by
D. H. Lawrence
You know what it is to be born alone,
Baby tortoise!
The first day to heave your feet little by little from the shell,
Not yet awake,
And remain lapsed on earth,
Not quite alive.
A tiny, fragile, half-animate bean.
To open your tiny beak-mouth, that looks as if it would never open,
Like some iron door;
To lift the upper hawk-beak from the lower base
And reach your skinny little neck
And take your first bite at some dim bit of herbage,
Alone, small insect,
Tiny bright-eye,
Slow one.
To take your first solitary bite
And move on your slow, solitary hunt.
Your bright, dark little eye,
Your eye of a dark disturbed night,
Under its slow lid, tiny baby tortoise,
So indomitable.
No one ever heard you complain.
You draw your head forward, slowly, from your little wimple
And set forward, slow-dragging, on your four-pinned toes, Rowing slowly forward.
Whither away, small bird?
Rather like a baby working its limbs,
Except that you make slow, ageless progress
And a baby makes none.
The touch of sun excites you,
And the long ages, and the lingering chill
Make you pause to yawn,
Opening your impervious mouth,
Suddenly beak-shaped, and very wide, like some suddenly gaping pincers;
Soft red tongue, and hard thin gums,
Then close the wedge of your little mountain front,
Your face, baby tortoise.
Do you wonder at the world, as slowly you turn your head in its wimple
And look with laconic, black eyes?
Or is sleep coming over you again,
The non-life?
You are so hard to wake.
Are you able to wonder?
Or is it just your indomitable will and pride of the first life
Looking round
And slowly pitching itself against the inertia
Which had seemed invincible?
The vast inanimate,
And the fine brilliance of your so tiny eye,
Challenger.
Nay, tiny shell-bird,
What a huge vast inanimate it is, that you must row against,
What an incalculable inertia.
Challenger,
Little Ulysses, fore-runner,
No bigger than my thumb-nail,
Buon viaggio.
All animate creation on your shoulder,
Set forth, little Titan, under your battle-shield.
The ponderous, preponderate,
Inanimate universe;
And you are slowly moving, pioneer, you alone.
How vivid your travelling seems now, in the troubled sunshine,
Stoic, Ulyssean atom;
Suddenly hasty, reckless, on high toes.
Voiceless little bird,
Resting your head half out of your wimple
In the slow dignity of your eternal pause.
Alone, with no sense of being alone,
And hence six times more solitary;
Fulfilled of the slow passion of pitching through immemorial ages
Your little round house in the midst of chaos.
Over the garden earth,
Small bird,
Over the edge of all things.
Traveller,
With your tail tucked a little on one side
Like a gentleman in a long-skirted coat.
All life carried on your shoulder,
Invincible fore-runner.
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by
John Dryden
From Harmony, from heavenly Harmony
This universal frame began:
When nature underneath a heap
Of jarring atoms lay
And could not heave her head,
The tuneful voice was heard from high,
Arise, ye more than dead!
Then cold, and hot, and moist, and dry
In order to their stations leap,
And Music's power obey.
From Harmony, from heavenly harmony
This universal frame began:
From harmony to harmony
Through all the compass of the notes it ran,
The diapason closing full in Man.
What passion cannot Music raise and quell?
When Jubal struck the chorded shell
His listening brethren stood around,
And, wondering, on their faces fell
To worship that celestial sound.
Less than a god they thought there could not dwell
Within the hollow of that shell
That spoke so sweetly and so well.
What passion cannot Music raise and quell?
The trumpet's loud clangour
Excites us to arms,
With shrill notes of anger
And mortal alarms.
The double double double beat
Of the thundering drum
Cries 'Hark! the foes come;
Charge, charge, 'tis too late to retreat!'
The soft complaining flute
In dying notes discovers
The woes of hopeless lovers,
Whose dirge is whisper'd by the warbling lute.
Sharp violins proclaim
Their jealous pangs and desperation,
Fury, frantic indignation,
Depths of pains, and height of passion
For the fair disdainful dame.
But oh! what art can teach,
What human voice can reach
The sacred organ's praise?
Notes inspiring holy love,
Notes that wing their heavenly ways
To mend the choirs above.
