10 Best Famous Salute Poems

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

• All Famous Salute Poems

 I

What new element before us unborn in nature? Is there
 a new thing under the Sun?
At last inquisitive Whitman a modern epic, detonative,
 Scientific theme
First penned unmindful by Doctor Seaborg with poison-
 ous hand, named for Death's planet through the 
 sea beyond Uranus
whose chthonic ore fathers this magma-teared Lord of 
 Hades, Sire of avenging Furies, billionaire Hell-
 King worshipped once
with black sheep throats cut, priests's face averted from
 underground mysteries in single temple at Eleusis,
Spring-green Persephone nuptialed to his inevitable
 Shade, Demeter mother of asphodel weeping dew,
her daughter stored in salty caverns under white snow, 
 black hail, grey winter rain or Polar ice, immemor-
 able seasons before
Fish flew in Heaven, before a Ram died by the starry
 bush, before the Bull stamped sky and earth
or Twins inscribed their memories in clay or Crab'd
 flood
washed memory from the skull, or Lion sniffed the
 lilac breeze in Eden--
Before the Great Year began turning its twelve signs,
 ere constellations wheeled for twenty-four thousand
 sunny years
slowly round their axis in Sagittarius, one hundred 
 sixty-seven thousand times returning to this night

Radioactive Nemesis were you there at the beginning 
 black dumb tongueless unsmelling blast of Disil-
 lusion?
I manifest your Baptismal Word after four billion years
I guess your birthday in Earthling Night, I salute your
 dreadful presence last majestic as the Gods,
Sabaot, Jehova, Astapheus, Adonaeus, Elohim, Iao, 
 Ialdabaoth, Aeon from Aeon born ignorant in an
 Abyss of Light,
Sophia's reflections glittering thoughtful galaxies, whirl-
 pools of starspume silver-thin as hairs of Einstein!
Father Whitman I celebrate a matter that renders Self
 oblivion!
Grand Subject that annihilates inky hands & pages'
 prayers, old orators' inspired Immortalities,
I begin your chant, openmouthed exhaling into spacious
 sky over silent mills at Hanford, Savannah River,
 Rocky Flats, Pantex, Burlington, Albuquerque
I yell thru Washington, South Carolina, Colorado, 
 Texas, Iowa, New Mexico,
Where nuclear reactors creat a new Thing under the 
 Sun, where Rockwell war-plants fabricate this death
 stuff trigger in nitrogen baths,
Hanger-Silas Mason assembles the terrified weapon
 secret by ten thousands, & where Manzano Moun-
 tain boasts to store
its dreadful decay through two hundred forty millenia
 while our Galaxy spirals around its nebulous core.
I enter your secret places with my mind, I speak with 
 your presence, I roar your Lion Roar with mortal
 mouth.
One microgram inspired to one lung, ten pounds of 
 heavy metal dust adrift slow motion over grey
 Alps
the breadth of the planet, how long before your radiance
 speeds blight and death to sentient beings?
Enter my body or not I carol my spirit inside you,
 Unnaproachable Weight,
O heavy heavy Element awakened I vocalize your con-
 sciousness to six worlds
I chant your absolute Vanity. Yeah monster of Anger
 birthed in fear O most
Ignorant matter ever created unnatural to Earth! Delusion
 of metal empires!
Destroyer of lying Scientists! Devourer of covetous
 Generals, Incinerator of Armies & Melter of Wars!
Judgement of judgements, Divine Wind over vengeful 
 nations, Molester of Presidents, Death-Scandal of
 Capital politics! Ah civilizations stupidly indus-
 trious!
Canker-Hex on multitudes learned or illiterate! Manu-
 factured Spectre of human reason! O solidified
 imago of practicioner in Black Arts
I dare your reality, I challenge your very being! I 
 publish your cause and effect!
I turn the wheel of Mind on your three hundred tons!
 Your name enters mankind's ear! I embody your
 ultimate powers!
My oratory advances on your vaunted Mystery! This 
 breath dispels your braggart fears! I sing your 
 form at last
behind your concrete & iron walls inside your fortress
 of rubber & translucent silicon shields in filtered
 cabinets and baths of lathe oil,
My voice resounds through robot glove boxes & ignot 
 cans and echoes in electric vaults inert of atmo-
 sphere,
I enter with spirit out loud into your fuel rod drums
 underground on soundless thrones and beds of
 lead
O density! This weightless anthem trumpets transcendent 
 through hidden chambers and breaks through 
 iron doors into the Infernal Room!
Over your dreadful vibration this measured harmony 
 floats audible, these jubilant tones are honey and 
 milk and wine-sweet water
Poured on the stone black floor, these syllables are
 barley groats I scatter on the Reactor's core, 
I call your name with hollow vowels, I psalm your Fate
 close by, my breath near deathless ever at your
 side
to Spell your destiny, I set this verse prophetic on your
 mausoleum walls to seal you up Eternally with
 Diamond Truth! O doomed Plutonium.

