
स्वप्नों की दुनिया में भूला
फिरता मानव भोलाभाला।
मैं मधुशाला की मधुबाला!
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And said, A boon, a boon, I pray!
I know the secrets of the air,
And things are lost in the glare of day,
Which I can make the sleeping see,
If they will put their trust in me.
2.
And thou shalt know of things unknown,
If thou wilt let me rest between
The veiny lids, whose fringe is thrown
Over thine eyes so dark and sheen:
And half in hope, and half in fright,
The Lady closed her eyes so bright.
3.
At first all deadly shapes were driven
Tumultuously across her sleep,
And o’er the vast cope of bending heaven
All ghastly-visaged clouds did sweep;
And the Lady ever looked to spy
If the golden sun shone forth on high.
4.
And as towards the east she turned,
She saw aloft in the morning air,
Which now with hues of sunrise burned,
A great black Anchor rising there;
And wherever the Lady turned her eyes,
It hung before her in the skies.
5.
The sky was blue as the summer sea,
The depths were cloudless overhead,
The air was calm as it could be,
There was no sight or sound of dread,
But that black Anchor floating still
Over the piny eastern hill.
6.
The Lady grew sick with a weight of fear
To see that Anchor ever hanging,
And veiled her eyes; she then did hear
The sound as of a dim low clanging,
And looked abroad if she might know
Was it aught else, or but the flow
Of the blood in her own veins, to and fro.
7.
There was a mist in the sunless air,
Which shook as it were with an earthquake’s shock,
But the very weeds that blossomed there
Were moveless, and each mighty rock
Stood on its basis steadfastly;
The Anchor was seen no more on high.
8.
But piled around, with summits hid
In lines of cloud at intervals,
Stood many a mountain pyramid
Among whose everlasting walls
Two mighty cities shone, and ever
Through the red mist their domes did quiver.
9.
On two dread mountains, from whose crest,
Might seem, the eagle, for her brood,
Would ne’er have hung her dizzy nest,
Those tower-encircled cities stood.
A vision strange such towers to see,
Sculptured and wrought so gorgeously,
Where human art could never be.
10.
And columns framed of marble white,
And giant fanes, dome over dome
Piled, and triumphant gates, all bright
With workmanship, which could not come
From touch of mortal instrument,
Shot o’er the vales, or lustre lent
From its own shapes magnificent.
11.
But still the Lady heard that clang
Filling the wide air far away;
And still the mist whose light did hang
Among the mountains shook alway,
So that the Lady’s heart beat fast,
As half in joy, and half aghast,
On those high domes her look she cast.
12.
Sudden, from out that city sprung
A light that made the earth grow red;
Two flames that each with quivering tongue
Licked its high domes, and overhead
Among those mighty towers and fanes
Dropped fire, as a volcano rains
Its sulphurous ruin on the plains.
13.
And hark! a rush as if the deep
Had burst its bonds; she looked behind
And saw over the western steep
A raging flood descend, and wind
Through that wide vale; she felt no fear,
But said within herself, ’Tis clear
These towers are Nature’s own, and she
To save them has sent forth the sea.
14.
And now those raging billows came
Where that fair Lady sate, and she
Was borne towards the showering flame
By the wild waves heaped tumultuously.
And, on a little plank, the flow
Of the whirlpool bore her to and fro.
15.
The flames were fiercely vomited
From every tower and every dome,
And dreary light did widely shed
O’er that vast flood’s suspended foam,
Beneath the smoke which hung its night
On the stained cope of heaven’s light.
16.
The plank whereon that Lady sate
Was driven through the chasms, about and about,
Between the peaks so desolate
Of the drowning mountains, in and out,
As the thistle-beard on a whirlwind sails—
While the flood was filling those hollow vales.
17.
At last her plank an eddy crossed,
And bore her to the city’s wall,
Which now the flood had reached almost;
It might the stoutest heart appal
To hear the fire roar and hiss
Through the domes of those mighty palaces.
18.
The eddy whirled her round and round
Before a gorgeous gate, which stood
Piercing the clouds of smoke which bound
Its aery arch with light like blood;
She looked on that gate of marble clear,
With wonder that extinguished fear.
19.
For it was filled with sculptures rarest,
Of forms most beautiful and strange,
Like nothing human, but the fairest
Of winged shapes, whose legions range
Throughout the sleep of those that are,
Like this same Lady, good and fair.
20.
And as she looked, still lovelier grew
Those marble forms;—the sculptor sure
Was a strong spirit, and the hue
Of his own mind did there endure
After the touch, whose power had braided
Such grace, was in some sad change faded.
21.
She looked, the flames were dim, the flood
Grew tranquil as a woodland river
Winding through hills in solitude;
Those marble shapes then seemed to quiver,
And their fair limbs to float in motion,
Like weeds unfolding in the ocean.
22.
And their lips moved; one seemed to speak,
When suddenly the mountains cracked,
And through the chasm the flood did break
With an earth-uplifting cataract:
The statues gave a joyous scream,
And on its wings the pale thin Dream
Lifted the Lady from the stream.
23.
The dizzy flight of that phantom pale
Waked the fair Lady from her sleep,
And she arose, while from the veil
Of her dark eyes the Dream did creep,
And she walked about as one who knew
That sleep has sights as clear and true
As any waking eyes can view.
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In my tired, helpless body
I feel my sunk heart ache;
But suddenly, loudly
The far, the great guns shake.
Is it sudden terror
Burdens my heart? My hand
Flies to my head. I listen…
And do not understand.
