Written by
Marianne Moore |
This institution,
perhaps one should say enterprise
out of respect for which
one says one need not change one's mind
about a thing one has believed in,
requiring public promises
of one's intention
to fulfill a private obligation:
I wonder what Adam and Eve
think of it by this time,
this firegilt steel
alive with goldenness;
how bright it shows --
"of circular traditions and impostures,
committing many spoils,"
requiring all one's criminal ingenuity
to avoid!
Psychology which explains everything
explains nothing
and we are still in doubt.
Eve: beautiful woman --
I have seen her
when she was so handsome
she gave me a start,
able to write simultaneously
in three languages --
English, German and French
and talk in the meantime;
equally positive in demanding a commotion
and in stipulating quiet:
"I should like to be alone;"
to which the visitor replies,
"I should like to be alone;
why not be alone together?"
Below the incandescent stars
below the incandescent fruit,
the strange experience of beauty;
its existence is too much;
it tears one to pieces
and each fresh wave of consciousness
is poison.
"See her, see her in this common world,"
the central flaw
in that first crystal-fine experiment,
this amalgamation which can never be more
than an interesting possibility,
describing it
as "that strange paradise
unlike flesh, gold, or stately buildings,
the choicest piece of my life:
the heart rising
in its estate of peace
as a boat rises
with the rising of the water;"
constrained in speaking of the serpent --
that shed snakeskin in the history of politeness
not to be returned to again --
that invaluable accident
exonerating Adam.
And he has beauty also;
it's distressing -- the O thou
to whom, from whom,
without whom nothing -- Adam;
"something feline,
something colubrine" -- how true!
a crouching mythological monster
in that Persian miniature of emerald mines,
raw silk -- ivory white, snow white,
oyster white and six others --
that paddock full of leopards and giraffes --
long lemonyellow bodies
sown with trapezoids of blue.
Alive with words,
vibrating like a cymbal
touched before it has been struck,
he has prophesied correctly --
the industrious waterfall,
"the speedy stream
which violently bears all before it,
at one time silent as the air
and now as powerful as the wind.
"
"Treading chasms
on the uncertain footing of a spear,"
forgetting that there is in woman
a quality of mind
which is an instinctive manifestation
is unsafe,
he goes on speaking
in a formal, customary strain
of "past states," the present state,
seals, promises,
the evil one suffered,
the good one enjoys,
hell, heaven,
everything convenient
to promote one's joy.
"
There is in him a state of mind
by force of which,
perceiving what it was not
intended that he should,
"he experiences a solemn joy
in seeing that he has become an idol.
"
Plagued by the nightingale
in the new leaves,
with its silence --
not its silence but its silences,
he says of it:
"It clothes me with a shirt of fire.
"
"He dares not clap his hands
to make it go on
lest it should fly off;
if he does nothing, it will sleep;
if he cries out, it will not understand.
"
Unnerved by the nightingale
and dazzled by the apple,
impelled by "the illusion of a fire
effectual to extinguish fire,"
compared with which
the shining of the earth
is but deformity -- a fire
"as high as deep as bright as broad
as long as life itself,"
he stumbles over marriage,
"a very trivial object indeed"
to have destroyed the attitude
in which he stood --
the ease of the philosopher
unfathered by a woman.
Unhelpful Hymen!
"a kind of overgrown cupid"
reduced to insignificance
by the mechanical advertising
parading as involuntary comment,
by that experiment of Adam's
with ways out but no way in --
the ritual of marriage,
augmenting all its lavishness;
its fiddle-head ferns,
lotus flowers, opuntias, white dromedaries,
its hippopotamus --
nose and mouth combined
in one magnificent hopper,
"the crested screamer --
that huge bird almost a lizard,"
its snake and the potent apple.
He tells us
that "for love
that will gaze an eagle blind,
that is like a Hercules
climbing the trees
in the garden of the Hesperides,
from forty-five to seventy
is the best age,"
commending it
as a fine art, as an experiment,
a duty or as merely recreation.
One must not call him ruffian
nor friction a calamity --
the fight to be affectionate:
"no truth can be fully known
until it has been tried
by the tooth of disputation.
"
The blue panther with black eyes,
the basalt panther with blue eyes,
entirely graceful --
one must give them the path --
the black obsidian Diana
who "darkeneth her countenance
as a bear doth,
causing her husband to sigh,"
the spiked hand
that has an affection for one
and proves it to the bone,
impatient to assure you
that impatience is the mark of independence
not of bondage.