 II

The Bar surveys Plutonian history from midnight 
 lit with Mercury Vapor streetlamps till in dawn's 
 early light
he contemplates a tranquil politic spaced out between 
 Nations' thought-forms proliferating bureaucratic
& horrific arm'd, Satanic industries projected sudden
 with Five Hundred Billion Dollar Strength
around the world same time this text is set in Boulder,
 Colorado before front range of Rocky Mountains
twelve miles north of Rocky Flats Nuclear Facility in 
 United States of North America, Western Hemi-
 sphere
of planet Earth six months and fourteen days around
 our Solar System in a Spiral Galaxy
the local year after Dominion of the last God nineteen 
 hundred seventy eight
Completed as yellow hazed dawn clouds brighten East,
 Denver city white below
Blue sky transparent rising empty deep & spacious to a 
 morning star high over the balcony 
above some autos sat with wheels to curb downhill 
 from Flatiron's jagged pine ridge,
sunlit mountain meadows sloped to rust-red sandstone
 cliffs above brick townhouse roofs
as sparrows waked whistling through Marine Street's
 summer green leafed trees.

 III

This ode to you O Poets and Orators to come, you
 father Whitman as I join your side, you Congress
 and American people,
you present meditators, spiritual friends & teachers,
 you O Master of the Diamond Arts,
Take this wheel of syllables in hand, these vowels and 
 consonants to breath's end
take this inhalation of black poison to your heart, breath
 out this blessing from your breast on our creation 
forests cities oceans deserts rocky flats and mountains 
 in the Ten Directions pacify with exhalation,
enrich this Plutonian Ode to explode its empty thunder
 through earthen thought-worlds
Magnetize this howl with heartless compassion, destroy
 this mountain of Plutonium with ordinary mind
 and body speech,
thus empower this Mind-guard spirit gone out, gone
 out, gone beyond, gone beyond me, Wake space,
 so Ah!

 July 14, 1978

 1
TO conclude—I announce what comes after me; 
I announce mightier offspring, orators, days, and then, for the present, depart. 

I remember I said, before my leaves sprang at all, 
I would raise my voice jocund and strong, with reference to consummations. 

When America does what was promis’d,
When there are plentiful athletic bards, inland and seaboard, 
When through These States walk a hundred millions of superb persons, 
When the rest part away for superb persons, and contribute to them, 
When breeds of the most perfect mothers denote America, 
Then to me and mine our due fruition.

I have press’d through in my own right, 
I have sung the Body and the Soul—War and Peace have I sung, 
And the songs of Life and of Birth—and shown that there are many births: 
I have offer’d my style to everyone—I have journey’d with confident step; 
While my pleasure is yet at the full, I whisper, So long!
And take the young woman’s hand, and the young man’s hand, for the last time. 

2
I announce natural persons to arise; 
I announce justice triumphant; 
I announce uncompromising liberty and equality; 
I announce the justification of candor, and the justification of pride.

I announce that the identity of These States is a single identity only; 
I announce the Union more and more compact, indissoluble; 
I announce splendors and majesties to make all the previous politics of the earth
 insignificant. 

I announce adhesiveness—I say it shall be limitless, unloosen’d; 
I say you shall yet find the friend you were looking for.

I announce a man or woman coming—perhaps you are the one, (So long!) 
I announce the great individual, fluid as Nature, chaste, affectionate, compassionate,
 fully
 armed. 

I announce a life that shall be copious, vehement, spiritual, bold; 
I announce an end that shall lightly and joyfully meet its translation; 
I announce myriads of youths, beautiful, gigantic, sweet-blooded;
I announce a race of splendid and savage old men. 

3
O thicker and faster! (So long!) 
O crowding too close upon me; 
I foresee too much—it means more than I thought; 
It appears to me I am dying.

Hasten throat, and sound your last! 
Salute me—salute the days once more. Peal the old cry once more. 

Screaming electric, the atmosphere using, 
At random glancing, each as I notice absorbing, 
Swiftly on, but a little while alighting,
Curious envelop’d messages delivering, 
Sparkles hot, seed ethereal, down in the dirt dropping, 
Myself unknowing, my commission obeying, to question it never daring, 
To ages, and ages yet, the growth of the seed leaving, 
To troops out of me, out of the army, the war arising—they the tasks I have set
 promulging,
To women certain whispers of myself bequeathing—their affection me more clearly
 explaining, 
To young men my problems offering—no dallier I—I the muscle of their brains
 trying, 
So I pass—a little time vocal, visible, contrary; 
Afterward, a melodious echo, passionately bent for—(death making me really undying;) 
The best of me then when no longer visible—for toward that I have been incessantly
 preparing.

