10 Best Famous Breaths Poems

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

• All Famous Breaths Poems

 I

What new element before us unborn in nature? Is there
 a new thing under the Sun?
At last inquisitive Whitman a modern epic, detonative,
 Scientific theme
First penned unmindful by Doctor Seaborg with poison-
 ous hand, named for Death's planet through the 
 sea beyond Uranus
whose chthonic ore fathers this magma-teared Lord of 
 Hades, Sire of avenging Furies, billionaire Hell-
 King worshipped once
with black sheep throats cut, priests's face averted from
 underground mysteries in single temple at Eleusis,
Spring-green Persephone nuptialed to his inevitable
 Shade, Demeter mother of asphodel weeping dew,
her daughter stored in salty caverns under white snow, 
 black hail, grey winter rain or Polar ice, immemor-
 able seasons before
Fish flew in Heaven, before a Ram died by the starry
 bush, before the Bull stamped sky and earth
or Twins inscribed their memories in clay or Crab'd
 flood
washed memory from the skull, or Lion sniffed the
 lilac breeze in Eden--
Before the Great Year began turning its twelve signs,
 ere constellations wheeled for twenty-four thousand
 sunny years
slowly round their axis in Sagittarius, one hundred 
 sixty-seven thousand times returning to this night

Radioactive Nemesis were you there at the beginning 
 black dumb tongueless unsmelling blast of Disil-
 lusion?
I manifest your Baptismal Word after four billion years
I guess your birthday in Earthling Night, I salute your
 dreadful presence last majestic as the Gods,
Sabaot, Jehova, Astapheus, Adonaeus, Elohim, Iao, 
 Ialdabaoth, Aeon from Aeon born ignorant in an
 Abyss of Light,
Sophia's reflections glittering thoughtful galaxies, whirl-
 pools of starspume silver-thin as hairs of Einstein!
Father Whitman I celebrate a matter that renders Self
 oblivion!
Grand Subject that annihilates inky hands & pages'
 prayers, old orators' inspired Immortalities,
I begin your chant, openmouthed exhaling into spacious
 sky over silent mills at Hanford, Savannah River,
 Rocky Flats, Pantex, Burlington, Albuquerque
I yell thru Washington, South Carolina, Colorado, 
 Texas, Iowa, New Mexico,
Where nuclear reactors creat a new Thing under the 
 Sun, where Rockwell war-plants fabricate this death
 stuff trigger in nitrogen baths,
Hanger-Silas Mason assembles the terrified weapon
 secret by ten thousands, & where Manzano Moun-
 tain boasts to store
its dreadful decay through two hundred forty millenia
 while our Galaxy spirals around its nebulous core.
I enter your secret places with my mind, I speak with 
 your presence, I roar your Lion Roar with mortal
 mouth.
One microgram inspired to one lung, ten pounds of 
 heavy metal dust adrift slow motion over grey
 Alps
the breadth of the planet, how long before your radiance
 speeds blight and death to sentient beings?
Enter my body or not I carol my spirit inside you,
 Unnaproachable Weight,
O heavy heavy Element awakened I vocalize your con-
 sciousness to six worlds
I chant your absolute Vanity. Yeah monster of Anger
 birthed in fear O most
Ignorant matter ever created unnatural to Earth! Delusion
 of metal empires!
Destroyer of lying Scientists! Devourer of covetous
 Generals, Incinerator of Armies & Melter of Wars!
Judgement of judgements, Divine Wind over vengeful 
 nations, Molester of Presidents, Death-Scandal of
 Capital politics! Ah civilizations stupidly indus-
 trious!
Canker-Hex on multitudes learned or illiterate! Manu-
 factured Spectre of human reason! O solidified
 imago of practicioner in Black Arts
I dare your reality, I challenge your very being! I 
 publish your cause and effect!
I turn the wheel of Mind on your three hundred tons!
 Your name enters mankind's ear! I embody your
 ultimate powers!
My oratory advances on your vaunted Mystery! This 
 breath dispels your braggart fears! I sing your 
 form at last
behind your concrete & iron walls inside your fortress
 of rubber & translucent silicon shields in filtered
 cabinets and baths of lathe oil,
My voice resounds through robot glove boxes & ignot 
 cans and echoes in electric vaults inert of atmo-
 sphere,
I enter with spirit out loud into your fuel rod drums
 underground on soundless thrones and beds of
 lead
O density! This weightless anthem trumpets transcendent 
 through hidden chambers and breaks through 
 iron doors into the Infernal Room!
Over your dreadful vibration this measured harmony 
 floats audible, these jubilant tones are honey and 
 milk and wine-sweet water
Poured on the stone black floor, these syllables are
 barley groats I scatter on the Reactor's core, 
I call your name with hollow vowels, I psalm your Fate
 close by, my breath near deathless ever at your
 side
to Spell your destiny, I set this verse prophetic on your
 mausoleum walls to seal you up Eternally with
 Diamond Truth! O doomed Plutonium.