"Married people often look that way" --
"seldom and cold, up and down,
mixed and malarial
with a good day and bad.
"
"When do we feed?"
We occidentals are so unemotional,
we quarrel as we feed;
one's self is quite lost,
the irony preserved
in "the Ahasuerus t?te ? t?te banquet"
with its "good monster, lead the way,"
with little laughter
and munificence of humor
in that quixotic atmosphere of frankness
in which "Four o'clock does not exist
but at five o'clock
the ladies in their imperious humility
are ready to receive you";
in which experience attests
that men have power
and sometimes one is made to feel it.
He says, "what monarch would not blush
to have a wife
with hair like a shaving-brush?
The fact of woman
is not `the sound of the flute
but every poison.
'"
She says, "`Men are monopolists
of stars, garters, buttons
and other shining baubles' --
unfit to be the guardians
of another person's happiness.
"
He says, "These mummies
must be handled carefully --
`the crumbs from a lion's meal,
a couple of shins and the bit of an ear';
turn to the letter M
and you will find
that `a wife is a coffin,'
that severe object
with the pleasing geometry
stipulating space and not people,
refusing to be buried
and uniquely disappointing,
revengefully wrought in the attitude
of an adoring child
to a distinguished parent.
"
She says, "This butterfly,
this waterfly, this nomad
that has `proposed
to settle on my hand for life.
' --
What can one do with it?
There must have been more time
in Shakespeare's day
to sit and watch a play.
You know so many artists are fools.
"
He says, "You know so many fools
who are not artists.
"
The fact forgot
that "some have merely rights
while some have obligations,"
he loves himself so much,
he can permit himself
no rival in that love.
She loves herself so much,
she cannot see herself enough --
a statuette of ivory on ivory,
the logical last touch
to an expansive splendor
earned as wages for work done:
one is not rich but poor
when one can always seem so right.
What can one do for them --
these savages
condemned to disaffect
all those who are not visionaries
alert to undertake the silly task
of making people noble?
This model of petrine fidelity
who "leaves her peaceful husband
only because she has seen enough of him" --
that orator reminding you,
"I am yours to command.
"
"Everything to do with love is mystery;
it is more than a day's work
to investigate this science.
"
One sees that it is rare --
that striking grasp of opposites
opposed each to the other, not to unity,
which in cycloid inclusiveness
has dwarfed the demonstration
of Columbus with the egg --
a triumph of simplicity --
that charitive Euroclydon
of frightening disinterestedness
which the world hates,
admitting:
"I am such a cow,
if I had a sorrow,
I should feel it a long time;
I am not one of those
who have a great sorrow
in the morning
and a great joy at noon;"
which says: "I have encountered it
among those unpretentious
proteg?s of wisdom,
where seeming to parade
as the debater and the Roman,
the statesmanship
of an archaic Daniel Webster
persists to their simplicity of temper
as the essence of the matter:
`Liberty and union
now and forever;'
the book on the writing-table;
the hand in the breast-pocket.
"
|
Written by
Ralph Waldo Emerson |
The south-wind brings
Life, sunshine, and desire,
And on every mount and meadow
Breathes aromatic fire,
But over the dead he has no power,
The lost, the lost he cannot restore,
And, looking over the hills, I mourn
The darling who shall not return.
I see my empty house,
I see my trees repair their boughs,
And he, —the wondrous child,
Whose silver warble wild
Outvalued every pulsing sound
Within the air's cerulean round,
The hyacinthine boy, for whom
Morn well might break, and April bloom,
The gracious boy, who did adorn
The world whereinto he was born,
And by his countenance repay
The favor of the loving Day,
Has disappeared from the Day's eye;
Far and wide she cannot find him,
My hopes pursue, they cannot bind him.
Returned this day the south-wind searches
And finds young pines and budding birches,
But finds not the budding man;
Nature who lost him, cannot remake him;
Fate let him fall, Fate can't retake him;
Nature, Fate, men, him seek in vain.
And whither now, my truant wise and sweet,
Oh, whither tend thy feet?
I had the right, few days ago,
Thy steps to watch, thy place to know;
How have I forfeited the right?
Hast thou forgot me in a new delight?
I hearken for thy household cheer,
O eloquent child!
Whose voice, an equal messenger,
Conveyed thy meaning mild.
