Written by
Donald Justice |
1
Dear ghosts, dear presences, O my dear parents,
Why were you so sad on porches, whispering?
What great melancholies were loosed among our swings!
As before a storm one hears the leaves whispering
And marks each small change in the atmosphere,
So was it then to overhear and to fear.
2
But all things then were oracle and secret.
Remember the night when, lost, returning, we turned back
Confused, and our headlights singled out the fox?
Our thoughts went with it then, turning and turning back
With the same terror, into the deep thicket
Beside the highway, at home in the dark thicket.
3
I say the wood within is the dark wood,
Or wound no torn shirt can entirely bandage,
But the sad hand returns to it in secret
Repeatedly, encouraging the bandage
To speak of that other world we might have borne,
The lost world buried before it could be born.
4
Burchfield describes the pinched white souls of violets
Frothing the mouth of a derelict old mine
Just as an evil August night comes down,
All umber, but for one smudge of dusky carmine.
It is the sky of a peculiar sadness—
The other side perhaps of some rare gladness.
5
What is it to be happy, after all? Think
Of the first small joys. Think of how our parents
Would whistle as they packed for the long summers,
Or, busy about the usual tasks of parents,
Smile down at us suddenly for some secret reason,
Or simply smile, not needing any reason.
6
But even in the summers we remember
The forest had its eyes, the sea its voices,
And there were roads no map would ever master,
Lost roads and moonless nights and ancient voices—
And night crept down with an awful slowness toward the water;
And there were lanterns once, doubled in the water.
7
Sadness has its own beauty, of course. Toward dusk,
Let us say, the river darkens and look bruised,
And we stand looking out at it through rain.
It is as if life itself were somehow bruised
And tender at this hour; and a few tears commence.
Not that they are but that they feel immense.
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Written by
Robert William Service |
I drink my fill of foamy ale
I sing a song, I tell a tale,
I play the fiddle;
My throat is chronically dry,
Yet savant of a sort am I,
And Life's my riddle.
For look! I raise my arm to drink-
A voluntary act, you think
(Nay, Sir, you're grinning)>
You're wrong: this stein of beer I've drained
to emptiness was pre-ordained
Since Time's beginning.
But stay! 'Tis I who err, because
Time has no birth; it always was,
It will be ever;
And trivial though my act appears,
Its repercussion down the years
Will perish never.
It will condition ages hence,
but its most urgent consequence,
You'll not deny, Sir,
Is that it should be filled again
To goad my philosophic brain,
If you will buy, Sir.
There is no great, there is no small;
Fate makes a tapestry of all,
each stitch is needed . . .
The gods be praised! that barman chap
Manipulates his frothing tap -
My plea is heeded.
Two foaming tankards over-spill,
And soon, ah! not too soon, they will
Our thirst be slaking.
Stout lad! he does not dream that he
A page of history maybe
Is blandly making.
For Sir, it was ordained that you
Buy me a drink (or maybe two)
Since ages hoary;
And doubtless it is predestined
our meeting shall affect in kind
Earth's Cosmic Story.
The fathomless, eternal Past,
The Future infinitely vast,
We two are linking;
So let us fitly celebrate
This moment of immortal Fate
In drinking, drinking.
But though I toss a hearty pot,
Kind stranger, do not think I'm not
For Truth a groper . . .
Another? Thanks, I won't refuse,
I am a tippler, if you choose,
But not a toper.
A nice distinction! . . . Well, life's good;
Just give me beer, rich greasy food,
And let me fiddle;
Enough of dull philosophy;
To-night we'll merry, merry be . . .
Hi-diddle-diddle.
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