Poems

The Scribe in the Woods

A HEDGE of trees overlooks me;
a blackbird’s lay sings to me
(an announcement which I shall not conceal);
above my lined book the birds’
chanting sings to me.

A clear-voiced cuckoo sings to me
(goodly utterance)
in a grey cloak from bush fortresses.
The Lord is indeed good to me:
well do I write beneath a forest of the woodland.

On Love

Then said Almitra, Speak to us of Love.
 And he raised his head and looked upon
the people, and there fell a stillness upon
them. And with a great voice he said:
 When love beckons to you, follow him,
 Though his ways are hard and steep.
 And when his wings enfold you yield to
him,
 Though the sword hidden among his
pinions may wound you.
 And when he speaks to you believe in
him,
 Though his voice may shatter your dreams
as the north wind lays waste the garden.
 
 For even as love crowns you so shall he
crucify you. Even as he is for your growth
so is he for your pruning.
 Even as he ascends to your height and
caresses your tenderest branches that quiver
in the sun,
 So shall he descend to your roots and
shake them in their clinging to the earth.
                                       •
 Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto
himself.
 He threshes you to make you naked.
 He sifts you to free you from your husks.
 He grinds you to whiteness.
 He kneads you until you are pliant;
 And then he assigns you to his sacred
fire, that you may become sacred bread for
God’s sacred feast.
 
 All these things shall love do unto you
that you may know the secrets of your
heart, and in that knowledge become a
fragment of Life’s heart.
 
 But if in your fear you would seek only
love’s peace and love’s pleasure,
 Then it is better for you that you cover
your nakedness and pass out of love’s
threshing-floor,
 Into the seasonless world where you
shall laugh, but not all of your laughter,
and weep, but not all of your tears.
                                      •
 Love gives naught but itself and takes
naught but from itself.
 Love possesses not nor would it be
possessed;
 For love is sufficient unto love.
 
 When you love you should not say,
“God is in my heart,” but rather, “I am
in the heart of God.”
 And think not you can direct the course
of love, for love, if it finds you worthy,
directs your course.
 
 Love has no other desire but to fulfil
itself.
 But if you love and must needs have
desires, let these be your desires:
 To melt and be like a running brook
that sings its melody to the night.
 To know the pain of too much tenderness.
 To be wounded by your own under-
standing of love;
 And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
 To wake at dawn with a winged heart
and give thanks for another day of loving;
 To rest at the noon hour and meditate
love’s ecstasy;
 To return home at eventide with gratitude;
 And then to sleep with a prayer for the
beloved in your heart and a song of praise
upon your lips.

Requiescat

Tread lightly, she is near
 Under the snow,
Speak gently, she can hear
 The daisies grow.

All her bright golden hair
 Tarnished with rust,
She that was young and fair
 Fallen to dust.

Lily-like, white as snow,
 She hardly knew
She was a woman, so
 Sweetly she grew.

Coffin-board, heavy stone,
 Lie on her breast,
I vex my heart alone
 She is at rest.

Peace, Peace, she cannot hear
 Lyre or sonnet,
All my life’s buried here,
 Heap earth upon it.

Fear and the Monkey A Poem by William S. Burroughs

August 1978

This text arranged in my New York loft, which is the converted locker room of an old YMCA. Guests have reported the presence of a ghost boy. So this is a Oui-Ja board poem taken from Dumb Instrument, a book of poems by Denton Welch, and spells and invocations from the Necronomicon, a highly secret magical text released in paperback. There is a pinch of Rimbaud, a dash of St-John Perse, an oblique reference to Toby Tyler with the Circus, and the death of his pet monkey.

Turgid itch and the perfume of death
On a whispering south wind
A smell of abyss and of nothingness
Dark Angel of the wanderers howls through the loft
With sick smelling sleep
Morning dream of a lost monkey
Born and muffled under old whimsies
With rose leaves in closed jars
Fear and the monkey
Sour taste of green fruit in the dawn
The air milky and spiced with the trade winds
White flesh was showing
His jeans were so old
Leg shadows by the sea
Morning light
On the sky light of a little shop
On the odor of cheap wine in the sailors’ quarter
On the fountain sobbing in the police courtyards
On the statue of moldy stone
On the little boy whistling to stray dogs.
Wanderers cling to their fading home
A lost train whistle wan and muffled
In the loft night taste of water
Morning light on milky flesh
Turgid itch ghost hand
Sad as the death of monkeys
Thy father a falling star
Crystal bone into thin air
Night sky
Dispersal and emptiness.

Noche Oscura

In a dark night,
With longings fired in love
— O happy fate! —
I went unnoticed,
While my house was calm.

In darkness, certain,
By disguised and secret ladder
— O happy fate! —
In darkness, concealed,
While my house was calm.

In happy night,
In secret, that nobody saw me,
Nor I anything,
No light and guide
But what in my heart was burning.

It guided me
More surely than the midday light
To where he waited,
Who well I knew,
There where no one appeared.

O guiding night!
O night more kind than break of day!
O night that joined Love with love,
Love in her lover transformed!

On my flowering breast
All kept for him alone —
Left sleeping there —
And I gave myself,
And the cedars gave the air their smell.

