10 Best Famous Rains Poems

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

• All Famous Rains Poems

"I cannot go to school today"
Said little Peggy Ann McKay.
"I have the measles and the mumps,
A gash, a rash and purple bumps.

My mouth is wet, my throat is dry.
I'm going blind in my right eye.
My tonsils are as big as rocks,
I've counted sixteen chicken pox.

And there's one more - that's seventeen,
And don't you think my face looks green?
My leg is cut, my eyes are blue,
It might be the instamatic flu.

I cough and sneeze and gasp and choke,
I'm sure that my left leg is broke.
My hip hurts when I move my chin,
My belly button's caving in.

My back is wrenched, my ankle's sprained,
My 'pendix pains each time it rains.
My toes are cold, my toes are numb,
I have a sliver in my thumb.

My neck is stiff, my voice is weak,
I hardly whisper when I speak.
My tongue is filling up my mouth,
I think my hair is falling out.

My elbow's bent, my spine ain't straight,
My temperature is one-o-eight.
My brain is shrunk, I cannot hear,
There is a hole inside my ear.

I have a hangnail, and my heart is ...
What? What's that? What's that you say?
You say today is .............. Saturday?
G'bye, I'm going out to play!"

 ARRANGING long-locked drawers and shelves 
Of cabinets, shut up for years, 
What a strange task we've set ourselves ! 
How still the lonely room appears ! 
How strange this mass of ancient treasures, 
Mementos of past pains and pleasures; 
These volumes, clasped with costly stone, 
With print all faded, gilding gone; 

These fans of leaves, from Indian trees­ 
These crimson shells, from Indian seas­ 
These tiny portraits, set in rings­ 
Once, doubtless, deemed such precious things; 
Keepsakes bestowed by Love on Faith, 
And worn till the receiver's death, 
Now stored with cameos, china, shells, 
In this old closet's dusty cells. 

I scarcely think, for ten long years, 
A hand has touched these relics old; 
And, coating each, slow-formed, appears, 
The growth of green and antique mould. 

All in this house is mossing over; 
All is unused, and dim, and damp; 
Nor light, nor warmth, the rooms discover­ 
Bereft for years of fire and lamp. 

The sun, sometimes in summer, enters 
The casements, with reviving ray; 
But the long rains of many winters 
Moulder the very walls away. 

And outside all is ivy, clinging 
To chimney, lattice, gable grey; 
Scarcely one little red rose springing 
Through the green moss can force its way. 

Unscared, the daw, and starling nestle, 
Where the tall turret rises high, 
And winds alone come near to rustle 
The thick leaves where their cradles lie. 

I sometimes think, when late at even 
I climb the stair reluctantly, 
Some shape that should be well in heaven, 
Or ill elsewhere, will pass by me. 

I fear to see the very faces, 
Familiar thirty years ago, 
Even in the old accustomed places 
Which look so cold and gloomy now. 

I've come, to close the window, hither, 
At twilight, when the sun was down, 
And Fear, my very soul would wither, 
Lest something should be dimly shown. 

Too much the buried form resembling, 
Of her who once was mistress here; 
Lest doubtful shade, or moonbeam trembling, 
Might take her aspect, once so dear. 

Hers was this chamber; in her time 
It seemed to me a pleasant room, 
For then no cloud of grief or crime 
Had cursed it with a settled gloom; 

I had not seen death's image laid 
In shroud and sheet, on yonder bed. 
Before she married, she was blest­ 
Blest in her youth, blest in her worth; 
Her mind was calm, its sunny rest 
Shone in her eyes more clear than mirth. 

And when attired in rich array, 
Light, lustrous hair about her brow, 
She yonder sat­a kind of day 
Lit up­what seems so gloomy now. 
These grim oak walls, even then were grim; 
That old carved chair, was then antique; 
But what around looked dusk and dim 
Served as a foil to her fresh cheek; 
Her neck, and arms, of hue so fair, 
Eyes of unclouded, smiling, light; 
Her soft, and curled, and floating hair, 
Gems and attire, as rainbow bright. 

Reclined in yonder deep recess, 
Ofttimes she would, at evening, lie 
Watching the sun; she seemed to bless 
With happy glance the glorious sky. 
She loved such scenes, and as she gazed, 
Her face evinced her spirit's mood; 
Beauty or grandeur ever raised 
In her, a deep-felt gratitude. 

But of all lovely things, she loved 
A cloudless moon, on summer night; 
Full oft have I impatience proved 
To see how long, her still delight 
Would find a theme in reverie. 
Out on the lawn, or where the trees 
Let in the lustre fitfully, 
As their boughs parted momently, 
To the soft, languid, summer breeze. 
Alas ! that she should e'er have flung 
Those pure, though lonely joys away­ 
Deceived by false and guileful tongue, 
She gave her hand, then suffered wrong; 
Oppressed, ill-used, she faded young, 
And died of grief by slow decay. 

Open that casket­look how bright 
Those jewels flash upon the sight; 
The brilliants have not lost a ray 
Of lustre, since her wedding day. 
But see­upon that pearly chain­ 
How dim lies time's discolouring stain ! 
I've seen that by her daughter worn: 
For, e'er she died, a child was born; 
A child that ne'er its mother knew, 
That lone, and almost friendless grew; 
For, ever, when its step drew nigh, 
Averted was the father's eye; 
And then, a life impure and wild 
Made him a stranger to his child; 
Absorbed in vice, he little cared 
On what she did, or how she fared. 
The love withheld, she never sought, 
She grew uncherished­learnt untaught; 
To her the inward life of thought 
Full soon was open laid. 
I know not if her friendlessness 
Did sometimes on her spirit press, 
But plaint she never made. 

