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Best Famous Roofed Poems

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

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Written by Elinor Wylie | Create an image from this poem

Wild Peaches

 1

When the world turns completely upside down 
You say we'll emigrate to the Eastern Shore 
Aboard a river-boat from Baltimore; 
We'll live among wild peach trees, miles from town, 
You'll wear a coonskin cap, and I a gown 
Homespun, dyed butternut's dark gold colour.
Lost, like your lotus-eating ancestor, We'll swim in milk and honey till we drown.
The winter will be short, the summer long, The autumn amber-hued, sunny and hot, Tasting of cider and of scuppernong; All seasons sweet, but autumn best of all.
The squirrels in their silver fur will fall Like falling leaves, like fruit, before your shot.
2 The autumn frosts will lie upon the grass Like bloom on grapes of purple-brown and gold.
The misted early mornings will be cold; The little puddles will be roofed with glass.
The sun, which burns from copper into brass, Melts these at noon, and makes the boys unfold Their knitted mufflers; full as they can hold Fat pockets dribble chestnuts as they pass.
Peaches grow wild, and pigs can live in clover; A barrel of salted herrings lasts a year; The spring begins before the winter's over.
By February you may find the skins Of garter snakes and water moccasins Dwindled and harsh, dead-white and cloudy-clear.
3 When April pours the colours of a shell Upon the hills, when every little creek Is shot with silver from the Chesapeake In shoals new-minted by the ocean swell, When strawberries go begging, and the sleek Blue plums lie open to the blackbird's beak, We shall live well -- we shall live very well.
The months between the cherries and the peaches Are brimming cornucopias which spill Fruits red and purple, sombre-bloomed and black; Then, down rich fields and frosty river beaches We'll trample bright persimmons, while you kill Bronze partridge, speckled quail, and canvasback.
4 Down to the Puritan marrow of my bones There's something in this richness that I hate.
I love the look, austere, immaculate, Of landscapes drawn in pearly monotones.
There's something in my very blood that owns Bare hills, cold silver on a sky of slate, A thread of water, churned to milky spate Streaming through slanted pastures fenced with stones.
I love those skies, thin blue or snowy gray, Those fields sparse-planted, rendering meagre sheaves; That spring, briefer than apple-blossom's breath, Summer, so much too beautiful to stay, Swift autumn, like a bonfire of leaves, And sleepy winter, like the sleep of death.


Written by C S Lewis | Create an image from this poem

An Expostulation

 Against too many writers of science fiction 

Why did you lure us on like this, 
Light-year on light-year, through the abyss, 
Building (as though we cared for size!) 
Empires that cover galaxies 
If at the journey's end we find 
The same old stuff we left behind, 
Well-worn Tellurian stories of 
Crooks, spies, conspirators, or love, 
Whose setting might as well have been 
The Bronx, Montmartre, or Bedinal Green?

Why should I leave this green-floored cell, 
Roofed with blue air, in which we dwell, 
Unless, outside its guarded gates,
Long, long desired, the Unearthly waits 
Strangeness that moves us more than fear, 
Beauty that stabs with tingling spear, 
Or Wonder, laying on one's heart 
That finger-tip at which we start 
As if some thought too swift and shy 
For reason's grasp had just gone by?
Written by Rudyard Kipling | Create an image from this poem

