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Best Famous Ashamed Poems

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Written by Sylvia Plath | Create an image from this poem

A Birthday Present

 What is this, behind this veil, is it ugly, is it beautiful?
It is shimmering, has it breasts, has it edges?

I am sure it is unique, I am sure it is what I want.
When I am quiet at my cooking I feel it looking, I feel it thinking 'Is this the one I am too appear for, Is this the elect one, the one with black eye-pits and a scar? Measuring the flour, cutting off the surplus, Adhering to rules, to rules, to rules.
Is this the one for the annunciation? My god, what a laugh!' But it shimmers, it does not stop, and I think it wants me.
I would not mind if it were bones, or a pearl button.
I do not want much of a present, anyway, this year.
After all I am alive only by accident.
I would have killed myself gladly that time any possible way.
Now there are these veils, shimmering like curtains, The diaphanous satins of a January window White as babies' bedding and glittering with dead breath.
O ivory! It must be a tusk there, a ghost column.
Can you not see I do not mind what it is.
Can you not give it to me? Do not be ashamed--I do not mind if it is small.
Do not be mean, I am ready for enormity.
Let us sit down to it, one on either side, admiring the gleam, The glaze, the mirrory variety of it.
Let us eat our last supper at it, like a hospital plate.
I know why you will not give it to me, You are terrified The world will go up in a shriek, and your head with it, Bossed, brazen, an antique shield, A marvel to your great-grandchildren.
Do not be afraid, it is not so.
I will only take it and go aside quietly.
You will not even hear me opening it, no paper crackle, No falling ribbons, no scream at the end.
I do not think you credit me with this discretion.
If you only knew how the veils were killing my days.
To you they are only transparencies, clear air.
But my god, the clouds are like cotton.
Armies of them.
They are carbon monoxide.
Sweetly, sweetly I breathe in, Filling my veins with invisibles, with the million Probable motes that tick the years off my life.
You are silver-suited for the occasion.
O adding machine----- Is it impossible for you to let something go and have it go whole? Must you stamp each piece purple, Must you kill what you can? There is one thing I want today, and only you can give it to me.
It stands at my window, big as the sky.
It breathes from my sheets, the cold dead center Where split lives congeal and stiffen to history.
Let it not come by the mail, finger by finger.
Let it not come by word of mouth, I should be sixty By the time the whole of it was delivered, and to numb to use it.
Only let down the veil, the veil, the veil.
If it were death I would admire the deep gravity of it, its timeless eyes.
I would know you were serious.
There would be a nobility then, there would be a birthday.
And the knife not carve, but enter Pure and clean as the cry of a baby, And the universe slide from my side.


Written by Langston Hughes | Create an image from this poem

I Too Sing America

 I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen When company comes, But I laugh, And eat well, And grow strong.
Tomorrow, I'll be at the table When company comes.
Nobody'll dare Say to me, "Eat in the kitchen," Then.
Besides, They'll see how beautiful I am And be ashamed-- I, too, am America.
Written by Ruth Padel | Create an image from this poem