What is there more, that I lag and pause, and crouch extended with unshut mouth? 
Is there a single final farewell? 

4
My songs cease—I abandon them; 
From behind the screen where I hid I advance personally, solely to you. 

Camerado! This is no book;
Who touches this, touches a man; 
(Is it night? Are we here alone?) 
It is I you hold, and who holds you; 
I spring from the pages into your arms—decease calls me forth. 

O how your fingers drowse me!
Your breath falls around me like dew—your pulse lulls the tympans of my ears; 
I feel immerged from head to foot; 
Delicious—enough. 

Enough, O deed impromptu and secret! 
Enough, O gliding present! Enough, O summ’d-up past!

5
Dear friend, whoever you are, take this kiss, 
I give it especially to you—Do not forget me; 
I feel like one who has done work for the day, to retire awhile; 
I receive now again of my many translations—from my avataras ascending—while
 others
 doubtless await me; 
An unknown sphere, more real than I dream’d, more direct, darts awakening rays about
 me—So long!
Remember my words—I may again return, 
I love you—I depart from materials; 
I am as one disembodied, triumphant, dead.

 This is a word we use to plug
holes with. It's the right size for those warm
blanks in speech, for those red heart-
shaped vacancies on the page that look nothing
like real hearts. Add lace
and you can sell
it. We insert it also in the one empty
space on the printed form
that comes with no instructions. There are whole
magazines with not much in them
but the word love, you can
rub it all over your body and you
can cook with it too. How do we know
it isn't what goes on at the cool
debaucheries of slugs under damp
pieces of cardboard? As for the weed-
seedlings nosing their tough snouts up
among the lettuces, they shout it.
Love! Love! sing the soldiers, raising
their glittering knives in salute.

Then there's the two
of us. This word
is far too short for us, it has only
four letters, too sparse
to fill those deep bare
vacuums between the stars
that press on us with their deafness.
It's not love we don't wish
to fall into, but that fear.
this word is not enough but it will
have to do. It's a single
vowel in this metallic
silence, a mouth that says
O again and again in wonder
and pain, a breath, a finger
grip on a cliffside. You can
hold on or let go.

 Oft have I brooded on defeat and pain, 
The pathos of the stupid, stumbling throng. 
These I ignore to-day and only long 
To pour my soul forth in one trumpet strain, 
One clear, grief-shattering, triumphant song, 
For all the victories of man's high endeavor, 
Palm-bearing, laurel deeds that live forever, 
The splendor clothing him whose will is strong. 
Hast thou beheld the deep, glad eyes of one 
Who has persisted and achieved? Rejoice! 
On naught diviner shines the all-seeing sun. 
Salute him with free heart and choral voice, 
'Midst flippant, feeble crowds of spectres wan, 
The bold, significant, successful man.

 Read by the poet at The Public Ceremonial of The Naional Institute 
of Arts and Letters at Carnegie Hall, New York, January 18th, 1941.

Great Muse, that from this hall absent for long
Hast never been, 
Great Muse of Song,
Colossal Muse of mighty Melody,
Vocal Calliope,
With thine august and contrapuntal brow
And thy vast throat builded for Harmony,
For the strict monumental pure design,
And the melodic line:
Be thou tonight with all beneath these rafters—be with me.
If I address thee in archaic style—
Words obsolete, words obsolescent,
It is that for a little while
The heart must, oh indeed must from this angry and out-rageous present
Itself withdraw
Into some past in which most crooked Evil,
Although quite certainly conceived and born, was not as yet the Law.

Archaic, or obsolescent at the least,
Be thy grave speaking and the careful words of thy clear song,
For the time wrongs us, and the words most common to our speech today
Salute and welcome to the feast
Conspicuous Evil— or against him all day long
Cry out, telling of ugly deeds and most uncommon wrong.

Be thou tonight with all beneath these rafters—be with me
But oh, be more with those who are not free.
Who, herded into prison camps all shame must suffer and all outrage see.
Where music is not played nor sung,
Though the great voice be there, no sound from the dry throat across the thickened tongue
Comes forth; nor has he heart for it.
Beauty in all things—no, we cannot hope for that; but some place set apart for it.
Here it may dwell;
And with your aid, Melpomene
And all thy sister-muses (for ye are, I think, daughters of Memory)
Within the tortured mind as well.

Reaped are those fields with dragon's-teeth so lately sown;
Many the heaped men dying there - so close, hip touches thigh; yet each man dies alone.
Music, what overtone
For the soft ultimate sigh or the unheeded groan
Hast thou—to make death decent, where men slip
Down blood to death, no service of grieved heart or ritual lip
Transferring what was recently a man and still is warm—
Transferring his obedient limbs into the shallow grave where not again a friend shall greet him,
Nor hatred do him harm . . .
Nor true love run to meet him?

