10 Best Famous Accustomed Poems

Here is a collection of the top 10 all-time best famous Accustomed poems. This is a select list of the best famous Accustomed poetry. Reading, writing, and enjoying famous Accustomed poetry (as well as classical and contemporary poems) is a great past time. These top poems are the best examples of accustomed poems.

• All Famous Accustomed Poems

 I

Our life is twofold; Sleep hath its own world,
A boundary between the things misnamed
Death and existence: Sleep hath its own world,
And a wide realm of wild reality,
And dreams in their development have breath,
And tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy;
They leave a weight upon our waking thoughts,
They take a weight from off waking toils,
They do divide our being; they become
A portion of ourselves as of our time,
And look like heralds of eternity;
They pass like spirits of the past—they speak
Like sibyls of the future; they have power— 
The tyranny of pleasure and of pain;
They make us what we were not—what they will,
And shake us with the vision that's gone by,
The dread of vanished shadows—Are they so?
Is not the past all shadow?—What are they?
Creations of the mind?—The mind can make
Substances, and people planets of its own
With beings brighter than have been, and give
A breath to forms which can outlive all flesh.
I would recall a vision which I dreamed
Perchance in sleep—for in itself a thought,
A slumbering thought, is capable of years,
And curdles a long life into one hour.

II

I saw two beings in the hues of youth
Standing upon a hill, a gentle hill,
Green and of mild declivity, the last
As 'twere the cape of a long ridge of such,
Save that there was no sea to lave its base,
But a most living landscape, and the wave
Of woods and corn-fields, and the abodes of men
Scattered at intervals, and wreathing smoke
Arising from such rustic roofs: the hill
Was crowned with a peculiar diadem
Of trees, in circular array, so fixed,
Not by the sport of nature, but of man:
These two, a maiden and a youth, were there
Gazing—the one on all that was beneath
Fair as herself—but the boy gazed on her;
And both were young, and one was beautiful:
And both were young—yet not alike in youth.
As the sweet moon on the horizon's verge,
The maid was on the eve of womanhood;
The boy had fewer summers, but his heart
Had far outgrown his years, and to his eye
There was but one beloved face on earth,
And that was shining on him; he had looked
Upon it till it could not pass away;
He had no breath, no being, but in hers:
She was his voice; he did not speak to her,
But trembled on her words; she was his sight,
For his eye followed hers, and saw with hers,
Which coloured all his objects;—he had ceased
To live within himself: she was his life,
The ocean to the river of his thoughts,
Which terminated all; upon a tone,
A touch of hers, his blood would ebb and flow,
And his cheek change tempestuously—his heart
Unknowing of its cause of agony.
But she in these fond feelings had no share:
Her sighs were not for him; to her he was
Even as a brother—but no more; 'twas much,
For brotherless she was, save in the name
Her infant friendship had bestowed on him;
Herself the solitary scion left
Of a time-honoured race.—It was a name
Which pleased him, and yet pleased him not—and why?
Time taught him a deep answer—when she loved
Another; even now she loved another,
And on the summit of that hill she stood
Looking afar if yet her lover's steed
Kept pace with her expectancy, and flew.

III

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
There was an ancient mansion, and before
Its walls there was a steed caparisoned:
Within an antique Oratory stood
The Boy of whom I spake;—he was alone,
And pale, and pacing to and fro: anon
He sate him down, and seized a pen, and traced
Words which I could not guess of; then he leaned
His bowed head on his hands and shook, as 'twere
With a convulsion—then rose again,
And with his teeth and quivering hands did tear
What he had written, but he shed no tears.
And he did calm himself, and fix his brow
Into a kind of quiet: as he paused,
The Lady of his love re-entered there;
She was serene and smiling then, and yet
She knew she was by him beloved; she knew— 
For quickly comes such knowledge—that his heart
Was darkened with her shadow, and she saw
That he was wretched, but she saw not all.
He rose, and with a cold and gentle grasp
He took her hand; a moment o'er his face
A tablet of unutterable thoughts
Was traced, and then it faded, as it came;
He dropped the hand he held, and with slow steps
Retired, but not as bidding her adieu,
For they did part with mutual smiles; he passed
From out the massy gate of that old Hall,
And mounting on his steed he went his way;
And ne'er repassed that hoary threshold more.