WRITING TO ONEGIN

 (After Pushkin) 
Look at the bare wood hand-waxed floor and long 
White dressing-gown, the good child's writing-desk 
And passionate cold feet
Summoning music of the night - tumbrils, gongs
And gamelans - with one neat pen, one candle
Puttering its life out hour by hour.
Is "Tell Him I love him" never a good idea? You can't wish this Unlived - this world on fire, on storm Alert, till the shepherd's song Outside, some hyper-active yellowhammer, bulbul, Wren, amplified in hills and woods, tell her to bestow A spot of notice on the dawn.
* "I'm writing to you.
Well, that's it, that's everything.
You'll laugh, but you'll pity me too.
I'm ashamed of this.
I meant to keep it quiet.
You'd never have known, if - I wish - I could have seen you once a week.
To mull over, day And night, the things you say, or what we say together.
But word is, you're misogynist.
Laddish.
A philanderer Who says what he doesn't mean.
(That's not how you come across To me.
) Who couldn't give a toss for domestic peace - Only for celebrity and showing off - And won't hang round in a provincial zone Like this.
We don't glitter.
Though we do, Warmly, truly, welcome you.
* "Why did you come? I'd never have set eyes On a star like you, or blundered up against This crazed not-sleeping, hour after hour In the dark.
I might have got the better of My clumsy fury with constraint, my fret For things I lack all lexica and phrase-book art To say.
I might have been a faithful wife; a mother.
But that's all done with.
This is Fate.
God.
Sorted.
Here I am - yours, to the last breath.
I couldn't give my heart to anyone else.
My life till now has been a theorem, to demonstrate How right it is to love you.
This love is love to death.
* "I knew you anyway.
I loved you, I'm afraid, In my sleep.
Your eyes, that denim-lapis, grey-sea- Grey-green blue, that Chinese fold of skin At the inner corner, that shot look Bleeping "vulnerable" under the screensaver charm, Kept me alive.
Every cell, every last gold atom Of your body, was engraved in me Already.
Don't tell me that was dream! When you came in, Staring round in your stripey coat and brocade Vest, I nearly died! I fainted, I was flame! I recognized The you I'd always listened to alone, when I wrote Or tried to wrestle my scatty soul into calm.
* "Wasn't it you who slipped through the transparent Darkness to my bed and whispered love? Aren't you My guardian angel? Or is this arrant Seeming, hallucination, thrown Up by that fly engineering a novel does So beguilingly, or poems? Is this mad? Are there ways of dreaming I don't know? Too bad.
My soul has made its home In you.
I'm here and bare before you: shy, In tears.
But if I didn't heft my whole self up and hold it there - A crack-free mirror - loving you, or if I couldn't share It, set it out in words, I'd die.
* "I'll wait to hear from you.
I must.
Please let me hope.
Give me one look, from eyes I hardly dare To look back at.
Or scupper my dream By scolding me.
I've given you rope To hang me: tell me I'm mistaken.
You're so much in The world; while I just live here, bent on jam And harvest, songs and books.
That's not complaint.
We live such different lives.
So - this is the end.
It's taken All night.
I'm scared to read it back.
I'm faint With shame and fear.
But this is what I am.
My crumpled bed, My words, my open self.
All I can do is trust The whole damn lot of it to you.
" * She sighs.
The paper trembles as she presses down The pink wax seal.
Outside, a milk mist clears From the shimmering valley.
If I were her guardian Angel, I'd divide myself.
One half would holler Don't! Stay on an even keel! Don't dollop over All you are, to a man who'll go to town On his next little fling.
If he's entranced today By the way you finger your silk throat inside your collar, Tomorrow there'll be Olga, Sally, Jane.
But then I'd whisper Go for it, petal.
Nothing's as real as what you write.
His funeral, if he's not up to it.
What we feel Is mortal, and won't come again.
* So cut, weeks later, to an outside shot: the same girl Taking cover ("Dear God, he's here, he's come!") Under fat red gooseberries, glimmering hairy stars: The old, rude bushes she has hide-and-seeked in all Her life, where mother commands the serfs to sing While picking, so they can't hurl The odd gog into their mouths.
No one could spy Her here, not even the sun in its burn-time.
Her cheeks Are simmering fire.
We're talking iridescence, a Red Admiral's last tremble Before the avid schoolboy plunks his net.
Or imagine * A leveret - like the hare you shot, remember? Which ran round screaming like a baby? Only mine is shivering in papery winter corn, While the hunter (as it might be, you) stomps his Hush Puppies through dead brush.
Everything's quiet.
She's waited - how long? - ages: stoking pebbly embers Under the evening samovar, filling The Chinese teapot, sending coils of Lapsang Suchong Floating to the ceiling in the shadows, tracing O and E In the window's black reflection, one finger Tendrilling her own breath on the glass.
Like putting a shell to your ear to hear the sea * When it's really your own red little sparkle, the echo Of marching blood.
She's asking a phantom World of pearled-up mist for proof That her man exists: that gamelans and tumbrils Won't evade her.
But now, among The kitchen garden's rose-haws, mallow, Pernod- Coloured pears, she unhooks herself thorn by thorn For the exit aria.
For fade-out.
Suddenly there he is In the avenue, the man she's written to - Charon Gazing at her with blazing eyes! Darth Vader From Star Wars.
She's trapped, in a house she didn't realize Was burning.
Her letter was a gate to the inferno.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
(This poem appeared in Pushkin: An Anthology, ed.
E.
Feinstein, Carcanet 1999)
Written by Wendell Berry | Create an image from this poem

