10 Best Famous Ins Poems

Here is a collection of the top 10 all-time best famous Ins poems. This is a select list of the best famous Ins poetry. Reading, writing, and enjoying famous Ins poetry (as well as classical and contemporary poems) is a great past time. These top poems are the best examples of ins poems.

• All Famous Ins Poems

 I

The cloud my bed is tinged with blood and foam.
The vault yet blazes with the sun
Writhing above the West, brave hippodrome
Whose gladiators shock and shun
As the blue night devours them, crested comb
Of sleep's dead sea
That eats the shores of life, rings round eternity!

II

So, he is gone whose giant sword shed flame
Into my bowels; my blood's bewitched;
My brain's afloat with ecstasy of shame.
That tearing pain is gone, enriched
By his life-spasm; but he being gone, the same
Myself is gone
Sucked by the dragon down below death's horizon.

III
I woke from this. I lay upon the lawn;
They had thrown roses on the moss 
With all their thorns; we came there at the dawn,
My lord and I; God sailed across
The sky in's galleon of amber, drawn
By singing winds
While we wove garlands of the flowers of our minds.

IV

All day my lover deigned to murder me,
Linking his kisses in a chain
About my neck; demon-embroidery!
Bruises like far-ff mountains stain
The valley of my body of ivory!
Then last came sleep.
I wake, and he is gone; what should I do but weep?

V

Nay, for I wept enough --- more sacred tears! ---
When first he pinned me, gripped
My flesh, and as a stallion that rears,
Sprang, hero-thewed and satyr-lipped;
Crushed, as a grape between his teeth, my fears;
Sucked out my life
And stamped me with the shame, the monstrous word of
wife.

VI

I will not weep; nay, I will follow him
Perchance he is not far, 
Bathing his limbs in some delicious dim
Depth, where the evening star
May kiss his mouth, or by the black sky's rim
He makes his prayer
To the great serpent that is coiled in rapture there.

VII

I rose to seek him. First my footsteps faint
Pressed the starred moss; but soon
I wandered, like some sweet sequestered saint,
Into the wood, my mind. The moon
Was staggered by the trees; with fierce constraint
Hardly one ray
Pierced to the ragged earth about their roots that lay.

VIII

I wandered, crying on my Lord. I wandered
Eagerly seeking everywhere.
The stories of life that on my lips he squandered
Grew into shrill cries of despair,
Until the dryads frightened and dumfoundered
Fled into space ---
Like to a demon-king's was grown my maiden face!

XI

At last I came unto the well, my soul
In that still glass, I saw no sign 
Of him, and yet --- what visions there uproll
To cloud that mirror-soul of mine?
Above my head there screams a flying scroll
Whose word burnt through
My being as when stars drop in black disastrous dew.

X

For in that scroll was written how the globe
Of space became; of how the light
Broke in that space and wrapped it in a robe
Of glory; of how One most white
Withdrew that Whole, and hid it in the lobe
Of his right Ear,
So that the Universe one dewdrop did appear.

IX

Yea! and the end revealed a word, a spell,
An incantation, a device
Whereby the Eye of the Most Terrible
Wakes from its wilderness of ice
To flame, whereby the very core of hell
Bursts from its rind,
Sweeping the world away into the blank of mind.

XII

So then I saw my fault; I plunged within
The well, and brake the images
That I had made, as I must make - Men spin 
The webs that snare them - while the knee
Bend to the tyrant God - or unto Sin
The lecher sunder!
Ah! came that undulant light from over or from under?

XIII

It matters not. Come, change! come, Woe! Come, mask!
Drive Light, Life, Love into the deep!
In vain we labour at the loathsome task
Not knowing if we wake or sleep;
But in the end we lift the plumed casque
Of the dead warrior;
Find no chaste corpse therein, but a soft-smiling whore.

XIV

Then I returned into myself, and took
All in my arms, God's universe:
Crushed its black juice out, while His anger shook
His dumbness pregnant with a curse.
I made me ink, and in a little book
I wrote one word
That God himself, the adder of Thought, had never heard.

XV

It detonated. Nature, God, mankind
Like sulphur, nitre, charcoal, once 
Blended, in one annihilation blind
Were rent into a myriad of suns.
Yea! all the mighty fabric of a Mind
Stood in the abyss,
Belching a Law for "That" more awful than for "This."

XVI

Vain was the toil. So then I left the wood
And came unto the still black sea,
That oily monster of beatitude!
('Hath "Thee" for "Me," and "Me" for "Thee!")
There as I stood, a mask of solitude
Hiding a face
Wried as a satyr's, rolled that ocean into space.