Is death so near, then?
From this blazing light,
Do I plunge suddenly
Into vortex? Night?
Guns again! the quiet
Shakes at the vengeful voice…
It is terrible pleasure
I do not fear; I rejoice.
2.
On the Way Up
The battery grinds and jingles,
Mile succeeds to mile;
Shaking the noonday sunshine,
The guns lunge out a while
And then are still a while.
We amble along the highway;
The reeking, powdery dust
Ascends and cakes our faces,
With a striped, sweaty crust.
Under the still sky’s violet
The heat throbs in the air…
The white road’s dusty radiance,
Assumes a dark glare.
With a head hot and heavy,
And eyes that cannot rest,
And a black heart burning
In a stifled breast,
I sit in the saddle,
I feel the road unroll,
And keep my senses straightened
Toward to-morrow’s goal.
There over unknown meadows,
Which we must reach at last,
Day and night thunders
A black and chilly blast.
Heads forget heaviness,
Hearts forget spleen,
For by that mighty winnowing
Being is blown clean.
Light in the eyes again,
Strength in the hand,
A spirit dares, dies, forgives
And can understand.
And best! Love comes back again
After grief and shame,
And along the wind of death
Throws a clean flame!
The battery grinds and jingles;
Mile succeeds to mile;
Suddenly battering the silence
The guns burst out a while.
I lift my head and smile.
3.
Nearer
Nearer and ever nearer….
My body tired but tense
Hovers ‘twixt vague pleasure
And tremulous confidence.
Arms to have and to use them,
And a soul to be made
Worthy if not worthy;
If afraid, unafraid!
To endure for a little.
To endure and have done:
Men I love about me,
Over me the sun!
And should at last suddenly
Fly the speeding death:
The four great quarters of heaven
Receive this little breath.
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To any living thing
Open your ears and stay your t[r]udge
Whilst I in dudgeon sing.
2.
The Gadfly he hath stung me sore–
O may he ne’er sting you!
But we have many a horrid bore
He may sting black and blue.
3.
Has any here an old grey Mare
With three legs all her store,
O put it to her Buttocks bare
And straight she’ll run on four.
4.
Has any here a Lawyer suit
Of 1743,
Take Lawyer’s nose and put it to’t
And you the end will see.
5.
Is there a Man in Parliament
Dum[b-] founder’d in his speech,
O let his neighbour make a rent
And put one in his breech.
6.
O Lowther how much better thou
Hadst figur’d t’other day
When to the folks thou mad’st a bow
And hadst no more to say.
7.
If lucky Gadfly had but ta’en
His seat * * * * * * * * *
And put thee to a little pain
To save thee from a worse.
8.
Better than Southey it had been,
Better than Mr. D——-,
Better than Wordsworth too, I ween,
Better than Mr. V——-.
9.
Forgive me pray good people all
For deviating so —
In spirit sure I had a call —
And now I on will go.
10.
Has any here a daughter fair
Too fond of reading novels,
Too apt to fall in love with care
And charming Mister Lovels,
11.
O put a Gadfly to that thing
She keeps so white and pert —
I mean the finger for the ring,
And it will breed a wort.
12.
Has any here a pious spouse
Who seven times a day
Scolds as King David pray’d, to chouse
And have her holy way —
13.
O let a Gadfly’s little sting
Persuade her sacred tongue
That noises are a common thing,
But that her bell has rung.
14.
And as this is the summon bo
num of all conquering,
I leave ‘withouten wordes mo’
The Gadfly’s little sting.
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ସତରେ ଖୁସିରେ!
2
ଚୋରୀ ଦାରୀ ମଦୁଆ ଗଂଜୁଆ ସର୍ବତ୍ର,
ଜୟ ହୋ, ପବିତ୍ର!
କବି ଲେଖକ ବୁଦ୍ଧିଜୀବୀ ଆତ୍ମରତିରେ ମଗ୍ନ,
ଆଖି ରହିଛି କୋଉଠି ଧନ,
ପୁରସ୍କାର ସମ୍ମାନ!
ମା ମାଟି ମ୍ଲାନ।
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there to see; you and America, like the tree and the
ground, are one the same; yet how like a palm tree
in the state of Oregon. . . dead ere it blossomed,
like a snow polar loping the
Miami—
How so that which you were or hoped to be, and the
America not, the America you saw yet could
not see
So like yet unlike the ground from which you stemmed;
you stood upon America like a rootless
Hat-bottomed tree; to the squirrel there was no
divorcement in its hop of ground to its climb of
tree. . . until it saw no acorn fall, then it knew
there was no marriage between the two; how
fruitless, how useless, the sad unnaturalness
of nature; no wonder the dawn ceased being
a joy. . . for what good the earth and sun when
the tree in between is good for nothing. . . the
inseparable trinity, once dissevered, becomes a
cold fruitless meaningless thrice-marked
deathlie in its awful amputation. . . O butcher
the pork-chop is not the pig—The American
alien in America is a bitter truncation; and even
this elegy, dear Jack, shall have a butchered
tree, a tree beaten to a pulp, upon which it’ll be
contained—no wonder no good news can be
written on such bad news—
How alien the natural home, aye, aye, how dies the tree when
the ground is foreign, cold, unfree—The winds
know not to blow the seed of the Redwood where
none before stood; no palm is blown to Oregon,
how wise the wind—Wise
too the senders of the prophet. . . knowing the
fertility of the designated spot where suchmeant
prophecy be announced and answerable—the
sower of wheat does not sow in the fields of cane;
for the sender of the voice did also send the ear.