The scent of his brow
When I spread his hair,
His calm hand
Hard on my neck,
And all my senses suspended.

I lost myself,
I lay my face against my love,
Everything stopped,
My cares were left
Between the lilies all forgotten.

Bluebird

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
to let anybody see
you.
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pour whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he's
in there.

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.
I say, I know that you're there,
so don't be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he's singing a little
in there, I haven't quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it's nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don't
weep, do
you?

-- cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/2626236

Elder Sister

When I look at my elder sister now
I think of how she had to go first, down through the
birth canal, to force her way
head-first through the tiny channel,
the pressure of Mother's muscles on her brain,
the tight walls scraping her skin.
Her face is still  narrow from it, the long
hollow cheeks of a Crusader on a tomb,
and her inky eyes have the look of someone who has
been in prison a long time and
 knows they can send her back. I look at her
body and think how her breasts were the first to

rise, slowly, like swans on a pond.
By the time mine came along, they were just

two more birds in the flock, and when the hair

rose on the white mound of her flesh, like

threads of water out of the ground, it was the

first time, but when mine came
they knew about it. I used to think
only in terms of her harshness, sitting and
pissing on me in bed, but now I
see I had her before me always
like a shield. .I look at her wrinkles, her clenched

jaw, her frown-lines--I see they are
the dents on my shield, the blows that did not reach me.
She protected me, not as a mother
protects a child, with love, but as a

hostage protects the one who makes her
escape as I made my escape, with my sister's

body held in front of me.

Blind Boone's Vision

When I got old enough
I asked my mother,
to her surprise,
to tell me what she did
with my eyes. She balked
and stalled, sounding
unsure for the first time
I could remember.
It was the tender way
she held my face
and kissed where tears
should have rolled
that told me I’d asked
of her the almost impossible—
to recount my blinding
tale, to tell what became
of the rest of me.
She took me by the hand
and led me to a small
sapling that stood not
much taller than me.
I could smell the green
marrow of its promise
reaching free of the soil
like a song from Earth’s
royal, dirty mouth.
Then Mother told me
how she, newly freed,
had prayed like a slave
through the night when
the surgeon took my eyes
to save my fevered life,
then got off her knees
come morning to take
the severed parts of me
for burial—right there
beneath that small tree.
They fed the roots,
climbed through its leaves
to soak in sunlight . . .
and so, she told me,
I can see.

When the wind rustles
up and cools me down,
when the earth shakes
with footsteps and when
the sound of birdcalls
stirs forests like the black
and white bustling
’neath my fingertips
I am of the light and shade
of my tree. Now,
ask me how tall
that tree of mine
has grown to be
after all this time—
it touches a place
between heaven and here.
And I shudder when I hear
the earth’s wind
in my bones
through the bones
of that boxed-up
swarm of wood,
bird and bee:
I let it loose . . .
and beyond
me.

Faire If You Expect Admiring

Faire, if you expect admiring,
Sweet, if you provoke desiring,
Grace deere love with kinde requiting.
Fond, but if thy sight be blindnes,
False, if thou affect unkindnes,
Flie both love and loves delighting.
Then when hope is lost and love is scorned,
Ile bury my desires, and quench the fires that ever yet in vaine have burned.

Fates, if you rule lovers fortune,
Stars, if men your powers importune,
Yield reliefe by your relenting.
Time, if sorrow be not endles,
Hope made vaine, and pittie friendles,
Helpe to ease my long lamenting.
But if griefes remaine still unredressed,
I'le flie to her againe, and sue for pitie to renue my hopes distressed.

The Chaos

Dearest creature in creation
Studying English pronunciation,
  I will teach you in my verse
  Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse.

I will keep you, Susy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy;
  Tear in eye, your dress you'll tear;
  Queer, fair seer, hear my prayer.

Pray, console your loving poet,
Make my coat look new, dear, sew it!
  Just compare heart, hear and heard,
  Dies and diet, lord and word.

Sword and sward, retain and Britain
(Mind the latter how it's written).
  Made has not the sound of bade,
  Say-said, pay-paid, laid but plaid.

Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as vague and ague,
  But be careful how you speak,
  Say: gush, bush, steak, streak, break, bleak ,

Previous, precious, fuchsia, via
Recipe, pipe, studding-sail, choir;
  Woven, oven, how and low,
  Script, receipt, shoe, poem, toe.

Say, expecting fraud and trickery:
Daughter, laughter and Terpsichore,
  Branch, ranch, measles, topsails, aisles,
  Missiles, similes, reviles.

Wholly, holly, signal, signing,
Same, examining, but mining,
  Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
  Solar, mica, war and far.

From "desire": desirable-admirable from "admire",
Lumber, plumber, bier, but brier,
  Topsham, brougham, renown, but known,
  Knowledge, done, lone, gone, none, tone,

One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel.
  Gertrude, German, wind and wind,
  Beau, kind, kindred, queue, mankind,

Tortoise, turquoise, chamois-leather,
Reading, Reading, heathen, heather.
  This phonetic labyrinth
  Gives moss, gross, brook, brooch, ninth, plinth.