IV

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
The Boy was sprung to manhood: in the wilds
Of fiery climes he made himself a home,
And his Soul drank their sunbeams; he was girt
With strange and dusky aspects; he was not
Himself like what he had been; on the sea
And on the shore he was a wanderer;
There was a mass of many images
Crowded like waves upon me, but he was
A part of all; and in the last he lay
Reposing from the noontide sultriness,
Couched among fallen columns, in the shade
Of ruined walls that had survived the names
Of those who reared them; by his sleeping side
Stood camels grazing, and some goodly steeds
Were fastened near a fountain; and a man,
Glad in a flowing garb, did watch the while,
While many of his tribe slumbered around:
And they were canopied by the blue sky,
So cloudless, clear, and purely beautiful,
That God alone was to be seen in heaven.

V

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
The Lady of his love was wed with One
Who did not love her better: in her home,
A thousand leagues from his,—her native home,
She dwelt, begirt with growing Infancy,
Daughters and sons of Beauty,—but behold!
Upon her face there was a tint of grief,
The settled shadow of an inward strife,
And an unquiet drooping of the eye,
As if its lid were charged with unshed tears.
What could her grief be?—she had all she loved,
And he who had so loved her was not there
To trouble with bad hopes, or evil wish,
Or ill-repressed affliction, her pure thoughts.
What could her grief be?—she had loved him not,
Nor given him cause to deem himself beloved,
Nor could he be a part of that which preyed
Upon her mind—a spectre of the past.

VI

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
The Wanderer was returned.—I saw him stand
Before an altar—with a gentle bride;
Her face was fair, but was not that which made
The Starlight of his Boyhood;—as he stood
Even at the altar, o'er his brow there came
The selfsame aspect and the quivering shock
That in the antique Oratory shook
His bosom in its solitude; and then— 
As in that hour—a moment o'er his face
The tablet of unutterable thoughts
Was traced—and then it faded as it came,
And he stood calm and quiet, and he spoke
The fitting vows, but heard not his own words,
And all things reeled around him; he could see
Not that which was, nor that which should have been— 
But the old mansion, and the accustomed hall,
And the remembered chambers, and the place,
The day, the hour, the sunshine, and the shade,
All things pertaining to that place and hour,
And her who was his destiny, came back
And thrust themselves between him and the light;
What business had they there at such a time?

VII

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
The Lady of his love;—Oh! she was changed,
As by the sickness of the soul; her mind
Had wandered from its dwelling, and her eyes,
They had not their own lustre, but the look
Which is not of the earth; she was become
The queen of a fantastic realm; her thoughts
Were combinations of disjointed things;
And forms impalpable and unperceived
Of others' sight familiar were to hers.
And this the world calls frenzy; but the wise
Have a far deeper madness, and the glance
Of melancholy is a fearful gift;
What is it but the telescope of truth?
Which strips the distance of its fantasies,
And brings life near in utter nakedness,
Making the cold reality too real!

VIII

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
The Wanderer was alone as heretofore,
The beings which surrounded him were gone,
Or were at war with him; he was a mark
For blight and desolation, compassed round
With Hatred and Contention; Pain was mixed
In all which was served up to him, until,
Like to the Pontic monarch of old days,
He fed on poisons, and they had no power,
But were a kind of nutriment; he lived
Through that which had been death to many men,
And made him friends of mountains; with the stars
And the quick Spirit of the Universe
He held his dialogues: and they did teach
To him the magic of their mysteries;
To him the book of Night was opened wide,
And voices from the deep abyss revealed
A marvel and a secret.—Be it so.

IX

My dream is past; it had no further change.
It was of a strange order, that the doom
Of these two creatures should be thus traced out
Almost like a reality—the one
To end in madness—both in misery.

 ARRANGING long-locked drawers and shelves 
Of cabinets, shut up for years, 
What a strange task we've set ourselves ! 
How still the lonely room appears ! 
How strange this mass of ancient treasures, 
Mementos of past pains and pleasures; 
These volumes, clasped with costly stone, 
With print all faded, gilding gone; 

These fans of leaves, from Indian trees­ 
These crimson shells, from Indian seas­ 
These tiny portraits, set in rings­ 
Once, doubtless, deemed such precious things; 
Keepsakes bestowed by Love on Faith, 
And worn till the receiver's death, 
Now stored with cameos, china, shells, 
In this old closet's dusty cells. 

I scarcely think, for ten long years, 
A hand has touched these relics old; 
And, coating each, slow-formed, appears, 
The growth of green and antique mould. 

