Written by
Edgar Allan Poe |
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—
Only this and nothing more.”
Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December;
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow;—vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenore—
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore—
Nameless here for evermore.
And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me—filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating
“’Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door—
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door;—
This it is and nothing more.”
Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
“Sir,” said I, “or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you”—here I opened wide the door;—
Darkness there and nothing more.
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, “Lenore?”
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, “Lenore!”—
Merely this and nothing more.
Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.
“Surely,” said I, “surely that is something at my window lattice;
Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore—
Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore;—
’Tis the wind and nothing more!”
Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore;
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door—
Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door—
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.
Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,
“Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,” I said, “art sure no craven,
Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore—
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore!”
Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”
Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
Though its answer little meaning—little relevancy bore;
For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door—
Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,
With such name as “Nevermore.”
But the Raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
Nothing farther then he uttered—not a feather then he fluttered—
Till I scarcely more than muttered “Other friends have flown before—
On the morrow he will leave me, as my Hopes have flown before.”
Then the bird said “Nevermore.”
Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,
“Doubtless,” said I, “what it utters is its only stock and store
Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster
Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore—
Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore
Of ‘Never—nevermore’.”
But the Raven still beguiling all my fancy into smiling,
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust and door;
Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore—
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore
Meant in croaking “Nevermore.”
This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom’s core;
This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
On the cushion’s velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o’er,
But whose velvet-violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o’er,
She shall press, ah, nevermore!
Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.
“Wretch,” I cried, “thy God hath lent thee—by these angels he hath sent thee
Respite—respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore;
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!”
Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”
“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!—
Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted—
On this home by Horror haunted—tell me truly, I implore—
Is there—is there balm in Gilead?—tell me—tell me, I implore!”
Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”
“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!
By that Heaven that bends above us—by that God we both adore—
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore—
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.”
Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”
“Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!” I shrieked, upstarting—
“Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken!—quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!”
Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”
And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,
And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted—nevermore!
|
Written by
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow |
Spake full well, in language quaint and olden,
One who dwelleth by the castled Rhine,
When he called the flowers, so blue and golden,
Stars, that in earth's firmament do shine.
Stars they are, wherein we read our history,
As astrologers and seers of eld;
Yet not wrapped about with awful mystery,
Like the burning stars, which they beheld.
Wondrous truths, and manifold as wondrous,
God hath written in those stars above;
But not less in the bright flowerets under us
Stands the revelation of his love.
Bright and glorious is that revelation,
Written all over this great world of ours;
Making evident our own creation,
In these stars of earth, these golden flowers.
And the Poet, faithful and far-seeing,
Sees, alike in stars and flowers, a part
Of the self-same, universal being,
Which is throbbing in his brain and heart.
Gorgeous flowerets in the sunlight shining,
Blossoms flaunting in the eye of day,
Tremulous leaves, with soft and silver lining,
Buds that open only to decay;
Brilliant hopes, all woven in gorgeous tissues,
Flaunting gayly in the golden light;
Large desires, with most uncertain issues,
Tender wishes, blossoming at night!
These in flowers and men are more than seeming;
Workings are they of the self-same powers,
Which the Poet, in no idle dreaming,
Seeth in himself and in the flowers.
Everywhere about us are they glowing,
Some like stars, to tell us Spring is born;
Others, their blue eyes with tears o'er-flowing,
Stand like Ruth amid the golden corn;
Not alone in Spring's armorial bearing,
And in Summer's green-emblazoned field,
But in arms of brave old Autumn's wearing,
In the centre of his brazen shield;
Not alone in meadows and green alleys,
On the mountain-top, and by the brink
Of sequestered pools in woodland valleys,
Where the slaves of nature stoop to drink;
Not alone in her vast dome of glory,
Not on graves of bird and beast alone,
But in old cathedrals, high and hoary,
On the tombs of heroes, carved in stone;
In the cottage of the rudest peasant,
In ancestral homes, whose crumbling towers,
Speaking of the Past unto the Present,
Tell us of the ancient Games of Flowers;
In all places, then, and in all seasons,
Flowers expand their light and soul-like wings,
Teaching us, by most persuasive reasons,
How akin they are to human things.
And with childlike, credulous affection
We behold their tender buds expand;
Emblems of our own great resurrection,
Emblems of the bright and better land.
|
Written by
Anne Sexton |
Because there was no other place
to flee to,
I came back to the scene of the disordered senses,
came back last night at midnight,
arriving in the thick June night
without luggage or defenses,
giving up my car keys and my cash,
keeping only a pack of Salem cigarettes
the way a child holds on to a toy.
I signed myself in where a stranger
puts the inked-in X's—
for this is a mental hospital,
not a child's game.
Today an intern knocks my knees,
testing for reflexes.
Once I would have winked and begged for dope.
Today I am terribly patient.
Today crows play black-jack
on the stethoscope.
Everyone has left me
except my muse,
that good nurse.
She stays in my hand,
a mild white mouse.
The curtains, lazy and delicate,
billow and flutter and drop
like the Victorian skirts
of my two maiden aunts
who kept an antique shop.
Hornets have been sent.
They cluster like floral arrangements on the screen.
Hornets, dragging their thin stingers,
hover outside, all knowing,
hissing: the hornet knows.