Do not be ashamed

 You will be walking some night
in the comfortable dark of your yard
and suddenly a great light will shine
round about you, and behind you
will be a wall you never saw before.
It will be clear to you suddenly that you were about to escape, and that you are guilty: you misread the complex instructions, you are not a member, you lost your card or never had one.
And you will know that they have been there all along, their eyes on your letters and books, their hands in your pockets, their ears wired to your bed.
Though you have done nothing shameful, they will want you to be ashamed.
They will want you to kneel and weep and say you should have been like them.
And once you say you are ashamed, reading the page they hold out to you, then such light as you have made in your history will leave you.
They will no longer need to pursue you.
You will pursue them, begging forgiveness.
They will not forgive you.
There is no power against them.
It is only candor that is aloof from them, only an inward clarity, unashamed, that they cannot reach.
Be ready.
When their light has picked you out and their questions are asked, say to them: "I am not ashamed.
" A sure horizon will come around you.
The heron will begin his evening flight from the hilltop.
Written by Shel Silverstein | Create an image from this poem

Messy Room

 Whosever room this is should be ashamed!
His underwear is hanging on the lamp.
His raincoat is there in the overstuffed chair, And the chair is becoming quite mucky and damp.
His workbook is wedged in the window, His sweater's been thrown on the floor.
His scarf and one ski are beneath the TV, And his pants have been carelessly hung on the door.
His books are all jammed in the closet, His vest has been left in the hall.
A lizard named Ed is asleep in his bed, And his smelly old sock has been stuck to the wall.
Whosever room this is should be ashamed! Donald or Robert or Willie or-- Huh? You say it's mine? Oh, dear, I knew it looked familiar!


