Written by
Sylvia Plath |
In the rectory garden on his evening walk
Paced brisk Father Shawn.
A cold day, a sodden one it was
In black November.
After a sliding rain
Dew stood in chill sweat on each stalk,
Each thorn; spiring from wet earth, a blue haze
Hung caught in dark-webbed branches like a fabulous heron.
Hauled sudden from solitude,
Hair prickling on his head,
Father Shawn perceived a ghost
Shaping itself from that mist.
'How now,' Father Shawn crisply addressed the ghost
Wavering there, gauze-edged, smelling of woodsmoke,
'What manner of business are you on?
From your blue pallor, I'd say you inhabited the frozen waste
Of hell, and not the fiery part.
Yet to judge by that dazzled look,
That noble mien, perhaps you've late quitted heaven?'
In voice furred with frost,
Ghost said to priest:
'Neither of those countries do I frequent:
Earth is my haunt.
'
'Come, come,' Father Shawn gave an impatient shrug,
'I don't ask you to spin some ridiculous fable
Of gilded harps or gnawing fire: simply tell
After your life's end, what just epilogue
God ordained to follow up your days.
Is it such trouble
To satisfy the questions of a curious old fool?'
'In life, love gnawed my skin
To this white bone;
What love did then, love does now:
Gnaws me through.
'
'What love,' asked Father Shawn, 'but too great love
Of flawed earth-flesh could cause this sorry pass?
Some damned condition you are in:
Thinking never to have left the world, you grieve
As though alive, shriveling in torment thus
To atone as shade for sin that lured blind man.
'
'The day of doom
Is not yest come.
Until that time
A crock of dust is my dear hom.
'
'Fond phantom,' cried shocked Father Shawn,
'Can there be such stubbornness--
A soul grown feverish, clutching its dead body-tree
Like a last storm-crossed leaf? Best get you gone
To judgment in a higher court of grace.
Repent, depart, before God's trump-crack splits the sky.
'
From that pale mist
Ghost swore to priest:
'There sits no higher court
Than man's red heart.
'
|
Written by
Denise Levertov |
From the tawny light
from the rainy nights
from the imagination finding
itself and more than itself
alone and more than alone
at the bottom of the well where the moon lives,
can you pull me
into December? a lowland
of space, perception of space
towering of shadows of clouds blown upon
clouds over new ground, new made
under heavy December footsteps? the only
way to live?
The flawed moon acts on the truth, and makes
an autumn of tentative silences.
You lived, but somewhere else,
your presence touched others, ring upon ring,
and changed.
Did you think I would not change?
The black moon turns away, its work done.
A tenderness, unspoken autumn.
We are faithful only to the imagination.
What the imagination seizes as beauty must be truth.
What holds you to what you see of me is
that grasp alone.
|
Written by
Amy Lowell |
Bath
The day is fresh-washed and fair, and there is
a smell of tulips and narcissus
in the air.
The sunshine pours in at the bath-room window and
bores through the water
in the bath-tub in lathes and planes of greenish-white.
It
cleaves the water
into flaws like a jewel, and cracks it to bright light.
Little spots of sunshine lie on the surface of
the water and dance, dance,
and their reflections wobble deliciously over the ceiling; a stir
of my finger
sets them whirring, reeling.
I move a foot, and the planes
of light
in the water jar.
I lie back and laugh, and let the green-white
water,
the sun-flawed beryl water, flow over me.
The day is
almost
too bright to bear, the green water covers me from the too bright
day.
I will lie here awhile and play with the water and the sun spots.
The sky is blue and high.
A crow flaps
by the window, and there is
a whiff of tulips and narcissus in the air.
Breakfast Table
In the fresh-washed sunlight, the breakfast table
is decked and white.
It offers itself in flat surrender, tendering tastes, and smells,
and colours, and metals, and grains, and the white cloth falls over
its side,
draped and wide.
Wheels of white glitter in the silver
coffee-pot,
hot and spinning like catherine-wheels, they whirl, and twirl --
and my eyes
begin to smart, the little white, dazzling wheels prick them like
darts.
Placid and peaceful, the rolls of bread spread themselves in the
sun to bask.
