10 Best Famous Spouts Poems

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

• All Famous Spouts Poems

 AT dawn the ridge emerges massed and dun 
In the wild purple of the glow'ring sun, 
Smouldering through spouts of drifting smoke that shroud 
The menacing scarred slope; and, one by one, 
Tanks creep and topple forward to the wire. 
The barrage roars and lifts. Then, clumsily bowed 
With bombs and guns and shovels and battle-gear, 
Men jostle and climb to meet the bristling fire. 
Lines of grey, muttering faces, masked with fear, 
They leave their trenches, going over the top, 
While time ticks blank and busy on their wrists, 
And hope, with furtive eyes and grappling fists, 
Flounders in mud. O Jesus, make it stop!

 Oh, there are times 
When all this fret and tumult that we hear 
Do seem more stale than to the sexton's ear 
His own dull chimes. 
Ding dong! ding dong! 
The world is in a simmer like a sea 
Over a pent volcano, -- woe is me 
All the day long! 
From crib to shroud! 
Nurse o'er our cradles screameth lullaby, 
And friends in boots tramp round us as we die, 
Snuffling aloud. 

At morning's call 
The small-voiced pug-dog welcomes in the sun, 
And flea-bit mongrels, wakening one by one, 
Give answer all. 

When evening dim 
Draws round us, then the lonely caterwaul, 
Tart solo, sour duet, and general squall, -- 
These are our hymn. 

Women, with tongues 
Like polar needles, ever on the jar; 
Men, plugless word-spouts, whose deep fountains are 
Within their lungs. 

Children, with drums 
Strapped round them by the fond paternal ass; 
Peripatetics with a blade of grass 
Between their thumbs. 

Vagrants, whose arts 
Have caged some devil in their mad machine, 
Which grinding, squeaks, with husky groans between, 
Come out by starts. 

Cockneys that kill 
Thin horses of a Sunday, -- men, with clams, 
Hoarse as young bisons roaring for their dams 
From hill to hill. 

Soldiers, with guns, 
Making a nuisance of the blessed air, 
Child-crying bellman, children in despair, 
Screeching for buns. 

Storms, thunders, waves! 
Howl, crash, and bellow till ye get your fill; 
Ye sometimes rest; men never can be still 
But in their graves.

 Careful Observers may fortel the Hour 
(By sure Prognosticks) when to dread a Show'r: 
While Rain depends, the pensive Cat gives o'er 
Her Frolicks, and pursues her Tail no more. 
Returning Home at Night, you'll find the Sink 
Strike your offended Sense with double Stink. 
If you be wise, then go not far to Dine, 
You spend in Coach-hire more than save in Wine. 
A coming Show'r your shooting Corns presage, 
Old Aches throb, your hollow Tooth will rage. 
Sauntring in Coffee-house is Dulman seen; 
He damns the Climate, and complains of Spleen.

Mean while the South rising with dabbled Wings, 
A Sable Cloud a-thwart the Welkin flings, 
That swill'd more Liquor than it could contain, 
And like a Drunkard gives it up again. 
Brisk Susan whips her Linen from the Rope, 
While the first drizzling Show'r is born aslope, 
Such is that Sprinkling which some careless Quean 
Flirts on you from her Mop, but not so clean. 
You fly, invoke the Gods; then turning, stop 
To rail; she singing, still whirls on her Mop. 
Not yet, the Dust had shun'd th'unequal Strife, 
But aided by the Wind, fought still for Life; 
And wafted with its Foe by violent Gust, 
'Twas doubtful which was Rain, and which was Dust. 
Ah! where must needy Poet seek for Aid, 
When Dust and Rain at once his Coat invade; 
Sole Coat, where Dust cemented by the Rain, 
Erects the Nap, and leaves a cloudy Stain.

Now in contiguous Drops the Flood comes down, 
Threat'ning with Deloge this Devoted Town. 
To Shops in Crouds the dagled Females fly, 
Pretend to cheapen Goods, but nothing buy. 
The Templer spruce, while ev'ry Spout's a-broach, 
Stays till 'tis fair, yet seems to call a Coach. 
The tuck'd-up Sempstress walks with hasty Strides, 
While Streams run down her oil'd Umbrella's Sides. 
Here various Kinds by various Fortunes led, 
Commence Acquaintance underneath a Shed. 
Triumphant Tories, and desponding Whigs, 
Forget their Fewds, and join to save their Wigs. 
Box'd in a Chair the Beau impatient sits, 
While Spouts run clatt'ring o'er the Roof by Fits; 
And ever and anon with frightful Din 
The Leather sounds, he trembles from within. 
So when Troy Chair-men bore the Wooden Steed, 
Pregnant with Greeks, impatient to be freed, 
(Those Bully Greeks, who, as the Moderns do, 
Instead of paying Chair-men, run them thro'.) 
Laoco'n struck the Outside with his Spear, 
And each imprison'd Hero quak'd for Fear.