I heard it as a child
but what was it that he meant?
The hornet knows!
What happened to Jack and Doc and Reggy?
Who remembers what lurks in the heart of man?
What did The Green Hornet mean, he knows?
Or have I got it wrong?
Is it The Shadow who had seen
me from my bedside radio?
Now it's Dinn, Dinn, Dinn!
while the ladies in the next room argue
and pick their teeth.
Upstairs a girl curls like a snail;
in another room someone tries to eat a shoe;
meanwhile an adolescent pads up and down
the hall in his white tennis socks.
A new doctor makes rounds
advertising tranquilizers, insulin, or shock
to the uninitiated.
Six years of such small preoccupations!
Six years of shuttling in and out of this place!
O my hunger! My hunger!
I could have gone around the world twice
or had new children - all boys.
It was a long trip with little days in it
and no new places.
In here,
it's the same old crowd,
the same ruined scene.
The alcoholic arrives with his gold culbs.
The suicide arrives with extra pills sewn
into the lining of her dress.
The permanent guests have done nothing new.
Their faces are still small
like babies with jaundice.
Meanwhile,
they carried out my mother,
wrapped like somebody's doll, in sheets,
bandaged her jaw and stuffed up her holes.
My father, too. He went out on the rotten blood
he used up on other women in the Middle West.
He went out, a cured old alcoholic
on crooked feet and useless hands.
He went out calling for his father
who died all by himself long ago -
that fat banker who got locked up,
his genes suspened like dollars,
wrapped up in his secret,
tied up securely in a straitjacket.
But you, my doctor, my enthusiast,
were better than Christ;
you promised me another world
to tell me who
I was.
I spent most of my time,
a stranger,
damned and in trance—that little hut,
that naked blue-veined place,
my eyes shut on the confusing office,
eyes circling into my childhood,
eyes newly cut.
Years of hints
strung out—a serialized case history—
thirty-three years of the same dull incest
that sustained us both.
You, my bachelor analyst,
who sat on Marlborough Street,
sharing your office with your mother
and giving up cigarettes each New Year,
were the new God,
the manager of the Gideon Bible.
I was your third-grader
with a blue star on my forehead.
In trance I could be any age,
voice, gesture—all turned backward
like a drugstore clock.
Awake, I memorized dreams.
Dreams came into the ring
like third string fighters,
each one a bad bet
who might win
because there was no other.
I stared at them,
concentrating on the abyss
the way one looks down into a rock quarry,
uncountable miles down,
my hands swinging down like hooks
to pull dreams up out of their cage.
O my hunger! My hunger!
Once, outside your office,
I collapsed in the old-fashioned swoon
between the illegally parked cars.
I threw myself down,
pretending dead for eight hours.
I thought I had died
into a snowstorm.
Above my head
chains cracked along like teeth
digging their way through the snowy street.
I lay there
like an overcoat
that someone had thrown away.
You carried me back in,
awkwardly, tenderly,
with help of the red-haired secretary
who was built like a lifeguard.
My shoes,
I remember,
were lost in the snowbank
as if I planned never to walk again.
That was the winter
that my mother died,
half mad on morphine,
blown up, at last,
like a pregnant pig.
I was her dreamy evil eye.
In fact,
I carried a knife in my pocketbook—
my husband's good L. L. Bean hunting knife.
I wasn't sure if I should slash a tire
or scrape the guts out of some dream.
You taught me
to believe in dreams;
thus I was the dredger.
I held them like an old woman with arthritic fingers,
carefully straining the water out—
sweet dark playthings,
and above all, mysterious
until they grew mournful and weak.
O my hunger! My hunger!
I was the one
who opened the warm eyelid
like a surgeon
and brought forth young girls
to grunt like fish.
I told you,
I said—
but I was lying—
that the kife was for my mother . . .
and then I delivered her.
The curtains flutter out
and slump against the bars.
They are my two thin ladies
named Blanche and Rose.
The grounds outside
are pruned like an estate at Newport.
Far off, in the field,
something yellow grows.
Was it last month or last year
that the ambulance ran like a hearse
with its siren blowing on suicide—
Dinn, dinn, dinn!—
a noon whistle that kept insisting on life
all the way through the traffic lights?
I have come back
but disorder is not what it was.
I have lost the trick of it!
The innocence of it!
That fellow-patient in his stovepipe hat
with his fiery joke, his manic smile—
even he seems blurred, small and pale.
I have come back,
recommitted,
fastened to the wall like a bathroom plunger,
held like a prisoner
who was so poor
he fell in love with jail.
I stand at this old window
complaining of the soup,
examining the grounds,
allowing myself the wasted life.
Soon I will raise my face for a white flag,
and when God enters the fort,
I won't spit or gag on his finger.
I will eat it like a white flower.
Is this the old trick, the wasting away,
the skull that waits for its dose
of electric power?
This is madness
but a kind of hunger.
What good are my questions
in this hierarchy of death
where the earth and the stones go
Dinn! Dinn! Dinn!
It is hardly a feast.
It is my stomach that makes me suffer.
Turn, my hungers!
For once make a deliberate decision.
There are brains that rot here
like black bananas.