 II

The Bar surveys Plutonian history from midnight 
 lit with Mercury Vapor streetlamps till in dawn's 
 early light
he contemplates a tranquil politic spaced out between 
 Nations' thought-forms proliferating bureaucratic
& horrific arm'd, Satanic industries projected sudden
 with Five Hundred Billion Dollar Strength
around the world same time this text is set in Boulder,
 Colorado before front range of Rocky Mountains
twelve miles north of Rocky Flats Nuclear Facility in 
 United States of North America, Western Hemi-
 sphere
of planet Earth six months and fourteen days around
 our Solar System in a Spiral Galaxy
the local year after Dominion of the last God nineteen 
 hundred seventy eight
Completed as yellow hazed dawn clouds brighten East,
 Denver city white below
Blue sky transparent rising empty deep & spacious to a 
 morning star high over the balcony 
above some autos sat with wheels to curb downhill 
 from Flatiron's jagged pine ridge,
sunlit mountain meadows sloped to rust-red sandstone
 cliffs above brick townhouse roofs
as sparrows waked whistling through Marine Street's
 summer green leafed trees.

 III

This ode to you O Poets and Orators to come, you
 father Whitman as I join your side, you Congress
 and American people,
you present meditators, spiritual friends & teachers,
 you O Master of the Diamond Arts,
Take this wheel of syllables in hand, these vowels and 
 consonants to breath's end
take this inhalation of black poison to your heart, breath
 out this blessing from your breast on our creation 
forests cities oceans deserts rocky flats and mountains 
 in the Ten Directions pacify with exhalation,
enrich this Plutonian Ode to explode its empty thunder
 through earthen thought-worlds
Magnetize this howl with heartless compassion, destroy
 this mountain of Plutonium with ordinary mind
 and body speech,
thus empower this Mind-guard spirit gone out, gone
 out, gone beyond, gone beyond me, Wake space,
 so Ah!

 July 14, 1978

 Abortions will not let you forget.
You remember the children you got that you did not get,
The damp small pulps with a little or with no hair,
The singers and workers that never handled the air.
You will never neglect or beat
Them, or silence or buy with a sweet.
You will never wind up the sucking-thumb
Or scuttle off ghosts that come.
You will never leave them, controlling your luscious sigh,
Return for a snack of them, with gobbling mother-eye.

I have heard in the voices of the wind the voices of my dim killed
children.
I have contracted. I have eased
My dim dears at the breasts they could never suck.
I have said, Sweets, if I sinned, if I seized
Your luck
And your lives from your unfinished reach,
If I stole your births and your names,
Your straight baby tears and your games,
Your stilted or lovely loves, your tumults, your marriages, aches,
and your deaths,
If I poisoned the beginnings of your breaths,
Believe that even in my deliberateness I was not deliberate.
Though why should I whine,
Whine that the crime was other than mine?--
Since anyhow you are dead.
Or rather, or instead,
You were never made.
But that too, I am afraid,
Is faulty: oh, what shall I say, how is the truth to be said?
You were born, you had body, you died.
It is just that you never giggled or planned or cried.

Believe me, I loved you all.
Believe me, I knew you, though faintly, and I loved, I loved you
All.

