Unlike our uses and our destinies.
Our ministering two angels look surprise
On one another, as they strike athwart
Their wings in passing. Thou, bethink thee, art
A guest for queens to social pageantries,
With gages from a hundred brighter eyes
Than tears even can make mine, to play thy part
Of chief musician. What hast thou to do
With looking from the lattice-lights at me,
A poor, tired, wandering singer, singing through
The dark, and leaning up a cypress tree?
The chrism is on thine head,—on mine, the dew,—
And Death must dig the level where these agree.
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NOW, by the verdure on thy thousand hills,
Quite good enough for men to overbearThe will of God in, with rebellious wills !We cannot say the morning-sun fulfilsIngloriously its course, nor that the clearStrong stars without significance insphereOur habitation: we, meantime, our illsHeap up against this good and lift a cryAgainst this work-day world, this ill-spread feast,As if ourselves were better certainlyThan what…
THANK God, bless God, all ye who suffer not
That is light grieving ! lighter, none befellSince Adam forfeited the primal lot.Tears ! what are tears ? The babe weeps in its cot,The mother singing, at her marriage-bellThe bride weeps, and before the oracleOf high-faned hills the poet has forgotSuch moisture on his cheeks. Thank God for grace,Ye who weep only ! If, as…
XXX
And yet to-day I saw thee smiling. HowRefer the cause?—Beloved, is it thouOr I, who makes me sad? The acolyteAmid the chanted joy and thankful riteMay so fall flat, with pale insensate brow,On the altar-stair. I hear thy voice and vow,Perplexed, uncertain, since thou art out of sight,As he, in his swooning ears, the choir’s…
XXVI
Instead of men and women, years ago,And found them gentle mates, nor thought to knowA sweeter music than they played to me.But soon their trailing purple was not freeOf this world’s dust, their lutes did silent grow,And I myself grew faint and blind belowTheir vanishing eyes. Then THOU didst come—to be,Beloved, what they seemed. Their…
THOU large-brained woman and large-hearted man,
Of thy tumultuous senses, moans defianceAnd answers roar for roar, as spirits can:I would some mild miraculous thunder ranAbove the applauded circus, in applianceOf thine own nobler nature’s strength and science,Drawing two pinions, white as wings of swan,From thy strong shoulders, to amaze the placeWith holier light ! that thou to woman’s claimAnd man’s, mightst…
XIV
Except for love’s sake only. Do not say‘I love her for her smile—her look—her wayOf speaking gently,—for a trick of thoughtThat falls in well with mine, and certes broughtA sense of pleasant ease on such a day’—For these things in themselves, Beloved, mayBe changed, or change for thee,—and love, so wrought,May be unwrought so. Neither…
L’avezza giovinetta pastorella
Va bagnando l’herbetta strana e bella
Che mal si spande a disusata spera
Fuor di sua natia alma primavera,
Cosi Amor meco insu la lingua snella
Desta il fior novo di strania favella,
Mentre io di te, vezzosamente altera,
Canto, dal mio buon popol non inteso
E’l bel Tamigi cangio col bel Arno
Amor lo volse, ed io a l’altrui peso
Seppi ch’ Amor cosa mai volse indarno.
Deh! foss’ il mio cuor lento e’l duro seno
A chi pianta dal ciel si buon terreno.