A stack of butter-pats, pyramidal, shout orange through the white,
scream,
flutter, call: "Yellow! Yellow! Yellow!" Coffee
steam rises in a stream,
clouds the silver tea-service with mist, and twists up into the
sunlight,
revolved, involuted, suspiring higher and higher, fluting in a thin
spiral
up the high blue sky.
A crow flies by and croaks at the
coffee steam.
The day is new and fair with good smells in the air.
Walk
Over the street the white clouds meet, and sheer
away without touching.
On the sidewalks, boys are playing marbles.
Glass
marbles,
with amber and blue hearts, roll together and part with a sweet
clashing noise.
The boys strike them with black and red
striped agates.
The glass marbles spit crimson when they are hit, and slip into
the gutters
under rushing brown water.
I smell tulips and narcissus
in the air,
but there are no flowers anywhere, only white dust whipping up the
street,
and a girl with a gay Spring hat and blowing skirts.
The
dust and the wind
flirt at her ankles and her neat, high-heeled patent leather shoes.
Tap,
tap,
the little heels pat the pavement, and the wind rustles among the
flowers
on her hat.
A water-cart crawls slowly on the other side of
the way.
It is green and gay
with new paint, and rumbles contentedly, sprinkling clear water
over
the white dust.
Clear zigzagging water, which smells
of tulips and narcissus.
The thickening branches make a pink `grisaille'
against the blue sky.
Whoop! The clouds go dashing at each
other and sheer away just in time.
Whoop! And a man's hat careers down the street in front
of the white dust,
leaps into the branches of a tree, veers away and trundles ahead
of the wind,
jarring the sunlight into spokes of rose-colour and green.
A motor-car cuts a swathe through the bright air,
sharp-beaked, irresistible,
shouting to the wind to make way.
A glare of dust and
sunshine
tosses together behind it, and settles down.
The sky
is quiet and high,
and the morning is fair with fresh-washed air.
Midday and Afternoon
Swirl of crowded streets.
Shock and
recoil of traffic.
The stock-still
brick facade of an old church, against which the waves of people
lurch and withdraw.
Flare of sunshine down side-streets.
Eddies
of light
in the windows of chemists' shops, with their blue, gold, purple
jars,
darting colours far into the crowd.
Loud bangs and tremors,
murmurings out of high windows, whirring of machine belts,
blurring of horses and motors.
A quick spin and shudder
of brakes
on an electric car, and the jar of a church-bell knocking against
the metal blue of the sky.
I am a piece of the town,
a bit of blown dust,
thrust along with the crowd.
Proud to feel the pavement
under me,
reeling with feet.
Feet tripping, skipping, lagging,
dragging,
plodding doggedly, or springing up and advancing on firm elastic
insteps.
A boy is selling papers, I smell them clean and new from the press.
They are fresh like the air, and pungent as tulips and narcissus.
The blue sky pales to lemon, and great tongues
of gold blind the shop-windows,
putting out their contents in a flood of flame.
Night and Sleep
The day takes her ease in slippered yellow.
Electric
signs gleam out
along the shop fronts, following each other.
They grow,
and grow,
and blow into patterns of fire-flowers as the sky fades.
Trades
scream
in spots of light at the unruffled night.
Twinkle, jab,
snap, that means
a new play; and over the way: plop, drop, quiver, is
the sidelong
sliver of a watchmaker's sign with its length on another street.
A gigantic mug of beer effervesces to the atmosphere over a tall
building,
but the sky is high and has her own stars, why should she heed ours?
I leave the city with speed.
Wheels
whirl to take me back to my trees
and my quietness.
The breeze which blows with me is fresh-washed
and clean,
it has come but recently from the high sky.
There are
no flowers
in bloom yet, but the earth of my garden smells of tulips and narcissus.
My room is tranquil and friendly.
Out
of the window I can see
the distant city, a band of twinkling gems, little flower-heads
with no stems.
I cannot see the beer-glass, nor the letters of the restaurants
and shops
I passed, now the signs blur and all together make the city,
glowing on a night of fine weather, like a garden stirring and blowing
for the Spring.