The Song of the Women

 How shall she know the worship we would do her?
 The walls are high, and she is very far.
How shall the woman's message reach unto her Above the tumult of the packed bazaar? Free wind of March, against the lattice blowing, Bear thou our thanks, lest she depart unknowing.
Go forth across the fields we may not roam in, Go forth beyond the trees that rim the city, To whatsoe'er fair place she hath her home in, Who dowered us with walth of love and pity.
Out of our shadow pass, and seek her singing -- "I have no gifts but Love alone for bringing.
" Say that we be a feeble folk who greet her, But old in grief, and very wise in tears; Say that we, being desolate, entreat her That she forget us not in after years; For we have seen the light, and it were grievous To dim that dawning if our lady leave us.
By life that ebbed with none to stanch the failing By Love's sad harvest garnered in the spring, When Love in ignorance wept unavailing O'er young buds dead before their blossoming; By all the grey owl watched, the pale moon viewed, In past grim years, declare our gratitude! By hands uplifted to the Gods that heard not, By fits that found no favor in their sight, By faces bent above the babe that stirred not, By nameless horrors of the stifling night; By ills foredone, by peace her toils discover, Bid Earth be good beneath and Heaven above her! If she have sent her servants in our pain If she have fought with Death and dulled his sword; If she have given back our sick again.
And to the breast the wakling lips restored, Is it a little thing that she has wrought? Then Life and Death and Motherhood be nought.
Go forth, O wind, our message on thy wings, And they shall hear thee pass and bid thee speed, In reed-roofed hut, or white-walled home of kings, Who have been helpen by ther in their need.
All spring shall give thee fragrance, and the wheat Shall be a tasselled floorcloth to thy feet.
Haste, for our hearts are with thee, take no rest! Loud-voiced ambassador, from sea to sea Proclaim the blessing, mainfold, confessed.
Of those in darkness by her hand set free.
Then very softly to her presence move, And whisper: "Lady, lo, they know and love!"
Written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow | Create an image from this poem