Hearts have grown as flat as dinner plates.
Anne, Anne,
flee on your donkey,
flee this sad hotel,
ride out on some hairy beast,
gallop backward pressing
your buttocks to his withers,
sit to his clumsy gait somehow.
Ride out
any old way you please!
In this place everyone talks to his own mouth.
That's what it means to be crazy.
Those I loved best died of it—
the fool's disease.
|
Written by
Galway Kinnell |
I eat oatmeal for breakfast.
I make it on the hot plate and put skimmed milk on it.
I eat it alone.
I am aware it is not good to eat oatmeal alone.
Its consistency is such that is better for your mental health
if somebody eats it with you.
That is why I often think up an imaginary companion to have
breakfast with.
Possibly it is even worse to eat oatmeal with an imaginary
companion.
Nevertheless, yesterday morning, I ate my oatmeal porridge,
as he called it with John Keats.
Keats said I was absolutely right to invite him:
due to its glutinous texture, gluey lumpishness, hint of slime,
and unsual willingness to disintigrate, oatmeal should
not be eaten alone.
He said that in his opinion, however, it is perfectly OK to eat
it with an imaginary companion, and that he himself had
enjoyed memorable porridges with Edmund Spenser and John
Milton.
Even if eating oatmeal with an imaginary companion is not as
wholesome as Keats claims, still, you can learn something
from it.
Yesterday morning, for instance, Keats told me about writing the
"Ode to a Nightingale."
He had a heck of a time finishing it those were his words "Oi 'ad
a 'eck of a toime," he said, more or less, speaking through
his porridge.
He wrote it quickly, on scraps of paper, which he then stuck in his
pocket,
but when he got home he couldn't figure out the order of the stanzas,
and he and a friend spread the papers on a table, and they
made some sense of them, but he isn't sure to this day if
they got it right.
An entire stanza may have slipped into the lining of his jacket
through a hole in his pocket.
He still wonders about the occasional sense of drift between stanzas,
and the way here and there a line will go into the
configuration of a Moslem at prayer, then raise itself up
and peer about, and then lay itself down slightly off the mark,
causing the poem to move forward with a reckless, shining wobble.
He said someone told him that later in life Wordsworth heard about
the scraps of paper on the table, and tried shuffling some
stanzas of his own, but only made matters worse.
I would not have known any of this but for my reluctance to eat oatmeal
alone.
When breakfast was over, John recited "To Autumn."
He recited it slowly, with much feeling, and he articulated the words
lovingly, and his odd accent sounded sweet.
He didn't offer the story of writing "To Autumn," I doubt if there
is much of one.
But he did say the sight of a just-harvested oat field go thim started
on it, and two of the lines, "For Summer has o'er-brimmed their
clammy cells" and "Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours,"
came to him while eating oatmeal alone.
I can see him drawing a spoon through the stuff, gazing into the glimmering
furrows, muttering.
Maybe there is no sublime; only the shining of the amnion's tatters.
For supper tonight I am going to have a baked potato left over from lunch.
I am aware that a leftover baked potato is damp, slippery, and simultaneaously
gummy and crumbly, and therefore I'm going to invite Patrick Kavanagh
to join me.
|
Written by
Vachel Lindsay |
[In memory of E. S. Frazee, Rush County, Indiana]
Into the acres of the newborn state
He poured his strength, and plowed his ancient name,
And, when the traders followed him, he stood
Towering above their furtive souls and tame.
That brow without a stain, that fearless eye
Oft left the passing stranger wondering
To find such knighthood in the sprawling land,
To see a democrat well-nigh a king.
He lived with liberal hand, with guests from far,
With talk and joke and fellowship to spare, —
Watching the wide world's life from sun to sun,
Lining his walls with books from everywhere.
He read by night, he built his world by day.
The farm and house of God to him were one.
For forty years he preached and plowed and wrought —
A statesman in the fields, who bent to none.
His plowmen-neighbors were as lords to him.
His was an ironside, democratic pride.
He served a rigid Christ, but served him well —
And, for a lifetime, saved the countryside.
Here lie the dead, who gave the church their best
Under his fiery preaching of the word.
They sleep with him beneath the ragged grass...
The village withers, by his voice unstirred.
And tho' his tribe be scattered to the wind
From the Atlantic to the China sea,
Yet do they think of that bright lamp he burned
Of family worth and proud integrity.
And many a sturdy grandchild hears his name
In reverence spoken, till he feels akin
To all the lion-eyed who built the world —
And lion-dreams begin to burn within.
|
Written by
Jorie Graham |
I have put on my great coat it is cold.
It is an outer garment.
Coarse, woolen.
Of unknown origin.
*
It has a fine inner lining but it is
as an exterior that you see it — a grace.
*
I have a coat I am wearing. It is a fine admixture.
The woman who threw the threads in the two directions
has made, skillfully, something dark-true,
as the evening calls the bird up into
the branches of the shaven hedgerows,
to twitter bodily
a makeshift coat — the boxelder cut back stringently by the owner
that more might grow next year, and thicker, you know —
the birds tucked gestures on the inner branches —
and space in the heart,
not shade-giving, not
chronological...Oh transformer, logic, where are you here in this fold,
my name being called-out now but back, behind,
in the upper world....