The night is fresh-washed and fair and there is
a whiff of flowers in the air.
Wrap me close, sheets of lavender.
Pour
your blue and purple dreams
into my ears.
The breeze whispers at the shutters and
mutters
***** tales of old days, and cobbled streets, and youths leaping
their horses
down marble stairways.
Pale blue lavender, you are the
colour of the sky
when it is fresh-washed and fair .
.
.
I smell the stars .
.
.
they
are like
tulips and narcissus .
.
.
I smell them in the air.
|
Written by
William Vaughn Moody |
Between the rice swamps and the fields of tea
I met a sacred elephant, snow-white.
Upon his back a huge pagoda towered
Full of brass gods and food of sacrifice.
Upon his forehead sat a golden throne,
The massy metal twisted into shapes
Grotesque, antediluvian, such as move
In myth or have their broken images
Sealed in the stony middle of the hills.
A peacock spread his thousand dyes to screen
The yellow sunlight from the head of one
Who sat upon the throne, clad stiff with gems,
Heirlooms of dynasties of buried kings,--
Himself the likeness of a buried king,
With frozen gesture and unfocused eyes.
The trappings of the beast were over-scrawled
With broideries--sea-shapes and flying things,
Fan-trees and dwarfed nodosities of pine,
Mixed with old alphabets, and faded lore
Fallen from ecstatic mouths before the Flood,
Or gathered by the daughters when they walked
Eastward in Eden with the Sons of God
Whom love and the deep moon made garrulous
Between the carven tusks his trunk hung dead;
Blind as the eyes of pearl in Buddha's brow
His beaded eyes stared thwart upon the road;
And feebler than the doting knees of eid,
His joints, of size to swing the builder's crane
Across the war-walls of the Anakim,
Made vain and shaken haste.
Good need was his
To hasten: panting, foaming, on the slot
Came many brutes of prey, their several hates
Laid by until the sharing of the spoil.
Just as they gathered stomach for the leap,
The sun was darkened, and wide-balanced wings
Beat downward on the trade-wind from the sea.
A wheel of shadow sped along the fields
And o'er the dreaming cities.
Suddenly
My heart misgave me, and I cried aloud,
"Alas! What dost thou here? What dost thou here? "
The great beasts and the little halted sharp,
Eyed the grand circler, doubting his intent.
Straightway the wind flawed and he came about,
Stooping to take the vanward of the pack;
Then turned, between the chasers and the chased,
Crying a word I could not understand,--
But stiller-tongued, with eyes somewhat askance,
They settled to the slot and disappeared.
|
Written by
Robert William Service |
Of course you've heard of the Nancy Lee, and how she sailed away
On her famous quest of the Arctic flea, to the wilds of Hudson's Bay?
For it was a foreign Prince's whim to collect this tiny cuss,
And a golden quid was no more to him than a copper to coves like us.
So we sailed away and our hearts were gay as we gazed on the gorgeous scene;
And we laughed with glee as we caught the flea of the wolf and the wolverine;
Yea, our hearts were light as the parasite of the ermine rat we slew,
And the great musk ox, and the silver fox, and the moose and the caribou.
And we laughed with zest as the insect pest of the marmot crowned our zeal,
And the wary mink and the wily "link", and the walrus and the seal.
And with eyes aglow on the scornful snow we danced a rigadoon,
Round the lonesome lair of the Arctic hare, by the light of the silver moon.
But the time was nigh to homeward hie, when, imagine our despair!
For the best of the lot we hadn't got -- the flea of the polar bear.
Oh, his face was long and his breath was strong, as the Skipper he says to me:
"I wants you to linger 'ere, my lad, by the shores of the Hartic Sea;
I wants you to 'unt the polar bear the perishin' winter through,
And if flea ye find of its breed and kind, there's a 'undred quid for you.
"
But I shook my head: "No, Cap," I said; "it's yourself I'd like to please,
But I tells ye flat I wouldn't do that if ye went on yer bended knees.
"
Then the Captain spat in the seething brine, and he says: "Good luck to you,
If it can't be did for a 'undred quid, supposin' we call it two?"