The book-shelves were her darling treasure, 
She rarely seemed the time to measure 
While she could read alone. 
And she too loved the twilight wood, 
And often, in her mother's mood, 
Away to yonder hill would hie, 
Like her, to watch the setting sun, 
Or see the stars born, one by one, 
Out of the darkening sky. 
Nor would she leave that hill till night 
Trembled from pole to pole with light; 
Even then, upon her homeward way, 
Long­long her wandering steps delayed 
To quit the sombre forest shade, 
Through which her eerie pathway lay. 

You ask if she had beauty's grace ? 
I know not­but a nobler face 
My eyes have seldom seen; 
A keen and fine intelligence, 
And, better still, the truest sense 
Were in her speaking mien. 
But bloom or lustre was there none, 
Only at moments, fitful shone 
An ardour in her eye, 
That kindled on her cheek a flush, 
Warm as a red sky's passing blush 
And quick with energy. 
Her speech, too, was not common speech, 
No wish to shine, or aim to teach, 
Was in her words displayed: 
She still began with quiet sense, 
But oft the force of eloquence 
Came to her lips in aid; 
Language and voice unconscious changed, 
And thoughts, in other words arranged, 
Her fervid soul transfused 
Into the hearts of those who heard, 
And transient strength and ardour stirred, 
In minds to strength unused. 
Yet in gay crowd or festal glare, 
Grave and retiring was her air; 
'Twas seldom, save with me alone, 
That fire of feeling freely shone; 
She loved not awe's nor wonder's gaze, 
Nor even exaggerated praise, 
Nor even notice, if too keen 
The curious gazer searched her mien. 
Nature's own green expanse revealed 
The world, the pleasures, she could prize; 
On free hill-side, in sunny field, 
In quiet spots by woods concealed, 
Grew wild and fresh her chosen joys, 
Yet Nature's feelings deeply lay 
In that endowed and youthful frame; 
Shrined in her heart and hid from day, 
They burned unseen with silent flame; 
In youth's first search for mental light, 
She lived but to reflect and learn, 
But soon her mind's maturer might 
For stronger task did pant and yearn; 
And stronger task did fate assign, 
Task that a giant's strength might strain; 
To suffer long and ne'er repine, 
Be calm in frenzy, smile at pain. 

Pale with the secret war of feeling, 
Sustained with courage, mute, yet high; 
The wounds at which she bled, revealing 
Only by altered cheek and eye; 

She bore in silence­but when passion 
Surged in her soul with ceaseless foam, 
The storm at last brought desolation, 
And drove her exiled from her home. 

And silent still, she straight assembled 
The wrecks of strength her soul retained; 
For though the wasted body trembled, 
The unconquered mind, to quail, disdained. 

She crossed the sea­now lone she wanders 
By Seine's, or Rhine's, or Arno's flow; 
Fain would I know if distance renders 
Relief or comfort to her woe. 

Fain would I know if, henceforth, ever, 
These eyes shall read in hers again, 
That light of love which faded never, 
Though dimmed so long with secret pain. 

She will return, but cold and altered, 
Like all whose hopes too soon depart; 
Like all on whom have beat, unsheltered, 
The bitter blasts that blight the heart. 

No more shall I behold her lying 
Calm on a pillow, smoothed by me; 
No more that spirit, worn with sighing, 
Will know the rest of infancy. 

If still the paths of lore she follow, 
'Twill be with tired and goaded will; 
She'll only toil, the aching hollow, 
The joyless blank of life to fill. 

And oh ! full oft, quite spent and weary, 
Her hand will pause, her head decline; 
That labour seems so hard and dreary, 
On which no ray of hope may shine. 

Thus the pale blight of time and sorrow 
Will shade with grey her soft, dark hair 
Then comes the day that knows no morrow, 
And death succeeds to long despair. 

So speaks experience, sage and hoary; 
I see it plainly, know it well, 
Like one who, having read a story, 
Each incident therein can tell. 

Touch not that ring, 'twas his, the sire 
Of that forsaken child; 
And nought his relics can inspire 
Save memories, sin-defiled. 

I, who sat by his wife's death-bed, 
I, who his daughter loved, 
Could almost curse the guilty dead, 
For woes, the guiltless proved. 

And heaven did curse­they found him laid, 
When crime for wrath was rife, 
Cold­with the suicidal blade 
Clutched in his desperate gripe. 

'Twas near that long deserted hut, 
Which in the wood decays, 
Death's axe, self-wielded, struck his root, 
And lopped his desperate days. 

You know the spot, where three black trees, 
Lift up their branches fell, 
And moaning, ceaseless as the seas, 
Still seem, in every passing breeze, 
The deed of blood to tell. 

They named him mad, and laid his bones 
Where holier ashes lie; 
Yet doubt not that his spirit groans, 
In hell's eternity. 

But, lo ! night, closing o'er the earth, 
Infects our thoughts with gloom; 
Come, let us strive to rally mirth, 
Where glows a clear and tranquil hearth 
In some more cheerful room.

