10 Best Famous Religions Poems

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

• All Famous Religions Poems

 RESPONDEZ! Respondez! 
(The war is completed—the price is paid—the title is settled beyond recall;) 
Let every one answer! let those who sleep be waked! let none evade! 
Must we still go on with our affectations and sneaking? 
Let me bring this to a close—I pronounce openly for a new distribution of roles;
Let that which stood in front go behind! and let that which was behind advance to the
 front and
 speak; 
Let murderers, bigots, fools, unclean persons, offer new propositions! 
Let the old propositions be postponed! 
Let faces and theories be turn’d inside out! let meanings be freely criminal, as well
 as
 results! 
Let there be no suggestion above the suggestion of drudgery!
Let none be pointed toward his destination! (Say! do you know your destination?) 
Let men and women be mock’d with bodies and mock’d with Souls! 
Let the love that waits in them, wait! let it die, or pass stillborn to other spheres! 
Let the sympathy that waits in every man, wait! or let it also pass, a dwarf, to other
 spheres!

Let contradictions prevail! let one thing contradict another! and let one line of my poems
 contradict another!
Let the people sprawl with yearning, aimless hands! let their tongues be broken! let their
 eyes
 be discouraged! let none descend into their hearts with the fresh lusciousness of love! 
(Stifled, O days! O lands! in every public and private corruption! 
Smother’d in thievery, impotence, shamelessness, mountain-high; 
Brazen effrontery, scheming, rolling like ocean’s waves around and upon you, O my
 days! my
 lands! 
For not even those thunderstorms, nor fiercest lightnings of the war, have purified the
 atmosphere;)
—Let the theory of America still be management, caste, comparison! (Say! what other
 theory
 would you?) 
Let them that distrust birth and death still lead the rest! (Say! why shall they not lead
 you?)

Let the crust of hell be neared and trod on! let the days be darker than the nights! let
 slumber bring less slumber than waking time brings! 
Let the world never appear to him or her for whom it was all made! 
Let the heart of the young man still exile itself from the heart of the old man! and let
 the
 heart of the old man be exiled from that of the young man!
Let the sun and moon go! let scenery take the applause of the audience! let there be
 apathy
 under the stars! 
Let freedom prove no man’s inalienable right! every one who can tyrannize, let him
 tyrannize to his satisfaction! 
Let none but infidels be countenanced! 
Let the eminence of meanness, treachery, sarcasm, hate, greed, indecency, impotence, lust,
 be
 taken for granted above all! let writers, judges, governments, households, religions,
 philosophies, take such for granted above all! 
Let the worst men beget children out of the worst women!
Let the priest still play at immortality! 
Let death be inaugurated! 
Let nothing remain but the ashes of teachers, artists, moralists, lawyers, and
 learn’d and
 polite persons! 
Let him who is without my poems be assassinated! 
Let the cow, the horse, the camel, the garden-bee—let the mudfish, the lobster, the
 mussel, eel, the sting-ray, and the grunting pig-fish—let these, and the like of
 these, be
 put on a perfect equality with man and woman!
Let churches accommodate serpents, vermin, and the corpses of those who have died of the
 most
 filthy of diseases! 
Let marriage slip down among fools, and be for none but fools! 
Let men among themselves talk and think forever obscenely of women! and let women among
 themselves talk and think obscenely of men! 
Let us all, without missing one, be exposed in public, naked, monthly, at the peril of our
 lives! let our bodies be freely handled and examined by whoever chooses! 
Let nothing but copies at second hand be permitted to exist upon the earth!
Let the earth desert God, nor let there ever henceforth be mention’d the name of God!

Let there be no God! 
Let there be money, business, imports, exports, custom, authority, precedents, pallor,
 dyspepsia, smut, ignorance, unbelief! 
Let judges and criminals be transposed! let the prison-keepers be put in prison! let those
 that
 were prisoners take the keys! Say! why might they not just as well be transposed?) 
Let the slaves be masters! let the masters become slaves!
Let the reformers descend from the stands where they are forever bawling! let an idiot or
 insane person appear on each of the stands! 
Let the Asiatic, the African, the European, the American, and the Australian, go armed
 against
 the murderous stealthiness of each other! let them sleep armed! let none believe in good
 will! 
Let there be no unfashionable wisdom! let such be scorn’d and derided off from the
 earth! 
Let a floating cloud in the sky—let a wave of the sea—let growing mint, spinach,
 onions, tomatoes—let these be exhibited as shows, at a great price for admission! 
Let all the men of These States stand aside for a few smouchers! let the few seize on what
 they
 choose! let the rest gawk, giggle, starve, obey!
Let shadows be furnish’d with genitals! let substances be deprived of their genitals!

Let there be wealthy and immense cities—but still through any of them, not a single
 poet,
 savior, knower, lover! 
Let the infidels of These States laugh all faith away! 
If one man be found who has faith, let the rest set upon him! 
Let them affright faith! let them destroy the power of breeding faith!
Let the she-harlots and the he-harlots be prudent! let them dance on, while seeming lasts!
 (O
 seeming! seeming! seeming!) 
Let the preachers recite creeds! let them still teach only what they have been taught! 
Let insanity still have charge of sanity! 
Let books take the place of trees, animals, rivers, clouds! 
Let the daub’d portraits of heroes supersede heroes!
Let the manhood of man never take steps after itself! 
Let it take steps after eunuchs, and after consumptive and genteel persons! 
Let the white person again tread the black person under his heel! (Say! which is trodden
 under
 heel, after all?) 
Let the reflections of the things of the world be studied in mirrors! let the things
 themselves
 still continue unstudied! 
Let a man seek pleasure everywhere except in himself!
Let a woman seek happiness everywhere except in herself! 
(What real happiness have you had one single hour through your whole life?) 
Let the limited years of life do nothing for the limitless years of death! (What do you
 suppose
 death will do, then?)