So that was why they said good-by, and they sailed and left me there --
Alone, alone in the Arctic Zone to hunt for the polar bear.
Oh, the days were slow and packed with woe, till I thought they would never end;
And I used to sit when the fire was lit, with my pipe for my only friend.
And I tried to sing some rollicky thing, but my song broke off in a prayer,
And I'd drowse and dream by the driftwood gleam; I'd dream of a polar bear;
I'd dream of a cloudlike polar bear that blotted the stars on high,
With ravenous jaws and flenzing claws, and the flames of hell in his eye.
And I'd trap around on the frozen ground, as a proper hunter ought,
And beasts I'd find of every kind, but never the one I sought.
Never a track in the white ice-pack that humped and heaved and flawed,
Till I came to think: "Why, strike me pink! if the creature ain't a fraud.
"
And then one night in the waning light, as I hurried home to sup,
I hears a roar by the cabin door, and a great white hulk heaves up.
So my rifle flashed, and a bullet crashed; dead, dead as a stone fell he,
And I gave a cheer, for there in his ear -- Gosh ding me! -- a tiny flea.
At last, at last! Oh, I clutched it fast, and I gazed on it with pride;
And I thrust it into a biscuit-tin, and I shut it safe inside;
With a lid of glass for the light to pass, and space to leap and play;
Oh, it kept alive; yea, seemed to thrive, as I watched it night and day.
And I used to sit and sing to it, and I shielded it from harm,
And many a hearty feed it had on the heft of my hairy arm.
For you'll never know in that land of snow how lonesome a man can feel;
So I made a fuss of the little cuss, and I christened it "Lucille".
But the longest winter has its end, and the ice went out to sea,
And I saw one day a ship in the bay, and there was the Nancy Lee.
So a boat was lowered and I went aboard, and they opened wide their eyes --
Yes, they gave a cheer when the truth was clear, and they saw my precious prize.
And then it was all like a giddy dream; but to cut my story short,
We sailed away on the fifth of May to the foreign Prince's court;
To a palmy land and a palace grand, and the little Prince was there,
And a fat Princess in a satin dress with a crown of gold on her hair.
And they showed me into a shiny room, just him and her and me,
And the Prince he was pleased and friendly-like, and he calls for drinks for three.
And I shows them my battered biscuit-tin, and I makes my modest spiel,
And they laughed, they did, when I opened the lid, and out there popped Lucille.
Oh, the Prince was glad, I could soon see that, and the Princess she was too;
And Lucille waltzed round on the tablecloth as she often used to do.
And the Prince pulled out a purse of gold, and he put it in my hand;
And he says: "It was worth all that, I'm told, to stay in that nasty land.
"
And then he turned with a sudden cry, and he clutched at his royal beard;
And the Princess screamed, and well she might -- for Lucille had disappeared.
"She must be here," said his Noble Nibbs, so we hunted all around;
Oh, we searched that place, but never a trace of the little beast we found.
So I shook my head, and I glumly said: "Gol darn the saucy cuss!
It's mighty *****, but she isn't here; so .
.
.
she must be on one of us.
You'll pardon me if I make so free, but -- there's just one thing to do:
If you'll kindly go for a half a mo' I'll search me garments through.
"
Then all alone on the shiny throne I stripped from head to heel;
In vain, in vain; it was very plain that I hadn't got Lucille.
So I garbed again, and I told the Prince, and he scratched his august head;
"I suppose if she hasn't selected you, it must be me," he said.
So he retired; but he soon came back, and his features showed distress:
"Oh, it isn't you and it isn't me.
" .
.
.
Then we looked at the Princess.
So she retired; and we heard a scream, and she opened wide the door;
And her fingers twain were pinched to pain, but a radiant smile she wore:
"It's here," she cries, "our precious prize.
Oh, I found it right away.
.
.
.
"
Then I ran to her with a shout of joy, but I choked with a wild dismay.
I clutched the back of the golden throne, and the room began to reel .
.
.
What she held to me was, ah yes! a flea, but .
.
