Written by
Anne Sexton |
If you danced from midnight
to six A.
M.
who would understand?
The runaway boy
who chucks it all
to live on the Boston Common
on speed and saltines,
pissing in the duck pond,
rapping with the street priest,
trading talk like blows,
another missing person,
would understand.
The paralytic's wife
who takes her love to town,
sitting on the bar stool,
downing stingers and peanuts,
singing "That ole Ace down in the hole,"
would understand.
The passengers
from Boston to Paris
watching the movie with dawn
coming up like statues of honey,
having partaken of champagne and steak
while the world turned like a toy globe,
those murderers of the nightgown
would understand.
The amnesiac
who tunes into a new neighborhood,
having misplaced the past,
having thrown out someone else's
credit cards and monogrammed watch,
would understand.
The drunken poet
(a genius by daylight)
who places long-distance calls
at three A.
M.
and then lets you sit
holding the phone while he vomits
(he calls it "The Night of the Long Knives")
getting his kicks out of the death call,
would understand.
The insomniac
listening to his heart
thumping like a June bug,
listening on his transistor
to Long John Nebel arguing from New York,
lying on his bed like a stone table,
would understand.
The night nurse
with her eyes slit like Venetian blinds,
she of the tubes and the plasma,
listening to the heart monitor,
the death cricket bleeping,
she who calls you "we"
and keeps vigil like a ballistic missile,
would understand.
Once
this king had twelve daughters,
each more beautiful than the other.
They slept together, bed by bed
in a kind of girls' dormitory.
At night the king locked and bolted the door
.
How could they possibly escape?
Yet each morning their shoes
were danced to pieces.
Each was as worn as an old jockstrap.
The king sent out a proclamation
that anyone who could discover
where the princesses did their dancing
could take his pick of the litter.
However there was a catch.
If he failed, he would pay with his life.
Well, so it goes.
Many princes tried,
each sitting outside the dormitory,
the door ajar so he could observe
what enchantment came over the shoes.
But each time the twelve dancing princesses
gave the snoopy man a Mickey Finn
and so he was beheaded.
Poof! Like a basketball.
It so happened that a poor soldier
heard about these strange goings on
and decided to give it a try.
On his way to the castle
he met an old old woman.
Age, for a change, was of some use.
She wasn't stuffed in a nursing home.
She told him not to drink a drop of wine
and gave him a cloak that would make
him invisible when the right time came.
And thus he sat outside the dorm.
The oldest princess brought him some wine
but he fastened a sponge beneath his chin,
looking the opposite of Andy Gump.
The sponge soaked up the wine,
and thus he stayed awake.
He feigned sleep however
and the princesses sprang out of their beds
and fussed around like a Miss America Contest.
Then the eldest went to her bed
and knocked upon it and it sank into the earth.
They descended down the opening
one after the other.
They crafty soldier
put on his invisisble cloak and followed.
Yikes, said the youngest daughter,
something just stepped on my dress.
But the oldest thought it just a nail.
Next stood an avenue of trees,
each leaf make of sterling silver.
The soldier took a leaf for proof.
The youngest heard the branch break
and said, Oof! Who goes there?
But the oldest said, Those are
the royal trumpets playing triumphantly.
The next trees were made of diamonds.
He took one that flickered like Tinkerbell
and the youngest said: Wait up! He is here!
But the oldest said: Trumpets, my dear.
Next they came to a lake where lay
twelve boats with twelve enchanted princes
waiting to row them to the underground castle.
The soldier sat in the youngest's boat
and the boat was as heavy as if an icebox
had been added but the prince did not suspect.
Next came the ball where the shoes did duty.
The princesses danced like taxi girls at Roseland
as if those tickets would run right out.
They were painted in kisses with their secret hair
and though the soldier drank from their cups
they drank down their youth with nary a thought.
Cruets of champagne and cups full of rubies.
They danced until morning and the sun came up
naked and angry and so they returned
by the same strange route.
The soldier
went forward through the dormitory and into
his waiting chair to feign his druggy sleep.