Orpheus could lead the savage race,
And trees unrooted left their place
Sequacious of the lyre:
But bright Cecilia raised the wonder higher:
When to her Organ vocal breath was given
An angel heard, and straight appear'd—
Mistaking Earth for Heaven.
Grand Chorus:
As from the power of sacred lays
The spheres began to move,
And sung the great Creator's praise
To all the blest above;
So when the last and dreadful hour
This crumbling pageant shall devour,
The trumpet shall be heard on high,
The dead shall live, the living die,
And music shall untune the sky.
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by
Aleister Crowley
How many million galaxies there are
Who knows? and each has countless stars in it,
And each rolls through eternities afar
Beneath the threshold of the Infinite.
How is it that will all that space to roam
I should have found this mote that spins and leaps
In what unutterable sunlight, foam
Of what unfathomable starry deeps
Who knows!? And how this thousand million souls
And half a thousand million souls of earth
That swarm, all bound for unimagined goals,
All pioneers of death enrolled at birth,
How were they swept away before my sight,
That I might stand upon the single prick
Of infinite space and time as infinite,
Who knows? Yet here I stand, climacteric,
Having found you. Was it by fall of chance?
Then what a stake against what odds I have won!
Was it determined in God's ordinance?
Then wondrous love and pity for His son!
Or was it part of an eternal law?
Then how ineffably beneficent!
Each thought excites an ecstasy of awe,
A rapture rending the mind's firmament.
Infinity -yet you and I have met.
Eternity -yet hand in hand we run.
All odds that I should lose you or forget,
But, soul and spirit and body, we are one.
Is this the child of Chance, or Law, or Will?
Is None or All or One to thank for this?
It will not matter if thanksgiving fill
The endless empyrean with a kiss.
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by
Andrew Barton Paterson
The strongest creature for his size
But least equipped for combat
That dwells beneath Australian skies
Is Weary Will the Wombat.
He digs his homestead underground,
He's neither shrewd nor clever;
For kangaroos can leap and bound
But wombats dig forever.
The boundary rider's netting fence
Excites his irritation;
It is to his untutored sense
His pet abomination.
And when to pass it he desires,
Upon his task he'll centre
And dig a hole beneath the wires
Through which the dingoes enter.
And when to block the hole they strain
With logs and stones and rubble,
Bill Wombat digs it out again
Without the slightest trouble.
The boundary rider bows to fate,
Admits he's made a blunder
And rigs a little swinging gate
To let Bill Wombat under.
So most contentedly he goes
Between his haunt and burrow:
He does the only thing he knows,
And does it very thorough.
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by
Francesco Petrarch
[Pg 76] CANZONE X. Poichè per mio destino. IN PRAISE OF LAURA'S EYES: IN THEM HE FINDS EVERY GOOD, AND HE CAN NEVER CEASE TO PRAISE THEM. Since then by destinyI am compell'd to sing the strong desire,Which here condemns me ceaselessly to sigh,May Love, whose quenchless fireExcites me, be my guide and point the way,And in the sweet task modulate my lay:But gently be it, lest th' o'erpowering themeInflame and sting me, lest my fond heart mayDissolve in too much softness, which I deem,From its sad state, may be:For in me—hence my terror and distress!Not now as erst I seeJudgment to keep my mind's great passion less:Nay, rather from mine own thoughts melt I so,As melts before the summer sun the snow. At first I fondly thoughtCommuning with mine ardent flame to winSome brief repose, some time of truce within:This was the hope which broughtMe courage what I suffer'd to explain,Now, now it leaves me martyr to my pain:But still, continuing mine amorous song,Must I the lofty enterprise maintain;So powerful is the wish that in me glows,That Reason, which so longRestrain'd it, now no longer can oppose.Then teach me, Love, to singIn such frank guise, that ever if the earOf my sweet foe should chance the notes to hear,Pity, I ask no more, may in her spring. If, as in other times,When kindled to true virtue was mankind,The genius, energy of man could findEntrance in divers climes,Mountains and seas o'erpassing, seeking thereHonour, and culling oft its garland fair,[Pg 77]Mine were such wish, not mine such need would be.From