Best Famous Demands Poems

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Written by Charlotte Bronte | The Wood BUT two miles more, and then we rest ! Well, there is still an hour of day, And long the brightness of the West Will light us on our devious way; Sit then, awhile, here in this wood­ So total is the solitude, We safely may delay. These massive roots afford a seat, Which seems for weary travellers made. There rest. The air is soft and sweet In this sequestered forest glade, And there are scents of flowers around, The evening dew draws from the ground; How soothingly they spread ! Yes; I was tired, but not at heart; No­that beats full of sweet content, For now I have my natural part Of action with adventure blent; Cast forth on the wide vorld with thee, And all my once waste energy To weighty purpose bent. Yet­say'st thou, spies around us roam, Our aims are termed conspiracy ? Haply, no more our English home An anchorage for us may be ? That there is risk our mutual blood May redden in some lonely wood The knife of treachery ? Say'st thou­that where we lodge each night, In each lone farm, or lonelier hall Of Norman Peer­ere morning light Suspicion must as duly fall, As day returns­such vigilance Presides and watches over France, Such rigour governs all ? I fear not, William; dost thou fear ? So that the knife does not divide, It may be ever hovering near: I could not tremble at thy side, And strenuous love­like mine for thee­ Is buckler strong, 'gainst treachery, And turns its stab aside. I am resolved that thou shalt learn To trust my strength as I trust thine; I am resolved our souls shall burn, With equal, steady, mingling shine; Part of the field is conquered now, Our lives in the same channel flow, Along the self-same line; And while no groaning storm is heard, Thou seem'st content it should be so, But soon as comes a warning word Of danger­straight thine anxious brow Bends over me a mournful shade, As doubting if my powers are made To ford the floods of woe. Know, then it is my spirit swells, And drinks, with eager joy, the air Of freedom­where at last it dwells, Chartered, a common task to share With thee, and then it stirs alert, And pants to learn what menaced hurt Demands for thee its care. Remember, I have crossed the deep, And stood with thee on deck, to gaze On waves that rose in threatening heap, While stagnant lay a heavy haze, Dimly confusing sea with sky, And baffling, even, the pilot's eye, Intent to thread the maze­ Of rocks, on Bretagne's dangerous coast, And find a way to steer our band To the one point obscure, which lost, Flung us, as victims, on the strand;­ All, elsewhere, gleamed the Gallic sword, And not a wherry could be moored Along the guarded land. I feared not then­I fear not now; The interest of each stirring scene Wakes a new sense, a welcome glow, In every nerve and bounding vein; Alike on turbid Channel sea, Or in still wood of Normandy, I feel as born again. The rain descended that wild morn When, anchoring in the cove at last, Our band, all weary and forlorn, Ashore, like wave-worn sailors, cast­ Sought for a sheltering roof in vain, And scarce could scanty food obtain To break their morning fast. Thou didst thy crust with me divide, Thou didst thy cloak around me fold; And, sitting silent by thy side, I ate the bread in peace untold: Given kindly from thy hand, 'twas sweet As costly fare or princely treat On royal plate of gold. Sharp blew the sleet upon my face, And, rising wild, the gusty wind Drove on those thundering waves apace, Our crew so late had left behind; But, spite of frozen shower and storm, So close to thee, my heart beat warm, And tranquil slept my mind. So now­nor foot-sore nor opprest With walking all this August day, I taste a heaven in this brief rest, This gipsy-halt beside the way. England's wild flowers are fair to view, Like balm is England's summer dew, Like gold her sunset ray. But the white violets, growing here, Are sweeter than I yet have seen, And ne'er did dew so pure and clear Distil on forest mosses green, As now, called forth by summer heat, Perfumes our cool and fresh retreat­ These fragrant limes between. That sunset ! Look beneath the boughs, Over the copse­beyond the hills; How soft, yet deep and warm it glows, And heaven with rich suffusion fills; With hues where still the opal's tint, Its gleam of poisoned fire is blent, Where flame through azure thrills ! Depart we now­for fast will fade That solemn splendour of decline, And deep must be the after-shade As stars alone to-night will shine; No moon is destined­pale­to gaze On such a day's vast Phoenix blaze, A day in fires decayed ! There­hand-in-hand we tread again The mazes of this varying wood, And soon, amid a cultured plain, Girt in with fertile solitude, We shall our resting-place descry, Marked by one roof-tree, towering high Above a farm-stead rude. Refreshed, erelong, with rustic fare, We'll seek a couch of dreamless ease; Courage will guard thy heart from fear, And Love give mine divinest peace: To-morrow brings more dangerous toil, And through its conflict and turmoil We'll pass, as God shall please.

