Written by
Edwin Arlington Robinson |
I
We thrill too strangely at the master's touch;
We shrink too sadly from the larger self
Which for its own completeness agitates
And undetermines us; we do not feel --
We dare not feel it yet -- the splendid shame
Of uncreated failure; we forget,
The while we groan, that God's accomplishment
Is always and unfailingly at hand.
II
Tumultuously void of a clean scheme
Whereon to build, whereof to formulate,
The legion life that riots in mankind
Goes ever plunging upward, up and down,
Most like some crazy regiment at arms,
Undisciplined of aught but Ignorance,
And ever led resourcelessly along
To brainless carnage by drunk trumpeters.
III
To me the groaning of world-worshippers
Rings like a lonely music played in hell
By one with art enough to cleave the walls
Of heaven with his cadence, but without
The wisdom or the will to comprehend
The strangeness of his own perversity,
And all without the courage to deny
The profit and the pride of his defeat.
IV
While we are drilled in error, we are lost
Alike to truth and usefulness.
We think
We are great warriors now, and we can brag
Like Titans; but the world is growing young,
And we, the fools of time, are growing with it: --
We do not fight to-day, we only die;
We are too proud of death, and too ashamed
Of God, to know enough to be alive.
V
There is one battle-field whereon we fall
Triumphant and unconquered; but, alas!
We are too fleshly fearful of ourselves
To fight there till our days are whirled and blurred
By sorrow, and the ministering wheels
Of anguish take us eastward, where the clouds
Of human gloom are lost against the gleam
That shines on Thought's impenetrable mail.
VI
When we shall hear no more the cradle-songs
Of ages -- when the timeless hymns of Love
Defeat them and outsound them -- we shall know
The rapture of that large release which all
Right science comprehends; and we shall read,
With unoppressed and unoffended eyes,
That record of All-Soul whereon God writes
In everlasting runes the truth of Him.
VII
The guerdon of new childhood is repose: --
Once he has read the primer of right thought,
A man may claim between two smithy strokes
Beatitude enough to realize
God's parallel completeness in the vague
And incommensurable excellence
That equitably uncreates itself
And makes a whirlwind of the Universe.
VIII
There is no loneliness: -- no matter where
We go, nor whence we come, nor what good friends
Forsake us in the seeming, we are all
At one with a complete companionship;
And though forlornly joyless be the ways
We travel, the compensate spirit-gleams
Of Wisdom shaft the darkness here and there,
Like scattered lamps in unfrequented streets.
IX
When one that you and I had all but sworn
To be the purest thing God ever made
Bewilders us until at last it seems
An angel has come back restigmatized, --
Faith wavers, and we wonder what there is
On earth to make us faithful any more,
But never are quite wise enough to know
The wisdom that is in that wonderment.
X
Where does a dead man go? -- The dead man dies;
But the free life that would no longer feed
On fagots of outburned and shattered flesh
Wakes to a thrilled invisible advance,
Unchained (or fettered else) of memory;
And when the dead man goes it seems to me
'T were better for us all to do away
With weeping, and be glad that he is gone.
XI
So through the dusk of dead, blank-legended,
And unremunerative years we search
To get where life begins, and still we groan
Because we do not find the living spark
Where no spark ever was; and thus we die,
Still searching, like poor old astronomers
Who totter off to bed and go to sleep,
To dream of untriangulated stars.
XII
With conscious eyes not yet sincere enough
To pierce the glimmered cloud that fluctuates
Between me and the glorifying light
That screens itself with knowledge, I discern
The searching rays of wisdom that reach through
The mist of shame's infirm credulity,
And infinitely wonder if hard words
Like mine have any message for the dead.
XIII
I grant you friendship is a royal thing,
But none shall ever know that royalty
For what it is till he has realized
His best friend in himself.
'T is then, perforce,
That man's unfettered faith indemnifies
Of its own conscious freedom the old shame,
And love's revealed infinitude supplants
Of its own wealth and wisdom the old scorn.
XIV
Though the sick beast infect us, we are fraught
Forever with indissoluble Truth,
Wherein redress reveals itself divine,
Transitional, transcendent.
Grief and loss,
Disease and desolation, are the dreams
Of wasted excellence; and every dream
Has in it something of an ageless fact
That flouts deformity and laughs at years.