Have you ever yet endeavoured
To pronounce revered and severed,
  Demon, lemon, ghoul, foul, soul,
  Peter, petrol and patrol?

Billet does not end like ballet;
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
  Blood and flood are not like food,
  Nor is mould like should and would.

Banquet is not nearly parquet,
Which exactly rhymes with khaki.
  Discount, viscount, load and broad,
  Toward, to forward, to reward,

Ricocheted and crocheting, croquet?
Right! Your pronunciation's OK.
  Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
  Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Is your r correct in higher?
Keats asserts it rhymes Thalia.
  Hugh, but hug, and hood, but hoot,
  Buoyant, minute, but minute.

Say abscission with precision,
Now: position and transition;
  Would it tally with my rhyme
  If I mentioned paradigm?

Twopence, threepence, tease are easy, But cease, crease, grease and greasy?
  Cornice, nice, valise, revise,
  Rabies, but lullabies.

Of such puzzling words as nauseous,
Rhyming well with cautious, tortious,
  You'll envelop lists, I hope,
  In a linen envelope.

Would you like some more? You'll have it!
Affidavit, David, davit.
  To abjure, to perjure. Sheik
  Does not sound like Czech but ache.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, loch, moustache, eleven.
  We say hallowed, but allowed,
  People, leopard, towed but vowed.

Mark the difference, moreover,
Between mover, plover, Dover.
  Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
  Chalice, but police and lice,

Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
  Petal, penal, and canal,
  Wait, surmise, plait, promise, pal,

Suit, suite, ruin. Circuit, conduit
Rhyme with "shirk it" and "beyond it",
  But it is not hard to tell
  Why it's pall, mall, but Pall Mall.

Muscle, muscular, gaol, iron,
Timber, climber, bullion, lion,
  Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
  Senator, spectator, mayor,

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
Has the a of drachm and hammer.
  Pussy, hussy and possess,
  Desert, but desert, address.

Golf, wolf, countenance, lieutenants
Hoist in lieu of flags left pennants.
  Courier, courtier, tomb, bomb, comb,
  Cow, but Cowper, some and home.

"Solder, soldier! Blood is thicker",
Quoth he, "than liqueur or liquor",
  Making, it is sad but true,
  In bravado, much ado.

Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
  Pilot, pivot, gaunt, but aunt,
  Font, front, wont, want, grand and grant.

Arsenic, specific, scenic,
Relic, rhetoric, hygienic.
  Gooseberry, goose, and close, but close,
  Paradise, rise, rose, and dose.

Say inveigh, neigh, but inveigle,
Make the latter rhyme with eagle.
  Mind! Meandering but mean,
  Valentine and magazine.

And I bet you, dear, a penny,
You say mani-(fold) like many,
  Which is wrong. Say rapier, pier,
  Tier (one who ties), but tier.

Arch, archangel; pray, does erring
Rhyme with herring or with stirring?
  Prison, bison, treasure trove,
  Treason, hover, cover, cove,

Perseverance, severance. Ribald
Rhymes (but piebald doesn't) with nibbled.
  Phaeton, paean, gnat, ghat, gnaw,
  Lien, psychic, shone, bone, pshaw.

Don't be down, my own, but rough it,
And distinguish buffet, buffet;
  Brood, stood, roof, rook, school, wool, boon,
  Worcester, Boleyn, to impugn.

Say in sounds correct and sterling
Hearse, hear, hearken, year and yearling.
  Evil, devil, mezzotint,
  Mind the z! (A gentle hint.)

Now you need not pay attention
To such sounds as I don't mention,
  Sounds like pores, pause, pours and paws,
  Rhyming with the pronoun yours;

Nor are proper names included,
Though I often heard, as you did,
  Funny rhymes to unicorn,
  Yes, you know them, Vaughan and Strachan.

No, my maiden, coy and comely,
I don't want to speak of Cholmondeley.
  No. Yet Froude compared with proud
  Is no better than McLeod.

But mind trivial and vial,
Tripod, menial, denial,
  Troll and trolley, realm and ream,
  Schedule, mischief, schism, and scheme.

Argil, gill, Argyll, gill. Surely
May be made to rhyme with Raleigh,
  But you're not supposed to say
  Piquet rhymes with sobriquet.

Had this invalid invalid
Worthless documents? How pallid,
  How uncouth he, couchant, looked,
  When for Portsmouth I had booked!

Zeus, Thebes, Thales, Aphrodite,
Paramour, enamoured, flighty,
  Episodes, antipodes,
  Acquiesce, and obsequies.

Please don't monkey with the geyser,
Don't peel 'taters with my razor,
  Rather say in accents pure:
  Nature, stature and mature.

Pious, impious, limb, climb, glumly,
Worsted, worsted, crumbly, dumbly,
  Conquer, conquest, vase, phase, fan,
  Wan, sedan and artisan.

The th will surely trouble you
More than r, ch or w.
  Say then these phonetic gems:
  Thomas, thyme, Theresa, Thames.

Thompson, Chatham, Waltham, Streatham,
There are more but I forget 'em-
  Wait! I've got it: Anthony,
  Lighten your anxiety.