Written by Allen Ginsberg | America America I've given you all and now I'm nothing. America two dollars and twentyseven cents January 17, 1956. I can't stand my own mind. America when will we end the human war? Go **** yourself with your atom bomb. I don't feel good don't bother me. I won't write my poem till I'm in my right mind. America when will you be angelic? When will you take off your clothes? When will you look at yourself through the grave? When will you be worthy of your million Trotskyites? America why are your libraries full of tears? America when will you send your eggs to India? I'm sick of your insane demands. When can I go into the supermarket and buy what I need with my good looks? America after all it is you and I who are perfect not the next world. Your machinery is too much for me. You made me want to be a saint. There must be some other way to settle this argument. Burroughs is in Tangiers I don't think he'll come back it's sinister. Are you being sinister or is this some form of practical joke? I'm trying to come to the point. I refuse to give up my obsession. America stop pushing I know what I'm doing. America the plum blossoms are falling. I haven't read the newspapers for months, everyday somebody goes on trial for murder. America I feel sentimental about the Wobblies. America I used to be a communist when I was a kid I'm not sorry. I smoke marijuana every chance I get. I sit in my house for days on end and stare at the roses in the closet. When I go to Chinatown I get drunk and never get laid. My mind is made up there's going to be trouble. You should have seen me reading Marx. My psychoanalyst thinks I'm perfectly right. I won't say the Lord's Prayer. I have mystical visions and cosmic vibrations. America I still haven't told you what you did to Uncle Max after he came over from Russia. I'm addressing you. Are you going to let your emotional life be run by Time Magazine? I'm obsessed by Time Magazine. I read it every week. Its cover stares at me every time I slink past the corner candystore. I read it in the basement of the Berkeley Public Library. It's always telling me about responsibility. Business- men are serious. Movie producers are serious. Everybody's serious but me. It occurs to me that I am America. I am talking to myself again. Asia is rising against me. I haven't got a chinaman's chance. I'd better consider my national resources. My national resources consist of two joints of marijuana millions of genitals an unpublishable private literature that goes 1400 miles an hour and twenty-five-thousand mental institutions. I say nothing about my prisons nor the millions of underprivileged who live in my flowerpots under the light of five hundred suns. I have abolished the whorehouses of France, Tangiers is the next to go. My ambition is to be President despite the fact that I'm a Catholic. America how can I write a holy litany in your silly mood? I will continue like Henry Ford my strophes are as individual as his automobiles more so they're all different sexes. America I will sell you strophes $2500 apiece $500 down on your old strophe America free Tom Mooney America save the Spanish Loyalists America Sacco & Vanzetti must not die America I am the Scottsboro boys. America when I was seven momma took me to Com- munist Cell meetings they sold us garbanzos a handful per ticket a ticket costs a nickel and the speeches were free everybody was angelic and sentimental about the workers it was all so sin- cere you have no idea what a good thing the party was in 1835 Scott Nearing was a grand old man a real mensch Mother Bloor made me cry I once saw Israel Amter plain. Everybody must have been a spy. America you don't really want to go to war. America it's them bad Russians. Them Russians them Russians and them Chinamen. And them Russians. The Russia wants to eat us alive. The Russia's power mad. She wants to take our cars from out our garages. Her wants to grab Chicago. Her needs a Red Readers' Digest. Her wants our auto plants in Siberia. Him big bureaucracy running our fillingsta- tions. That no good. Ugh. Him make Indians learn read. Him need big black niggers. Hah. Her make us all work sixteen hours a day. Help. America this is quite serious. America this is the impression I get from looking in the television set. America is this correct? I'd better get right down to the job. It's true I don't want to join the Army or turn lathes in precision parts factories, I'm nearsighted and psychopathic anyway. America I'm putting my ***** shoulder to the wheel. Berkeley, January 17, 1956

Written by Alan Seeger | Paris First, London, for its myriads; for its height, Manhattan heaped in towering stalagmite; But Paris for the smoothness of the paths That lead the heart unto the heart's delight. . . . Fair loiterer on the threshold of those days When there's no lovelier prize the world displays Than, having beauty and your twenty years, You have the means to conquer and the ways, And coming where the crossroads separate And down each vista glories and wonders wait, Crowning each path with pinnacles so fair You know not which to choose, and hesitate -- Oh, go to Paris. . . . In the midday gloom Of some old quarter take a little room That looks off over Paris and its towers From Saint Gervais round to the Emperor's Tomb, -- So high that you can hear a mating dove Croon down the chimney from the roof above, See Notre Dame and know how sweet it is To wake between Our Lady and our love. And have a little balcony to bring Fair plants to fill with verdure and blossoming, That sparrows seek, to feed from pretty hands, And swallows circle over in the Spring. There of an evening you shall sit at ease In the sweet month of flowering chestnut-trees, There with your little darling in your arms, Your pretty dark-eyed Manon or Louise. And looking out over the domes and towers That chime the fleeting quarters and the hours, While the bright clouds banked eastward back of them Blush in the sunset, pink as hawthorn flowers, You cannot fail to think, as I have done, Some of life's ends attained, so you be one Who measures life's attainment by the hours That Joy has rescued from oblivion. II Come out into the evening streets. The green light lessens in the west. The city laughs and liveliest her fervid pulse of pleasure beats. The belfry on Saint Severin strikes eight across the smoking eaves: Come out under the lights and leaves to the Reine Blanche on Saint Germain. . . . Now crowded diners fill the floor of brasserie and restaurant. Shrill voices cry "L'Intransigeant," and corners echo "Paris-Sport." Where rows of tables from the street are screened with shoots of box and bay, The ragged minstrels sing and play and