 Lough, vessel, plough the British main,
Seek the free ocean's wider plain; 
Leave English scenes and English skies,
Unbind, dissever English ties; 
Bear me to climes remote and strange, 
Where altered life, fast-following change,
Hot action, never-ceasing toil, 
Shall stir, turn, dig, the spirit's soil; 
Fresh roots shall plant, fresh seed shall sow, 
Till a new garden there shall grow, 
Cleared of the weeds that fill it now,­ 
Mere human love, mere selfish yearning, 
Which, cherished, would arrest me yet. 
I grasp the plough, there's no returning, 
Let me, then, struggle to forget. 

But England's shores are yet in view, 
And England's skies of tender blue 
Are arched above her guardian sea. 
I cannot yet Remembrance flee; 
I must again, then, firmly face 
That task of anguish, to retrace. 
Wedded to home­I home forsake, 
Fearful of change­I changes make; 
Too fond of ease­I plunge in toil; 
Lover of calm­I seek turmoil: 
Nature and hostile Destiny 
Stir in my heart a conflict wild; 
And long and fierce the war will be 
Ere duty both has reconciled. 

What other tie yet holds me fast
To the divorced, abandoned past?
Smouldering, on my heart's altar lies
The fire of some great sacrifice,
Not yet half quenched. The sacred steel
But lately struck my carnal will, 
My life-long hope, first joy and last, 
What I loved well, and clung to fast; 
What I wished wildly to retain, 
What I renounced with soul-felt pain; 
What­when I saw it, axe-struck, perish­ 
Left me no joy on earth to cherish; 
A man bereft­yet sternly now 
I do confirm that Jephtha vow: 
Shall I retract, or fear, or flee ? 
Did Christ, when rose the fatal tree 
Before him, on Mount Calvary ? 
'Twas a long fight, hard fought, but won, 
And what I did was justly done. 

Yet, Helen ! from thy love I turned,
When my heart most for thy heart burned;
I dared thy tears, I dared thy scorn­
Easier the death-pang had been borne.
Helen ! thou mightst not go with me,
I could not­dared not stay for thee !
I heard, afar, in bonds complain
The savage from beyond the main;
And that wild sound rose o'er the cry
Wrung out by passion's agony;
And even when, with the bitterest tear
I ever shed, mine eyes were dim,
Still, with the spirit's vision clear,
I saw Hell's empire, vast and grim,
Spread on each Indian river's shore,
Each realm of Asia covering o'er. 

There the weak, trampled by the strong,
Live but to suffer­hopeless die; 
There pagan-priests, whose creed is Wrong, 
Extortion, Lust, and Cruelty, 
Crush our lost race­and brimming fill 
The bitter cup of human ill; 
And I­who have the healing creed, 
The faith benign of Mary's Son; 
Shall I behold my brother's need 
And selfishly to aid him shun ? 
I­who upon my mother's knees, 
In childhood, read Christ's written word, 
Received his legacy of peace, 
His holy rule of action heard; 
I­in whose heart the sacred sense 
Of Jesus' love was early felt; 
Of his pure full benevolence, 
His pitying tenderness for guilt; 
His shepherd-care for wandering sheep, 
For all weak, sorrowing, trembling things, 
His mercy vast, his passion deep 
Of anguish for man's sufferings; 
I­schooled from childhood in such lore­ 
Dared I draw back or hesitate, 
When called to heal the sickness sore 
Of those far off and desolate ? 
Dark, in the realm and shades of Death, 
Nations and tribes and empires lie, 
But even to them the light of Faith 
Is breaking on their sombre sky: 
And be it mine to bid them raise 
Their drooped heads to the kindling scene, 
And know and hail the sunrise blaze 
Which heralds Christ the Nazarene. 
I know how Hell the veil will spread 
Over their brows and filmy eyes, 
And earthward crush the lifted head 
That would look up and seek the skies; 
I know what war the fiend will wage 
Against that soldier of the cross, 
Who comes to dare his demon-rage, 
And work his kingdom shame and loss. 
Yes, hard and terrible the toil 
Of him who steps on foreign soil, 
Resolved to plant the gospel vine, 
Where tyrants rule and slaves repine; 
Eager to lift Religion's light 
Where thickest shades of mental night 
Screen the false god and fiendish rite; 
Reckless that missionary blood, 
Shed in wild wilderness and wood, 
Has left, upon the unblest air, 
The man's deep moan­the martyr's prayer. 
I know my lot­I only ask 
Power to fulfil the glorious task; 
Willing the spirit, may the flesh 
Strength for the day receive afresh. 
May burning sun or deadly wind 
Prevail not o'er an earnest mind; 
May torments strange or direst death
Nor trample truth, nor baffle faith.
Though such blood-drops should fall from me
As fell in old Gethsemane,
Welcome the anguish, so it gave
More strength to work­more skill to save.
And, oh ! if brief must be my time,
If hostile hand or fatal clime
Cut short my course­still o'er my grave, 
Lord, may thy harvest whitening wave. 
So I the culture may begin,
Let others thrust the sickle in;
If but the seed will faster grow,
May my blood water what I sow ! 