Hiawathas Lamentation

 In those days the Evil Spirits,
All the Manitos of mischief,
Fearing Hiawatha's wisdom,
And his love for Chibiabos,
Jealous of their faithful friendship,
And their noble words and actions,
Made at length a league against them,
To molest them and destroy them.
Hiawatha, wise and wary, Often said to Chibiabos, "O my brother! do not leave me, Lest the Evil Spirits harm you!" Chibiabos, young and heedless, Laughing shook his coal-black tresses, Answered ever sweet and childlike, "Do not fear for me, O brother! Harm and evil come not near me!" Once when Peboan, the Winter, Roofed with ice the Big-Sea-Water, When the snow-flakes, whirling downward, Hissed among the withered oak-leaves, Changed the pine-trees into wigwams, Covered all the earth with silence, Armed with arrows, shod with snow-shoes, Heeding not his brother's warning, Fearing not the Evil Spirits, Forth to hunt the deer with antlers All alone went Chibiabos.
Right across the Big-Sea-Water Sprang with speed the deer before him.
With the wind and snow he followed, O'er the treacherous ice he followed, Wild with all the fierce commotion And the rapture of the hunting.
But beneath, the Evil Spirits Lay in ambush, waiting for him, Broke the treacherous ice beneath him, Dragged him downward to the bottom, Buried in the sand his body.
Unktahee, the god of water, He the god of the Dacotahs, Drowned him in the deep abysses Of the lake of Gitche Gumee.
From the headlands Hiawatha Sent forth such a wail of anguish, Such a fearful lamentation, That the bison paused to listen, And the wolves howled from the prairies, And the thunder in the distance Starting answered "Baim-wawa!" Then his face with black he painted, With his robe his head he covered, In his wigwam sat lamenting, Seven long weeks he sat lamenting, Uttering still this moan of sorrow: "He is dead, the sweet musician! He the sweetest of all singers! He has gone from us forever, He has moved a little nearer To the Master of all music, To the Master of all singing! O my brother, Chibiabos!" And the melancholy fir-trees Waved their dark green fans above him, Waved their purple cones above him, Sighing with him to console him, Mingling with his lamentation Their complaining, their lamenting.
Came the Spring, and all the forest Looked in vain for Chibiabos; Sighed the rivulet, Sebowisha, Sighed the rushes in the meadow.
From the tree-tops sang the bluebird, Sang the bluebird, the Owaissa, "Chibiabos! Chibiabos! He is dead, the sweet musician!" From the wigwam sang the robin, Sang the robin, the Opechee, "Chibiabos! Chibiabos! He is dead, the sweetest singer!" And at night through all the forest Went the whippoorwill complaining, Wailing went the Wawonaissa, "Chibiabos! Chibiabos! He is dead, the sweet musician! He the sweetest of all singers!" Then the Medicine-men, the Medas, The magicians, the Wabenos, And the Jossakeeds, the Prophets, Came to visit Hiawatha; Built a Sacred Lodge beside him, To appease him, to console him, Walked in silent, grave procession, Bearing each a pouch of healing, Skin of beaver, lynx, or otter, Filled with magic roots and simples, Filled with very potent medicines.
When he heard their steps approaching~, Hiawatha ceased lamenting, Called no more on Chibiabos; Naught he questioned, naught he answered, But his mournful head uncovered, From his face the mourning colors Washed he slowly and in silence, Slowly and in silence followed Onward to the Sacred Wigwam.
There a magic drink they gave him, Made of Nahma-wusk, the spearmint, And Wabeno-wusk, the yarrow, Roots of power, and herbs of healing; Beat their drums, and shook their rattles; Chanted singly and in chorus, Mystic songs like these, they chanted.
"I myself, myself! behold me! `T Is the great Gray Eagle talking; Come, ye white crows, come and hear him! The loud-speaking thunder helps me; All the unseen spirits help me; I can hear their voices calling, All around the sky I hear them! I can blow you strong, my brother, I can heal you, Hiawatha!" "Hi-au-ha!" replied the chorus, "Wayha-way!" the mystic chorus.
Friends of mine are all the serpents! Hear me shake my skin of hen-hawk! Mahng, the white loon, I can kill him; I can shoot your heart and kill it! I can blow you strong, my brother, I can heal you, Hiawatha !" "Hi-au-ha!" replied the chorus, "Wayhaway!" the mystic chorus.
"I myself, myself! the prophet! When I speak the wigwam trembles, Shakes the Sacred Lodge with terror, Hands unseen begin to shake it! When I walk, the sky I tread on Bends and makes a noise beneath me! I can blow you strong, my brother! Rise and speak, O Hiawatha!" "Hi-au-ha!" replied the chorus, "Way-ha-way!" the mystic chorus.
Then they shook their medicine-pouches O'er the head of Hiawatha, Danced their medicine-dance around him; And upstarting wild and haggard, Like a man from dreams awakened, He was healed of all his madness.
As the clouds are swept from heaven, Straightway from his brain departed All his moody melancholy; As the ice is swept from rivers, Straightway from his heart departed All his sorrow and affliction.
Then they summoned Chibiabos From his grave beneath the waters, From the sands of Gitche Gumee Summoned Hiawatha's brother.
And so mighty was the magic Of that cry and invocation, That he heard it as he lay there Underneath the Big-Sea-Water; From the sand he rose and listened, Heard the music and the singing, Came, obedient to the summons, To the doorway of the wigwam, But to enter they forbade him.
Through a chink a coal they gave him, Through the door a burning fire-brand; Ruler in the Land of Spirits, Ruler o'er the dead, they made him, Telling him a fire to kindle For all those that died thereafter, Camp-fires for their night encampments On their solitary journey To the kingdom of Ponemah, To the land of the Hereafter.
From the village of his childhood, From the homes of those who knew him, Passing silent through the forest, Like a smoke-wreath wafted sideways, Slowly vanished Chibiabos! Where he passed, the branches moved not, Where he trod, the grasses bent not, And the fallen leaves of last year Made no sound beneath his footstep.
Four whole days he journeyed onward Down the pathway of the dead men; On the dead-man's strawberry feasted, Crossed the melancholy river, On the swinging log he crossed it, Came unto the Lake of Silver, In the Stone Canoe was carried To the Islands of the Blessed, To the land of ghosts and shadows.
On that journey, moving slowly, Many weary spirits saw he, Panting under heavy burdens, Laden with war-clubs, bows and arrows, Robes of fur, and pots and kettles, And with food that friends had given For that solitary journey.
"Ay! why do the living," said they, "Lay such heavy burdens on us! Better were it to go naked, Better were it to go fasting, Than to bear such heavy burdens On our long and weary journey!" Forth then issued Hiawatha, Wandered eastward, wandered westward, Teaching men the use of simples And the antidotes for poisons, And the cure of all diseases.
Thus was first made known to mortals All the mystery of Medamin, All the sacred art of healing.
Written by Edwin Muir | Create an image from this poem