XVII

Then did I build an altar on the shore
Of oyster-shells, and ringed it round
With star-fish. Thither a green flame I bore
Of phosphor foam, and strewed the ground
With dew-drops, children of my wand, whose core
Was trembling steel
Electric that made spin the universal Wheel.

XVIII

With that a goat came running from the cave
That lurked below the tall white cliff. 
Thy name! cried I. The answer that gave
Was but one tempest-whisper - "If!"
Ah, then! his tongue to his black palate clave;
For on soul's curtain
Is written this one certainty that naught is certain!

XIX

So then I caught that goat up in a kiss.
And cried Io Pan! Io Pan! Io Pan!
Then all this body's wealth of ambergris,
(Narcissus-scented flesh of man!)
I burnt before him in the sacrifice;
For he was sure -
Being the Doubt of Things, the one thing to endure!

XX

Wherefore, when madness took him at the end,
He, doubt-goat, slew the goat of doubt;
And that which inward did for ever tend
Came at the last to have come out;
And I who had the World and God to friend
Found all three foes!
Drowned in that sea of changes, vacancies, and woes!

XXI

Yet all that Sea was swallowed up therein;
So they were not, and it was not. 
As who should sweat his soul out through the skin
And find (sad fool!) he had begot
All that without him that he had left in,
And in himself
All he had taken out thereof, a mocking elf!

XXII

But now that all was gone, great Pan appeared.
Him then I strove to woo, to win,
Kissing his curled lips, playing with his beard,
Setting his brain a-shake, a-spin,
By that strong wand, and muttering of the weird
That only I
Knew of all souls alive or dead beneath the sky.

XXIII

So still I conquered, and the vision passed.
Yet still was beaten, for I knew
Myself was He, Himself, the first and last;
And as an unicorn drinks dew
From under oak-leaves, so my strength was cast
Into the mire;
For all I did was dream, and all I dreamt desire.

XXIV

More; in this journey I had clean forgotten
The quest, my lover. But the tomb 
Of all these thoughts, the rancid and the rotten,
Proved in the end to be my womb
Wherein my Lord and lover had begotten
A little child
To drive me, laughing lion, into the wanton wild!

XXV

This child hath not one hair upon his head,
But he hath wings instead of ears.
No eyes hath he, but all his light is shed
Within him on the ordered sphere
Of nature that he hideth; and in stead
Of mouth he hath
One minute point of jet; silence, the lightning path!

XXVI

Also his nostrils are shut up; for he
Hath not the need of any breath;
Nor can the curtain of eternity
Cover that head with life or death.
So all his body, a slim almond-tree,
Knoweth no bough
Nor branch nor twig nor bud, from never until now.

XXVII

This thought I bred within my bowels, I am.
I am in him, as he in me; 
And like a satyr ravishing a lamb
So either seems, or as the sea
Swallows the whale that swallows it, the ram
Beats its own head
Upon the city walls, that fall as it falls dead.

XXVIII

Come, let me back unto the lilied lawn!
Pile me the roses and the thorns,
Upon this bed from which he hath withdrawn!
He may return. A million morns
May follow that first dire daemonic dawn
When he did split
My spirit with his lightnings and enveloped it!

XXIX

So I am stretched out naked to the knife,
My whole soul twitching with the stress
Of the expected yet surprising strife,
A martyrdom of blessedness.
Though Death came, I could kiss him into life;
Though Life came, I
Could kiss him into death, and yet nor live nor die!

***

Yet I that am the babe, the sire, the dam,
Am also none of these at all; 
For now that cosmic chaos of I AM
Bursts like a bubble. Mystical
The night comes down, a soaring wedge of flame
Woven therein
To be a sign to them who yet have never been.

XXXI

The universe I measured with my rod.
The blacks were balanced with the whites;
Satan dropped down even as up soared God;
Whores prayed and danced with anchorites.
So in my book the even matched the odd:
No word I wrote
Therein, but sealed it with the signet of the goat.

XXXII

This also I seal up. Read thou herein
Whose eyes are blind! Thou may'st behold
Within the wheel (that alway seems to spin
All ways) a point of static gold.
Then may'st thou out therewith, and fit it in
That extreme spher
Whose boundless farness makes it infinitely near.

 Proem. 