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Thus they in lowliest plight repentant stood
Prevenient Grace descending had remov’dThe stonie from thir hearts, and made new fleshRegenerat grow instead, that sighs now breath’dUnutterable, which the Spirit of prayerInspir’d, and wing’d for Heav’n with speedier flightThen loudest Oratorie: yet thir portNot of mean suiters, nor important lessSeem’d thir Petition, then when th’ ancient PairIn Fables old, less ancient yet then…
Hail native Language, that by sinews weak
And mad’st imperfect words with childish tripps,Half unpronounc’t, slide through my infant-lipps,Driving dum silence from the portal dore,Where he had mutely sate two years before:Here I salute thee and thy pardon ask,That now I use thee in my latter task:Small loss it is that thence can come unto thee,I know my tongue but little Grace…
XI
And wov’n close, both matter, form and stile;The Subject new: it walk’d the Town a while,Numbring good intellects; now seldom por’d on.Cries the stall-reader, bless us! what a word onA title page is this! and some in fileStand spelling fals, while one might walk to Mile-End Green. Why is it harder Sirs then Gordon,Colkitto, or…
When I consider how my light is spent,
And that one Talent which is death to hideLodged with me useless, though my Soul more bentTo serve therewith my Maker, and presentMy true account, lest he returning chide;“Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?”I fondly ask. But patience, to preventThat murmur, soon replies, “God doth not needEither man’s work or his own gifts; who bestBear…
To Mr Lawrence
Now that the fields are dank, and ways are mire,Where shall we sometimes meet, and by the fireHelp waste a sullen day, what may be wonFrom the hard season gaining? Time will runOn smoother, till Favonius re-inspireThe frozen earth, and clothe in fresh attireThe lily and rose, that neither sowed nor spun.What neat repast shall…
How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth,
My hasting days fly on wtih full career,But my late spring no bud or blossom shew’th.Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth,That I to manhood am arrived so near,And inward ripeness doth much less appear,That some more timely-happy spirits endu’th.Yet be it less or more, or soon or slow,It shall be still in strictest measure…
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or is that her only dress?
Why do trees conceal
the splendor of their roots?
Who hears the regrets
of the thieving automobile?
Is there anything in the world sadder
than a train standing in the rain?
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I don’t believe in age.
carryin their eyes,a child,and children,at timesobserve us with theeyes of wise ancients.Shall we measurelifein meters or kilometersor months?How far since you were born?How longmust you wanderuntillike all meninstead of walking on its surfacewe rest below the earth?To the man, to the womanwho utilized theirenergies, goodness, strength,anger, love, tenderness,to those who trulyaliveflowered,and in their sensuality matured,let…
Three triangles of birds crossed
In winter like a green beast.Everything just lay there, the silence,The unfolding gray, the heavy lightOf space, some land now and then.Over everything there was passingA flightAnd another flightOf dark birds, winter bodiesTrembling trianglesWhose wings,Frantically flapping, hardlyCan carry the gray cold, the desolate daysFrom one place to anotherAlong the coast of Chile.I am here while…
If your eyes were not the color of the moon,
hours later ]of a day full of clay, and work, and fire,if even held-in you did not move in agile grace like the air,if you were not an amber week,not the yellow momentwhen autumn climbs up through the vines;if you were not that bread the fragrant moonkneads, sprinkling its flour across the sky,oh, my dearest,…
Now
The tall iron branchesin the forest,The densefertility on the ground.The worldis wet.A dewdrop or raindropshines,a diminutive staramong the leaves.The morning timemother earthis cool.The airis like a riverwhich shakesthe silence.It smells of rosemary,of spaceand roots.Overhead,a crazy song.It’s a bird.Howout of its throatsmaller than a fingercan there fall the watersof its song?Luminous ease!Invisiblepowertorrentof musicin the leaves.Sacred conversations!Clean…
Our Father thou art in Heaven,
in all our silent and broad latitudeeverything bears your name, Father in our dwelling:your name raises sweetness in sugar caneBolivar tin has a Bolivar gleamthe Bolívar bird flies over the Bolivar volcanothe potato, the saltpeter, the special shadows,the brooks, the phosphorous stone veinseverything comes from your extinguished lifeyour legacy was rivers, plains, bell towersyour legacy…
Matilde, years or days
here or there,gazing off,twisting my spine,bleeding true blood,perhaps I awakenor am lost, sleeping:hospital beds, foreign windows,white uniforms of the silent walkers,the clumsiness of feet.And then, these journeysand my sea of renewal:your head on the pillow,your hands floatingin the light, in my light,over my earth.It was beautiful to livewhen you lived!The world is bluer and of…
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Peleus on Thetis stares.