XV
We lack the courage to be where we are: --
We love too much to travel on old roads,
To triumph on old fields; we love too much
To consecrate the magic of dead things,
And yieldingly to linger by long walls
Of ruin, where the ruinous moonlight
That sheds a lying glory on old stones
Befriends us with a wizard's enmity.
XVI
Something as one with eyes that look below
The battle-smoke to glimpse the foeman's charge,
We through the dust of downward years may scan
The onslaught that awaits this idiot world
Where blood pays blood for nothing, and where life
Pays life to madness, till at last the ports
Of gilded helplessness be battered through
By the still crash of salvatory steel.
XVII
To you that sit with Sorrow like chained slaves,
And wonder if the night will ever come,
I would say this: The night will never come,
And sorrow is not always.
But my words
Are not enough; your eyes are not enough;
The soul itself must insulate the Real,
Or ever you do cherish in this life --
In this life or in any life -- repose.
XVIII
Like a white wall whereon forever breaks
Unsatisfied the tumult of green seas,
Man's unconjectured godliness rebukes
With its imperial silence the lost waves
Of insufficient grief.
This mortal surge
That beats against us now is nothing else
Than plangent ignorance.
Truth neither shakes
Nor wavers; but the world shakes, and we shriek.
XIX
Nor jewelled phrase nor mere mellifluous rhyme
Reverberates aright, or ever shall,
One cadence of that infinite plain-song
Which is itself all music.
Stronger notes
Than any that have ever touched the world
Must ring to tell it -- ring like hammer-blows,
Right-echoed of a chime primordial,
On anvils, in the gleaming of God's forge.
XX
The prophet of dead words defeats himself:
Whoever would acknowledge and include
The foregleam and the glory of the real,
Must work with something else than pen and ink
And painful preparation: he must work
With unseen implements that have no names,
And he must win withal, to do that work,
Good fortitude, clean wisdom, and strong skill.
XXI
To curse the chilled insistence of the dawn
Because the free gleam lingers; to defraud
The constant opportunity that lives
Unchallenged in all sorrow; to forget
For this large prodigality of gold
That larger generosity of thought, --
These are the fleshly clogs of human greed,
The fundamental blunders of mankind.
XXII
Forebodings are the fiends of Recreance;
The master of the moment, the clean seer
Of ages, too securely scans what is,
Ever to be appalled at what is not;
He sees beyond the groaning borough lines
Of Hell, God's highways gleaming, and he knows
That Love's complete communion is the end
Of anguish to the liberated man.
XXIII
Here by the windy docks I stand alone,
But yet companioned.
There the vessel goes,
And there my friend goes with it; but the wake
That melts and ebbs between that friend and me
Love's earnest is of Life's all-purposeful
And all-triumphant sailing, when the ships
Of Wisdom loose their fretful chains and swing
Forever from the crumbled wharves of Time.
|
Written by
Andrew Barton Paterson |
'Twas on the famous Empire run,
Whose sun does never set,
Whose grass and water, so they say,
Have never failed them yet --
They carry many million sheep,
Through seasons dry and wet.
They call the homestead Albion House,
And then, along with that,
There's Welshman's Gully, Scotchman's Hill,
And Paddymelon Flat:
And all these places are renowned
For making jumbacks fat.
And the out-paddocks -- holy frost!
There wouldn't be no sense
For me to try and tell you half --
They really are immense;
A man might ride for days and weeks
And never strike a fence.
But still for years they never had
Been known a sheep to lose;
Old Billy Gladstone managed it,
And you can bet your shoes
He'd scores of supers under him,
And droves of jackaroos.
Old Billy had an eagle eye,
And kept his wits about --
If any chaps got trespassing
He quickly cleared 'em out;
And coves that used to "work a cross",
They hated him, no doubt.
But still he managed it in style,
Until the times got dry,
And Billy gave the supers word
To see and mind their eye --
"If any paddocks gets a-fire
I'll know the reason why.
"
Now on this point old Bill was sure,
Because, for many a year,
Whenever times got dry at all,
As sure as you are here,
The Paddymelon Flat got burnt
Which Bill thought rather *****.