1.1 Although great Queen, thou now in silence lie,
1.2 Yet thy loud Herald Fame, doth to the sky
1.3 Thy wondrous worth proclaim, in every clime, 
1.4 And so has vow'd, whilst there is world or time. 
1.5 So great's thy glory, and thine excellence, 
1.6 The sound thereof raps every human sense 
1.7 That men account it no impiety 
1.8 To say thou wert a fleshly Deity. 
1.9 Thousands bring off'rings (though out of date) 
1.10 Thy world of honours to accumulate. 
1.11 'Mongst hundred Hecatombs of roaring Verse, 
1.12 'Mine bleating stands before thy royal Hearse. 
1.13 Thou never didst, nor canst thou now disdain, 
1.14 T' accept the tribute of a loyal Brain. 
1.15 Thy clemency did yerst esteem as much
1.16 The acclamations of the poor, as rich, 
1.17 Which makes me deem, my rudeness is no wrong, 
1.18 Though I resound thy greatness 'mongst the throng. 

The Poem. 

2.1 No Ph{oe}nix Pen, nor Spenser's Poetry, 
2.2 No Speed's, nor Camden's learned History; 
2.3 Eliza's works, wars, praise, can e're compact, 
2.4 The World's the Theater where she did act. 
2.5 No memories, nor volumes can contain, 
2.6 The nine Olymp'ades of her happy reign, 
2.7 Who was so good, so just, so learn'd, so wise, 
2.8 From all the Kings on earth she won the prize. 
2.9 Nor say I more than truly is her due. 
2.10 Millions will testify that this is true. 
2.11 She hath wip'd off th' aspersion of her Sex, 
2.12 That women wisdom lack to play the Rex. 
2.13 Spain's Monarch sa's not so, not yet his Host: 
2.14 She taught them better manners to their cost. 
2.15 The Salic Law had not in force now been, 
2.16 If France had ever hop'd for such a Queen. 
2.17 But can you Doctors now this point dispute, 
2.18 She's argument enough to make you mute, 
2.19 Since first the Sun did run, his ne'er runn'd race, 
2.20 And earth had twice a year, a new old face; 
2.21 Since time was time, and man unmanly man, 
2.22 Come shew me such a Ph{oe}nix if you can. 
2.23 Was ever people better rul'd than hers? 
2.24 Was ever Land more happy, freed from stirs? 
2.25 Did ever wealth in England so abound? 
2.26 Her Victories in foreign Coasts resound? 
2.27 Ships more invincible than Spain's, her foe
2.28 She rack't, she sack'd, she sunk his Armadoe. 
2.29 Her stately Troops advanc'd to Lisbon's wall, 
2.30 Don Anthony in's right for to install. 
2.31 She frankly help'd Franks' (brave) distressed King, 
2.32 The States united now her fame do sing. 
2.33 She their Protectrix was, they well do know, 
2.34 Unto our dread Virago, what they owe. 
2.35 Her Nobles sacrific'd their noble blood, 
2.36 Nor men, nor coin she shap'd, to do them good. 
2.37 The rude untamed Irish she did quell, 
2.38 And Tiron bound, before her picture fell. 
2.39 Had ever Prince such Counsellors as she? 
2.40 Her self Minerva caus'd them so to be. 
2.41 Such Soldiers, and such Captains never seen, 
2.42 As were the subjects of our (Pallas) Queen: 
2.43 Her Sea-men through all straits the world did round, 
2.44 Terra incognitæ might know her sound. 
2.45 Her Drake came laded home with Spanish gold, 
2.46 Her Essex took Cadiz, their Herculean hold. 
2.47 But time would fail me, so my wit would too, 
2.48 To tell of half she did, or she could do. 
2.49 Semiramis to her is but obscure; 
2.50 More infamy than fame she did procure. 
2.51 She plac'd her glory but on Babel's walls, 
2.52 World's wonder for a time, but yet it falls. 
2.53 Fierce Tomris (Cirus' Heads-man, Sythians' Queen) 
2.54 Had put her Harness off, had she but seen
2.55 Our Amazon i' th' Camp at Tilbury,
2.56 (Judging all valour, and all Majesty) 
2.57 Within that Princess to have residence, 
2.58 And prostrate yielded to her Excellence. 
2.59 Dido first Foundress of proud Carthage walls 
2.60 (Who living consummates her Funerals), 
2.61 A great Eliza, but compar'd with ours, 
2.62 How vanisheth her glory, wealth, and powers.
2.63 Proud profuse Cleopatra, whose wrong name, 
2.64 Instead of glory, prov'd her Country's shame: 
2.65 Of her what worth in Story's to be seen, 
2.66 But that she was a rich Ægyptian Queen. 
2.67 Zenobia, potent Empress of the East, 
2.68 And of all these without compare the best 
2.69 (Whom none but great Aurelius could quell) 
2.70 Yet for our Queen is no fit parallel: 
2.71 She was a Ph{oe}nix Queen, so shall she be, 
2.72 Her ashes not reviv'd more Ph{oe}nix she. 
2.73 Her personal perfections, who would tell, 
2.74 Must dip his Pen i' th' Heliconian Well, 
2.75 Which I may not, my pride doth but aspire 
2.76 To read what others write and then admire. 
2.77 Now say, have women worth, or have they none? 
2.78 Or had they some, but with our Queen is't gone? 
2.79 Nay Masculines, you have thus tax'd us long, 
2.80 But she, though dead, will vindicate our wrong. 
2.81 Let such as say our sex is void of reason 
2.82 Know 'tis a slander now, but once was treason. 
2.83 But happy England, which had such a Queen, 
2.84 O happy, happy, had those days still been, 
2.85 But happiness lies in a higher sphere. 
2.86 Then wonder not, Eliza moves not here. 
2.87 Full fraught with honour, riches, and with days, 
2.88 She set, she set, like Titan in his rays. 
2.89 No more shall rise or set such glorious Sun, 
2.90 Until the heaven's great revolution: 
2.91 If then new things, their old form must retain, 
2.92 Eliza shall rule Albian once again. 