Now from all Parts the swelling Kennels flow, 
And bear their Trophies with them as they go: 
Filth of all Hues and Odours seem to tell 
What Streets they sail'd from, by the Sight and Smell. 
They, as each Torrent drives, with rapid Force 
From Smithfield, or St.Pulchre's shape their Course, 
And in huge Confluent join at Snow-Hill Ridge, 
Fall from the Conduit prone to Holborn-Bridge. 
Sweepings from Butchers Stalls, Dung, Guts, and Blood,
Drown'd Puppies, stinking Sprats, all drench'd in Mud,
Dead Cats and Turnips-Tops come tumbling down the Flood.

 Close by those meads, for ever crown'd with flow'rs, 
Where Thames with pride surveys his rising tow'rs,
There stands a structure of majestic frame,
Which from the neighb'ring Hampton takes its name.
Here Britain's statesmen oft the fall foredoom
Of foreign tyrants and of nymphs at home;
Here thou, great Anna! whom three realms obey,
Dost sometimes counsel take--and sometimes tea.
Hither the heroes and the nymphs resort,
To taste awhile the pleasures of a court;
In various talk th' instructive hours they pass'd,
Who gave the ball, or paid the visit last;
One speaks the glory of the British queen,
And one describes a charming Indian screen;
A third interprets motions, looks, and eyes;
At ev'ry word a reputation dies.
Snuff, or the fan, supply each pause of chat,
With singing, laughing, ogling, and all that.

Meanwhile, declining from the noon of day,
The sun obliquely shoots his burning ray;
The hungry judges soon the sentence sign,
And wretches hang that jury-men may dine;
The merchant from th' Exchange returns in peace,
And the long labours of the toilet cease.
Belinda now, whom thirst of fame invites,
Burns to encounter two adventrous knights,
At ombre singly to decide their doom;
And swells her breast with conquests yet to come.
Straight the three bands prepare in arms to join,
Each band the number of the sacred nine.
Soon as she spreads her hand, th' aerial guard
Descend, and sit on each important card:
First Ariel perch'd upon a Matadore,
Then each, according to the rank they bore;
For Sylphs, yet mindful of their ancient race,
Are, as when women, wondrous fond of place.

Behold, four Kings in majesty rever'd,
With hoary whiskers and a forky beard;
And four fair Queens whose hands sustain a flow'r,
Th' expressive emblem of their softer pow'r;
Four Knaves in garbs succinct, a trusty band,
Caps on their heads, and halberds in their hand;
And parti-colour'd troops, a shining train,
Draw forth to combat on the velvet plain.

The skilful nymph reviews her force with care:
"Let Spades be trumps!" she said, and trumps they were.

Now move to war her sable Matadores,
In show like leaders of the swarthy Moors.
Spadillio first, unconquerable lord!
Led off two captive trumps, and swept the board.
As many more Manillio forc'd to yield,
And march'd a victor from the verdant field.
Him Basto follow'd, but his fate more hard
Gain'd but one trump and one plebeian card.
With his broad sabre next, a chief in years,
The hoary Majesty of Spades appears;
Puts forth one manly leg, to sight reveal'd;
The rest, his many-colour'd robe conceal'd.
The rebel Knave, who dares his prince engage,
Proves the just victim of his royal rage.
Ev'n mighty Pam, that kings and queens o'erthrew
And mow'd down armies in the fights of loo,
Sad chance of war! now destitute of aid,
Falls undistinguish'd by the victor Spade!

Thus far both armies to Belinda yield;
Now to the baron fate inclines the field.
His warlike Amazon her host invades,
Th' imperial consort of the crown of Spades.
The Club's black tyrant first her victim died,
Spite of his haughty mien, and barb'rous pride:
What boots the regal circle on his head,
His giant limbs, in state unwieldy spread;
That long behind he trails his pompous robe,
And of all monarchs, only grasps the globe?