Dedication

for Moremi, 1963

Earth will not share the rafter's envy; dung floors
Break, not the gecko's slight skin, but its fall
Taste this soil for death and plumb her deep for life

As this yam, wholly earthed, yet a living tuber
To the warmth of waters, earthed as springs
As roots of baobab, as the hearth.

The air will not deny you. Like a top
Spin you on the navel of the storm, for the hoe
That roots the forests plows a path for squirrels.

Be ageless as dark peat, but only that rain's
Fingers, not the feet of men, may wash you over.
Long wear the sun's shadow; run naked to the night.

Peppers green and red—child—your tongue arch
To scorpion tail, spit straight return to danger's threats
Yet coo with the brown pigeon, tendril dew between your lips.

Shield you like the flesh of palms, skyward held
Cuspids in thorn nesting, insealed as the heart of kernel—
A woman's flesh is oil—child, palm oil on your tongue

Is suppleness to life, and wine of this gourd
From self-same timeless run of runnels as refill
Your podlings, child, weaned from yours we embrace

Earth's honeyed milk, wine of the only rib.
Now roll your tongue in honey till your cheeks are
Swarming honeycombs—your world needs sweetening, child.

Camwood round the heart, chalk for flight
Of blemish—see? it dawns!—antimony beneath
Armpits like a goddess, and leave this taste

Long on your lips, of salt, that you may seek
None from tears. This, rain-water, is the gift
Of gods—drink of its purity, bear fruits in season.

Fruits then to your lips: haste to repay
The debt of birth. Yield man-tides like the sea
And ebbing, leave a meaning of the fossilled sands.

 January

Janus am I; oldest of potentates; 
Forward I look, and backward, and below 
I count, as god of avenues and gates, 
The years that through my portals come and go. 
I block the roads, and drift the fields with snow; 
I chase the wild-fowl from the frozen fen; 
My frosts congeal the rivers in their flow, 
My fires light up the hearths and hearts of men. 

February

I am lustration, and the sea is mine! 
I wash the sands and headlands with my tide; 
My brow is crowned with branches of the pine; 
Before my chariot-wheels the fishes glide. 
By me all things unclean are purified, 
By me the souls of men washed white again; 
E'en the unlovely tombs of those who died 
Without a dirge, I cleanse from every stain. 

March

I Martius am! Once first, and now the third! 
To lead the Year was my appointed place; 
A mortal dispossessed me by a word, 
And set there Janus with the double face. 
Hence I make war on all the human race; 
I shake the cities with my hurricanes; 
I flood the rivers and their banks efface, 
And drown the farms and hamlets with my rains. 

April 

I open wide the portals of the Spring 
To welcome the procession of the flowers, 
With their gay banners, and the birds that sing 
Their song of songs from their aerial towers. 
I soften with my sunshine and my showers 
The heart of earth; with thoughts of love I glide 
Into the hearts of men; and with the Hours 
Upon the Bull with wreathed horns I ride. 

May 

Hark! The sea-faring wild-fowl loud proclaim 
My coming, and the swarming of the bees. 
These are my heralds, and behold! my name 
Is written in blossoms on the hawthorn-trees. 
I tell the mariner when to sail the seas; 
I waft o'er all the land from far away 
The breath and bloom of the Hesperides, 
My birthplace. I am Maia. I am May. 

June 

Mine is the Month of Roses; yes, and mine 
The Month of Marriages! All pleasant sights 
And scents, the fragrance of the blossoming vine, 
The foliage of the valleys and the heights. 
Mine are the longest days, the loveliest nights; 
The mower's scythe makes music to my ear; 
I am the mother of all dear delights; 
I am the fairest daughter of the year. 

July

My emblem is the Lion, and I breathe 
The breath of Libyan deserts o'er the land; 
My sickle as a sabre I unsheathe, 
And bent before me the pale harvests stand. 
The lakes and rivers shrink at my command, 
And there is thirst and fever in the air; 
The sky is changed to brass, the earth to sand; 
I am the Emperor whose name I bear. 

August

The Emperor Octavian, called the August, 
I being his favorite, bestowed his name 
Upon me, and I hold it still in trust, 
In memory of him and of his fame. 
I am the Virgin, and my vestal flame 
Burns less intensely than the Lion's rage; 
Sheaves are my only garlands, and I claim 
The golden Harvests as my heritage. 

September 

I bear the Scales, where hang in equipoise 
The night and day; and whenunto my lips 
I put my trumpet, with its stress and noise 
Fly the white clouds like tattered sails of ships; 
The tree-tops lash the air with sounding whips; 
Southward the clamorous sea-fowl wing their flight; 
The hedges are all red with haws and hips, 
The Hunter's Moon reigns empress of the night. 

October 

My ornaments are fruits; my garments leaves, 
Woven like cloth of gold, and crimson dyed; 
I do no boast the harvesting of sheaves, 
O'er orchards and o'er vineyards I preside. 
Though on the frigid Scorpion I ride, 
The dreamy air is full, and overflows 
With tender memories of the summer-tide, 
And mingled voices of the doves and crows. 

November

The Centaur, Sagittarius, am I, 
Born of Ixion's and the cloud's embrace; 
With sounding hoofs across the earth I fly, 
A steed Thessalian with a human face. 
Sharp winds the arrows are with which I chase 
The leaves, half dead already with affright; 
I shroud myself in gloom; and to the race 
Of mortals bring nor comfort nor delight. 