Scotland 1941

 We were a tribe, a family, a people.
Wallace and Bruce guard now a painted field, And all may read the folio of our fable, Peruse the sword, the sceptre and the shield.
A simple sky roofed in that rustic day, The busy corn-fields and the haunted holms, The green road winding up the ferny brae.
But Knox and Melville clapped their preaching palms And bundled all the harvesters away, Hoodicrow Peden in the blighted corn Hacked with his rusty beak the starving haulms.
Out of that desolation we were born.
Courage beyond the point and obdurate pride Made us a nation, robbed us of a nation.
Defiance absolute and myriad-eyed That could not pluck the palm plucked our damnation.
We with such courage and the bitter wit To fell the ancient oak of loyalty, And strip the peopled hill and altar bare, And crush the poet with an iron text, How could we read our souls and learn to be? Here a dull drove of faces harsh and vexed, We watch our cities burning in their pit, To salve our souls grinding dull lucre out, We, fanatics of the frustrate and the half, Who once set Purgatory Hill in doubt.
Now smoke and dearth and money everywhere, Mean heirlooms of each fainter generation, And mummied housegods in their musty niches, Burns and Scott, sham bards of a sham nation, And spiritual defeat wrapped warm in riches, No pride but pride of pelf.
Long since the young Fought in great bloody battles to carve out This towering pulpit of the Golden Calf, Montrose, Mackail, Argyle, perverse and brave, Twisted the stream, unhooped the ancestral hill.
Never had Dee or Don or Yarrow or Till Huddled such thriftless honour in a grave.
Such wasted bravery idle as a song, Such hard-won ill might prove Time's verdict wrong, And melt to pity the annalist's iron tongue.


Written by Oscar Wilde | Create an image from this poem

Ballade De Marguerite (Normande)

 I am weary of lying within the chase
When the knights are meeting in market-place.
Nay, go not thou to the red-roofed town Lest the hoofs of the war-horse tread thee down.
But I would not go where the Squires ride, I would only walk by my Lady's side.
Alack! and alack! thou art overbold, A Forester's son may not eat off gold.
Will she love me the less that my Father is seen Each Martinmas day in a doublet green? Perchance she is sewing at tapestrie, Spindle and loom are not meet for thee.
Ah, if she is working the arras bright I might ravel the threads by the fire-light.
Perchance she is hunting of the deer, How could you follow o'er hill and mere? Ah, if she is riding with the court, I might run beside her and wind the morte.
Perchance she is kneeling in St.
Denys, (On her soul may our Lady have gramercy!) Ah, if she is praying in lone chapelle, I might swing the censer and ring the bell.
Come in, my son, for you look sae pale, The father shall fill thee a stoup of ale.
But who are these knights in bright array? Is it a pageant the rich folks play? 'T is the King of England from over sea, Who has come unto visit our fair countrie.
But why does the curfew toll sae low? And why do the mourners walk a-row? O 't is Hugh of Amiens my sister's son Who is lying stark, for his day is done.
Nay, nay, for I see white lilies clear, It is no strong man who lies on the bier.
O 't is old Dame Jeannette that kept the hall, I knew she would die at the autumn fall.
Dame Jeannette had not that gold-brown hair, Old Jeannette was not a maiden fair.
O 't is none of our kith and none of our kin, (Her soul may our Lady assoil from sin!) But I hear the boy's voice chaunting sweet, 'Elle est morte, la Marguerite.
' Come in, my son, and lie on the bed, And let the dead folk bury their dead.
O mother, you know I loved her true: O mother, hath one grave room for two?
Written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow | Create an image from this poem