What though the pains and joys
Whereof it spoke were toys
Fitting his age and ken;—
Yet fairest dames and bearded men,
Who heard the sweet request
So gentle, wise, and grave,
Bended with joy to his behest,
And let the world's affairs go by,
Awhile to share his cordial game,
Or mend his wicker wagon frame,
Still plotting how their hungry ear
That winsome voice again might hear,
For his lips could well pronounce
Words that were persuasions.
Gentlest guardians marked serene
His early hope, his liberal mien,
Took counsel from his guiding eyes
To make this wisdom earthly wise.
Ah! vainly do these eyes recall
The school-march, each day's festival,
When every morn my bosom glowed
To watch the convoy on the road;—
The babe in willow wagon closed,
With rolling eyes and face composed,
With children forward and behind,
Like Cupids studiously inclined,
And he, the Chieftain, paced beside,
The centre of the troop allied,
With sunny face of sweet repose,
To guard the babe from fancied foes,
The little Captain innocent
Took the eye with him as he went,
Each village senior paused to scan
And speak the lovely caravan.
From the window I look out
To mark thy beautiful parade
Stately marching in cap and coat
To some tune by fairies played;
A music heard by thee alone
To works as noble led thee on.
Now love and pride, alas, in vain,
Up and down their glances strain.
The painted sled stands where it stood,
The kennel by the corded wood,
The gathered sticks to stanch the wall
Of the snow-tower, when snow should fall,
The ominous hole he dug in the sand,
And childhood's castles built or planned.
His daily haunts I well discern,
The poultry yard, the shed, the barn,
And every inch of garden ground
Paced by the blessed feet around,
From the road-side to the brook;
Whereinto he loved to look.
Step the meek birds where erst they ranged,
The wintry garden lies unchanged,
The brook into the stream runs on,
But the deep-eyed Boy is gone.
On that shaded day,
Dark with more clouds than tempests are,
When thou didst yield thy innocent breath
In bird-like heavings unto death,
Night came, and Nature had not thee,—
I said, we are mates in misery.
The morrow dawned with needless glow,
Each snow-bird chirped, each fowl must crow,
Each tramper started,— but the feet
Of the most beautiful and sweet
Of human youth had left the hill
And garden,—they were bound and still,
There's not a sparrow or a wren,
There's not a blade of autumn grain,
Which the four seasons do not tend,
And tides of life and increase lend,
And every chick of every bird,
And weed and rock-moss is preferred.
O ostriches' forgetfulness!
O loss of larger in the less!
Was there no star that could be sent,
No watcher in the firmament,
No angel from the countless host,
That loiters round the crystal coast,
Could stoop to heal that only child,
Nature's sweet marvel undefiled,
And keep the blossom of the earth,
Which all her harvests were not worth?
Not mine, I never called thee mine,
But nature's heir,— if I repine,
And, seeing rashly torn and moved,
Not what I made, but what I loved.
Grow early old with grief that then
Must to the wastes of nature go,—
'Tis because a general hope
Was quenched, and all must doubt and grope
For flattering planets seemed to say,
This child should ills of ages stay,—
By wondrous tongue and guided pen
Bring the flown muses back to men.
—
Perchance, not he, but nature ailed,
The world, and not the infant failed,
It was not ripe yet, to sustain
A genius of so fine a strain,
Who gazed upon the sun and moon
As if he came unto his own,
And pregnant with his grander thought,
Brought the old order into doubt.
Awhile his beauty their beauty tried,
They could not feed him, and he died,
And wandered backward as in scorn
To wait an Æon to be born.
Ill day which made this beauty waste;
Plight broken, this high face defaced!
Some went and came about the dead,
And some in books of solace read,
Some to their friends the tidings say,
Some went to write, some went to pray,
One tarried here, there hurried one,
But their heart abode with none.
Covetous death bereaved us all
To aggrandize one funeral.
The eager Fate which carried thee
Took the largest part of me.
For this losing is true dying,
This is lordly man's down-lying,
This is slow but sure reclining,
Star by star his world resigning.
O child of Paradise!
Boy who made dear his father's home
In whose deep eyes
Men read the welfare of the times to come;
I am too much bereft;
The world dishonored thou hast left;
O truths and natures costly lie;
O trusted, broken prophecy!
O richest fortune sourly crossed;
Born for the future, to the future lost!
The deep Heart answered, Weepest thou?
Worthier cause for passion wild,
If I had not taken the child.
And deemest thou as those who pore
With aged eyes short way before?
Think'st Beauty vanished from the coast
Of matter, and thy darling lost?
Taught he not thee, — the man of eld,
Whose eyes within his eyes beheld
Heaven's numerous hierarchy span
The mystic gulf from God to man?
