Written by
Walt Whitman |
SPLENDOR of ended day, floating and filling me!
Hour prophetic—hour resuming the past!
Inflating my throat—you, divine average!
You, Earth and Life, till the last ray gleams, I sing.
Open mouth of my Soul, uttering gladness,
Eyes of my Soul, seeing perfection,
Natural life of me, faithfully praising things;
Corroborating forever the triumph of things.
Illustrious every one!
Illustrious what we name space—sphere of unnumber’d spirits;
Illustrious the mystery of motion, in all beings, even the tiniest insect;
Illustrious the attribute of speech—the senses—the body;
Illustrious the passing light! Illustrious the pale reflection on the new moon in the
western
sky!
Illustrious whatever I see, or hear, or touch, to the last.
Good in all,
In the satisfaction and aplomb of animals,
In the annual return of the seasons,
In the hilarity of youth,
In the strength and flush of manhood,
In the grandeur and exquisiteness of old age,
In the superb vistas of Death.
Wonderful to depart;
Wonderful to be here!
The heart, to jet the all-alike and innocent blood!
To breathe the air, how delicious!
To speak! to walk! to seize something by the hand!
To prepare for sleep, for bed—to look on my rose-color’d flesh;
To be conscious of my body, so satisfied, so large;
To be this incredible God I am;
To have gone forth among other Gods—these men and women I love.
Wonderful how I celebrate you and myself!
How my thoughts play subtly at the spectacles around!
How the clouds pass silently overhead!
How the earth darts on and on! and how the sun, moon, stars, dart on and on!
How the water sports and sings! (Surely it is alive!)
How the trees rise and stand up—with strong trunks—with branches and leaves!
(Surely there is something more in each of the tree—some living Soul.
)
O amazement of things! even the least particle!
O spirituality of things!
O strain musical, flowing through ages and continents—now reaching me and America!
I take your strong chords—I intersperse them, and cheerfully pass them forward.
I too carol the sun, usher’d, or at noon, or, as now, setting,
I too throb to the brain and beauty of the earth, and of all the growths of the earth,
I too have felt the resistless call of myself.
As I sail’d down the Mississippi,
As I wander’d over the prairies,
As I have lived—As I have look’d through my windows, my eyes,
As I went forth in the morning—As I beheld the light breaking in the east;
As I bathed on the beach of the Eastern Sea, and again on the beach of the Western Sea;
As I roam’d the streets of inland Chicago—whatever streets I have roam’d;
Or cities, or silent woods, or peace, or even amid the sights of war;
Wherever I have been, I have charged myself with contentment and triumph.
I sing the Equalities, modern or old,
I sing the endless finales of things;
I say Nature continues—Glory continues;
I praise with electric voice;
For I do not see one imperfection in the universe;
And I do not see one cause or result lamentable at last in the universe.
O setting sun! though the time has come,
I still warble under you, if none else does, unmitigated adoration.
|
Written by
Rita Dove |
She was thinner, with a mannered gauntness
as she paused just inside the double
glass doors to survey the room, silvery cape
billowing dramatically behind her.
What's this,
I thought, lifting a hand until
she nodded and started across the parquet;
that's when I saw she was dressed all in gray,
from a kittenish cashmere skirt and cowl
down to the graphite signature of her shoes.
"Sorry I'm late," she panted, though
she wasn't, sliding into the chair, her cape
tossed off in a shudder of brushed steel.
We kissed.
Then I leaned back to peruse
my blighted child, this wary aristocratic mole.
"How's business?" I asked, and hazarded
a motherly smile to keep from crying out:
Are you content to conduct your life
as a cliché and, what's worse,
an anachronism, the brooding artist's demimonde?
Near the rue Princesse they had opened
a gallery cum souvenir shop which featured
fuzzy off-color Monets next to his acrylics, no doubt,
plus beared African drums and the occasional miniature
gargoyle from Notre Dame the Great Artist had
carved at breakfast with a pocket knife.
"Tourists love us.
The Parisians, of course"--
she blushed--"are amused, though not without
a certain admiration .
.
.
"
The Chateaubriand
arrived on a bone-white plate, smug and absolute
in its fragrant crust, a black plug steaming
like the heart plucked from the chest of a worthy enemy;
one touch with her fork sent pink juices streaming.
"Admiration for what?"Wine, a bloody
Pinot Noir, brought color to her cheeks.
"Why,
the aplomb with which we've managed
to support our Art"--meaning he'd convinced
her to pose nude for his appalling canvases,
faintly futuristic landscapes strewn
with carwrecks and bodies being chewed
by rabid cocker spaniels.
"I'd like to come by
the studio," I ventured, "and see the new stuff.
"
"Yes, if you wish .
.
.
"A delicate rebuff
before the warning: "He dresses all
in black now.
Me, he drapes in blues and carmine--
and even though I think it's kinda cute,
in company I tend toward more muted shades.
"
She paused and had the grace
to drop her eyes.