 THAT which eludes this verse and any verse, 
Unheard by sharpest ear, unform’d in clearest eye or cunningest mind, 
Nor lore nor fame, nor happiness nor wealth, 
And yet the pulse of every heart and life throughout the world incessantly, 
Which you and I and all pursuing ever ever miss,
Open but still a secret, the real of the real, an illusion, 
Costless, vouchsafed to each, yet never man the owner, 
Which poets vainly seek to put in rhyme, historians in prose, 
Which sculptor never chisel’d yet, nor painter painted, 
Which vocalist never sung, nor orator nor actor ever utter’d,
Invoking here and now I challenge for my song. 

Indifferently, ’mid public, private haunts, in solitude, 
Behind the mountain and the wood, 
Companion of the city’s busiest streets, through the assemblage, 
It and its radiations constantly glide.

In looks of fair unconscious babes, 
Or strangely in the coffin’d dead, 
Or show of breaking dawn or stars by night, 
As some dissolving delicate film of dreams, 
Hiding yet lingering.

Two little breaths of words comprising it. 
Two words, yet all from first to last comprised in it. 

How ardently for it! 
How many ships have sail’d and sunk for it! 
How many travelers started from their homes and ne’er return’d!
How much of genius boldly staked and lost for it! 
What countless stores of beauty, love, ventur’d for it! 
How all superbest deeds since Time began are traceable to it—and shall be to the end!

How all heroic martyrdoms to it! 
How, justified by it, the horrors, evils, battles of the earth!
How the bright fascinating lambent flames of it, in every age and land, have drawn
 men’s
 eyes, 
Rich as a sunset on the Norway coast, the sky, the islands, and the cliffs, 
Or midnight’s silent glowing northern lights unreachable. 

Haply God’s riddle it, so vague and yet so certain, 
The soul for it, and all the visible universe for it,
And heaven at last for it.

 Shall I move the flowers again?
Shall I put them further to the left
into the light?
Win that fix it, will that arrange the
thing?
Yellow sky.
Faint cricket in the dried-out bush.
As I approach, my footfall in the leaves
drowns out the cricket-chirping I was
coming close to hear 
Yellow sky with black leaves rearranging it.
Wind rearranging the black leaves in it.
But anyway I am indoors, of course, and this is a pane, here,
and I have arranged the flowers for you
again. Have taken the dead cordless ones, the yellow bits past apogee,
the faded cloth, the pollen-free abandoned marriage-hymn
back out, leaving the few crisp blooms to swagger, winglets, limpid

 debris
Shall I arrange these few remaining flowers?
Shall I rearrange these gossamer efficiencies?
Please don't touch me with your skin.
Please let the thing evaporate.
Please tell me clearly what it is.
The party is so loud downstairs, bristling with souvenirs.
It's a philosophy of life, of course,
drinks fluorescent, whips of syntax in the air
above the heads -- how small they seem from here,
the bobbing universal heads, stuffing the void with eloquence,
and also tiny merciless darts
of truth. It's pulled on tight, the air they breathe and rip.
It's like a prize the way it's stretched on tight
over the voices, keeping them intermingling, forcing the breaths to

 marry, marry,
cunning little hermeneutic cupola,
dome of occasion in which the thoughts re-
group, the footprints stall and gnaw in tiny ruts,
the napkins wave, are waved , the honeycombing
thoughts are felt to dialogue, a form of self-
congratulation, no?, or is it suffering? I'm a bit
dizzy up here rearranging things,
they will come up here soon, and need a setting for their fears,
and loves, an architecture for their evolutionary
morphic needs -- what will they need if I don't make the place? --
what will they know to miss?, what cry out for, what feel the bitter

 restless irritations
for? A bit dizzy from the altitude of everlastingness,
the tireless altitudes of the created place,
in which to make a life -- a liberty -- the hollow, fetishized, and starry

 place,
a bit gossamer with dream, a vortex of evaporations,
oh little dream, invisible city, invisible hill
I make here on the upper floors for you --
down there, where you are entertained, where you are passing
time, there's glass and moss on air,
there's the feeling of being numerous, mouths submitting to air, lips