.
it wasn't my Lucille.
|
Written by
Louise Bogan |
I burned my life, that I may find
A passion wholly of the mind,
Thought divorced from eye and bone
Ecstasy come to breath alone.
I broke my life, to seek relief
From the flawed light of love and grief.
With mounting beat the utter fire
Charred existence and desire.
It died low, ceased its sudden thresh.
I had found unmysterious flesh--
Not the mind's avid substance--still
Passionate beyond the will.
|
Written by
Rg Gregory |
heeley (sheffield) autumn 1988
dodging the broken bottles
dog-**** the pavement spew
i wheel my young son matthew
through the heeley streets
shop to shop this early
morning (short of milk)
unsettled day - the sun
comes through the clouds in
ragged strips where windy
rain has had the night
to puff and piddle
puddles idle in
the dips of surfaces
neglected for decades
another place where caring's
lost a public vision
only detritus of hope
dares poke its battered
visage out of doors
no pride here on pavements
what's local's long been
squashed - wealth's dogs
prefer more stately
avenues to piss up
the air is fresh
i'm moving briskly
getting a lift from
my negotiating skills
take a buggy on
two wheels to skirt
a sudden pool a twirl
past faeces - a kind of
hop-scotch over jags
of milky glass - and come
to stop on a hillside
where slopes of grass drop
sleekly on what were
backs of houses
i'm out of breath
a darkness ripples
past my eyes and knocks
on my unfitness
i am locked for one
brief aeon as a rock
that's held its place upon
this hill inscrutably
a wildness explodes
from every blade of grass
i touch upon deep springs
(a healing flow upsurging
through the **** and glass
the torn-down homes)
my body's lapped - my
old eyes washed of dirt
a comb's gone through the
landscape at my feet
the muck's redeemed
a larger time lets
nothing be what is
but everything is used
for what is coming
today-defunct breeds
trees that bloom tomorrow
nothing's next step on
is one - what's poor is
where new worlds are just
beginning - the ****
spew glass the death
of hope have done their time
(cartons which the future's
thrown away as minds
and spirits snout amongst
the refuse seeking forms
to dress their fresh selves in)
the meek are gathered
in millions on this hill
disparaged destitute
of any say in this
dead time as others
roll their tongues
round easy riches
but here's the future
too - a start of ages
a cry whose agony's
a pinprick or a seedling
a drib of red and green
the statute's blind to
across the valley
sheffield snarls itself
to this day's life
its smoke-tuned buildings
boxed-in by the past
(upheavals mortised in
its joints make it confused)
for all its roar it
slumbers through its present
wanting its glory back
the talk of its old
workers flawed with steely
pride (that stainless stain)
there's no dawn there - its power
and wealth have long borne
all its sons away
it's in the detritus
i stand in (in this mix
of race and stymied
passion heeley has become
- and all such cast-off
cesspits of our dreams)
the not-yet written
songs of human dignity
are not yet being sung
the shudder leaves me
i'm just this oldish
man with his youngest son
pushing a buggy through
scarred heeley streets
more concerned to get
no **** upon the wheels
than to hold a sand-grain
to the world and turn
its atoms inside out
i'll not live to see
the newlaid honest
pavements going down
and houses have that look
within their glass that sings
of confidence-returned
i push on up the hill
(to where my oldest son
has done his house up)
once more safely in
the compound of my
aging flesh talking
with matthew playing
buggy games
triumphant
only that after
so many sorry shops
i'd found one that did
sell milk - the morning
cup of tea reclaimed
the real world put to rights
|
Written by
Algernon Charles Swinburne |
Am I not he that hath made thee and begotten thee,
I, God, the spirit of man?
Wherefore now these eighteen years hast thou forgotten me,
From whom thy life began?
Thy life-blood and thy life-breath and thy beauty,
Thy might of hands and feet,
Thy soul made strong for divinity of duty
And service which was sweet.
Through the red sea brimmed with blood didst thou not follow me,
As one that walks in trance?
Was the storm strong to break or the sea to swallow thee,
When thou wast free and France?
I am Freedom, God and man, O France, that plead with thee;
How long now shall I plead?
Was I not with thee in travail, and in need with thee,
Thy sore travail and need?