gather sous from those that eat. And old men stand with menu-cards, inviting passers-by to dine On the bright terraces that line the Latin Quarter boulevards. . . . But, having drunk and eaten well, 'tis pleasant then to stroll along And mingle with the merry throng that promenades on Saint Michel. Here saunter types of every sort. The shoddy jostle with the chic: Turk and Roumanian and Greek; student and officer and sport; Slavs with their peasant, Christ-like heads, and courtezans like powdered moths, And peddlers from Algiers, with cloths bright-hued and stitched with golden threads; And painters with big, serious eyes go rapt in dreams, fantastic shapes In corduroys and Spanish capes and locks uncut and flowing ties; And lovers wander two by two, oblivious among the press, And making one of them no less, all lovers shall be dear to you: All laughing lips you move among, all happy hearts that, knowing what Makes life worth while, have wasted not the sweet reprieve of being young. "Comment ca va!" "Mon vieux!" "Mon cher!" Friends greet and banter as they pass. 'Tis sweet to see among the mass comrades and lovers everywhere, A law that's sane, a Love that's free, and men of every birth and blood Allied in one great brotherhood of Art and Joy and Poverty. . . . The open cafe-windows frame loungers at their liqueurs and beer, And walking past them one can hear fragments of Tosca and Boheme. And in the brilliant-lighted door of cinemas the barker calls, And lurid posters paint the walls with scenes of Love and crime and war. But follow past the flaming lights, borne onward with the stream of feet, Where Bullier's further up the street is marvellous on Thursday nights. Here all Bohemia flocks apace; you could not often find elsewhere So many happy heads and fair assembled in one time and place. Under the glare and noise and heat the galaxy of dancing whirls, Smokers, with covered heads, and girls dressed in the costume of the street. From tables packed around the wall the crowds that drink and frolic there Spin serpentines into the air far out over the reeking hall, That, settling where the coils unroll, tangle with pink and green and blue The crowds that rag to "Hitchy-koo" and boston to the "Barcarole". . . . Here Mimi ventures, at fifteen, to make her debut in romance, And join her sisters in the dance and see the life that they have seen. Her hair, a tight hat just allows to brush beneath the narrow brim, Docked, in the model's present whim, `frise' and banged above the brows. Uncorseted, her clinging dress with every step and turn betrays, In pretty and provoking ways her adolescent loveliness, As guiding Gaby or Lucile she dances, emulating them In each disturbing stratagem and each lascivious appeal. Each turn a challenge, every pose an invitation to compete, Along the maze of whirling feet the grave-eyed little wanton goes, And, flaunting all the hue that lies in childish cheeks and nubile waist, She passes, charmingly unchaste, illumining ignoble eyes. . . . But now the blood from every heart leaps madder through abounding veins As first the fascinating strains of "El Irresistible" start. Caught in the spell of pulsing sound, impatient elbows lift and yield The scented softnesses they shield to arms that catch and close them round, Surrender, swift to be possessed, the silken supple forms beneath To all the bliss the measures breathe and all the madness they suggest. Crowds congregate and make a ring. Four deep they stand and strain to see The tango in its ecstasy of glowing lives that clasp and cling. Lithe limbs relaxed, exalted eyes fastened on vacancy, they seem To float upon the perfumed stream of some voluptuous Paradise, Or, rapt in some Arabian Night, to rock there, cradled and subdued, In a luxurious lassitude of rhythm and sensual delight. And only when the measures cease and terminate the flowing dance They waken from their magic trance and join the cries that clamor "Bis!" . . . Midnight adjourns the festival. The couples climb the crowded stair, And out into the warm night air go singing fragments of the ball. Close-folded in desire they pass, or stop to drink and talk awhile In the cafes along the mile from Bullier's back to Montparnasse: The "Closerie" or "La Rotonde", where smoking, under lamplit trees, Sit Art's enamored devotees, chatting across their `brune' and `blonde'. . . . Make one of them and come to know sweet Paris -- not as many do, Seeing but the folly of the few, the froth, the tinsel, and the show -- But taking some white proffered hand that from Earth's barren every day Can lead you by the shortest way into Love's florid fairyland. And that divine enchanted life that lurks under Life's common guise -- That city of romance that lies within the City's toil and strife -- Shall, knocking, open to your hands, for Love is all its golden key, And one's name murmured tenderly the only magic it demands. And when all else is gray and void in the vast gulf of memory, Green islands of delight shall be all blessed moments so enjoyed: When vaulted with the city skies, on its cathedral floors you stood, And, priest of a bright brotherhood, performed the mystic sacrifice, At Love's high altar fit to stand, with fire and incense aureoled, The celebrant in cloth of gold with Spring and Youth on either hand. III Choral Song Have ye gazed on its grandeur Or stood where it stands With opal and amber Adorning the lands, And orcharded domes Of the hue of all flowers? Sweet melody roams Through its blossoming bowers, Sweet bells usher in from its belfries the train of the honey-sweet hour. A city resplendent, Fulfilled of good things, On its ramparts are pendent The bucklers of kings. Broad banners unfurled Are afloat in its air. The lords of the world Look for harborage there. None finds save he comes as a bridegroom, having roses and vine in his hair. 'Tis the city of Lovers, There many paths meet. Blessed he above others, With faltering feet, Who past its proud spires Intends not nor hears The noise of its lyres Grow faint in his ears! Men reach it through portals of triumph, but leave through a postern of tears. It was thither, ambitious, We came for Youth's right, When our lips yearned for kisses As moths for the light, When our souls cried for Love As for life-giving rain Wan leaves of the grove, Withered grass of the plain, And our flesh ached for Love-flesh beside it with bitter, intolerable pain. Under arbor and trellis, Full of flutes, full of flowers, What mad fortunes befell us, What glad orgies were ours! In the days of our youth, In our festal attire, When the sweet flesh was smooth, When the swift blood was fire, And all Earth paid in orange and purple to pavilion the bed of Desire!