What ! have I ever trembling stood,
And feared to give to God that blood ?
What ! has the coward love of life
Made me shrink from the righteous strife ?
Have human passions, human fears
Severed me from those Pioneers,
Whose task is to march first, and trace
Paths for the progress of our race ?
It has been so; but grant me, Lord,
Now to stand steadfast by thy word !
Protected by salvation's helm,
Shielded by faith­with truth begirt,
To smile when trials seek to whelm
And stand 'mid testing fires unhurt ! 
Hurling hell's strongest bulwarks down, 
Even when the last pang thrills my breast, 
When Death bestows the Martyr's crown, 
And calls me into Jesus' rest. 
Then for my ultimate reward­ 
Then for the world-rejoicing word­ 
The voice from Father­Spirit­Son: 
" Servant of God, well hast thou done !"

 1
GREAT are the myths—I too delight in them; 
Great are Adam and Eve—I too look back and accept them; 
Great the risen and fallen nations, and their poets, women, sages, inventors, rulers,
 warriors,
 and priests. 
Great is Liberty! great is Equality! I am their follower; 
Helmsmen of nations, choose your craft! where you sail, I sail,
I weather it out with you, or sink with you. 

Great is Youth—equally great is Old Age—great are the Day and Night; 
Great is Wealth—great is Poverty—great is Expression—great is Silence. 

Youth, large, lusty, loving—Youth, full of grace, force, fascination! 
Do you know that Old Age may come after you, with equal grace, force, fascination?

Day, full-blown and splendid—Day of the immense sun, action, ambition, laughter, 
The Night follows close, with millions of suns, and sleep, and restoring darkness. 

Wealth, with the flush hand, fine clothes, hospitality; 
But then the Soul’s wealth, which is candor, knowledge, pride, enfolding love; 
(Who goes for men and women showing Poverty richer than wealth?)

Expression of speech! in what is written or said, forget not that Silence is also
 expressive, 
That anguish as hot as the hottest, and contempt as cold as the coldest, may be without
 words. 

2
Great is the Earth, and the way it became what it is; 
Do you imagine it has stopt at this? the increase abandon’d? 
Understand then that it goes as far onward from this, as this is from the times when it
 lay in
 covering waters and gases, before man had appear’d.

Great is the quality of Truth in man; 
The quality of truth in man supports itself through all changes, 
It is inevitably in the man—he and it are in love, and never leave each other. 

The truth in man is no dictum, it is vital as eyesight; 
If there be any Soul, there is truth—if there be man or woman there is truth—if
 there
 be physical or moral, there is truth;
If there be equilibrium or volition, there is truth—if there be things at all upon
 the
 earth, there is truth. 

O truth of the earth! I am determin’d to press my way toward you; 
Sound your voice! I scale mountains, or dive in the sea after you. 

3
Great is Language—it is the mightiest of the sciences, 
It is the fulness, color, form, diversity of the earth, and of men and women, and of all
 qualities and processes;
It is greater than wealth—it is greater than buildings, ships, religions, paintings,
 music. 

Great is the English speech—what speech is so great as the English? 
Great is the English brood—what brood has so vast a destiny as the English? 
It is the mother of the brood that must rule the earth with the new rule; 
The new rule shall rule as the Soul rules, and as the love, justice, equality in the Soul
 rule.

Great is Law—great are the few old land-marks of the law, 
They are the same in all times, and shall not be disturb’d. 

4
Great is Justice! 
Justice is not settled by legislators and laws—it is in the Soul; 
It cannot be varied by statutes, any more than love, pride, the attraction of gravity,
 can;
It is immutable—it does not depend on majorities—majorities or what not, come at
 last
 before the same passionless and exact tribunal. 

For justice are the grand natural lawyers, and perfect judges—is it in their Souls; 
It is well assorted—they have not studied for nothing—the great includes the
 less; 
They rule on the highest grounds—they oversee all eras, states, administrations. 

The perfect judge fears nothing—he could go front to front before God;
Before the perfect judge all shall stand back—life and death shall stand
 back—heaven
 and hell shall stand back. 

5
Great is Life, real and mystical, wherever and whoever; 
Great is Death—sure as life holds all parts together, Death holds all parts together.


Has Life much purport?—Ah, Death has the greatest purport.

 1
EARTH, round, rolling, compact—suns, moons, animals—all these are words to be
 said; 
Watery, vegetable, sauroid advances—beings, premonitions, lispings of the future, 
Behold! these are vast words to be said. 

Were you thinking that those were the words—those upright lines? those curves,
 angles,
 dots? 
No, those are not the words—the substantial words are in the ground and sea,
They are in the air—they are in you. 

Were you thinking that those were the words—those delicious sounds out of your
 friends’
 mouths? 
No, the real words are more delicious than they. 

Human bodies are words, myriads of words; 
In the best poems re-appears the body, man’s or woman’s, well-shaped, natural,
 gay,
Every part able, active, receptive, without shame or the need of shame. 

2
Air, soil, water, fire—these are words; 
I myself am a word with them—my qualities interpenetrate with theirs—my name is
 nothing to
 them; 
Though it were told in the three thousand languages, what would air, soil, water, fire,
 know of
 my
 name? 

A healthy presence, a friendly or commanding gesture, are words, sayings, meanings;
The charms that go with the mere looks of some men and women, are sayings and meanings
 also. 

3
The workmanship of souls is by the inaudible words of the earth; 
The great masters know the earth’s words, and use them more than the audible words. 