He sent his smartest supers there
To try and keep things right.
No use! The grass was always dry --
They'd go to sleep at night,
And when they woke they'd go and find
The whole concern alight.
One morning it was very hot --
The sun rose in a haze;
Old Bill was cutting down some trees
(One of his little ways);
A black boy came hot-foot to say
The Flat was in a blaze.
Old Bill he swears a fearful oath
And lets the tommy fall --
Says he: "'ll take this business up,
And fix it once for all;
If this goes on the cursed run
Will send us to the wall.
"
So he withdrew his trespass suits,
He'd one with Dutchy's boss --
In prosecutions criminal
He entered nolle pros.
,
But these were neither here nor there --
They always meant a loss.
And off to Paddymelon Flat
He started double quick
Drayloads of men with lots of grog
Lest heat should make them sick,
And all the strangers came around
To see him do the trick.
And there the fire was flaming bright,
For miles and miles it spread,
And many a sheep and horse and cow
Were numbered with the dead --
The super came to meet Old Bill,
And this is what he said:
"No use, to try to beat it out,
'Twill dry you up like toast,
I've done as much as man can do,
Although I never boast;
I think you'd better chuck it up,
And let the jumbucks roast.
"
Then Bill said just two words: "You're sacked,"
And pitches off his coat,
And wrenches down a blue gum bough
And clears his manly throat,
And into it like threshing wheat
Right sturdily he smote.
And beat the blazing grass until
His shirt was dripping wet;
And all the people watched him there
To see what luck he'd get,
"Gosh! don't he make the cinders fly,"
And, Golly, don't he sweat!"
But though they worked like Trojans all,
The fire still went ahead
So far as you could see around,
The very skies were red,
Sometimes the flames would start afresh,
Just where they thought it dead.
His men, too, quarreled 'mongst themselves
And some coves gave it best
And some said, "Light a fire in front,
And burn from east to west" --
But Bill he still kept sloggin' in,
And never took no rest.
Then through the crowd a cornstalk kid
Come ridin' to the spot
Says he to Bill, "Now take a spell,
You're lookin' very 'ot,
And if you'll only listen, why,
I'll tell you what is what.
"These coves as set your grass on fire,
There ain't no mortal doubt,
I've seen 'em ridin' here and there,
And pokin' round about;
It ain't no use your workin' here,
Until you finds them out.
"See yonder, where you beat the fire --
It's blazin' up again,
And fires are starting right and left
On Tipperary Plain,
Beating them out is useless quite,
Unless Heaven sends the rain.
Then Bill, he turns upon the boy,
"Oh, hold your tongue, you pup!"
But a cinder blew across the creek
While Bill stopped for a sup,
And fired the Albion paddocks, too --
It was a bitter cup;
Old Bill's heart was broke at last,
He had to chuck it up.
Moral
The run is England's Empire great,
The fire is the distress
That burns the stock they represent --
Prosperity you'll guess.
And the blue gum bough is the Home Rule Bill
That's making such a mess.
And Ireland green, of course I mean
By Paddymelon Flat;
All men can see the fire, of course,
Spreads on at such a bat,
But who are setting it alight,
I cannot tell you that.
But this I think all men will see,
And hold it very true --
"Don't quarrel with effects until
The cause is brought to view.
"
What is the cause? That cornstalk boy --
He seemed to think he knew.
|
Written by
William Blake |
When voices of children are heard on the green
And laughing is heard on the hill,
My heart is at rest within my breast
And everything else is still
Then come home my children the sun is gone down
And the dews of night arise
Come come leave off play, and let us away
Till the morning appears in the skies
No no let us play, for it is yet day
And we cannot go to sleep
Besides in the sky, the little birds fly
And the hills are all covered with sheep
Well well go & play till the light fades away
And then go home to bed
The little ones leaped & shouted & laugh'd
And all the hills echoed
|
Written by
Elizabeth Bishop |
Minnow, go to sleep and dream,
Close your great big eyes;
Round your bed Events prepare
The pleasantest surprise.
Darling Minnow, drop that frown,
Just cooperate,
Not a kitten shall be drowned
In the Marxist State.
Joy and Love will both be yours,
Minnow, don't be glum.
Happy days are coming soon--
Sleep, and let them come.