The baron now his diamonds pours apace;
Th' embroider'd King who shows but half his face,
And his refulgent Queen, with pow'rs combin'd
Of broken troops an easy conquest find.
Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts, in wild disorder seen,
With throngs promiscuous strow the level green.
Thus when dispers'd a routed army runs,
Of Asia's troops, and Afric's sable sons,
With like confusion diff'rent nations fly,
Of various habit, and of various dye,
The pierc'd battalions disunited fall.
In heaps on heaps; one fate o'erwhelms them all.

The Knave of Diamonds tries his wily arts,
And wins (oh shameful chance!) the Queen of Hearts.
At this, the blood the virgin's cheek forsook,
A livid paleness spreads o'er all her look;
She sees, and trembles at th' approaching ill,
Just in the jaws of ruin, and codille.
And now (as oft in some distemper'd state)
On one nice trick depends the gen'ral fate.
An Ace of Hearts steps forth: The King unseen
Lurk'd in her hand, and mourn'd his captive Queen:
He springs to vengeance with an eager pace,
And falls like thunder on the prostrate Ace.
The nymph exulting fills with shouts the sky;
The walls, the woods, and long canals reply.


Oh thoughtless mortals! ever blind to fate,
Too soon dejected, and too soon elate!
Sudden, these honours shall be snatch'd away,
And curs'd for ever this victorious day.


For lo! the board with cups and spoons is crown'd,
The berries crackle, and the mill turns round.
On shining altars of Japan they raise
The silver lamp; the fiery spirits blaze.
From silver spouts the grateful liquors glide,
While China's earth receives the smoking tide.
At once they gratify their scent and taste,
And frequent cups prolong the rich repast.
Straight hover round the fair her airy band;
Some, as she sipp'd, the fuming liquor fann'd,
Some o'er her lap their careful plumes display'd,
Trembling, and conscious of the rich brocade.
Coffee, (which makes the politician wise,
And see through all things with his half-shut eyes)
Sent up in vapours to the baron's brain
New stratagems, the radiant lock to gain.
Ah cease, rash youth! desist ere 'tis too late,
Fear the just gods, and think of Scylla's fate!
Chang'd to a bird, and sent to flit in air,
She dearly pays for Nisus' injur'd hair!


But when to mischief mortals bend their will,
How soon they find fit instruments of ill!
Just then, Clarissa drew with tempting grace
A two-edg'd weapon from her shining case;
So ladies in romance assist their knight
Present the spear, and arm him for the fight.
He takes the gift with rev'rence, and extends
The little engine on his fingers' ends;
This just behind Belinda's neck he spread,
As o'er the fragrant steams she bends her head.
Swift to the lock a thousand sprites repair,
A thousand wings, by turns, blow back the hair,
And thrice they twitch'd the diamond in her ear,
Thrice she look'd back, and thrice the foe drew near.
Just in that instant, anxious Ariel sought
The close recesses of the virgin's thought;
As on the nosegay in her breast reclin'd,
He watch'd th' ideas rising in her mind,
Sudden he view'd, in spite of all her art,
An earthly lover lurking at her heart.
Amaz'd, confus'd, he found his pow'r expir'd,
Resign'd to fate, and with a sigh retir'd.


The peer now spreads the glitt'ring forfex wide,
T' inclose the lock; now joins it, to divide.
Ev'n then, before the fatal engine clos'd,
A wretched Sylph too fondly interpos'd;
Fate urg'd the shears, and cut the Sylph in twain,
(But airy substance soon unites again).
The meeting points the sacred hair dissever
From the fair head, for ever, and for ever!


Then flash'd the living lightning from her eyes,
And screams of horror rend th' affrighted skies.
Not louder shrieks to pitying Heav'n are cast,
When husbands or when lap-dogs breathe their last,
Or when rich China vessels, fall'n from high,
In glitt'ring dust and painted fragments lie!


"Let wreaths of triumph now my temples twine,"
The victor cried, "the glorious prize is mine!
While fish in streams, or birds delight in air,
Or in a coach and six the British fair,
As long at Atalantis shall be read,
Or the small pillow grace a lady's bed,
While visits shall be paid on solemn days,
When num'rous wax-lights in bright order blaze,
While nymphs take treats, or assignations give,
So long my honour, name, and praise shall live!
What time would spare, from steel receives its date,
And monuments, like men, submit to fate!
Steel could the labour of the gods destroy,
And strike to dust th' imperial tow'rs of Troy;
Steel could the works of mortal pride confound,
And hew triumphal arches to the ground.
What wonder then, fair nymph! thy hairs should feel
The conqu'ring force of unresisted steel?"