December

Riding upon the Goat, with snow-white hair, 
I come, the last of all. This crown of mine 
Is of the holly; in my hand I bear 
The thyrsus, tipped with fragrant cones of pine. 
I celebrate the birth of the Divine, 
And the return of the Saturnian reign;-- 
My songs are carols sung at every shrine, 
Proclaiming "Peace on earth, good will to men."

 call it the greenhouse effect or whatever
but it just doesn't rain like it used to.
I particularly remember the rains of the 
depression era.
there wasn't any money but there was
plenty of rain.
it wouldn't rain for just a night or
a day,
it would RAIN for 7 days and 7
nights
and in Los Angeles the storm drains
weren't built to carry off taht much
water
and the rain came down THICK and 
MEAN and
STEADY
and you HEARD it banging against
the roofs and into the ground
waterfalls of it came down
from roofs
and there was HAIL
big ROCKS OF ICE
bombing
exploding smashing into things
and the rain 
just wouldn't
STOP
and all the roofs leaked-
dishpans,
cooking pots
were placed all about;
they dripped loudly
and had to be emptied
again and
again.
the rain came up over the street curbings,
across the lawns, climbed up the steps and
entered the houses.
there were mops and bathroom towels,
and the rain often came up through the 
toilets:bubbling, brown, crazy,whirling,
and all the old cars stood in the streets,
cars that had problems starting on a 
sunny day,
and the jobless men stood
looking out the windows
at the old machines dying
like living things out there.
the jobless men,
failures in a failing time
were imprisoned in their houses with their
wives and children
and their
pets.
the pets refused to go out
and left their waste in 
strange places.
the jobless men went mad 
confined with
their once beautiful wives.
there were terrible arguments
as notices of foreclosure
fell into the mailbox.
rain and hail, cans of beans,
bread without butter;fried
eggs, boiled eggs, poached
eggs; peanut butter
sandwiches, and an invisible 
chicken in every pot.
my father, never a good man
at best, beat my mother
when it rained
as I threw myself
between them,
the legs, the knees, the
screams
until they
seperated.
"I'll kill you," I screamed
at him. "You hit her again
and I'll kill you!"
"Get that son-of-a-bitching
kid out of here!"
"no, Henry, you stay with
your mother!"
all the households were under 
seige but I believe that ours
held more terror than the
average.
and at night
as we attempted to sleep
the rains still came down
and it was in bed
in the dark
watching the moon against 
the scarred window
so bravely
holding out 
most of the rain,
I thought of Noah and the
Ark
and I thought, it has come
again.
we all thought
that.
and then, at once, it would 
stop.
and it always seemed to 
stop
around 5 or 6 a.m.,
peaceful then,
but not an exact silence
because things continued to
drip
 drip
 drip


and there was no smog then
and by 8 a.m.
there was a
blazing yellow sunlight,
Van Gogh yellow-
crazy, blinding!
and then
the roof drains
relieved of the rush of 
water
began to expand in the warmth:
PANG!PANG!PANG!
and everybody got up and looked outside
and there were all the lawns
still soaked
greener than green will ever
be
and there were birds
on the lawn
CHIRPING like mad,
they hadn't eaten decently 
for 7 days and 7 nights
and they were weary of 
berries
and
they waited as the worms
rose to the top,
half drowned worms.
the birds plucked them 
up
and gobbled them
down;there were
blackbirds and sparrows.
the blackbirds tried to
drive the sparrows off
but the sparrows,
maddened with hunger,
smaller and quicker,
got their
due.
the men stood on their porches
smoking cigarettes,
now knowing
they'd have to go out
there
to look for that job
that probably wasn't 
there, to start that car 
that probably wouldn't
start.
and the once beautiful
wives
stood in their bathrooms
combing their hair,
applying makeup,
trying to put their world back
together again,
trying to forget that
awful sadness that
gripped them,
wondering what they could
fix for 
breakfast.
and on the radio
we were told that
school was now
open.
and
soon
there I was
on the way to school,
massive puddles in the 
street,
the sun like a new
world,
my parents back in that
house,
I arrived at my classroom
on time.
Mrs. Sorenson greeted us
with, "we won't have our
usual recess, the grounds 
are too wet."
"AW!" most of the boys 
went.
"but we are going to do
something special at
recess," she went on,
"and it will be
fun!"
well, we all wondered
what that would
be
and the two hour wait
seemed a long time
as Mrs.Sorenson
went about
teaching her
lessons.
I looked at the little
girls, they looked so 
pretty and clean and
alert,
they sat still and
straight
and their hair was 
beautiful
in the California
sunshine.
the the recess bells rang 
and we all waited for the 
fun.
then Mrs. Sorenson told us:
"now, what we are going to
do is we are going to tell
each other what we did 
during the rainstorm!
we'll begin in the front row
and go right around!
now, Michael, you're first!. . ."
well, we all began to tell
our stories, Michael began
and it went on and on,
and soon we realized that
we were all lying, not
exactly lying but mostly
lying and some of the boys
began to snicker and some 
of the girls began to give
them dirty looks and
Mrs.Sorenson said,
"all right! I demand a
modicum of silence
here!
I am interested in what
you did
during the rainstorm
even if you
aren't!"
so we had to tell our 
stories and they were
stories.
one girl said that
when the rainbow first
came 
she saw God's face
at the end of it.
only she didn't say which end.
one boy said he stuck
his fishing pole
out the window
and caught a little
fish
and fed it to his
cat.
almost everybody told
a lie.
the truth was just
too awful and
embarassing to tell.
then the bell rang
and recess was 
over.
"thank you," said Mrs.
Sorenson, "that was very
nice.
and tomorrow the grounds 
will be dry
and we will put them
to use
again."
most of the boys
cheered
and the little girls 
sat very straight and
still,
looking so pretty and 
clean and
alert,
their hair beautiful in a sunshine that 
the world might never see 
again.
and

 I. Ancestral Houses

Surely among a rich man's flowering lawns,
Amid the rustle of his planted hills,
Life overflows without ambitious pains;
And rains down life until the basin spills,
And mounts more dizzy high the more it rains
As though to choose whatever shape it wills
And never stoop to a mechanical
Or servile shape, at others' beck and call.