TO A CHILD

 Dear child! how radiant on thy mother's knee,
With merry-making eyes and jocund smiles,
Thou gazest at the painted tiles,
Whose figures grace,
With many a grotesque form and face.
The ancient chimney of thy nursery! The lady with the gay macaw, The dancing girl, the grave bashaw With bearded lip and chin; And, leaning idly o'er his gate, Beneath the imperial fan of state, The Chinese mandarin.
With what a look of proud command Thou shakest in thy little hand The coral rattle with its silver bells, Making a merry tune! Thousands of years in Indian seas That coral grew, by slow degrees, Until some deadly and wild monsoon Dashed it on Coromandel's sand! Those silver bells Reposed of yore, As shapeless ore, Far down in the deep-sunken wells Of darksome mines, In some obscure and sunless place, Beneath huge Chimborazo's base, Or Potosi's o'erhanging pines And thus for thee, O little child, Through many a danger and escape, The tall ships passed the stormy cape; For thee in foreign lands remote, Beneath a burning, tropic clime, The Indian peasant, chasing the wild goat, Himself as swift and wild, In falling, clutched the frail arbute, The fibres of whose shallow root, Uplifted from the soil, betrayed The silver veins beneath it laid, The buried treasures of the miser, Time.
But, lo! thy door is left ajar! Thou hearest footsteps from afar! And, at the sound, Thou turnest round With quick and questioning eyes, Like one, who, in a foreign land, Beholds on every hand Some source of wonder and surprise! And, restlessly, impatiently, Thou strivest, strugglest, to be free, The four walls of thy nursery Are now like prison walls to thee.
No more thy mother's smiles, No more the painted tiles, Delight thee, nor the playthings on the floor, That won thy little, beating heart before; Thou strugglest for the open door.
Through these once solitary halls Thy pattering footstep falls.
The sound of thy merry voice Makes the old walls Jubilant, and they rejoice With the joy of thy young heart, O'er the light of whose gladness No shadows of sadness From the sombre background of memory start.
Once, ah, once, within these walls, One whom memory oft recalls, The Father of his Country, dwelt.
And yonder meadows broad and damp The fires of the besieging camp Encircled with a burning belt.
Up and down these echoing stairs, Heavy with the weight of cares, Sounded his majestic tread; Yes, within this very room Sat he in those hours of gloom, Weary both in heart and head.
But what are these grave thoughts to thee? Out, out! into the open air! Thy only dream is liberty, Thou carest little how or where.
I see thee eager at thy play, Now shouting to the apples on the tree, With cheeks as round and red as they; And now among the yellow stalks, Among the flowering shrubs and plants, As restless as the bee.
Along the garden walks, The tracks of thy small carriage-wheels I trace; And see at every turn how they efface Whole villages of sand-roofed tents, That rise like golden domes Above the cavernous and secret homes Of wandering and nomadic tribes of ants.
Ah, cruel little Tamerlane, Who, with thy dreadful reign, Dost persecute and overwhelm These hapless Troglodytes of thy realm! What! tired already! with those suppliant looks, And voice more beautiful than a poet's books, Or murmuring sound of water as it flows.
Thou comest back to parley with repose; This rustic seat in the old apple-tree, With its o'erhanging golden canopy Of leaves illuminate with autumnal hues, And shining with the argent light of dews, Shall for a season be our place of rest.
Beneath us, like an oriole's pendent nest, From which the laughing birds have taken wing, By thee abandoned, hangs thy vacant swing.
Dream-like the waters of the river gleam; A sailless vessel drops adown the stream, And like it, to a sea as wide and deep, Thou driftest gently down the tides of sleep.
O child! O new-born denizen Of life's great city! on thy head The glory of the morn is shed, Like a celestial benison! Here at the portal thou dost stand, And with thy little hand Thou openest the mysterious gate Into the future's undiscovered land.
I see its valves expand, As at the touch of Fate! Into those realms of love and hate, Into that darkness blank and drear, By some prophetic feeling taught, I launch the bold, adventurous thought, Freighted with hope and fear; As upon subterranean streams, In caverns unexplored and dark, Men sometimes launch a fragile bark, Laden with flickering fire, And watch its swift-receding beams, Until at length they disappear, And in the distant dark expire.
By what astrology of fear or hope Dare I to cast thy horoscope! Like the new moon thy life appears; A little strip of silver light, And widening outward into night The shadowy disk of future years; And yet upon its outer rim, A luminous circle, faint and dim, And scarcely visible to us here, Rounds and completes the perfect sphere; A prophecy and intimation, A pale and feeble adumbration, Of the great world of light, that lies Behind all human destinies.
Ah! if thy fate, with anguish fraught, Should be to wet the dusty soil With the hot tears and sweat of toil,-- To struggle with imperious thought, Until the overburdened brain, Weary with labor, faint with pain, Like a jarred pendulum, retain Only its motion, not its power,-- Remember, in that perilous hour, When most afflicted and oppressed, From labor there shall come forth rest.
And if a more auspicious fate On thy advancing steps await Still let it ever be thy pride To linger by the laborer's side; With words of sympathy or song To cheer the dreary march along Of the great army of the poor, O'er desert sand, o'er dangerous moor.
Nor to thyself the task shall be Without reward; for thou shalt learn The wisdom early to discern True beauty in utility; As great Pythagoras of yore, Standing beside the blacksmith's door, And hearing the hammers, as they smote The anvils with a different note, Stole from the varying tones, that hung Vibrant on every iron tongue, The secret of the sounding wire.
And formed the seven-chorded lyre.
Enough! I will not play the Seer; I will no longer strive to ope The mystic volume, where appear The herald Hope, forerunning Fear, And Fear, the pursuivant of Hope.
Thy destiny remains untold; For, like Acestes' shaft of old, The swift thought kindles as it flies, And burns to ashes in the skies.
Written by G K Chesterton | Create an image from this poem