 Slowly, without force, the rain drops into the 
city. It stops a moment
on the carved head of Saint John, then slides on again, slipping 
and trickling
over his stone cloak. It splashes from the lead conduit 
of a gargoyle,
and falls from it in turmoil on the stones in the Cathedral square.
Where are the people, and why does the fretted steeple sweep about 
in the sky?
Boom! The sound swings against the rain. Boom, 
again! After it, only water
rushing in the gutters, and the turmoil from the spout of the gargoyle.
Silence. Ripples and mutters. Boom!

The room is damp, but warm. Little flashes swarm about 
from the firelight.
The lustres of the chandelier are bright, and clusters of rubies
leap in the bohemian glasses on the `etagere'. Her hands 
are restless,
but the white masses of her hair are quite still. Boom! Will 
it never cease
to torture, this iteration! Boom! The vibration 
shatters a glass
on the `etagere'. It lies there, formless and glowing,
with all its crimson gleams shot out of pattern, spilled, flowing 
red,
blood-red. A thin bell-note pricks through the silence. A 
door creaks.
The old lady speaks: "Victor, clear away that broken 
glass." "Alas!
Madame, the bohemian glass!" "Yes, Victor, one hundred 
years ago
my father brought it --" Boom! The room shakes, 
the servitor quakes.
Another goblet shivers and breaks. Boom!

It rustles at the window-pane, the smooth, streaming rain, and he 
is shut
within its clash and murmur. Inside is his candle, his 
table, his ink,
his pen, and his dreams. He is thinking, and the walls 
are pierced with
beams of sunshine, slipping through young green. A fountain 
tosses itself
up at the blue sky, and through the spattered water in the basin 
he can see
copper carp, lazily floating among cold leaves. A wind-harp 
in a cedar-tree
grieves and whispers, and words blow into his brain, bubbled, iridescent,
shooting up like flowers of fire, higher and higher. Boom!
The flame-flowers snap on their slender stems. The fountain 
rears up
in long broken spears of dishevelled water and flattens into the 
earth. Boom!
And there is only the room, the table, the candle, and the sliding 
rain.
Again, Boom! -- Boom! -- Boom! He stuffs his fingers 
into his ears.
He sees corpses, and cries out in fright. Boom! It 
is night,
and they are shelling the city! Boom! Boom!

A child wakes and is afraid, and weeps in the darkness. What 
has made
the bed shake? "Mother, where are you? I am 
awake." "Hush, my Darling,
I am here." "But, Mother, something so ***** happened, 
the room shook."
Boom! "Oh! What is it? What is 
the matter?" Boom! "Where is Father?
I am so afraid." Boom! The child sobs and 
shrieks. The house
trembles and creaks. Boom!

Retorts, globes, tubes, and phials lie shattered. All 
his trials
oozing across the floor. The life that was his choosing, 
lonely, urgent,
goaded by a hope, all gone. A weary man in a ruined laboratory,
that is his story. Boom! Gloom and ignorance, 
and the jig of drunken brutes.
Diseases like snakes crawling over the earth, leaving trails of 
slime.
Wails from people burying their dead. Through the window, 
he can see
the rocking steeple. A ball of fire falls on the lead 
of the roof,
and the sky tears apart on a spike of flame. Up the spire,
behind the lacings of stone, zigzagging in and out of the carved 
tracings,
squirms the fire. It spouts like yellow wheat from the 
gargoyles, coils round
the head of Saint John, and aureoles him in light. It 
leaps into the night
and hisses against the rain. The Cathedral is a burning 
stain on the white,
wet night.

Boom! The Cathedral is a torch, and the houses next to 
it begin to scorch.
Boom! The bohemian glass on the `etagere' is no longer 
there.
Boom! A stalk of flame sways against the red damask curtains.
The old lady cannot walk. She watches the creeping stalk 
and counts.
Boom! -- Boom! -- Boom!

The poet rushes into the street, and the rain wraps him in a sheet 
of silver.
But it is threaded with gold and powdered with scarlet beads. The 
city burns.
Quivering, spearing, thrusting, lapping, streaming, run the flames.
Over roofs, and walls, and shops, and stalls. Smearing 
its gold on the sky,
the fire dances, lances itself through the doors, and lisps and 
chuckles
along the floors.