 to protocol,
and dreams of sense, tongues, hinges, forceps clicking
in anticipation ofas if the moment, freeze-burned by accuracies--of
could be thawed open into life again
by gladnesses, by rectitude -- no, no -- by the sinewy efforts at
sincerity -- can't you feel it gliding round you,
mutating, yielding the effort-filled phrases of your talk to air,
compounding, stemming them, honeying-open the sheerest

 innuendoes till
the rightness seems to root, in the air, in the compact indoor sky,
and the rest, all round, feels like desert, falls away,
and you have the sensation of muscular timeliness,and you feel the calligraphic in you reach out like a soul
into the midst of others, in conversation,
gloved by desire, into the tiny carnage
of opinionsSo dizzy. Life buzzing beneath me
though my feeling says the hive is gone, queen gone,
the continuum continuing beneath, busy, earnest, in con-
versation. Shall I prepare. Shall I put this further
to the left, shall I move the light, the point-of-view, the shades are
drawn, to cast a glow resembling disappearance, slightly red,
will that fix it, will that make clear the task, the trellised ongoingness
and all these tiny purposes, these parables, this marketplace
of tightening truths?
Oh knit me that am crumpled dust,
the heap is all dispersed. Knit me that am. Say therefore. Say
philosophy and mean by that the pane.
Let us look out again. The yellow sky.
With black leaves rearranging it

 1
EARTH, round, rolling, compact—suns, moons, animals—all these are words to be
 said; 
Watery, vegetable, sauroid advances—beings, premonitions, lispings of the future, 
Behold! these are vast words to be said. 

Were you thinking that those were the words—those upright lines? those curves,
 angles,
 dots? 
No, those are not the words—the substantial words are in the ground and sea,
They are in the air—they are in you. 

Were you thinking that those were the words—those delicious sounds out of your
 friends’
 mouths? 
No, the real words are more delicious than they. 

Human bodies are words, myriads of words; 
In the best poems re-appears the body, man’s or woman’s, well-shaped, natural,
 gay,
Every part able, active, receptive, without shame or the need of shame. 

2
Air, soil, water, fire—these are words; 
I myself am a word with them—my qualities interpenetrate with theirs—my name is
 nothing to
 them; 
Though it were told in the three thousand languages, what would air, soil, water, fire,
 know of
 my
 name? 

A healthy presence, a friendly or commanding gesture, are words, sayings, meanings;
The charms that go with the mere looks of some men and women, are sayings and meanings
 also. 

3
The workmanship of souls is by the inaudible words of the earth; 
The great masters know the earth’s words, and use them more than the audible words. 

Amelioration is one of the earth’s words; 
The earth neither lags nor hastens;
It has all attributes, growths, effects, latent in itself from the jump; 
It is not half beautiful only—defects and excrescences show just as much as
 perfections
 show. 

The earth does not withhold, it is generous enough; 
The truths of the earth continually wait, they are not so conceal’d either; 
They are calm, subtle, untransmissible by print;
They are imbued through all things, conveying themselves willingly, 
Conveying a sentiment and invitation of the earth—I utter and utter, 
I speak not, yet if you hear me not, of what avail am I to you? 
To bear—to better—lacking these, of what avail am I? 

4
Accouche! Accouchez!
Will you rot your own fruit in yourself there? 
Will you squat and stifle there? 

The earth does not argue, 
Is not pathetic, has no arrangements, 
Does not scream, haste, persuade, threaten, promise,
Makes no discriminations, has no conceivable failures, 
Closes nothing, refuses nothing, shuts none out, 
Of all the powers, objects, states, it notifies, shuts none out. 

5
The earth does not exhibit itself, nor refuse to exhibit itself—possesses still
 underneath; 
Underneath the ostensible sounds, the august chorus of heroes, the wail of slaves,
Persuasions of lovers, curses, gasps of the dying, laughter of young people, accents of
 bargainers, 
Underneath these, possessing the words that never fail. 

To her children, the words of the eloquent dumb great mother never fail; 
The true words do not fail, for motion does not fail, and reflection does not fail; 
Also the day and night do not fail, and the voyage we pursue does not fail.

