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Best Famous Austin Poems

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Written by Aleister Crowley | Create an image from this poem

The Twins

 [Dedicated to Austin Osman Spare]


Have pity ! show no pity !
Those eyes that send such shivers
Into my brain and spine : oh let them
Flame like the ancient city
Swallowed up by the sulphurous rivers
When men let angels fret them !

Yea ! let the south wind blow,
And the Turkish banner advance,
And the word go out : No quarter !
But I shall hod thee -so !
While the boys and maidens dance
About the shambles of slaughter !

I know thee who thou art,
The inmost fiend that curlest
Thy vampire tounge about
Earth's corybantic heart,
Hell's warrior that whirlest
The darts of horror and doubt !

Thou knowest me who I am
The inmost soul and saviour
Of man ; what hieroglyph
Of the dragon and the lamb
Shall thou and I engrave here
On Time's inscandescable cliff ?

Look ! in the plished granite,
Black as thy cartouche is with sins,
I read the searing sentence
That blasts the eyes that scan it :
"HOOR and SET be TWINS."
A fico for repentance !

Ay ! O Son of my mother
That snarled and clawed in her womb
As now we rave in our rapture,
I know thee, I love thee, brother !
Incestuous males that consumes
The light and the life that we capture.

Starve thou the soul of the world,
Brother, as I the body !
Shall we not glut our lust
On these wretches whom Fate hath hurled
To a hell of jesus and shoddy,
Dung and ethics and dust ?

Thou as I art Fate.
Coe then, conquer and kiss me !
Come ! what hinders? Believe me :
This is the thought we await.
The mark is fair ; can you miss me ?

See, how subtly I writhe !
Strange runes and unknown sigils
I trace in the trance that thrills us.
Death ! how lithe, how blithe
Are these male incestuous vigils !
Ah ! this is the spasm that kills us !

Wherefore I solemnly affirm
This twofold Oneness at the term.
Asar on Asi did beget
Horus twin brother unto Set.
Now Set and Horus kiss, to call
The Soul of the Unnatural
Forth from the dusk ; then nature slain
Lets the Beyond be born again.

This weird is of the tongue of Khem,
The Conjuration used of them.
Whoso shall speak it, let him die,
His bowels rotting inwardly,
Save he uncover and caress
The God that lighteth his liesse.


Written by Charles Bukowski | Create an image from this poem

His Wife The Painter

 There are sketches on the walls of men and women and ducks,
and outside a large green bus swerves through traffic like
insanity sprung from a waving line; Turgenev, Turgenev,
says the radio, and Jane Austin, Jane Austin, too.
"I am going to do her portrait on the 28th, while you are
at work."
He is just this edge of fat and he walks constantly, he
fritters; they have him; they are eating him hollow like 
a webbed fly, and his eyes are red-suckled with anger-fear.
He feels hatred and discard of the world, sharper than
his razor, and his gut-feel hangs like a wet polyp; and he 
self-decisions himself defeated trying to shake his
hung beard from razor in water (like life), not warm enough.
Daumier. Rue Transonian, le 15 Avril, 1843. (lithograph.)
Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale.
"She has a face unlike that of any woman I have ever known."
"What is it? A love affair?"
"Silly. I can't love a woman. Besides, she's pregnant."
I can paint- a flower eaten by a snake; that sunlight is a 
lie; and that markets smell of shoes and naked boys clothed,
and that under everything some river, some beat, some twist that
clambers along the edge of my temple and bites nip-dizzy. . .
men drive cars and paint their houses,
but they are mad; men sit in barber chairs; buy hats.
Corot. Recollection of Mortefontaine.
Paris, Louvre.
"I must write Kaiser, though I think he's a homosexual."
"Are you still reading Freud?"
"Page 299."
She made a little hat and he fastened two snaps under one
arm, reaching up from the bed like a long feeler from the
snail, and she went to church, and he thought now I h've
time and the dog.
About church: the trouble with a mask is it 
never changes.
So rude the flowers that grow and do not grow beautiful.
So magic the chair on the patio that does not hold legs
and belly and arm and neck and mouth that bites into the 
wind like the ned of a tunnel.
He turned in bed and thought: I am searching for some 
segment in the air. It floats about the peoples heads.
When it rains on the trees it sits between the branches
warmer and more blood-real than the dove.
Orozco. Christ Destroying the Cross.
Hanover, Dartmouth College, Baker Library.
He burned away in his sleep.
Written by Austin Clarke | Create an image from this poem

The Lost Heifer

 When the black herds of the rain were grazing,
In the gap of the pure cold wind
And the watery hazes of the hazel
Brought her into my mind,
I thought of the last honey by the water
That no hive can find.