Amelioration is one of the earth’s words; 
The earth neither lags nor hastens;
It has all attributes, growths, effects, latent in itself from the jump; 
It is not half beautiful only—defects and excrescences show just as much as
 perfections
 show. 

The earth does not withhold, it is generous enough; 
The truths of the earth continually wait, they are not so conceal’d either; 
They are calm, subtle, untransmissible by print;
They are imbued through all things, conveying themselves willingly, 
Conveying a sentiment and invitation of the earth—I utter and utter, 
I speak not, yet if you hear me not, of what avail am I to you? 
To bear—to better—lacking these, of what avail am I? 

4
Accouche! Accouchez!
Will you rot your own fruit in yourself there? 
Will you squat and stifle there? 

The earth does not argue, 
Is not pathetic, has no arrangements, 
Does not scream, haste, persuade, threaten, promise,
Makes no discriminations, has no conceivable failures, 
Closes nothing, refuses nothing, shuts none out, 
Of all the powers, objects, states, it notifies, shuts none out. 

5
The earth does not exhibit itself, nor refuse to exhibit itself—possesses still
 underneath; 
Underneath the ostensible sounds, the august chorus of heroes, the wail of slaves,
Persuasions of lovers, curses, gasps of the dying, laughter of young people, accents of
 bargainers, 
Underneath these, possessing the words that never fail. 

To her children, the words of the eloquent dumb great mother never fail; 
The true words do not fail, for motion does not fail, and reflection does not fail; 
Also the day and night do not fail, and the voyage we pursue does not fail.

6
Of the interminable sisters, 
Of the ceaseless cotillions of sisters, 
Of the centripetal and centrifugal sisters, the elder and younger sisters, 
The beautiful sister we know dances on with the rest. 
With her ample back towards every beholder,
With the fascinations of youth, and the equal fascinations of age, 
Sits she whom I too love like the rest—sits undisturb’d, 
Holding up in her hand what has the character of a mirror, while her eyes glance back from
 it, 
Glance as she sits, inviting none, denying none, 
Holding a mirror day and night tirelessly before her own face.

7
Seen at hand, or seen at a distance, 
Duly the twenty-four appear in public every day, 
Duly approach and pass with their companions, or a companion, 
Looking from no countenances of their own, but from the countenances of those who are with
 them, 
From the countenances of children or women, or the manly countenance,
From the open countenances of animals, or from inanimate things, 
From the landscape or waters, or from the exquisite apparition of the sky, 
From our countenances, mine and yours, faithfully returning them, 
Every day in public appearing without fail, but never twice with the same companions. 

8
Embracing man, embracing all, proceed the three hundred and sixty-five resistlessly round
 the
 sun;
Embracing all, soothing, supporting, follow close three hundred and sixty-five offsets of
 the
 first,
 sure and necessary as they. 

9
Tumbling on steadily, nothing dreading, 
Sunshine, storm, cold, heat, forever withstanding, passing, carrying, 
The Soul’s realization and determination still inheriting, 
The fluid vacuum around and ahead still entering and dividing,
No balk retarding, no anchor anchoring, on no rock striking, 
Swift, glad, content, unbereav’d, nothing losing, 
Of all able and ready at any time to give strict account, 
The divine ship sails the divine sea. 

10
Whoever you are! motion and reflection are especially for you;
The divine ship sails the divine sea for you. 

Whoever you are! you are he or she for whom the earth is solid and liquid, 
You are he or she for whom the sun and moon hang in the sky, 
For none more than you are the present and the past, 
For none more than you is immortality.

11
Each man to himself, and each woman to herself, such is the word of the past and present,
 and
 the
 word of immortality; 
No one can acquire for another—not one! 
Not one can grow for another—not one! 

The song is to the singer, and comes back most to him; 
The teaching is to the teacher, and comes back most to him;
The murder is to the murderer, and comes back most to him; 
The theft is to the thief, and comes back most to him; 
The love is to the lover, and comes back most to him; 
The gift is to the giver, and comes back most to him—it cannot fail; 
The oration is to the orator, the acting is to the actor and actress, not to the audience;
And no man understands any greatness or goodness but his own, or the indication of his
 own. 

12
I swear the earth shall surely be complete to him or her who shall be complete! 
I swear the earth remains jagged and broken only to him or her who remains jagged and
 broken! 
I swear there is no greatness or power that does not emulate those of the earth! 
I swear there can be no theory of any account, unless it corroborate the theory of the
 earth!
No politics, art, religion, behavior, or what not, is of account, unless it compare with
 the
 amplitude of the earth, 
Unless it face the exactness, vitality, impartiality, rectitude of the earth. 

13
I swear I begin to see love with sweeter spasms than that which responds love! 
It is that which contains itself—which never invites, and never refuses. 

I swear I begin to see little or nothing in audible words!
I swear I think all merges toward the presentation of the unspoken meanings of the earth! 
Toward him who sings the songs of the Body, and of the truths of the earth; 
Toward him who makes the dictionaries of words that print cannot touch. 

14
I swear I see what is better than to tell the best; 
It is always to leave the best untold.

When I undertake to tell the best, I find I cannot, 
My tongue is ineffectual on its pivots, 
My breath will not be obedient to its organs, 
I become a dumb man. 

The best of the earth cannot be told anyhow—all or any is best;
It is not what you anticipated—it is cheaper, easier, nearer; 
Things are not dismiss’d from the places they held before; 
The earth is just as positive and direct as it was before; 
Facts, religions, improvements, politics, trades, are as real as before; 
But the Soul is also real,—it too is positive and direct;
No reasoning, no proof has establish’d it, 
Undeniable growth has establish’d it. 