*
I have a coat I am wearing I was told to wear it.
Someone knelt down each morning to button it up.
I looked at their face, down low, near me.
What is longing? what is a star?
Watched each button a peapod getting tucked back in.
Watched harm with its planeloads folded up in the sleeves.
Watched grappling hooks trawl through the late-night waters.
Watched bands of stations scan unable to ascertain.
There are fingers, friend, that never grow sluggish.
They crawl up the coat and don't miss an eyehole.
Glinting in kitchenlight.
Supervised by the traffic god.
Hissed at by grassblades that wire-up outside
their stirring rhetoric — this is your land, this is my my —
*
You do understanding, don't you, by looking?
The coat, which is itself a ramification, a city,
floats vulnerably above another city, ours,
the city on the hill (only with hill gone),
floats in illustration
of what once was believed, and thus was visible —
(all things believed are visible) —
floats a Jacob's ladder with hovering empty arms, an open throat,
a place where a heart might beat if it wishes,
pockets that hang awaiting the sandy whirr of a small secret,
folds where the legs could be, with their kneeling mechanism,
the floating fatigue of an after-dinner herald,
not guilty of any treason towards life except fatigue,
a skillfully cut coat, without chronology,
filled with the sensation of being suddenly completed —
as then it is, abruptly, the last stitch laid in, the knot bit off —
hung there in Gravity, as if its innermost desire,
numberless the awaitings flickering around it,
the other created things also floating but not of the same order, no,
not like this form, built so perfectly to mantle the body,
the neck like a vase awaiting its cut flower,
a skirting barely visible where the tucks indicate
the mild loss of bearing in the small of the back,
the grammar, so strict, of the two exact shoulders —
and the law of the shouldering —
and the chill allowed to skitter up through,
and those crucial spots where the fit cannot be perfect —
oh skirted loosening aswarm with lessenings,
with the mild pallors of unaccomplishment,
flaps night-air collects in,
folds... But the night does not annul its belief in,
the night preserves its love for, this one narrowing of infinity,
that floats up into the royal starpocked blue its ripped, distracted supervisor —
this coat awaiting recollection,
this coat awaiting the fleeting moment, the true moment, the hill,the vision of the hill,
and then the moment when the prize is lost, and the erotic tinglings of the dream of reason
are left to linger mildly in the weave of the fabric according to the rules,
the wool gabardine mix, with its grammatical weave,
never never destined to lose its elasticity,
its openness to abandonment,
its willingness to be disturbed.
*
July 11 ... Oaks: the organization of this tree is difficult. Speaking generally
no doubt the determining planes are concentric, a system of brief contiguous and
continuous tangents, whereas those of the cedar wd. roughly be called horizontals
and those of the beech radiating but modified by droop and by a screw-set towards
jutting points. But beyond this since the normal growth of the boughs is radiating
there is a system of spoke-wise clubs of green — sleeve-pieces. And since the
end shoots curl and carry young scanty leaf-stars these clubs are tapered, and I
have seen also pieces in profile with chiseled outlines, the blocks thus made
detached and lessening towards the end. However the knot-star is the chief thing:
it is whorled, worked round, and this is what keeps up the illusion of the tree.
Oaks differ much, and much turns on the broadness of the leaves, the narrower
giving the crisped and starry and catharine-wheel forms, the broader the flat-pieced
mailed or chard-covered ones, in wh. it is possible to see composition in dips, etc.
But I shall study them further. It was this night I believe but possibly the next
that I saw clearly the impossibility of staying in the Church of England.
*
How many coats do you think it will take?
The coat was a great-coat.
The Emperor's coat was.
How many coats do you think it will take?
The undercoat is dry. What we now want is?
The sky can analyse the coat because of the rips in it.
The sky shivers through the coat because of the rips in it.
The rips in the sky ripen through the rips in the coat.
There is no quarrel.
*
I take off my coat and carry it.
*
There is no emergency.
*
I only made that up.
*
Behind everything the sound of something dripping
The sound of something: I will vanish, others will come here, what is that?
The canvas flapping in the wind like the first notes of our absence
An origin is not an action though it occurs at the very start
Desire goes travelling into the total dark of another's soul
looking for where it breaks off
I was a hard thing to undo
*
The life of a customer
What came on the paper plate
overheard nearby
an impermanence of structure
watching the lip-reading
had loved but couldn't now recognize
*
What are the objects, then, that man should consider most important?
What sort of a question is that he asks them.
The eye only discovers the visible slowly.
It floats before us asking to be worn,
offering "we must think about objects at the very moment
when all their meaning is abandoning them"
and "the title provides a protection from significance"
and "we are responsible for the universe."
*
I have put on my doubting, my wager, it is cold.