In the last hours of him who lies untended
On a cold field at night, and sees the hard bright stars
Above his upturned face, and says aloud "How strange . . . my life is ended."—
If in the past he loved great music much, and knew it well,
Let not his lapsing mind be teased by well-beloved but ill- remembered bars —
Let the full symphony across the blood-soaked field
By him be heard, most pure in every part,
The lonely horror of whose painful death is thus repealed,
Who dies with quiet tears upon his upturned face, making to glow with softness the hard stars.

And bring to those who knew great poetry well
Page after page that they have loved but have not learned by heart!
We who in comfort to well-lighted shelves
Can turn for all the poets ever wrote,
Beseech you: Bear to those
Who love high art no less than we ourselves,
Those who lie wounded, those who in prison cast
Strive to recall, to ease them, some great ode, and every stanza save the last.

Recall—oh, in the dark, restore them
The unremembered lines; make bright the page before them!
Page after page present to these,
In prison concentrated, watched by barbs of bayonet and wire,
Give ye to them their hearts' intense desire—
The words of Shelley, Virgil, Sophocles.

And thou, O lovely and not sad,
Euterpe, be thou in this hall tonight!
Bid us remember all we ever had 
Of sweet and gay delight—
We who are free,
But cannot quite be glad,
Thinking of huge, abrupt disaster brought
Upon so many of our kind
Who treasure as do we the vivid look on the unfrightened face,
The careless happy stride from place to place,
And the unbounded regions of untrammelled thought
Open as interstellar space
To the exploring and excited mind.

O Muses, O immortal Nine!—
Or do ye languish? Can ye die?
Must all go under?—
How shall we heal without your help a world
By these wild horses torn asunder?
How shall we build anew? — How start again?
How cure, how even moderate this pain
Without you, and you strong?
And if ye sleep, then waken!
And if ye sicken and do plan to die,
Do not that now!

Hear us, in what sharp need we cry!
For we have help nowhere
If not in you!
Pity can much, and so a mighty mind, but cannot all things do!—
By you forsaken,
We shall be scattered, we shall be overtaken!
Oh, come! Renew in us the ancient wonder,
The grace of life, its courage, and its joy!
Weave us those garlands nothing can destroy!
Come! with your radiant eyes! — with your throats of thunder!

 I've quenched my lamp, I struck it in that start
Which every limb convulsed, I heard it fall­
The crash blent with my sleep, I saw depart
Its light, even as I woke, on yonder wall;
Over against my bed, there shone a gleam
Strange, faint, and mingling also with my dream. 

It sunk, and I am wrapt in utter gloom; 
How far is night advanced, and when will day
Retinge the dusk and livid air with bloom,
And fill this void with warm, creative ray ? 
Would I could sleep again till, clear and red,
Morning shall on the mountain-tops be spread! 

I'd call my women, but to break their sleep, 
Because my own is broken, were unjust; 

They've wrought all day, and well-earned slumbers steep
Their labours in forgetfulness, I trust; 
Let me my feverish watch with patience bear, 
Thankful that none with me its sufferings share. 

Yet, Oh, for light ! one ray would tranquilise 
My nerves, my pulses, more than effort can; 
I'll draw my curtain and consult the skies: 
These trembling stars at dead of night look wan, 
Wild, restless, strange, yet cannot be more drear 
Than this my couch, shared by a nameless fear. 

All black­one great cloud, drawn from east to west, 
Conceals the heavens, but there are lights below; 
Torches burn in Jerusalem, and cast 
On yonder stony mount a lurid glow. 
I see men stationed there, and gleaming spears; 
A sound, too, from afar, invades my ears. 

Dull, measured, strokes of axe and hammer ring 
From street to street, not loud, but through the night 
Distinctly heard­and some strange spectral thing 
Is now upreared­and, fixed against the light 
Of the pale lamps; defined upon that sky, 
It stands up like a column, straight and high. 

I see it all­I know the dusky sign­
A cross on Calvary, which Jews uprear 

While Romans watch; and when the dawn shall shine 
Pilate, to judge the victim will appear, 
Pass sentence­yield him up to crucify; 
And on that cross the spotless Christ must die. 

Dreams, then, are true­for thus my vision ran; 
Surely some oracle has been with me,
The gods have chosen me to reveal their plan, 
To warn an unjust judge of destiny: 
I, slumbering, heard and saw; awake I know, 
Christ's coming death, and Pilate's life of woe. 

I do not weep for Pilate­who could prove 
Regret for him whose cold and crushing sway 
No prayer can soften, no appeal can move;
Who tramples hearts as others trample clay, 
Yet with a faltering, an uncertain tread, 
That might stir up reprisal in the dead. 

Forced to sit by his side and see his deeds; 
Forced to behold that visage, hour by hour, 
In whose gaunt lines, the abhorrent gazer reads 
A triple lust of gold, and blood, and power; 
A soul whom motives, fierce, yet abject, urge 
Rome's servile slave, and Judah's tyrant scourge. 