That morning the soldier, his eyes fiery
like blood in a wound, his purpose brutal
as if facing a battle, hurried with his answer
as if to the Sphinx.
The shoes! The shoes!
The soldier told.
He brought forth
the silver leaf, the diamond the size of a plum.
He had won.
The dancing shoes would dance
no more.
The princesses were torn from
their night life like a baby from its pacifier.
Because he was old he picked the eldest.
At the wedding the princesses averted their eyes
and sagged like old sweatshirts.
Now the runaways would run no more and never
again would their hair be tangled into diamonds,
never again their shoes worn down to a laugh,
never the bed falling down into purgatory
to let them climb in after
with their Lucifer kicking.
|
Written by
Andrew Barton Paterson |
The Maoris are a mighty race -- the finest ever known;
Before the missionaries came they worshipped wood and stone;
They went to war and fought like fiends, and when the war was done
They pacified their conquered foes by eating every one.
But now-a-days about the pahs in idleness they lurk,
Prepared to smoke or drink or talk -- or anything but work.
The richest tribe in all the North in sheep and horse and cow,
Were those who led their simple lives at Rooti-iti-au.
'Twas down to town at Wellington a noble Maori came,
A Rangatira of the best, Rerenga was his name --
(The word Rerenga means a "snag" -- but until he was gone
This didn't strike the folk he met -- it struck them later on).
He stalked into the Bank they call the "Great Financial Hell",
And told the Chief Financial Fiend the tribe had wool to sell.
The Bold Bank Manager looked grave -- the price of wool was high.
He said, "We'll lend you what you need -- we're not disposed to buy.
"You ship the wool to England, Chief! -- You'll find it's good advice,
And meanwhile you can draw from us the local market price.
"
The Chief he thanked them courteously and said he wished to state
In all the Rooti-iti tribe his mana would be freat,
But still the tribe were simple folk, and did not understand
This strange finance that gave them cash without the wool in hand.
So off he started home again, with trouble on his brow,
To lay the case before the tribe at Rooti-iti-au.
They held a great korero in the Rooti-iti clan,
With speeches lasting half a day from every leading man.
They called themselves poetic names -- "lost children in a wood";
They said the Great Bank Manager was Kapai -- extra good!
And so they sent Rerenga down, full-powered and well-equipped,
To draw as much as he could get, and let the wool be shipped;
And wedged into a "Cargo Tank", full up from stern to bow,
A mighty clip of wool went Home from Rooti-iti-au.
It was the Bold Bank Manager who drew a heavy cheque;
Rerenga cashed it thoughtfully, then clasped him round the neck;
A hug from him was not at all a thing you'd call a lark --
You see he lived on mutton-birds and dried remains of shark --
But still it showed his gratitude; and, as he pouched the pelf,
"I'll haka for you, sir," he said, "in honour of yourself!"
The haka is a striking dance -- the sort they don't allow
In any place more civilized than Rooti-iti-au.
He "haka'd" most effectively -- then, with an airy grace,
Rubbed noses with the Manager, and vanished into space.
But when the wool return came back, ah me, what sighs and groans!
For every bale of Maori wool was loaded up with stones!
Yes -- thumping great New Zealand rocks among the wool they found;
On every rock the bank had lent just eighteen-pence a pound.
And now the Bold Bank Manager, with trouble on his brow,
Is searching vainly for the chief from Rooti-iti-au.
|
Written by
Stanley Kunitz |
My mother never forgave my father
for killing himself,
especially at such an awkward time
and in a public park,
that spring
when I was waiting to be born.
She locked his name
in her deepest cabinet
and would not let him out,
though I could hear him thumping.
When I came down from the attic
with the pastel portrait in my hand
of a long-lipped stranger
with a brave moustache
and deep brown level eyes,
she ripped it into shreds
without a single word
and slapped me hard.
In my sixty-fourth year
I can feel my cheek
still burning.
|
Written by
Wilfred Owen |
We'd found an old Boche dug-out, and he knew,
And gave us hell, for shell on frantic shell
Hammered on top, but never quite burst through.