All in this house is mossing over; 
All is unused, and dim, and damp; 
Nor light, nor warmth, the rooms discover­ 
Bereft for years of fire and lamp. 

The sun, sometimes in summer, enters 
The casements, with reviving ray; 
But the long rains of many winters 
Moulder the very walls away. 

And outside all is ivy, clinging 
To chimney, lattice, gable grey; 
Scarcely one little red rose springing 
Through the green moss can force its way. 

Unscared, the daw, and starling nestle, 
Where the tall turret rises high, 
And winds alone come near to rustle 
The thick leaves where their cradles lie. 

I sometimes think, when late at even 
I climb the stair reluctantly, 
Some shape that should be well in heaven, 
Or ill elsewhere, will pass by me. 

I fear to see the very faces, 
Familiar thirty years ago, 
Even in the old accustomed places 
Which look so cold and gloomy now. 

I've come, to close the window, hither, 
At twilight, when the sun was down, 
And Fear, my very soul would wither, 
Lest something should be dimly shown. 

Too much the buried form resembling, 
Of her who once was mistress here; 
Lest doubtful shade, or moonbeam trembling, 
Might take her aspect, once so dear. 

Hers was this chamber; in her time 
It seemed to me a pleasant room, 
For then no cloud of grief or crime 
Had cursed it with a settled gloom; 

I had not seen death's image laid 
In shroud and sheet, on yonder bed. 
Before she married, she was blest­ 
Blest in her youth, blest in her worth; 
Her mind was calm, its sunny rest 
Shone in her eyes more clear than mirth. 

And when attired in rich array, 
Light, lustrous hair about her brow, 
She yonder sat­a kind of day 
Lit up­what seems so gloomy now. 
These grim oak walls, even then were grim; 
That old carved chair, was then antique; 
But what around looked dusk and dim 
Served as a foil to her fresh cheek; 
Her neck, and arms, of hue so fair, 
Eyes of unclouded, smiling, light; 
Her soft, and curled, and floating hair, 
Gems and attire, as rainbow bright. 

Reclined in yonder deep recess, 
Ofttimes she would, at evening, lie 
Watching the sun; she seemed to bless 
With happy glance the glorious sky. 
She loved such scenes, and as she gazed, 
Her face evinced her spirit's mood; 
Beauty or grandeur ever raised 
In her, a deep-felt gratitude. 

But of all lovely things, she loved 
A cloudless moon, on summer night; 
Full oft have I impatience proved 
To see how long, her still delight 
Would find a theme in reverie. 
Out on the lawn, or where the trees 
Let in the lustre fitfully, 
As their boughs parted momently, 
To the soft, languid, summer breeze. 
Alas ! that she should e'er have flung 
Those pure, though lonely joys away­ 
Deceived by false and guileful tongue, 
She gave her hand, then suffered wrong; 
Oppressed, ill-used, she faded young, 
And died of grief by slow decay. 

Open that casket­look how bright 
Those jewels flash upon the sight; 
The brilliants have not lost a ray 
Of lustre, since her wedding day. 
But see­upon that pearly chain­ 
How dim lies time's discolouring stain ! 
I've seen that by her daughter worn: 
For, e'er she died, a child was born; 
A child that ne'er its mother knew, 
That lone, and almost friendless grew; 
For, ever, when its step drew nigh, 
Averted was the father's eye; 
And then, a life impure and wild 
Made him a stranger to his child; 
Absorbed in vice, he little cared 
On what she did, or how she fared. 
The love withheld, she never sought, 
She grew uncherished­learnt untaught; 
To her the inward life of thought 
Full soon was open laid. 
I know not if her friendlessness 
Did sometimes on her spirit press, 
But plaint she never made. 

The book-shelves were her darling treasure, 
She rarely seemed the time to measure 
While she could read alone. 
And she too loved the twilight wood, 
And often, in her mother's mood, 
Away to yonder hill would hie, 
Like her, to watch the setting sun, 
Or see the stars born, one by one, 
Out of the darkening sky. 
Nor would she leave that hill till night 
Trembled from pole to pole with light; 
Even then, upon her homeward way, 
Long­long her wandering steps delayed 
To quit the sombre forest shade, 
Through which her eerie pathway lay. 