Mere dreams, mere dreams! Yet Homer had not Sung
Had he not found it certain beyond dreams
That out of life's own self-delight had sprung
The abounding glittering jet; though now it seems
As if some marvellous empty sea-shell flung
Out of the obscure dark of the rich streams,
And not a fountain, were the symbol which
Shadows the inherited glory of the rich.

Some violent bitter man, some powerful man
Called architect and artist in, that they,
Bitter and violent men, might rear in stone
The sweetness that all longed for night and day,
The gentleness none there had ever known;
But when the master's buried mice can play.
And maybe the great-grandson of that house,
For all its bronze and marble, 's but a mouse.

O what if gardens where the peacock strays
With delicate feet upon old terraces,
Or else all Juno from an urn displays
Before the indifferent garden deities;
O what if levelled lawns and gravelled ways
Where slippered Contemplation finds his ease
And Childhood a delight for every sense,
But take our greatness with our violence?

What if the glory of escutcheoned doors,
And buildings that a haughtier age designed,
The pacing to and fro on polished floors
Amid great chambers and long galleries, lined
With famous portraits of our ancestors;
What if those things the greatest of mankind
Consider most to magnify, or to bless,
But take our greatness with our bitterness?


 II. My House

An ancient bridge, and a more ancient tower,
A farmhouse that is sheltered by its wall,
An acre of stony ground,
Where the symbolic rose can break in flower,
Old ragged elms, old thorns innumerable,
The sound of the rain or sound
Of every wind that blows;
The stilted water-hen
Crossing Stream again
Scared by the splashing of a dozen cows;

A winding stair, a chamber arched with stone,
A grey stone fireplace with an open hearth,
A candle and written page.
Il Penseroso's Platonist toiled on
In some like chamber, shadowing forth
How the daemonic rage
Imagined everything.
Benighted travellers
From markets and from fairs
Have seen his midnight candle glimmering.

Two men have founded here. A man-at-arms
Gathered a score of horse and spent his days
In this tumultuous spot,
Where through long wars and sudden night alarms
His dwinding score and he seemed castaways
Forgetting and forgot;
And I, that after me
My bodily heirs may find,
To exalt a lonely mind,
Befitting emblems of adversity.


 III. My Table

Two heavy trestles, and a board
Where Sato's gift, a changeless sword,
By pen and paper lies,
That it may moralise
My days out of their aimlessness.
A bit of an embroidered dress
Covers its wooden sheath.
Chaucer had not drawn breath
When it was forged. In Sato's house,
Curved like new moon, moon-luminous
It lay five hundred years.
Yet if no change appears
No moon; only an aching heart
Conceives a changeless work of art.
Our learned men have urged
That when and where 'twas forged
A marvellous accomplishment,
In painting or in pottery, went
From father unto son
And through the centuries ran
And seemed unchanging like the sword.
Soul's beauty being most adored,
Men and their business took
Me soul's unchanging look;
For the most rich inheritor,
Knowing that none could pass Heaven's door,
That loved inferior art,
Had such an aching heart
That he, although a country's talk
For silken clothes and stately walk.
Had waking wits; it seemed
Juno's peacock screamed.


 IV. My Descendants

Having inherited a vigorous mind
From my old fathers, I must nourish dreams
And leave a woman and a man behind
As vigorous of mind, and yet it seems
Life scarce can cast a fragrance on the wind,
Scarce spread a glory to the morning beams,
But the torn petals strew the garden plot;
And there's but common greenness after that.

And what if my descendants lose the flower
Through natural declension of the soul,
Through too much business with the passing hour,
Through too much play, or marriage with a fool?
May this laborious stair and this stark tower
Become a roofless min that the owl
May build in the cracked masonry and cry
Her desolation to the desolate sky.

The primum Mobile that fashioned us
Has made the very owls in circles move;
And I, that count myself most prosperous,
Seeing that love and friendship are enough,
For an old neighbour's friendship chose the house
And decked and altered it for a girl's love,
And know whatever flourish and decline
These stones remain their monument and mine.


 V. The Road at My Door

An affable Irregular,
A heavily-built Falstaffian man,
Comes cracking jokes of civil war
As though to die by gunshot were
The finest play under the sun.

A brown Lieutenant and his men,
Half dressed in national uniform,
Stand at my door, and I complain
Of the foul weather, hail and rain,
A pear-tree broken by the storm.

I count those feathered balls of soot
The moor-hen guides upon the stream.
To silence the envy in my thought;
And turn towards my chamber, caught
In the cold snows of a dream.


 VI. The Stare's Nest by My Window

The bees build in the crevices
Of loosening masonry, and there
The mother birds bring grubs and flies.
My wall is loosening; honey-bees,
Come build in the empty house of the state.