To be alone wilt thou begin,
When worlds of lovers hem thee in?
To-morrow, when the masks shall fall
That dizen nature's carnival,
The pure shall see, by their own will,
Which overflowing love shall fill,—
'Tis not within the force of Fate
The fate-conjoined to separate.
But thou, my votary, weepest thou?
I gave thee sight, where is it now?
I taught thy heart beyond the reach
Of ritual, Bible, or of speech;
Wrote in thy mind's transparent table
As far as the incommunicable;
Taught thee each private sign to raise
Lit by the supersolar blaze.
Past utterance and past belief,
And past the blasphemy of grief,
The mysteries of nature's heart,—
And though no muse can these impart,
Throb thine with nature's throbbing breast,
And all is clear from east to west.
I came to thee as to a friend,
Dearest, to thee I did not send
Tutors, but a joyful eye,
Innocence that matched the sky,
Lovely locks a form of wonder,
Laughter rich as woodland thunder;
That thou might'st entertain apart
The richest flowering of all art;
And, as the great all-loving Day
Through smallest chambers takes its way,
That thou might'st break thy daily bread
With Prophet, Saviour, and head;
That thou might'st cherish for thine own
The riches of sweet Mary's Son,
Boy-Rabbi, Israel's Paragon:
And thoughtest thou such guest
Would in thy hall take up his rest?
Would rushing life forget its laws,
Fate's glowing revolution pause?
High omens ask diviner guess,
Not to be conned to tediousness.
And know, my higher gifts unbind
The zone that girds the incarnate mind,
When the scanty shores are full
With Thought's perilous whirling pool,
When frail Nature can no more,—
Then the spirit strikes the hour,
My servant Death with solving rite
Pours finite into infinite.
Wilt thou freeze love's tidal flow,
Whose streams through nature circling go?
Nail the star struggling to its track
On the half-climbed Zodiack?
Light is light which radiates,
Blood is blood which circulates,
Life is life which generates,
And many-seeming life is one,—
Wilt thou transfix and make it none,
Its onward stream too starkly pent
In figure, bone, and lineament?
Wilt thou uncalled interrogate
Talker! the unreplying fate?
Nor see the Genius of the whole
Ascendant in the private soul,
Beckon it when to go and come,
Self-announced its hour of doom.
Fair the soul's recess and shrine,
Magic-built, to last a season,
Masterpiece of love benign!
Fairer than expansive reason
Whose omen 'tis, and sign.
Wilt thou not ope this heart to know
What rainbows teach and sunsets show,
Verdict which accumulates
From lengthened scroll of human fates,
Voice of earth to earth returned,
Prayers of heart that inly burned;
Saying, what is excellent,
As God lives, is permanent
Hearts are dust, hearts' loves remain,
Heart's love will meet thee again.
Revere the Maker; fetch thine eye
Up to His style, and manners of the sky.
Not of adamant and gold
Built He heaven stark and cold,
No, but a nest of bending reeds,
Flowering grass and scented weeds,
Or like a traveller's fleeting tent,
Or bow above the tempest pent,
Built of tears and sacred flames,
And virtue reaching to its aims;
Built of furtherance and pursuing,
Not of spent deeds, but of doing.
Silent rushes the swift Lord
Through ruined systems still restored,
Broad-sowing, bleak and void to bless,
Plants with worlds the wilderness,
Waters with tears of ancient sorrow
Apples of Eden ripe to-morrow;
House and tenant go to ground,
Lost in God, in Godhead found.
|
Written by
William Blake |
Twas on a Holy Thursday their innocent faces clean
The children walking two & two in red & blue & green
Grey headed beadles walked before with wands as white as snow
Till into the high dome of Pauls they like Thames waters flow
O what a multitude they seemed these flowers of London town
Seated in companies they sit with radiance all their own
The hum of multitudes was there but multitudes of lambs
Thousands of little boys & girls raising their innocent hands
Now like a mighty wind they raise to heaven the voice of song
Or like harmonious thunderings the seats of heaven among
Beneath them sit the aged men wise guardians of the poor
Then cherish pity, lest you drive an angel from your door
|
Written by
Robert Browning |
I.
I dream of a red-rose tree.
And which of its roses three
Is the dearest rose to me?
II.
Round and round, like a dance of snow
In a dazzling drift, as its guardians, go
Floating the women faded for ages,
Sculptured in stone, on the poet's pages.
Then follow women fresh and gay,
Living and loving and loved to-day.