She did look ravishing,
spookily insubstantial, a lipstick ghost on tissue,
or as if one stood on a fifth-floor terrace
peering through a fringe of rain at Paris'
dreaming chimney pots, each sooty issue
wobbling skyward in an ecstatic oracular spiral.
"And he never thinks of food.
I wish
I didn't have to plead with him to eat.
.
.
.
"Fruit
and cheese appeared, arrayed on leaf-green dishes.
I stuck with café crème.
"This Camembert's
so ripe," she joked, "it's practically grown hair,"
mucking a golden glob complete with parsley sprig
onto a heel of bread.
Nothing seemed to fill
her up: She swallowed, sliced into a pear,
speared each tear-shaped lavaliere
and popped the dripping mess into her pretty mouth.
Nowhere the bright tufted fields, weighted
vines and sun poured down out of the south.
"But are you happy?"Fearing, I whispered it
quickly.
"What?You know, Mother"--
she bit into the starry rose of a fig--
"one really should try the fruit here.
"
I've lost her, I thought, and called for the bill.
|
Written by
Aleister Crowley |
"To Lionel Engers-Kennedy: to the memory of Hargrave Jennings: and
to A.
C.
W.
G.
and H.
E.
H.
"
Beneath the vine tree and the fig
Where mortal cares may not intrude,
On melon and on sucking pig
Although their brains are bright and big
Banquet the Great White Brotherhood.
Among the fountains and the trees
That fringed his garden's glowing border,
At sunset walked, and, in the breeze
With his disciples, took his ease
An Adept of the Holy Order.
"My children," Said the holy man,
"Once more I'm willing to unmask me.
This is my birthday; and my plan
Is to bestow on you (I can)
Whatever favour you may ask me.
"
Nor curiosity nor greed
Brought these disciples to disaster;
For, being very wise indeed,
The adolescents all agreed
To ask His Secret of the Master.
With the "aplomb" and "savoir faire"
Peculiar to Eastern races,
He took the secret then and there
(What, is not lawful to declare),
And thrust it rudely in their faces.
"A filthy insult!" screamed the first;
The second smiled, "Ingenious blind!"
The youngest neither blessed nor cursed,
Contented to believe the worst -
That He had spoken all his mind!
The second earned the name of prig,
The first the epithet of prude;
The third, as merry as a grig,
On melon and on sucking pig
Feasts with the Great White Brotherhood.
|
Written by
Walt Whitman |
ME imperturbe, standing at ease in Nature,
Master of all, or mistress of all—aplomb in the midst of irrational things,
Imbued as they—passive, receptive, silent as they,
Finding my occupation, poverty, notoriety, foibles, crimes, less important than I thought;
Me private, or public, or menial, or solitary—all these subordinate, (I am eternally
equal
with
the best—I am not subordinate;)
Me toward the Mexican Sea, or in the Mannahatta, or the Tennessee, or far north, or
inland,
A river man, or a man of the woods, or of any farm-life in These States, or of the coast,
or
the
lakes, or Kanada,
Me, wherever my life is lived, O to be self-balanced for contingencies!
O to confront night, storms, hunger, ridicule, accidents, rebuffs, as the trees and
animals do.
|
Written by
Philip Larkin |
For C.
G.
B.
When she came on, you couldn't keep your seat;
Fighting your way up through the orchestra,
Tup-heavy bumpkin, you confused your feet,
Fell in the drum - how we went ha ha ha!
But once you gained her side and started waltzing
We all began to cheer; the way she leant
Her cheek on yours and laughed was so exalting
We thought you were stooging for the management.
But no.
What you did, any of us might.
And saying so I see our difference:
Not your aplomb (I used mine to sit tight),
But fancying you improve her.
Where's the sense
In saying love, but meaning indifference ?
You'll only change her.
Still, I'm sure you're right.
|
Written by
Rg Gregory |
dodona oak (the tree of life) sheds leaves
nutritious-which feeds blood and mind today
there’s not a jot (from which the present cleaves)
can be dispensed with – all life’s array
from first to last has leaf-mould in its clay
eve is that apple she took her bite from
the best and worst can’t thwart its dna
head-shaking won’t dislodge that first aplomb
which even now keeps thought under its thumb
so much in self cries out to be made clear
a yearning glimpse confused by so much bracken
a touch of gold the sun wrings from the drear
and lightest hopes too often seem to thicken
fulfilments near at hand come cradled stricken
(oh read the cards – they’re face down in the mud)
but figures at the dawnside faintly beckon
step back from grief or wrath – an untouched bud
dares to suggest a wisp of hidden good
not to be made too much of but discerned
and wrought into a pendant (gold inlaid)
where tree and flesh (symbolically concerned)
look to a future longing for their trade
the apples fall but core is not dismayed
behaviour’s but a passing itch or sneeze
(a moment’s cost but plaster-cast not jade)
in caverns long sight-lost an ancient frieze
cries for new eyes again (a smarter breeze)
|