The Last Hero

 The wind blew out from Bergen, from the dawning to the day
There was a wreck of trees, a fall of towers, a score of miles away
And drifted like a livid leaf I go before the tide
Spewed out of house and stable, beggared of flag and bride
The heavens are bowed about my head, raging like seraph wars
With rains that might put out the sun, and rid the sky of stars
Rains like the fall of ruined seas from secret worlds above
The roaring of the rains of God, none but the lonely love
Feast in my halls, O Foemen! O eat and drink and drain!
You never loved the sun in heaven, as I have loved the rain!

The tide of battle changes, so may all battle be
I stole my lady bride from them; they stole her back from me
As I wrenched her from her red roofed halls, I rose and saw arise
More lovely than the living flowers, the hatred in her eyes
She never loved me, never wept, never was less divine
And sunset never knew us, her world was never mine
Was it all for nothing that she stood, imperial in duresse
Silence itself made softer with the sweeping of her dress
O you who drain the cup of life! O You who wear the crown!
You never loved a woman's smile as I have loved her frown!

The wind blew out from Bergen to the dawning of the day
They ride and race with fifty spears to break and bar my way
I shall not die alone, alone, but kin to all the powers
As merry as the ancient sun, and fighting like the flowers!
How white their steel! How bright their eyes! I love each laughing knave
Cry high and bid him welcome to the banquet of the brave
Yea, I will bless them as they bend, and love them where they lie
When upon their skulls the sword I swing falls shattering from the sky
That hour when death is like a light, and blood is as a rose -
You never loved your friends, my friends, as I will love my foes!