Last, in the rear, flee the multitude of maidens,
Beauties yet unborn.
And all, to one cadence,
They circle their rose on my rose tree.
III.
Dear rose, thy term is reached,
Thy leaf hangs loose and bleached:
Bees pass it unimpeached.
IV.
Stay then, stoop, since I cannot climb,
You, great shapes of the antique time!
How shall I fix you, fire you, freeze you,
Break my heart at your feet to please you?
Oh, to possess and be possessed!
Hearts that beat 'neath each pallid breast!
Once but of love, the poesy, the passion,
Drink but once and die!---In vain, the same fashion,
They circle their rose on my rose tree.
V.
Dear rose, thy joy's undimmed,
Thy cup is ruby-rimmed,
Thy cup's heart nectar-brimmed.
VI.
Deep, as drops from a statue's plinth
The bee sucked in by the hyacinth,
So will I bury me while burning,
Quench like him at a plunge my yearning,
Eyes in your eyes, lips on your lips!
Fold me fast where the cincture slips,
Prison all my soul in eternities of pleasure,
Girdle me for once! But no---the old measure,
They circle their rose on my rose tree.
VII.
Dear rose without a thorn,
Thy bud's the babe unborn:
First streak of a new morn.
VIII.
Wings, lend wings for the cold, the clear!
What is far conquers what is near.
Roses will bloom nor want beholders,
Sprung from the dust where our flesh moulders.
What shall arrive with the cycle's change?
A novel grace and a beauty strange.
I will make an Eve, be the artist that began her,
Shaped her to his mind!---Alas! in like manner
They circle their rose on my rose tree.
|
Written by
T S (Thomas Stearns) Eliot |
MISS NANCY ELLICOTT
Strode across the hills and broke them,
Rode across the hills and broke them—
The barren New England hills—
Riding to hounds
Over the cow-pasture.
Miss Nancy Ellicott smoked
And danced all the modern dances;
And her aunts were not quite sure how they felt about it,
But they knew that it was modern.
Upon the glazen shelves kept watch
Matthew and Waldo, guardians of the faith,
The army of unalterable law.
|
Written by
Thomas Chatterton |
On Tiber's banks, Tiber, whose waters glide
In slow meanders down to Gaigra's side;
And circling all the horrid mountain round,
Rushes impetuous to the deep profound;
Rolls o'er the ragged rocks with hideous yell;
Collects its waves beneath the earth's vast shell;
There for a while in loud confusion hurl'd,
It crumbles mountains down and shakes the world.
Till borne upon the pinions of the air,
Through the rent earth the bursting waves appear;
Fiercely propell'd the whiten'd billows rise,
Break from the cavern, and ascend the skies;
Then lost and conquered by superior force,
Through hot Arabia holds its rapid coursel
On Tiber's banks where scarlet jas'mines bloom,
And purple aloes shed a rich perfume;
Where, when the sun is melting in his heat,
The reeking tygers find a cool retreat;
Bask in the sedges, lose the sultry beam,
And wanton with their shadows in the stream;
On Tiber's banks, by sacred priests rever'd,
Where in the days of old a god appear'd;
'Twas in the dead of night, at Chalma's feast,
The tribe of Alra slept around the priest.
He spoke; as evening thunders bursting near,
His horrid accents broke upon the ear;
Attend, Alraddas, with your sacred priest!
This day the sun is rising in the east;
The sun, which shall illumine all the earth,
Now, now is rising, in a mortal birth.
He vanish'd like a vapour of the night,
And sunk away in a faint blaze of light.
Swift from the branches of the holy oak,
Horror, confusion, fear, and torment brake;
And still when midnight trims her mazy lamp,
They take their way through Tiber's wat'ry swamp.
On Tiber's banks, close ranked, a warring train,
Stretch'd to the distant edge of Galca's plain;
So when arrived at Gaigra's highest steep,
We view the wide expansion of the deep;
See in the gilding of her wat'ry robe,
The quick declension of the circling globe;
From the blue sea a chain of mountains rise,
Blended at once with water and with skies;
Beyond our sight in vast extension curl'd,
The check of waves, the guardians of the world.
Strong were the warriors, as the ghost of Cawn,
Who threw the Hill-of-archers to the lawn;
When the soft earth at his appearance fled;
And rising billows play'd around his head;
When a strong tempest rising from the main,
Dashed the full clouds, unbroken on the plain.