Her Epitaph. 

3.1 Here sleeps T H E Queen, this is the royal bed 
3.2 O' th' Damask Rose, sprung from the white and red, 
3.3 Whose sweet perfume fills the all-filling air, 
3.4 This Rose is withered, once so lovely fair: 
3.5 On neither tree did grow such Rose before, 
3.6 The greater was our gain, our loss the more. 

Another. 

4.1 Here lies the pride of Queens, pattern of Kings: 
4.2 So blaze it fame, here's feathers for thy wings. 
4.3 Here lies the envy'd, yet unparallel'd Prince, 
4.4 Whose living virtues speak (though dead long since). 
4.5 If many worlds, as that fantastic framed, 
4.6 In every one, be her great glory famed

 Absent upon Public Employment 

My head, my heart, mine eyes, my life, nay more,
My joy, my magazine, of earthly store,
If two be one, as surely thou and I,
How stayest thou there, whilst I at Ipswich lie?
So many steps, head from the heart to sever,
If but a neck, soon should we be together.
I, like the Earth this season, mourn in black,
My Sun is gone so far in's zodiac,
Whom whilst I 'joyed, nor storms, nor frost I felt,
His warmth such fridged colds did cause to melt.
My chilled limbs now numbed lie forlorn;
Return; return, sweet Sol, from Capricorn;
In this dead time, alas, what can I more
Than view those fruits which through thy heart I bore?
Which sweet contentment yield me for a space,
True living pictures of their father's face.
O strange effect! now thou art southward gone,
I weary grow the tedious day so long;
But when thou northward to me shalt return,
I wish my Sun may never set, but burn
Within the Cancer of my glowing breast,
The welcome house of him my dearest guest.
Where ever, ever stay, and go not thence,
Till nature's sad decree shall call thee hence;
Flesh of thy flesh, bone of thy bone,
I here, thou there, yet both but one.

 My father knows the proper way 
The nation should be run;
He tells us children every day
Just what should now be done.
He knows the way to fix the trusts,
He has a simple plan;
But if the furnace needs repairs,
We have to hire a man.
My father, in a day or two
Could land big thieves in jail;
There's nothing that he cannot do,
He knows no word like "fail."
"Our confidence" he would restore,
Of that there is no doubt;
But if there is a chair to mend,
We have to send it out.

All public questions that arise,
He settles on the spot;
He waits not till the tumult dies,
But grabs it while it's hot.
In matters of finance he can
Tell Congress what to do;
But, O, he finds it hard to meet
His bills as they fall due.

It almost makes him sick to read
The things law-makers say;
Why, father's just the man they need,
He never goes astray.
All wars he'd very quickly end,
As fast as I can write it;
But when a neighbor starts a fuss,
'Tis mother has to fight it.

In conversation father can
Do many wondrous things;
He's built upon a wiser plan
Than presidents or kings.
He knows the ins and outs of each
And every deep transaction;
We look to him for theories,
But look to ma for action.

