Burdens the night
With boastful birds
That mop their wings
To make response—
A mess of songs
And broken sense.
So, when I slept,
I heard your call
(If lips long dead
Could answer still)
And snapped-off thoughts
Broke into clamour,
Like the night’s throats
Heard by a dreamer.
Similar Posts
SOMETIMES she is like sherry, like the sun through a vessel of glass,
Sometimes she is the colour of lions, of sand in the fire of noon,Sometimes as bruised with shadows as the afternoon.Sometimes she moves like rivers, sometimes like trees;Or tranced and fixed like South Pole silences;Sometimes she is beauty, sometimes fury, sometimes neither,Sometimes nothing, drained of meaning, null as water.Sometimes, when she makes pea-soup or plays…
‘BEES of old Spanish wine
Music and candleshineFill the dim chambers . . . .‘Fans toss and ladies pace,Flutes of cold metal blow,Maidens like winds of laceTease the dark passages . . . .‘Run, you fat kitchen-boys,Pasties in pyramidsRise while your masters poiseFlagons with silver lids . . . .‘Ha! Let the platters fume,Jars wink and bottles drip,Staining with smoke…
SMOKE upon smoke; over the stone lips
Night, the old nun, in voiceless pity bendsTo kiss corruption, so fabulous her pity.All drowns in night. Even the lazar drownsIn earth at last, and rises up afresh,Married to dust with an Infanta’s flesh—So night, like earth, receives this poisoned city,Charging its air with beauty, coasting its lanternsWith mains of darkness, till the leprous clayDissolves,…
Do you give yourself to me utterly,
Not as a fugitive, blindly or bitterly,But as a child might, with no other wish?Yes, utterly.Then I shall bear you down my estuary,Carry you and ferry you to burial mysteriously,Take you and receive you,Consume you, engulf you,In the huge cave, my belly, lave youWith huger waves continually.And you shall cling and clamber thereAnd slumber there,…
I
When sea-captains had the evil eye,Or should have, what with beating krakens offAnd casting nativities of ships;Cook was a captain of the powder-daysWhen captains, you might have said, if you had beenFixed by their glittering stare, half-down the side,Or gaping at them up companionways,Were more like warlocks than a humble man—And men were humble then…
IF all those tumbling babes of heaven,
Could vault in these warm skies, or leavenOur starry silent mountain-peaks—O painter of chub-faced, shining-thighedFat Ganymedes of God—what noiseWould churn between the clouds and strideFar downward from those rose-mouthed boys!Down to our spires their lusty whooping,Fanfares of Paradise, would speed,Far down to dark-faced clergy stoopingRound altars of their doleful creed;And God, whose wings of silver…