Nicou, immortal in the sacred song,
Held the red sword of war, and led the strong;
From his own tribe the sable warriors came,
Well try'd in battle, and well known in fame.
Nicou, descended from the god of war,
Who lived coeval with the morning star;
Narada was his name; who cannot tell
How all the world through great Narada fell!
Vichon, the god who ruled above the skies,
Look'd, on Narada, but with envious eyes;
The warrior dared him, ridiculed his might,
Bent his white bow, and summon'd him to fight.
Vichon, disdainful, bade his lightnings fly,
And scatter'd burning arrows in the sky;
Threw down a star the armour of his feet,
To burn the air with supernat'ral heat;
Bid a loud tempes roar beneath the ground;
Lifted him up, and bore him thro' the sea.
The waters still ascending fierce and high,
He tower'd into the chambers of the sky;
There Vichon sat, his armour on his bed,
He thought Narada with the mighty dead.
Before his seat the heavenly warrior stands,
The lightning quiv'ring in his yellow hands.
The god astonish'd dropt; hurl'd from the shore,
He dropt to torments, and to rise no more.
Head-long he falls; 'tis his own arms compel.
Condemn'd in ever-burning fires to dwell.
From this Narada, mighty Nicou sprung;
The mighty Nicou, furious, wild and young.
Who led th'embattled archers to the field,
And more a thunderbolt upon his shield;
That shield his glorious father died to gain,
When the white warriors fled along the plain,
When the full sails could not provoke the flood,
Till Nicou came and swell'd the seas with blood.
Slow at the end of his robust array,
The mighty warrior pensive took his way;
Against the son of Nair, the young Rorest,
Once the companion of his youthful breast.
Strong were the passions of the son of Nair,
Strong, as the tempest of the evening air.
Insatiate in desire; fierce as the boar;
Firm in resolve as Cannie's rocky shore.
Long had the gods endeavour'd to destroy,
All Nicou's friendship, happiness, and joy:
They sought in vain, 'till Vicat, Vichon's son,
Never in feats of wickedness outdone,
Saw Nica, sister to the Mountain king,
Drest beautiful, with all the flow'rs of spring;
He saw, and scatter'd poison in her eyes;
From limb to limb in varied forms he flies;
Dwelt on her crimson lip, and added grace
To every glossy feature of her face.
Rorest was fir'd with passion at the sight.
Friendship and honor, sunk to Vicat's right;
He saw, he lov'd, and burning with desire,
Bore the soft maid from brother, sister, sire.
Pining with sorrow, Nica faded, died,
Like a fair alow, in its morning pride.
This brought the warrior to the bloody mead,
And sent to young Rorest the threat'ning reed.
He drew his army forth: Oh, need I tell!
That Nicou conquer'd, and the lover fell;
His breathless army mantled all the plain;
And Death sat smiling on the heaps of slain.
The battle ended, with his reeking dart,
The pensive Nicou pierc'd his beating heart;
And to his mourning valiant warriors cry'd,
I, and my sister's ghost are satisfy'd.
|
Written by
Anne Kingsmill Finch |
To the Almighty on his radiant Throne,
Let endless Hallelujas rise!
Praise Him, ye wondrous Heights to us unknown,
Praise Him, ye Heavens unreach'd by mortal Eyes,
Praise Him, in your degree, ye sublunary Skies!
Praise Him, you Angels that before him bow,
You Creatures of Celestial frame,
Our Guests of old, our wakeful Guardians now,
Praise Him, and with like Zeal our Hearts enflame,
Transporting then our Praise to Seats from whence you came!
Praise Him, thou Sun in thy Meridian Force;
Exalt Him, all ye Stars and Light!
Praise Him, thou Moon in thy revolving Course,
Praise Him, thou gentler Guide of silent Night,
Which do's to solemn Praise, and serious Thoughts invite.
Praise Him, ye humid Vapours, which remain
Unfrozen by the sharper Air;
Praise Him, as you return in Show'rs again,
To bless the Earth and make her Pastures fair:
Praise Him, ye climbing Fires, the Emblems of our Pray'r.
Praise Him, ye Waters petrify'd above,
Ye shredded Clouds that fall in Snow,
Praise Him, for that you so divided move;
Ye Hailstones, that you do no larger grow.
Nor, in one solid Mass, oppress the World below.
Praise Him, ye soaring Fowls, still as you fly,
And on gay Plumes your Bodies raise;
You Insects, which in dark Recesses lie,
Altho' th' extremest Distances you try,
Be reconcil'd in This, to offer mutual Praise.