You ask if she had beauty's grace ? 
I know not­but a nobler face 
My eyes have seldom seen; 
A keen and fine intelligence, 
And, better still, the truest sense 
Were in her speaking mien. 
But bloom or lustre was there none, 
Only at moments, fitful shone 
An ardour in her eye, 
That kindled on her cheek a flush, 
Warm as a red sky's passing blush 
And quick with energy. 
Her speech, too, was not common speech, 
No wish to shine, or aim to teach, 
Was in her words displayed: 
She still began with quiet sense, 
But oft the force of eloquence 
Came to her lips in aid; 
Language and voice unconscious changed, 
And thoughts, in other words arranged, 
Her fervid soul transfused 
Into the hearts of those who heard, 
And transient strength and ardour stirred, 
In minds to strength unused. 
Yet in gay crowd or festal glare, 
Grave and retiring was her air; 
'Twas seldom, save with me alone, 
That fire of feeling freely shone; 
She loved not awe's nor wonder's gaze, 
Nor even exaggerated praise, 
Nor even notice, if too keen 
The curious gazer searched her mien. 
Nature's own green expanse revealed 
The world, the pleasures, she could prize; 
On free hill-side, in sunny field, 
In quiet spots by woods concealed, 
Grew wild and fresh her chosen joys, 
Yet Nature's feelings deeply lay 
In that endowed and youthful frame; 
Shrined in her heart and hid from day, 
They burned unseen with silent flame; 
In youth's first search for mental light, 
She lived but to reflect and learn, 
But soon her mind's maturer might 
For stronger task did pant and yearn; 
And stronger task did fate assign, 
Task that a giant's strength might strain; 
To suffer long and ne'er repine, 
Be calm in frenzy, smile at pain. 

Pale with the secret war of feeling, 
Sustained with courage, mute, yet high; 
The wounds at which she bled, revealing 
Only by altered cheek and eye; 

She bore in silence­but when passion 
Surged in her soul with ceaseless foam, 
The storm at last brought desolation, 
And drove her exiled from her home. 

And silent still, she straight assembled 
The wrecks of strength her soul retained; 
For though the wasted body trembled, 
The unconquered mind, to quail, disdained. 

She crossed the sea­now lone she wanders 
By Seine's, or Rhine's, or Arno's flow; 
Fain would I know if distance renders 
Relief or comfort to her woe. 

Fain would I know if, henceforth, ever, 
These eyes shall read in hers again, 
That light of love which faded never, 
Though dimmed so long with secret pain. 

She will return, but cold and altered, 
Like all whose hopes too soon depart; 
Like all on whom have beat, unsheltered, 
The bitter blasts that blight the heart. 

No more shall I behold her lying 
Calm on a pillow, smoothed by me; 
No more that spirit, worn with sighing, 
Will know the rest of infancy. 

If still the paths of lore she follow, 
'Twill be with tired and goaded will; 
She'll only toil, the aching hollow, 
The joyless blank of life to fill. 

And oh ! full oft, quite spent and weary, 
Her hand will pause, her head decline; 
That labour seems so hard and dreary, 
On which no ray of hope may shine. 

Thus the pale blight of time and sorrow 
Will shade with grey her soft, dark hair 
Then comes the day that knows no morrow, 
And death succeeds to long despair. 

So speaks experience, sage and hoary; 
I see it plainly, know it well, 
Like one who, having read a story, 
Each incident therein can tell. 

Touch not that ring, 'twas his, the sire 
Of that forsaken child; 
And nought his relics can inspire 
Save memories, sin-defiled. 

I, who sat by his wife's death-bed, 
I, who his daughter loved, 
Could almost curse the guilty dead, 
For woes, the guiltless proved. 

And heaven did curse­they found him laid, 
When crime for wrath was rife, 
Cold­with the suicidal blade 
Clutched in his desperate gripe. 

'Twas near that long deserted hut, 
Which in the wood decays, 
Death's axe, self-wielded, struck his root, 
And lopped his desperate days. 

You know the spot, where three black trees, 
Lift up their branches fell, 
And moaning, ceaseless as the seas, 
Still seem, in every passing breeze, 
The deed of blood to tell. 

They named him mad, and laid his bones 
Where holier ashes lie; 
Yet doubt not that his spirit groans, 
In hell's eternity. 

But, lo ! night, closing o'er the earth, 
Infects our thoughts with gloom; 
Come, let us strive to rally mirth, 
Where glows a clear and tranquil hearth 
In some more cheerful room.

