Written by
Lascelles Abercrombie |
Follow my heart, my dancing feet,
Dance as blithe as my heart can beat.
Only can dancing understand
What a heavenly way we pass
Treading the green and golden land,
Daffodillies and grass.
I had a song, too, on my road,
But mine was in my eyes;
For Malvern Hills were with me all the way,
Singing loveliest visible melodies
Blue as a south-sea bay;
And ruddy as wine of France
Breadths of new-turn'd ploughland under them glowed.
'Twas my heart then must dance
To dwell in my delight;
No need to sing when all in song my sight
Moved over hills so musically made
And with such colour played. —
And only yesterday it was I saw
Veil'd in streamers of grey wavering smoke
My shapely Malvern Hills.
That was the last hail-storm to trouble spring:
He came in gloomy haste,
Pusht in front of the white clouds quietly basking,
In such a hurry he tript against the hills
And stumbling forward spilt over his shoulders
All his black baggage held,
Streaking downpour of hail.
Then fled dismayed, and the sun in golden glee
And the high white clouds laught down his dusky ghost.
For all that's left of winter
Is moisture in the ground.
When I came down the valley last, the sun
Just thawed the grass and made me gentle turf,
But still the frost was bony underneath.
Now moles take burrowing jaunts abroad, and ply
Their shovelling hands in earth
As nimbly as the strokes
Of a swimmer in a long dive under water.
The meadows in the sun are twice as green
For all the scatter of fresh red mounded earth,
The mischief of the moles:
No dullish red, Glostershire earth new-delved
In April! And I think shows fairest where
These rummaging small rogues have been at work.
If you will look the way the sunlight slants
Making the grass one great green gem of light,
Bright earth, crimson and even
Scarlet, everywhere tracks
The rambling underground affairs of moles:
Though 'tis but kestrel-bay
Looking against the sun.
But here's the happiest light can lie on ground,
Grass sloping under trees
Alive with yellow shine of daffodils!
If quicksilver were gold,
And troubled pools of it shaking in the sun
It were not such a fancy of bickering gleam
As Ryton daffodils when the air but stirs.
And all the miles and miles of meadowland
The spring makes golden ways,
Lead here, for here the gold
Grows brightest for our eyes,
And for our hearts lovelier even than love.
So here, each spring, our daffodil festival.
How smooth and quick the year
Spins me the seasons round!
How many days have slid across my mind
Since we had snow pitying the frozen ground!
Then winter sunshine cheered
The bitter skies; the snow,
Reluctantly obeying lofty winds,
Drew off in shining clouds,
Wishing it still might love
With its white mercy the cold earth beneath.
But when the beautiful ground
Lights upward all the air,
Noon thaws the frozen eaves,
And makes the rime on post and paling steam
Silvery blue smoke in the golden day.
And soon from loaded trees in noiseless woods
The snows slip thudding down,
Scattering in their trail
Bright icy sparkles through the glittering air;
And the fir-branches, patiently bent so long,
Sigh as they lift themselves to rights again.
Then warm moist hours steal in,
Such as can draw the year's
First fragrance from the sap of cherry wood
Or from the leaves of budless violets;
And travellers in lanes
Catch the hot tawny smell
Reynard's damp fur left as he sneakt marauding
Across from gap to gap:
And in the larch woods on the highest boughs
The long-eared owls like grey cats sitting still
Peer down to quiz the passengers below.
Light has killed the winter and all dark dreams.
Now winds live all in light,
Light has come down to earth and blossoms here,
And we have golden minds.
From out the long shade of a road high-bankt,
I came on shelving fields;
And from my feet cascading,
Streaming down the land,
Flickering lavish of daffodils flowed and fell;
Like sunlight on a water thrill'd with haste,
Such clear pale quivering flame,
But a flame even more marvellously yellow.
And all the way to Ryton here I walkt
Ankle-deep in light.
It was as if the world had just begun;
And in a mind new-made
Of shadowless delight
My spirit drank my flashing senses in,
And gloried to be made
Of young mortality.