And were little Liechtenstein, and not America, the
designation. . . surely then we’d the tongues of
Liechtenstein—
Was not so much our finding America as it was America finding
its voice in us; many spoke to America as though
America by land-right was theirs by law-right
legislatively acquired by materialistic coups of
wealth and inheritance; like the citizen of society
believes himself the owner of society, and what he
makes of himself he makes of America and thus when
he speaks of America he speaks of himself, and quite
often such a he is duly elected to represent what he
represents. . . an infernal ego of an America
Thus many a patriot speaks lovingly of himself when he speaks
of America, and not to appreciate him is not to
appreciate America, and vice-versa
The tongue of truth is the true tongue of America, and it could
not be found in the Daily Heralds since the voice
therein was a controlled voice, wickedly
opinionated, and directed at gullible
No wonder we found ourselves rootless. . . for we’ve become the
very roots themselves,—the lie can never take root
and there grow under a truth of sun and therefrom bear the fruit of truth
Alas, Jack, seems I cannot requiem thee without
requieming America, and that’s one requiem
I shall not presume, for as long as I live there’ll
be no requiems for me
For though the tree dies the tree is born anew, only until
the tree dies forever and never a tree born
anew. . . shall the ground die too
Yours the eyes that saw, the heart that felt, the voice that
sang and cried; and as long as America shall live, though
ye old Kerouac body hath died, yet shall you live. . .
for indeed ours was a time of prophecy without death
as a consequence. . . for indeed after us came the time
of assassins, and whotll doubt thy last words ‘After
me. . . the deluge’
Ah, but were it a matter of seasons I’d not doubt the return of the
tree, for what good the ground upon which we stand
itself unable to stand—aye the tree will in seasonal
time fall, for it be nature’s wont, thaPs why the
ground, the down, the slow yet sure decomposition,
until the very tree becomes the very ground where
once it stood; yet falls the ground. . . ah, then what?
unanswerable this be unto nature, for there is no
ground whereon to fall and land, no down, no up
even, directionless, and into what, if what,
composition goeth its decomposition?
We came to announce the human spirit in the name of
beauty and truth; and now this spirit cries out in nature’s sake
the horrendous imbalance of all things natural. . .
elusive nature caught! like a bird in hand, harnessed
and engineered in the unevolutional ways of
experiment and technique
Yes though the tree has taken root in the ground the ground is
upturned and in this forced vomitage is spewn the
dire miasma of fossilific trees of death the
million-yeared pitch and grease of a dinosauric age
dead and gone how all brought to surface again and
made to roam the sky we breathe in stampedes of
pollution
What hope for the America so embodied in thee, O friend, when
the very same alcohol that disembodied your
brother redman of his America, disembodied
ye—A plot to grab their land, we know—yet what
plot to grab the ungrabbable land of one’s spirit? Thy visionary America were
impossible to unvision—for when the shades of the
windows of the spirit are brought down, that which
was seen yet remains. . . the eyes of the spirit yet see
Aye the America so embodied in thee, so definitely rooted
therefrom, is the living embodiment of all
humanity, young and free
And though the great redemptive tree blooms, not yet full, not
yet entirely sure, there be the darksters, sad and
old, would like to have it fall; they hack and chop
and saw away. . . that nothing full and young and
free for sure be left to stand at all
Verily were such trees as youth be. . . were such be made to fall,
and never rise to fall again, then shall the ground
fall, and the deluge come and wash it asunder,
wholly all and forever, like a wind out of nowhere into nowhere
2
‘How so like Clark Gable hands your hands. . .’ (Mexico
conversation 1956)—Hands so strong and Mexican
sunned, busy about America, hands I knew would
make it, would hold guard and caring
You were always talking about America, and America was always
history to me, General Wolfe lying on the ground
dying in his bright redcoat smittered by a bluecoat
hanging in the classroom wall next to the father of
our country whose heart area was painted in cloud. .
. yes, ours was an American history, a history with a
future, for sure;
How a Whitman we were always wanting, a hoping, an
America, that America ever an America to be,
never an America to sing about or to, but ever an
America to sing hopefully for
All we had was past America, and ourselves, the now America,
and O how we regarded that past! And O the big lie
of that school classroom! The Revolutionary War. . .
all we got was Washington, Revere, Henry,
Hamilton, Jefferson, and Franklin. . . never Nat
Bacon, Sam Adams, Paine. . . and what of liberty?
was not to gain liberty that war, liberty they had,
they were the freest peoples of their time; was not to
lose that liberty was why they went to arms—yet,
and yet, the season that blossomed us upon the
scene was hardly free; be there liberty today? not to
hear the redman, the blackman, the youngman tell—
And in the beginning when liberty was all one could hear; wasn’t
much of it for the poor witches of Salem; and that
great lauder of liberty, Franklin, paid 100 dollar
bounty for each scalp of the wild children of natural
free; Pitt Jr. obtained most of the city of brotherly
love by so outrageous a deception as stymied the
trusting heart of his red brother with tortuous
mistrust; and how ignorant of liberty the wise
Jefferson owning the black losers of liberty; for the
declarers of independence to declare it only for part
of the whole was to declare civil war
Justice is all any man of liberty need hope for; and justice was a
most important foundling thing; a diadem for
American life upon which the twinship of private
property and God could be established;
How suffered the poor native American the enforced
establishing of those two pillars of liberty!