 Oblig'd by frequent visits of this man,
Whom as Priest, Poet, and Musician,
I for some branch of Melchizedeck took,
(Though he derives himself from my Lord Brooke)
I sought his Lodging; which is at the Sign
Of the sad Pelican; Subject divine
For Poetry: There three Stair Cases high,
Which signifies his triple property,
I found at last a Chamber, as 'twas said,
But seem'd a Coffin set on the Stairs head.
Not higher then Seav'n, nor larger then three feet;
Only there was nor Seeling, nor a Sheet,
Save that th' ingenious Door did as you come
Turn in, and shew to Wainscot half the Room.
Yet of his State no man could have complain'd;
There being no Bed where he entertain'd:
And though within one Cell so narrow pent,
He'd Stanza's for a whole Appartement.
Straight without further information,
In hideous verse, he, and a dismal tone,
Begins to exercise; as if I were
Possest; and sure the Devil brought me there.
But I, who now imagin'd my selfbrought
To my last Tryal, in a serious thought
Calm'd the disorders of my youthful Breast,
And to my Martyrdom prepared Rest.
Only this frail Ambition did remain,
The last distemper of the sober Brain,
That there had been some present to assure
The future Ages how I did indure:
And how I, silent, turn'd my burning Ear
Towards the Verse; and when that could n
Held him the other; and unchanged yet,
Ask'd still for more, and pray'd him to repeat:
Till the Tyrant, weary to persecute,
Left off, and try'd t'allure me with his Lute.
Now as two Instruments, to the same key
Being tun'd by Art, if the one touched be
The other opposite as soon replies,
Mov'd by the Air and hidden Sympathies;
So while he with his gouty Fingers craules
Over the Lute, his murmuring Belly calls,
Whose hungry Guts to the same streightness twin'd
In Echo to the trembling Strings repin'd.
I, that perceiv'd now what his Musick ment,
Ask'd civilly if he had eat this Lent.
He answered yes; with such, and such an one.
For he has this of gen'rous, that alone
He never feeds; save only when he tryes
With gristly Tongue to dart the passing Flyes.
I ask'd if he eat flesh. And he, that was
So hungry that though ready to say Mass
Would break his fast before, said he was Sick,
And th' Ordinance was only Politick.
Nor was I longer to invite him: Scant
Happy at once to make him Protestant,
And Silent. Nothing now Dinner stay'd
But till he had himself a Body made.
I mean till he were drest: for else so thin
He stands, as if he only fed had been
With consecrated Wafers: and the Host
Hath sure more flesh and blood then he can boast.
This Basso Relievo of a Man,
Who as a Camel tall, yet easly can
The Needles Eye thread without any stich,
(His only impossible is to be rich)
Lest his too suttle Body, growing rare,
Should leave his Soul to wander in the Air,
He therefore circumscribes himself in rimes;
And swaddled in's own papers seaven times,
Wears a close Jacket of poetick Buff,
With which he doth his third Dimension Stuff.
Thus armed underneath, he over all
Does make a primitive Sotana fall;
And above that yet casts an antick Cloak,
Worn at the first Counsel of Antioch;
Which by the Jews long hid, and Disesteem'd,
He heard of by Tradition, and redeem'd.
But were he not in this black habit deck't,
This half transparent Man would soon reflect
Each colour that he past by; and be seen,
As the Chamelion, yellow, blew, or green.
He drest, and ready to disfurnish now
His Chamber, whose compactness did allow
No empty place for complementing doubt,
But who came last is forc'd first to go out;
I meet one on the Stairs who made me stand,
Stopping the passage, and did him demand:
I answer'd he is here Sir; but you see
You cannot pass to him but thorow me.
He thought himself affronted; and reply'd,
I whom the Pallace never has deny'd
Will make the way here; I said Sir you'l do
Me a great favour, for I seek to go.
He gathring fury still made sign to draw;
But himself there clos'd in a Scabbard saw
As narrow as his Sword's; and I, that was
Delightful, said there can no Body pass
Except by penetration hither, where
Two make a crowd, nor can three Persons here
Consist but in one substance. Then, to fit
Our peace, the Priest said I too had some wit:
To prov't, I said, the place doth us invite
But its own narrowness, Sir, to unite.
He ask'd me pardon; and to make me way
Went down, as I him follow'd to obey.
But the propitiatory Priest had straight
Oblig'd us, when below, to celebrate
Together our attonement: so increas'd
Betwixt us two the Dinner to a Feast.
Let it suffice that we could eat in peace;
And that both Poems did and Quarrels cease
During the Table; though my new made Friend
Did, as he threatned, ere 'twere long intend
To be both witty and valiant: I loth,
Said 'twas too late, he was already both.
But now, Alas, my first Tormentor came,
Who satisfy'd with eating, but not tame
Turns to recite; though Judges most severe
After th'Assizes dinner mild appear,
And on full stomach do condemn but few:
Yet he more strict my sentence doth renew;
And draws out of the black box of his Breast
Ten quire of paper in which he was drest.
Yet that which was a greater cruelty
Then Nero's Poem he calls charity:
And so the Pelican at his door hung
Picks out the tender bosome to its young.
Of all his Poems there he stands ungirt
Save only two foul copies for his shirt:
Yet these he promises as soon as clean.
But how I loath'd to see my Neighbour glean
Those papers, which he pilled from within
Like white fleaks rising from a Leaper's skin!
More odious then those raggs which the French youth
At ordinaries after dinner show'th,
When they compare their Chancres and Poulains.
Yet he first kist them, and after takes pains
To read; and then, because he understood good.
Not one Word, thought and swore that they were
But all his praises could not now appease
The provok't Author, whom it did displease
To hear his Verses, by so just a curse,
That were ill made condemn'd to be read worse:
And how (impossible) he made yet more
Absurdityes in them then were before.
For he his untun'd voice did fall or raise
As a deaf Man upon a Viol playes,
Making the half points and the periods run
Confus'der then the atomes in the Sun.
Thereat the Poet swell'd, with anger full,
And roar'd out, like Perillus in's own Bull;
Sir you read false. That any one but you
Should know the contrary. Whereat, I, now
Made Mediator, in my room, said, Why?
To say that you read false Sir is no Lye.
Thereat the waxen Youth relented straight;
But saw with sad dispair that was too late.
For the disdainful Poet was retir'd
Home, his most furious Satyr to have fir'd
Against the Rebel; who, at this struck dead
Wept bitterly as disinherited.
Who should commend his Mistress now? Or who
Praise him? both difficult indeed to do
With truth. I counsell'd him to go in time,
Ere the fierce Poets anger turn'd to rime.
He hasted; and I, finding my self free,
Did, as he threatned, ere 'twere long intend
As one scap't strangely from Captivity,
Have made the Chance be painted; and go now
To hang it in Saint Peter's for a Vow.