6
Of the interminable sisters, 
Of the ceaseless cotillions of sisters, 
Of the centripetal and centrifugal sisters, the elder and younger sisters, 
The beautiful sister we know dances on with the rest. 
With her ample back towards every beholder,
With the fascinations of youth, and the equal fascinations of age, 
Sits she whom I too love like the rest—sits undisturb’d, 
Holding up in her hand what has the character of a mirror, while her eyes glance back from
 it, 
Glance as she sits, inviting none, denying none, 
Holding a mirror day and night tirelessly before her own face.

7
Seen at hand, or seen at a distance, 
Duly the twenty-four appear in public every day, 
Duly approach and pass with their companions, or a companion, 
Looking from no countenances of their own, but from the countenances of those who are with
 them, 
From the countenances of children or women, or the manly countenance,
From the open countenances of animals, or from inanimate things, 
From the landscape or waters, or from the exquisite apparition of the sky, 
From our countenances, mine and yours, faithfully returning them, 
Every day in public appearing without fail, but never twice with the same companions. 

8
Embracing man, embracing all, proceed the three hundred and sixty-five resistlessly round
 the
 sun;
Embracing all, soothing, supporting, follow close three hundred and sixty-five offsets of
 the
 first,
 sure and necessary as they. 

9
Tumbling on steadily, nothing dreading, 
Sunshine, storm, cold, heat, forever withstanding, passing, carrying, 
The Soul’s realization and determination still inheriting, 
The fluid vacuum around and ahead still entering and dividing,
No balk retarding, no anchor anchoring, on no rock striking, 
Swift, glad, content, unbereav’d, nothing losing, 
Of all able and ready at any time to give strict account, 
The divine ship sails the divine sea. 

10
Whoever you are! motion and reflection are especially for you;
The divine ship sails the divine sea for you. 

Whoever you are! you are he or she for whom the earth is solid and liquid, 
You are he or she for whom the sun and moon hang in the sky, 
For none more than you are the present and the past, 
For none more than you is immortality.

11
Each man to himself, and each woman to herself, such is the word of the past and present,
 and
 the
 word of immortality; 
No one can acquire for another—not one! 
Not one can grow for another—not one! 

The song is to the singer, and comes back most to him; 
The teaching is to the teacher, and comes back most to him;
The murder is to the murderer, and comes back most to him; 
The theft is to the thief, and comes back most to him; 
The love is to the lover, and comes back most to him; 
The gift is to the giver, and comes back most to him—it cannot fail; 
The oration is to the orator, the acting is to the actor and actress, not to the audience;
And no man understands any greatness or goodness but his own, or the indication of his
 own. 

12
I swear the earth shall surely be complete to him or her who shall be complete! 
I swear the earth remains jagged and broken only to him or her who remains jagged and
 broken! 
I swear there is no greatness or power that does not emulate those of the earth! 
I swear there can be no theory of any account, unless it corroborate the theory of the
 earth!
No politics, art, religion, behavior, or what not, is of account, unless it compare with
 the
 amplitude of the earth, 
Unless it face the exactness, vitality, impartiality, rectitude of the earth. 

13
I swear I begin to see love with sweeter spasms than that which responds love! 
It is that which contains itself—which never invites, and never refuses. 

I swear I begin to see little or nothing in audible words!
I swear I think all merges toward the presentation of the unspoken meanings of the earth! 
Toward him who sings the songs of the Body, and of the truths of the earth; 
Toward him who makes the dictionaries of words that print cannot touch. 

14
I swear I see what is better than to tell the best; 
It is always to leave the best untold.

When I undertake to tell the best, I find I cannot, 
My tongue is ineffectual on its pivots, 
My breath will not be obedient to its organs, 
I become a dumb man. 

The best of the earth cannot be told anyhow—all or any is best;
It is not what you anticipated—it is cheaper, easier, nearer; 
Things are not dismiss’d from the places they held before; 
The earth is just as positive and direct as it was before; 
Facts, religions, improvements, politics, trades, are as real as before; 
But the Soul is also real,—it too is positive and direct;
No reasoning, no proof has establish’d it, 
Undeniable growth has establish’d it. 