How can I love, or mourn, or pity him ?
I, who so long my fettered hands have wrung; 

I, who for grief have wept my eye-sight dim; 
Because, while life for me was bright and young, 
He robbed my youth­he quenched my life's fair ray­
He crushed my mind, and did my freedom slay. 


And at this hour­although I be his wife­ 
He has no more of tenderness from me 
Than any other wretch of guilty life; 
Less, for I know his household privacy­ 
I see him as he is­without a screen; 
And, by the gods, my soul abhors his mien ! 

Has he not sought my presence, dyed in blood­ 
Innocent, righteous blood, shed shamelessly ? 
And have I not his red salute withstood ? 
Aye,­when, as erst, he plunged all Galilee 
In dark bereavement­in affliction sore, 
Mingling their very offerings with their gore. 

Then came he­in his eyes a serpent-smile, 
Upon his lips some false, endearing word, 
And, through the streets of Salem, clanged the while,
His slaughtering, hacking, sacrilegious sword­ 
And I, to see a man cause men such woe, 
Trembled with ire­I did not fear to show. 

And now, the envious Jewish priests have brought
Jesus­whom they in mockery call their king­ 

To have, by this grim power, their vengeance wrought; 
By this mean reptile, innocence to sting. 
Oh ! could I but the purposed doom avert, 
And shield the blameless head from cruel hurt! 

Accessible is Pilate's heart to fear, 
Omens will shake his soul, like autumn leaf; 
Could he this night's appalling vision hear, 
This just man's bonds were loosed, his life were safe, 
Unless that bitter priesthood should prevail, 
And make even terror to their malice quail. 

Yet if I tell the dream­but let me pause.
What dream ? Erewhile the characters were clear,
Graved on my brain­at once some unknown cause
Has dimmed and rased the thoughts, which now appear,
Like a vague remnant of some by-past scene;­
Not what will be, but what, long since, has been. 

I suffered many things, I heard foretold 
A dreadful doom for Pilate,­lingering woes, 
In far, barbarian climes, where mountains cold 
Built up a solitude of trackless snows, 
There, he and grisly wolves prowled side by side, 
There he lived famished­there methought he died; 

But not of hunger, nor by malady;
I saw the snow around him, stained with gore; 

I said I had no tears for such as he, 
And, lo ! my cheek is wet­mine eyes run o'er; 
I weep for mortal suffering, mortal guilt, 
I weep the impious deed­the blood self-spilt. 

More I recall not, yet the vision spread 
Into a world remote, an age to come­ 
And still the illumined name of Jesus shed 
A light, a clearness, through the enfolding gloom­ 
And still I saw that sign, which now I see, 
That cross on yonder brow of Calvary. 

What is this Hebrew Christ ? To me unknown, 
His lineage­doctrine­mission­yet how clear, 
Is God-like goodness, in his actions shewn ! 
How straight and stainless is his life's career ! 
The ray of Deity that rests on him, 
In my eyes makes Olympian glory dim. 

The world advances, Greek, or Roman rite
Suffices not the inquiring mind to stay;
The searching soul demands a purer light 
To guide it on its upward, onward way;
Ashamed of sculptured gods­Religion turns 
To where the unseen Jehovah's altar burns. 

Our faith is rotten­all our rites defiled,
Our temples sullied, and methinks, this man,
With his new ordinance, so wise and mild,
Is come, even as he says, the chaff to fan 

And sever from the wheat; but will his faith 
Survive the terrors of to-morrow's death ? 

* * * * * 

I feel a firmer trust­a higher hope 
Rise in my soul­it dawns with dawning day; 
Lo ! on the Temple's roof­on Moriah's slope 
Appears at length that clear, and crimson ray, 
Which I so wished for when shut in by night; 
Oh, opening skies, I hail, I bless your light ! 

Part, clouds and shadows ! glorious Sun appear ! 
Part, mental gloom ! Come insight from on high ! 
Dusk dawn in heaven still strives with daylight clear, 
The longing soul, doth still uncertain sigh. 
Oh ! to behold the truth­that sun divine, 
How doth my bosom pant, my spirit pine ! 

This day, time travails with a mighty birth, 
This day, Truth stoops from heaven and visits earth, 
Ere night descends, I shall more surely know 
What guide to follow, in what path to go; 
I wait in hope­I wait in solemn fear, 
The oracle of God­the sole­true God­to hear.

 One in thy thousand statues we salute thee 
On all thy thousand thrones acclaim and claim 
Who walk in forest of thy forms and faces 
Walk in a forest calling on one name 
And, most of all, how this thing may be so 
Who know thee not are mystified to know
That one cries "Here she stands" and one cries "Yonder" 
And thou wert home in heaven long ago. 