From justice stems a variable God, from God stems a
dictated justice
‘The ways of the Lord lead to liberty’ sayeth St. Paul. . .
– yet a man need liberty, not God, to be able to follow
the ways of God
The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those
to whom the land by right of first claim
collectively belonged;
He who sells mankind’s land to a single man sells the
Brooklyn Bridge
The second greatest cause of human death. . . is the
acquiring of property
No American life is worth an acre of America. . . if No
Trespassing and guarding mastiffs can’t tell you
shotguns will
So, sweet seeker, just what America sought you anyway? Know
that today there are millions of Americans
seeking America. . . know that even with all
those eye-expanding chemicals—only more of
what is not there do they see
Some find America in songs of clumping stone, some in
fogs of revolution
All find it in their hearts. . . and O how it tightens the heart
Not so much their being imprisoned in an old and unbearable
America. . . more the America imprisoned in
them—so wracks and darkens the spirit
An America unseen, dreamed, tremors uncertain, bums the
heart, sends bad vibes forth cosmic and otherwise
You could see the contempt in their young-sad eyes. . . and
meantime the jails are becoming barber shops, and
the army has always been
Yet unable they are to shave the hurricane from their eyes
Look unto Moses, no prophet ever reached the dreamed of
lands. . . ah but your eyes are dead. . . nor the
America beyond your last dreamed hill hovers
real
3
How alike our hearts and time and dying, how our America out
there and in our hearts insatiable yet overHowing
hallelujahs of poesy and hope
How we knew to feel each dawn, to ooh and aah each golden
sorrow and helplessness coast to coast in our
search for whatever joy steadfast never there
nowever grey
Yea the America the America unstained and never revolutioned
for liberty ever in us free, the America in
us—unboundaried and unhistoried, we the
America, we the fathers of that America, the
America you Johnnyappleseeded, the America I
heralded, an America not there, an
America soon to be
The prophet affects the state, and the state affects the
prophet—What happened to you, O friend,
happened to America, and we know what
happened to America—the stain. . . the stains,
O and yet when it’s asked of you ‘What happened to him?’ I say
‘What happened to America has happened
him—the two were inseparable’ Like the wind to the
sky is the voice to the word….
And now that voice is gone, and now the word is bone, and the
America is going, the planet boned
A man can have everything he desires in his home yet have
nothing outside the door—for a feeling man, a poet
man, such an outside serves only to make home a
place in which to hang oneself
And us ones, sweet friend, we’ve always brought America home
with us—and never like dirty laundry, even with all
the stains
And through the front door, lovingly cushioned in our hearts;
where we sat down and told it our dreams of beauty
hopeful that it would leave our homes beautiful
And what has happened to our dream of beauteous
America, Jack?
Did it look beautiful to you, did it sound so too, in its cold
electric blue, that America that spewed and
stenched your home, your good brain, that unreal
fake America, that caricature of America, that
plugged in a wall America. . . a gallon of desperate
whiskey a day it took ye to look that America in its
disembodied eye
And it saw you not, it never saw you, for what you saw was not
there, what you saw was Laugh-in, and all America
was in laughing, that America brought you in,
brought America in, all that out there brought in, all
that nowhere nothing in, no wonder you were
lonesome, died empty and sad and lonely, you the
real face and voice. . . caught before the fake face
and voice—and it became real and you fake,
O the awful fragility of things
‘What happened to him?’ ‘What happened to you?’ Death
happened him; a gypped life happened; a God gone
sick happened; a dream nightmared; a youth
armied; an army massacred; the father wants to eat
the son, the son feeds his stone, but the father no
get stoned
And you, Jack, poor Jack, watched your father die, your America
die, your God die, your body die, die die die; and
today fathers are watching their sons die, and their
sons are watching babies die, why? Why? How we
both asked WHY?
O the sad sad awfulness of it all
You but a mere decade of a Kerouac, but what a lifetime in that
dix Kerouacl
Nothing happened you that did not happen; nothing went
unfulfilled, you circ’d the circle full, and what’s
happening to America is no longer happening
to you, for what happens to the consciousness of the land
happens to the voice of that consciousness and the voice has
died yet the land remains to forget what it has heard and the
word leaves no bone
And both word and land of flesh and earth
suffer the same sick the same death. . . and dies the voice before
the flesh, and the wind blows a dead silence over the dying
earth, and the earth will leave its bone, and nothing of wind will
roll the moan, but silence, silence, nor e’en that will
God’s ear hear
Aye, what happened to you, dear friend, compassionate friend,
is what is happening to everyone and thing of
planet the clamorous sadly desperate planet now
one voice less. . . expendable as the wind. . . gone,
and who’ll now blow away the awful miasma of
sick, sick and dying earthflesh-soul America
When you went on the road looking for America you found only
what you put there and a man seeking gold finds the
only America there is to find; and his investment
and a poet’s investment. . . the same when comes
the crash, and it’s crashing, yet the windows are
tight, are not for jumping; from
hell none e’er fell
4
In Hell angels sing too
And they sang to behold anew
Those who followed the first Christ-bearer
left hell and beheld a world new
yet with guns and Bibles came they
and soon their new settlement became old
and once again hell held quay
The ArcAngel Raphael was I to you
And I put the Cross of the Lord of Angels
upon you. . . there
on the eve of a new world to explore
And you were flashed upon the old and darkling day
a Beat Christ-boy. . . bearing the gentle roundness of things
insisting the soul was round not square
And soon. . . behind thee
there came a-following
the children of flowers
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ছিলো, নেই- মাত্র এই; ইটের পাঁজায়
আগুন জ্বালায় রাত্রে দারুণ জ্বালায়
আর সব ধ্যান ধান নষ্ট হয়ে যায়।
২.