Her limbs are delicate as an eyelid,
Love has blinded him with tears;
But Thetis’ belly listens.
Down the mountain walls
From where pan’s cavern is
Intolerable music falls.
Foul goat-head, brutal arm appear,
Belly, shoulder, bum,
Flash fishlike; nymphs and satyrs
Copulate in the foam.
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BE you still, be you still, trembling heart;
Him who trembles before the flame and the flood,And the winds that blow through the starry ways,Let the starry winds and the flame and the floodCover over and hide, for he has no partWith the lonely, majestical multitude.
‘THOSE Platonists are a curse,’ he said,
A diagram hung there instead,More women born than men.’
Where dips the rocky highland
There lies a leafy islandWhere flapping herons wakeThe drowsy water rats;There we’ve hid our faery vats,Full of berrysAnd of reddest stolen cherries.Come away, O human child!To the waters and the wildWith a faery, hand in hand,For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.Where the wave of moonlight glossesThe dim gray sands with…
I HEAR the Shadowy Horses, their long manes a-shake,
The North unfolds above them clinging, creeping night,The East her hidden joy before the morning break,The West weeps in pale dew and sighs passing away,The South is pouring down roses of crimson fire:O vanity of Sleep, Hope, Dream, endless Desire,The Horses of Disaster plunge in the heavy clay:Beloved, let your eyes half close, and your…
COME round me, little childer;
Because I mutter as I go;But pity Moll Magee.My man was a poor fisherWith shore lines in the say;My work was saltin’ herringsThe whole of the long day.And sometimes from the Saltin’ shedI scarce could drag my feet,Under the blessed moonlight,Along thc pebbly street.I’d always been but weakly,And my baby was just born;A neighbour minded…
WE that have done and thought,
Must ramble, and thin outLike milk spilt on a stone.
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Peleus on Thetis stares.
Her limbs are delicate as an eyelid,
Love has blinded him with tears;
But Thetis’ belly listens.
Down the mountain walls
From where pan’s cavern is
Intolerable music falls.
Foul goat-head, brutal arm appear,
Belly, shoulder, bum,
Flash fishlike; nymphs and satyrs
Copulate in the foam.
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I HAVE no happiness in dreaming of Brycelinde,
Where one found Lancelot crazed and hid him for a while;Nor Uladh, when Naoise had thrown a sail upon the wind;Nor lands that seem too dim to be burdens on the heart:Land-under-Wave, where out of the moon’s light and the sun’sSeven old sisters wind the threads of the long-lived ones,Land-of-the-Tower, where Aengus has thrown the…
THE fascination of what’s difficult
Spontaneous joy and natural contentOut of my heart. There’s something ails our coltThat must, as if it had not holy bloodNor on Olympus leaped from cloud to cloud,Shiver under the lash, strain, sweat and joltAs though it dragged road-metal. My curse on playsThat have to be set up in fifty ways,On the day’s war with…
HOW came this ranger
Stranger with strangcr.On my cold breast?What’s left to Sigh for?Strange night has come;God’s love has hidden himOut of all harm,Pleasure has made himWeak as a worm.
WHAT woman hugs her infant there?
What made the drapery glisten so?Not a man but Delacroix.What made the ceiling waterproof?Landor’s tarpaulin on the roofWhat brushes fly and moth aside?Irving and his plume of pride.What hurries out the knaye and dolt?Talma and his thunderbolt.Why is the woman terror-struck?Can there be mercy in that look?
Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
The blue and the dim and the dark clothsOf night and light and the half-light,I would spread the cloths under your feet:But I, being poor, have only my dreams;I have spread my dreams under your feet;Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
Like the moon her kindness is,
What has no comprehension in’t,But is the same for allAs though my sorrow were a sceneUpon a painted wall.So like a bit of stone I lieUnder a broken tree.I could recover if I shriekedMy heart’s agonyTo passing bird, but I am dumbFrom human dignity.