15
This is a poem—a carol of words—these are hints of meanings, 
These are to echo the tones of Souls, and the phrases of Souls; 
If they did not echo the phrases of Souls, what were they then?
If they had not reference to you in especial, what were they then? 

I swear I will never henceforth have to do with the faith that tells the best! 
I will have to do only with that faith that leaves the best untold. 

16
Say on, sayers! 
Delve! mould! pile the words of the earth!
Work on—(it is materials you must bring, not breaths;) 
Work on, age after age! nothing is to be lost; 
It may have to wait long, but it will certainly come in use; 
When the materials are all prepared, the architects shall appear. 

I swear to you the architects shall appear without fail! I announce them and lead them;
I swear to you they will understand you, and justify you; 
I swear to you the greatest among them shall be he who best knows you, and encloses all,
 and is
 faithful to all; 
I swear to you, he and the rest shall not forget you—they shall perceive that you are
 not
 an
 iota less than they; 
I swear to you, you shall be glorified in them.

 I walk among the rows of bowed heads--
the children are sleeping through fourth grade
so as to be ready for what is ahead,
the monumental boredom of junior high
and the rush forward tearing their wings
loose and turning their eyes forever inward.
These are the children of Flint, their fathers
work at the spark plug factory or truck
bottled water in 5 gallon sea-blue jugs
to the widows of the suburbs. You can see
already how their backs have thickened,
how their small hands, soiled by pig iron,
leap and stutter even in dreams. I would like
to sit down among them and read slowly
from The Book of Job until the windows
pale and the teacher rises out of a milky sea
of industrial scum, her gowns streaming
with light, her foolish words transformed
into song, I would like to arm each one
with a quiver of arrows so that they might
rush like wind there where no battle rages
shouting among the trumpets, Hal Ha!
How dear the gift of laughter in the face
of the 8 hour day, the cold winter mornings
without coffee and oranges, the long lines
of mothers in old coats waiting silently
where the gates have closed. Ten years ago
I went among these same children, just born,
in the bright ward of the Sacred Heart and leaned
down to hear their breaths delivered that day,
burning with joy. There was such wonder
in their sleep, such purpose in their eyes
dosed against autumn, in their damp heads
blurred with the hair of ponds, and not one
turned against me or the light, not one
said, I am sick, I am tired, I will go home,
not one complained or drifted alone,
unloved, on the hardest day of their lives.
Eleven years from now they will become
the men and women of Flint or Paradise,
the majors of a minor town, and I
will be gone into smoke or memory,
so I bow to them here and whisper
all I know, all I will never know.

 Watchman, what of the night? - 
Storm and thunder and rain, 
Lights that waver and wane,
Leaving the watchfires unlit. 
Only the balefires are bright, 
And the flash of the lamps now and then 
From a palace where spoilers sit, 
Trampling the children of men.

Prophet, what of the night? - 
I stand by the verge of the sea, 
Banished, uncomforted, free, 
Hearing the noise of the waves 
And sudden flashes that smite 
Some man's tyrannous head, 
Thundering, heard among graves 
That hide the hosts of his dead.

Mourners, what of the night? - 
All night through without sleep 
We weep, and we weep, and we weep. 
Who shall give us our sons ? 
Beaks of raven and kite,
Mouths of wolf and of hound, 
Give us them back whom the guns 
Shot for you dead on the ground.

Dead men, what of the night? - 
Cannon and scaffold and sword,
Horror of gibbet and cord, 
Mowed us as sheaves for the grave, 
Mowed us down for the right. 
We do not grudge or repent. 
Freely to freedom we gave
Pledges, till life should be spent.

Statesman, what of the night? - 
The night will last me my time. 
The gold on a crown or a crime
Looks well enough yet by the lamps. 
Have we not fingers to write, 
Lips to swear at a need? 
Then, when danger decamps, 
Bury the word with the deed.

Warrior, what of the night? - 
Whether it be not or be 
Night, is as one thing to me.
I for one, at the least, 
Ask not of dews if they blight, 
Ask not of flames if they slay,
Ask not of prince or of priest
How long ere we put them away.