নষ্ট হয়ে যাবার পথে গিয়েছিলুম, প্রভু আমার!
তুমি আমার
নষ্ট হবার সমস্ত ঋণ
কোটর ভরে রেখেছিলে।
কিন্তু আমার অমোঘ মুঠি ধরে বুকের মোরগঝুঁটি
সন্ধ্যাবেলা শুধু আমার
মুখের রঙে
ঝরে পড়ার ঝরে পড়ার
ঝরে পড়ার শব্দ জানে তুমি আমার নষ্ট প্রভু!
৩.
সকল প্রতাপ হলো প্রায় অবসিত
জ্বালাহীন হৃদয়ের একান্ত নিভৃতে
কিছু মায়া রয়ে গেলো দিনান্তের,
শুধু এই-
কোনোভাবে বেঁচে থেকে প্রণাম জানানো
পৃথিবীকে।
মূঢ়তার অপনোদনের শান্তি,
শুধু এই-
ঘৃণা নেই, নেই তঞ্চকতা,
জীবনযাপনে আজ যতো ক্লান্তি থাক,
বেঁচে থাকা শ্লাঘনীয় তবু।
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ଗଜାନନ ମିଶ୍ର
‘ସ୍ୱର୍ଗେ ସିନା ବାସ ତାଙ୍କ ନୀଚ ମତିଗତି,
ଦେବତାଏ ପର ଶିରୀ ଦେଖି ନ ପାରନ୍ତି’
ୟା ପରେ ରହିଛି କଣ କହିବାକୁ
ମତେ ନାଇଁ ଜଣା।
ଯଦି କହିବି କହିବେ ପରହିଂସୁକ।
ଯଦି କହିବି କହିବେ ୟେ ସବୁ
ଦଳିତ ସାହିତ୍ୟର ଅଂଶବିଶେଷ।
ନ କହିଲେ ଛାତି ଫଟେଇ
ମରିବା ସାର।
ମଲେ କହିବେ ଗୁରୁ ଗୁରୁଜନଙ୍କୁ
ବେଖାତିର ଫଳ।
ଫଳ ମିଳେ ଏମିତି
ଏପଟୁ ପାହାର ସେପଟୁ ପାହାର,
ଶଳା, ଜାତିଠୁ ବାହାର!
କୋଉ ଜାତି କଥା କହୁଛି କିଏ
ଯାଇ ପାରୁଛ ଯଦି ଯାଇ ପଚାର!
ପଚାରିବ କାହାକୁ ହେ
ଯେ ଯାହାର ଚୌହଦୀରେ
ଚଉଦ ପା ସମସ୍ତେ।
ଲଙ୍କାର ସବୁ ଏତେ କଣ
ଅସୁର ସତେ!
ନାଇଁ ତ, ୟେ କୁରୁ ସଭା ବେ,
ଦେଖୁ ନ, ପାଟି ବନ୍ଦ
ସବୁ ଦେଖି ସବୁ ଶୁଣି ସବୁ ଜାଣି
ଚୁପ୍ ନିଜ ନିଜ ନୀଚ ସ୍ୱାର୍ଥ ପାଇଁ!
ଆଗକୁ ଧ୍ବଂସର ପଥ
ସତରେ ନା କଣ!
ଥାଉ, ଏବେ ଆଉ ନାଇଁ।
2
ଚବ୍ୟ ଚୋଷ୍ୟ ଲେହ୍ୟ ପେୟ
ଅଛି ସବୁ ପୂରି,
ନିଅ ନିଅ ଯାହାକୁ ଯୋଉଟା ଇଚ୍ଛା
ନିଅ ମନ ଭରି।
ଏଠି କିଛି କେବେ ଯାଏ ନା ସରି।
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Itself the goodness.
Life –
Storehouse of
Victory and
Glory.
2
Pious streams –
The Ganges.
Most purifiers –
The wind.
And one
And the same
The beginning
The middle
And the end –
Life.
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I am almost nationalistic about it!
I love America like a madness!
But I am afraid to return to America
I’m even afraid to go into the American Express—
2
They are frankensteining Christ in America
in their Sunday campaigns
They are putting the fear of Christ in America
under their tents in their Sunday campaigns
They are driving old ladies mad with Christ in America
They are televising the gift of healing and the fear of hell
in America under their tents in their Sunday
campaigns
They are leaving their tents and are bringing their Christ
to the stadiums of America in their Sunday
campaigns
They are asking for a full house an all get out
for their Christ in the stadiums of America
They are getting them in their Sunday and Saturday
campaigns
They are asking them to come forward and fall on their
knees
because they are all guilty and they are coming
forward
in guilt and are falling on their knees weeping their
guilt
begging to be saved O Lord O Lord in their Monday
Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday
and Sunday campaigns
3
It is a time in which no man is extremely wondrous
It is a time in which rock stupidity
outsteps the 5th Column as the sole enemy in America
It is a time in which ignorance is a good Ameri-cun
ignorance is excused only where it is so
it is not so in America
Man is not guilty Christ is not to be feared
I am telling you the American Way is a hideous monster
eating Christ making Him into Oreos and Dr. Pepper
the sacrament of its foul mouth
I am telling you the devil is impersonating Christ in America
America’s educators & preachers are the mental-dictators
of false intelligence they will not allow America
to be smart
they will only allow death to make America smart
Educators & communicators are the lackeys of the
American Way
They enslave the minds of the young
and the young are willing slaves (but not for long)
because who is to doubt the American Way
is not the way?