Thou wast fairest and first of my virgin-vested daughters,
Fairest and foremost thou;
And thy breast was white, though thy hands were red with slaughters,
Thy breast, a harlot's now.
O foolish virgin and fair among the fallen,
A ruin where satyrs dance,
A garden wasted for beasts to crawl and brawl in,
What hast thou done with France?
Where is she who bared her bosom but to thunder,
Her brow to storm and flame,
And before her face was the red sea cloven in sunder
And all its waves made tame?
And the surf wherein the broad-based rocks were shaking
She saw far off divide,
At the blast of the breath of the battle blown and breaking,
And weight of wind and tide;
And the ravin and the ruin of throned nations
And every royal race,
And the kingdoms and kings from the state of their high stations
That fell before her face.
Yea, great was the fall of them, all that rose against her,
From the earth's old-historied heights;
For my hands were fire, and my wings as walls that fenced her,
Mine eyes as pilot-lights.
Not as guerdons given of kings the gifts I brought her,
Not strengths that pass away;
But my heart, my breath of life, O France, O daughter,
I gave thee in that day.
Yea, the heart's blood of a very God I gave thee,
Breathed in thy mouth his breath;
Was my word as a man's, having no more strength to save thee
From this worse thing than death?
Didst thou dream of it only, the day that I stood nigh thee,
Was all its light a dream?
When that iron surf roared backwards and went by thee
Unscathed of storm or stream:
When thy sons rose up and thy young men stood together,
One equal face of fight,
And my flag swam high as the swimming sea-foam's feather,
Laughing, a lamp of light?
Ah the lordly laughter and light of it, that lightened
Heaven-high, the heaven's whole length!
Ah the hearts of heroes pierced, the bright lips whitened
Of strong men in their strength!
Ah the banner-poles, the stretch of straightening streamers
Straining their full reach out!
Ah the men's hands making true the dreams of dreamers,
The hopes brought forth in doubt!
Ah the noise of horse, the charge and thunder of drumming,
And swaying and sweep of swords!
Ah the light that led them through of the world's life coming,
Clear of its lies and lords!
By the lightning of the lips of guns whose flashes
Made plain the strayed world's way;
By the flame that left her dead old sins in ashes,
Swept out of sight of day;
By thy children whose bare feet were shod with thunder,
Their bare hands mailed with fire;
By the faith that went with them, waking fear and wonder,
Heart's love and high desire;
By the tumult of the waves of nations waking
Blind in the loud wide night;
By the wind that went on the world's waste waters, making
Their marble darkness white,
As the flash of the flakes of the foam flared lamplike, leaping
From wave to gladdening wave,
Making wide the fast-shut eyes of thraldom sleeping
The sleep of the unclean grave;
By the fire of equality, terrible, devouring,
Divine, that brought forth good;
By the lands it purged and wasted and left flowering
With bloom of brotherhood;
By the lips of fraternity that for love's sake uttered
Fierce words and fires of death,
But the eyes were deep as love's, and the fierce lips fluttered
With love's own living breath;
By thy weaponed hands, brows helmed, and bare feet spurning
The bared head of a king;
By the storm of sunrise round thee risen and burning,
Why hast thou done this thing?
Thou hast mixed thy limbs with the son of a harlot, a stranger,
Mouth to mouth, limb to limb,
Thou, bride of a God, because of the bridesman Danger,
To bring forth seed to him.
For thou thoughtest inly, the terrible bridegroom wakes me,
When I would sleep, to go;
The fire of his mouth consumes, and the red kiss shakes me,
More bitter than a blow.
Rise up, my beloved, go forth to meet the stranger,
Put forth thine arm, he saith;
Fear thou not at all though the bridesman should be Danger,
The bridesmaid should be Death.
I the bridegroom, am I not with thee, O bridal nation,
O wedded France, to strive?
To destroy the sins of the earth with divine devastation,
Till none be left alive?
Lo her growths of sons, foliage of men and frondage,
Broad boughs of the old-world tree,
With iron of shame and with pruning-hooks of bondage
They are shorn from sea to sea.