I dreaded that first Robin, so,
But He is mastered, now,
I'm some accustomed to Him grown,
He hurts a little, though—

I thought if I could only live
Till that first Shout got by—
Not all Pianos in the Woods
Had power to mangle me—

I dared not meet the Daffodils—
For fear their Yellow Gown
Would pierce me with a fashion
So foreign to my own—

I wished the Grass would hurry—
So—when 'twas time to see—
He'd be too tall, the tallest one
Could stretch—to look at me—

I could not bear the Bees should come,
I wished they'd stay away
In those dim countries where they go,
What word had they, for me?

They're here, though; not a creature failed—
No Blossom stayed away
In gentle deference to me—
The Queen of Calvary—

Each one salutes me, as he goes,
And I, my childish Plumes,
Lift, in bereaved acknowledgement
Of their unthinking Drums—

 You've asked me what the lobster is weaving there with 
 his golden feet?
I reply, the ocean knows this.
You say, what is the ascidia waiting for in its transparent 
 bell? What is it waiting for?
I tell you it is waiting for time, like you.
You ask me whom the Macrocystis alga hugs in its arms?
Study, study it, at a certain hour, in a certain sea I know.
You question me about the wicked tusk of the narwhal, 
 and I reply by describing
how the sea unicorn with the harpoon in it dies.
You enquire about the kingfisher's feathers,
which tremble in the pure springs of the southern tides?
Or you've found in the cards a new question touching on 
 the crystal architecture
of the sea anemone, and you'll deal that to me now?
You want to understand the electric nature of the ocean 
 spines?
 The armored stalactite that breaks as it walks?
 The hook of the angler fish, the music stretched out
 in the deep places like a thread in the water?

 I want to tell you the ocean knows this, that life in its 
 jewel boxes
 is endless as the sand, impossible to count, pure,
 and among the blood-colored grapes time has made the 
 petal
 hard and shiny, made the jellyfish full of light
 and untied its knot, letting its musical threads fall
 from a horn of plenty made of infinite mother-of-pearl.

 I am nothing but the empty net which has gone on ahead
 of human eyes, dead in those darknesses,
 of fingers accustomed to the triangle, longitudes
 on the timid globe of an orange.

 I walked around as you do, investigating
 the endless star,
 and in my net, during the night, I woke up naked,
 the only thing caught, a fish trapped inside the wind.

 Nearly everyone had left that bar in the middle of winter except the
hardcore.It was the coldest night of the year, every place shut down, but
not us.Of course we noticed when she came in.We were Indian ruins.She
was the end of beauty.No one knew her, the stranger whose tribe we
recognized, her family related to deer, if that's who she was, a people
accustomed to hearing songs in pine trees, and making them hearts.

The woman inside the woman who was to dance naked in the bar of misfits
blew deer magic.Henry jack, who could not survive a sober day, thought she
was Buffalo Calf Woman come back, passed out, his head by the toilet.All
night he dreamed a dream he could not say.The next day he borrowed
money, went home, and sent back the money I lent.Now that's a miracle.
Some people see vision in a burned tortilla, some in the face of a woman.

This is the bar of broken survivors, the club of the shotgun, knife wound, of
poison by culture.We who were taught not to stare drank our beer.The
players gossiped down their cues.Someone put a quarter in the jukebox to
relive despair.Richard's wife dove to kill her.We had to keep her
still, while Richard secretly bought the beauty a drink.

How do I say it?In this language there are no words for how the real world
collapses.I could say it in my own and the sacred mounds would come into 
focus, but I couldn't take it in this dingy envelope.So I look at the stars in 
this strange city, frozen to the back of the sky, the only promises that ever
make sense.

My brother-in-law hung out with white people, went to law school with a
perfect record, quit.Says you can keep your laws, your words.And
practiced law on the street with his hands.He jimmied to the proverbial
dream girl, the face of the moon, while the players racked a new game.
He bragged to us, he told her magic words and that when she broke,
became human.
But we all heard his voice crack:

What's a girl like you doing in a place like this?

That's what I'd like to know, what are we all doing in a place like this?


You would know she could hear only what she wanted to; don't we all?Left
the drink of betrayal Richard bought her, at the bar.What was she on?We all
wanted some.Put a quarter in the juke.We all take risks stepping into thin
air.Our ceremonies didn't predict this.or we expected more.

I had to tell you this, for the baby inside the girl sealed up with a lick of
hope and swimming into the praise of nations.This is not a rooming house, but
a dream of winter falls and the deer who portrayed the relatives of 
strangers.The way back is deer breath on icy windows.

