Written by
Walt Whitman |
SPONTANEOUS me, Nature,
The loving day, the mounting sun, the friend I am happy with,
The arm of my friend hanging idly over my shoulder,
The hill-side whiten’d with blossoms of the mountain ash,
The same, late in autumn—the hues of red, yellow, drab, purple, and light and dark
green,
The rich coverlid of the grass—animals and birds—the private untrimm’d
bank—the primitive apples—the pebble-stones,
Beautiful dripping fragments—the negligent list of one after another, as I happen to
call them to me, or think of them,
The real poems, (what we call poems being merely pictures,)
The poems of the privacy of the night, and of men like me,
This poem, drooping shy and unseen, that I always carry, and that all men carry,
(Know, once for all, avow’d on purpose, wherever are men like me, are our lusty,
lurking, masculine poems;)
Love-thoughts, love-juice, love-odor, love-yielding, love-climbers, and the climbing sap,
Arms and hands of love—lips of love—phallic thumb of love—breasts of
love—bellies press’d and glued together with love,
Earth of chaste love—life that is only life after love,
The body of my love—the body of the woman I love—the body of the man—the
body of the earth,
Soft forenoon airs that blow from the south-west,
The hairy wild-bee that murmurs and hankers up and down—that gripes the full-grown
lady-flower, curves upon her with amorous firm legs, takes his will of her, and holds
himself tremulous and tight till he is satisfied,
The wet of woods through the early hours,
Two sleepers at night lying close together as they sleep, one with an arm slanting down
across and below the waist of the other,
The smell of apples, aromas from crush’d sage-plant, mint, birch-bark,
The boy’s longings, the glow and pressure as he confides to me what he was dreaming,
The dead leaf whirling its spiral whirl, and falling still and content to the ground,
The no-form’d stings that sights, people, objects, sting me with,
The hubb’d sting of myself, stinging me as much as it ever can any one,
The sensitive, orbic, underlapp’d brothers, that only privileged feelers may be
intimate where they are,
The curious roamer, the hand, roaming all over the body—the bashful withdrawing of
flesh where the fingers soothingly pause and edge themselves,
The limpid liquid within the young man,
The vexed corrosion, so pensive and so painful,
The torment—the irritable tide that will not be at rest,
The like of the same I feel—the like of the same in others,
The young man that flushes and flushes, and the young woman that flushes and flushes,
The young man that wakes, deep at night, the hot hand seeking to repress what would master
him;
The mystic amorous night—the strange half-welcome pangs, visions, sweats,
The pulse pounding through palms and trembling encircling fingers—the young man all
color’d, red, ashamed, angry;
The souse upon me of my lover the sea, as I lie willing and naked,
The merriment of the twin-babes that crawl over the grass in the sun, the mother never
turning her vigilant eyes from them,
The walnut-trunk, the walnut-husks, and the ripening or ripen’d long-round walnuts;
The continence of vegetables, birds, animals,
The consequent meanness of me should I skulk or find myself indecent, while birds and
animals never once skulk or find themselves indecent;
The great chastity of paternity, to match the great chastity of maternity,
The oath of procreation I have sworn—my Adamic and fresh daughters,
The greed that eats me day and night with hungry gnaw, till I saturate what shall produce
boys to fill my place when I am through,
The wholesome relief, repose, content;
And this bunch, pluck’d at random from myself;
It has done its work—I tossed it carelessly to fall where it may.
|
Written by
Emile Verhaeren |
I
Oh, splendour of our joy and our delight,
Woven of gold amid the silken air!
See the dear house among its gables light,
And the green garden, and the orchard there!
Here is the bench with apple-trees o'er head
Whence the light spring is shed.
With touch of petals falling slow and soft;
Here branches luminous take flight aloft,
Hovering, like some bounteous presage, high
Against this landscape's clear and tender sky.
Here lie, like kisses from the lips dropt down
Of yon frail azur upon earth below,
Two simple, pure, blue pools, and like a crown
About their edge, chance flowers artless grow.