The child wakes again and screams at the yellow petalled flower
flickering at the window. The little red lips of flame 
creep along
the ceiling beams.

The old man sits among his broken experiments and looks at
the burning Cathedral. Now the streets are swarming with 
people.
They seek shelter and crowd into the cellars. They shout 
and call,
and over all, slowly and without force, the rain drops into the 
city.
Boom! And the steeple crashes down among the people. Boom! Boom, 
again!
The water rushes along the gutters. The fire roars and 
mutters. Boom!

IN the valley of the Pegnitz, where across broad meadowlands 
Rise the blue Franconian mountains, Nuremberg, the ancient, stands. 

Quaint old town of toil and traffic, quaint old town of art and song, 
Memories haunt thy pointed gables, like the rooks that round them throng: 

Memories of the Middle Ages, when the emperors, rough and bold, 5 
Had their dwelling in thy castle, time-defying, centuries old; 

And thy brave and thrifty burghers boasted, in their uncouth rhyme, 
That their great imperial city stretched its hand through every clime. 

In the court-yard of the castle, bound with many an iron band, 
Stands the mighty linden planted by Queen Cunigunde's hand; 10 

On the square the oriel window, where in old heroic days 
Sat the poet Melchior singing Kaiser Maximilian's praise. 

Everywhere I see around me rise the wondrous world of Art: 
Fountains wrought with richest sculpture standing in the common mart; 

And above cathedral doorways saints and bishops carved in stone, 15 
By a former age commissioned as apostles to our own. 

In the church of sainted Sebald sleeps enshrined his holy dust, 
And in bronze the Twelve Apostles guard from age to age their trust; 

In the church of sainted Lawrence stands a pix of sculpture rare, 
Like the foamy sheaf of fountains, rising through the painted air. 20 

Here, when Art was still religion, with a simple, reverent heart, 
Lived and labored Albrecht D¨¹rer, the Evangelist of Art; 

Hence in silence and in sorrow, toiling still with busy hand, 
Like an emigrant he wandered, seeking for the Better Land. 

Emigravit is the inscription on the tombstone where he lies; 25 
Dead he is not, but departed,¡ªfor the artist never dies. 

Fairer seems the ancient city, and the sunshine seems more fair, 
That he once has trod its pavement, that he once has breathed its air! 

Through these streets so broad and stately, these obscure and dismal lanes, 
Walked of yore the Mastersingers, chanting rude poetic strains. 30 

From remote and sunless suburbs came they to the friendly guild, 
Building nests in Fame's great temple, as in spouts the swallows build. 

As the weaver plied the shuttle, wove he too the mystic rhyme, 
And the smith his iron measures hammered to the anvil's chime; 

Thanking God, whose boundless wisdom makes the flowers of poesy bloom 35 
In the forge's dust and cinders, in the tissues of the loom. 

Here Hans Sachs, the cobbler-poet, laureate of the gentle craft, 
Wisest of the Twelve Wise Masters, in huge folios sang and laughed. 

But his house is now an ale-house, with a nicely sanded floor, 
And a garland in the window, and his face above the door; 40 

Painted by some humble artist, as in Adam Puschman's song, 
As the old man gray and dove-like, with his great beard white and long. 

And at night the swart mechanic comes to drown his cark and care, 
Quaffing ale from pewter tankards, in the master's antique chair. 

Vanished is the ancient splendor, and before my dreamy eye 45 
Wave these mingled shapes and figures, like a faded tapestry. 

Not thy Councils, not thy Kaisers, win for thee the world's regard; 
But thy painter, Albrecht D¨¹rer, and Hans Sachs, thy cobbler bard. 

Thus, O Nuremberg, a wanderer from a region far away, 
As he paced thy streets and court-yards, sang in thought his careless lay: 50 

Gathering from the pavement's crevice, as a floweret of the soil, 
The nobility of labor,¡ªthe long pedigree of toil.