Master, what of the night? - 
Child, night is not at all 
Anywhere, fallen or to fall, 
Save in our star-stricken eyes.
Forth of our eyes it takes flight,
Look we but once nor before 
Nor behind us, but straight on the skies; 
Night is not then any more.

Exile, what of the night? - 
The tides and the hours run out, 
The seasons of death and of doubt, 
The night-watches bitter and sore.
In the quicksands leftward and right 
My feet sink down under me; 
But I know the scents of the shore 
And the broad blown breaths of the sea.

Captives, what of the night? - 
It rains outside overhead 
Always, a rain that is red, 
And our faces are soiled with the rain. 
Here in the seasons' despite
Day-time and night-time are one,
Till the curse of the kings and the chain 
Break, and their toils be undone.

Christian, what of the night? - 
I cannot tell; I am blind. 
I halt and hearken behind 
If haply the hours will go back 
And return to the dear dead light, 
To the watchfires and stars that of old
Shone where the sky now is black,
Glowed where the earth now is cold.

High priest, what of the night? - 
The night is horrible here 
With haggard faces and fear, 
Blood, and the burning of fire. 
Mine eyes are emptied of sight, 
Mine hands are full of the dust, 
If the God of my faith be a liar, 
Who is it that I shall trust?

Princes, what of the night? - 
Night with pestilent breath 
Feeds us, children of death, 
Clothes us close with her gloom. 
Rapine and famine and fright
Crouch at our feet and are fed. 
Earth where we pass is a tomb, 
Life where we triumph is dead.

Martyrs, what of the night? - 
Nay, is it night with you yet? 
We, for our part, we forget 
What night was, if it were. 
The loud red mouths of the fight 
Are silent and shut where we are. 
In our eyes the tempestuous air 
Shines as the face of a star.

England, what of the night? - 
Night is for slumber and sleep, 
Warm, no season to weep. 
Let me alone till the day. 
Sleep would I still if I might, 
Who have slept for two hundred years. 
Once I had honour, they say; 
But slumber is sweeter than tears.

France, what of the night? - 
Night is the prostitute's noon, 
Kissed and drugged till she swoon, 
Spat upon, trod upon, whored. 
With bloodred rose-garlands dight, 
Round me reels in the dance 
Death, my saviour, my lord,
Crowned; there is no more France.

Italy, what of the night? - 
Ah, child, child, it is long! 
Moonbeam and starbeam and song 
Leave it dumb now and dark. 
Yet I perceive on the height 
Eastward, not now very far, 
A song too loud for the lark, 
A light too strong for a star.

Germany, what of the night ? - 
Long has it lulled me with dreams;
Now at midwatch, as it seems, 
Light is brought back to mine eyes, 
And the mastery of old and the might 
Lives in the joints of mine hands, 
Steadies my limbs as they rise, 
Strengthens my foot as it stands.

Europe, what of the night ? - 
Ask of heaven, and the sea, 
And my babes on the bosom of me, 
Nations of mine, but ungrown. 
There is one who shall surely requite 
All that endure or that err: 
She can answer alone: 
Ask not of me, but of her.

Liberty, what of the night ? - 
I feel not the red rains fall, 
Hear not the tempest at all, 
Nor thunder in heaven any more. 
All the distance is white 
With the soundless feet of the sun. 
Night, with the woes that it wore, 
Night is over and done.

 She bade me follow to her garden where 
The mellow sunlight stood as in a cup 
Between the old grey walls; I did not dare 
To raise my face, I did not dare look up 
Lest her bright eyes like sparrows should fly in 
My windows of discovery and shrill 'Sin!' 

So with a downcast mien and laughing voice 
I followed, followed the swing of her white dress 
That rocked in a lilt along: I watched the poise 
Of her feet as they flew for a space, then paused to press 
The grass deep down with the royal burden of her: 
And gladly I'd offered my breast to the tread of her. 