Burn deep in Bethlehem in the golden shadows,
Ride above Rome upon the horns of stone,
From low Lancastrian or South Saxon shelters
Watch through dark years the dower that was shine own:
Ghost of our land, White Lady of Walsinghame,
Shall they not live that call upon thy name
If an old song on a wild wind be blowing
Crying of the holy country whence they came? 

Root deep in Chartres the roses blown of glass 
Burning above thee in the high vitrailles, 
On Cornish crags take for salute of swords 
O'er peacock seas the far salute of sails, 
Glooming in bronze or gay in painted wood, 
A great doll given when the child is good, 
Save that She gave the Child who gave the doll, 
In whom all dolls are dreams of motherhood. 

I have found thee like a little shepherdess 
Gay with green ribbons; and passed on to find 
Michael called Angel hew the Mother of God 
Like one who fills a mountain with a mind: 
Molten in silver or gold or garbed in blue, 
Or garbed in red where the inner robe burns through, 
Of the King's daughter glorious within: 
Change shine unchanging light with every hue. 

Clothed with the sun or standing on the moon 
Crowned with the stars or single, a morning star, 
Sunlight and moonlight are thy luminous shadows, 
Starlight and twilight thy refractions are, 
Lights and half-lights and all lights turn about thee, 
But though we dazed can neither see nor doubt thee, 
Something remains. Nor can man live without it 
Nor can man find it bearable without thee. 

There runs a dark thread through the tapestries 
That time has woven with all the tints of time 
Something not evil but grotesque and groping, 
Something not clear; not final; not sublime; 
Quaint as dim pattern of primal plant or tree 
Or fish, the legless elfins of the sea, 
Yet rare as this shine image in ebony 
Being most strange in its simplicity. 

Rare as the rushing of the wild black swans
The Romans saw; or rocks remote and grim
Where through black clouds the black sheep runs accursed 
And through black clouds the Shepherd follows him. 
By the black oak of the aeon-buried grove 
By the black gems of the miner's treasure-trove 
Monsters and freaks and fallen stars and sunken- 
Most holy dark, cover our uncouth love. 

From shine high rock look down on Africa 
The living darkness of devouring green 
The loathsome smell of life unquenchable, 
Look on low brows and blinking eyes between, 
On the dark heart where white folk find no place, 
On the dark bodies of an antic race, 
On all that fear thy light and love thy shadow, 
Turn thou the mercy of thy midnight face. 

This also is in thy spectrum; this dark ray; 
Beyond the deepening purples of thy Lent 
Darker than violet vestment; dark and secret 
Clot of old night yet cloud of heaven sent: 
As the black moon of some divine eclipse, 
As the black sun of the Apocalypse, 
As the black flower that blessed Odysseus back 
From witchcraft; and he saw again the ships. 

In all thy thousand images we salute thee, 
Claim and acclaim on all thy thousand thrones 
Hewn out of multi-colored rocks and risen 
Stained with the stored-up sunsets in all tones- 
If in all tones and shades this shade I feel, 
Come from the black cathedrals of Castille 
Climbing these flat black stones of Catalonia, 
To thy most merciful face of night I kneel.

 To exalt, enthrone, establish and defend,
To welcome home mankind's mysterious friend
Wine, true begetter of all arts that be;
Wine, privilege of the completely free;
Wine the recorder; wine the sagely strong;
Wine, bright avenger of sly-dealing wrong,
Awake, Ausonian Muse, and sing the vineyard song!

Sing how the Charioteer from Asia came,
And on his front the little dancing flame
Which marked the God-head. Sing the Panther-team,
The gilded Thrysus twirling, and the gleam
Of cymbals through the darkness. Sing the drums.
He comes; the young renewer of Hellas comes!
The Seas await him. Those Aegean Seas
Roll from the dawning, ponderous, ill at ease,
In lifts of lead, whose cresting hardly breaks
To ghostly foam, when suddenly there awakes
A mountain glory inland. All the skies
Are luminous; and amid the sea bird cries
The mariner hears a morning breeze arise.
Then goes the Pageant forward. The sea-way
Silvers the feet of that august array
Trailing above the waters, through the airs;
And as they pass a wind before them bears
The quickening word, the influence magical.
The Islands have received it, marble-tall;
The long shores of the mainland. Something fills
The warm Euboean combes, the sacred hills
Of Aulis and of Argos. Still they move
Touching the City walls, the Temple grove,
Till, far upon the horizon-glint, a gleam
Of light, of trembling light, revealed they seem
Turned to a cloud, but to a cloud that shines,
And everywhere as they pass, the Vines! The Vines!
The Vines, the conquering Vines! And the Vine
breaths
Her savour through the upland, empty heaths
Of treeless wastes; the Vines have come to where
The dark Pelasgian steep defends the lair
Of the wolf's hiding; to the empty fields
By Aufidus, the dry campaign that yields
No harvest for the husbandman, but now
Shall bear a nobler foison than the plough;
To where, festooned along the tall elm trees,
Tendrils are mirrored in Tyrrhenian seas;
To where the South awaits them; even to where
Stark, African informed of burning air,
Upturned to Heaven the broad Hipponian plain
Extends luxurious and invites the main.
Guelma's a mother: barren Thaspsa breeds;
And northward in the valleys, next the meads
That sleep by misty river banks, the Vines
Have struck to spread below the solemn pines.
The Vines are on the roof-trees. All the Shrines
And Homes of men are consecrate with Vines.

