10 Best Famous Mating Poems

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

• All Famous Mating Poems

 Let poets piece prismatic words,
Give me the jewelled joy of birds!

What ecstasy moves them to sing?
Is it the lyric glee of Spring,
The dewy rapture of the rose?
Is it the worship born in those
Who are of Nature's self a part,
The adoration of the heart?

Is it the mating mood in them
That makes each crystal note a gem?
Oh mocking bird and nightingale,
Oh mavis, lark and robin - hail!
Tell me what perfect passion glows
In your inspired arpeggios?

A thrush is thrilling as I write
Its obligato of delight;
And in its fervour, as in mine,
I fathom tenderness divine,
And pity those of earthy ear
Who cannot hear . . . who cannot hear.

Let poets pattern pretty words:
For lovely largesse - bless you, Birds!

 Mysterious death! who in a single hour 
Life's gold can so refine 
And by thy art divine 
Change mortal weakness to immortal power! 

Bending beneath the weight of eighty years 
Spent with the noble strife 
of a victorious life 
We watched her fading heavenward, through our tears. 

But ere the sense of loss our hearts had wrung 
A miracle was wrought; 
And swift as happy thought 
She lived again -- brave, beautiful, and young. 

Age, pain, and sorrow dropped the veils they wore 
And showed the tender eyes 
Of angels in disguise, 
Whose discipline so patiently she bore. 

The past years brought their harvest rich and fair; 
While memory and love, 
Together, fondly wove 
A golden garland for the silver hair. 

How could we mourn like those who are bereft, 
When every pang of grief 
found balm for its relief 
In counting up the treasures she had left?-- 

Faith that withstood the shocks of toil and time; 
Hope that defied despair; 
Patience that conquered care; 
And loyalty, whose courage was sublime; 

The great deep heart that was a home for all-- 
Just, eloquent, and strong 
In protest against wrong; 
Wide charity, that knew no sin, no fall; 

The spartan spirit that made life so grand, 
Mating poor daily needs 
With high, heroic deeds, 
That wrested happiness from Fate's hard hand. 

We thought to weep, but sing for joy instead, 
Full of the grateful peace 
That follows her release; 
For nothing but the weary dust lies dead. 

Oh, noble woman! never more a queen 
Than in the laying down 
Of sceptre and of crown 
To win a greater kingdom, yet unseen; 

Teaching us how to seek the highest goal, 
To earn the true success -- 
To live, to love, to bless -- 
And make death proud to take a royal soul.

 First, London, for its myriads; for its height, 
Manhattan heaped in towering stalagmite; 
But Paris for the smoothness of the paths 
That lead the heart unto the heart's delight. . . . 


Fair loiterer on the threshold of those days 
When there's no lovelier prize the world displays 
Than, having beauty and your twenty years, 
You have the means to conquer and the ways, 


And coming where the crossroads separate 
And down each vista glories and wonders wait, 
Crowning each path with pinnacles so fair 
You know not which to choose, and hesitate -- 


Oh, go to Paris. . . . In the midday gloom 
Of some old quarter take a little room 
That looks off over Paris and its towers 
From Saint Gervais round to the Emperor's Tomb, -- 


So high that you can hear a mating dove 
Croon down the chimney from the roof above, 
See Notre Dame and know how sweet it is 
To wake between Our Lady and our love. 


And have a little balcony to bring 
Fair plants to fill with verdure and blossoming, 
That sparrows seek, to feed from pretty hands, 
And swallows circle over in the Spring. 


There of an evening you shall sit at ease 
In the sweet month of flowering chestnut-trees, 
There with your little darling in your arms, 
Your pretty dark-eyed Manon or Louise. 


And looking out over the domes and towers 
That chime the fleeting quarters and the hours, 
While the bright clouds banked eastward back of them 
Blush in the sunset, pink as hawthorn flowers, 


You cannot fail to think, as I have done, 
Some of life's ends attained, so you be one 
Who measures life's attainment by the hours 
That Joy has rescued from oblivion. 