The next dance none of us predicted.She borrowed a chair for the stairway
to heaven and stood on a table of names.And danced in the room of children 
without shoes.

You picked a fine time to leave me, Lucille With four hungry children and a
crop in the field.

And then she took off her clothes.She shook loose memory, waltzed with the
empty lover we'd all become.

She was the myth slipped down through dreamtime.The promise of feast we
all knew was coming.The deer who crossed through knots of a curse to find
us.She was no slouch, and neither were we, watching.

The music ended.And so does the story.I wasn't there.But I imagined her
like this, not a stained red dress with tape on her heels but the deer who
entered our dream in white dawn, breathed mist into pine trees, her fawn a 
blessing of meat, the ancestors who never left.

 I
Serene and beautiful and very wise,
Most erudite in curious Grecian lore,
You lay and read your learned books, and bore
A weight of unshed tears and silent sighs.
The song within your heart could never rise
Until love bade it spread its wings and soar.
Nor could you look on Beauty's face before
A poet's burning mouth had touched your eyes.
Love is made out of ecstasy and wonder;
Love is a poignant and accustomed pain.
It is a burst of Heaven-shaking thunder;
It is a linnet's fluting after rain.
Love's voice is through your song; above and under
And in each note to echo and remain.

II
Because Mankind is glad and brave and young,
Full of gay flames that white and scarlet glow,
All joys and passions that Mankind may know
By you were nobly felt and nobly sung.
Because Mankind's heart every day is wrung
By Fate's wild hands that twist and tear it so,
Therefore you echoed Man's undying woe,
A harp Aeolian on Life's branches hung.
So did the ghosts of toiling children hover
About the piteous portals of your mind;
Your eyes, that looked on glory, could discover
The angry scar to which the world was blind:
And it was grief that made Mankind your lover,
And it was grief that made you love Mankind.

III
Before Christ left the Citadel of Light,
To tread the dreadful way of human birth,
His shadow sometimes fell upon the earth
And those who saw it wept with joy and fright.
"Thou art Apollo, than the sun more bright!"
They cried. "Our music is of little worth,
But thrill our blood with thy creative mirth
Thou god of song, thou lord of lyric might!"
O singing pilgrim! who could love and follow
Your lover Christ, through even love's despair,
You knew within the cypress-darkened hollow
The feet that on the mountain are so fair.
For it was Christ that was your own Apollo,
And thorns were in the laurel on your hair.

 for Maxine Kumin

Where did these enormous children come from,
More ladylike than we have ever been?
Some of ours look older than we feel.
How did they appear in their long dresses

More ladylike than we have ever been?
But they moan about their aging more than we do,
In their fragile heels and long black dresses.
They say they admire our youthful spontaneity.

They moan about their aging more than we do,
A somber group--why don't they brighten up?
Though they say they admire our youthful spontaneity
The beg us to be dignified like them

As they ignore our pleas to brighten up. 
Someday perhaps we'll capture their attention
Then we won't try to be dignified like them
Nor they to be so gently patronizing.

Someday perhaps we'll capture their attention.
Don't they know that we're supposed to be the stars?
Instead they are so gently patronizing.
It makes us feel like children--second-childish?

Perhaps we're too accustomed to be stars.
The famous flowers glowing in the garden,
So now we pout like children. Second-childish?
Quaint fragments of forgotten history?

Our daughters stroll together in the garden,
Chatting of news we've chosen to ignore,
Pausing to toss us morsels of their history,
Not questions to which only we know answers.

Eyes closed to news we've chosen to ignore,
We'd rather excavate old memories,
Disdaining age, ignoring pain, avoiding mirrors.
Why do they never listen to our stories?

Because they hate to excavate old memories
They don't believe our stories have an end.
They don't ask questions because they dread the answers.
They don't see that we've become their mirrors,

We offspring of our enormous children.

 Once more the storm is howling, and half hid
Under this cradle-hood and coverlid
My child sleeps on. There is no obstacle
But Gregory's wood and one bare hill
Whereby the haystack- and roof-levelling wind.
Bred on the Atlantic, can be stayed;
And for an hour I have walked and prayed
Because of the great gloom that is in my mind.

I have walked and prayed for this young child an hour
And heard the sea-wind scream upon the tower,
And-under the arches of the bridge, and scream
In the elms above the flooded stream;
Imagining in excited reverie
That the future years had come,
Dancing to a frenzied drum,
Out of the murderous innocence of the sea.