It is an outer garment, or, conversely a natural covering,
so coarse and woolen, also of unknown origin,
a barely apprehensible dilution of evening into
an outer garment, or, conversely a natural covering,
to twitter bodily a makeshift coat,
that more might grow next year, and thicker, you know,
not shade-giving, not chronological,
my name being called out now but from out back, behind,
an outer garment, so coarse and woolen,
also of unknown origin, not shade-giving, not chronological,
each harm with its planeloads folded up in the sleeves,
you do understand, don't you, by looking?
the jacob's ladder with its floating arms its open throat,
that more might grow next year, and thicker, you know,
filled with the sensation of being suddenly completed,
the other created things also floating but not of the same order,
not shade-giving, not chronological,
you do understand, don't you, by looking?
a neck like a vase awaiting its cut flower,
filled with the sensation of being suddenly completed,
the moment the prize is lost, the erotic tingling,
the wool-gabardine mix, its grammatical weave
— you do understand, don't you, by looking? —
never never destined to lose its elasticity,
it was this night I believe but possibly the next
I saw clearly the impossibility of staying
filled with the sensation of being suddenly completed,
also of unknown origin, not shade-giving, not chronological
since the normal growth of boughs is radiating
a system of spoke-wise clubs of green — sleeve pieces —
never never destined to lose its elasticity
my name being called out now but back, behind,
hissing how many coats do you think it will take
"or try with eyesight to divide" (there is no quarrel)
behind everything the sound of something dripping
a system of spoke-wise clubs of green — sleeve pieces
filled with the sensation of suddenly being completed
the wool gabardine mix, the grammatical weave,
the never-never-to-lose-its-elasticity: my name
flapping in the wind like the first note of my absence
hissing how many coats do you think it will take
are you a test case is it an emergency
flapping in the wind the first note of something
overheard nearby an impermanence of structure
watching the lip-reading, there is no quarrel,
I will vanish, others will come here, what is that,
never never to lose the sensation of suddenly being
completed in the wind — the first note of our quarrel —
it was this night I believe or possibly the next
filled with the sensation of being suddenly completed,
I will vanish, others will come here, what is that now
floating in the air before us with stars a test case
that I saw clearly the impossibility of staying
|
Written by
Lisel Mueller |
In 1936, a child
in Hitler's Germany,
what did I know about the war in Spain?
Andalusia was a tango
on a wind-up gramophone,
Franco a hero's face in the paper.
No one told me about a poet
for whose sake I might have learned Spanish
bleeding to death on a barren hill.
All I knew of Spain
were those precious imported treats
we splurged on for Christmas.
I remember pulling the sections apart,
lining them up, sucking each one
slowly, so the red sweetness
would last and last --
while I was reading a poem
by a long-dead German poet
in which the woods stood safe
under the moon's milky eye
and the white fog in the meadows
aspired to become lighter than air.