Rain, guttering down in waterfalls of slime
Kept slush waist high, that rising hour by hour,
Choked up the steps too thick with clay to climb.
What murk of air remained stank old, and sour
With fumes of whizz-bangs, and the smell of men
Who'd lived there years, and left their curse in the den,
If not their corpses.
.
.
.
There we herded from the blast
Of whizz-bangs, but one found our door at last.
Buffeting eyes and breath, snuffing the candles.
And thud! flump! thud! down the steep steps came thumping
And splashing in the flood, deluging muck --
The sentry's body; then his rifle, handles
Of old Boche bombs, and mud in ruck on ruck.
We dredged him up, for killed, until he whined
"O sir, my eyes -- I'm blind -- I'm blind, I'm blind!"
Coaxing, I held a flame against his lids
And said if he could see the least blurred light
He was not blind; in time he'd get all right.
"I can't," he sobbed.
Eyeballs, huge-bulged like squids
Watch my dreams still; but I forgot him there
In posting next for duty, and sending a scout
To beg a stretcher somewhere, and floundering about
To other posts under the shrieking air.
Those other wretches, how they bled and spewed,
And one who would have drowned himself for good, --
I try not to remember these things now.
Let dread hark back for one word only: how
Half-listening to that sentry's moans and jumps,
And the wild chattering of his broken teeth,
Renewed most horribly whenever crumps
Pummelled the roof and slogged the air beneath --
Through the dense din, I say, we heard him shout
"I see your lights!" But ours had long died out.
|
Written by
John Betjeman |
"Let us not speak, for the love we bear one another—
Let us hold hands and look.
"
She such a very ordinary little woman;
He such a thumping crook;
But both, for a moment, little lower than the angels
In the teashop's ingle-nook.
|
Written by
Mary Darby Robinson |
When SUPERSTITION rul'd the land
And Priestcraft shackled Reason,
At GODSTOW dwelt a goodly band,
Grey monks they were, and but to say
They were not always giv'n to pray,
Would have been construed Treason.
Yet some did scoff, and some believ'd
That sinners were themselves deceiv'd;
And taking Monks for more than men
They prov'd themselves, nine out of ten,
Mere dupes of these Old Fathers hoary;
But read--and mark the story.
Near, in a little Farm, there liv'd
A buxom Dame of twenty three;
And by the neighbours 'twas believ'd
A very Saint was She!
Yet, ev'ry week, for some transgression,
She went to sigh devout confession.
For ev'ry trifle seem'd to make
Her self-reproving Conscience ache;
And Conscience, waken'd, 'tis well known,
Will never let the Soul alone.
At GODSTOW, 'mid the holy band,
Old FATHER PETER held command.
And lusty was the pious man,
As any of his crafty clan:
And rosy was his cheek, and sly
The wand'rings of his keen grey eye;
Yet all the Farmers wives confest
The wond'rous pow'r this Monk possess'd;
Pow'r to rub out the score of sin,
Which SATAN chalk'd upon his Tally;
To give fresh licence to begin,--
And for new scenes of frolic, rally.
For abstinence was not his way--
He lov'd to live --as well as pray ;
To prove his gratitude to Heav'n
By taking freely all its favors,--
And keeping his account still even,
Still mark'd his best endeavours:
That is to say, He took pure Ore
For benedictions,--and was known,
While Reason op'd her golden store,--
Not to unlock his own.
--
And often to his cell went he
With the gay Dame of twenty-three:
His Cell was sacred, and the fair
Well knew, that none could enter there,
Who, (such was PETER'S sage decree,)
To Paradise ne'er bought a key.
It happen'd that this Farmer's wife
(Call MISTRESS TWYFORD--alias BRIDGET,)
Led her poor spouse a weary life--
Keeping him, in an endless fidget!
Yet ev'ry week she sought the cell
Where Holy FATHER PETER stay'd,
And there did ev'ry secret tell,--
And there, at Sun-rise, knelt and pray'd.
For near, there liv'd a civil friend,
Than FARMER TWYFORD somewhat stouter,
And he would oft his counsel lend,
And pass the wintry hours away
In harmless play;
But MISTRESS BRIDGET was so chaste,
So much with pious manners grac'd,
That none could doubt her!