Written by Robert Frost | Create an image from this poem

Pauls Wife

 To drive Paul out of any lumber camp
All that was needed was to say to him,
"How is the wife, Paul?"--and he'd disappear.
Some said it was because be bad no wife, And hated to be twitted on the subject; Others because he'd come within a day Or so of having one, and then been Jilted; Others because he'd had one once, a good one, Who'd run away with someone else and left him; And others still because he had one now He only had to be reminded of-- He was all duty to her in a minute: He had to run right off to look her up, As if to say, "That's so, how is my wife? I hope she isn't getting into mischief.
" No one was anxious to get rid of Paul.
He'd been the hero of the mountain camps Ever since, just to show them, he bad slipped The bark of a whole tamarack off whole As clean as boys do off a willow twig To make a willow whistle on a Sunday April by subsiding meadow brooks.
They seemed to ask him just to see him go, "How is the wife, Paul?" and he always went.
He never stopped to murder anyone Who asked the question.
He just disappeared-- Nobody knew in what direction, Although it wasn't usually long Before they beard of him in some new camp, The same Paul at the same old feats of logging.
The question everywhere was why should Paul Object to being asked a civil question-- A man you could say almost anything to Short of a fighting word.
You have the answers.
And there was one more not so fair to Paul: That Paul had married a wife not his equal.
Paul was ashamed of her.
To match a hero She would have had to be a heroine; Instead of which she was some half-breed squaw.
But if the story Murphy told was true, She wasn't anything to be ashamed of.
You know Paul could do wonders.
Everyone's Heard how he thrashed the horses on a load That wouldn't budge, until they simply stretched Their rawhide harness from the load to camp.
Paul told the boss the load would be all right, "The sun will bring your load in"--and it did-- By shrinking the rawhide to natural length.
That's what is called a stretcher.
But I guess The one about his jumping so's to land With both his feet at once against the ceiling, And then land safely right side up again, Back on the floor, is fact or pretty near fact.
Well, this is such a yarn.
Paul sawed his wife Out of a white-pine log.
Murphy was there And, as you might say, saw the lady born.
Paul worked at anything in lumbering.
He'd been bard at it taking boards away For--I forget--the last ambitious sawyer To want to find out if he couldn't pile The lumber on Paul till Paul begged for mercy.
They'd sliced the first slab off a big butt log, And the sawyer had slammed the carriage back To slam end-on again against the saw teeth.
To judge them by the way they caught themselves When they saw what had happened to the log, They must have had a guilty expectation Something was going to go with their slambanging.
Something bad left a broad black streak of grease On the new wood the whole length of the log Except, perhaps, a foot at either end.
But when Paul put his finger in the grease, It wasn't grease at all, but a long slot.
The log was hollow.
They were sawing pine.
"First time I ever saw a hollow pine.
That comes of having Paul around the place.
Take it to bell for me," the sawyer said.
Everyone had to have a look at it And tell Paul what he ought to do about it.
(They treated it as his.
) "You take a jackknife, And spread the opening, and you've got a dugout All dug to go a-fishing in.
" To Paul The hollow looked too sound and clean and empty Ever to have housed birds or beasts or bees.
There was no entrance for them to get in by.
It looked to him like some new kind of hollow He thought he'd better take his jackknife to.
So after work that evening be came back And let enough light into it by cutting To see if it was empty.
He made out in there A slender length of pith, or was it pith? It might have been the skin a snake had cast And left stood up on end inside the tree The hundred years the tree must have been growing.
More cutting and he bad this in both hands, And looking from it to the pond nearby, Paul wondered how it would respond to water.
Not a breeze stirred, but just the breath of air He made in walking slowly to the beach Blew it once off his hands and almost broke it.
He laid it at the edge, where it could drink.
At the first drink it rustled and grew limp.
At the next drink it grew invisible.
Paul dragged the shallows for it with his fingers, And thought it must have melted.
It was gone.
And then beyond the open water, dim with midges, Where the log drive lay pressed against the boom, It slowly rose a person, rose a girl, Her wet hair heavy on her like a helmet, Who, leaning on a log, looked back at Paul.
And that made Paul in turn look back To see if it was anyone behind him That she was looking at instead of him.
(Murphy had been there watching all the time, But from a shed where neither of them could see him.
) There was a moment of suspense in birth When the girl seemed too waterlogged to live, Before she caught her first breath with a gasp And laughed.
Then she climbed slowly to her feet, And walked off, talking to herself or Paul, Across the logs like backs of alligators, Paul taking after her around the pond.
Next evening Murphy and some other fellows Got drunk, and tracked the pair up Catamount, From the bare top of which there is a view TO other hills across a kettle valley.
And there, well after dark, let Murphy tell it, They saw Paul and his creature keeping house.
It was the only glimpse that anyone Has had of Paul and her since Murphy saw them Falling in love across the twilight millpond.
More than a mile across the wilderness They sat together halfway up a cliff In a small niche let into it, the girl Brightly, as if a star played on the place, Paul darkly, like her shadow.
All the light Was from the girl herself, though, not from a star, As was apparent from what happened next.
All those great ruffians put their throats together, And let out a loud yell, and threw a bottle, As a brute tribute of respect to beauty.
Of course the bottle fell short by a mile, But the shout reached the girl and put her light out.
She went out like a firefly, and that was all.
So there were witnesses that Paul was married And not to anyone to be ashamed of Everyone had been wrong in judging Paul.
Murphy told me Paul put on all those airs About his wife to keep her to himself.
Paul was what's called a terrible possessor.
Owning a wife with him meant owning her.
She wasn't anybody else's business, Either to praise her or much as name her, And he'd thank people not to think of her.
Murphy's idea was that a man like Paul Wouldn't be spoken to about a wife In any way the world knew how to speak.
Written by Victor Hugo | Create an image from this poem

THE EPIC OF THE LION

 ("Un lion avait pris un enfant.") 
 
 {XIII.} 


 A Lion in his jaws caught up a child— 
 Not harming it—and to the woodland, wild 
 With secret streams and lairs, bore off his prey— 
 The beast, as one might cull a bud in May. 
 It was a rosy boy, a king's own pride, 
 A ten-year lad, with bright eyes shining wide, 
 And save this son his majesty beside 
 Had but one girl, two years of age, and so 
 The monarch suffered, being old, much woe; 
 His heir the monster's prey, while the whole land 
 In dread both of the beast and king did stand; 
 Sore terrified were all. 
 
 By came a knight 
 That road, who halted, asking, "What's the fright?" 
 They told him, and he spurred straight for the site! 
 The beast was seen to smile ere joined they fight, 
 The man and monster, in most desperate duel, 
 Like warring giants, angry, huge, and cruel. Beneath his shield, all blood and mud and mess: 
 Whereat the lion feasted: then it went 
 Back to its rocky couch and slept content. 
 Sudden, loud cries and clamors! striking out 
 Qualm to the heart of the quiet, horn and shout 
 Causing the solemn wood to reel with rout. 
 Terrific was this noise that rolled before; 
 It seemed a squadron; nay, 'twas something more— 
 A whole battalion, sent by that sad king 
 With force of arms his little prince to bring, 
 Together with the lion's bleeding hide. 
 