Praise Him, thou Earth, with thy unbounded Store;
Ye Depths which to the Center tend:
Praise Him ye Beasts which in the Forests roar;
Praise Him ye Serpents, tho' you downwards bend,
Who made your bruised Head our Ladder to ascend.
Praise Him, ye Men whom youthful Vigour warms;
Ye Children, hast'ning to your Prime;
Praise Him, ye Virgins of unsullied Charms,
With beauteous Lips becoming sacred Rhime:
You Aged, give Him Praise for your encrease of Time.
Praise Him, ye Monarchs in supreme Command,
By Anthems, like the Hebrew Kings;
Then with enlarged Zeal throughout the Land
Reform the Numbers, and reclaim the Strings,
Converting to His Praise, the most Harmonious Things.
Ye Senators presiding by our Choice,
And You Hereditary Peers!
Praise Him by Union, both in Heart and Voice;
Praise Him, who your agreeing Council steers,
Producing sweeter Sounds than the according Spheres.
Praise Him, ye native Altars of the Earth!
Ye Mountains of stupendious size!
Praise Him, ye Trees and Fruits which there have birth,
Praise Him, ye Flames that from their Bowels rise,
All fitted for the use of grateful Sacrifice.
He spake the Word; and from the Chaos rose
The Forms and Species of each Kind:
He spake the Word, which did their Law compose,
And all, with never ceasing Order join'd,
Till ruffl'd for our Sins by his chastising Wind.
But now, you Storms, that have your Fury spent,
As you his Dictates did obey,
Let now your loud and threatening Notes relent,
Tune all your Murmurs to a softer Key,
And bless that Gracious Hand, that did your Progress stay.
From my contemn'd Retreat, obscure and low,
As Grots from when the Winds disperse,
May this His Praise as far extended flow;
And if that future Times shall read my Verse,
Tho' worthless in it self, let them his Praise rehearse.
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Written by
Stevie Smith |
Tenuous and Precarious
Were my guardians,
Precarious and Tenuous,
Two Romans.
My father was Hazardous,
Hazardous
Dear old man,
Three Romans.
There was my brother Spurious,
Spurious Posthumous,
Spurious was Spurious,
Was four Romans.
My husband was Perfidious,
He was Perfidious
Five Romans.
Surreptitious, our son,
Was Surreptitious,
He was six Romans.
Our cat Tedious
Still lives,
Count not Tedious
Yet.
My name is Finis,
Finis, Finis,
I am Finis,
Six, five, four, three, two,
One Roman,
Finis.
|
Written by
Robert Creeley |
1)
Sleeping birds, lead me,
soft birds, be me
inside this black room,
back of the white moon.
In the dark night
sight frightens me.
2)
Who is it nuzzles there
with furred, round headed stare?
Who, perched on the skin,
body's float, is holding on?
What other one stares still,
plays still, on and on?
3)
Stand upright, prehensile,
squat, determined,
small guardians of the painful
outside coming in --
in stuck in vials with needles,
bleeding life in, particular, heedless.
4)
Matrix of world
upon a turtle's broad back,
carried on like that,
eggs as pearls,
flesh and blood and bone
all borne along.
5)
I'll tell you what you want,
to say a word,
to know the letters in yourself,
a skin falls off,
a big eared head appears,
an eye and mouth.
6)
Under watery here,
under breath, under duress,
understand a pain
has threaded a needle with a little man --
gone fishing.
And fish appear.
7)
If small were big,
if then were now,
if here were there,
if find were found,
if mind were all there was,
would the animals still save us?
8)
A head was put
upon the shelf got took
by animal's hand and stuck
upon a vacant corpse
who, blurred, could nonetheless
not ever be the quietly standing bird it watched.
9)
Not lost,
not better or worse,
much must of necessity depend on resources,
the pipes and bags brought with us
inside, all the sacks
and how and to what they are or were attached.
10)
Everybody's child
walks the same winding road,
laughs and cries, dies.
That's "everybody's child,"
the one who's in between
the others who have come and gone.
11)
Turn as one will, the sky will always be
far up above the place he thinks to dream as earth.
There float the heavenly
archaic persons of primordial birth,
held in the scan of ancient serpent's tooth,
locked in the mind as when it first began.
12)
Inside I am the other of a self,
who feels a presence always close at hand,
one side or the other, knows another one
unlocks the door and quickly enters in.
Either as or, we live a common person.
Two is still one.
It cannot live apart.