The duty of these educators is no different
than the duty of a factory foreman
Replica production make all the young think alike
dress alike believe alike do alike
Togetherness this is the American Way
The few great educators in America are weak & helpless
They abide and so uphold the American Way
Wars have seen such men they who despised things about them
but did nothing and they are the most dangerous
Dangerous because their intelligence is not denied
and so give faith to the young
who rightfully believe in their intelligence
Smoke this cigarette doctors smoke this cigarette
and doctors know
Educators know but they dare not speak their know
The victory that is man is made sad in this fix
Youth can only know the victory of being born
all else is stemmed until death be the final victory
and a merciful one at that
If America falls it will be the blame of its educators
preachers communicators alike
America today is America’s greatest threat
We are old when we are young
America is always new the world is always new
The meaning of the world is birth not death
Growth gone in the wrong direction
The true direction grows ever young
In this direction what grows grows old
A strange mistake a strange and sad mistake
for it has grown into an old thing
while all else around it is new
Rockets will not make it any younger—
And what made America decide to grow?
I do not know I can only hold it to the strangeness in man
And America has grown into the American Way—
To be young is to be ever purposeful limitless
To grow is to know limit purposelessness
Each age is a new age
How outrageous it is that something old and sad
from the pre-age incorporates each new age—
Do I say the Declaration of Independence is old?
Yes I say what was good for 1789 is not good for 1960
It was right and new to say all men were created equal
because it was a light then
But today it is tragic to say it
today it should be fact—
Man has been on earth a long time
One would think with his mania for growth
he would, by now, have outgrown such things as
constitutions manifestos codes commandments
that he could well live in the world without them
and know instinctively how to live and be
—for what is being but the facility to love?
Was not that the true goal of growth, love?
Was not that Christ?
But man is strange and grows where he will
and chalks it all up to Fate whatever be—
America rings with such strangeness
It has grown into something strange and
the American is good example of this mad growth
The boy man big baby meat
as though the womb were turned backwards
giving birth to an old man
The victory that is man does not allow man
to top off his empirical achievement with death
The Aztecs did it by yanking out young hearts
at the height of their power
The Americans are doing it by feeding their young to the
Way
For it was not the Spaniard who killed the Aztec
but the Aztec who killed the Aztec
Rome is proof Greece is proof all history is proof
Victory does not allow degeneracy
It will not be the Communists will kill America
no but America itself—
The American Way that sad mad process
is not run by any one man or organization
It is a monster born of itself existing of its self
The men who are employed by this monster
are employed unknowingly
They reside in the higher echelons of intelligence
They are the educators the psychiatrists the ministers
the writers the politicians the communicators
the rich the entertainment world
And some follow and sing the Way because they sincerely
believe it to be good
And some believe it holy and become minutemen in it
Some are in it simply to be in
And most are in it for gold
They do not see the Way as monster
They see it as the ‘Good Life’
What is the Way?
The Way was born out of the American Dream a
nightmare—
The state of Americans today compared to the Americans
of the 18th century proves the nightmare—
Not Franklin not Jefferson who speaks for America today
but strange red-necked men of industry
and the goofs of show business
Bizarre! Frightening! The Mickey Mouse sits on the throne
and Hollywood has a vast supply—
Could grammar school youth seriously look upon
a picture of George Washington and ‘Herman Borst’
the famous night club comedian together at Valley
Forge?
Old old and decadent gone the dignity
the American sun seems headed for the grave
O that youth might raise it anewl
The future depends solely on the young
The future is the property of the young
What the young know the future will know
What they are and do the future will be and do
What has been done must not be done again
Will the American Way allow this?
No.
I see in every American Express
and in every army center in Europe
I see the same face the same sound of voice
the same clothes the same walk
I see mothers & fathers no
difference among them
Replicas
They not only speak and walk and think alike
they have the same facel
What did this monstrous thing?
What regiments a people so?
How strange is nature’s play on America
Surely were Lincoln alive today
he could never be voted President not with his
looks—
Indeed Americans are babies all in the embrace
of Mama Way
Did not Ike, when he visited the American Embassy in
Paris a year ago, say to the staff—’Everything is fine, just drink
Coca Cola, and everything will be all right.’
This is true, and is on record
Did not American advertising call for TOGETHERNESS?
not orgiasticly like today’s call
nor as means to stem violence
This is true, and is on record.
Are not the army centers in Europe ghettos?
They are, and O how sad how lost!
The PX newsstands are filled with comic books
The army movies are always Doris Day
What makes a people huddle so?
Why can’t they be universal?
Who has smelled them so?
This is serious! I do not mock or hate this
I can only sense some mad vast conspiracy!
Helplessness is all it is!
They are caught caught in the Way—
And those who seek to get out of the Way
can not
The Beats are good example of this
They forsake the Way’s habits
and acquire for themselves their own habits
And they become as distinct and regimented and lost
as the main flow
because the Way has many outlets
like a snake of many tentacles—
There is no getting out of the Way
The only way out is the death of the Way
And what will kill the Way but a new consciousness
Something great and new and wonderful must happen
to free man from this beast
It is a beast we can not see or even understand
For it be the condition of our minds
God how close to science fiction it all seemsl
As if some power from another planet
incorporated itself in the minds of us all
It could well bel
For as I live I swear America does not seem like America
to me
Americans are a great people
I ask for some great and wondrous event
that will free them from the Way
and make them a glorious purposeful people once
again
I do not know if that event is due deserved
or even possible
I can only hold that man is the victory of life
And I hold firm to American man
I see standing on the skin of the Way
America to be as proud and victorious as St.