|
Written by
Christopher Marlowe |
1 On Hellespont, guilty of true love's blood,
2 In view and opposite two cities stood,
3 Sea-borderers, disjoin'd by Neptune's might;
4 The one Abydos, the other Sestos hight.
5 At Sestos Hero dwelt; Hero the fair,
6 Whom young Apollo courted for her hair,
7 And offer'd as a dower his burning throne,
8 Where she could sit for men to gaze upon.
9 The outside of her garments were of lawn,
10 The lining purple silk, with gilt stars drawn;
11 Her wide sleeves green, and border'd with a grove,
12 Where Venus in her naked glory strove
13 To please the careless and disdainful eyes
14 Of proud Adonis, that before her lies;
15 Her kirtle blue, whereon was many a stain,
16 Made with the blood of wretched lovers slain.
17 Upon her head she ware a myrtle wreath,
18 From whence her veil reach'd to the ground beneath;
19 Her veil was artificial flowers and leaves,
20 Whose workmanship both man and beast deceives;
21 Many would praise the sweet smell as she past,
22 When 'twas the odour which her breath forth cast;
23 And there for honey bees have sought in vain,
24 And beat from thence, have lighted there again.
25 About her neck hung chains of pebble-stone,
26 Which lighten'd by her neck, like diamonds shone.
27 She ware no gloves; for neither sun nor wind
28 Would burn or parch her hands, but, to her mind,
29 Or warm or cool them, for they took delight
30 To play upon those hands, they were so white.
31 Buskins of shells, all silver'd, used she,
32 And branch'd with blushing coral to the knee;
33 Where sparrows perch'd, of hollow pearl and gold,
34 Such as the world would wonder to behold:
35 Those with sweet water oft her handmaid fills,
36 Which as she went, would chirrup through the bills.
37 Some say, for her the fairest Cupid pin'd,
38 And looking in her face, was strooken blind.
39 But this is true; so like was one the other,
40 As he imagin'd Hero was his mother;
41 And oftentimes into her bosom flew,
42 About her naked neck his bare arms threw,
43 And laid his childish head upon her breast,
44 And with still panting rock'd there took his rest.
45 So lovely-fair was Hero, Venus' nun,
46 As Nature wept, thinking she was undone,
47 Because she took more from her than she left,
48 And of such wondrous beauty her bereft:
49 Therefore, in sign her treasure suffer'd wrack,
50 Since Hero's time hath half the world been black.
51 Amorous Leander, beautiful and young
52 (Whose tragedy divine Mus?us sung),
53 Dwelt at Abydos; since him dwelt there none
54 For whom succeeding times make greater moan.
55 His dangling tresses, that were never shorn,
56 Had they been cut, and unto Colchos borne,
57 Would have allur'd the vent'rous youth of Greece
58 To hazard more than for the golden fleece.
59 Fair Cynthia wish'd his arms might be her sphere;
60 Grief makes her pale, because she moves not there.
61 His body was as straight as Circe's wand;
62 Jove might have sipt out nectar from his hand.
63 Even as delicious meat is to the taste,
64 So was his neck in touching, and surpast
65 The white of Pelops' shoulder: I could tell ye,
66 How smooth his breast was, and how white his belly;
67 And whose immortal fingers did imprint
68 That heavenly path with many a curious dint
69 That runs along his back; but my rude pen
70 Can hardly blazon forth the loves of men,
71 Much less of powerful gods: let it suffice
72 That my slack Muse sings of Leander's eyes;
73 Those orient cheeks and lips, exceeding his
74 That leapt into the water for a kiss
75 Of his own shadow, and, despising many,
76 Died ere he could enjoy the love of any.
77 Had wild Hippolytus Leander seen,
78 Enamour'd of his beauty had he been.
79 His presence made the rudest peasant melt,
80 That in the vast uplandish country dwelt;
81 The barbarous Thracian soldier, mov'd with nought,
82 Was mov'd with him, and for his favour sought.
83 Some swore he was a maid in man's attire,
84 For in his looks were all that men desire,--
85 A pleasant smiling cheek, a speaking eye,
86 A brow for love to banquet royally;
87 And such as knew he was a man, would say,
88 "Leander, thou art made for amorous play;
89 Why art thou not in love, and lov'd of all?
90 Though thou be fair, yet be not thine own thrall."
91 The men of wealthy Sestos every year,
92 For his sake whom their goddess held so dear,
93 Rose-cheek'd Adonis, kept a solemn feast.
94 Thither resorted many a wandering guest
95 To meet their loves; such as had none at all
96 Came lovers home from this great festival;
97 For every street, like to a firmament,
98 Glister'd with breathing stars, who, where they went,
99 Frighted the melancholy earth, which deem'd
100 Eternal heaven to burn, for so it seem'd
101 As if another Pha{"e}ton had got
102 The guidance of the sun's rich chariot.
103 But far above the loveliest, Hero shin'd,
104 And stole away th' enchanted gazer's mind;
105 For like sea-nymphs' inveigling harmony,
106 So was her beauty to the standers-by;
107 Nor that night-wandering, pale, and watery star
108 (When yawning dragons draw her thirling car
109 From Latmus' mount up to the gloomy sky,
110 Where, crown'd with blazing light and majesty,
111 She proudly sits) more over-rules the flood
112 Than she the hearts of those that near her stood.
113 Even as when gaudy nymphs pursue the chase,
114 Wretched Ixion's shaggy-footed race,
115 Incens'd with savage heat, gallop amain
116 From steep pine-bearing mountains to the plain,
117 So ran the people forth to gaze upon her,
118 And all that view'd her were enamour'd on her.
119 And as in fury of a dreadful fight,
120 Their fellows being slain or put to flight,
121 Poor soldiers stand with fear of death dead-strooken,
122 So at her presence all surpris'd and tooken,
123 Await the sentence of her scornful eyes;
124 He whom she favours lives; the other dies.
125 There might you see one sigh, another rage,
126 And some, their violent passions to assuage,
127 Compile sharp satires; but, alas, too late,
128 For faithful love will never turn to hate.
129 And many, seeing great princes were denied,
130 Pin'd as they went, and thinking on her, died.
131 On this feast-day--O cursed day and hour!--
132 Went Hero thorough Sestos, from her tower
133 To Venus' temple, where unhappily,
134 As after chanc'd, they did each other spy.
135 So fair a church as this had Venus none:
136 The walls were of discolour'd jasper-stone,
137 Wherein was Proteus carved; and over-head
138 A lively vine of green sea-agate spread,
139 Where by one hand light-headed Bacchus hung,
140 And with the other wine from grapes out-wrung.
141 Of crystal shining fair the pavement was;
142 The town of Sestos call'd it Venus' glass:
143 There might you see the gods in sundry shapes,
144 Committing heady riots, incest, rapes:
145 For know, that underneath this radiant flower
146 Was Danae's statue in a brazen tower,
147 Jove slyly stealing from his sister's bed,
148 To dally with Idalian Ganimed,
149 And for his love Europa bellowing loud,
150 And tumbling with the rainbow in a cloud;
151 Blood-quaffing Mars heaving the iron net,
152 Which limping Vulcan and his Cyclops set;
153 Love kindling fire, to burn such towns as Troy,
154 Sylvanus weeping for the lovely boy
155 That now is turn'd into a cypress tree,
156 Under whose shade the wood-gods love to be.
157 And in the midst a silver altar stood:
158 There Hero, sacrificing turtles' blood,
159 Vail'd to the ground, veiling her eyelids close;
160 And modestly they opened as she rose.
161 Thence flew Love's arrow with the golden head;
162 And thus Leander was enamoured.
163 Stone-still he stood, and evermore he gazed,
164 Till with the fire that from his count'nance blazed
165 Relenting Hero's gentle heart was strook:
166 Such force and virtue hath an amorous look.
167 It lies not in our power to love or hate,
168 For will in us is over-rul'd by fate.
169 When two are stript, long ere the course begin,
170 We wish that one should lose, the other win;
171 And one especially do we affect
172 Of two gold ingots, like in each respect:
173 The reason no man knows, let it suffice,
174 What we behold is censur'd by our eyes.
175 Where both deliberate, the love is slight:
176 Who ever lov'd, that lov'd not at first sight?
|
Written by
Robert Burns |
UPON 1 a simmer Sunday morn
When Nature’s face is fair,
I walked forth to view the corn,
An’ snuff the caller air.