Lo, I set wings to thy feet that have been wingless,
Till the utter race be run;
Till the priestless temples cry to the thrones made kingless,
Are we not also undone?
Till the immeasurable Republic arise and lighten
Above these quick and dead,
And her awful robes be changed, and her red robes whiten,
Her warring-robes of red.
But thou wouldst not, saying, I am weary and faint to follow,
Let me lie down and rest;
And hast sought out shame to sleep with, mire to wallow,
Yea, a much fouler breast:
And thine own hast made prostitute, sold and shamed and bared it,
Thy bosom which was mine,
And the bread of the word I gave thee hast soiled, and shared it
Among these snakes and swine.
As a harlot thou wast handled and polluted,
Thy faith held light as foam,
That thou sentest men thy sons, thy sons imbruted,
To slay thine elder Rome.
Therefore O harlot, I gave thee to the accurst one,
By night to be defiled,
To thy second shame, and a fouler than the first one,
That got thee first with child.
Yet I know thee turning back now to behold me,
To bow thee and make thee bare,
Not for sin's sake but penitence, by my feet to hold me,
And wipe them with thine hair.
And sweet ointment of thy grief thou hast brought thy master,
And set before thy lord,
From a box of flawed and broken alabaster,
Thy broken spirit, poured.
And love-offerings, tears and perfumes, hast thou given me,
To reach my feet and touch;
Therefore thy sins, which are many, are forgiven thee,
Because thou hast loved much.
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Written by
Elinor Wylie |
When against earth a wooden heel
Clicks as loud as stone on steel,
When stone turns flour instead of flakes,
And frost bakes clay as fire bakes,
When the hard-bitten fields at last
Crack like iron flawed in the cast,
When the world is wicked and cross and old,
I long to be quit of the cruel cold.
Little birds like bubbles of glass
Fly to other Americas,
Birds as bright as sparkles of wine
Fly in the nite to the Argentine,
Birds of azure and flame-birds go
To the tropical Gulf of Mexico:
They chase the sun, they follow the heat,
It is sweet in their bones, O sweet, sweet, sweet!
It's not with them that I'd love to be,
But under the roots of the balsam tree.
Just as the spiniest chestnut-burr
Is lined within with the finest fur,
So the stoney-walled, snow-roofed house
Of every squirrel and mole and mouse
Is lined with thistledown, sea-gull's feather,
Velvet mullein-leaf, heaped together
With balsam and juniper, dry and curled,
Sweeter than anything else in the world.
O what a warm and darksome nest
Where the wildest things are hidden to rest!
It's there that I'd love to lie and sleep,
Soft, soft, soft, and deep, deep, deep!
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Written by
Edwin Arlington Robinson |
I say no more for Clavering
Than I should say of him who fails
To bring his wounded vessel home
When reft of rudder and of sails;
I say no more than I should say
Of any other one who sees
Too far for guidance of to-day,
Too near for the eternities.
I think of him as I should think
Of one who for scant wages played,
And faintly, a flawed instrument
That fell while it was being made;
I think of him as one who fared,
Unfaltering and undeceived,
Amid mirages of renown
And urgings of the unachieved;
I think of him as one who gave
To Lingard leave to be amused,
And listened with a patient grace
That we, the wise ones, had refused;
I think of metres that he wrote
For Cubit, the ophidian guest:
“What Lilith, or Dark Lady”… Well,
Time swallows Cubit with the rest.
I think of last words that he said
One midnight over Calverly:
“Good-by—good man.
” He was not good;
So Clavering was wrong, you see.
I wonder what had come to pass
Could he have borrowed for a spell
The fiery-frantic indolence
That made a ghost of Leffingwell;
I wonder if he pitied us
Who cautioned him till he was gray
To build his house with ours on earth
And have an end of yesterday;
I wonder what it was we saw
To make us think that we were strong;
I wonder if he saw too much,
Or if he looked one way too long.
But when were thoughts or wonderings
To ferret out the man within?
Why prate of what he seemed to be,
And all that he might not have been?
He clung to phantoms and to friends,
And never came to anything.
He left a wreath on Cubit’s grave.
I say no more for Clavering.
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