One night, or rather morn, 'tis said
The wily neighbour chose to roam,
And (FARMER TWYFORD far from home),
He thought he might supply his place;
And, void of ev'ry spark of grace,
Upon HIS pillow, rest his head.
The night was cold, and FATHER PETER,
Sent his young neighbour to entreat her,
That she would make confession free--
To Him,--his saintly deputy.
Now, so it happen'd, to annoy
The merry pair, a little boy
The only Son of lovely Bridget,
And, like his daddy , giv'n to fidget,
Enquir'd who this same neighbour was
That took the place his father left--
A most unworthy, shameless theft,--
A sacrilege on marriage laws!
The dame was somewhat disconcerted--
For, all that she could say or do,--
The boy his question would renew,
Nor from his purpose be diverted.
At length, the matter to decide,
"'Tis FATHER PETER" she replied.
"He's come to pray.
" The child gave o'er,
When a loud thumping at the door
Proclaim'd the Husband coming! Lo!
Where could the wily neighbour go?
Where hide his recreant, guilty head--
But underneath the Farmer's bed?--
NOW MASTER TWYFORD kiss'd his child;
And straight the cunning urchin smil'd :
"Hush father ! hush ! 'tis break of day--
"And FATHER PETER'S come to pray!
"You must not speak," the infant cries--
"For underneath the bed he lies.
"
Now MISTRESS TWYFORD shriek'd, and fainted,
And the sly neighbour found, too late,
The FARMER, than his wife less sainted,
For with his cudgel he repaid--
The kindness of his faithless mate,
And fiercely on his blows he laid,
'Till her young lover, vanquish'd, swore
He'd play THE CONFESSOR no more !
Tho' fraud is ever sure to find
Its scorpion in the guilty mind:
Yet, PIOUS FRAUD, the DEVIL'S treasure,
Is always paid, in TENFOLD MEASURE.
|
Written by
Siegfried Sassoon |
I
Because the night was falling warm and still
Upon a golden day at April’s end,
I thought; I will go up the hill once more
To find the face of him that I have lost,
And speak with him before his ghost has flown
Far from the earth that might not keep him long.
So down the road I went, pausing to see
How slow the dusk drew on, and how the folk
Loitered about their doorways, well-content
With the fine weather and the waxing year.
The miller’s house, that glimmered with grey walls,
Turned me aside; and for a while I leaned
Along the tottering rail beside the bridge
To watch the dripping mill-wheel green with damp.
The miller peered at me with shadowed eyes
And pallid face: I could not hear his voice
For sound of the weir’s plunging.
He was old.
His days went round with the unhurrying wheel.
Moving along the street, each side I saw
The humble, kindly folk in lamp-lit rooms;
Children at table; simple, homely wives;
Strong, grizzled men; and soldiers back from war,
Scaring the gaping elders with loud talk.
Soon all the jumbled roofs were down the hill,
And I was turning up the grassy lane
That goes to the big, empty house that stands
Above the town, half-hid by towering trees.
I looked below and saw the glinting lights:
I heard the treble cries of bustling life,
And mirth, and scolding; and the grind of wheels.
An engine whistled, piercing-shrill, and called
High echoes from the sombre slopes afar;
Then a long line of trucks began to move.
It was quite still; the columned chestnuts stood
Dark in their noble canopies of leaves.
I thought: ‘A little longer I’ll delay,
And then he’ll be more glad to hear my feet,
And with low laughter ask me why I’m late.
The place will be too dim to show his eyes,
But he will loom above me like a tree,
With lifted arms and body tall and strong.
’
There stood the empty house; a ghostly hulk
Becalmed and huge, massed in the mantling dark,
As builders left it when quick-shattering war
Leapt upon France and called her men to fight.
Lightly along the terraces I trod,
Crunching the rubble till I found the door
That gaped in twilight, framing inward gloom.
An owl flew out from under the high eaves
To vanish secretly among the firs,
Where lofty boughs netted the gleam of stars.