II 


Come out into the evening streets. The green light lessens in the west. 
The city laughs and liveliest her fervid pulse of pleasure beats. 


The belfry on Saint Severin strikes eight across the smoking eaves: 
Come out under the lights and leaves 
to the Reine Blanche on Saint Germain. . . . 


Now crowded diners fill the floor of brasserie and restaurant. 
Shrill voices cry "L'Intransigeant," and corners echo "Paris-Sport." 


Where rows of tables from the street are screened with shoots of box and bay, 
The ragged minstrels sing and play and gather sous from those that eat. 


And old men stand with menu-cards, inviting passers-by to dine 
On the bright terraces that line the Latin Quarter boulevards. . . . 


But, having drunk and eaten well, 'tis pleasant then to stroll along 
And mingle with the merry throng that promenades on Saint Michel. 


Here saunter types of every sort. The shoddy jostle with the chic: 
Turk and Roumanian and Greek; student and officer and sport; 


Slavs with their peasant, Christ-like heads, 
and courtezans like powdered moths, 
And peddlers from Algiers, with cloths 
bright-hued and stitched with golden threads; 


And painters with big, serious eyes go rapt in dreams, fantastic shapes 
In corduroys and Spanish capes and locks uncut and flowing ties; 


And lovers wander two by two, oblivious among the press, 
And making one of them no less, all lovers shall be dear to you: 


All laughing lips you move among, all happy hearts that, knowing what 
Makes life worth while, have wasted not the sweet reprieve of being young. 


"Comment ca va!" "Mon vieux!" "Mon cher!" 
Friends greet and banter as they pass. 
'Tis sweet to see among the mass comrades and lovers everywhere, 


A law that's sane, a Love that's free, and men of every birth and blood 
Allied in one great brotherhood of Art and Joy and Poverty. . . . 


The open cafe-windows frame loungers at their liqueurs and beer, 
And walking past them one can hear fragments of Tosca and Boheme. 


And in the brilliant-lighted door of cinemas the barker calls, 
And lurid posters paint the walls with scenes of Love and crime and war. 


But follow past the flaming lights, borne onward with the stream of feet, 
Where Bullier's further up the street is marvellous on Thursday nights. 


Here all Bohemia flocks apace; you could not often find elsewhere 
So many happy heads and fair assembled in one time and place. 


Under the glare and noise and heat the galaxy of dancing whirls, 
Smokers, with covered heads, and girls dressed in the costume of the street. 


From tables packed around the wall the crowds that drink and frolic there 
Spin serpentines into the air far out over the reeking hall, 


That, settling where the coils unroll, tangle with pink and green and blue 
The crowds that rag to "Hitchy-koo" and boston to the "Barcarole". . . . 


Here Mimi ventures, at fifteen, to make her debut in romance, 
And join her sisters in the dance and see the life that they have seen. 


Her hair, a tight hat just allows to brush beneath the narrow brim, 
Docked, in the model's present whim, `frise' and banged above the brows. 


Uncorseted, her clinging dress with every step and turn betrays, 
In pretty and provoking ways her adolescent loveliness, 


As guiding Gaby or Lucile she dances, emulating them 
In each disturbing stratagem and each lascivious appeal. 


Each turn a challenge, every pose an invitation to compete, 
Along the maze of whirling feet the grave-eyed little wanton goes, 


And, flaunting all the hue that lies in childish cheeks and nubile waist, 
She passes, charmingly unchaste, illumining ignoble eyes. . . . 


But now the blood from every heart leaps madder through abounding veins 
As first the fascinating strains of "El Irresistible" start. 


Caught in the spell of pulsing sound, impatient elbows lift and yield 
The scented softnesses they shield to arms that catch and close them round, 


Surrender, swift to be possessed, the silken supple forms beneath 
To all the bliss the measures breathe and all the madness they suggest. 