And now the task of that triumphant day
Has reached to victory. In the reddening ray
With all his train, from hard Iberian lands
Fulfilled, apparent, that Creator stands
Halted on Atlas. Far Beneath him, far,
The strength of Ocean darkening and the star
Beyond all shores. There is a silence made.
It glorifies: and the gigantic shade
Of Hercules adores him from the West.
Dead Lucre: burnt Ambition: Wine is best.

But what are these that from the outer murk
Of dense mephitic vapours creeping lurk
To breathe foul airs from that corrupted well
Which oozes slime along the floor of Hell?
These are the stricken palsied brood of sin
In whose vile veins, poor, poisonous and thin,
Decoctions of embittered hatreds crawl:
These are the Water-Drinkers, cursed all!
On what gin-sodden Hags, what flaccid sires
Bred these White Slugs from what exhaust desires?
In what close prison's horror were their wiles
Watched by what tyrant power with evil smiles;
Or in what caverns, blocked from grace and air
Received they, then, the mandates of despair?
What! Must our race, our tragic race, that roam
All exiled from our first, and final, home:
That in one moment of temptation lost
Our heritage, and now wander, hunger-tost
Beyond the Gates (still speaking with our eyes
For ever of remembered Paradise),
Must we with every gift accepted, still,
With every joy, receive attendant ill?
Must some lewd evil follow all our good
And muttering dog our brief beatitude?

A primal doom, inexorable, wise,
Permitted, ordered, even these to rise.
Even in the shadow of so bright a Lord
Must swarm and propagate the filthy horde
Debased, accursed I say, abhorrent and abhorred.
Accursed and curse-bestowing. For whosoe'er
Shall suffer their contagion, everywhere
Falls from the estate of man and finds his end
To the mere beverage of the beast condemned.
For such as these in vain the Rhine has rolled
Imperial centuries by hills of gold;
For such as these the flashing Rhone shall rage
In vain its lightning through the Hermitage
Or level-browed divine Touraine receive
The tribute of her vintages at eve.
For such as these Burgundian heats in vain
Swell the rich slope or load the empurpled plain.
Bootless for such as these the mighty task
Of bottling God the Father in a flask
And leading all Creation down distilled
To one small ardent sphere immensely filled.
With memories empty, with experience null,
With vapid eye-balls meaningless and dull
They pass unblest through the unfruitful light;
And when we open the bronze doors of Night,
When we in high carousal, we reclined,
Spur up to Heaven the still ascending mind,
Pass with the all inspiring, to and fro,
The torch of genius and the Muse's glow,
They, lifeless, stare at vacancy alone
Or plan mean traffic, or repeat their moan.
We, when repose demands us, welcomed are
In young white arms, like our great Exemplar
Who, wearied with creation, takes his rest
And sinks to sleep on Ariadne's breast.
They through the darkness into darkness press
Despised, abandoned and companionless.
And when the course of either's sleep has run
We leap to life like heralds of the sun;
We from the couch in roseate mornings gay
Salute as equals the exultant day
While they, the unworthy, unrewarded, they
The dank despisers of the Vine, arise
To watch grey dawns and mourn indifferent skies.

Forget them! Form the Dionysian ring
And pulse the ground, and Io, Io, sing.

Father Lenaean, to whom our strength belongs,
Our loves, our wars, our laughter and our songs,
Remember our inheritance, who praise
Your glory in these last unhappy days
When beauty sickens and a muddied robe
Of baseness fouls the universal globe.
Though all the Gods indignant and their train
Abandon ruined man, do thou remain!
By thee the vesture of our life was made,
The Embattled Gate, the lordly Colonnade,
The woven fabric's gracious hues, the sound
Of trumpets, and the quivering fountain-round,
And, indestructible, the Arch, and, high,
The Shaft of Stone that stands against the sky,
And, last, the guardian-genius of them, Rhyme,
Come from beyond the world to conquer time:
All these are thine, Lenaean.

By thee do seers the inward light discern;
By thee the statue lives, the Gods return;
By thee the thunder and the falling foam
Of loud Acquoria's torrent call to Rome;
Alba rejoices in a thousand springs,
Gensano laughs, and Orvieto sings...
But, Ah! With Orvieto, with that name
Of dark, Eturian, subterranean flame
The years dissolve. I am standing in that hour
Of majesty Septembral, and the power
Which swells the clusters when the nights are still
With autumn stars on Orvieto hill.