Michael on the neck of the fallen Lucifer—
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to sing and fly away.
And yellow leaves of autumn,
which have no songs,
flutter and fall there with a sigh.
2
O TROUPE of little vagrants of the world,
leave your footprints in my words.
3
THE world puts off its mask of vastness to its lover.
It becomes small as one song,
as one kiss of the eternal.
4
IT is the tears of the earth
that keep her smiles in bloom.
5
THE mighty desert is burning
for the love of a blade of grass
who shakes her head and laughs
and flies
away.
6
IF you shed tears when you miss the sun,
you also miss the stars.
7
THE sands in your way beg for your song
and your movement,
dancing water.
Will you carry the burden of their lameness?
8
HER wistful face haunts my dreams
like the rain at night.
9
ONCE we dreamt that we were strangers.
We wake up to find that we were dear to each other.
10
SORROW is hushed into peace in my heart
like the evening among the silent trees.
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Who says? A nameless stranger.
Is he a bird or a tree? Not everyone can tell.
Water recedes to the crying of spiders.
An old scow bumps over black rocks.
A cracked pod calls.
Mother me out of here. What more will the bones allow?
Will the sea give the wind suck? A toad folds into a stone.
These flowers are all fangs. Comfort me, fury.
Wake me, witch, we’ll do the dance of rotten sticks.
Shale loosens. Marl reaches into the field. Small birds pass over water.
Spirit, come near. This is only the edge of whiteness.
I can’t laugh at a procession of dogs.
In the hour of ripeness the tree is barren.
The she-bear mopes under the hill.
Mother, mother, stir from your cave of sorrow.
A low mouth laps water. Weeds, weeds, how I love you.
The arbor is cooler. Farewell, farewell, fond worm.
The warm comes without sound.
2
Where’s the eye?
The eye’s in the sty.
The ear’s not here
Beneath the hair.
When I took off my clothes
To find a nose,
There was only one shoe
For the waltz of To,
The pinch of Where.
Time for the flat-headed man. I recognize that listener,
Him with the platitudes and rubber doughnuts,
Melting at the knees, a varicose horror.
Hello, hello. My nerves knew you, dear boy.
Have you come to unhinge my shadow?
Last night I slept in the pits of a tongue.
The silver fish ran in and out of my special bindings;
I grew tired of the ritual of names and the assistant keeper of the
mollusks:
Up over a viaduct I came, to the snakes and sticks of another winter,
A two-legged dog hunting a new horizon of howls.
The wind sharpened itself on a rock;
A voice sang:
Pleasure on ground
Has no sound,
Easily maddens
The uneasy man.
Who, careless, slips
In coiling ooze
Is trapped to the lips,
Leaves more than shoes;
Must pull off clothes
To jerk like a frog
On belly and nose
From the sucking bog.
My meat eats me. Who waits at the gate?
Mother of quartz, your words writhe into my ear.
Renew the light, lewd whisper.
3
The wasp waits.
The edge cannot eat the center.
The grape glistens.
The path tells little to the serpent.
An eye comes out of the wave.
The journey from flesh is longest.
A rose sways least.
The redeemer comes a dark way.
4
Morning-fair, follow me further back
Into that minnowy world of weeds and ditches,
When the herons floated high over the white houses,
And the little crabs slipped into silvery craters.
When the sun for me glinted the sides of a sand grain,
And my intent stretched over the buds at their first trembling.
That air and shine: and the flicker’s loud summer call:
The bearded boards in the stream and the all of apples;
The glad hen on the hill; and the trellis humming.
Death was not. I lived in a simple drowse:
Hands and hair moved through a dream of wakening blossoms.
Rain sweetened the cave and the dove still called;
The flowers leaned on themselves, the flowers in hollows;
And love, love sang toward.
5
To have the whole air!—
The light, the full sun
Coming down on the flowerheads,
The tendrils turning slowly,
A slow snail-lifting, liquescent;
To be by the rose
Rising slowly out of its bed,
Still as a child in its first loneliness;
To see cyclamen veins become clearer in early sunlight,
And mist lifting out of the brown cat-tails;
To stare into the after-light, the glitter left on the lake’s surface,
When the sun has fallen behind a wooded island;
To follow the drops sliding from a lifted oar,
Held up, while the rower breathes, and the small boat drifts quietly shoreward;
To know that light falls and fills, often without our knowing,
As an opaque vase fills to the brim from a quick pouring,
Fills and trembles at the edge yet does not flow over,
Still holding and feeding the stem of the contained flower.
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By an impatient Passion sway’d,
Surpris’d fair Cloris, that lov’d Maid,
Who cou’d defend her self no longer;
All things did with his Love conspire,
The gilded Planet of the Day,
In his gay Chariot, drawn by Fire,
War now descending to the Sea,
And left no Light to guide the World,
But what from Cloris brighter Eves was hurl’d.
2.
In alone Thicket, made for Love,
Silent as yielding Maids Consent,
She with a charming Languishment
Permits his force, yet gently strove?
Her Hands his Bosom softly meet,
But not to put him back design’d,
Rather to draw him on inclin’d,
Whilst he lay trembling at her feet;
Resistance ’tis to late to shew,
She wants the pow’r to sav – Ah! what do you do?