Know you what you shall lose this night, what rich uncounted loans
What heavy gold of tales untold you bury with my bones
My loves in deep dim meadows, my ships that rode at ease
Ruffling the purple plumage of strange and secret seas
To see this fair earth as it stands, to me alone was given
The blow that breaks my brow tonight shall break the dome of heaven
The skies I saw, the trees I saw, after, no eye shall see
Tonight I die the death of God - the stars shall die with me!
One sound shall sunder all the spears, and break the trumpet's breath -
You never laughed in all your life, as I shall laugh in death!
Written by Julie Hill Alger | Create an image from this poem

Pictures of Home

  In the red-roofed stucco house
of my childhood, the dining room 
was screened off by folding doors 
with small glass panes.
Our neighbors the Bertins, who barely escaped Hitler, often joined us at table.
One night their daughter said, In Vienna our dining room had doors like these.
For a moment, we all sat quite still.
And when Nath Nong, who has to live in Massachusetts now, saw a picture of green Cambodian fields she said, My father have animal like this, name krebey English? I told her, Water buffalo.
She said, Very very good animal.
She put her finger on the picture of the water buffalo and spoke its Khmer name once more.
So today, when someone (my ex- husband) sends me a shiny picture of a church in Santa Cruz that lost its steeple in the recent earthquake there's no reason at all for my throat to ache at the sight of a Pacific-blue sky and an old church three thousand miles away, because if I can only save enough money I can go back there any time and stay as long as I want.
-Julie Alger
Written by D. H. Lawrence | Create an image from this poem

The Revolutionary

 Look at them standing there in authority 
The pale-faces, 
As if it could have any effect any more.
Pale-face authority, Caryatids, Pillars of white bronze standing rigid, lest the skies fall.
What a job they've got to keep it up.
Their poor, idealist foreheads naked capitals To the entablature of clouded heaven.
When the skies are going to fall, fall they will In a great chute and rush of d?b?cle downwards.
Oh and I wish the high and super-gothic heavens would come down now, The heavens above, that we yearn to and aspire to.
I do not yearn, nor aspire, for I am a blind Samson.
And what is daylight to me that I should look skyward? Only I grope among you, pale-faces, caryatids, as among a forest of pillars that hold up the dome of high ideal heaven Which is my prison, And all these human pillars of loftiness, going stiff, metallic-stunned with the weight of their responsibility I stumble against them.
Stumbling-blocks, painful ones.
To keep on holding up this ideal civilisation Must be excruciating: unless you stiffen into metal, when it is easier to stand stock rigid than to move.
This is why I tug at them, individually, with my arm round their waist The human pillars.
They are not stronger than I am, blind Samson.
The house sways.
I shall be so glad when it comes down.
I am so tired of the limitations of their Infinite.
I am so sick of the pretensions of the Spirit.
I am so weary of pale-face importance.
Am I not blind, at the round-turning mill? Then why should I fear their pale faces? Or love the effulgence of their holy light, The sun of their righteousness? To me, all faces are dark, All lips are dusky and valved.
Save your lips, O pale-faces, Which are slips of metal, Like slits in an automatic-machine, you columns of give-and-take.
To me, the earth rolls ponderously, superbly Coming my way without forethought or afterthought.
To me, men's footfalls fall with a dull, soft rumble, ominous and lovely, Coming my way.
But not your foot-falls, pale-faces, They are a clicketing of bits of disjointed metal Working in motion.
To me, men are palpable, invisible nearnesses in the dark Sending out magnetic vibrations of warning, pitch-dark throbs of invitation.
But you, pale-faces, You are painful, harsh-surfaced pillars that give off nothing except rigidity, And I jut against you if I try to move, for you are everywhere, and I am blind, Sightless among all your visuality, You staring caryatids.
See if I don't bring you down, and all your high opinion And all your ponderous roofed-in ******** of right and wrong Your particular heavens, With a smash.
See if your skies aren't falling! And my head, at least, is thick enough to stand it, the smash.
See if I don't move under a dark and nude, vast heaven When your world is in ruins, under your fallen skies.
Caryatids, pale-faces.
See if I am not Lord of the dark and moving hosts Before I die.