O splendour of our joy and of our ourselves!
Whose life doth feed, within this garden bright,
Upon the emblems of our own delight.
What are those forms that yonder slowly pass?
Our two glad souls are they,
That pastime take, and stray
Along the terraces and woodland grass?
Are these thy breasts, are these thine eyes, these two
Golden-bright flowers of harmonious hue?
These grasses, hanging like some plumage rare.
Bathed in the stream they ruffle by their touch.
Are they the strands of thy smooth, glossy hair?
No shelter e'er could match yon orchard white.
Or yonder house amid its gables light,
And garden, that so blest a sky controls,
Weaving the climate dear to both our souls.
VIII
As in the guileless, golden age, my heart
I gave thee, even like an ample flower
That opens in the dew's bright morning hour;
My lips have rested where the frail leaves part.
I plucked the flower—it came
From meadows whereon grow the flowers of flame:
Speak to it not—'tis best that we control
Words, since they needs are trivial 'twixt us two;
All words are hazardous, for it is through
The eyes that soul doth hearken unto soul.
That flower that is my heart, and where secure
My heart's avowal hides.
Simply confides
Unto thy lips that she is clear and pure.
Loyal and good—and that one's trust toward
A virgin love is like a child's in God.
Let wit and wisdom flower upon the height,
Along capricious paths of vanity;
And give we welcome to sincerity,
That holds between her fingers crystal-bright
Our two clear hearts: for what so beautiful
As a confession made from soul to soul.
When eve returns
And the white flame of countless diamonds burns.
Like myriads of silent eyes intent,
Th' unfathomed silence of the firmament.
XVII
That we may love each other through our eyes
Let us our glances lave, and make them clear,
Of all the thousand glances that they here
Have met, in this base world of servile lies.
The dawn is dressed in blossom and in dew,
And chequered too
With very tender light—it looks as though
Frail plumes of sun and silver, through the mist,
Glided across the garden to and fro,
And with a soft caress the mosses kissed.
Our wondrous ponds of blue
Tremble and wake with golden shimmerings;
Swift emerald flights beneath the trees dart through.
And now the light from hedge and path anew
Sweeps the damp dust, where yet the twilight clings.
XXI
In hours like these, when through our dream of bliss
So far from all things not ourselves we move,
What lustral blood, what baptism is this
That bathes our hearts, straining toward perfect love?
Our hands are clasped, and yet there is no prayer,
Our arms outstretched, and yet no cry is there;
Adoring something, what, we cannot say.
More pure than we are and more far away,
With spirit fervent and most guileless grown,
How we are mingled and dissolved in one;
Ah, how we live each other, in the unknown!
Oh, how absorbed and wholly lost before
The presence of those hours supreme one lies!
And how the soul would fain find other skies
To seek therein new gods it might adore;
Oh, marvellous and agonizing joy,
Audacious hope whereon the spirit hangs,
Of being one day
Once more the prey,
Beyond even death, of these deep, silent pangs.
|
Written by
Anthony Hecht |
Third Avenue in sunlight. Nature's error.
Already the bars are filled and John is there.
Beneath a plentiful lady over the mirror
He tilts his glass in the mild mahogany air.
I think of him when he first got out of college,
Serious, thin, unlikely to succeed;
For several months he hung around the Village,
Boldly T-shirtet, unfettered but unfreed.
Now he confides to a stranger, "I was first scout,
And kept my glimmers peeled till after dark.
Our outfit had as its sign a bloody knout,
We met behind the museum in Central Park.
Of course, we were kids." But still those savages,
War-painted, a flap of leather at the loins,
File silently against him. Hostages
Are never taken. One summer, in Des Moines,
They entered his hotel room, tomahawks
Flashing like barracuda. He tried to pray.
Three years of treatment. Occasionally he talks
About how he almost didn't get away.
Daily the prowling sunlight whets its knife
Along the sidewalk. We almost never meet.
In the Rembrandt dark he lifts his amber life.