 Which here was right or wrong? Who can decide? 
 Have beasts or men most claim to live? God wots! 
 He is the unit, we the cipher-dots. 
 Ranged in the order a great hunt should have, 
 They soon between the trunks espy the cave. 
 "Yes, that is it! the very mouth of the den!" 
 The trees all round it muttered, warning men; 
 Still they kept step and neared it. Look you now, 
 Company's pleasant, and there were a thou— 
 Good Lord! all in a moment, there's its face! 
 Frightful! they saw the lion! Not one pace 
 Further stirred any man; but bolt and dart 
 Made target of the beast. He, on his part, 
 As calm as Pelion in the rain or hail, 
 Bristled majestic from the teeth to tail, 
 And shook full fifty missiles from his hide, 
 But no heed took he; steadfastly he eyed, 
 And roared a roar, hoarse, vibrant, vengeful, dread, 
 A rolling, raging peal of wrath, which spread, 
 Making the half-awakened thunder cry, 
 "Who thunders there?" from its black bed of sky. 
 This ended all! Sheer horror cleared the coast; 
 As fogs are driven by the wind, that valorous host 
 Melted, dispersed to all the quarters four, 
 Clean panic-stricken by that monstrous roar. 
 Then quoth the lion, "Woods and mountains, see, 
 A thousand men, enslaved, fear one beast free!" 
 He followed towards the hill, climbed high above, 
 Lifted his voice, and, as the sowers sow 
 The seed down wind, thus did that lion throw 
 His message far enough the town to reach: 
 "King! your behavior really passes speech! 
 Thus far no harm I've wrought to him your son; 
 But now I give you notice—when night's done, 
 I will make entry at your city-gate, 
 Bringing the prince alive; and those who wait 
 To see him in my jaws—your lackey-crew— 
 Shall see me eat him in your palace, too!" 
 Next morning, this is what was viewed in town: 
 Dawn coming—people going—some adown 
 Praying, some crying; pallid cheeks, swift feet, 
 And a huge lion stalking through the street. 
 It seemed scarce short of rash impiety 
 To cross its path as the fierce beast went by. 
 So to the palace and its gilded dome 
 With stately steps unchallenged did he roam; 
 He enters it—within those walls he leapt! 
 No man! 
 
 For certes, though he raged and wept, 
 His majesty, like all, close shelter kept, 
 Solicitous to live, holding his breath 
 Specially precious to the realm. Now death 
 Is not thus viewed by honest beasts of prey; 
 And when the lion found him fled away, 
 Ashamed to be so grand, man being so base, 
 He muttered to himself, "A wretched king! 
 'Tis well; I'll eat his boy!" Then, wandering, 
 Lordly he traversed courts and corridors, 
 Paced beneath vaults of gold on shining floors, 
 Glanced at the throne deserted, stalked from hall 
 To hall—green, yellow, crimson—empty all! 
 Rich couches void, soft seats unoccupied! 
 And as he walked he looked from side to side 
 To find some pleasant nook for his repast, 
 Since appetite was come to munch at last 
 The princely morsel!—Ah! what sight astounds 
 That grisly lounger? 
 
 In the palace grounds 
 An alcove on a garden gives, and there 
 A tiny thing—forgot in the general fear, 
 Lulled in the flower-sweet dreams of infancy, 
 Bathed with soft sunlight falling brokenly 
 Through leaf and lattice—was at that moment waking; 
 A little lovely maid, most dear and taking, 
 The prince's sister—all alone, undressed— 
 She sat up singing: children sing so best. 
 Charming this beauteous baby-maid; and so 
 The beast caught sight of her and stopped— 
 
 And then 
 Entered—the floor creaked as he stalked straight in. 
 Above the playthings by the little bed 
 The lion put his shaggy, massive head, 
 Dreadful with savage might and lordly scorn, 
 More dreadful with that princely prey so borne; 
 Which she, quick spying, "Brother, brother!" cried, 
 "Oh, my own brother!" and, unterrified, 
 She gazed upon that monster of the wood, 
 Whose yellow balls not Typhon had withstood, 
 And—well! who knows what thoughts these small heads hold? 
 She rose up in her cot—full height, and bold, 
 And shook her pink fist angrily at him. 
 Whereon—close to the little bed's white rim, 
 All dainty silk and laces—this huge brute 
 Set down her brother gently at her foot, 
 Just as a mother might, and said to her, 
 "Don't be put out, now! There he is, dear, there!" 
 