Brightness was drenching through the branches
When she wandered again,
Turning sliver out of dark grasses
Where the skylark had lain,
And her voice coming softly over the meadow
Was the mist becoming rain.
Written by Alfred Austin | Create an image from this poem

At His Grave

 LEAVE me a little while alone, 
Here at his grave that still is strown 
With crumbling flower and wreath; 
The laughing rivulet leaps and falls, 
The thrush exults, the cuckoo calls, 
And he lies hush’d beneath. 

With myrtle cross and crown of rose, 
And every lowlier flower that blows, 
His new-made couch is dress’d; 
Primrose and cowslip, hyacinth wild, 
Gather’d by monarch, peasant, child, 
A nation’s grief attest. 

I stood not with the mournful crowd 
That hither came when round his shroud 
Pious farewells were said. 
In the fam’d city that he sav’d, 
By minaret crown’d, by billow lav’d, 
I heard that he was dead. 

Now o’er his tomb at last I bend, 
No greeting get, no greeting tend,
Who never came before 
Unto his presence, but I took, 
From word or gesture, tone or look, 
Some wisdom from his door. 

And must I now unanswer’d wait, 
And, though a suppliant at the gate, 
No sound my ears rejoice? 
Listen! Yes, even as I stand, 
I feel the pressure of his hand, 
The comfort of his voice. 

How poor were Fame, did grief confess 
That death can make a great life less, 
Or end the help it gave! 
Our wreaths may fade, our flowers may wane, 
But his well-ripen’d deeds remain, 
Untouch’d, above his grave. 

Let this, too, soothe our widow’d minds; 
Silenced are the opprobrious winds 
Whene’er the sun goes down; 
And free henceforth from noonday noise,
He at a tranquil height enjoys 
The starlight of renown. 

Thus hence we something more may take 
Than sterile grief, than formless ache, 
Or vainly utter’d vow; 
Death hath bestow’d what life withheld 
And he round whom detraction swell’d 
Hath peace with honor now. 

The open jeer, the covert taunt, 
The falsehood coin’d in factious haunt,
These loving gifts reprove. 
They never were but thwarted sound 
Of ebbing waves that bluster round 
A rock that will not move. 

And now the idle roar rolls off, 
Hush’d is the gibe and sham’d the scoff, 
Repress’d the envious gird; 
Since death, the looking-glass of life, 
Clear’d of the misty breath of strife, 
Reflects his face unblurr’d.

From callow youth to mellow age, 
Men turn the leaf and scan the page, 
And note, with smart of loss, 
How wit to wisdom did mature, 
How duty burn’d ambition pure,
And purged away the dross. 

Youth is self-love; our manhood lends 
Its heart to pleasure, mistress, friends, 
So that when age steals nigh, 
How few find any worthier aim 
Than to protract a flickering flame, 
Whose oil hath long run dry! 

But he, unwitting youth once flown, 
With England’s greatness link’d his own, 
And, steadfast to that part, 
Held praise and blame but fitful sound, 
And in the love of country found 
Full solace for his heart. 

Now in an English grave he lies: 
With flowers that tell of English skies 
And mind of English air, 
A grateful sovereign decks his bed, 
And hither long with pilgrim tread 
Will English feet repair. 

Yet not beside his grave alone 
We seek the glance, the touch, the tone; 
His home is nigh,—but there, 
See from the hearth his figure fled, 
The pen unrais’d, the page unread, 
Untenanted the chair! 

Vainly the beechen boughs have made 
A fresh green canopy of shade, 
Vainly the peacocks stray; 
While Carlo, with despondent gait, 
Wonders how long affairs of State 
Will keep his lord away. 

Here most we miss the guide, the friend; 
Back to the churchyard let me wend, 
And, by the posied mound, 
Lingering where late stood worthier feet,
Wish that some voice, more strong, more sweet, 
A loftier dirge would sound. 

At least I bring not tardy flowers: 
Votive to him life’s budding powers, 
Such as they were, I gave— 
He not rejecting, so I may 
Perhaps these poor faint spices lay, 
Unchidden, on his grave!
Written by Alfred Austin | Create an image from this poem

Loves Blindness

 Now do I know that Love is blind, for I 
Can see no beauty on this beauteous earth, 
No life, no light, no hopefulness, no mirth, 
Pleasure nor purpose, when thou art not nigh. 
Thy absence exiles sunshine from the sky, 
Seres Spring's maturity, checks Summer's birth, 
Leaves linnet's pipe as sad as plover's cry, 
And makes me in abundance find but dearth. 
But when thy feet flutter the dark, and thou 
With orient eyes dawnest on my distress, 
Suddenly sings a bird on every bough, 
The heavens expand, the earth grows less and less, 
The ground is buoyant as the ether now, 
And all looks lovely in thy loveliness.