 An imaginary composer.]

I.

Hist, but a word, fair and soft!
Forth and be judged, Master Hugues!
Answer the question I've put you so oft:
What do you mean by your mountainous fugues?
See, we're alone in the loft,---

II.

I, the poor organist here,
Hugues, the composer of note,
Dead though, and done with, this many a year:
Let's have a colloquy, something to quote,
Make the world prick up its ear!

III.

See, the church empties apace:
Fast they extinguish the lights.
Hallo there, sacristan! Five minutes' grace!
Here's a crank pedal wants setting to rights,
Baulks one of holding the base.

IV.

See, our huge house of the sounds,
Hushing its hundreds at once,
Bids the last loiterer back to his bounds!
O you may challenge them, not a response
Get the church-saints on their rounds!

V.

(Saints go their rounds, who shall doubt?
---March, with the moon to admire,
Up nave, down chancel, turn transept about,
Supervise all betwixt pavement and spire,
Put rats and mice to the rout---

VI.

Aloys and Jurien and Just---
Order things back to their place,
Have a sharp eye lest the candlesticks rust,
Rub the church-plate, darn the sacrament-lace,
Clear the desk-velvet of dust.)

VII.

Here's your book, younger folks shelve!
Played I not off-hand and runningly,
Just now, your masterpiece, hard number twelve?
Here's what should strike, could one handle it cunningly:
HeIp the axe, give it a helve!

VIII.

Page after page as I played,
Every bar's rest, where one wipes
Sweat from one's brow, I looked up and surveyed,
O'er my three claviers yon forest of pipes
Whence you still peeped in the shade.

IX.

Sure you were wishful to speak?
You, with brow ruled like a score,
Yes, and eyes buried in pits on each cheek,
Like two great breves, as they wrote them of yore,
Each side that bar, your straight beak!

X.

Sure you said---``Good, the mere notes!
``Still, couldst thou take my intent,
``Know what procured me our Company's votes---
``A master were lauded and sciolists shent,
``Parted the sheep from the goats!''

XI.

Well then, speak up, never flinch!
Quick, ere my candle's a snuff
---Burnt, do you see? to its uttermost inch---
_I_ believe in you, but that's not enough:
Give my conviction a clinch!

XII.

First you deliver your phrase
---Nothing propound, that I see,
Fit in itself for much blame or much praise---
Answered no less, where no answer needs be:
Off start the Two on their ways.

XIII.

Straight must a Third interpose,
Volunteer needlessly help;
In strikes a Fourth, a Fifth thrusts in his nose,
So the cry's open, the kennel's a-yelp,
Argument's hot to the close.

XIV.

One dissertates, he is candid;
Two must discept,--has distinguished;
Three helps the couple, if ever yet man did;
Four protests; Five makes a dart at the thing wished:
Back to One, goes the case bandied.

XV.