 EDWIN ARNOLD, C.S.I. 


 




Written by Edwin Arlington Robinson | Create an image from this poem

Octaves

 I 

We thrill too strangely at the master's touch;
We shrink too sadly from the larger self
Which for its own completeness agitates
And undetermines us; we do not feel -- 
We dare not feel it yet -- the splendid shame
Of uncreated failure; we forget,
The while we groan, that God's accomplishment
Is always and unfailingly at hand.
II Tumultuously void of a clean scheme Whereon to build, whereof to formulate, The legion life that riots in mankind Goes ever plunging upward, up and down, Most like some crazy regiment at arms, Undisciplined of aught but Ignorance, And ever led resourcelessly along To brainless carnage by drunk trumpeters.
III To me the groaning of world-worshippers Rings like a lonely music played in hell By one with art enough to cleave the walls Of heaven with his cadence, but without The wisdom or the will to comprehend The strangeness of his own perversity, And all without the courage to deny The profit and the pride of his defeat.
IV While we are drilled in error, we are lost Alike to truth and usefulness.
We think We are great warriors now, and we can brag Like Titans; but the world is growing young, And we, the fools of time, are growing with it: -- We do not fight to-day, we only die; We are too proud of death, and too ashamed Of God, to know enough to be alive.
V There is one battle-field whereon we fall Triumphant and unconquered; but, alas! We are too fleshly fearful of ourselves To fight there till our days are whirled and blurred By sorrow, and the ministering wheels Of anguish take us eastward, where the clouds Of human gloom are lost against the gleam That shines on Thought's impenetrable mail.
VI When we shall hear no more the cradle-songs Of ages -- when the timeless hymns of Love Defeat them and outsound them -- we shall know The rapture of that large release which all Right science comprehends; and we shall read, With unoppressed and unoffended eyes, That record of All-Soul whereon God writes In everlasting runes the truth of Him.
VII The guerdon of new childhood is repose: -- Once he has read the primer of right thought, A man may claim between two smithy strokes Beatitude enough to realize God's parallel completeness in the vague And incommensurable excellence That equitably uncreates itself And makes a whirlwind of the Universe.
VIII There is no loneliness: -- no matter where We go, nor whence we come, nor what good friends Forsake us in the seeming, we are all At one with a complete companionship; And though forlornly joyless be the ways We travel, the compensate spirit-gleams Of Wisdom shaft the darkness here and there, Like scattered lamps in unfrequented streets.
IX When one that you and I had all but sworn To be the purest thing God ever made Bewilders us until at last it seems An angel has come back restigmatized, -- Faith wavers, and we wonder what there is On earth to make us faithful any more, But never are quite wise enough to know The wisdom that is in that wonderment.
X Where does a dead man go? -- The dead man dies; But the free life that would no longer feed On fagots of outburned and shattered flesh Wakes to a thrilled invisible advance, Unchained (or fettered else) of memory; And when the dead man goes it seems to me 'T were better for us all to do away With weeping, and be glad that he is gone.
XI So through the dusk of dead, blank-legended, And unremunerative years we search To get where life begins, and still we groan Because we do not find the living spark Where no spark ever was; and thus we die, Still searching, like poor old astronomers Who totter off to bed and go to sleep, To dream of untriangulated stars.
XII With conscious eyes not yet sincere enough To pierce the glimmered cloud that fluctuates Between me and the glorifying light That screens itself with knowledge, I discern The searching rays of wisdom that reach through The mist of shame's infirm credulity, And infinitely wonder if hard words Like mine have any message for the dead.
XIII I grant you friendship is a royal thing, But none shall ever know that royalty For what it is till he has realized His best friend in himself.
'T is then, perforce, That man's unfettered faith indemnifies Of its own conscious freedom the old shame, And love's revealed infinitude supplants Of its own wealth and wisdom the old scorn.
XIV Though the sick beast infect us, we are fraught Forever with indissoluble Truth, Wherein redress reveals itself divine, Transitional, transcendent.
Grief and loss, Disease and desolation, are the dreams Of wasted excellence; and every dream Has in it something of an ageless fact That flouts deformity and laughs at years.
XV We lack the courage to be where we are: -- We love too much to travel on old roads, To triumph on old fields; we love too much To consecrate the magic of dead things, And yieldingly to linger by long walls Of ruin, where the ruinous moonlight That sheds a lying glory on old stones Befriends us with a wizard's enmity.
XVI Something as one with eyes that look below The battle-smoke to glimpse the foeman's charge, We through the dust of downward years may scan The onslaught that awaits this idiot world Where blood pays blood for nothing, and where life Pays life to madness, till at last the ports Of gilded helplessness be battered through By the still crash of salvatory steel.
XVII To you that sit with Sorrow like chained slaves, And wonder if the night will ever come, I would say this: The night will never come, And sorrow is not always.
But my words Are not enough; your eyes are not enough; The soul itself must insulate the Real, Or ever you do cherish in this life -- In this life or in any life -- repose.
XVIII Like a white wall whereon forever breaks Unsatisfied the tumult of green seas, Man's unconjectured godliness rebukes With its imperial silence the lost waves Of insufficient grief.
This mortal surge That beats against us now is nothing else Than plangent ignorance.
Truth neither shakes Nor wavers; but the world shakes, and we shriek.
XIX Nor jewelled phrase nor mere mellifluous rhyme Reverberates aright, or ever shall, One cadence of that infinite plain-song Which is itself all music.
Stronger notes Than any that have ever touched the world Must ring to tell it -- ring like hammer-blows, Right-echoed of a chime primordial, On anvils, in the gleaming of God's forge.
XX The prophet of dead words defeats himself: Whoever would acknowledge and include The foregleam and the glory of the real, Must work with something else than pen and ink And painful preparation: he must work With unseen implements that have no names, And he must win withal, to do that work, Good fortitude, clean wisdom, and strong skill.
XXI To curse the chilled insistence of the dawn Because the free gleam lingers; to defraud The constant opportunity that lives Unchallenged in all sorrow; to forget For this large prodigality of gold That larger generosity of thought, -- These are the fleshly clogs of human greed, The fundamental blunders of mankind.
XXII Forebodings are the fiends of Recreance; The master of the moment, the clean seer Of ages, too securely scans what is, Ever to be appalled at what is not; He sees beyond the groaning borough lines Of Hell, God's highways gleaming, and he knows That Love's complete communion is the end Of anguish to the liberated man.
XXIII Here by the windy docks I stand alone, But yet companioned.
There the vessel goes, And there my friend goes with it; but the wake That melts and ebbs between that friend and me Love's earnest is of Life's all-purposeful And all-triumphant sailing, when the ships Of Wisdom loose their fretful chains and swing Forever from the crumbled wharves of Time.
Written by Kobayashi Issa | Create an image from this poem