We are closed in, and the key is turned
On our uncertainty; somewhere
A man is killed, or a house burned,
Yet no clear fact to be discerned:
Come build in he empty house of the stare.

A barricade of stone or of wood;
Some fourteen days of civil war;
Last night they trundled down the road
That dead young soldier in his blood:
Come build in the empty house of the stare.

We had fed the heart on fantasies,
The heart's grown brutal from the fare;
More Substance in our enmities
Than in our love; O honey-bees,
Come build in the empty house of the stare.


 VII. I see Phantoms of Hatred and of the Heart's
 Fullness and of the Coming Emptiness

I climb to the tower-top and lean upon broken stone,
A mist that is like blown snow is sweeping over all,
Valley, river, and elms, under the light of a moon
That seems unlike itself, that seems unchangeable,
A glittering sword out of the east. A puff of wind
And those white glimmering fragments of the mist sweep by.
Frenzies bewilder, reveries perturb the mind;
Monstrous familiar images swim to the mind's eye.

'Vengeance upon the murderers,' the cry goes up,
'Vengeance for Jacques Molay.' In cloud-pale rags, or in lace,
The rage-driven, rage-tormented, and rage-hungry troop,
Trooper belabouring trooper, biting at arm or at face,
Plunges towards nothing, arms and fingers spreading wide
For the embrace of nothing; and I, my wits astray
Because of all that senseless tumult, all but cried
For vengeance on the murderers of Jacques Molay.

Their legs long, delicate and slender, aquamarine their eyes,
Magical unicorns bear ladies on their backs.
The ladies close their musing eyes. No prophecies,
Remembered out of Babylonian almanacs,
Have closed the ladies' eyes, their minds are but a pool
Where even longing drowns under its own excess;
Nothing but stillness can remain when hearts are full
Of their own sweetness, bodies of their loveliness.

The cloud-pale unicorns, the eyes of aquamarine,
The quivering half-closed eyelids, the rags of cloud or of lace,
Or eyes that rage has brightened, arms it has made lean,
Give place to an indifferent multitude, give place
To brazen hawks. Nor self-delighting reverie,
Nor hate of what's to come, nor pity for what's gone,
Nothing but grip of claw, and the eye's complacency,
The innumerable clanging wings that have put out the moon.

I turn away and shut the door, and on the stair
Wonder how many times I could have proved my worth
In something that all others understand or share;
But O! ambitious heart, had such a proof drawn forth
A company of friends, a conscience set at ease,
It had but made us pine the more. The abstract joy,
The half-read wisdom of daemonic images,
Suffice the ageing man as once the growing boy.

 A New Version: 1980

 What is that little black thing I see there
 in the white?
 Walt Whitman


One

Out of poverty
To begin again: 

With the color of the bride
And that of blindness,

Touch what I can
Of the quick,

Speak and then wait,
As if this light

Will continue to linger
On the threshold.



All that is near,
I no longer give it a name.

Once a stone hard of hearing,
Once sharpened into a knife...

Now only a chill
Slipping through.

Enough glow to kneel by and ask
To be tied to its tail

When it goes marrying
Its cousins, the stars.



Is it a cloud?
If it's a cloud it will move on.

The true shape of this thought,
Migrant, waning.

Something seeks someone,
It bears him a gift

Of himself, a bit
Of snow to taste,

Glimpse of his own nakedness
By which to imagine the face.



On a late afternoon of snow
In a dim badly-aired grocery,

Where a door has just rung
With a short, shrill echo,

A little boy hands the old,
Hard-faced woman

Bending low over the counter,
A shiny nickel for a cupcake.

Now only that shine, now
Only that lull abides.



That your gaze
Be merciful,

Sister, bride
Of my first hopeless insomnia.

Kind nurse, show me
The place of salves.

Teach me the song
That makes a man rise

His glass at dusk
Until a star dances in it.



Who are you? Are you anybody
A moonrock would recognize?

There are words I need.
They are not near men.

I went searching.
Is this a deathmarch?

You bend me, bend me,
Oh toward what flower!

Little-known vowel,
Noose big for us all.



As strange as a shepherd
In the Arctic Circle.

Someone like Bo-peep.
All his sheep are white

And he can't get any sleep
Over lost sheep.

And he's got a flute
Which says Bo-peep,

Which says Poor boy,
Take care of your snow-sheep.

 to A.S. Hamilton



Then all's well and white,
And no more than white.

Illinois snowbound.
Indiana with one bare tree.

Michigan a storm-cloud.
Wisconsin empty of men.

There's a trap on the ice
Laid there centuries ago.

The bait is still fresh.
The metal glitters as the night descends.



Woe, woe, it sings from the bough.
Our Lady, etc...

You had me hoodwinked.
I see your brand new claws.

Praying, what do I betray
By desiring your purity?

There are old men and women,
All bandaged up, waiting

At the spiked, wrought-iron gate
Of the Great Eye and Ear Infirmery.



We haven't gone far...
Fear lives there too.

Five ears of my fingertips
Against the white page.

What do you hear?
We hear holy nothing

Blindfolding itself.
It touched you once, twice,

And tore like a stitch
Out of a new wound.



Two

What are you up to son of a gun?
I roast on my heart's dark side.

What do you use as a skewer sweetheart?
I use my own crooked backbone.

What do you salt yourself with loverboy?
I grind the words out of my spittle.