My bar is somewhat further down the street.
|
Written by
Emile Verhaeren |
As in the simple ages, I have given you my heart, like a wide-spreading flower that opens pure and lovely in the dewy hours; within its moist petals my lips have rested.
The flower, I gathered it with fingers of flame; say nothing to it: for all words are perilous; it is through the eyes that soul listens to soul.
The flower that is my heart and my avowal confides in all simplicity to your lips that it is loyal, bright and good, and that we trust in virgin love as a child trusts in God.
Leave wit to flower on the hills in freakish paths of vanity; and let us give a simple welcome to the sincerity that holds our two true hearts within its crystalline hands;
Nothing is so lovely as a confession of souls one to the other, in the evening, when the flame of the uncountable diamonds burns like so many silent eyes the silence of the firmaments.
|
Written by
Emily Dickinson |
'Tis my first night beneath the Sun
If I should spend it here --
Above him is too low a height
For his Barometer
Who Airs of expectation breathes
And takes the Wind at prime --
But Distance his Delights confides
To those who visit him --
|
Written by
Francesco Petrarch |
SONNET CLXXVI. Voglia mi sprona; Amor mi guida e scorge. HE DESCRIBES HIS STATE, SPECIFYING THE DATE OF HIS ATTACHMENT. Passion impels me, Love escorts and leads,Pleasure attracts me, habits old enchain,Hope with its flatteries comforts me again,And, at my harass'd heart, with fond touch pleads.Poor wretch! it trusts her still, and little heedsThe blind and faithless leader of our train;Reason is dead, the senses only reign:One fond desire another still succeeds.Virtue and honour, beauty, courtesy,With winning words and many a graceful way,My heart entangled in that laurel sweet.In thirteen hundred seven and twenty, I—'Twas April, the first hour, on its sixth day—Enter'd Love's labyrinth, whence is no retreat. Macgregor. By will impell'd, Love o'er my path presides;By Pleasure led, o'ercome by Habit's reign,Sweet Hope deludes, and comforts me again;At her bright touch, my heart's despair subsides.It takes her proffer'd hand, and there confides.To doubt its blind disloyal guide were vain;Each sense usurps poor Reason's broken rein;On each desire, another wilder rides!Grace, virtue, honour, beauty, words so dear,Have twined me with that laurell'd bough, whose power[Pg 192]My heart hath tangled in its lab'rinth sweet:The thirteen hundred twenty-seventh year,The sixth of April's suns—in that first hour,My entrance mark'd, whence I see no retreat. Wollaston.
|
Written by
Badger Clark |
Our lives are hid; our trails are strange;
We're scattered through the West
In canyon cool, on blistered range
Or windy mountain crest.
Wherever Nature drops her ears
And bares her claws to scratch,
From Yuma to the north frontiers,
You'll likely find the bach',
You will,
The shy and sober bach'!
Our days are sun and storm and mist,
The same as any life,
Except that in our trouble list
We never count a wife.
Each has a reason why he's lone,
But keeps it 'neath his hat;
Or, if he's got to tell some one,
Confides it to his cat,
He does,
Just tells it to his cat.
We're young or old or slow or fast,
But all plumb versatyle.
The mighty bach' that fires the blast
Kin serve up beans in style.
The bach' that ropes the plungin' cows
Kin mix the biscuits true--
We earn our grub by drippin' brows
And cook it by 'em too,
We do,
We cook it by 'em too.
We like to breathe unbranded air,
Be free of foot and mind,
And go or stay, or sing or swear,
Whichever we're inclined.
An appetite, a conscience clear,
A pipe that's rich and old
Are loves that always bless and cheer
And never cry nor scold,
They don't.
They never cry nor scold.
Old Adam bached some ages back
And smoked his pipe so free,
A-loafin' in a palm-leaf shack
Beneath a mango tree.
He'd best have stuck to bachin' ways,
And scripture proves the same,
For Adam's only happy days
Was 'fore the woman came,
They was,
All 'fore the woman came.
|