15
This is a poem—a carol of words—these are hints of meanings, 
These are to echo the tones of Souls, and the phrases of Souls; 
If they did not echo the phrases of Souls, what were they then?
If they had not reference to you in especial, what were they then? 

I swear I will never henceforth have to do with the faith that tells the best! 
I will have to do only with that faith that leaves the best untold. 

16
Say on, sayers! 
Delve! mould! pile the words of the earth!
Work on—(it is materials you must bring, not breaths;) 
Work on, age after age! nothing is to be lost; 
It may have to wait long, but it will certainly come in use; 
When the materials are all prepared, the architects shall appear. 

I swear to you the architects shall appear without fail! I announce them and lead them;
I swear to you they will understand you, and justify you; 
I swear to you the greatest among them shall be he who best knows you, and encloses all,
 and is
 faithful to all; 
I swear to you, he and the rest shall not forget you—they shall perceive that you are
 not
 an
 iota less than they; 
I swear to you, you shall be glorified in them.

 MY lov’d, my honour’d, much respected friend!
 No mercenary bard his homage pays;
With honest pride, I scorn each selfish end,
 My dearest meed, a friend’s esteem and praise:
 To you I sing, in simple Scottish lays,
The lowly train in life’s sequester’d scene,
 The native feelings strong, the guileless ways,
What Aiken in a cottage would have been;
Ah! tho’ his worth unknown, far happier there I ween!


November chill blaws loud wi’ angry sugh;
 The short’ning winter-day is near a close;
The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh;
 The black’ning trains o’ craws to their repose:
 The toil-worn Cotter frae his labour goes,—
This night his weekly moil is at an end,
 Collects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes,
Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend,
And weary, o’er the moor, his course does hameward bend.


At length his lonely cot appears in view,
 Beneath the shelter of an aged tree;
Th’ expectant wee-things, toddlin, stacher through
 To meet their dead, wi’ flichterin noise and glee.
 His wee bit ingle, blinkin bonilie,
His clean hearth-stane, his thrifty wifie’s smile,
 The lisping infant, prattling on his knee,
Does a’ his weary kiaugh and care beguile,
And makes him quite forget his labour and his toil.


Belyve, the elder bairns come drapping in,
 At service out, amang the farmers roun’;
Some ca’ the pleugh, some herd, some tentie rin
 A cannie errand to a neibor town:
 Their eldest hope, their Jenny, woman-grown,
In youthfu’ bloom-love sparkling in her e’e—
 Comes hame, perhaps to shew a braw new gown,
Or deposite her sair-won penny-fee,
To help her parents dear, if they in hardship be.


With joy unfeign’d, brothers and sisters meet,
 And each for other’s weelfare kindly speirs:
The social hours, swift-wing’d, unnotic’d fleet:
 Each tells the uncos that he sees or hears.
 The parents, partial, eye their hopeful years;
Anticipation forward points the view;
 The mother, wi’ her needle and her shears,
Gars auld claes look amaist as weel’s the new;
The father mixes a’ wi’ admonition due.


Their master’s and their mistress’ command,
 The younkers a’ are warned to obey;
And mind their labours wi’ an eydent hand,
 And ne’er, tho’ out o’ sight, to jauk or play;
 “And O! be sure to fear the Lord alway,
And mind your duty, duly, morn and night;
 Lest in temptation’s path ye gang astray,
Implore His counsel and assisting might:
They never sought in vain that sought the Lord aright.”


But hark! a rap comes gently to the door;
 Jenny, wha kens the meaning o’ the same,
Tells how a neibor lad came o’er the moor,
 To do some errands, and convoy her hame.
 The wily mother sees the conscious flame
Sparkle in Jenny’s e’e, and flush her cheek;
 With heart-struck anxious care, enquires his name,
While Jenny hafflins is afraid to speak;
Weel-pleased the mother hears, it’s nae wild, worthless rake.


Wi’ kindly welcome, Jenny brings him ben;
 A strappin youth, he takes the mother’s eye;
Blythe Jenny sees the visit’s no ill ta’en;
 The father cracks of horses, pleughs, and kye.
 The youngster’s artless heart o’erflows wi’ joy,
But blate an’ laithfu’, scarce can weel behave;
 The mother, wi’ a woman’s wiles, can spy
What makes the youth sae bashfu’ and sae grave,
Weel-pleas’d to think her bairn’s respected like the lave.


O happy love! where love like this is found:
 O heart-felt raptures! bliss beyond compare!
I’ve paced much this weary, mortal round,
 And sage experience bids me this declare,—
 “If Heaven a draught of heavenly pleasure spare—
One cordial in this melancholy vale,
 ’Tis when a youthful, loving, modest pair
In other’sarms, breathe out the tender tale,
Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the evening gale.”


Is there, in human form, that bears a heart,
 A wretch! a villain! lost to love and truth!
That can, with studied, sly, ensnaring art,
 Betray sweet Jenny’s unsuspecting youth?
 Curse on his perjur’d arts! dissembling smooth!
Are honour, virtue, conscience, all exil’d?
 Is there no pity, no relenting ruth,
Points to the parents fondling o’er their child?
Then paints the ruin’d maid, and their distraction wild?