And how will you know when you're done chump?
When the half-moons on my fingernails set.

With what knife will you carve yourself smartass?
The one I hide in my tongue's black boot.



Well, you can't call me a wrestler
If my own dead weight has me pinned down.

Well, you can't call me a cook
If the pot's got me under its cover.

Well, you can't call me a king
if the flies hang their hats in my mouth.

Well, you can't call me smart,
When the rain's falling my cup's in the cupboard.

Nor can you call me a saint,
If I didn't err, there wouldn't be these smudges.



One has to manage as best as one can.
The poppies ate the sunset for supper.

One has to manage as best as one can.
Who stole my blue thread, the one

I tied around my pinky to remember?
One has to manage as best as one can.

The flea I was standing on, jumped.
One has to manage as best as one can.

I think my head went out for a walk.
One has to manage as best as one can.



This is breath, only breath,
Think it over midnight!

A fly weighs twice as much.
The struck match nods as it passes,

But when I shout,
Its true name sticks in my throat.

It has to be cold
So the breath turns white,

And then mother, who's fast enough
To write his life on it?



A song in prison
And for prisoners,

Made of what the condemned
Have hidden from the jailers.

White--let me step aside
So that the future may see you,

For when this sheet is blown away,
What else is left

But to set the food on the table,
To cut oneself a slice of bread?



In an unknown year
Of an algebraic century,

An obscure widow
Wrapped in the colors of widowhood,

Met a true-blue orphan
On an indeterminate street-corner.

She offered him
A tiny sugar cube

In the hand so wizened
All the lines said: fate.



Do you take this line
Stretching to infinity?

I take this chipped tooth
On which to cut it in half.

Do you take this circle
Bounded by a single curved line?

I take this breath
That it cannot capture.

Then you may kiss the spot
Where her bridal train last rustled.



Winter can come now,
The earth narrow to a ditch--

And the sky with its castles and stone lions
Above the empty plains.

The snow can fall...
What other perennials would you plant,

My prodigals, my explorers
Tossing and turning in the dark

For those remote, finely honed bees,
The December stars?



Had to get through me elsewhere.
Woe to bone

That stood in their way.
Woe to each morsel of flesh.

White ants
In a white anthill.

The rustle of their many feet
Scurrying--tiptoing too.

Gravedigger ants.
Village-idiot ants.



This is the last summoning.
Solitude--as in the beginning.

A zero burped by a bigger zero--
It's an awful licking I got.

And fear--that dead letter office.
And doubt--that Chinese shadow play.

Does anyone still say a prayer
Before going to bed?

White sleeplessness.
No one knows its weight.



What The White Had To Say

 For how could anything white be distinct
 from or divided from whiteness?
 Meister Eckhart


Because I am the bullet
That has gone through everyone already,
I thought of you long before you thought of me.
Each one of you still keeps a blood-stained handkerchief
In which to swaddle me, but it stays empty
And even the wind won't remain in it long.
Cleverly you've invented name after name for me,
Mixed the riddles, garbled the proverbs,
Shook you loaded dice in a tin cup,
But I do not answer back even to your curses,
For I am nearer to you than your breath.
One sun shines on us both through a crack in the roof.
A spoon brings me through the window at dawn.
A plate shows me off to the four walls
While with my tail I swing at the flies.
But there's no tail and the flies are your thoughts.
Steadily, patiently I life your arms.
I arrange them in the posture of someone drowning,
And yet the sea in which you are sinking,
And even this night above it, is myself.



Because I am the bullet
That has baptized each one of your senses,
Poems are made of our lusty wedding nights...
The joy of words as they are written.
The ear that got up at four in the morning
To hear the grass grow inside a word.
Still, the most beautiful riddle has no answer.
I am the emptiness that tucks you in like a
 mockingbird's nest,
The fingernail that scratched on your sleep's
 blackboard.
Take a letter: From cloud to onion.
Say: There was never any real choice.
One gaunt shadowy mother wiped our asses,
The same old orphanage taught us loneliness.
Street-organ full of blue notes,
I am the monkey dancing to your grinding--
And still you are afraid-and so,
It's as if we had not budged from the beginning.
Time slopes. We are falling head over heels
At the speed of night. That milk tooth
You left under the pillow, it's grinning.

 1970-1980



This currently out-of-print edition:
Copyright ©1980 Logbridge-Rhodes, Inc.

An earlier version of White was first published 
by New Rivers Press in 1972.

HAIL to thee, blithe spirit! 
Bird thou never wert, 
That from heaven, or near it, 
Pourest thy full heart 
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

Higher still and higher 
From the earth thou springest, 
Like a cloud of fire 
The blue deep thou wingest, 
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.

In the golden lightning 
Of the sunken sun, 
O'er which clouds are bright'ning, 
Thou dost float and run, 
Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.

The pale purple even 
Melts around thy flight; 
Like a star of heaven 
In the broad daylight, 
Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight

Keen as are the arrows 
Of that silver sphere, 
Whose intense lamp narrows 
In the white dawn clear 
Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.

All the earth and air 
With thy voice is loud¡ª 
As, when night is bare, 
From one lonely cloud 
The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflow'd. 