Crowds congregate and make a ring. Four deep they stand and strain to see 
The tango in its ecstasy of glowing lives that clasp and cling. 


Lithe limbs relaxed, exalted eyes fastened on vacancy, they seem 
To float upon the perfumed stream of some voluptuous Paradise, 


Or, rapt in some Arabian Night, to rock there, cradled and subdued, 
In a luxurious lassitude of rhythm and sensual delight. 


And only when the measures cease and terminate the flowing dance 
They waken from their magic trance and join the cries that clamor "Bis!" . . . 


Midnight adjourns the festival. The couples climb the crowded stair, 
And out into the warm night air go singing fragments of the ball. 


Close-folded in desire they pass, or stop to drink and talk awhile 
In the cafes along the mile from Bullier's back to Montparnasse: 


The "Closerie" or "La Rotonde", where smoking, under lamplit trees, 
Sit Art's enamored devotees, chatting across their `brune' and `blonde'. . . . 


Make one of them and come to know sweet Paris -- not as many do, 
Seeing but the folly of the few, the froth, the tinsel, and the show -- 


But taking some white proffered hand that from Earth's barren every day 
Can lead you by the shortest way into Love's florid fairyland. 


And that divine enchanted life that lurks under Life's common guise -- 
That city of romance that lies within the City's toil and strife -- 


Shall, knocking, open to your hands, for Love is all its golden key, 
And one's name murmured tenderly the only magic it demands. 


And when all else is gray and void in the vast gulf of memory, 
Green islands of delight shall be all blessed moments so enjoyed: 


When vaulted with the city skies, on its cathedral floors you stood, 
And, priest of a bright brotherhood, performed the mystic sacrifice, 


At Love's high altar fit to stand, with fire and incense aureoled, 
The celebrant in cloth of gold with Spring and Youth on either hand. 

III 


Choral Song 


Have ye gazed on its grandeur 
Or stood where it stands 
With opal and amber 
Adorning the lands, 
And orcharded domes 
Of the hue of all flowers? 
Sweet melody roams 
Through its blossoming bowers, 
Sweet bells usher in from its belfries the train of the honey-sweet hour. 


A city resplendent, 
Fulfilled of good things, 
On its ramparts are pendent 
The bucklers of kings. 
Broad banners unfurled 
Are afloat in its air. 
The lords of the world 
Look for harborage there. 
None finds save he comes as a bridegroom, having roses and vine in his hair. 


'Tis the city of Lovers, 
There many paths meet. 
Blessed he above others, 
With faltering feet, 
Who past its proud spires 
Intends not nor hears 
The noise of its lyres 
Grow faint in his ears! 
Men reach it through portals of triumph, but leave through a postern of tears. 


It was thither, ambitious, 
We came for Youth's right, 
When our lips yearned for kisses 
As moths for the light, 
When our souls cried for Love 
As for life-giving rain 
Wan leaves of the grove, 
Withered grass of the plain, 
And our flesh ached for Love-flesh beside it with bitter, intolerable pain. 


Under arbor and trellis, 
Full of flutes, full of flowers, 
What mad fortunes befell us, 
What glad orgies were ours! 
In the days of our youth, 
In our festal attire, 
When the sweet flesh was smooth, 
When the swift blood was fire, 
And all Earth paid in orange and purple to pavilion the bed of Desire!

