Written by
Mark Van Doren |
Equality is absolute or no.
Nothing between can stand.
We are the sons
Of the same sire, or madness breaks and runs
Through the rude world.
Ridiculous our woe
If single pity does not love it.
So
Our separate fathers love us.
No man shuns
His poorest child's embrace.
We are the sons
Of such, or ground and sky are soon to go.
Nor do born brothers judge, as good or ill,
Their being.
Each consents and is the same,
Or suddenly sweet winds turn into flame
And floods are on us--fire, earth, water, air
All hideously parted, as his will
Withdraws, no longer fatherly and there.
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Written by
Mark Van Doren |
How far is it to peace, the piper sighed,
The solitary, sweating as he paused.
Asphalt the noon; the ravens, terrified,
Fled carrion thunder that percussion caused.
The envelope of earth was powder loud;
The taut wings shivered, driven at the sun.
The piper put his pipe away and bowed.
Not here, he said.
I hunt the love-cool one,
The dancer with the clipped hair.
Where is she?
We shook our heads, parting for him to pass.
Our lady was of no such trim degree,
And none of us had seen her face, alas.
She was the very ridges that we must scale,
Securing the rough top.
And how she smiled
Was how our strength would issue.
Not to fail
Was having her, gigantic, undefiled,
For homely goddess, big as the world that burned,
Grandmother and taskmistress, frild and town.
We let the stranger go; but when we turned
Our lady lived, fierce in each other's frown.
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Written by
Mark Van Doren |
Whatever I have left unsaid
When I am dead
O'muse forgive me.
You were always there,
like light, like air.
Those great good things
of which the least bird sings,
So why not I?
Yet thank you even then,
Sweet muse, Amen.
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Written by
Mark Van Doren |
I wake and hearing it raining.
Were I dead, what would I give
Lazily to lie here,
Like this, and live?
Or better yet: birdsong,
Brightening and spreading --
How far would I come then
To be at the world's wedding?
Now that I lie, though,
Listening, living,
(Oh, but not forever,
Oh, end arriving)
How shall I praise them:
All the sweet beings
Eternally that outlive
Me and my dying?
Mountains, I mean; wind, water, air;
Grass, and huge trees; clouds, flowers,
And thunder, and night.
Turtles, I mean, and toads; hawks, herons, owls;
Graveyards, and towns, and trout; roads, gardens,
Red berries, and deer.
Lightning, I mean, and eagles; fences; snow;
Sunrise, and ferns; waterfalls, serpents,
Green islands, and sleep.
Horses, I mean; butterflies, whales;
Mosses, and stars and gravelly
Rivers, and fruit.
Oceans, I mean; black valleys; corn;
Brambles, and cliffs; rock, dirt, dust, ice;
And warnings of flood.
How shall I name them?
And in what order?
Each would be first.
Omission is murder.
Maidens, I mean, and apples; needles; leaves;
Worms, and planers, and clover; whirlwinds; dew;
Bulls; geese --
Stop.
Lie still.
You will never be done.
Leave them all there.
Old lover.
Live on.
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Written by
Mark Van Doren |
Listen, The wind is still,
And far away in the night --
See! The uplands fill
With a running light.
Open the doors.
It is warm;
And where the sky was clear--
Look! The head of a storm
That marches here!
Come under the trembling hedge--
Fast, although you fumble.
.
.
There! Did you hear the edge
of winter crumble
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Written by
Mark Van Doren |
After long drought, commotion in the sky;
After dead silence, thunder.
Then it comes,
The rain.
It slashes leaves, and doubly drums
On tin and shingle; beats and bends awry
The flower heads; puddles dust, and with a sigh
Like love sinks into grasses, where it hums
As bees did once, among chrysanthemums
And asters when the summer thought to die.
The whole world dreamed of this, and has it now.
Nor was the waking easy.
The dull root
Is jealous of its death; the sleepy brow
Smiles in its slumber; and a heart can fear
The very flood it longed for, roaring near.
The spirit best remembers being mute.
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Written by
Mark Van Doren |
That God should love me is more wonderful
Than that I so imperfectly love him.
My reason is mortality, and dim
Senses; his--oh, insupportable--
Is that he sees me.
Even when I pull
Dark thoughts about my head, each vein and limb
Delights him, though remembrance in him, grim
With my worst crimes, should prove me horrible.
And he has terrors that he can release.
But when he looks he loves me; which is why
I wonder; and my wonder must increase
Till more of it shall slay me.
Yet I live,
I live; and he has never ceased to give
This glance at me that sweetens the whole sky.
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Written by
Mark Van Doren |
Nothing stays
not even change,
That can grow tired
of it's own name;
The very thought
too much for it.
Somewhere in air
a stillness is,
So far, so thin-
But let it alone.
Whoever we are
it is not for us
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Written by
Mark Van Doren |
The deepest dream is of mad governors,
Down, down we feel it, till the very crust
Of the world cracks, and where there was no dust,
Atoms of ruin rise.
Confusion stirs,
And fear; and all our thoughts--dark scavengers--
Feed on the center's refuse.
Hope is thrust
Like wind away, and love sinks into lust
For merest safety, meanest of levelers.
And then we wake.
Or do we? Sleep endures
More than the morning can, when shadows lie
Sharper than mountains, and the cleft is real
Between us and our kings.
What sun assures
Our courage, and what evening by and by
Descends to rest us, and perhaps to heal?
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Written by
Mark Van Doren |
Love me little, love me long,
Then we neither can be wrong:
You in giving, I in taking;
There is nor a heart breaking
But remembers one touch,
Or maybe seven, of too much.
Love me more than halfway, though.
Let me think, then let me know.
And I promise you the same:
A little wild, a little tame;
Lest it ever seem long:
Tick, tock, ding, dong.
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