But now the supper crowns their simple board,
 The halesome parritch, chief of Scotia’s food;
The sowp their only hawkie does afford,
 That, ’yont the hallan snugly chows her cood:
 The dame brings forth, in complimental mood,
To grace the lad, her weel-hain’d kebbuck, fell;
 And aft he’s prest, and aft he ca’s it guid:
The frugal wifie, garrulous, will tell
How t’was a towmond auld, sin’ lint was i’ the bell.


The cheerfu’ supper done, wi’ serious face,
 They, round the ingle, form a circle wide;
The sire turns o’er, with patriarchal grace,
 The big ha’bible, ance his father’s pride:
 His bonnet rev’rently is laid aside,
His lyart haffets wearing thin and bare;
 Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide,
He wales a portion with judicious care;
And “Let us worship God!” he says with solemn air.


They chant their artless notes in simple guise,
 They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim;
Perhaps Dundee’s wild-warbling measures rise;
 Or plaintive Martyrs, worthy of the name;
 Or noble Elgin beets the heaven-ward flame;
The sweetest far of Scotia’s holy lays:
 Compar’d with these, Italian trills are tame;
The tickl’d ears no heart-felt raptures raise;
Nae unison hae they with our Creator’s praise.


The priest-like father reads the sacred page,
 How Abram was the friend of God on high;
Or Moses bade eternal warfare wage
 With Amalek’s ungracious progeny;
 Or how the royal bard did groaning lie
Beneath the stroke of Heaven’s avenging ire;
 Or Job’s pathetic plaint, and wailing cry;
Or rapt Isaiah’s wild, seraphic fire;
Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre.


Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme,
 How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed;
How He, who bore in Heaven the second name,
 Had not on earth whereon to lay His head:
 How His first followers and servants sped;
The precepts sage they wrote to many a land:
 How he, who lone in Patmos banished,
Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand,
And heard great Bab’lon’s doom pronounc’d by Heaven’s command.


Then, kneeling down to Heaven’s Eternal King,
 The saint, the father, and the husband prays:
Hope “springs exulting on triumphant wing,” 1
 That thus they all shall meet in future days,
 There, ever bask in uncreated rays,
No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear,
 Together hymning their Creator’s praise,
In such society, yet still more dear;
While circling Time moves round in an eternal sphere


Compar’d with this, how poor Religion’s pride,
 In all the pomp of method, and of art;
When men display to congregations wide
 Devotion’s ev’ry grace, except the heart!
 The Power, incens’d, the pageant will desert,
The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole;
 But haply, in some cottage far apart,
May hear, well-pleas’d, the language of the soul;
And in His Book of Life the inmates poor enroll.


Then homeward all take off their sev’ral way;
 The youngling cottagers retire to rest:
The parent-pair their secret homage pay,
 And proffer up to Heaven the warm request,
 That he who stills the raven’s clam’rous nest,
And decks the lily fair in flow’ry pride,
 Would, in the way His wisdom sees the best,
For them and for their little ones provide;
But chiefly, in their hearts with grace divine preside.


From scenes like these, old Scotia’s grandeur springs,
 That makes her lov’d at home, rever’d abroad:
Princes and lords are but the breath of kings,
 “An honest man’s the noblest work of God;”
 And certes, in fair virtue’s heavenly road,
The cottage leaves the palace far behind;
 What is a lordling’s pomp? a cumbrous load,
Disguising oft the wretch of human kind,
Studied in arts of hell, in wickedness refin’d!


O Scotia! my dear, my native soil!
 For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent,
Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil
 Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content!
 And O! may Heaven their simple lives prevent
From luxury’s contagion, weak and vile!
 Then howe’er crowns and coronets be rent,
A virtuous populace may rise the while,
And stand a wall of fire around their much-lov’d isle.


O Thou! who pour’d the patriotic tide,
 That stream’d thro’ Wallace’s undaunted heart,
Who dar’d to nobly stem tyrannic pride,
 Or nobly die, the second glorious part:
 (The patriot’s God peculiarly thou art,
His friend, inspirer, guardian, and reward!)
 O never, never Scotia’s realm desert;
But still the patriot, and the patriot-bard
In bright succession raise, her ornament and guard!


 Note 1. Pope’s “Windsor Forest.”—R. B. [back]

O sweet spontaneous
earth how often have
the
doting

fingers of
prurient philosophers pinched
and
poked

thee
has the naughty thumb
of science prodded
thy

beauty .how
often have religions taken
thee upon their scraggy knees
squeezing and

buffeting thee that thou mightest conceive
gods
(but
true

to the incomparable
couch of death thy
rhythmic
lover

thou answerest

them only with

spring)

 Have you heard of one Humpty Dumpty
How he fell with a roll and a rumble
And curled up like Lord Olofa Crumple
By the butt of the Magazine Wall,
 (Chorus) Of the Magazine Wall,
 Hump, helmet and all?

He was one time our King of the Castle
Now he's kicked about like a rotten old parsnip.
And from Green street he'll be sent by order of His Worship
To the penal jail of Mountjoy
 (Chorus) To the jail of Mountjoy!
 Jail him and joy.

He was fafafather of all schemes for to bother us
Slow coaches and immaculate contraceptives for the populace,
Mare's milk for the sick, seven dry Sundays a week,
Openair love and religion's reform,
 (Chorus) And religious reform,
 Hideous in form.

Arrah, why, says you, couldn't he manage it?
I'll go bail, my fine dairyman darling,
Like the bumping bull of the Cassidys
All your butter is in your horns.
 (Chorus) His butter is in his horns.
 Butter his horns!