The rising sun owre Galston muirs
Wi’ glorious light was glintin;
The hares were hirplin down the furrs,
The lav’rocks they were chantin
Fu’ sweet that day.
As lightsomely I glowr’d abroad,
To see a scene sae gay,
Three hizzies, early at the road,
Cam skelpin up the way.
Twa had manteeles o” dolefu’ black,
But ane wi’ lyart lining;
The third, that gaed a wee a-back,
Was in the fashion shining
Fu’ gay that day.
The twa appear’d like sisters twin,
In feature, form, an’ claes;
Their visage wither’d, lang an’ thin,
An’ sour as only slaes:
The third cam up, hap-stap-an’-lowp,
As light as ony lambie,
An’ wi’a curchie low did stoop,
As soon as e’er she saw me,
Fu’ kind that day.
Wi’ bonnet aff, quoth I, “Sweet lass,
I think ye seem to ken me;
I’m sure I’ve seen that bonie face
But yet I canna name ye.”
Quo’ she, an’ laughin as she spak,
An’ taks me by the han’s,
“Ye, for my sake, hae gien the feck
Of a’ the ten comman’s
A screed some day.”
“My name is Fun—your cronie dear,
The nearest friend ye hae;
An’ this is Superstitution here,
An’ that’s Hypocrisy.
I’m gaun to Mauchline Holy Fair,
To spend an hour in daffin:
Gin ye’ll go there, yon runkl’d pair,
We will get famous laughin
At them this day.”
Quoth I, “Wi’ a’ my heart, I’ll do’t;
I’ll get my Sunday’s sark on,
An’ meet you on the holy spot;
Faith, we’se hae fine remarkin!”
Then I gaed hame at crowdie-time,
An’ soon I made me ready;
For roads were clad, frae side to side,
Wi’ mony a weary body
In droves that day.
Here farmers gash, in ridin graith,
Gaed hoddin by their cotters;
There swankies young, in braw braid-claith,
Are springing owre the gutters.
The lasses, skelpin barefit, thrang,
In silks an’ scarlets glitter;
Wi’ sweet-milk cheese, in mony a whang,
An’ farls, bak’d wi’ butter,
Fu’ crump that day.
When by the plate we set our nose,
Weel heaped up wi’ ha’pence,
A greedy glowr black-bonnet throws,
An’ we maun draw our tippence.
Then in we go to see the show:
On ev’ry side they’re gath’rin;
Some carrying dails, some chairs an’ stools,
An’ some are busy bleth’rin
Right loud that day.
Here stands a shed to fend the show’rs,
An’ screen our countra gentry;
There “Racer Jess, 2 an’ twa-three whores,
Are blinkin at the entry.
Here sits a raw o’ tittlin jads,
Wi’ heaving breast an’ bare neck;
An’ there a batch o’ wabster lads,
Blackguarding frae Kilmarnock,
For fun this day.
Here, some are thinkin on their sins,
An’ some upo’ their claes;
Ane curses feet that fyl’d his shins,
Anither sighs an’ prays:
On this hand sits a chosen swatch,
Wi’ screwed-up, grace-proud faces;
On that a set o’ chaps, at watch,
Thrang winkin on the lasses
To chairs that day.
O happy is that man, an’ blest!
Nae wonder that it pride him!
Whase ain dear lass, that he likes best,
Comes clinkin down beside him!
Wi’ arms repos’d on the chair back,
He sweetly does compose him;
Which, by degrees, slips round her neck,
An’s loof upon her bosom,
Unkend that day.
Now a’ the congregation o’er
Is silent expectation;
For Moodie 3 speels the holy door,
Wi’ tidings o’ damnation:
Should Hornie, as in ancient days,
’Mang sons o’ God present him,
The vera sight o’ Moodie’s face,
To ’s ain het hame had sent him
Wi’ fright that day.
Hear how he clears the point o’ faith
Wi’ rattlin and wi’ thumpin!
Now meekly calm, now wild in wrath,
He’s stampin, an’ he’s jumpin!
His lengthen’d chin, his turned-up snout,
His eldritch squeel an’ gestures,
O how they fire the heart devout,
Like cantharidian plaisters
On sic a day!
But hark! the tent has chang’d its voice,
There’s peace an’ rest nae langer;
For a’ the real judges rise,
They canna sit for anger,
Smith 4 opens out his cauld harangues,
On practice and on morals;
An’ aff the godly pour in thrangs,
To gie the jars an’ barrels
A lift that day.
What signifies his barren shine,
Of moral powers an’ reason?
His English style, an’ gesture fine
Are a’ clean out o’ season.
Like Socrates or Antonine,
Or some auld pagan heathen,
The moral man he does define,
But ne’er a word o’ faith in
That’s right that day.