Written by Charlotte Bronte | The Wood But two miles more, and then we rest ! Well, there is still an hour of day, And long the brightness of the West Will light us on our devious way; Sit then, awhile, here in this wood­ So total is the solitude, We safely may delay. These massive roots afford a seat, Which seems for weary travellers made. There rest. The air is soft and sweet In this sequestered forest glade, And there are scents of flowers around, The evening dew draws from the ground; How soothingly they spread ! Yes; I was tired, but not at heart; No­that beats full of sweet content, For now I have my natural part Of action with adventure blent; Cast forth on the wide vorld with thee, And all my once waste energy To weighty purpose bent. Yet­say'st thou, spies around us roam, Our aims are termed conspiracy ? Haply, no more our English home An anchorage for us may be ? That there is risk our mutual blood May redden in some lonely wood The knife of treachery ? Say'st thou­that where we lodge each night, In each lone farm, or lonelier hall Of Norman Peer­ere morning light Suspicion must as duly fall, As day returns­such vigilance Presides and watches over France, Such rigour governs all ? I fear not, William; dost thou fear ? So that the knife does not divide, It may be ever hovering near: I could not tremble at thy side, And strenuous love­like mine for thee­ Is buckler strong, 'gainst treachery, And turns its stab aside. I am resolved that thou shalt learn To trust my strength as I trust thine; I am resolved our souls shall burn, With equal, steady, mingling shine; Part of the field is conquered now, Our lives in the same channel flow, Along the self-same line; And while no groaning storm is heard, Thou seem'st content it should be so, But soon as comes a warning word Of danger­straight thine anxious brow Bends over me a mournful shade, As doubting if my powers are made To ford the floods of woe. Know, then it is my spirit swells, And drinks, with eager joy, the air Of freedom­where at last it dwells, Chartered, a common task to share With thee, and then it stirs alert, And pants to learn what menaced hurt Demands for thee its care. Remember, I have crossed the deep, And stood with thee on deck, to gaze On waves that rose in threatening heap, While stagnant lay a heavy haze, Dimly confusing sea with sky, And baffling, even, the pilot's eye, Intent to thread the maze­ Of rocks, on Bretagne's dangerous coast, And find a way to steer our band To the one point obscure, which lost, Flung us, as victims, on the strand;­ All, elsewhere, gleamed the Gallic sword, And not a wherry could be moored Along the guarded land. I feared not then­I fear not now; The interest of each stirring scene Wakes a new sense, a welcome glow, In every nerve and bounding vein; Alike on turbid Channel sea, Or in still wood of Normandy, I feel as born again. The rain descended that wild morn When, anchoring in the cove at last, Our band, all weary and forlorn, Ashore, like wave-worn sailors, cast­ Sought for a sheltering roof in vain, And scarce could scanty food obtain To break their morning fast. Thou didst thy crust with me divide, Thou didst thy cloak around me fold; And, sitting silent by thy side, I ate the bread in peace untold: Given kindly from thy hand, 'twas sweet As costly fare or princely treat On royal plate of gold. Sharp blew the sleet upon my face, And, rising wild, the gusty wind Drove on those thundering waves apace, Our crew so late had left behind; But, spite of frozen shower and storm, So close to thee, my heart beat warm, And tranquil slept my mind. So now­nor foot-sore nor opprest With walking all this August day, I taste a heaven in this brief rest, This gipsy-halt beside the way. England's wild flowers are fair to view, Like balm is England's summer dew, Like gold her sunset ray. But the white violets, growing here, Are sweeter than I yet have seen, And ne'er did dew so pure and clear Distil on forest mosses green, As now, called forth by summer heat, Perfumes our cool and fresh retreat­ These fragrant limes between. That sunset ! Look beneath the boughs, Over the copse­beyond the hills; How soft, yet deep and warm it glows, And heaven with rich suffusion fills; With hues where still the opal's tint, Its gleam of poisoned fire is blent, Where flame through azure thrills ! Depart we now­for fast will fade That solemn splendour of decline, And deep must be the after-shade As stars alone to-night will shine; No moon is destined­pale­to gaze On such a day's vast Phoenix blaze, A day in fires decayed ! There­hand-in-hand we tread again The mazes of this varying wood, And soon, amid a cultured plain, Girt in with fertile solitude, We shall our resting-place descry, Marked by one roof-tree, towering high Above a farm-stead rude. Refreshed, erelong, with rustic fare, We'll seek a couch of dreamless ease; Courage will guard thy heart from fear, And Love give mine divinest peace: To-morrow brings more dangerous toil, And through its conflict and turmoil We'll pass, as God shall please. [The preceding composition refers, doubtless, to the scenes acted in France during the last year of the Consulate.]