Had these been mine, Ausonian Muse, to know
The large contented oxen heaving slow;
To count my sheaves at harvest; so to spend
Perfected days in peace until the end;
With every evening's dust of gold to hear
The bells upon the pasture height, the clear
Full horn of herdsmen gathering in the kine
To ancient byres in hamlets Appenine,
And crown abundant age with generous ease:
Had these, Ausonian Muse, had these, had these.....

But since I would not, since I could not stay,
Let me remember even in this my day
How, when the ephemeral vision's lure is past
All, all, must face their Passion at the last

Was there not one that did to Heaven complain
How, driving through the midnight and the rain,
He struck, the Atlantic seethe and surge before,
Wrecked in the North along a lonely shore
To make the lights of home and hear his name no
more.
Was there not one that from a desperate field
Rode with no guerdon but a rifted shield;
A name disherited; a broken sword;
Wounds unrenowned; battle beneath no Lord;
Strong blows, but on the void, and toil without
reward.

When from the waste of such long labour done
I too must leave the grape-ennobling sun
And like the vineyard worker take my way
Down the long shadows of declining day,
Bend on the sombre plain my clouded sight
And leave the mountain to the advancing night,
Come to the term of all that was mine own
With nothingness before me, and alone;
Then to what hope of answer shall I turn?
Comrade-Commander whom I dared not earn,
What said You then to trembling friends and
few?
"A moment, and I drink it with you new:
But in my Father's Kingdom." So, my Friend,
Let not Your cup desert me in the end.
But when the hour of mine adventure's near
Just and benignant, let my youth appear
Bearing a Chalice, open, golden, wide,
With benediction graven on its side.
So touch my dying lip: so bridge that deep:
So pledge my waking from the gift of sleep,
And, sacramental, raise me the Divine:
Strong brother in God and last companion, Wine.

 (For Aline)

Monsignore,
Right Reverend Bishop Valentinus,
Sometime of Interamna, which is called Ferni,
Now of the delightful Court of Heaven,
I respectfully salute you,
I genuflect
And I kiss your episcopal ring.
It is not, Monsignore,
The fragrant memory of your holy life,
Nor that of your shining and joyous martyrdom,
Which causes me now to address you.
But since this is your august festival, Monsignore,
It seems appropriate to me to state
According to a venerable and agreeable custom,
That I love a beautiful lady.
Her eyes, Monsignore,
Are so blue that they put lovely little blue reflections
On everything that she looks at,
Such as a wall
Or the moon
Or my heart.
It is like the light coming through blue stained glass,
Yet not quite like it,
For the blueness is not transparent,
Only translucent.
Her soul's light shines through,
But her soul cannot be seen.
It is something elusive, whimsical, tender, wanton, infantile, wise
And noble.
She wears, Monsignore, a blue garment,
Made in the manner of the Japanese.
It is very blue --
I think that her eyes have made it more blue,
Sweetly staining it
As the pressure of her body has graciously given it form.
Loving her, Monsignore,
I love all her attributes;
But I believe
That even if I did not love her
I would love the blueness of her eyes,
And her blue garment, made in the manner of the Japanese.
Monsignore,
I have never before troubled you with a request.
The saints whose ears I chiefly worry with my pleas
are the most exquisite and maternal Brigid,
Gallant Saint Stephen, who puts fire in my blood,
And your brother bishop, my patron,
The generous and jovial Saint Nicholas of Bari.
But, of your courtesy, Monsignore,
Do me this favour:
When you this morning make your way
To the Ivory Throne that bursts into bloom with roses
because of her who sits upon it,
When you come to pay your devoir to Our Lady,
I beg you, say to her:
"Madame, a poor poet, one of your singing servants yet on earth,
Has asked me to say that at this moment he is especially grateful 
to you
For wearing a blue gown."

 Neither clown nor child nor black
nor white but verticle
and a questioning innocence
dressed in night and snow:
The mother smiles at the sailor,
the fisherman at the astronaunt,
but the child child does not smile
when he looks at the bird child,
and from the disorderly ocean
the immaculate passenger
emerges in snowy mourning.

I was without doubt the child bird
there in the cold archipelagoes
when it looked at me with its eyes,
with its ancient ocean eyes:
it had neither arms nor wings
but hard little oars
on its sides:
it was as old as the salt;
the age of moving water,
and it looked at me from its age:
since then I know I do not exist;
I am a worm in the sand.

the reasons for my respect
remained in the sand:
the religious bird
did not need to fly,
did not need to sing,
and through its form was visible
its wild soul bled salt:
as if a vein from the bitter sea
had been broken.

Penguin, static traveler,
deliberate priest of the cold,
I salute your vertical salt
and envy your plumed pride.