 The state with the prettiest name,
the state that floats in brackish water,
held together by mangrave roots
that bear while living oysters in clusters, 
and when dead strew white swamps with skeletons, 
dotted as if bombarded, with green hummocks
like ancient cannon-balls sprouting grass. 
The state full of long S-shaped birds, blue and white,
and unseen hysterical birds who rush up the scale
every time in a tantrum.
Tanagers embarrassed by their flashiness,
and pelicans whose delight it is to clown;
who coast for fun on the strong tidal currents
in and out among the mangrove islands
and stand on the sand-bars drying their damp gold wings
on sun-lit evenings.
Enormous turtles, helpless and mild,
die and leave their barnacled shells on the beaches,
and their large white skulls with round eye-sockets
twice the size of a man's.
The palm trees clatter in the stiff breeze
like the bills of the pelicans. The tropical rain comes down
to freshen the tide-looped strings of fading shells:
Job's Tear, the Chinese Alphabet, the scarce Junonia, 
parti-colored pectins and Ladies' Ears,
arranged as on a gray rag of rotted calico, 
the buried Indian Princess's skirt;
with these the monotonous, endless, sagging coast-line
is delicately ornamented.

Thirty or more buzzards are drifting down, down, down,
over something they have spotted in the swamp,
in circles like stirred-up flakes of sediment
sinking through water.
Smoke from woods-fires filters fine blue solvents.
On stumps and dead trees the charring is like black velvet.
The mosquitoes
go hunting to the tune of their ferocious obbligatos.
After dark, the fireflies map the heavens in the marsh
until the moon rises.
Cold white, not bright, the moonlight is coarse-meshed,
and the careless, corrupt state is all black specks
too far apart, and ugly whites; the poorest
post-card of itself.
After dark, the pools seem to have slipped away.
The alligator, who has five distinct calls:
friendliness, love, mating, war, and a warning--
whimpers and speaks in the throat
of the Indian Princess.

  Similiter et omnes revereantur Diaconos, ut mandatum Jesu Christi; et Episcopum, ut
Jesum Christum, existentem filium Patris; Presbyteros autem, ut concilium Dei et
conjunctionem Apostolorum. Sine his Ecclesia non vocatur; de quibus suadeo vos sic
habeo.

S. Ignatii Ad Trallianos.


And when this epistle is read among you, cause that it be read also in the church of
the Laodiceans.



THE BROAD-BACKED hippopotamus
Rests on his belly in the mud;
Although he seems so firm to us
He is merely flesh and blood.

Flesh and blood is weak and frail,
Susceptible to nervous shock;
While the True Church can never fail
For it is based upon a rock.

The hippo’s feeble steps may err
In compassing material ends,
While the True Church need never stir
To gather in its dividends.

The ’potamus can never reach
The mango on the mango-tree;
But fruits of pomegranate and peach
Refresh the Church from over sea.

At mating time the hippo’s voice
Betrays inflexions hoarse and odd,
But every week we hear rejoice
The Church, at being one with God.

The hippopotamus’s day
Is passed in sleep; at night he hunts;
God works in a mysterious way—
The Church can sleep and feed at once.

I saw the ’potamus take wing
Ascending from the damp savannas,
And quiring angels round him sing
The praise of God, in loud hosannas.

Blood of the Lamb shall wash him clean
And him shall heavenly arms enfold,
Among the saints he shall be seen
Performing on a harp of gold.

He shall be washed as white as snow,
By all the martyr’d virgins kist,
While the True Church remains below
Wrapt in the old miasmal mist.

 In that fair capital where Pleasure, crowned 
Amidst her myriad courtiers, riots and rules, 
I too have been a suitor. Radiant eyes 
Were my life's warmth and sunshine, outspread arms 
My gilded deep horizons. I rejoiced 
In yielding to all amorous influence 
And multiple impulsion of the flesh, 
To feel within my being surge and sway 
The force that all the stars acknowledge too. 
Amid the nebulous humanity 
Where I an atom crawled and cleaved and sundered, 
I saw a million motions, but one law; 
And from the city's splendor to my eyes 
The vapors passed and there was nought but Love, 
A ferment turbulent, intensely fair, 
Where Beauty beckoned and where Strength pursued. 

II 


There was a time when I thought much of Fame, 
And laid the golden edifice to be 
That in the clear light of eternity 
Should fitly house the glory of my name. 