.
.
|
Written by
Robert William Service |
Three Triangles
TRIANGLE ONE
My husband put some poison in my beer,
And fondly hoped that I would drink it up.
He would get rid of me - no bloody fear,
For when his back was turned I changed the cup.
He took it all, and if he did not die,
Its just because he's heartier than I.
And now I watch and watch him night and day
dreading that he will try it on again.
I'm getting like a skeleton they say,
And every time I feel the slightest pain
I think: he's got me this time.
.
.
.
Oh the beast!
He might have let me starve to death, at least.
But all he thinks of is that shell-pink nurse.
I know as well as well that they're in loe.
I'm sure they kiss, and maybe do things worse,
Although she looks as gentle as a dove.
I see their eyes with passion all aglow:
I know they only wait for me to go.
Ah well, I'll go (I have to, anyway),
But they will pay the price of lust and sin.
I've sent a letter to the police to say:
"If I should die its them have dome me in.
"
And now a lot of vernal I'll take,
And go to sleep, and never, never wake.
But won't I laugh! Aye, even when I'm dead,
To think of them both hanging by the head.
TRIANGLE TWO
My wife's a fancy bit of stuff it's true;
But that's no reason she should do me dirt.
Of course I know a girl is tempted to,
With mountain men a-fussin' round her skirt.
A 'andome women's bound to 'ave a 'eart,
But that's no reason she should be a tart.
I didn't oughter give me 'ome address
To sergeant when 'e last went on 'is leave;
And now the 'ole shebang's a bloody mess;
I didn't think the missis would deceive.
And 'ere was I, a-riskin' of me life,
And thee was 'e, a-sleepin' wiv me wife.
Go blimy, but this thing 'as got to stop.
Well, next time when we makes a big attack,
As soon as we gets well across the top,
I'll plug 'em (accidental) in the back.
'E'll cop a blinkin' packet in 'is spine,
And that'll be the end of 'im, the swine.
It's easy in the muck-up of a fight;
And all me mates'll think it was the foe.
And 'oo can say it doesn't serve 'im right?
And I'll go 'ome and none will ever know,
My missis didn't oughter do that sort o' thing,
Seein' as 'ow she wears my weddin' ring.
Well, we'll be just as 'appy as before,
When otherwise she might a' bin a 'ore.
TRIANGLE THREE
It's fun to see Joe fuss around that kid.
I know 'e loves 'er more than all the rest,
Because she's by a lot the prettiest.
'E wouldn't lose 'er for a 'undred quid.
I love 'er too, because she isn't his'n;
But Jim, his brother's, wot they've put in prision.
It's 'ard to 'ave a 'usband wot you 'ate;
So soft that if 'e knowed you'd 'ad a tup,
'E wouldn't 'ave the guts to beat you up.
Now Jim - 'e's wot I call a proper mate.
I daren't try no monkey tricks wiv 'im.
'E'd flay be 'ide off (quite right, too) would Jim.
I won't let on to Jim when 'e comes out;
But Joe - each time I see 'im kissin' Nell,
I 'ave to leave the room and laughlike 'ell.
"E'll 'ave the benefit (damn little) of the doubt.
So let 'im kiss our Nellie fit to smother;
There ain't no proof 'er father is 'is brother.
Well, anyway I've no remorse.
You see,
I've kept my frailty in the family.
|
Written by
Alden Nowlan |
A mysterious naked man has been reported
on Cranston Avenue.
The police are performing
the usual ceremonies with coloured lights and sirens.
Almost everyone is outdoors and strangers are conversing
excitedly
as they do during disasters when their involvement is
peripheral.
'What did he look like? ' the lieutenant is asking.
'I don't know, ' says the witness.
'He was naked.
'
There is talk of dogs-this is no ordinary case
of indecent exposure, the man has been seen
a dozen times since the milkman spotted him and now
the sky is turning purple and voices
carry a long way and the children
have gone a little crazy as they often do at dusk
and cars are arriving
from other sections of the city.
And the mysterious naked man
is kneeling behind a garbage can or lying on his belly
in somebody's garden
or maybe even hiding in the branches of a tree,
where the wind from the harbour
whips at his naked body,
and by now he's probably done
whatever it was he wanted to do
and wishes he could go to sleep
or die
or take to the air like Superman.
|
Written by
Robert Francis |
Keep me from going to sleep too soon
Or if I go to sleep too soon
Come wake me up.