3.
Her bright Eyes sweat, and yet Severe,
Where Love and Shame confus’dly strive,
Fresh Vigor to Lisander give:
And whispring softly in his Ear,
She Cry’d – Cease – cease – your vain desire,
Or I’ll call out – What wou’d you do?
My dearer Honour, ev’n to you,
I cannot – must not give – retire,
Or take that Life whose chiefest part
I gave you with the Conquest of my Heart.
4.
But he as much unus’d to fear,
As he was capable of Love,
The blessed Minutes to improve,
Kisses her Lips, her Neck, her Hair!
Each touch her new Desires alarms!
His burning trembling Hand he prest
Upon her melting Snowy Breast,
While she lay panting in his Arms!
All her unguarded Beauties lie
The Spoils and Trophies of the Enemy.
5.
And now, without Respect or Fear,
He seeks the Objects of his Vows;
His Love no Modesty allows:
By swift degrees advancing where
His daring Hand that Alter seiz’d,
Where Gods of Love do Sacrifice;
That awful Throne, that Paradise,
Where Rage is tam’d, and Anger pleas’d;
That Living Fountain, from whose Trills
The melted Soul in liquid Drops distils.
6.
Her balmy Lips encountring his,
Their Bodies as their Souls are joyn’d,
Where both in Transports were confin’d,
Extend themselves upon the Moss.
Cloris half dead and breathless lay,
Her Eyes appear’d like humid Light,
Such as divides the Day and Night;
Or falling Stars, whose Fires decay;
And now no signs of Life she shows,
But what in short-breath-sighs returns and goes.
7.
He saw how at her length she lay,
He saw her rising Bosom bare,
Her loose thin Robes, through which appear
A Shape design’d for Love and Play;
Abandon’d by her Pride and Shame,
She do’s her softest Sweets dispence,
Offring her Virgin-Innocence
A Victim to Loves Sacred Flame;
Whilst th’ or’e ravish’d Shepherd lies,
Unable to perform the Sacrifice.
8.
Ready to taste a Thousand Joys,
Thee too transported hapless Swain,
Found the vast Pleasure turn’d to Pain:
Pleasure, which too much Love destroys!
The willing Garments by he laid,
And Heav’n all open to his view;
Mad to possess, himself he threw
On the defenceless lovely Maid.
But oh! what envious Gods conspire
To snatch his Pow’r, yet leave him the Desire!
9.
Natures support, without whose Aid
She can no humane Being give,
It self now wants the Art to live,
Faintness it slacken’d Nerves invade:
In vain th’ enraged Youth assaid
To call his fleeting Vigour back,
No Motion ’twill from Motion take,
Excess of Love his Love betray’d;
In vain he Toils, in vain Commands,
Th’ Insensible fell weeping in his Hands.
10.
In this so Am’rous cruel strife,
Where Love and Fate were too severe,
The poor Lisander in Despair,
Renounc’d his Reason with his Life.
Now all the Brisk and Active Fire
That should the Nobler Part inflame,
Unactive Frigid, Dull became,
And left no Spark for new Desire;
Not all her Naked Charms cou’d move,
Or calm that Rage that had debauch’d his Love.
11.
Cloris returning from the Trance
Which Love and soft Desire had bred,
Her tim’rous Hand she gently laid,
Or guided by Design or Chance,
Upon that Fabulous Priapus,
That Potent God (as Poets feign.)
But never did young Shepherdess
(Garth’ring of Fern upon the Plain)
More nimbly draw her Fingers back,
Finding beneath the Verdant Leaves a Snake.
12.
Then Cloris her fair Hand withdrew,
Finding that God of her Desires
Disarm’d of all his pow’rful Fires,
And cold as Flow’rs bath’d in the Morning-dew.
Who can the Nymphs Confusion guess?
The Blood forsook the kinder place,
And strew’d with Blushes all her Face,
Which both Disdain and Shame express;
And from Lisanders Arms she fled,
Leaving him fainting on the gloomy Bed.
13.
Like Lightning through the Grove she hies,
Or Daphne from the Delphick God;
No Print upon the Grassie Road
She leaves, t’ instruct pursuing Eyes.
The Wind that wanton’d in her Hair,
And with her ruffled Garments plaid,
Discover’d in the flying Maid
All that the Gods e’re made of Fair.
So Venus, when her Love was Slain,
With fear and haste flew o’re the fatal Plain.
14.
The Nymphs resentments, none but I
Can well imagin, and Condole;
But none can guess Lisander’s Soul,
But those who sway’d his Destiny:
His silent Griefs, swell up to Storms,
And not one God, his Fury spares,
He Curst his Birth, his Fate, his Stars,
But more the Shepherdesses Charms;
Whose soft bewitching influence,
Had Damn’d him to the Hell of Impotence.
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But a father, a mother, a guide
All in one for a student
Here on this conflicting world.
The teacher – the lighthouse
Of a student,
The truth and the storehouse of
Love and affection.
The teacher is the creator,
The one who maintains the present
And the future,
The teacher, also act as a destroyer
If time so needs.
I find no substitute of the teacher.
2
Teacher and student,
One teacher and one student
Can do anything,
Can change the course of
Nature and history.
Teacher knows
What to read how to write
With own experiences.
Ideas and beliefs
All come from the teacher.
Teacher tries to leave
An impression of love
And truth and carefully
Planned way leads students
To touch a new age.
With great care
The teacher spend his time
Learning nature and
The students follow
The sun hoping all the best.