shore to shore my weary course to trace,Since God, and Love, and Nature deign for meEach virtue and each graceIn those dear eyes where I rejoice to place.In life to them must ITurn as to founts whence peace and safety swell:And e'en were death, which else I fear not, nigh,Their sight alone would teach me to be well. As, vex'd by the fierce wind,The weary sailor lifts at night his gazeTo the twin lights which still our pole displays,So, in the storms unkindOf Love which I sustain, in those bright eyesMy guiding light and only solace lies:But e'en in this far more is due to theft,Which, taught by Love, from time to time, I makeOf secret glances than their gracious gift:Yet that, though rare and slight,Makes me from them perpetual model take;Since first they blest my sightNothing of good without them have I tried,Placing them over me to guard and guide,Because mine own worth held itself but light. Never the full effectCan I imagine, and describe it lessWhich o'er my heart those soft eyes still possess!As worthless I rejectAnd mean all other joys that life confers,E'en as all other beauties yield to hers.A tranquil peace, alloy'd by no distress,Such as in heaven eternally abides,Moves from their lovely and bewitching smile.So could I gaze, the whileLove, at his sweet will, governs them and guides,—E'en though the sun were nigh,Resting above us on his onward wheel—On her, intensely with undazzled eye,Nor of myself nor others think or feel. Ah! that I should desireThings that can never in this world be won,[Pg 78]Living on wishes hopeless to acquire.Yet, were the knot undone,Wherewith my weak tongue Love is wont to bind,Checking its speech, when her sweet face puts onAll its great charms, then would I courage find,Words on that point so apt and new to use,As should make weep whoe'er might hear the tale.But the old wounds I bear,Stamp'd on my tortured heart, such power refuse;Then grow I weak and pale,And my blood hides itself I know not where;Nor as I was remain I: hence I knowLove dooms my death and this the fatal blow. Farewell, my song! already do I seeHeavily in my hand the tired pen moveFrom its long dear discourse with her I love;Not so my thoughts from communing with me.
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by
Mary Darby Robinson
Chill penury repress'd his noble rage,
And froze the genial current of his soul.
GRAY.
IF GRIEF can deprecate the wrath of Heaven,
Or human frailty hope to be forgiven !
Ere now thy sainted spirit bends its way
To the bland regions of celestial day;
Ere now, thy soul, immers'd in purest air
Smiles at the triumphs of supreme Despair;
Or bath'd in seas of endless bliss, disdains
The vengeful memory of mortal pains;
Yet shall the MUSE a fond memorial give
To shield thy name, and bid thy GENIUS live.
Too proud for pity, and too poor for praise,
No voice to cherish, and no hand to raise;
Torn, stung, and sated, with this "mortal coil,"
This weary, anxious scene of fruitless toil;
Not all the graces that to youth belong,
Nor all the energies of sacred song;
Nor all that FANCY, all that GENIUS gave,
Could snatch thy wounded spirit from the grave.
Hard was thy lot, from every comfort torn;
In POVERTY'S cold arms condemn'd to mourn;
To live by mental toil, e'en when the brain
Could scarce its trembling faculties sustain;
To mark the dreary minutes slowly creep:
Each day to labour, and each night to weep;
'Till the last murmur of thy frantic soul,
In proud concealment from its mansion stole,
While ENVY springing from her lurid cave,
Snatch'd the young LAURELS from thy rugged grave.
So the pale primrose, sweetest bud of May,
Scarce wakes to beauty, ere it feels decay;
While baleful weeds their hidden n poisons pour,
Choke the green sod, and wither every flow'r.
Immur'd in shades, from busy scenes remov'd;
No sound to solace,but the verse he lov'd:
No soothing numbers harmoniz'd his ear;
No feeling bosom gave his griefs a tear;
Obscurely bornno gen'rous friend he found
To lead his trembling steps o'er classic ground.
No patron fill'd his heart with flatt'ring hope,
No tutor'd lesson gave his genius scope;
Yet, while poetic ardour nerv'd each thought,
And REASON sanction'd what AMBITION taught;
He soar'd beyond the narrow spells that bind
The slow perceptions of the vulgar mind;
The fire once kindled by the breath of FAME,
Her restless pinions fann'd the glitt'ring flame;
Warm'd by its rays, he thought each vision just;
For conscious VIRTUE seldom feels DISTRUST.