But swifter than my fingers pushed their plan, 
Over the fair foundation scarce begun, 
While I with lovers dallied in the sun, 
The ivy clambered and the rose-vine ran. 


And now, too late to see my vision, rise, 
In place of golden pinnacles and towers, 
Only some sunny mounds of leaves and flowers, 
Only beloved of birds and butterflies. 


My friends were duped, my favorers deceived; 
But sometimes, musing sorrowfully there, 
That flowered wreck has seemed to me so fair 
I scarce regret the temple unachieved. 

III 


For there were nights . . . my love to him whose brow 
Has glistened with the spoils of nights like those, 
Home turning as a conqueror turns home, 
What time green dawn down every street uprears 
Arches of triumph! He has drained as well 
Joy's perfumed bowl and cried as I have cried: 
Be Fame their mistress whom Love passes by. 
This only matters: from some flowery bed, 
Laden with sweetness like a homing bee, 
If one have known what bliss it is to come, 
Bearing on hands and breast and laughing lips 
The fragrance of his youth's dear rose. To him 
The hills have bared their treasure, the far clouds 
Unveiled the vision that o'er summer seas 
Drew on his thirsting arms. This last thing known, 
He can court danger, laugh at perilous odds, 
And, pillowed on a memory so sweet, 
Unto oblivious eternity 
Without regret yield his victorious soul, 
The blessed pilgrim of a vow fulfilled. 

IV 


What is Success? Out of the endless ore 
Of deep desire to coin the utmost gold 
Of passionate memory; to have lived so well 
That the fifth moon, when it swims up once more 
Through orchard boughs where mating orioles build 
And apple flowers unfold, 
Find not of that dear need that all things tell 
The heart unburdened nor the arms unfilled. 


O Love, whereof my boyhood was the dream, 
My youth the beautiful novitiate, 
Life was so slight a thing and thou so great, 
How could I make thee less than all-supreme! 
In thy sweet transports not alone I thought 
Mingled the twain that panted breast to breast. 
The sun and stars throbbed with them; they were caught 
Into the pulse of Nature and possessed 
By the same light that consecrates it so. 
Love! -- 'tis the payment of the debt we owe 
The beauty of the world, and whensoe'er 
In silks and perfume and unloosened hair 
The loveliness of lovers, face to face, 
Lies folded in the adorable embrace, 
Doubt not as of a perfect sacrifice 
That soul partakes whose inspiration fills 
The springtime and the depth of summer skies, 
The rainbow and the clouds behind the hills, 
That excellence in earth and air and sea 
That makes things as they are the real divinity.

 Out of the woods by the creek cometh a calling for Peter,
And from the orchard a voice echoes and echoes it over;
Down in the pasture the sheep hear that strange crying for Peter,
Over the meadows that call is aye and forever repeated.
So let me tell you the tale, when, where, and how it all happened,
And, when the story is told, let us pay heed to the lesson.

Once on a time, long ago, lived in the State of Kentucky
One that was reckoned a witch--full of strange spells and devices;
Nightly she wandered the woods, searching for charms voodooistic--
Scorpions, lizards, and herbs, dormice, chameleons, and plantains!
Serpents and caw-caws and bats, screech-owls and crickets and adders--
These were the guides of that witch through the dank deeps of the forest.
Then, with her roots and her herbs, back to her cave in the morning
Ambled that hussy to brew spells of unspeakable evil;
And, when the people awoke, seeing that hillside and valley
Sweltered in swathes as of mist--"Look!" they would whisper in terror--
"Look! the old witch is at work brewing her spells of great evil!"
Then would they pray till the sun, darting his rays through the vapor,
Lifted the smoke from the earth and baffled the witch's intentions.