 In the willows along the river at Pleasure Bay
A catbird singing, never the same phrase twice.
Here under the pines a little off the road
In 1927 the Chief of Police
And Mrs. W. killed themselves together,
Sitting in a roadster. Ancient unshaken pilings
And underwater chunks of still-mortared brick
In shapes like bits of puzzle strew the bottom
Where the landing was for Price's Hotel and Theater.
And here's where boats blew two blasts for the keeper
To shunt the iron swing-bridge. He leaned on the gears
Like a skipper in the hut that housed the works
And the bridge moaned and turned on its middle pier
To let them through. In the middle of the summer
Two or three cars might wait for the iron trusswork
Winching aside, with maybe a child to notice
A name on the stern in black-and-gold on white,
Sandpiper, Patsy Ann, Do Not Disturb,
The Idler. If a boat was running whiskey,
The bridge clanged shut behind it as it passed
And opened up again for the Coast Guard cutter
Slowly as a sundial, and always jammed halfway.
The roadbed whole, but opened like a switch,
The river pulling and coursing between the piers.
Never the same phrase twice, the catbird filling
The humid August evening near the inlet
With borrowed music that he melds and changes.
Dragonflies and sandflies, frogs in the rushes, two bodies
Not moving in the open car among the pines,
A sliver of story. The tenor at Price's Hotel,
In clown costume, unfurls the sorrow gathered
In ruffles at his throat and cuffs, high quavers
That hold like splashes of light on the dark water,
The aria's closing phrases, changed and fading.
And after a gap of quiet, cheers and applause
Audible in the houses across the river,
Some in the audience weeping as if they had melted
Inside the music. Never the same. In Berlin
The daughter of an English lord, in love
With Adolf Hitler, whom she has met. She is taking
Possession of the apartment of a couple,
Elderly well-off Jews. They survive the war
To settle here in the Bay, the old lady
Teaches piano, but the whole world swivels
And gapes at their feet as the girl and a high-up Nazi
Examine the furniture, the glass, the pictures,
The elegant story that was theirs and now
Is part of hers. A few months later the English
Enter the war and she shoots herself in a park,
An addled, upper-class girl, her life that passes
Into the lives of others or into a place.
The taking of lives--the Chief and Mrs. W.
Took theirs to stay together, as local ghosts.
Last flurries of kisses, the revolver's barrel,
Shivers of a story that a child might hear
And half remember, voices in the rushes,
A singing in the willows. From across the river,
Faint quavers of music, the same phrase twice and again,
Ranging and building. Over the high new bridge
The flashing of traffic homeward from the racetrack,
With one boat chugging under the arches, outward
Unnoticed through Pleasure Bay to the open sea.
Here's where the people stood to watch the theater
Burn on the water. All that night the fireboats
Kept playing their spouts of water into the blaze.
In the morning, smoking pilasters and beams.
Black smell of char for weeks, the ruin already
Soaking back into the river. After you die
You hover near the ceiling above your body
And watch the mourners awhile. A few days more
You float above the heads of the ones you knew
And watch them through a twilight. As it grows darker
You wander off and find your way to the river
And wade across. On the other side, night air,
Willows, the smell of the river, and a mass
Of sleeping bodies all along the bank,
A kind of singing from among the rushes
Calling you further forward in the dark.
You lie down and embrace one body, the limbs
Heavy with sleep reach eagerly up around you
And you make love until your soul brims up
And burns free out of you and shifts and spills
Down over into that other body, and you
Forget the life you had and begin again
On the same crossing--maybe as a child who passes
Through the same place. But never the same way twice.
Here in the daylight, the catbird in the willows,
The new café, with a terrace and a landing,
Frogs in the cattails where the swing-bridge was--
Here's where you might have slipped across the water
When you were only a presence, at Pleasure Bay.

 MY lord, I know your noble ear
 Woe ne’er assails in vain;
Embolden’d thus, I beg you’ll hear
 Your humble slave complain,
How saucy Phoebus’ scorching beams,
 In flaming summer-pride,
Dry-withering, waste my foamy streams,
 And drink my crystal tide. 1


The lightly-jumping, glowrin’ trouts,
 That thro’ my waters play,
If, in their random, wanton spouts,
 They near the margin stray;
If, hapless chance! they linger lang,
 I’m scorching up so shallow,
They’re left the whitening stanes amang,
 In gasping death to wallow.


Last day I grat wi’ spite and teen,
 As poet Burns came by.
That, to a bard, I should be seen
 Wi’ half my channel dry;
A panegyric rhyme, I ween,
 Ev’n as I was, he shor’d me;
But had I in my glory been,
 He, kneeling, wad ador’d me.


Here, foaming down the skelvy rocks,
 In twisting strength I rin;
There, high my boiling torrent smokes,
 Wild-roaring o’er a linn:
Enjoying each large spring and well,
 As Nature gave them me,
I am, altho’ I say’t mysel’,
 Worth gaun a mile to see.