Frail are the charms delusive FANCY shows,
And short the bliss her fickle smile bestows;
Yet the bright prospect pleas'd his dazzled view,
Each HOPE seem'd ripened, and each PHANTOM true;
Fill'd with delight, his unsuspecting mind
Weigh'd not the grov'ling treach'ries of mankind;
For while a niggard boon his Savants supply'd,
And NATURE'S claims subdued the voice of PRIDE:
His timid talents own'd a borrow'd name,
And gain'd by FICTION what was due to FAME.
With secret labour, and with taste refin'd,
This son of mis'ry form'd his infant mind !
When op'ning Reason's earliest scenes began,
The dawn of childhood mark'd the future man !
He scorn'd the puerile sports of vulgar boys,
His little heart aspir'd to nobler joys;
Creative Fancy wing'd his few short hours,
While soothing Hope adorn'd his path with flow'rs,
Yet FAME'S recording hand no trophy gave,
Save the sad TEARto decorate his grave.
Yet in this dark, mysterious scene of woe,
Conviction's flame shall shed a radiant glow;
His infant MUSE shall bind with nerves of fire
The sacrilegious hand that stabs its sire.
Methinks, I hear his wand'ring shade complain,
While mournful ECHO lingers on the strain;
Thro' the lone aisle his restless spirit calls,
His phantom glides along the minster's § walls;
Where many an hour his devious footsteps trod,
Ere Fate resign'd him TO HIS PITYING GOD.
Yet, shall the MUSE to gentlest sorrow prone
Adopt his cause, and make his griefs her own;
Ne'er shall her CHATTERTON's neglected name,
Fade in inglorious dreams of doubtful fame;
Shall he, whose pen immortal GENIUS gave,
Sleep unlamented in an unknown grave?
No, the fond MUSE shall spurn the base neglect,
The verse she cherish'd she shall still protect.
And if unpitied pangs the mind can move,
Or graceful numbers warm the heart to love;
If the fine raptures of poetic fire
Delight to vibrate on the trembling lyre;
If sorrow claims the kind embalming tear,
Or worth oppress'd, excites a pang sincere?
Some kindred soul shall pour the song divine,
And with the cypress bough the laurel twine,
Whose weeping leaves the wint'ry blast shall wave
In mournful murmurs o'er thy unbless'd grave.
And tho' no lofty VASE or sculptur'd BUST
Bends o'er the sod that hides thy sacred dust;
Tho' no long line of ancestry betrays
The PRIDE of RELATIVES, or POMP of PRAISE.
Tho' o'er thy name a blushing nation rears
OBLIVION'S wing to hide REFLECTION'S tears!
Still shall thy verse in dazzling lustre live,
And claim a brighter wreath THAN WEALTH CAN GIVE.
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by
Rg Gregory
in the shadow
of the flower
is the sting
the bee driven by need
uses its painful gift
to keep its sense of beauty
in proportion
it does its job with
a thoughtless dedication
its honeyed world
excites no inner space
bees are not poets
who wade through words
with too much brain
around their ankles
each itching bee-part
is attuned
to a cosmic web
each buzz miraculous
flowers put powder
on their private parts
to call the bees in
it seems a good game
much fumbling and the bee
goes home to mother
rewards ripple outwards
to many dripping tongues
bees hate anything
that gets in the way
the bee-world is exclusive
aliens - keep out
bees live on a knife-edge
between honey
and a ripped-out sting
violation propels them
in the shadow
of the nectar
is the horror
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by
Anne Killigrew
A SONG.
I.
TH'ambitious Eye that seeks alone,
Where Beauties Wonders most are shown;
Of all that bounteous Heaven displays,
Let him on bright Alinda gaze;
And in her high Example see,
All can admir'd, or wisht-for, be !
II.
An unmatch't Form, Mind like endow'd,
Estate, and Title great and proud;
A Charge Heaven dares to few commit,
So few, like her, can manage it;
Without all Blame or Envy bear.
The being Witty, Great, and Fair !
III.
So well these Murd'ring Weapons weild,
As first Herself with them to shield,
Then slaughter none in proud Disport,
Destroy those she invites to Gourt:
Great are her Charmes, but Vertue more,
She wounds no Hearts, though All adore.
IV.
'Tis Am'rous Beauty Love invites,
A Passion, like it self, excites:
The Paragon, though all admire,
Kindles in none a fond desire:
No more than those the Kings Renown
And State applaud, affect his Crown.
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