In guid time comes an antidote
Against sic poison’d nostrum;
For Peebles, 5 frae the water-fit,
Ascends the holy rostrum:
See, up he’s got, the word o’ God,
An’ meek an’ mim has view’d it,
While Common-sense has taen the road,
An’ aff, an’ up the Cowgate 6
Fast, fast that day.
Wee Miller 7 neist the guard relieves,
An’ Orthodoxy raibles,
Tho’ in his heart he weel believes,
An’ thinks it auld wives’ fables:
But faith! the birkie wants a manse,
So, cannilie he hums them;
Altho’ his carnal wit an’ sense
Like hafflins-wise o’ercomes him
At times that day.
Now, butt an’ ben, the change-house fills,
Wi’ yill-caup commentators;
Here ’s cryin out for bakes and gills,
An’ there the pint-stowp clatters;
While thick an’ thrang, an’ loud an’ lang,
Wi’ logic an’ wi’ scripture,
They raise a din, that in the end
Is like to breed a rupture
O’ wrath that day.
Leeze me on drink! it gies us mair
Than either school or college;
It kindles wit, it waukens lear,
It pangs us fou o’ knowledge:
Be’t whisky-gill or penny wheep,
Or ony stronger potion,
It never fails, or drinkin deep,
To kittle up our notion,
By night or day.
The lads an’ lasses, blythely bent
To mind baith saul an’ body,
Sit round the table, weel content,
An’ steer about the toddy:
On this ane’s dress, an’ that ane’s leuk,
They’re makin observations;
While some are cozie i’ the neuk,
An’ forming assignations
To meet some day.
But now the L—’s ain trumpet touts,
Till a’ the hills are rairin,
And echoes back return the shouts;
Black Russell is na sparin:
His piercin words, like Highlan’ swords,
Divide the joints an’ marrow;
His talk o’ Hell, whare devils dwell,
Our vera “sauls does harrow”
Wi’ fright that day!
A vast, unbottom’d, boundless pit,
Fill’d fou o’ lowin brunstane,
Whase raging flame, an’ scorching heat,
Wad melt the hardest whun-stane!
The half-asleep start up wi’ fear,
An’ think they hear it roarin;
When presently it does appear,
’Twas but some neibor snorin
Asleep that day.
’Twad be owre lang a tale to tell,
How mony stories past;
An’ how they crouded to the yill,
When they were a’ dismist;
How drink gaed round, in cogs an’ caups,
Amang the furms an’ benches;
An’ cheese an’ bread, frae women’s laps,
Was dealt about in lunches
An’ dawds that day.
In comes a gawsie, gash guidwife,
An’ sits down by the fire,
Syne draws her kebbuck an’ her knife;
The lasses they are shyer:
The auld guidmen, about the grace
Frae side to side they bother;
Till some ane by his bonnet lays,
An’ gies them’t like a tether,
Fu’ lang that day.
Waesucks! for him that gets nae lass,
Or lasses that hae naething!
Sma’ need has he to say a grace,
Or melvie his braw claithing!
O wives, be mindfu’ ance yoursel’
How bonie lads ye wanted;
An’ dinna for a kebbuck-heel
Let lasses be affronted
On sic a day!
Now Clinkumbell, wi’ rattlin tow,
Begins to jow an’ croon;
Some swagger hame the best they dow,
Some wait the afternoon.
At slaps the billies halt a blink,
Till lasses strip their shoon:
Wi’ faith an’ hope, an’ love an’ drink,
They’re a’ in famous tune
For crack that day.
How mony hearts this day converts
O’ sinners and o’ lasses!
Their hearts o’ stane, gin night, are gane
As saft as ony flesh is:
There’s some are fou o’ love divine;
There’s some are fou o’ brandy;
An’ mony jobs that day begin,
May end in houghmagandie
Some ither day.
Note 1. “Holy Fair” is a common phrase in the west of Scotland for a sacramental occasion.—R. B. [back]
Note 2. Racer Jess (d. 1813) was a half-witted daughter of Poosie Nansie. She was a great pedestrian. [back]
Note 3. Rev. Alexander Moodie of Riccarton. [back]
Note 4. Rev. George Smith of Galston. [back]
Note 5. Rev. Wm. Peebles of Newton-upon-Ayr. [back]
Note 6. A street so called which faces the tent in Mauchline.—R. B. [back]
Note 7. Rev. Alex. Miller, afterward of Kilmaurs. [back]
|
Written by
Mark Doty |
Not, exactly, green:
closer to bronze
preserved in kind brine,
something retrieved
from a Greco-Roman wreck,
patinated and oddly
muscular. We cannot
know what his fantastic
legs were like--
though evidence
suggests eight
complexly folded
scuttling works
of armament, crowned
by the foreclaws'
gesture of menace
and power. A gull's
gobbled the center,
leaving this chamber
--size of a demitasse--
open to reveal
a shocking, Giotto blue.
Though it smells
of seaweed and ruin,
this little traveling case
comes with such lavish lining!
Imagine breathing
surrounded by
the brilliant rinse
of summer's firmament.
What color is
the underside of skin?
Not so bad, to die,
if we could be opened
into this--
if the smallest chambers
of ourselves,
similarly,
revealed some sky.
|