Written by Sylvia Plath | Tale Of A Tub The photographic chamber of the eye records bare painted walls, while an electric light lays the chromium nerves of plumbing raw; such poverty assaults the ego; caught naked in the merely actual room, the stranger in the lavatory mirror puts on a public grin, repeats our name but scrupulously reflects the usual terror. Just how guilty are we when the ceiling reveals no cracks that can be decoded? when washbowl maintains it has no more holy calling than physical ablution, and the towel dryly disclaims that fierce troll faces lurk in its explicit folds? or when the window, blind with steam, will not admit the dark which shrouds our prospects in ambiguous shadow? Twenty years ago, the familiar tub bred an ample batch of omens; but now water faucets spawn no danger; each crab and octopus -- scrabbling just beyond the view, waiting for some accidental break in ritual, to strike -- is definitely gone; the authentic sea denies them and will pluck fantastic flesh down to the honest bone. We take the plunge; under water our limbs waver, faintly green, shuddering away from the genuine color of skin; can our dreams ever blur the intransigent lines which draw the shape that shuts us in? absolute fact intrudes even when the revolted eye is closed; the tub exists behind our back; its glittering surfaces are blank and true. Yet always the ridiculous nude flanks urge the fabrication of some cloth to cover such starkness; accuracy must not stalk at large: each day demands we create our whole world over, disguising the constant horror in a coat of many-colored fictions; we mask our past in the green of Eden, pretend future's shining fruit can sprout from the navel of this present waste. In this particular tub, two knees jut up like icebergs, while minute brown hairs rise on arms and legs in a fringe of kelp; green soap navigates the tidal slosh of seas breaking on legendary beaches; in faith we shall board our imagined ship and wildly sail among sacred islands of the mad till death shatters the fabulous stars and makes us real.

Written by Charlotte Bronte | Frances SHE will not sleep, for fear of dreams, But, rising, quits her restless bed, And walks where some beclouded beams Of moonlight through the hall are shed. Obedient to the goad of grief, Her steps, now fast, now lingering slow, In varying motion seek relief From the Eumenides of woe. Wringing her hands, at intervals­ But long as mute as phantom dim­ She glides along the dusky walls, Under the black oak rafters, grim. The close air of the grated tower Stifles a heart that scarce can beat, And, though so late and lone the hour, Forth pass her wandering, faltering feet; And on the pavement, spread before The long front of the mansion grey, Her steps imprint the night-frost hoar, Which pale on grass and granite lay. Not long she stayed where misty moon And shimmering stars could on her look, But through the garden arch-way, soon Her strange and gloomy path she took. Some firs, coeval with the tower, Their straight black boughs stretched o'er her head, Unseen, beneath this sable bower, Rustled her dress and rapid tread. There was an alcove in that shade, Screening a rustic-seat and stand; Weary she sat her down and laid Her hot brow on her burning hand. To solitude and to the night, Some words she now, in murmurs, said; And, trickling through her fingers white, Some tears of misery she shed. ' God help me, in my grievous need, God help me, in my inward pain; Which cannot ask for pity's meed, Which has no license to complain; Which must be borne, yet who can bear, Hours long, days long, a constant weight­ The yoke of absolute despair, A suffering wholly desolate ? Who can for ever crush the heart, Restrain its throbbing, curb its life ? Dissemble truth with ceaseless art, With outward calm, mask inward strife ?' She waited­as for some reply; The still and cloudy night gave none; Erelong, with deep-drawn, trembling sigh, Her heavy plaint again begun. ' Unloved­I love; unwept­I weep; Grief I restrain­hope I repress: Vain is this anguish­fixed and deep; Vainer, desires and dreams of bliss. My love awakes no love again, My tears collect, and fall unfelt; My sorrow touches none with pain, My humble hopes to nothing melt. For me the universe is dumb, Stone-deaf, and blank, and wholly blind; Life I must bound, existence sum In the strait limits of one mind; That mind my own. Oh ! narrow cell; Dark­imageless­a living tomb ! There must I sleep, there wake and dwell Content, with palsy, pain, and gloom.' Again she paused; a moan of pain, A stifled sob, alone was heard; Long silence followed­then again, Her voice the stagnant midnight stirred. ' Must it be so ? Is this my fate ? Can I nor struggle, nor contend ? And am I doomed for years to wait, Watching death's lingering axe descend ? And when it falls, and when I die, What follows ? Vacant nothingness ? The blank of lost identity ? Erasure both of pain and bliss ? I've heard of heaven­I would believe; For if this earth indeed be all, Who longest lives may deepest grieve, Most blest, whom sorrows soonest call. Oh ! leaving disappointment here, Will man find hope on yonder coast ? Hope, which, on earth, shines never clear, And oft in clouds is wholly lost. Will he hope's source of light