'I like to see,' she said, and she crouched her down, 
She sunk into my sight like a settling bird; 
And her bosom crouched in the confines of her gown 
Like heavy birds at rest there, softly stirred 
By her measured breaths: 'I like to see,' said she, 
'The snap-dragon put out his tongue at me.' 

She laughed, she reached her hand out to the flower 
Closing its crimson throat: my own throat in her power 
Strangled, my heart swelled up so full 
As if it would burst its wineskin in my throat, 
Choke me in my own crimson; I watched her pull 
The gorge of the gaping flower, till the blood did float 

Over my eyes and I was blind -- 
Her large brown hand stretched over 
The windows of my mind, 
And in the dark I did discover 
Things I was out to find: 

My grail, a brown bowl twined 
With swollen veins that met in the wrist, 
Under whose brown the amethyst 
I longed to taste: and I longed to turn 
My heart's red measure in her cup, 
I longed to feel my hot blood burn 
With the lambent amethyst in her cup. 

Then suddenly she looked up 
And I was blind in a tawny-gold day 
Till she took her eyes away.

 Hey Father Death, I'm flying home
Hey poor man, you're all alone
Hey old daddy, I know where I'm going

Father Death, Don't cry any more
Mama's there, underneath the floor
Brother Death, please mind the store

Old Aunty Death Don't hide your bones
Old Uncle Death I hear your groans
O Sister Death how sweet your moans

O Children Deaths go breathe your breaths
Sobbing breasts'll ease your Deaths
Pain is gone, tears take the rest

Genius Death your art is done
Lover Death your body's gone
Father Death I'm coming home

Guru Death your words are true
Teacher Death I do thank you
For inspiring me to sing this Blues

Buddha Death, I wake with you
Dharma Death, your mind is new
Sangha Death, we'll work it through

Suffering is what was born
Ignorance made me forlorn
Tearful truths I cannot scorn

Father Breath once more farewell
Birth you gave was no thing ill
My heart is still, as time will tell.

July 8, 1976 (Over Lake Michigan)

 The moon, a sweeping scimitar, dipped in the stormy straits, 
The dawn, a crimson cataract, burst through the eastern gates, 
The cliffs were robed in scarlet, the sands were cinnabar, 
Where first two men spread wings for flight and dared the hawk afar. 

There stands the cunning workman, the crafty past all praise, 
The man who chained the Minotaur, the man who built the Maze. 
His young son is beside him and the boy's face is a light, 
A light of dawn and wonder and of valor infinite. 

Their great vans beat the cloven air, like eagles they mount up, 
Motes in the wine of morning, specks in a crystal cup, 
And lest his wings should melt apace old Daedalus flies low, 
But Icarus beats up, beats up, he goes where lightnings go. 

He cares no more for warnings, he rushes through the sky, 
Braving the crags of ether, daring the gods on high, 
Black 'gainst the crimson sunset, golden o'er cloudy snows, 
With all Adventure in his heart the first winged man arose. 

Dropping gold, dropping gold, where the mists of morning rolled, 
On he kept his way undaunted, though his breaths were stabs of cold, 
Through the mystery of dawning that no mortal may behold. 

Now he shouts, now he sings in the rapture of his wings, 
And his great heart burns intenser with the strength of his desire, 
As he circles like a swallow, wheeling, flaming, gyre on gyre. 

Gazing straight at the sun, half his pilgrimage is done, 
And he staggers for a moment, hurries on, reels backward, swerves 
In a rain of scattered feathers as he falls in broken curves. 

Icarus, Icarus, though the end is piteous, 
Yet forever, yea, forever we shall see thee rising thus, 
See the first supernal glory, not the ruin hideous. 

You were Man, you who ran farther than our eyes can scan, 
Man absurd, gigantic, eager for impossible Romance, 
Overthrowing all Hell's legions with one warped and broken lance. 

On the highest steeps of Space he will have his dwelling-place, 
In those far, terrific regions where the cold comes down like Death 
Gleams the red glint of his pinions, smokes the vapor of his breath. 

Floating downward, very clear, still the echoes reach the ear 
Of a little tune he whistles and a little song he sings, 
Mounting, mounting still, triumphant, on his torn and broken wings!