13)
Oh, weep for me --
all from whom life has stolen
hopes of a happiness stored
in gold's ubiquitous pattern,
in tinkle of commodious, enduring money,
else the bee's industry in hives of golden honey.
14)
He is safely put
in a container, head to foot,
and there, on his upper part, wears still
remnants of a life he lived at will --
but, lower down, he probes at that doubled sack
holds all his random virtues in a mindless fact.
15)
The forms wait, swan,
elephant, crab, rabbit, horse, monkey, cow,
squirrel and crocodile.
From the one
sits in empty consciousness, all seemingly has come
and now it goes, to regather,
to tell another story to its patient mother.
16)
Reflection reforms, each man's a life,
makes its stumbling way from mother to wife --
cast as a gesture from ignorant flesh,
here writes in fumbling words to touch,
say, how can I be,
when she is all that was ever me?
17)
Around and in --
And up and down again,
and far and near --
and here and there,
in the middle is
a great round nothingness.
18)
Not metaphoric,
flesh is literal earth.
turns to dust
as all the body must,
becomes the ground
wherein the seed's passed on.
19)
Entries, each foot feels its own way,
echoes passage in persons,
holds the body upright,
the secret of thresholds, lintels,
opening body above it,
looks up, looks down, moves forward.
20)
Necessity, the mother of invention,
father of intention,
sister to brother to sister, to innumerable others,
all one as the time comes,
death's appointment,
in the echoing head, in the breaking heart.
21)
In self one's place defined,
in heart the other find.
In mind discover I,
in body find the sky.
Sleep in the dream as one,
wake to the others there found.
22)
Emptying out
each complicating part,
each little twist of mind inside,
each clenched fist,
each locked, particularizing thought,
forgotten, emptying out.
23)
What did it feel like
to be one at a time --
to be caught in a mind
in the body you'd found
in yourself alone --
in each other one?
24)
Broken hearts, a curious round of echoes --
and there behind them the old garden
with its faded, familiar flowers,
where all was seemingly laced together --
a trueness of true,
a blueness of blue.
25)
The truth is in a container
of no size or situation.
It has nothing
inside.
Worship --
Warship.
Sail away.
|
Written by
Andrew Marvell |
Alas, how pleasant are their dayes
With whom the Infant Love yet playes!
Sorted by pairs, they still are seen
By Fountains cool, and Shadows green.
But soon these Flames do lose their light,
Like Meteors of a Summers night:
Nor can they to that Region climb,
To make impression upon Time.
'Twas in a Shipwrack, when the Seas
Rul'd, and the Winds did what they please,
That my poor Lover floting lay,
And, e're brought forth, was cast away:
Till at the last the master-Wave.
Upon the Rock his Mother drave;
And there she split against the Stone,
In a Cesarian Section.
The Sea him lent these bitter Tears
Which at his Eyes he alwaies bears.
And from the Winds the Sighs he bore,
Which through his surging Breast do roar.
No Day he saw but that which breaks,
Through frighted Clouds in forked streaks.
While round the ratling Thunder hurl'd,
As at the Fun'ral of the World.
While Nature to his Birth presents
This masque of quarrelling Elements;
A num'rous fleet of Corm'rants black,
That sail'd insulting o're the Wrack,
Receiv'd into their cruel Care,
Th' unfortunate and abject Heir:
Guardians most fit to entertain
The Orphan of the Hurricane.
They fed him up with Hopes and Air,
Which soon digested to Despair.
And as one Corm'rant fed him, still
Another on his Heart did bill.
Thus while they famish him, and feast,
He both consumed, and increast:
And languished with doubtful Breath,
Th' Amphibium of Life and Death.
And now, when angry Heaven wou'd
Behold a spectacle of Blood,
Fortune and He are call'd to play
At sharp before it all the day:
And Tyrant Love his brest does ply
With all his wing'd Artillery.
Whilst he, betwixt the Flames and Waves,
Like Ajax, the mad Tempest braves.
See how he nak'd and fierce does stand,
Cuffing the Thunder with one hand;
While with the other he does lock,
And grapple, with the stubborn Rock:
From which he with each Wave rebounds,
Torn into Flames, and ragg'd with Wounds.
And all he saies, a Lover drest
In his own Blood does relish best.
This is the only Banneret
That ever Love created yet:
Who though, by the Malignant Starrs,
Forced to live in Storms and Warrs;
Yet dying leaves a Perfume here,
And Musick within every Ear:
And he in Story only rules,
In a Field Sable a Lover Gules.
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