behold, Fruition's spring, where doubts expire, And drink, in waves of living gold, Contentment, full, for long desire ? Will he find bliss, which here he dreamed ? Rest, which was weariness on earth ? Knowledge, which, if o'er life it beamed, Served but to prove it void of worth ? Will he find love without lust's leaven, Love fearless, tearless, perfect, pure, To all with equal bounty given, In all, unfeigned, unfailing, sure ? Will he, from penal sufferings free, Released from shroud and wormy clod, All calm and glorious, rise and see Creation's Sire­Existence' God ? Then, glancing back on Time's brief woes, Will he behold them, fading, fly; Swept from Eternity's repose, Like sullying cloud, from pure blue sky ? If so­endure, my weary frame; And when thy anguish strikes too deep, And when all troubled burns life's flame, Think of the quiet, final sleep; Think of the glorious waking-hour, Which will not dawn on grief and tears, But on a ransomed spirit's power, Certain, and free from mortal fears. Seek now thy couch, and lie till morn, Then from thy chamber, calm, descend, With mind nor tossed, nor anguish-torn, But tranquil, fixed, to wait the end. And when thy opening eyes shall see Mementos, on the chamber wall, Of one who has forgotten thee, Shed not the tear of acrid gall. The tear which, welling from the heart, Burns where its drop corrosive falls, And makes each nerve, in torture, start, At feelings it too well recalls: When the sweet hope of being loved, Threw Eden sunshine on life's way; When every sense and feeling proved Expectancy of brightest day. When the hand trembled to receive A thrilling clasp, which seemed so near, And the heart ventured to believe, Another heart esteemed it dear. When words, half love, all tenderness, Were hourly heard, as hourly spoken, When the long, sunny days of bliss, Only by moonlight nights were broken. Till drop by drop, the cup of joy Filled full, with purple light, was glowing, And Faith, which watched it, sparkling high, Still never dreamt the overflowing. It fell not with a sudden crashing, It poured not out like open sluice; No, sparkling still, and redly flashing, Drained, drop by drop, the generous juice. I saw it sink, and strove to taste it, My eager lips approached the brim; The movement only seemed to waste it, It sank to dregs, all harsh and dim. These I have drank, and they for ever Have poisoned life and love for me; A draught from Sodom's lake could never More fiery, salt, and bitter, be. Oh ! Love was all a thin illusion; Joy, but the desert's flying stream; And, glancing back on long delusion, My memory grasps a hollow dream. Yet, whence that wondrous change of feeling, I never knew, and cannot learn, Nor why my lover's eye, congealing, Grew cold, and clouded, proud, and stern. Nor wherefore, friendship's forms forgetting, He careless left, and cool withdrew; Nor spoke of grief, nor fond regretting, Nor even one glance of comfort threw. And neither word nor token sending, Of kindness, since the parting day, His course, for distant regions bending, Went, self-contained and calm, away. Oh, bitter, blighting, keen sensation, Which will not weaken, cannot die, Hasten thy work of desolation, And let my tortured spirit fly ! Vain as the passing gale, my crying; Though lightning-struck, I must live on; I know, at heart, there is no dying Of love, and ruined hope, alone. Still strong, and young, and warm with vigour, Though scathed, I long shall greenly grow, And many a storm of wildest rigour Shall yet break o'er my shivered bough. Rebellious now to blank inertion, My unused strength demands a task; Travel, and toil, and full exertion, Are the last, only boon I ask. Whence, then, this vain and barren dreaming Of death, and dubious life to come ? I see a nearer beacon gleaming Over dejection's sea of gloom. The very wildness of my sorrow Tells me I yet have innate force; My track of life has been too narrow, Effort shall trace a broader course. The world is not in yonder tower, Earth is not prisoned in that room, 'Mid whose dark pannels, hour by hour, I've sat, the slave and prey of gloom. One feeling­turned to utter anguish, Is not my being's only aim; When, lorn and loveless, life will languish, But courage can revive the flame. He, when he left me, went a roving To sunny climes, beyond the sea; And I, the weight of woe removing, Am free and fetterless as he. New scenes, new language, skies less clouded, May once more wake the wish to live; Strange, foreign towns, astir, and crowded, New pictures to the mind may give. New forms and faces, passing ever, May hide the one I still retain, Defined, and fixed, and fading never, Stamped deep on vision, heart, and brain. And we might meet­time may have changed him; Chance may reveal the mystery, The secret influence which estranged him; Love may restore him yet to me. False thought­false hope­in scorn be banished ! I am not loved­nor loved have been; Recall not, then, the dreams scarce vanished, Traitors ! mislead me not again ! To words like yours I bid defiance, 'Tis such my mental wreck have made; Of God alone, and self-reliance, I ask for solace­hope for aid. Morn comes­and ere meridian glory O'er these, my natal woods, shall smile, Both lonely wood and mansion hoary I'll leave behind, full many a mile.