No darker joy than this
Golden amazement now
Shall dare intrude into our dazzling lives:
Stain were it now to know
Mists of sweet warmth and deep delicious colour,
Those lovable accomplices that come
Befriending languid hours.
|
Written by
Amy Lowell |
A bullet through his heart at dawn. On
the table a letter signed
with a woman's name. A wind that goes howling round the
house,
and weeping as in shame. Cold November dawn peeping through
the windows,
cold dawn creeping over the floor, creeping up his cold legs,
creeping over his cold body, creeping across his cold face.
A glaze of thin yellow sunlight on the staring eyes. Wind
howling
through bent branches. A wind which never dies down. Howling,
wailing.
The gazing eyes glitter in the sunlight. The lids are
frozen open
and the eyes glitter.
The thudding of a pick on hard earth. A spade grinding
and crunching.
Overhead, branches writhing, winding, interlacing, unwinding, scattering;
tortured twinings, tossings, creakings. Wind flinging
branches apart,
drawing them together, whispering and whining among them. A
waning,
lobsided moon cutting through black clouds. A stream
of pebbles and earth
and the empty spade gleams clear in the moonlight, then is rammed
again
into the black earth. Tramping of feet. Men
and horses.
Squeaking of wheels.
"Whoa! Ready, Jim?"
"All ready."
Something falls, settles, is still. Suicides
have no coffin.
"Give us the stake, Jim. Now."
Pound! Pound!
"He'll never walk. Nailed to the ground."
An ash stick pierces his heart, if it buds the
roots will hold him.
He is a part of the earth now, clay to clay. Overhead
the branches sway,
and writhe, and twist in the wind. He'll never walk with
a bullet
in his heart, and an ash stick nailing him to the cold, black ground.
Six months he lay still. Six months. And the
water welled up in his body,
and soft blue spots chequered it. He lay still, for the
ash stick
held him in place. Six months! Then her face
came out of a mist of green.
Pink and white and frail like Dresden china, lilies-of-the-valley
at her breast, puce-coloured silk sheening about her. Under
the young
green leaves, the horse at a foot-pace, the high yellow wheels of
the chaise
scarcely turning, her face, rippling like grain a-blowing,
under her puce-coloured bonnet; and burning beside her, flaming
within
his correct blue coat and brass buttons, is someone. What
has dimmed the sun?
The horse steps on a rolling stone; a wind in the branches makes
a moan.
The little leaves tremble and shake, turn and quake, over and over,
tearing their stems. There is a shower of young leaves,
and a sudden-sprung gale wails in the trees.
The yellow-wheeled chaise is rocking -- rocking,
and all the branches
are knocking -- knocking. The sun in the sky is a flat,
red plate,
the branches creak and grate. She screams and cowers,
for the green foliage
is a lowering wave surging to smother her. But she sees
nothing.
The stake holds firm. The body writhes, the body squirms.
The blue spots widen, the flesh tears, but the stake wears well
in the deep, black ground. It holds the body in the still,
black ground.
Two years! The body has been in the ground two years. It
is worn away;
it is clay to clay. Where the heart moulders, a greenish
dust, the stake
is thrust. Late August it is, and night; a night flauntingly
jewelled
with stars, a night of shooting stars and loud insect noises.
Down the road to Tilbury, silence -- and the slow flapping of large
leaves.
Down the road to Sutton, silence -- and the darkness of heavy-foliaged
trees.
Down the road to Wayfleet, silence -- and the whirring scrape of
insects
in the branches. Down the road to Edgarstown, silence
-- and stars like
stepping-stones in a pathway overhead. It is very quiet
at the cross-roads,
and the sign-board points the way down the four roads, endlessly
points
the way where nobody wishes to go.
A horse is galloping, galloping up from Sutton. Shaking
the wide,
still leaves as he goes under them. Striking sparks with
his iron shoes;
silencing the katydids. Dr. Morgan riding to a child-birth
over Tilbury way;
riding to deliver a woman of her first-born son. One
o'clock from
Wayfleet bell tower, what a shower of shooting stars! And
a breeze
all of a sudden, jarring the big leaves and making them jerk up
and down.
Dr. Morgan's hat is blown from his head, the horse swerves, and
curves away
from the sign-post. An oath -- spurs -- a blurring of
grey mist.
A quick left twist, and the gelding is snorting and racing
down the Tilbury road with the wind dropping away behind him.