I stumbled in; the dusty floors were strewn
With cumbering piles of planks and props and beams;
Tall windows gapped the walls; the place was free
To every searching gust and jousting gale;
But now they slept; I was afraid to speak,
And heavily the shadows crowded in.
I called him, once; then listened: nothing moved:
Only my thumping heart beat out the time.
Whispering his name, I groped from room to room.
Quite empty was that house; it could not hold
His human ghost, remembered in the love
That strove in vain to be companioned still.
II
Blindly I sought the woods that I had known
So beautiful with morning when I came
Amazed with spring that wove the hazel twigs
With misty raiment of awakening green.
I found a holy dimness, and the peace
Of sanctuary, austerely built of trees,
And wonder stooping from the tranquil sky.
Ah! but there was no need to call his name.
He was beside me now, as swift as light.
I knew him crushed to earth in scentless flowers,
And lifted in the rapture of dark pines.
‘For now,’ he said, ‘my spirit has more eyes
Than heaven has stars; and they are lit by love.
My body is the magic of the world,
And dawn and sunset flame with my spilt blood.
My breath is the great wind, and I am filled
With molten power and surge of the bright waves
That chant my doom along the ocean’s edge.
‘Look in the faces of the flowers and find
The innocence that shrives me; stoop to the stream
That you may share the wisdom of my peace.
For talking water travels undismayed.
The luminous willows lean to it with tales
Of the young earth; and swallows dip their wings
Where showering hawthorn strews the lanes of light.
‘I can remember summer in one thought
Of wind-swept green, and deeps of melting blue,
And scent of limes in bloom; and I can hear
Distinct the early mower in the grass,
Whetting his blade along some morn of June.
‘For I was born to the round world’s delight,
And knowledge of enfolding motherhood,
Whose tenderness, that shines through constant toil,
Gathers the naked children to her knees.
In death I can remember how she came
To kiss me while I slept; still I can share
The glee of childhood; and the fleeting gloom
When all my flowers were washed with rain of tears.
‘I triumph in the choruses of birds,
Bursting like April buds in gyres of song.
My meditations are the blaze of noon
On silent woods, where glory burns the leaves.
I have shared breathless vigils; I have slaked
The thirst of my desires in bounteous rain
Pouring and splashing downward through the dark.
Loud storm has roused me with its winking glare,
And voice of doom that crackles overhead.
I have been tired and watchful, craving rest,
Till the slow-footed hours have touched my brows
And laid me on the breast of sundering sleep.
’
III
I know that he is lost among the stars,
And may return no more but in their light.
Though his hushed voice may call me in the stir
Of whispering trees, I shall not understand.
Men may not speak with stillness; and the joy
Of brooks that leap and tumble down green hills
Is faster than their feet; and all their thoughts
Can win no meaning from the talk of birds.
My heart is fooled with fancies, being wise;
For fancy is the gleaming of wet flowers
When the hid sun looks forth with golden stare.
Thus, when I find new loveliness to praise,
And things long-known shine out in sudden grace,
Then will I think: ‘He moves before me now.
’
So he will never come but in delight,
And, as it was in life, his name shall be
Wonder awaking in a summer dawn,
And youth, that dying, touched my lips to song.
|
Written by
Robert Frost |
He is said to have been the last Red man
In Action.
And the Miller is said to have laughed--
If you like to call such a sound a laugh.
But he gave no one else a laugher's license.
For he turned suddenly grave as if to say,
'Whose business,--if I take it on myself,
Whose business--but why talk round the barn?--
When it's just that I hold with getting a thing done with.
'
You can't get back and see it as he saw it.
It's too long a story to go into now.
You'd have to have been there and lived it.
They you wouldn't have looked on it as just a matter
Of who began it between the two races.
Some guttural exclamation of surprise
The Red man gave in poking about the mill
Over the great big thumping shuffling millstone
Disgusted the Miller physically as coming
From one who had no right to be heard from.
'Come, John,' he said, 'you want to see the wheel-pint?'
He took him down below a cramping rafter,
And showed him, through a manhole in the floor,
The water in desperate straits like frantic fish,
Salmon and sturgeon, lashing with their tails.