Come any hour
Of night.
Come whistling up the road.
Stomp on the porch.
Bang on the door.
Make me get out of bed and come
And let you in and light a light.
Tell me the northern lights are on
And make me look.
Or tell me clouds
Are doing something to the moon
They never did before, and show me.
See that I see.
Talk to me till
I'm half as wide awake as you
And start to dress wondering why
I ever went to bed at all.
Tell me the walking is superb.
Not only tell me but persuade me.
You know I'm not too hard persuaded.
|
Written by
Leonard Cohen |
If you want a lover
I'll do anything you ask me to
And if you want another kind of love
I'll wear a mask for you
If you want a partner
Take my hand
Or if you want to strike me down in anger
Here I stand
I'm your man
If you want a boxer
I will step into the ring for you
And if you want a doctor
I'll examine every inch of you
If you want a driver
Climb inside
Or if you want to take me for a ride
You know you can
I'm your man
Ah, the moon's too bright
The chain's too tight
The beast won't go to sleep
I've been running through these promises to you
That I made and I could not keep
Ah but a man never got a woman back
Not by begging on his knees
Or I'd crawl to you baby
And I'd fall at your feet
And I'd howl at your beauty
Like a dog in heat
And I'd claw at your heart
And I'd tear at your sheet
I'd say please, please
I'm your man
And if you've got to sleep
A moment on the road
I will steer for you
And if you want to work the street alone
I'll disappear for you
If you want a father for your child
Or only want to walk with me a while
Across the sand
I'm your man
If you want a lover
I'll do anything you ask me to
And if you want another kind of love
I'll wear a mask for you
|
Written by
Henry Vaughan |
BODY
1 Farewell! I go to sleep; but when
2 The day-star springs, I'll wake again.
SOUL
3 Go, sleep in peace; and when thou liest
4 Unnumber'd in thy dust, when all this frame
5 Is but one dram, and what thou now descriest
6 In sev'ral parts shall want a name,
7 Then may his peace be with thee, and each dust
8 Writ in his book, who ne'er betray'd man's trust!
BODY
9 Amen! but hark, ere we two stray
10 How many hours dost think 'till day?
SOUL
11 Ah go; th'art weak, and sleepy.
Heav'n
12 Is a plain watch, and without figures winds
13 All ages up; who drew this circle, even
14 He fills it; days and hours are blinds.
15 Yet this take with thee.
The last gasp of time
16 Is thy first breath, and man's eternal prime.
|
Written by
Richard Hugo |
You might come here Sunday on a whim.
Say your life broke down.
The last good kiss
you had was years ago.
You walk these streets
laid out by the insane, past hotels
that didn't last, bars that did, the tortured try
of local drivers to accelerate their lives.
Only churches are kept up.
The jail
turned 70 this year.
The only prisoner
is always in, not knowing what he's done.
The principal supporting business now
is rage.
Hatred of the various grays
the mountain sends, hatred of the mill,
The Silver Bill repeal, the best liked girls
who leave each year for Butte.
One good
restaurant and bars can't wipe the boredom out.
The 1907 boom, eight going silver mines,
a dance floor built on springs--
all memory resolves itself in gaze,
in panoramic green you know the cattle eat
or two stacks high above the town,
two dead kilns, the huge mill in collapse
for fifty years that won't fall finally down.
Isn't this your life? That ancient kiss
still burning out your eyes? Isn't this defeat
so accurate, the church bell simply seems
a pure announcement: ring and no one comes?
Don't empty houses ring? Are magnesium
and scorn sufficient to support a town,
not just Philipsburg, but towns
of towering blondes, good jazz and booze
the world will never let you have
until the town you came from dies inside?
Say no to yourself.
The old man, twenty
when the jail was built, still laughs
although his lips collapse.
Someday soon,
he says, I'll go to sleep and not wake up.
You tell him no.
You're talking to yourself.
The car that brought you here still runs.
The money you buy lunch with,
no matter where it's mined, is silver
and the girl who serves your food
is slender and her red hair lights the wall.
|