The archaic word albeit
Does not rhyme with eight-you see it;   With and forthwith, one has voice,
  One has not, you make your choice.

Shoes, goes, does *. Now first say: finger;
Then say: singer, ginger, linger.
  Real, zeal, mauve, gauze and gauge,
  Marriage, foliage, mirage, age,

Hero, heron, query, very,
Parry, tarry fury, bury,
  Dost, lost, post, and doth, cloth, loth,
  Job, Job, blossom, bosom, oath.

Faugh, oppugnant, keen oppugners,
Bowing, bowing, banjo-tuners
  Holm you know, but noes, canoes,
  Puisne, truism, use, to use?

Though the difference seems little,
We say actual, but victual,
  Seat, sweat, chaste, caste, Leigh, eight, height,
  Put, nut, granite, and unite.

Reefer does not rhyme with deafer,
Feoffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
  Dull, bull, Geoffrey, George, ate, late,
  Hint, pint, senate, but sedate.

Gaelic, Arabic, pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific;
  Tour, but our, dour, succour, four,
  Gas, alas, and Arkansas.

Say manoeuvre, yacht and vomit,
Next omit, which differs from it
  Bona fide, alibi
  Gyrate, dowry and awry.

Sea, idea, guinea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
  Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean,
  Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion with battalion,
  Rally with ally; yea, ye,
  Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, key, quay!

Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, receiver.
  Never guess-it is not safe,
  We say calves, valves, half, but Ralf.

Starry, granary, canary,
Crevice, but device, and eyrie,
  Face, but preface, then grimace,
  Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.

Bass, large, target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, oust, joust, and scour, but scourging;
  Ear, but earn; and ere and tear
  Do not rhyme with here but heir.

Mind the o of off and often
Which may be pronounced as orphan,
  With the sound of saw and sauce;
  Also soft, lost, cloth and cross.

Pudding, puddle, putting. Putting?
Yes: at golf it rhymes with shutting.
  Respite, spite, consent, resent.
  Liable, but Parliament.

Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew, Stephen,
  Monkey, donkey, clerk and jerk,
  Asp, grasp, wasp, demesne, cork, work.

A of valour, vapid vapour,
S of news (compare newspaper),
  G of gibbet, gibbon, gist,
  I of antichrist and grist,

Differ like diverse and divers,
Rivers, strivers, shivers, fivers.
  Once, but nonce, toll, doll, but roll,
  Polish, Polish, poll and poll.

Pronunciation-think of Psyche!-
Is a paling, stout and spiky.
  Won't it make you lose your wits
  Writing groats and saying "grits"?

It's a dark abyss or tunnel
Strewn with stones like rowlock, gunwale,
  Islington, and Isle of Wight,
  Housewife, verdict and indict.

Don't you think so, reader, rather,
Saying lather, bather, father?
  Finally, which rhymes with enough,
  Though, through, bough, cough, hough, sough, tough??

Hiccough has the sound of sup...
My advice is: GIVE IT UP!

Pangur Bán

Pangur Bán and I at work,
Adepts, equals, cat and clerk:
His whole instinct is to hunt,
Mine to free the meaning pent.

More than loud acclaim, I love
Books, silence, thought, my alcove.
Happy for me, Pangur Bán
Child-plays round some mouse’s den.

Truth to tell, just being here,
Housed alone, housed together,
Adds up to its own reward:
Concentration, stealthy art.

Next thing an unwary mouse
Bares his flank: Pangur pounces.
Next thing lines that held and held
Meaning back begin to yield.

All the while, his round bright eye
Fixes on the wall, while I
Focus my less piercing gaze
On the challenge of the page.

With his unsheathed, perfect nails
Pangur springs, exults and kills.
When the longed-for, difficult
Answers come, I too exult.

So it goes. To each his own.
No vying. No vexation.
Taking pleasure, taking pains,
Kindred spirits, veterans.

Day and night, soft purr, soft pad,
Pangur Bán has learned his trade.
Day and night, my own hard work
Solves the cruxes, makes a mark.

Visiting a dead man on a summer day by Marge Piercy

In flat America, in Chicago,
Graceland cemetery on the German North Side.
Forty feet of Corinthian candle
celebrate Pullman embedded
lonely raisin in a cake of concrete.
The Potter Palmers float
in an island parthenon.
Barons of hogfat, railroads and wheat
are postmarked with angels and lambs.

But the Getty tomb: white, snow patterned
in a triangle of trees swims dappled with leaf shadow,
sketched light arch within arch
delicate as fingernail moons.

The green doors should not be locked.
Doors of fern and flower should not be shut.
Louis Sullivan, I sit on your grave.
It is not now good weather for prophets.
Sun eddies on the steelsmoke air like sinking honey.

On the inner green door of the Getty tomb
(a thighbone's throw from your stone)
a marvel of growing, blooming, thrusting into seed:
how all living wreathe and insinuate
in the circlet of repetition that never repeats:
ever new birth never rebirth.
Each tide pool microcosm spiraling from your hand.

Sullivan, you had another five years
when your society would give you work.
Thirty years with want crackling in your hands.
Thirty after years with cities
flowering and turning grey in your beard.