What thou art we know not; 
What is most like thee?¡ª 
From rainbow clouds there flow not 
Drops so bright to see 
As from thy presence showers a rain of melody: 

Like a poet hidden 
In the light of thought, 
Singing hymns unbidden, 
Till the world is wrought 
To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not: 

Like a high-born maiden 
In a palace tower, 
Soothing her love-laden 
Soul in secret hour 
With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower: 

Like a glow-worm golden 
In a dell of dew, 
Scattering unbeholden 
Its aerial hue 
Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view: 

Like a rose embower'd 
In its own green leaves, 
By warm winds deflower'd, 
Till the scent it gives 
Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy-wing¨¨d thieves.

Sound of vernal showers 
On the twinkling grass, 
Rain-awaken'd flowers¡ª 
All that ever was 
Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass. 

Teach us, sprite or bird, 
What sweet thoughts are thine: 
I have never heard 
Praise of love or wine 
That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.

Chorus hymeneal, 
Or triumphal chaunt, 
Match'd with thine, would be all 
But an empty vaunt¡ª 
A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want.

What objects are the fountains 
Of thy happy strain? 
What fields, or waves, or mountains? 
What shapes of sky or plain? 
What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain? 

With thy clear keen joyance 
Languor cannot be; 
Shadow of annoyance 
Never came near thee: 
Thou lovest; but ne'er knew love's sad satiety.

Waking or asleep, 
Thou of death must deem 
Things more true and deep 
Than we mortals dream, 
Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream? 

We look before and after, 
And pine for what is not: 
Our sincerest laughter 
With some pain is fraught; 
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought. 

Yet if we could scorn 
Hate, and pride, and fear; 
If we were things born 
Not to shed a tear, 
I know not how thy joy we ever should come near.

Better than all measures 
Of delightful sound, 
Better than all treasures 
That in books are found, 
Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground! 

Teach me half the gladness 
That thy brain must know
Such harmonious madness 
From my lips would flow, 
The world should listen then, as I am listening now! 

 ("Saint Proxed's ever was the Church for peace")
If down here I chance to die,
 Solemnly I beg you take
All that is left of "I"
 To the Hills for old sake's sake,
Pack me very thoroughly
 In the ice that used to slake
Pegs I drank when I was dry --
 This observe for old sake's sake.

To the railway station hie,
 There a single ticket take
For Umballa -- goods-train -- I
 Shall not mind delay or shake.
I shall rest contentedly
 Spite of clamor coolies make;
Thus in state and dignity
 Send me up for old sake's sake.

Next the sleepy Babu wake,
 Book a Kalka van "for four."
Few, I think, will care to make
 Journeys with me any more
As they used to do of yore.
 I shall need a "special" break --
Thing I never took before --
 Get me one for old sake's sake.

After that -- arrangements make.
 No hotel will take me in,
And a bullock's back would break
 'Neath the teak and leaden skin
Tonga ropes are frail and thin,
 Or, did I a back-seat take,
In a tonga I might spin, --
 Do your best for old sake's sake.

After that -- your work is done.
 Recollect a Padre must
Mourn the dear departed one --
 Throw the ashes and the dust.
Don't go down at once. I trust
 You will find excuse to "snake
Three days' casual on the bust."
 Get your fun for old sake's sake.

I could never stand the Plains.
 Think of blazing June and May
Think of those September rains
 Yearly till the Judgment Day!
I should never rest in peace,
 I should sweat and lie awake.
Rail me then, on my decease,
 To the Hills for old sake's sake.

 Thoughts, go your way home.
Embrace,
 depths of the soul and the sea.
In my view,
 it is
 stupid
to be
 always serene.
My cabin is the worst
 of all cabins - 
All night above me
 Thuds a smithy of feet.
All night,
 stirring the ceiling’s calm,
dancers stampede
 to a moaning motif:
“Marquita,
 Marquita,
Marquita my darling,
why won’t you,
 Marquita,
why won’t you love me …”
But why
 Should marquita love me?!
I have
 no francs to spare.
And Marquita
 (at the slightest wink!)
for a hundred francs
 she’d be brought to your room.
The sum’s not large - 
 just live for show - 
No,
 you highbrow,
 ruffling your matted hair,
you would thrust upon her
 a sewing machine,
in stitches
 scribbling 
 the silk of verse.
Proletarians
 arrive at communism
 from below - 
by the low way of mines,
 sickles,
 and pitchforks - 
But I,
 from poetry’s skies,
 plunge into communism,
because
 without it
 I feel no love.
Whether
 I’m self-exiled
 or sent to mamma - 
the steel of words corrodes,
 the brass of the brass tarnishes.
Why,
 beneath foreign rains,
must I soak,
 rot,
 and rust?
Here I recline,
 having gone oversea,
in my idleness
 barely moving
 my machine parts.
I myself
 feel like a Soviet
 factory,
manufacturing happiness.
I object
 to being torn up,
like a flower of the fields,
 after a long day’s work.
I want
 the Gosplan to sweat
 in debate,
assignning me
 goals a year ahead.
I want
 a commissar
 with a decree
to lean over the thought of the age.
I want
 the heart to earn
its love wage
 at a specialist’s rate.
I want
 the factory committee
 to lock
My lips
 when the work is done.
I want
 the pen to be on a par
 with the bayonet;
and Stalin
 to deliver his Politbureau
reports
 about verse in the making
as he would about pig iron
 and the smelting of steel.
“That’s how it is,
 the way it goes …
 We’ve attained
the topmost level,
 climbing from the workers’ bunks:
in the Union
 of Republics
 the understanding of verse
now tops
 the prewar norm …”


Transcribed: by Mitch Abidor.