May she be granted beauty and yet not
Beauty to make a stranger's eye distraught,
Or hers before a looking-glass, for such,
Being made beautiful overmuch,
Consider beauty a sufficient end,
Lose natural kindness and maybe
The heart-revealing intimacy
That chooses right, and never find a friend.

Helen being chosen found life flat and dull
And later had much trouble from a fool,
While that great Queen, that rose out of the spray,
Being fatherless could have her way
Yet chose a bandy-leggèd smith for man.
It's certain that fine women eat
A crazy salad with their meat
Whereby the Horn of plenty is undone.

In courtesy I'd have her chiefly learned;
Hearts are not had as a gift but hearts are earned
By those that are not entirely beautiful;
Yet many, that have played the fool
For beauty's very self, has charm made wisc.
And many a poor man that has roved,
Loved and thought himself beloved,
From a glad kindness cannot take his eyes.

May she become a flourishing hidden tree
That all her thoughts may like the linnet be,
And have no business but dispensing round
Their magnanimities of sound,
Nor but in merriment begin a chase,
Nor but in merriment a quarrel.
O may she live like some green laurel
Rooted in one dear perpetual place.

My mind, because the minds that I have loved,
The sort of beauty that I have approved,
Prosper but little, has dried up of late,
Yet knows that to be choked with hate
May well be of all evil chances chief.
If there's no hatred in a mind
Assault and battery of the wind
Can never tear the linnet from the leaf.

An intellectual hatred is the worst,
So let her think opinions are accursed.
Have I not seen the loveliest woman born
Out of the mouth of plenty's horn,
Because of her opinionated mind
Barter that horn and every good
By quiet natures understood
For an old bellows full of angry wind?

Considering that, all hatred driven hence,
The soul recovers radical innocence
And learns at last that it is self-delighting,
Self-appeasing, self-affrighting,
And that its own sweet will is Heaven's will;
She can, though every face should scowl
And every windy quarter howl
Or every bellows burst, be happy Still.

And may her bridegroom bring her to a house
Where all's accustomed, ceremonious;
For arrogance and hatred are the wares
Peddled in the thoroughfares.
How but in custom and in ceremony
Are innocence and beauty born?
Ceremony's a name for the rich horn,
And custom for the spreading laurel tree.

 I ask not that my bed of death
From bands of greedy heirs be free;
For these besiege the latest breath
Of fortune's favoured sons, not me.

I ask not each kind soul to keep
Tearless, when of my death he hears;
Let those who will, if any, weep!
There are worse plagues on earth than tears.

I ask but that my death may find
The freedom to my life denied;
Ask but the folly of mankind,
Then, at last, to quit my side.

Spare me the whispering, crowded room,
The friends who come, and gape, and go;
The ceremonious air of gloom—
All which makes death a hideous show!

Nor bring, to see me cease to live,
Some doctor full of phrase and fame,
To shake his sapient head and give
The ill he cannot cure a name.

Nor fetch, to take the accustomed toll
Of the poor sinner bound for death,
His brother doctor of the soul,
To canvass with official breath

The future and its viewless things—
That undiscovered mystery
Which one who feels death's winnowing wings
Must need read clearer, sure, than he!

Bring none of these; but let me be,
While all around in silence lies,
Moved to the window near, and see
Once more before my dying eyes

Bathed in the sacred dew of morn
The wide aerial landscape spread—
The world which was ere I was born,
The world which lasts when I am dead.

Which never was the friend of one,
Nor promised love it could not give,
But lit for all its generous sun,
And lived itself, and made us live.

There let me gaze, till I become
In soul with what I gaze on wed!
To feel the universe my home;
To have before my mind -instead

Of the sick-room, the mortal strife,
The turmoil for a little breath—
The pure eternal course of life,
Not human combatings with death.

Thus feeling, gazing, let me grow
Composed, refreshed, ennobled, clear;
Then willing let my spirit go
To work or wait elsewhere or here!

 I dreamed that one had died in a strange place
Near no accustomed hand,
And they had nailed the boards above her face,
The peasants of that land,
Wondering to lay her in that solitude,
And raised above her mound
A cross they had made out of two bits of wood,
And planted cypress round;
And left her to the indifferent stars above
Until I carved these words:
She was more beautiful than thy first love,
But now lies under boards.