One of the boys at that time was a certain young person named Peter,
Given too little to work, given too largely to dreaming;
Fonder of books than of chores, you can imagine that Peter
Led a sad life on the farm, causing his parents much trouble.
"Peter!" his mother would call, "the cream is a'ready for churning!"
"Peter!" his father would cry, "go grub at the weeds in the garden!"
So it was "Peter!" all day--calling, reminding, and chiding--
Peter neglected his work; therefore that nagging at Peter!

Peter got hold of some books--how, I'm unable to tell you;
Some have suspected the witch--this is no place for suspicions!
It is sufficient to stick close to the thread of the legend.
Nor is it stated or guessed what was the trend of those volumes;
What thing soever it was--done with a pen and a pencil,
Wrought with a brain, not a hoe--surely 't was hostile to farming!

"Fudge on all readin'!" they quoth; or "that's what's the ruin of
Peter!"

So, when the mornings were hot, under the beech or the maple,
Cushioned in grass that was blue, breathing the breath of the blossoms,
Lulled by the hum of the bees, the coo of the ring-doves a-mating,
Peter would frivol his time at reading, or lazing, or dreaming.
"Peter!" his mother would call, "the cream is a'ready for churning!"
"Peter!" his father would cry, "go grub at the weeds in the garden!"
"Peter!" and "Peter!" all day--calling, reminding, and chiding--
Peter neglected his chores; therefore that outcry for Peter;
Therefore the neighbors allowed evil would surely befall him--
Yes, on account of these things, ruin would come upon Peter!

Surely enough, on a time, reading and lazing and dreaming
Wrought the calamitous ill all had predicted for Peter;
For, of a morning in spring when lay the mist in the valleys--
"See," quoth the folk, "how the witch breweth her evil decoctions!
See how the smoke from her fire broodeth on woodland and meadow!
Grant that the sun cometh out to smother the smudge of her caldron!
She hath been forth in the night, full of her spells and devices,
Roaming the marshes and dells for heathenish magical nostrums;
Digging in leaves and at stumps for centipedes, pismires, and spiders,
Grubbing in poisonous pools for hot salamanders and toadstools;
Charming the bats from the flues, snaring the lizards by twilight,
Sucking the scorpion's egg and milking the breast of the adder!"

Peter derided these things held in such faith by the farmer,
Scouted at magic and charms, hooted at Jonahs and hoodoos--
Thinking and reading of books must have unsettled his reason!
"There ain't no witches," he cried; "it isn't smoky, but foggy!
I will go out in the wet--you all can't hender me, nuther!"

Surely enough he went out into the damp of the morning,
Into the smudge that the witch spread over woodland and meadow,
Into the fleecy gray pall brooding on hillside and valley.
Laughing and scoffing, he strode into that hideous vapor;
Just as he said he would do, just as he bantered and threatened,
Ere they could fasten the door, Peter had done gone and done it!
Wasting his time over books, you see, had unsettled his reason--
Soddened his callow young brain with semi-pubescent paresis,
And his neglect of his chores hastened this evil condition.

Out of the woods by the creek cometh a calling for Peter
And from the orchard a voice echoes and echoes it over;
Down in the pasture the sheep hear that shrill crying for Peter,
Up from the spring house the wail stealeth anon like a whisper,
Over the meadows that call is aye and forever repeated.
Such were the voices that whooped wildly and vainly for Peter
Decades and decades ago down in the State of Kentucky--
Such are the voices that cry now from the woodland and meadow,
"Peter--O Peter!" all day, calling, reminding, and chiding--
Taking us back to the time when Peter he done gone and done it!
These are the voices of those left by the boy in the farmhouse
When, with his laughter and scorn, hatless and bootless and sockless,
Clothed in his jeans and his pride, Peter sailed out in the weather,
Broke from the warmth of his home into that fog of the devil,
Into the smoke of that witch brewing her damnable porridge!