The stake has wrenched, the stake has started,
the body, flesh from flesh,
has parted. But the bones hold tight, socket and ball,
and clamping them down
in the hard, black ground is the stake, wedged through ribs and
spine.
The bones may twist, and heave, and twine, but the stake holds them
still
in line. The breeze goes down, and the round stars shine,
for the stake
holds the fleshless bones in line.
Twenty years now! Twenty long years! The body
has powdered itself away;
it is clay to clay. It is brown earth mingled with brown
earth. Only flaky
bones remain, lain together so long they fit, although not one bone
is knit
to another. The stake is there too, rotted through, but
upright still,
and still piercing down between ribs and spine in a straight line.
Yellow stillness is on the cross-roads, yellow
stillness is on the trees.
The leaves hang drooping, wan. The four roads point four
yellow ways,
saffron and gamboge ribbons to the gaze. A little swirl
of dust
blows up Tilbury road, the wind which fans it has not strength to
do more;
it ceases, and the dust settles down. A little whirl
of wind
comes up Tilbury road. It brings a sound of wheels and
feet.
The wind reels a moment and faints to nothing under the sign-post.
Wind again, wheels and feet louder. Wind again -- again
-- again.
A drop of rain, flat into the dust. Drop! -- Drop! Thick
heavy raindrops,
and a shrieking wind bending the great trees and wrenching off their
leaves.
Under the black sky, bowed and dripping with rain,
up Tilbury road,
comes the procession. A funeral procession, bound for
the graveyard
at Wayfleet. Feet and wheels -- feet and wheels. And
among them
one who is carried.
The bones in the deep, still earth shiver and pull. There
is a quiver
through the rotted stake. Then stake and bones fall together
in a little puffing of dust.
Like meshes of linked steel the rain shuts down
behind the procession,
now well along the Wayfleet road.
He wavers like smoke in the buffeting wind. His
fingers blow out like smoke,
his head ripples in the gale. Under the sign-post, in
the pouring rain,
he stands, and watches another quavering figure drifting down
the Wayfleet road. Then swiftly he streams after it. It
flickers
among the trees. He licks out and winds about them. Over,
under,
blown, contorted. Spindrift after spindrift; smoke following
smoke.
There is a wailing through the trees, a wailing of fear,
and after it laughter -- laughter -- laughter, skirling up to the
black sky.
Lightning jags over the funeral procession. A heavy clap
of thunder.
Then darkness and rain, and the sound of feet and wheels.
|
Written by
Andrew Barton Paterson |
The news came down on the Castlereagh, and went to the world at large,
That twenty thousand travelling sheep, with Saltbush Bill in charge,
Were drifting down from a dried-out run to ravage the Castlereagh;
And the squatters swore when they heard the news, and wished they were well away:
For the name and the fame of Saltbush Bill were over the country-side
For the wonderful way that he fed his sheep, and the dodges and tricks he tried.
He would lose his way on a Main Stock Route, and stray to the squatters' grass;
He would come to a run with the boss away, and swear he had leave to pass;
And back of all and behind it all, as well the squatters knew,
If he had to fight, he would fight all day, so long as his sheep got through:
But this is the story of Stingy Smith, the owner of Hard Times Hill,
And the way that he chanced on a fighting man to reckon with Saltbush Bill.
'Twas Stingy Smith on his stockyard sat, and prayed for an early Spring,
When he started at sight of a clean-shaved tramp, who walked with a jaunty swing;
For a clean-shaved tramp with a jaunty walk a-swinging along the track
Is as rare a thing as a feathered frog on the desolate roads out back.
So the tramp he made for the travellers' hut, to ask could he camp the night;
But Stingy Smith had a bright idea, and called to him, "Can you fight?"
"Why, what's the game?" said the clean-shaved tramp, as he looked at him up and down;
"If you want a battle, get off that fence, and I'll kill you for half-a-crown!
But, Boss, you'd better not fight with me -- it wouldn't be fair nor right;
I'm Stiffener Joe, from the Rocks Brigade, and I killed a man in a fight:
I served two years for it, fair and square, and now I'm trampin' back,
To look for a peaceful quiet life away on the outside track."
"Oh, it's not myself, but a drover chap," said Stingy Smith with glee,
"A bullying fellow called Saltbush Bill, and you are the man for me.