Written by Austin Clarke | Create an image from this poem

The Planters Daughter

 When night stirred at sea,
An the fire brought a crowd in
They say that her beauty
Was music in mouth
And few in the candlelight
Thought her too proud,
For the house of the planter
Is known by the trees.

Men that had seen her
Drank deep and were silent,
The women were speaking
Wherever she went --
As a bell that is rung
Or a wonder told shyly
And O she was the Sunday
In every week.
Written by Vachel Lindsay | Create an image from this poem

The Santa-Fe Trail (A Humoresque)

 I asked the old *****, "What is that bird that sings so well?" He answered: "That is the Rachel-Jane." "Hasn't it another name, lark, or thrush, or the like?" "No. Jus' Rachel-Jane."


I. IN WHICH A RACING AUTO COMES FROM THE EAST

This is the order of the music of the morning: —
First, from the far East comes but a crooning.
The crooning turns to a sunrise singing.
Hark to the calm -horn, balm -horn, psalm -horn.
Hark to the faint -horn, quaint -horn, saint -horn. . . .

Hark to the pace -horn, chase -horn, race -horn. 
And the holy veil of the dawn has gone. 
Swiftly the brazen ear comes on.
It burns in the East as the sunrise burns.
I see great flashes where the far trail turns.

Its eyes are lamps like the eyes of dragons.
It drinks gasoline from big red flagons.
Butting through the delicate mists of the morning,
It comes like lightning, goes past roaring.
It will hail all the wind-mills, taunting, ringing,
Dodge the cyclones, 
Count the milestones,
On through the ranges the prairie-dog tills—
Scooting past the cattle on the thousand hills. . . . 
Ho for the tear-horn, scare-horn, dare-horn, 
Ho for the gay -horn, bark -horn, bay -horn. 
Ho for Kansas, land that restores us 
When houses choke us, and great books bore us! 
Sunrise Kansas, harvester's Kansas,
A million men have found you before us. 


II. IN WHICH MANY AUTOS PASS WESTWARD

I want live things in their pride to remain.
I will not kill one grasshopper vain 
Though he eats a hole in my shirt like a door.
I let him out, give him one chance more.
Perhaps, while he gnaws my hat in his whim,
Grasshopper lyrics occur to him.

I am a tramp by the long trail's border,
Given to squalor, rags and disorder.
I nap and amble and yawn and look,
Write fool-thoughts in my grubby book,
Recite to the children, explore at my ease,
Work when I work, beg when I please,
Give crank-drawings, that make folks stare
To the half-grown boys in the sunset glare,
And get me a place to sleep in the hay
At the end of a live-and-let-live day.

I find in the stubble of the new-cut weeds
A whisper and a feasting, all one needs:
The whisper of the strawberries, white and red
Here where the new-cut weeds lie dead.

But I would not walk all alone till I die
Without some life-drunk horns going by.
Up round this apple-earth they come
Blasting the whispers of the morning dumb:—
Cars in a plain realistic row.
And fair dreams fade
When the raw horns blow.

On each snapping pennant
A big black name:—
The careering city
Whence each car came. 
They tour from Memphis, Atlanta, Savannah, 
Tallahassee and Texarkana. 
They tour from St. Louis, Columbus, Manistee,
They tour from Peoria, Davenport, Kankakee.
Cars from Concord, Niagara, Boston,
Cars from Topeka, Emporia, and Austin.
Cars from Chicago, Hannibal, Cairo.
Cars from Alton, Oswego, Toledo.
Cars from Buffalo, Kokomo, Delphi,
Cars from Lodi, Carmi, Loami.
Ho for Kansas, land that restores us
When houses choke us, and great books bore us!
While I watch the highroad
And look at the sky,
While I watch the clouds in amazing grandeur
Roll their legions without rain
Over the blistering Kansas plain—
While I sit by the milestone
And watch the sky,
The United States
Goes by.

Listen to the iron-horns, ripping, racking. 
Listen to the quack-horns, slack and clacking.
Way down the road, trilling like a toad,
Here comes the dice -horn, here comes the vice -horn,
Here comes the snarl -horn, brawl -horn, lewd -horn,
Followed by the prude -horn, bleak and squeaking: —
(Some of them from Kansas, some of themn from Kansas.)
Here comes the hod -horn, plod -horn, sod -horn,
Nevermore-to-roam -horn, loam -horn, home -horn.