Lo, when he vanished from sight, knowing the evil that threatened,
Forth with importunate cries hastened his father and mother.
"Peter!" they shrieked in alarm, "Peter!" and evermore "Peter!"--
Ran from the house to the barn, ran from the barn to the garden,
Ran to the corn-crib anon, then to the smoke-house proceeded;
Henhouse and woodpile they passed, calling and wailing and weeping,
Through the front gate to the road, braving the hideous vapor--
Sought him in lane and on pike, called him in orchard and meadow,
Clamoring "Peter!" in vain, vainly outcrying for Peter.
Joining the search came the rest, brothers and sisters and cousins,
Venting unspeakable fears in pitiful wailing for Peter!
And from the neighboring farms gathered the men and the women,
Who, upon hearing the news, swelled the loud chorus for Peter.

Farmers and hussifs and maids, bosses and field-hands and niggers,
Colonels and jedges galore from cornfields and mint-beds and thickets,
All that had voices to voice, all to those parts appertaining,
Came to engage in the search, gathered and bellowed for Peter.
The Taylors, the Dorseys, the Browns, the Wallers, the Mitchells, the
Logans,
The Yenowines, Crittendens, Dukes, the Hickmans, the Hobbses, the Morgans;
The Ormsbys, the Thompsons, the Hikes, the Williamsons, Murrays, and
Hardins,

The Beynroths, the Sherleys, the Hokes, the Haldermans, Harneys, and
Slaughters--
All, famed in Kentucky of old for prowess prodigious at farming,
Now surged from their prosperous homes to join in that hunt for the
truant,
To ascertain where he was at, to help out the chorus for Peter.

Still on those prosperous farms where heirs and assigns of the people
Specified hereinabove and proved by the records of probate--
Still on those farms shall you hear (and still on the turnpikes
adjacent)
That pitiful, petulant call, that pleading, expostulant wailing,
That hopeless, monotonous moan, that crooning and droning for Peter.
Some say the witch in her wrath transmogrified all those good people;
That, wakened from slumber that day by the calling and bawling for Peter,
She out of her cave in a thrice, and, waving the foot of a rabbit
(Crossed with the caul of a coon and smeared with the blood of a chicken),
She changed all those folk into birds and shrieked with demoniac venom:
"Fly away over the land, moaning your Peter forever,
Croaking of Peter, the boy who didn't believe there were hoodoos,
Crooning of Peter, the fool who scouted at stories of witches,
Crying of Peter for aye, forever outcalling for Peter!"

This is the story they tell; so in good sooth saith the legend;
As I have told it to you, so tell the folk and the legend.
That it is true I believe, for on the breezes this morning
Come the shrill voices of birds calling and calling for Peter;
Out of the maple and beech glitter the eyes of the wailers,
Peeping and peering for him who formerly lived in these places--
Peter, the heretic lad, lazy and careless and dreaming,
Sorely afflicted with books and with pubescent paresis,
Hating the things of the farm, care of the barn and the garden,
Always neglecting his chores--given to books and to reading,
Which, as all people allow, turn the young person to mischief,
Harden his heart against toil, wean his affections from tillage.

This is the legend of yore told in the state of Kentucky
When in the springtime the birds call from the beeches and maples,
Call from the petulant thorn, call from the acrid persimmon;
When from the woods by the creek and from the pastures and meadows,
When from the spring house and lane and from the mint-bed and orchard,
When from the redbud and gum and from the redolent lilac,
When from the dirt roads and pikes cometh that calling for Peter;
Cometh the dolorous cry, cometh that weird iteration
Of "Peter" and "Peter" for aye, of "Peter" and "Peter" forever!
This is the legend of old, told in the tum-titty meter
Which the great poets prefer, being less labor than rhyming
(My first attempt at the same, my last attempt, too, I reckon!);
Nor have I further to say, for the sad story is ended.

 A girl in a green mini-
skirt, not very pretty, walks
down the street.

A businessman stops, turns
to stare at her ass
that looks like a moldy
refrigerator.

There are now 200,000,000 people
in America.