He's on the road with his hungry sheep, and he's certain to raise a row,
For he's bullied the whole of the Castlereagh till he's got them under cow --
Just pick a quarrel and raise a fight, and leather him good and hard,
And I'll take good care that his wretched sheep don't wander a half a yard.
It's a five-pound job if you belt him well -- do anything short of kill,
For there isn't a beak on the Castlereagh will fine you for Saltbush Bill."
"I'll take the job," said the fighting man; "and, hot as this cove appears,
He'll stand no chance with a bloke like me, what's lived on the game for years;
For he's maybe learnt in a boxing school, and sparred for a round or so,
But I've fought all hands in a ten-foot ring each night in a travelling show;
They earned a pound if they stayed three rounds, and they tried for it every night.
In a ten-foot ring! Oh, that's the game that teaches a bloke to fight,
For they'd rush and clinch -- it was Dublin Rules, and we drew no colour line;
And they all tried hard for to earn the pound, but they got no pound of mine.
If I saw no chance in the opening round I'd slog at their wind, and wait
Till an opening came -- and it always came -- and I settled 'em, sure as fate;
Left on the ribs and right on the jaw -- and, when the chance comes, make sure!
And it's there a professional bloke like me gets home on an amateur:
For it's my experience every day, and I make no doubt it's yours,
That a third-class pro is an over-match for the best of the amateurs --"
"Oh, take your swag to the travellers' hut," said Smith, "for you waste your breath;
You've a first-class chance, if you lose the fight, of talking your man to death.
I'll tell the cook you're to have your grub, and see that you eat your fill,
And come to the scratch all fit and well to leather this Saltbush Bill."
'Twas Saltbush Bill, and his travelling sheep were wending their weary way
On the Main Stock Route, through the Hard Times Run, on their six-mile stage a day;
And he strayed a mile from the Main Stock Route, and started to feed along,
And when Stingy Smith came up Bill said that the Route was surveyed wrong;
And he tried to prove that the sheep had rushed and strayed from their camp at night,
But the fighting man he kicked Bill's dog, and of course that meant a fight.
So they sparred and fought, and they shifted ground, and never a sound was heard
But the thudding fists on their brawny ribs, and the seconds' muttered word,
Till the fighting man shot home his left on the ribs with a mighty clout,
And his right flashed up with a half-arm blow -- and Saltbush Bill "went out".
He fell face down, and towards the blow; and their hearts with fear were filled,
For he lay as still as a fallen tree, and they thought that he must be killed.
So Stingy Smith and the fighting man, they lifted him from the ground,
And sent back home for a brandy-flask, and they slowly fetched him round;
But his head was bad, and his jaw was hurt -- in fact, he could scarcely speak --
So they let him spell till he got his wits; and he camped on the run a week,
While the travelling sheep went here and there, wherever they liked to stray,
Till Saltbush Bill was fit once more for the track to the Castlereagh.
Then Stingy Smith he wrote a note, and gave to the fighting man:
'Twas writ to the boss of the neighbouring run, and thus the missive ran:
"The man with this is a fighting man, one Stiffener Joe by name;
He came near murdering Saltbush Bill, and I found it a costly game:
But it's worth your while to employ the chap, for there isn't the slightest doubt
You'll have no trouble from Saltbush Bill while this man hangs about."
But an answer came by the next week's mail, with news that might well appal:
"The man you sent with a note is not a fighting man at all!
He has shaved his beard, and has cut his hair, but I spotted him at a look;
He is Tom Devine, who has worked for years for Saltbush Bill as cook.
Bill coached him up in the fighting yard, and taught him the tale by rote,
And they shammed to fight, and they got your grass, and divided your five-pound note.
'Twas a clean take-in; and you'll find it wise -- 'twill save you a lot of pelf --
When next you're hiring a fighting man, just fight him a round yourself."
And the teamsters out on the Castlereagh, when they meet with a week of rain,
And the waggon sinks to its axle-tree, deep down in the black-soil plain,
When the bullocks wade in a sea of mud, and strain at the load of wool,
And the cattle-dogs at the bullocks' heels are biting to make them pull,
When the off-side driver flays the team, and curses tham while he flogs,
And the air is thick with the language used, and the clamour of men and dogs --
The teamsters say, as they pause to rest and moisten each hairy throat,
They wish they could swear like Stingy Smith when he read that neighbour's note.
|
Written by
Lascelles Abercrombie |
The Dream
All round the knoll, on days of quietest air,
Secrets are being told; and if the trees
Speak out — let them make uproar loud as drums —
'Tis secrets still, shouted instead of whisper'd.