(Repeat) Hurrah there, Hosty, frosty Hosty, change that shirt
 on ye,
Rhyme the rann, the king of all ranns!


Balbaccio, balbuccio!

We had chaw chaw chops, chairs, chewing gum, the chicken-pox
 and china chambers
Universally provided by this soffsoaping salesman.
Small wonder He'll Cheat E'erawan our local lads nicknamed him.
When Chimpden first took the floor
 (Chorus) With his bucketshop store
 Down Bargainweg, Lower.

So snug he was in his hotel premises sumptuous
But soon we'll bonfire all his trash, tricks and trumpery
And 'tis short till sheriff Clancy'll be winding up his unlimited
 company
With the bailiff's bom at the door,
 (Chorus) Bimbam at the door.
 Then he'll bum no more.

Sweet bad luck on the waves washed to our island
The hooker of that hammerfast viking
And Gall's curse on the day when Eblana bay
Saw his black and tan man-o'-war.
 (Chorus) Saw his man-o'-war
 On the harbour bar.

Where from? roars Poolbeg. Cookingha'pence, he bawls
 Donnez-moi scampitle, wick an wipin'fampiny
Fingal Mac Oscar Onesine Bargearse Boniface
Thok's min gammelhole Norveegickers moniker
Og as ay are at gammelhore Norveegickers cod.
 (Chorus) A Norwegian camel old cod.
 He is, begod.


Lift it, Hosty, lift it, ye devil, ye! up with the rann,
 the rhyming rann!

It was during some fresh water garden pumping
Or, according to the Nursing Mirror, while admiring the monkeys
That our heavyweight heathen Humpharey
Made bold a maid to woo
 (Chorus) Woohoo, what'll she doo!
 The general lost her maidenloo!

He ought to blush for himself, the old hayheaded philosopher,
For to go and shove himself that way on top of her.
Begob, he's the crux of the catalogue
Of our antediluvial zoo,
 (Chorus) Messrs Billing and Coo.
 Noah's larks, good as noo.

He was joulting by Wellinton's monument
Our rotorious hippopopotamuns
When some bugger let down the backtrap of the omnibus
And he caught his death of fusiliers,
 (Chorus) With his rent in his rears.
 Give him six years.

'Tis sore pity for his innocent poor children
But look out for his missus legitimate!
When that frew gets a grip of old Earwicker
Won't there be earwigs on the green?
 (Chorus) Big earwigs on the green,
 The largest ever you seen.

 Suffoclose! Shikespower! Seudodanto! Anonymoses!

Then we'll have a free trade Gael's band and mass meeting
For to sod him the brave son of Scandiknavery.
And we'll bury him down in Oxmanstown
Along with the devil and the Danes,
 (Chorus) With the deaf and dumb Danes,
 And all their remains.

And not all the king's men nor his horses
Will resurrect his corpus
For there's no true spell in Connacht or hell
 (bis) That's able to raise a Cain.

 In every presence there is absence.

When we're together, the spaces between
Threaten to enclose our bodies
And isolate our spirits.
The mirror reflects what we are not,
And we wonder if our mate
Suspects a fatal misreading
Of our original text,
Not to mention the dreaded subtext.
Reality, we fear, mocks appearance.
Or is trapped in a hall of mirrors
Where infinite regress prevents
A grateful egress. That is,
We can never know the meaning
Of being two-in-one,
Or if we are one-in-two.
What-I-Am is grieved at What-I'm-Not.
What-We-Should-Be is numbed by What-We-Are.

Yes, I'm playing word games
With the idea of marriage,
Musing over how even we can
Secularize Holy wedlock.
Or to figure it another way,
To wonder why two televisions
In the same house seem natural symbols
Of the family in decline.

Yet you are present to me now.
I sense you keenly, at work,
Bending red in face to reach
A last defiant spot of yellow
On those horrific kitchen cabinets.
Your honey hair flecked with paint;
Your large soft hidden breasts
Pushing down against your shirt.
The hemispheres of those buttocks
Curving into uncompromising hips.
To embrace you would be to take hold
Of my life in all its substance.

Without romance, I say that if
I were to deconstruct myself
And fling the pieces at random,
They would compose themselves
Into your shape.
But I guess that is romantic,
The old mystification-
Cramming two bodies
Into a single space.

Amen!

Our separation has taught me
That, dwelling in mind,
The corporeality
Of mates has spiritual mass
Which may be formulated:
Memory times desire over distance
Yields a bodying forth.
Thus I project into the
Deadly space between us
A corposant,Pulsating a language
That will cleave to you
In the coolness of sleep
With insubstantiality
So fierce as to leave its dampness
On the morning sheets,
Or so gentle
As to fan your brow
While you paint the kitchen.
A body like a breath,
Whispering the axiom
By which all religions are blessed:

In every absence there is presence.

Bene
Bene
Benedictus.