All poets are unemployed nowadays.
My country marches in its sleep.
The past structures a heavy mausoleum
hiding its iron frame in masonry.
Men burn like grass
while armies grow.

Thirty years in the vast rumbling gut
of this society you stormed
to be used, screamed
no louder than any other breaking voice.
The waste of a good man
bleeds the future that's come
in Chicago, in flat America,
where the poor still bleed from the teeth,
housed in sewers and filing cabinets,
where prophets may spit into the wind
till anger sleets their eyes shut,
where this house that dances the seasons
and the braid of all living
and the joy of a man making his new good thing
is strange, irrelevant as a meteor,
in Chicago, in flat America
in this year of our burning.

Parable

I read how Quixote in his random ride
Came to a crossing once, and lest he lose
The purity of chance, would not decide

Whither to fare, but wished his horse to choose.
For glory lay wherever he might turn.
His head was light with pride, his horse’s shoes

Were heavy, and he headed for the barn.

PIONEERS! O PIONEERS! by Walt Whitman

Come my tan-faced children,
Follow well in order, get your weapons ready,
Have you your pistols? have you your sharp-edged axes?
Pioneers! O pioneers!

For we cannot tarry here,
We must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger,
We the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

O you youths, Western youths,
So impatient, full of action, full of manly pride and friendship,
Plain I see you Western youths, see you tramping with the foremost,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Have the elder races halted?
Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied over there beyond the seas?
We take up the task eternal, and the burden and the lesson,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

All the past we leave behind,
We debouch upon a newer mightier world, varied world,
Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labor and the march,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

We detachments steady throwing,
Down the edges, through the passes, up the mountains steep,
Conquering, holding, daring, venturing as we go the unknown ways,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

We primeval forests felling,
We the rivers stemming, vexing we and piercing deep the mines within,
We the surface broad surveying, we the virgin soil upheaving,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Colorado men are we,
From the peaks gigantic, from the great sierras and the high plateaus,
From the mine and from the gully, from the hunting trail we come,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

From Nebraska, from Arkansas,
Central inland race are we, from Missouri, with the continental blood intervein’d,
All the hands of comrades clasping, all the Southern, all the Northern,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

O resistless restless race!
O beloved race in all! O my breast aches with tender love for all!
O I mourn and yet exult, I am rapt with love for all,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Raise the mighty mother mistress,
Waving high the delicate mistress, over all the starry mistress,
 (bend your heads all,)
Raise the fang’d and warlike mistress, stern, impassive, weapon’d mistress,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

See my children, resolute children,
By those swarms upon our rear we must never yield or falter,
Ages back in ghostly millions frowning there behind us urging,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

On and on the compact ranks,
With accessions ever waiting, with the places of the dead quickly fill’d,
Through the battle, through defeat, moving yet and never stopping,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

O to die advancing on!
Are there some of us to droop and die? has the hour come?
Then upon the march we fittest die, soon and sure the gap is fill’d.
Pioneers! O pioneers!

All the pulses of the world,
Falling in they beat for us, with the Western movement beat,
Holding single or together, steady moving to the front, all for us,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Life’s involv’d and varied pageants,
All the forms and shows, all the workmen at their work,
All the seamen and the landsmen, all the masters with their slaves,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

All the hapless silent lovers,
All the prisoners in the prisons, all the righteous and the wicked,
All the joyous, all the sorrowing, all the living, all the dying,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

I too with my soul and body,
We, a curious trio, picking, wandering on our way,
Through these shores amid the shadows, with the apparitions pressing,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Lo, the darting bowling orb!
Lo, the brother orbs around, all the clustering suns and planets,
All the dazzling days, all the mystic nights with dreams,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

These are of us, they are with us,
All for primal needed work, while the followers there in embryo wait behind,
We to-day's procession heading, we the route for travel clearing,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

O you daughters of the West!
O you young and elder daughters! O you mothers and you wives!
Never must you be divided, in our ranks you move united,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Minstrels latent on the prairies!
(Shrouded bards of other lands, you may rest, you have done your work,)
Soon I hear you coming warbling, soon you rise and tramp amid us,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Not for delectations sweet,
Not the cushion and the slipper, not the peaceful and the studious,
Not the riches safe and palling, not for us the tame enjoyment,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Do the feasters gluttonous feast?
Do the corpulent sleepers sleep? have they lock'd and bolted doors?
Still be ours the diet hard, and the blanket on the ground,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Has the night descended?
Was the road of late so toilsome? did we stop discouraged nodding on our way?
Yet a passing hour I yield you in your tracks to pause oblivious,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Till with sound of trumpet,
Far, far off the daybreak call—hark! how loud and clear I hear it wind,
Swift! to the head of the army!—swift! spring to your places,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

vii

Arachne, Athena beside her,

Let her ego grow wider and wider.

  “Let’s see who’s the winner—

  The very best spinner!”

Then she vanished, and nobody spied her.

On Art

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like disaster.