There must have been a warning given once:
No tree, on pain of withering and sawfly,
To reach the slimmest of his snaky toes
Into this mounded sward and rumple it;
All trees stand back: taboo is on this soil. —
The trees have always scrupulously obeyed.
The grass, that elsewhere grows as best it may
Under the larches, countable long nesh blades,
Here in clear sky pads the ground thick and close
As wool upon a Southdown wether's back;
And as in Southdown wool, your hand must sink
Up to the wrist before it find the roots.
A bed for summer afternoons, this grass;
But in the Spring, not too softly entangling
For lively feet to dance on, when the green
Flashes with daffodils. From Marcle way,
From Dymock, Kempley, Newent, Bromesberrow,
Redmarley, all the meadowland daffodils seem
Running in golden tides to Ryton Firs,
To make the knot of steep little wooded hills
Their brightest show: O bella età de l'oro!
Now I breathe you again, my woods of Ryton:
Not only golden with your daffodil-fires
Lying in pools on the loose dusky ground
Beneath the larches, tumbling in broad rivers
Down sloping grass under the cherry trees
And birches: but among your branches clinging
A mist of that Ferrara-gold I first
Loved in the easy hours then green with you;
And as I stroll about you now, I have
Accompanying me — like troops of lads and lasses
Chattering and dancing in a shining fortune —
Those mornings when your alleys of long light
And your brown rosin-scented shadows were
Enchanted with the laughter of my boys.
The Voices in the Dream
Follow my heart, my dancing feet,
Dance as blithe as my heart can beat.
Only can dancing understand
What a heavenly way we pass
Treading the green and golden land,
Daffodillies and grass.
I had a song, too, on my road,
But mine was in my eyes;
For Malvern Hills were with me all the way,
Singing loveliest visible melodies
Blue as a south-sea bay;
And ruddy as wine of France
Breadths of new-turn'd ploughland under them glowed.
'Twas my heart then must dance
To dwell in my delight;
No need to sing when all in song my sight
Moved over hills so musically made
And with such colour played. —
And only yesterday it was I saw
Veil'd in streamers of grey wavering smoke
My shapely Malvern Hills.
That was the last hail-storm to trouble spring:
He came in gloomy haste,
Pusht in front of the white clouds quietly basking,
In such a hurry he tript against the hills
And stumbling forward spilt over his shoulders
All his black baggage held,
Streaking downpour of hail.
Then fled dismayed, and the sun in golden glee
And the high white clouds laught down his dusky ghost.
For all that's left of winter
Is moisture in the ground.
When I came down the valley last, the sun
Just thawed the grass and made me gentle turf,
But still the frost was bony underneath.
Now moles take burrowing jaunts abroad, and ply
Their shovelling hands in earth
As nimbly as the strokes
Of a swimmer in a long dive under water.
The meadows in the sun are twice as green
For all the scatter of fresh red mounded earth,
The mischief of the moles:
No dullish red, Glostershire earth new-delved
In April! And I think shows fairest where
These rummaging small rogues have been at work.
If you will look the way the sunlight slants
Making the grass one great green gem of light,
Bright earth, crimson and even
Scarlet, everywhere tracks
The rambling underground affairs of moles:
Though 'tis but kestrel-bay
Looking against the sun.
But here's the happiest light can lie on ground,
Grass sloping under trees
Alive with yellow shine of daffodils!
If quicksilver were gold,
And troubled pools of it shaking in the sun
It were not such a fancy of bickering gleam
As Ryton daffodils when the air but stirs.
And all the miles and miles of meadowland
The spring makes golden ways,
Lead here, for here the gold
Grows brightest for our eyes,
And for our hearts lovelier even than love.
So here, each spring, our daffodil festival.
How smooth and quick the year
Spins me the seasons round!
How many days have slid across my mind
Since we had snow pitying the frozen ground!