Written by Maggie Estep | Bad Day At The Beauty Salon I was a 20 year old unemployed receptionist with dyed orange dreadlocks sprouting out of my skull. I needed a job, but first, I needed a haircut. So I head for this beauty salon on Avenue B. I'm gonna get a hairdo. I'm gonna look just like those hot Spanish haircut models, become brown and bodacious, grow some 7 inch fingernails painted ***** red and rake them down the chalkboard of the job market's soul. So I go in the beauty salon. This beautiful Puerto Rican girl in tight white spandex and a push-up bra sits me down and starts chopping my hair: "Girlfriend," she says, "what the hell you got growing outta your head there, what is that, hair implants? Yuck, you want me to touch that ****, whadya got in there, sandwiches?" I just go: "I'm sorry." She starts snipping my carefully cultivated Johnny Lydon post-Pistols hairdo. My foul little dreadlocks are flying around all over the place but I'm not looking in the mirror cause I just don't want to know. "So what's your name anyway?" My stylist demands then. "Uh, Maggie." "Maggie? Well, that's an okay name, but my name is Suzy." "Yeah, so?" "Yeah so it ain't just Suzy S.U.Z.Y, I spell it S.U.Z.E.E, the extra "e" is for extra Suzee." I nod emphatically. Suzee tells me when she's not busy chopping hair, she works as an exotic dancer at night to support her boyfriend named Rocco. Suzee loves Rocco, she loves him so much she's got her eyes closed as she describes him: "6 foot 2, 193 pounds and, girlfriend, his arms so big and long they wrap around me twice like I'm a little Suzee sandwich." Little Suzee Sandwich is rapt, she blindly snips and clips at my poor punk head. She snips and clips and snips and clips, she pauses, I look in the mirror: "Holy ****, I'm bald." "Holy ****, baby, you're bald." Suzee says, finally opening her eyes and then gasping. All I've got left is little post-nuke clumps of orange fuzz. And I'll never get a receptionist job now. But Suzy waves her manicured finger in my face: "Don't you worry, baby, I'm gonna get you a job at the dancing club." "What?" "Baby, let me tell you, the boys are gonna like a bald go go dancer." That said, she whips out some clippers, shaves my head smooth and insists I'm gonna love getting naked for a living. None of this sounds like my idea of a good time, but I'm broke and I'm bald so I go home and get my best panties. Suzee lends me some 6 inch pumps, paints my lips bright red, and gives me 7 shots of Jack Daniels to relax me. 8pm that night I take the stage. I'm bald, I'm drunk, and by god, I'm naked. HOLY **** I'M NAKED IN A ROOM FULL OF STRANGERS THIS IS NOT ONE OF THOSE RECURRING NIGHTMARES WE ALL HAVE ABOUT BEING BUTT NAKED IN PUBLIC, I AM NAKED, I DON'T KNOW THESE PEOPLE, THIS REALLY SUCKS. A few guys feel sorry for me and risk getting their hands bitten off by sticking dollars in my garter belt. My disheveled pubic hairs stand at full attention, ready to poke the guys' eyes out if they get too close. Then I notice this bald guy in the audience, I've got a new empathy for bald people, I figure maybe it works both ways, maybe this guy will stick 10 bucks in my garter. I saunter over. I'm teetering around unrhythmically, I'm the surliest, unsexiest dancer that ever go-go across this hemisphere. The bald guy looks down into his beer, he'd much rather look at that than at my pubic mound which has now formed into one vicious spike so it looks like I've got a unicorn in my crotch. I stand there weaving through the air. The strobe light is illuminating my pubic unicorn. Madonna's song Borderline is pumping through the club's speaker system for the 5th time tonight: "BORDERLINE BORDERLINE BORDERLINE/LOVE ME TIL I JUST CAN'T SEE." And suddenly, I start to wonder: What does that mean anyway? "LOVE ME TIL I JUST CAN'T SEE" What? Screw me so much my eyes pop out, I go blind, end up walking down 2nd Avenue crazy, horny, naked and blind? What? There's a glitch in the tape and it starts to skip. "Borderl...ooop.....Borderl....ooop...Borderlin.....ooop" I stumble and twist my ankle. My g-string rides between my buttcheeks making me twitch with pain. My head starts spinning, my knees wobble, I go down on all fours and puke all over the bald guy's lap. So there I am. Butt naked on all fours. But before I have time to regain my composure, the strip club manager comes over, points his smarmy strip club manager finger at me and goes: "You're bald, you're drunk, you can't dance and you're fired." I stand up. "Oh yeah, well you stink like a sneaker, pal." I peel off one of my pumps and throw it in the direction of his fat head then I get the hell out of there. A few days later I run into Suzee on Avenue A. Turns out she got fired for getting me a job there in the first place. But she was completely undaunted, she dragged me up to this wig store on 14th Street, bought me a mouse brown shag wig, then got us both telemarketing jobs on Wall Street. And I never went to a beauty salon again.