Messiah

Ye nymphs of Solyma! begin the song:
To heavenly themes sublimer strains belong.
The mossy fountains and the sylvan shades,
The dreams of Pindus and th' Aonian maids,
Delight no more--O thou my voice inspire
Who touched Isaiah's hallowed lips with fire!
 Rapt into future times, the bard begun:
A Virgin shall conceive, a Virgin bear a Son!
From Jesse's root behold a branch arise,
Whose sacred flower with fragrance fills the skies:
Th' ethereal spirit o'er its leaves shall move,
And on its top descends the mystic Dove.
Ye Heavens! from high the dewy nectar pour,
And in soft silence shed the kindly shower!
The sick and weak the healing plant shall aid,
From storm a shelter, and from heat a shade.
All crimes shall cease, and ancient frauds shall fail;
Returning Justice lift aloft her scale;
Peace o'er the world her olive wand extend,
And white-robed Innocence from Heaven descend.
Swift fly the years, and rise th' expected morn!
Oh spring to light, auspicious Babe, be born!
See, Nature hastes her earliest wreaths to bring,
With all the incense of the breathing spring:
See lofty Lebanon his head advance,
See nodding forests on the mountains dance:
See spicy clouds from lowly Saron rise,
And Carmel's flowery top perfumes the skies!
Hark! a glad voice the lonely desert cheers:
Prepare the way! a God, a God appears!
A God, a God! the vocal hills reply,
The rocks proclaim th' approaching Deity.
Lo, Earth receives him from the bending skies!
Sink down, ye mountains! and ye valleys, rise!
With heads declined, ye cedars, homage pay!
Be smooth, ye rocks! ye rapid floods, give way!
The Saviour comes! by ancient bards foretold:
Hear him, ye deaf! and all ye blind, behold!
He from thick films shall purge the visual ray,
And on the sightless eyeball pour the day:
'Tis he th' obstructed paths of sound shall clear
And bid new music charm th' unfolding ear:
The dumb shall sing, the lame his crutch forego,
And leap exulting like the bounding roe.
No sigh, no murmur, the wide world shall hear.
From every face he wipes off every tear.
In adamantine chains shall Death be bound.
And Hell's grim tyrant feel th' eternal wound.
As the good shepherd tends his fleecy care,
Seeks freshest pasture, and the purest air,
Explores the lost, the wandering sheep directs,
By day o'ersees them, and by night protects;
The tender lambs he raises in his arms,
Feeds from his hand, and in his bosom warms:
Thus shall mankind his guardian care engage,
The promised Father of the future age.
No more shall nation against nation rise,
Nor ardent warriors meet with hateful eyes,
Nor fields with gleaming steel be covered o'er,
The brazen trumpets kindle rage no more;
But useless lances into scythes shall bend,
And the broad falchion in a ploughshare end.
Then palaces shall rise; the joyful son
Shall finish what his short-lived sire begun;
Their vines a shadow to their race shall yield.
And the same hand that sowed, shall reap the field.
The swain in barren deserts with surprise
Sees lilies spring, and sudden verdure rise;
And starts, amidst the thirsty wilds, to hear
New falls of water murmuring in his ear.
On rifted rocks, the dragon's late abodes,
The green reed trembles, and the bulrush nods.
Waste sandy valleys, once perplexed with thorn,
The spiry fir and shapely box adorn:
To leafless shrubs the flowery palms succeed,
And odorous myrtle to the noisome weed.
The lambs with wolves shall graze the verdant mead
And boys in flowery bands the tiger lead:
The steer and lion at one crib shall meet,
And harmless serpents lick the pilgrim's feet.
The smiling infant in his hand shall take
The crested basilisk and speckled snake,
Pleased, the green lustre of the scales survey,
And with their forky tongue shall innocently play.
Rise, crowned with light, imperial Salem, rise!
Exalt thy towery head, and lift thy eyes!
See a long race thy spacious courts adorn:
See future sons and daughters yet unborn,
In crowding ranks on every side arise,
Demanding life, impatient for the skies!
See barbarous nations at thy gates attend,
Walk in thy light, and in thy temple bend!
See thy bright altars thronged with prostrate kings,
And heaped with products of Sabean springs!
For thee Idumè's spicy forests blow,
And seeds of gold in Ophir's mountains glow.
See Heaven his sparkling portals wide display,
And break upon thee in a flood of day!
No more the rising Sun shall gild the morn,
Nor evening Cynthia fill her silver horn;
But lost, dissolved in thy superior rays,
One tide of glory, one unclouded blaze
O'erflow thy courts: the Light himself shall shine
Revealed, and God's eternal day be thine!
The seas shall waste, the skies in smoke decay,
Rocks fall to dust, and mountains melt away!
But fixed his word, his saving power remains;
Thy realm for ever lasts, thy own Messiah reigns!