Napping at midday

 Napping at midday
I hear the song of rice planters
and feel ashamed of myself.
Written by Allen Ginsberg | Create an image from this poem

Feb. 29 1958

 Last nite I dreamed of T.
S.
Eliot welcoming me to the land of dream Sofas couches fog in England Tea in his digs Chelsea rainbows curtains on his windows, fog seeping in the chimney but a nice warm house and an incredibly sweet hooknosed Eliot he loved me, put me up, gave me a couch to sleep on, conversed kindly, took me serious asked my opinion on Mayakovsky I read him Corso Creeley Kerouac advised Burroughs Olson Huncke the bearded lady in the Zoo, the intelligent puma in Mexico City 6 chorus boys from Zanzibar who chanted in wornout polygot Swahili, and the rippling rythyms of Ma Rainey and Vachel Lindsay.
On the Isle of the Queen we had a long evening's conversation Then he tucked me in my long red underwear under a silken blanket by the fire on the sofa gave me English Hottie and went off sadly to his bed, Saying ah Ginsberg I am glad to have met a fine young man like you.
At last, I woke ashamed of myself.
Is he that good and kind? Am I that great? What's my motive dreaming his manna? What English Department would that impress? What failure to be perfect prophet's made up here? I dream of my kindness to T.
S.
Eliot wanting to be a historical poet and share in his finance of Imagery- overambitious dream of eccentric boy.
God forbid my evil dreams come true.
Last nite I dreamed of Allen Ginsberg.
T.
S.
Eliot would've been ashamed of me.

Book: Reflection on the Important Things