 [Supposed to be chanted to some rude instrument at a modern fireplace]


Chant we the story now 
Tho' in a house we sleep; 
Tho' by a hearth of coals 
Vigil to-night we keep. 
Chant we the story now, 
Of the vague love we knew 
When I from out the sea 
Rose to the feet of you. 

Bird from the cliffs you came, 
Flew thro' the snow to me, 
Facing the icy blast 
There by the icy sea. 
How did I reach your feet? 
Why should I — at the end 
Hold out half-frozen hands 
Dumbly to you my friend? 
Ne'er had I woman seen, 
Ne'er had I seen a flame. 
There you piled fagots on, 
Heat rose — the blast to tame. 
There by the cave-door dark, 
Comforting me you cried — 
Wailed o'er my wounded knee, 
Wept for my rock-torn side. 

Up from the South I trailed — 
Left regions fierce and fair! 
Left all the jungle-trees, 
Left the red tiger's lair. 
Dream led, I scarce knew why, 
Into your North I trod — 
Ne'er had I known the snow, 
Or the frost-blasted sod. 

O how the flakes came down! 
O how the fire burned high! 
Strange thing to see he was, 
Thro' his dry twigs would fly, 
Creep there awhile and sleep — 
Then wake and bark for fight — 
Biting if I too near 
Came to his eye so bright. 
Then with a will you fed 
Wood to his hungry tongue. 

Then he did leap and sing — 
Dancing the clouds among, 
Turning the night to noon, 
Stinging my eyes with light, 
Making the snow retreat, 
Making the cave-house bright. 

There were dry fagots piled, 
Nuts and dry leaves and roots, 
Stores there of furs and hides, 
Sweet-barks and grains and fruits. 
There wrapped in fur we lay, 
Half-burned, half-frozen still — 
Ne'er will my soul forget 
All the night's bitter chill. 
We had not learned to speak, 
I was to you a strange 
Wolfling or wounded fawn, 
Lost from his forest-range. 

Thirsting for bloody meat, 
Out at the dawn we went. 
Weighed with our prey at eve, 
Home-came we all forespent. 
Comrades and hunters tried 
Ere we were maid and man — 
Not till the spring awoke 
Laughter and speech began. 

Whining like forest dogs, 
Rustling like budding trees, 
Bubbling like thawing springs, 
Humming like little bees, 
Crooning like Maytime tides, 
Chattering parrot words, 
Crying the panther's cry, 
Chirping like mating birds — 
Thus, thus, we learned to speak, 
Who mid the snows were dumb, 
Nor did we learn to kiss 
Until the Spring had come.

 (A. D. 1066)
 I followed my Duke ere I was a lover,
 To take from England fief and fee;
 But now this game is the other way over--
 But now England hath taken me!

 I had my horse, my shield and banner,
 And a boy's heart, so whole and free;
 But now I sing in another manner--
 But now England hath taken me!

 As for my Father in his tower,
 Asking news of my ship at sea,
 He will remember his own hour--
 Tell him England hath taken me!

 As for my Mother in her bower,
 That rules my Father so cunningly,
 She will remember a maiden's power--
 Tell her England hath taken me!

 As for my Brother in Rouen City,
 A nimble and naughty' page is he,
 But he will come to suffer and pity--
 Tell him England hath taken me!

 As for my little Sister waiting
 In the pleasant orchards of Normandie,
 Tell her youth is the time for mating--
 Tell her England hath taken me!

 As for my comrades in camp and highway
 That lift their eyebrows scornfully,
 Tell them their way is not my way--
 Tell them England hath taken me!

 Kings and Princes and Barons famed,
 Knights and Captains in your degree;
 Hear me a little before I am blamed--
 Seeing England hath taken me!

 Howso great man's strength be reckoned,
 There are two things he cannot flee.
 Love is the first, and Death is the second-
 And Love in England hath taken me!