Kat Godeu

I was in a multitude of forms
before I was unfettered:
I was a slender mottled sword
made from the hand.
I was a droplet in the air,
I was the stellar radiance of the stars.
I was a word in writing,
I was a book in my prime.
I was the light of a lantern
for a year and a half.
I was a bridge standing
over sixty estuaries.
I was a path, I was an eagle,
I was a coracle on the seas.
I was effervescence in drink,
I was a raindrop in a shower.
I was a sword in the hand,
I was a shield in battle.
I was a string in a harp
under enchantment for nine years,
[and] foam in water.
I was a tinder-spark in a fire,
I was a tree in a conflagration.
I am not one who does not sing
I have sung from infancy.
I sang in the treetops
before the ruler of Britain.
I pierced the stall-fed horses
of the one(s) wealthy in fleets.
I pierced a great-scaled beast:
there were a hundred heads on him,
and a fierce battalion
beneath the root of his tongue;
and another battalion is
in [each of] his napes.
A black forked toad:
a hundred claws on him.
A speckled crested snake:
a hundred souls, on account of [their] sin,
are tortured in its flesh.
I was in the Fort of Nefenhyr:
herbage and trees were attacking.
Poets were sings;
soldiers were attacking.
A resurgence for the Britonds
was effected by Gwydion.
He called on the lord,
on Christ the omnipotent
so that He might delivery them—
their Lord who had made them.
God answered thim,
‘By means of language and [materials of] the earth
fashion majestic trees,
a hundred forces into a host,
and impede the vigorous one,
the wealthy battle-dispenser.’
When the trees were conjured up —
?an unexpected [source of] hope —
the trees hewed down [the enemy]
by means of [their] powerful tendrils.
They were attacking around the armies
for thirty days of battle.
Sorely groaned a woman,
[and] lamentation broke forth.
At the head of the line. . . .
the spoil [was] the buck/cow of Anhun.
It caused us no disaster
the blood of men up to our thighs.
The greatest of the Three Cataclysms
which came to pass in the world:
and one came about
as a result of the story of the Flood,
and [the second was] Christ’s Crucifixion
and [the third is] The Day of Judgement to come.
Alder at the head of the line
struck first;
Willow and Rowan
were slow [joining] the army.
Spiky Blackthorn
eager for slaughter.
The skilful Medlar-tree,
an anticipator of battle.
Rose advanced
against the wrathful host.
Raspberry took action:
he did not make a defensive palisade
in order to protect [his] life.
Privet and Honeysuckle,
and Ivy, despite his appearance,
how fiercely [did they go] into the fray!
Cherry made a commotion.
Birch, desite his great intention,
was slow to put on armour.
not because of his cowardice,
but rather because of his greatness.
Holden Rod maintained [his] resolve —
foreigners over foreign torrents.
Pine in the place of honour
contention in the shape of branches.
Ash wrought magnificent deads
before princes.
Elm, despite his wealth,
did not veer a foot:
he slashed the centre [of the army],
and the wing and the rear.
Hazel adjudged
the weapons for the conflict.
Blessed Dogwoodk,
the bull of battle, lord of the fray,
. . . . . .
Beech flourished,
Holly grew verdant;
he was present in battle.
Whitethorn the skilful/famous:
[dispensing] pestilence from his hand.
Vine the destroyer
hewed in the fray.
Bracken the pillager;
Broom in the van of the battalion
was wounded in the churned-up ground.
Gorse was not fortunate
[but] despite that, he was marshalled.
Heather the famous ?victor
was enchanted into the army.
. . . .[was] a pursuer.
Oak swift of shout:
Heaven and Earth trembled before him.
Woad, a brave warrior,
his name in a wax tablet.
The attack of the sickly tree
caused terror:
he would repulse, he repulsed,
[and] stabbed others.
Pear wrought oppression
on the battle-field.
A terrifying array
[was] the surging Clover.
Bashful Chesnut,
a opponent [in the ranks of] the strong trees.
Black is jet,
rounded is a mountain,
armed is the stag/are trees,
swifter are the great seas
since I heard the battle-cry.
The top of the Birch put forth leaves for us,
[its] vigour reinforced us;
the top of the Oak ensnared us
by means of the “Maeldderw’s Song’.
The laughing one [i. e. the sea-wave] that covers the rock
[is like] a lord who takes no account of the shoal.
It was not from a mother and a father
that I was made.
And my creation was created for me
from nine forms of consistency:
from fruit, from fruits,
from God’s fruit in the beginning;
from primroses and flowers,
from the blossom of trees and shrubs,
from earth, form the sod
was I made,
from nettle blossom,
from the ninth wave’s water.
Math created me
before I was completed.
Gwydion fashioned me —
great enchantment wrought by a magic staff;
by Eurwys, by Euron,
by Euron, by Modraon;
by five enchanters —
of a kind like godparents —
was I reared.
A ruler fashioned me
when there would have been a burning extent.
The wisdom of sages fashioned me
before the world [was made],
when I had being,
when the extent of the world was still small.
A fair poet, of unusual gifts,
I control in song
what which the tongue utters.
I played in the light, I slept [wrapped in] purple.
I was in the citadel
with Dylan Son of the Sea,
my bed in the interior [of the fort]
between the knees of the kings.
My two keen spears:
from Heaven did they come.
In the streams of Annwfn
they come ready for battle.
Four score hundred men
did I pierce despite their rapacity.
They are no older, they are no younger
than me in their passions.
The passion of a hundred ?had everyone
and nine hundred did I myself have.
My stained sword
brings me honourable bloodshed.
… from the burial in which he was,
by a meek one was the boar slain.
He made, he remade,
he made languages/peoples.
Radiant his name, strong his hand,
brilliantly did he direct a host; they were scattering in sparks
from a drop in the heights.
I was a speckled snake on a hill,
I was a viper in a lake,
I was a billhook [wielded] by Cynocephali.
I was a stout hunting shaft.
My chasuble and my vessel
do I prepare well.
Four score [clouds] of smoke
does [the vessel] bear to all:
five fifty handmaidens
is its worth together with my knife.
Six yellow horses:
a hundred times better is
my steed, Melyngan, as swift as a seagull!
I myself am not sluggish
between the sea and the shore:
I caused a bloodbath
for nine hundred picked warriors.
My round shield is of ruby,
my shield-ring is gold.
There was not born in the breach …
and now [?no-one] visits me
except Goronwy
from the water-meadows of Edrywy.
Long and slender my fingers,
I have not been a herdsman for a long time [now].
I passed into [the form of] a champion
before I was a man of letters.
I underwent transformations, I circulated,
I slept on the hundred islands; I sojourned in a hundred citadels.
Sages, wise men,
prophesy Arthur!
There is something which has been before
[and] they sang of that which has been:
and one came about
because of the story of the Flood,
and [the second was] Christ’s Crucifixion
and [the third is] The Day of Judgement to come.
[Like] a magnificent jewel in a gold ornament
thus am I resplendent
and I am exhilarated
by the prophecy of Virgil.