One says his say with a difference
More of expounding, explaining!
All now is wrangle, abuse, and vociferance;
Now there's a truce, all's subdued, self-restraining:
Five, though, stands out all the stiffer hence.

XVI.

One is incisive, corrosive:
Two retorts, nettled, curt, crepitant;
Three makes rejoinder, expansive, explosive;
Four overbears them all, strident and strepitant,
Five ... O Danaides, O Sieve!

XVII.

Now, they ply axes and crowbars;
Now, they prick pins at a tissue
Fine as a skein of the casuist Escobar's
Worked on the bone of a lie. To what issue?
Where is our gain at the Two-bars?

XVIII.

_Est fuga, volvitur rota._
On we drift: where looms the dim port?
One, Two, Three, Four, Five, contribute their quota;
Something is gained, if one caught but the import---
Show it us, Hugues of Saxe-Gotha!

XIX.

What with affirming, denying,
Holding, risposting, subjoining,
All's like ... it's like ... for an instance I'm trying ...
There! See our roof, its gilt moulding and groining
Under those spider-webs lying!

XX.

So your fugue broadens and thickens,
Greatens and deepens and lengthens,
Till we exclaim---``But where's music, the dickens?
``Blot ye the gold, while your spider-web strengthens
``---Blacked to the stoutest of tickens?''

XXI.

I for man's effort am zealous:
Prove me such censure unfounded!
Seems it surprising a lover grows jealous---
Hopes 'twas for something, his organ-pipes sounded,
Tiring three boys at the bellows?

XXII.

Is it your moral of Life?
Such a web, simple and subtle,
Weave we on earth here in impotent strife,
Backward and forward each throwing his shuttle,
Death ending all with a knife?

XXIII.

Over our heads truth and nature---
Still our life's zigzags and dodges,
Ins and outs, weaving a new legislature---
God's gold just shining its last where that lodges,
Palled beneath man's usurpature.

XXIV.

So we o'ershroud stars and roses,
Cherub and trophy and garland;
Nothings grow something which quietly closes
Heaven's earnest eye: not a glimpse of the far land
Gets through our comments and glozes.

XXV.

Ah but traditions, inventions,
(Say we and make up a visage)
So many men with such various intentions,
Down the past ages, must know more than this age!
Leave we the web its dimensions!

XXVI.

Who thinks Hugues wrote for the deaf,
Proved a mere mountain in labour?
Better submit; try again; what's the clef?
'Faith, 'tis no trifle for pipe and for tabor---
Four flats, the minor in F.

XXVII.

Friend, your fugue taxes the finger
Learning it once, who would lose it?
Yet all the while a misgiving will linger,
Truth's golden o'er us although we refuse it---
Nature, thro' cobwebs we string her.

XXVIII.

Hugues! I advise _Me Pn_
(Counterpoint glares like a Gorgon)
Bid One, Two, Three, Four, Five, clear the arena!
Say the word, straight I unstop the full-organ,
Blare out the _mode Palestrina._

XXIX.

While in the roof, if I'm right there,
... Lo you, the wick in the socket!
Hallo, you sacristan, show us a light there!
Down it dips, gone like a rocket.
What, you want, do you, to come unawares,
Sweeping the church up for first morning-prayers,
And find a poor devil has ended his cares
At the foot of your rotten-runged rat-riddled stairs?
Do I carry the moon in my pocket?

* 1 A fugue is a short melody.
* 2 Keyboard of organ.
* 3 A note in music.
* 4 The daughters of Danaus, condemned to pour water
* into a sieve.
* 5 The Spanish casuist, so severely mauled by Pascal.
* 6 A quick return in fencing.
* 7 A closely woven fabric.
* 8 _Giovanni P. da Palestrina_, celebrated musician (1524-1594).

 We're talking different kinds of vulnerability here.

These icicles aren't going to last for ever 

Suspended in the ultra violet rays of a Dumfries sun.

But here they hang, a frozen whirligig of lightning,

And the famous American sculptor 

Who scrambles the world with his tripod

For strangeness au naturel, got sunset to fill them. 

It's not comfortable, a double helix of opalescent fire 

* 

Wrapping round you, swishing your bark

Down cotton you can't see,

On which a sculptor planned his icicles, 

Working all day for that Mesopotamian magic

Of last light before the dark

In a suspended helter-skelter, lit

By almost horizontal rays

Making a mist-carousel from the House of Diamond,

*

A spiral of Pepsodent darkening to the shadowfrost

Of cedars at the Great Gate of Kiev.