Would then my noble master please
 To grant my highest wishes,
He’ll shade my banks wi’ tow’ring trees,
 And bonie spreading bushes.
Delighted doubly then, my lord,
 You’ll wander on my banks,
And listen mony a grateful bird
 Return you tuneful thanks.


The sober lav’rock, warbling wild,
 Shall to the skies aspire;
The gowdspink, Music’s gayest child,
 Shall sweetly join the choir;
The blackbird strong, the lintwhite clear,
 The mavis mild and mellow;
The robin pensive Autumn cheer,
 In all her locks of yellow.


This, too, a covert shall ensure,
 To shield them from the storm;
And coward maukin sleep secure,
 Low in her grassy form:
Here shall the shepherd make his seat,
 To weave his crown of flow’rs;
Or find a shelt’ring, safe retreat,
 From prone-descending show’rs.


And here, by sweet, endearing stealth,
 Shall meet the loving pair,
Despising worlds, with all their wealth,
 As empty idle care;
The flow’rs shall vie in all their charms,
 The hour of heav’n to grace;
And birks extend their fragrant arms
 To screen the dear embrace.


Here haply too, at vernal dawn,
 Some musing bard may stray,
And eye the smoking, dewy lawn,
 And misty mountain grey;
Or, by the reaper’s nightly beam,
 Mild-chequering thro’ the trees,
Rave to my darkly dashing stream,
 Hoarse-swelling on the breeze.


Let lofty firs, and ashes cool,
 My lowly banks o’erspread,
And view, deep-bending in the pool,
 Their shadow’s wat’ry bed:
Let fragrant birks, in woodbines drest,
 My craggy cliffs adorn;
And, for the little songster’s nest,
 The close embow’ring thorn.


So may old Scotia’s darling hope,
 Your little angel band
Spring, like their fathers, up to prop
 Their honour’d native land!
So may, thro’ Albion’s farthest ken,
 To social-flowing glasses,
The grace be—“Athole’s honest men,
 And Athole’s bonie lasses!”


 Note 1. Bruar Falls, in Athole, are exceedingly picturesque and beautiful; but their effect is much impaired by the want of trees and shrubs.—R. B. [back]

 Burning, he walks in the stream of flickering letters, clarinets,
machines throbbing quicker than the heart, lopped-off heads, silk
canvases, and he stops under the sky

and raises toward it his joined clenched fists.

Believers fall on their bellies, they suppose it is a monstrance that
shines,

but those are knuckles, sharp knuckles shine that way, my friends.

He cuts the glowing, yellow buildings in two, breaks the walls into
motley halves;
pensive, he looks at the honey seeping from those huge honeycombs:
throbs of pianos, children's cries, the thud of a head banging against
the floor.
This is the only landscape able to make him feel.

He wonders at his brother's skull shaped like an egg,
every day he shoves back his black hair from his brow,
then one day he plants a big load of dynamite
and is surprised that afterward everything spouts up in the explosion.
Agape, he observes the clouds and what is hanging in them:
globes, penal codes, dead cats floating on their backs, locomotives.
They turn in the skeins of white clouds like trash in a puddle.
While below on the earth a banner, the color of a romantic rose,
flutters,
and a long row of military trains crawls on the weed-covered tracks.

 Blue, but you are Rose, too,
and buttermilk, but with blood
dots showing through.
A little salty your white
nape boy-wide. Glinting hairs
shoot back of your ears' Rose
that tongues like to feel
the maze of, slip into the funnel,
tell a thunder-whisper to.
When I kiss, your eyes' straight
lashes down crisp go like doll's
blond straws. Glazed iris Roses,
your lids unclose to Blue-ringed
targets, their dark sheen-spokes
almost green. I sink in Blue-
black Rose-heart holes until you
blink. Pink lips, the serrate
folds taste smooth, and Rosehip-
round, the center bud I suck.
I milknip your two Blue-skeined
blown Rose beauties, too, to sniff
their berries' blood, up stiff
pink tips. You're white in 
patches, only mostly Rose,
buckskin and saltly, speckled
like a sky. I love your spots,
your white neck, Rose, your hair's
wild straw splash, silk spools
for your ears. But where white
spouts out, spills on your brow
to clear eyepools, wheel shafts
of light, Rose, you are Blue.