Written by Phillis Wheatley | An Hymn to the Morning Attend my lays, ye ever honour'd nine, Assist my labours, and my strains refine; In smoothest numbers pour the notes along, For bright Aurora now demands my song. Aurora hail, and all the thousand dies, Which deck thy progress through the vaulted skies: The morn awakes, and wide extends her rays, On ev'ry leaf the gentle zephyr plays; Harmonious lays the feather'd race resume, Dart the bright eye, and shake the painted plume. Ye shady groves, your verdant gloom display To shield your poet from the burning day: Calliope awake the sacred lyre, While thy fair sisters fan the pleasing fire: The bow'rs, the gales, the variegated skies In all their pleasures in my bosom rise. See in the east th' illustrious king of day! His rising radiance drives the shades away-- But Oh! I feel his fervid beams too strong, And scarce begun, concludes th' abortive song.

Written by Alec Derwent (A D) Hope | Standardization When, darkly brooding on this Modern Age, The journalist with his marketable woes Fills up once more the inevitable page Of fatuous, flatulent, Sunday-paper prose; Whenever the green aesthete starts to whoop With horror at the house not made with hands And when from vacuum cleaners and tinned soup Another pure theosophist demands Rebirth in other, less industrial stars Where huge towns thrust up in synthetic stone And films and sleek miraculous motor cars And celluloid and rubber are unknown; When from his vegetable Sunday School Emerges with the neatly maudlin phrase Still one more Nature poet, to rant or drool About the "Standardization of the Race"; I see, stooping among her orchard trees, The old, sound Earth, gathering her windfalls in, Broad in the hams and stiffening at the knees, Pause and I see her grave malicious grin. For there is no manufacturer competes With her in the mass production of shapes and things. Over and over she gathers and repeats The cast of a face, a million butterfly wings. She does not tire of the pattern of a rose. Her oldest tricks still catch us with surprise. She cannot recall how long ago she chose The streamlined hulls of fish, the snail's long eyes, Love, which still pours into its ancient mould The lashing seed that grows to a man again, From whom by the same processes unfold Unending generations of living men. She has standardized his ultimate needs and pains. Lost tribes in a lost language mutter in His dreams: his science is tethered to their brains, His guilt merely repeats Original Sin. And beauty standing motionless before Her mirror sees behind her, mile on mile, A long queue in an unknown corridor, Anonymous faces plastered with her smile.

Written by Thomas Gray | The Fatal Sisters Now the storm begins to lower, (Haste, the loom of Hell prepares!) Iron-sleet of arrowy shower Hurtles in the darkened air. Glittering lances are the loom, Where the dusky warp we strain, Weaving many a soldier's doom, Orkney's woe and Randver's bane. See the grisly texture grow, ('Tis of human entrails made!) And the weights that play below, Each a gasping warrior's head. Shafts for shuttles, dipped in gore, Shoot the trembling cords along. Sword, that once a monarch bore, Keep the tissue close and strong. Mista, black, terrific maid, Sangrida, and Hilda, see, Join the wayward work to aid; 'Tis the woof of victory. Ere the ruddy sun be set, Pikes must shiver, javelins sing, Blade with clattering buckler meet, Hauberk crash, and helmet ring. (Weave the crimson web of war!) Let us go, and let us fly Where our friends the conflict share, Where they triumph, where they die. As the paths of fate we tread, Wading through the ensanguined field, Gondula and Geira, spread O'er the youthful king your shield. We the reins to slaughter give; Ours to kill, and ours to spare; Spite the dangers he shall live. (Weave the crimson web of war!) They whom once the desert beach Pent within its bleak domain, Soon their ample sway shall stretch O'er the plenty of the plain. Low the dauntless earl is laid, Gored with many a gaping wound; Fate demands a nobler head; Soon a king shall bite the ground. Long his loss shall Eirin weep Ne'er again his likeness see; Long her strains in sorrow steep, Strains of immortality! Horror covers all the heath; Clouds of carnage blot the sun. Sisters, weave the web of death; Sisters, cease, the work is done. Hail the task, and hail the hands! Songs of joy and triumph sing! Joy to the victorious bands Triumph to the younger king. Mortal, thou that hear'st the tale, Learn the tenor of our song. Scotland, through each winding vale Far and wide the notes prolong. Sisters, hence with spurs of speed; Each her thundering falchion wield; Each bestride her sable steed. Hurry, hurry to the field!