 (1)
and off to scott's (the dockers' restaurant)
burly men packed in round solid tables
but what the helle (drowned in hellespont)
this place for me was rich in its own fables
i'll be the lover sunk if that enables
an awesome sense of just how deep the spells
that put scotts for me beyond the dardanelles

lace-curtained windows (or memory plays me false)
no capped odysseus could turn such sirens down
or was it a circean slip that shocked the pulse
all men are pigs when hunger rips the gown
and these men were not there to grace the town
service bustling (no time to take caps off)
hot steaming food and noses in the trough

i loved it deeply squashed in there with you
rough offensive banter bantered back
the smells of sweat and cargoes mixed with stew
and dumplings lamb chops roast beef - what the ****
these toughened men could outdo friar tuck
so ravenous their faith blown off the sea
that god lived in the stomach raucously

perhaps cramped into scotts i felt it most
that you belonged in a living sea of men
who shared the one blood-vision of a coast
tides washed you to but washed you off again
too much history made the struggle plain
but all the time there was this rough-hewn glimmer
that truth wore dirty clothes and ate its dinner

at midday - scotts was a parliament of sorts
where what was said had not the solid weight
of what was felt (or what was eaten) courts
bewigged and stuffed with pomp of state
were brushed aside in favour of the plate
but those who entered hungry came out wise
unspoken resolutions mulled like pies


(2)
and then the tram ride home (if we were lucky -
and nothing during the day had caused despair)
trams had a gift about them that was snaky
wriggling their straitened ways from lair to lair
they hissed upon their wires and flashed the air
they swallowed people whole and spewed them out
and most engorged in them became devout

you either believed in trams or thought them heathen
savage contraptions that shook you to your roots
on busy jaunts there was no room for breathing
damn dignity - rapt flesh was in cahoots
all sexes fused from head-scarves to their boots
and somewhere in the melee children pressed
shoulders to crotches noses to the rest

and in light-headed periods trams debunked
the classier lissome ways of shifting freight
emptied of pomp their anarchy instinct
they'd rattle down their tracks at such a rate
they'd writhe their upper structures like an eight
being drawn by revelling legless topers
strict rails (they claimed) gave sanction for such capers

trams had this kind of catholic conviction
the end ordained their waywardness was blessed
if tramways claimed per se this benediction
who cared if errant trams at times seemed pissed
religions prosper from the hedonist
who shags the world by day and prays at night
those drunken trams still brim me with delight

to climb the twisted stairs and seek a seat
as tram got under way through sozzled rotors
and find olympia vacant at my feet
(the gods too razzled by the rasping motors
- the sharps of life too much for absolutors)
would send me skeltering along the aisle
king of the upper world for one short while

and all the shaking rolling raucous gait
of this metallic serpent sizzling through
the maze of shoppy streets (o dizzy state)
sprinkled my heart-strings with ambrosial dew
(well tell a lie but such a wish will do)
and i'd be gloried as if leviathan
said hop on nip and sped me to japan

so back to earth - the tram that netley day
would be quite sober bumbling through the town
the rush-hour gone and night still on its way
mum lil and baby (babies) would stay down
and we'd be up the top - too tired to clown
our bodies glowed (a warm contentment brewed)
burnt backs nor aching legs could pop that mood

(3)
i lay in bed one day my joints subsiding
lost in a day-dream rhythmed by my heart
medicine-time (a pleasure not abiding)
i did my best to play the sleeping part
then at my back a nurse's rustling skirt
a bending breeze (all breathing held in check)
and then she blew sweet eddies down my neck

the nurse (of all) whose presence turned the winter
to summer's morning (cool before the sun)
who touched the quick with such exquisite splinter
the wince was there but no great hurt was done
she moved like silk the finest loom had spun
the ward went dark when she was gone or late
and i was seven longing to be eight

that whispering down my spine by scented lips
threw wants and hopes my way that stewed my mind
a draught drunk down in paradisal sips
stirred passages in me not then defined
at three i'd touched the grail with fingers blind
to heart-ache - this nurse though first described the gates
to elysium where grown-up love pupates

but soon a cloud knocked pristine sex aback
(i had to learn the hard way nothing's easy)
i went my own route off the sanctioned track
and came distraught - in fact distinctly queasy
without permission (both nonchalant and breezy)
i sailed from bed to have a pee (or worse)
and got locked in - and drew that nurse's curse

not only hers but all the fussing staff's
for daring such a voyage in my state
whose heart just then was not a bag of laughs
did i not understand the fist of fate
that waited naughty boys who could not wait
thunderous gods glared through the quaking panes
a corporate wrath set back my growing pains

forget the scented lips the creeping bliss
of such a nurse's presence on my flesh
locked in i'd been an hour or more amiss
they thought i'd done a bunk or slipped the leash
when found i'd gone all blue like frozen fish
those scented lips discharged their angry bile
and cupid's dart fell short a scornful mile

come christmas day the christmas tree was bright
its mothering arms held glittering gifts for all
and i was seven longing to be eight
and i was given a large pink fluffy ball
my spirit shrank into the nearest wall
true love reduced to this insulting gimcrack
my pumped-up heart was punctured by a tintack

 Religions are poems. They concert
our daylight and dreaming mind, our
emotions, instinct, breath and native gesture

into the only whole thinking: poetry.
Nothing's said till it's dreamed out in words
and nothing's true that figures in words only.

A poem, compared with an arrayed religion,
may be like a soldier's one short marriage night
to die and live by. But that is a small religion. 

Full religion is the large poem in loving repetition;
like any poem, it must be inexhaustible and complete
with turns where we ask Now why did the poet do that?

You can't pray a lie, said Huckleberry Finn;
you can't poe one either. It is the same mirror:
mobile, glancing, we call it poetry,

fixed centrally, we call it a religion,
and God is the poetry caught in any religion,
caught, not imprisoned. Caught as in a mirror

that he attracted, being in the world as poetry
is in the poem, a law against its closure.
There'll always be religion around while there is poetry

or a lack of it. Both are given, and intermittent,
as the action of those birds - crested pigeon, rosella parrot -
who fly with wings shut, then beating, and again shut.