The City in the Sea by Edgar Allan Poe

Lo! Death has reared himself a throne
In a strange city lying alone
Far down within the dim West,
Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best
Have gone to their eternal rest.
There shrines and palaces and towers
(Time-eaten towers that tremble not!)
Resemble nothing that is ours.
Around, by lifting winds forgot,
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.
No rays from the holy heaven come down
On the long night-time of that town;
But light from out the lurid sea
Streams up the turrets silently-
Gleams up the pinnacles far and free-
Up domes- up spires- up kingly halls-
Up fanes- up Babylon-like walls-
Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers
Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers-
Up many and many a marvellous shrine
Whose wreathed friezes intertwine
The viol, the violet, and the vine.
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.
So blend the turrets and shadows there
That all seem pendulous in air,
While from a proud tower in the town
Death looks gigantically down.

There open fanes and gaping graves
Yawn level with the luminous waves;
But not the riches there that lie
In each idol's diamond eye-
Not the gaily-jewelled dead
Tempt the waters from their bed;
For no ripples curl, alas!
Along that wilderness of glass-
No swellings tell that winds may be
Upon some far-off happier sea-
No heavings hint that winds have been
On seas less hideously serene.

But lo, a stir is in the air!
The wave- there is a movement there!
As if the towers had thrust aside,
In slightly sinking, the dull tide-
As if their tops had feebly given
A void within the filmy Heaven.
The waves have now a redder glow-
The hours are breathing faint and low-
And when, amid no earthly moans,
Down, down that town shall settle hence,
Hell, rising from a thousand thrones,
Shall do it reverence.

Charm for Stolen Cattle

May nothing I own be stolen or lost
anymore than Herod could take Our Lord.
In the name of St. Helen and of Christ hanged on the cross,
so I claim these cattle will be found, that I will not allow them to be taken,
that I will keep them, that they will not be harmed,
that I will cherish them, that they will not be snatched away.

Garmund, servant of the Lord:
find the cattle and make the cattle move
and take possession of the cattle and guard the cattle
and bring the cattle back home!
See that the who took them will never have any land,
nor fields for him who snatched them,
nor house for him that hid them.
And if he obtain any of these, let it never work out for him!

Within three days I shall know of his powers,
his strength and his powers and his protections.
Like dust-dry wood that begins to crumble, he shall wear them all out,
he shall be brittle as a thistle,
he that hopes to get away with this cattle,
and hopes to drive my livestock away!

vi

Polyphemus, the Cyclops, would claim,
Hurling stones, his one eye was to blame
  For his failure to --darn--
  Hit the side of a barn,
Since he lacked depth perception to aim.

v

With a great mind so tragically fertile,

Aeschylus won wreaths of myrtle,
  And yet his demise
  Could win Comic first prize–

To be brained by a hurtling turtle!

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock By T. S. Eliot

 S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse
 
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
 
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
 Ma percioche giammai di questo fondo
 Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero,
 Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question ...
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair —
(They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”)
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin —
(They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”)
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all:
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
  So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all—
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
  And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all—
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
(But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!)
Is it perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
  And should I then presume?
  And how should I begin?

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? ...

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep ... tired ... or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet — and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it towards some overwhelming question,
To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—
If one, settling a pillow by her head
  Should say: “That is not what I meant at all;
  That is not it, at all.”

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
  “That is not it at all,
  That is not what I meant, at all.”

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old ... I grow old ...
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind?   Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

iv

Empedocles, addled with Drãno,
Declared, "I'm a god! What do they know?
 I'll prove I'm immortal!"
 And jumped through a portal--
The mouth of an active volcano.

Sailing to Byzantium By William Butler Yeats

I

That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees,
—Those dying generations—at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.

II

An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

III

O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

IV

Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.