Then winter sunshine cheered
The bitter skies; the snow,
Reluctantly obeying lofty winds,
Drew off in shining clouds,
Wishing it still might love
With its white mercy the cold earth beneath.
But when the beautiful ground
Lights upward all the air,
Noon thaws the frozen eaves,
And makes the rime on post and paling steam
Silvery blue smoke in the golden day.
And soon from loaded trees in noiseless woods
The snows slip thudding down,
Scattering in their trail
Bright icy sparkles through the glittering air;
And the fir-branches, patiently bent so long,
Sigh as they lift themselves to rights again.
Then warm moist hours steal in,
Such as can draw the year's
First fragrance from the sap of cherry wood
Or from the leaves of budless violets;
And travellers in lanes
Catch the hot tawny smell
Reynard's damp fur left as he sneakt marauding
Across from gap to gap:
And in the larch woods on the highest boughs
The long-eared owls like grey cats sitting still
Peer down to quiz the passengers below.
Light has killed the winter and all dark dreams.
Now winds live all in light,
Light has come down to earth and blossoms here,
And we have golden minds.
From out the long shade of a road high-bankt,
I came on shelving fields;
And from my feet cascading,
Streaming down the land,
Flickering lavish of daffodils flowed and fell;
Like sunlight on a water thrill'd with haste,
Such clear pale quivering flame,
But a flame even more marvellously yellow.
And all the way to Ryton here I walkt
Ankle-deep in light.
It was as if the world had just begun;
And in a mind new-made
Of shadowless delight
My spirit drank my flashing senses in,
And gloried to be made
Of young mortality.
No darker joy than this
Golden amazement now
Shall dare intrude into our dazzling lives:
Stain were it now to know
Mists of sweet warmth and deep delicious colour,
Those lovable accomplices that come
Befriending languid hours.
|
Written by
Carl Sandburg |
LAST night a January wind was ripping at the shingles over our house and whistling a wolf
song under the eaves.
I sat in a leather rocker and read to a six-year-old girl the Browning poem, Childe
Roland to the Dark Tower Came.
And her eyes had the haze of autumn hills and it was beautiful to her and she could not
understand.
A man is crossing a big prairie, says the poem, and nothing happens—and he goes on and
on—and it’s all lonesome and empty and nobody home.
And he goes on and on—and nothing happens—and he comes on a horse’s skull, dry bones of a
dead horse—and you know more than ever it’s all lonesome and empty and nobody home.
And the man raises a horn to his lips and blows—he fixes a proud neck and forehead toward
the empty sky and the empty land—and blows one last wonder-cry.
And as the shuttling automatic memory of man clicks off its results willy-nilly and
inevitable as the snick of a mouse-trap or the trajectory of a 42-centimeter projectile,
I flash to the form of a man to his hips in snow drifts of Manitoba and Minnesota—in the
sled derby run from Winnipeg to Minneapolis.
He is beaten in the race the first day out of Winnipeg—the lead dog is eaten by four team
mates—and the man goes on and on—running while the other racers ride—running while the
other racers sleep—
Lost in a blizzard twenty-four hours, repeating a circle of travel hour after hour—fighting
the dogs who dig holes in the snow and whimper for sleep—pushing on—running and walking
five hundred miles to the end of the race—almost a winner—one toe frozen, feet blistered
and frost-bitten.
And I know why a thousand young men of the Northwest meet him in the finishing miles and
yell cheers—I know why judges of the race call him a winner and give him a special prize
even though he is a loser.
I know he kept under his shirt and around his thudding heart amid the blizzards of five
hundred miles that one last wonder-cry of Childe Roland—and I told the six-year-old girl
all about it.
And while the January wind was ripping at the shingles and whistling a wolf song under the
eaves, her eyes had the haze of autumn hills and it was beautiful to her and she could not
understand.
|
Written by
John Berryman |
I heard said 'Cats that walk by their wild lone'
but Henry had need of friends. They disappeared
Shall I follow my dream?
Clothes disappeared in a backward sliding, zones
shot into view, pocked, exact & weird:
who is what he seem?
I will tell you now a story about Speck:
after other cuts, he put the knife in her eye,
one of the eight:
he was troubled, missionary: and Whitman
of the tower murdered his wife & mother
before (mercy-killings) he set out.