The he shut down the trap door with a ring in it
That jangled even above the general noise,
And came upstairs alone--and gave that laugh,
And said something to a man with a meal-sack
That the man with the meal-sack didn't catch--then.
Oh, yes, he showed John the wheel-pit all right.
|
Written by
Andrew Barton Paterson |
A man once read with mind surprised
Of the way that people were "hypnotised";
By waving hands you produced, forsooth,
A kind of trance where men told the truth!
His mind was filled with wond'ring doubt;
He grabbed his hat and he started out,
He walked the street and he made a "set"
At the first half-dozen folk he met.
He "tranced" them all, and without a joke
'Twas much as follows the subjects spoke:
First Man
"I am a doctor, London-made,
Listen to me and you'll hear displayed
A few of the tricks of the doctor's trade.
'Twill sometimes chance when a patient's ill
That a doae, or draught, or a lightning pill,
A little too strong or a little too hot,
Will work its way to a vital spot.
And then I watch with a sickly grin
While the patient 'passes his counters in'.
But when he has gone with his fleeting breath
I certify that the cause of death
Was something Latin, and something long,
And who is to say that the doctor's wrong!
So I go my way with a stately tread
While my patients sleep with the dreamless dead.
"
Next, Please
"I am a barrister, wigged and gowned;
Of stately presence and look profound.
Listen awhile till I show you round.
When courts are sitting and work is flush
I hurry about in a frantic rush.
I take your brief and I look to see
That the same is marked with a thumping fee;
But just as your case is drawing near
I bob serenely and disappear.
And away in another court I lurk
While a junior barrister does your work;
And I ask my fee with a courtly grace,
Although I never came near the case.
But the loss means ruin too you, maybe,
But nevertheless I must have my fee!
For the lawyer laughs in his cruel sport
While his clients march to the Bankrupt Court.
"
Third Man
"I am a banker, wealthy and bold --
A solid man, and I keep my hold
Over a pile of the public's gold.
I am as skilled as skilled can be
In every matter of ? s.
d.
I count the money, and night by night
I balance it up to a farthing right:
In sooth, 'twould a stranger's soul perplex
My double entry and double checks.
Yet it sometimes happens by some strange crook
That a ledger-keeper will 'take his hook'
With a couple of hundred thousand 'quid',
And no one can tell how the thing was did!"
Fourth Man
"I am an editor, bold and free.
Behind the great impersonal 'We'
I hold the power of the Mystic Three.
What scoundrel ever would dare to hint
That anything crooked appears in print!
Perhaps an actor is all the rage,
He struts his hour on the mimic stage,
With skill he interprets all the scenes --
And yet next morning I give him beans.
I slate his show from the floats to flies,
Because the beggar won't advertise.
And sometimes columns of print appear
About a mine, and it makes it clear
That the same is all that one's heart could wish --
A dozen ounces to every dish.
But the reason we print those statements fine
Is -- the editor's uncle owns the mine.
"
The Last Straw
"A preacher I, and I take my stand
In pulpit decked with gown and band
To point the way to a better land.
With sanctimonious and reverent look
I read it out of the sacred book
That he who would open the golden door
Must give his all to the starving poor.
But I vary the practice to some extent
By investing money at twelve per cent,
And after I've preached for a decent while
I clear for 'home' with a lordly pile.
I frighten my congregation well
With fear of torment and threats of hell,
Although I know that the scientists
Can't find that any such place exists.
And when they prove it beyond mistake
That the world took millions of years to make,
And never was built by the seventh day
I say in a pained and insulted way
that 'Thomas also presumed to doubt',
And thus do I rub my opponents out.
For folks may widen their mental range,
But priest and parson, thay never change.
"
With dragging footsteps and downcast head
The hypnotiser went home to bed,
And since that very successful test
He has given the magic art a rest;
Had he tried the ladies, and worked it right,
What curious tales might have come to light!
|
Written by
Edward Lear |
S was Papa's new Stick,
Papa's new thumping Stick, To thump extremely wicked boys,
Because it was so thick.
|