Why it makes me think of opening the door to you

I can't imagine. No one could be less

Of an icicle. But there it is -

Having put me down in felt-tip

In the mystical appointment book, 

You shoot that quick

*

Inquiry-glance, head tilted, when I open up,

Like coming in's another country,

A country you want but have to get used to, hot 

From your bal masqu?, making sure 

That what you found before's

Still here: a spiral of touch and go,

Lightning licking a tree

Imagining itself Aretha Franklin

*
Singing "You make me feel like a natural woman" 

In basso profondo,

Firing the bark with its otherworld ice

The way you fire, lifting me 

Off my own floor, legs furled 

Round your trunk as that tree goes up 

At an angle inside the lightning, roots in

The orange and silver of Dumfries.

*

Now I'm the lightning now you, you are,

As you pour yourself round me 

Entirely. No who's doing what and to who,

Just a tangle of spiral and tree.

You might wonder about sculptors who come all this way 

To make a mad thing that won't last.

You know how it is: you spend a day, a whole life.

Then the light's gone, you walk away 

*

To the Galloway Paradise Hotel. Pine-logs,

Cutlery, champagne - OK, 

But the important thing was making it.

Hours, and you don't know how it'll be. 

Then something like light

Arrives last moment, at speed reckoned 

Only by horizons: completing, surprising 

With its three hundred thousand 

*

Kilometres per second. Still, even lightning has its moments of panic.

You don't get icicles catching the midwinter sun 

In a perfect double helix in Dumfriesshire every day. 

And can they be good for each other,

Lightning and tree? It'd make anyone,

Wouldn't it, afraid? That rowan would adore

To sleep and wake up in your arms 

*

But's scared of getting burnt. And the lightning might ask, touching wood,

"What do you want of me, now we're in the same 

Atomic chain?" What can the tree say?

"Being the centre of all that you are to yourself -

That'd be OK. Being my own body's fine

But it needs yours to stay that way."

No one could live for ever in 

*

A suspended gleam-on-the-edge,

As if sky might tear any minute. Or not for ever for long. Those icicles

Won't be surprise any more. The little snapped threads 

Blew away. Glamour left that hill in Dumfries.

The sculptor went off with his black equipment. 

Adzes, twine, leather gloves.

*

What's left is a photo of

A completely solitary sight

In a book anyone might open. 

But whether our touch at the door gets forgotten

Or turned into other sights, light, form, 

I hope you'll be truthful

To me. At least as truthful as lightning,

Skinning a tree.



THIS POEM WON THE 1996 National Poetry Prize

 As though the mercury's under its tongue, it won't
talk. As though with the mercury in its sphincter,
immobile, by a leaf-coated pond
a statue stands white like a blight of winter.
After such snow, there is nothing indeed: the ins
and outs of centuries, pestered heather.
That's what coming full circle means - 
when your countenance starts to resemble weather,
when Pygmalion's vanished. And you are free
to cloud your folds, to bare the navel.
Future at last! That is, bleached debris
of a glacier amid the five-lettered "never."
Hence the routine of a goddess, nee
alabaster, that lets roving pupils gorge on
the heart of color and the temperature of the knee.
That's what it looks like inside a virgin

 When our moggy brings in moths, she squeaks
through the kitchen, tips between her teeth,

and scoots upstairs to scuff under the bed.
If we find these blow-ins they’re usually dead

though a number dust the floor with tatty wings
or unfurl from sheets like pencil shavings,

furry woodcuts, a lime-green surprise –
still tremulous, and slight enough to fly.

We hold our fluttery palms to the window,
weigh each one’s chances and let go –

though tonight you pinch up slivers of moonlight,
and creatures whirr from room to room

like sooty sparks, or tightly sprung toys
glancing our low-lit angle poise.

We lie in almost solid heat;
these hours you turn with fists and feet

and cup my hand against your side to feel
the shape, the quiver of a beating heel.

(Lied: Ins Stille Land) 
BY JOHANN GAUDENZ VON SALIS-SEEWIS


INTO the Silent Land! 
Ah! who shall lead us thither? 
Clouds in the evening sky more darkly gather  
And shattered wrecks lie thicker on the strand. 
Who leads us with a gentle hand 5 
Thither oh thither  
Into the Silent Land? 

Into the Silent Land! 
To you ye boundless regions 
Of all perfection! Tender morning-visions 10 
Of beauteous souls! The Future's pledge and band! 
Who in Life's battle firm doth stand  
Shall bear Hope's tender blossoms 
Into the Silent Land! 

O Land! O Land! 15 
For all the broken-hearted 
The mildest herald by our fate allotted  
Beckons and with inverted torch doth stand 
To lead us with a gentle hand 
To the land of the great Departed 20 
Into the Silent Land!