Not every shot went in. But most went in:
in just over an hour
with the tumor thudding in his brain
he killed 13, hit 33:
his empty father said he taught him to respect guns
(not persons).
|
Written by
Sylvia Plath |
It was not a heart, beating.
That muted boom, that clangor
Far off, not blood in the ears
Drumming up and fever
To impose on the evening.
The noise came from outside:
A metal detonating
Native, evidently, to
These stilled suburbs nobody
Startled at it, though the sound
Shook the ground with its pounding.
It took a root at my coming
Till the thudding shource, exposed,
Counfounded in wept guesswork:
Framed in windows of Main Street's
Silver factory, immense
Hammers hoisted, wheels turning,
Stalled, let fall their vertical
Tonnage of metal and wood;
Stunned in marrow. Men in white
Undershirts circled, tending
Without stop those greased machines,
Tending, without stop, the blunt
Indefatigable fact.
|
Written by
Siegfried Sassoon |
He drowsed and was aware of silence heaped
Round him, unshaken as the steadfast walls;
Aqueous like floating rays of amber light,
Soaring and quivering in the wings of sleep.
Silence and safety; and his mortal shore
Lipped by the inward, moonless waves of death.
Someone was holding water to his mouth.
He swallowed, unresisting; moaned and dropped
Through crimson gloom to darkness; and forgot
The opiate throb and ache that was his wound.
Water—calm, sliding green above the weir.
Water—a sky-lit alley for his boat,
Bird- voiced, and bordered with reflected flowers
And shaken hues of summer; drifting down,
He dipped contented oars, and sighed, and slept.
Night, with a gust of wind, was in the ward,
Blowing the curtain to a glimmering curve.
Night. He was blind; he could not see the stars
Glinting among the wraiths of wandering cloud;
***** blots of colour, purple, scarlet, green,
Flickered and faded in his drowning eyes.
Rain—he could hear it rustling through the dark;
Fragrance and passionless music woven as one;
Warm rain on drooping roses; pattering showers
That soak the woods; not the harsh rain that sweeps
Behind the thunder, but a trickling peace,
Gently and slowly washing life away.
He stirred, shifting his body; then the pain
Leapt like a prowling beast, and gripped and tore
His groping dreams with grinding claws and fangs.
But someone was beside him; soon he lay
Shuddering because that evil thing had passed.
And death, who'd stepped toward him, paused and stared.
Light many lamps and gather round his bed.
Lend him your eyes, warm blood, and will to live.
Speak to him; rouse him; you may save him yet.
He's young; he hated War; how should he die
When cruel old campaigners win safe through?
But death replied: 'I choose him.' So he went,
And there was silence in the summer night;
Silence and safety; and the veils of sleep.
Then, far away, the thudding of the guns.
|
Written by
Delmore Schwartz |
News of the Gold World of May in Holland Michigan:
"Wooden shoes will clatter again
on freshly scrubbed streets--"
The tulip will arise and reign again from awnings and
windows
of all colors and forms
its vine, verve and valentine curves
upon the city streets, the public grounds
and private lawns
(wherever it is conceivable
that a bulb might take root
and the two lips, softly curved, come up
possessed by the skilled love and will of a ballerina.)
The citizens will dance in folk dances.
They will thump, they will pump,
thudding and shoving
elbow and thigh,
bumping and laughing, like barrels and bells.
Vast fields of tulips in full bloom,
the reproduction of a miniature Dutch village,
part of a gigantic flower show.
|
Written by
T Wignesan |
Full pummelling fisticuffs
Stitch over stitch
In and out
Imperceptibly kaleidoscopic
Swirling from ear to ear
Sporadic
Thrumming mystical notes
Notes of whisper
Whisper in the ear
Now a bothered swish of clawing
Cleaving slipping fingers
Immalleable rolling universal ball
Microcosmic needle into
Macrocosmic wool all
Silently thudding kneading pulling
Sealing a sin all opened unforgiven
Eternally whispering to a few
And never really heard
Pummelling sewing the invisible centre
Round and round the darkless sun
Only the end that began
Only a scratch and a bother
What bother to scratch
For scratching bothers
Bothers a scratch
Scratch and not to bother
Scratch Scratch Scratch
|