(Some of them from Kansas, some of them from Kansas.)
Far away the Rachel-Jane 
Not defeated by the horns 
Sings amid a hedge of thorns:—
"Love and life,
Eternal youth—
Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet,
Dew and glory,
Love and truth,
Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet."
WHILE SMOKE-BLACK FREIGHTS ON THE DOUBLE-TRACKED RAILROAD, 
DRIVEN AS THOUGH BY THE FOUL-FIEND'S OX-GOAD,
SCREAMING TO THE WEST COAST, SCREAMING TO THE EAST,
CARRY OFF A HARVEST, BRING BACK A FEAST,
HARVESTING MACHINERY AND HARNESS FOR THE BEAST. 
THE HAND-CARS WHIZ, AND RATTLE ON THE RAILS,
THE SUNLIGHT FLASHES ON THE TIN DINNER-PAILS.

And then, in an instant,
Ye modern men, 
Behold the procession once again, 
Listen to the iron-horns, ripping, racking, 
Listen to the wise -horn, desperate-to-advise horn, 
Listen to the fast -horn, kill -horn, blast -horn. . . .
Far away the Rachel-Jane 
Not defeated by the horns 
Sings amid a hedge of thorns:—
Love and life,
Eternal youth,
Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet,
Dew and glory,
Love and truth.
Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet.
The mufflers open on a score of cars 
With wonderful thunder, 
CRACK, CRACK, CRACK, 
CRACK-CRACK, CRACK-CRACK, 
CRACK-CRACK-CRACK, . . . 
Listen to the gold-horn . . . 
Old-horn . . . 
Cold-horn . . . 

And all of the tunes, till the night comes down
On hay-stack, and ant-hill, and wind-bitten town.
Then far in the west, as in the beginning, 
Dim in the distance, sweet in retreating, 
Hark to the faint-horn, quaint-horn, saint-horn, 
Hark to the calm-horn, balm-horn, psalm-horn. . . .

They are hunting the goals that they understand:—
San-Francisco and the brown sea-sand. 
My goal is the mystery the beggars win. 
I am caught in the web the night-winds spin.
The edge of the wheat-ridge speaks to me.
I talk with the leaves of the mulberry tree.
And now I hear, as I sit all alone
In the dusk, by another big Santa-Fe stone,
The souls of the tall corn gathering round
And the gay little souls of the grass in the ground.
Listen to the tale the cotton-wood tells.

Listen to the wind-mills, singing o'er the wells.
Listen to the whistling flutes without price
Of myriad prophets out of paradise.
Harken to the wonder
That the night-air carries. . . .
Listen . . . to . . . the . . . whisper . . . 
Of . . . the . . . prairie . . . fairies
Singing o'er the fairy plain:—
"Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet. 
Love and glory, 
Stars and rain, 
Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet . . . . "
Written by Austin Clarke | Create an image from this poem

The Blackbird Of Derrycairn

 Stop, stop and listen for the bough top
Is whistling and the sun is brighter
Than God's own shadow in the cup now!
Forget the hour-bell. Mournful matins
Will sound, Patric, as well at nightfall.

Faintly through mist of broken water
Fionn heard my melody in Norway.
He found the forest track, he brought back
This beak to gild the branch and tell, there,
Why men must welcome in the daylight.

He loved the breeze that warns the black grouse,
The shouts of gillies in the morning
When packs are counted and the swans cloud
Loch Erne, but more than all those voices
My throat rejoicing from the hawthorn.

In little cells behind a cashel,
Patric, no handbell gives a glad sound.
But knowledge is found among the branches.
Listen! That song that shakes my feathers
Will thong the leather of your satchels.
Written by Alfred Austin | Create an image from this poem

The Haymakers' Song

 HERE’S to him that grows it, 
Drink, lads, drink! 
That lays it in and mows it, 
Clink, jugs, clink! 
To him that mows and makes it, 
That scatters it and shakes it, 
That turns, and teds, and rakes it, 
Clink, jugs, clink! 

Now here ’s to him that stacks it, 
Drink, lads, drink!
That thrashes and that tacks it, 
Clink, jugs, clink! 
That cuts it out for eating, 
When March-dropp’d lambs are bleating, 
And the slate-blue clouds are sleeting,
Drink, lads, drink! 

And here ’s to thane and yeoman, 
Drink, lads, drink! 
To horseman and to bowman, 
Clink, jugs, clink!
To lofty and to low man, 
Who bears a grudge to no man, 
But flinches from no foeman, 
Drink, lads, drink!
Written by Emily Dickinson | Create an image from this poem

There is another sky

 There is another sky,
Ever serene and fair,
And there is another sunshine,
Though it be darkness there;
Never mind faded forests, Austin,
Never mind silent fields -
Here is a little forest,
Whose leaf is ever green;
Here is a brighter garden,
Where not a frost has been;
In its unfading flowers
I hear the bright bee hum:
Prithee, my brother,
Into my garden come!

Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry