Famous Long Confusion Poems

Famous Long Confusion Poems. Long Confusion Poetry by Famous Poets. A collection of the all-time best Confusion long poems

See also: Long Member Poems

 I

Said the Watcher by the Way 
To the young and the unladen, 
To the boy and to the maiden, 
"God be with you both to-day. 
First your song came ringing, 
Now you come, you two-- 
Knowing naught of what you do, 
Or of what your dreams are bringing.

"O you children who go singing 
To the Town down the River, 
Where the millions cringe and shiver, 
Tell me what you know to-day; 
Tell me how far you are going, 
Tell me how you find your way. 
O you children who are dreaming, 
Tell me what you dream to-day."

"He is old and we have heard him," 
Said the boy then to the maiden; 
"He is old and heavy laden 
With a load we throw away. 
Care may come to find us, 
Age may lay us low; 
Still, we seek the light we know, 
And the dead we leave behind us.

"Did he think that he would blind us 
Into such a small believing 
As to live without achieving, 
When the lights have led so far? 
Let him watch or let him wither,-- 
Shall he tell us where we are? 
We know best, who go together, 
Downward, onward, and so far."

II

Said the Watcher...
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 Half squatter, half tenant (no rent)—
a sort of inheritance; white,
in your thirties now, and supposed
to supply me with vegetables,
but you don't; or you won't; or you can't
get the idea through your brain—
the world's worst gardener since Cain.
Titled above me, your gardens
ravish my eyes. You edge
the beds of silver cabbages
with red carnations, and lettuces
mix with alyssum. And then
umbrella ants arrive,
or it rains for a solid week
and the whole thing's ruined again
and I buy you more pounds of seeds,
imported, guaranteed,
and eventually you bring me
a mystic thee-legged carrot,
or a pumpkin "bigger than the baby."

I watch you through the rain,
trotting, light, on bare feet,
up the steep paths you have made—
or your father and grandfather made—
all over my property,
with your head and back inside
a sodden burlap bag,
and feel I can't endure it
another minute; then,
indoors, beside the stove,
keep on reading a book.

You steal my telephone wires,
or someone does. You starve
your horse and yourself
and your dogs and family.
among endless variety,
you eat boiled cabbage stalks.
And once I yelled at you
so loud to hurry up
and fetch me those potatoes
your holey hat flew off,
you jumped out of your clogs,
leaving three objects arranged 
in a triangle at my feet,
as if you'd been a gardener
in a fairy tale all this time
and...
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 The Four Archangels, so the legends tell,
Raphael, Gabriel, Michael, Azrael,
Being first of those to whom the Power was shown
Stood first of all the Host before The Throne,
And, when the Charges were allotted, burst
Tumultuous-winged from out the assembly first.
Zeal was their spur that bade them strictly heed
Their own high judgment on their lightest deed.
Zeal was their spur that, when relief was given,
Urged them unwearied to new toils in Heaven; 
For Honour's sake perfecting every task
Beyond what e 'en Perfection's self could ask. . .
And Allah, Who created Zeal and Pride,
Knows how the twain are perilous-near allied.


It chanced on one of Heaven's long-lighted days,
The Four and all the Host being gone their ways
Each to his Charge, the shining Courts were void
Save for one Seraph whom no charge employed,
With folden wings and slumber-threatened brow,
To whom The Word: "Beloved, what dost thou?"
"By the Permission," came the answer soft,
Little I do nor do that little oft.
As is The Will in Heaven so on Earth
Where by The Will I strive to make men mirth"
He ceased and sped, hearing The Word once more:
" Beloved, go thy way and greet the Four."

Systems and Universes overpast,
The Seraph came upon the Four, at last,
Guiding and guarding with devoted mind
The...
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 Sir Robert the Bruce at Bannockburn
Beat the English in every wheel and turn,
And made them fly in great dismay
From off the field without delay. 

The English were a hundred thousand strong,
And King Edward passed through the Lowlands all along.
Determined to conquer Scotland, it was his desire,
And then to restore it to his own empire. 

King Edward brought numerous waggons in his train,
Expecting that most of the Scottish army would be slain,
Hoping to make the rest prisoners, and carry them away
In waggon-loads to London without delay. 

The Scottish army did not amount to more than thirty thousand strong;
But Bruce had confidence he'd conquer his foes ere long;
So, to protect his little army, he thought it was right
To have deep-dug pits made in the night; 

And caused them to be overlaid with turf and brushwood
Expecting the plan would prove effectual where his little army stood,
Waiting patiently for the break of day,
All willing to join in the deadly fray. 

Bruce stationed himself at the head of the reserve,
Determined to conquer, but never to swerve,
And by his side were brave Kirkpatrick and true De Longueville,
Both trusty warriors, firm and bold, who would never him beguile. 

By daybreak the whole of the English army...
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 You may talk o' your lutes and your dulcimers fine,
 Your harps and your tabors and cymbals and a',
But here in the trenches jist gie me for mine
 The wee penny whistle o' Sandy McGraw.
Oh, it's: "Sandy, ma lad, will you lilt us a tune?"
 And Sandy is willin' and trillin' like mad;
Sae silvery sweet that we a' throng aroun',
 And some o' it's gay, but the maist o' it's sad.
Jist the wee simple airs that sink intae your hert,
 And grup ye wi' love and wi' longin' for hame;
And ye glour like an owl till you're feelin' the stert
 O' a tear, and you blink wi' a feelin' o' shame.
For his song's o' the heather, and here in the dirt
 You listen and dream o' a land that's sae braw,
And he mak's you forget a' the harm and the hurt,
 For he pipes like a laverock, does Sandy McGraw.

 * * * * *

At Eepers I mind me when rank upon rank
 We rose from the trenches and swept like the gale,
Till the rapid-fire guns got us fell on the flank
 And the murderin' bullets came swishin' like hail:
Till a' that were left o' us faltered and broke;
...
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 KILMARNOCK wabsters, fidge an’ claw,
 An’ pour your creeshie nations;
An’ ye wha leather rax an’ draw,
 Of a’ denominations;
Swith to the Ligh Kirk, ane an’ a’
 An’ there tak up your stations;
Then aff to Begbie’s in a raw,
 An’ pour divine libations
 For joy this day.


Curst Common-sense, that imp o’ hell,
 Cam in wi’ Maggie Lauder; 1
But Oliphant 2 aft made her yell,
 An’ Russell 3 sair misca’d her:
This day Mackinlay 4 taks the flail,
 An’ he’s the boy will blaud her!
He’ll clap a shangan on her tail,
 An’ set the bairns to daud her
 Wi’ dirt this day.


Mak haste an’ turn King David owre,
 And lilt wi’ holy clangor;
O’ double verse come gie us four,
 An’ skirl up the Bangor:
This day the kirk kicks up a stoure;
 Nae mair the knaves shall wrang her,
For Heresy is in her pow’r,
 And gloriously she’ll whang her
 Wi’ pith this day.


Come, let a proper text be read,
 An’ touch it aff wi’ vigour,
How graceless Ham 5 leugh at his dad,
 Which made Canaan a nigger;
Or Phineas 6 drove the murdering blade,
 Wi’ whore-abhorring rigour;
Or Zipporah, 7 the scauldin jad,
 Was like a bluidy tiger
 I’ th’ inn that day.


There, try his...
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 Five hours, (and who can do it less in?)
By haughty Celia spent in dressing;
The goddess from her chamber issues,
Arrayed in lace, brocades, and tissues.
Strephon, who found the room was void
And Betty otherwise employed,
Stole in and took a strict survey
Of all the litter as it lay;
Whereof, to make the matter clear,
An inventory follows here.
And first a dirty smock appeared,
Beneath the arm-pits well besmeared.
Strephon, the rogue, displayed it wide
And turned it round on every side.
On such a point few words are best,
And Strephon bids us guess the rest;
And swears how damnably the men lie
In calling Celia sweet and cleanly.
Now listen while he next produces
The various combs for various uses,
Filled up with dirt so closely fixt,
No brush could force a way betwixt.
A paste of composition rare,
Sweat, dandruff, powder, lead and hair;
A forehead cloth with oil upon't
To smooth the wrinkles on her front.
Here alum flower to stop the steams
Exhaled from sour unsavory streams;
There night-gloves made of Tripsy's hide,
Bequeath'd by Tripsy when she died,
With puppy water, beauty's help,
Distilled from Tripsy's darling whelp;
Here gallypots and vials placed,
Some filled with washes, some with paste,
Some with pomatum, paints and slops,
And ointments good for scabby chops.
Hard by a filthy basin stands,
Fouled with the scouring of her hands;
The basin...
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 Send but a song oversea for us,
Heart of their hearts who are free,
Heart of their singer, to be for us
More than our singing can be;
Ours, in the tempest at error,
With no light but the twilight of terror;
Send us a song oversea!

Sweet-smelling of pine-leaves and grasses,
And blown as a tree through and through
With the winds of the keen mountain-passes,
And tender as sun-smitten dew;
Sharp-tongued as the winter that shakes
The wastes of your limitless lakes,
Wide-eyed as the sea-line's blue.

O strong-winged soul with prophetic
Lips hot with the bloodheats of song,
With tremor of heartstrings magnetic,
With thoughts as thunders in throng,
With consonant ardours of chords
That pierce men's souls as with swords
And hale them hearing along,

Make us too music, to be with us
As a word from a world's heart warm,
To sail the dark as a sea with us,
Full-sailed, outsinging the storm,
A song to put fire in our ears
Whose burning shall burn up tears,
Whose sign bid battle reform;

A note in the ranks of a clarion,
A word in the wind of cheer,
To consume as with lightning the carrion
That makes time foul for us here;
In the air that our dead things infest
A blast of the breath of the west,
Till east way as west way is clear.

Out of the sun...
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 On Tiber's banks, Tiber, whose waters glide 
In slow meanders down to Gaigra's side; 
And circling all the horrid mountain round, 
Rushes impetuous to the deep profound; 
Rolls o'er the ragged rocks with hideous yell; 
Collects its waves beneath the earth's vast shell; 
There for a while in loud confusion hurl'd, 
It crumbles mountains down and shakes the world. 
Till borne upon the pinions of the air, 
Through the rent earth the bursting waves appear; 
Fiercely propell'd the whiten'd billows rise, 
Break from the cavern, and ascend the skies; 
Then lost and conquered by superior force, 
Through hot Arabia holds its rapid coursel 
On Tiber's banks where scarlet jas'mines bloom, 
And purple aloes shed a rich perfume; 
Where, when the sun is melting in his heat, 
The reeking tygers find a cool retreat; 
Bask in the sedges, lose the sultry beam, 
And wanton with their shadows in the stream; 
On Tiber's banks, by sacred priests rever'd, 
Where in the days of old a god appear'd; 
'Twas in the dead of night, at Chalma's feast, 
The tribe of Alra slept around the priest. 
He spoke; as evening thunders bursting near, 
His horrid accents broke upon the ear; 
Attend, Alraddas, with...
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 Pindaric Ode

"Ruin seize thee, ruthless King!
Confusion on thy banners wait!
Tho' fanned by Conquest's crimson wing,
They mock the air with idle state.
Helm, nor hauberk's twisted mail,
Nor e'en thy virtues, Tyrant, shall avail
To save thy secret soul from nightly fears,
From Cambria's curse, from Cambria's tears!"
Such were the sounds that o'er the crested pride
Of the first Edward scattered wild dismay,
As down the steep of Snowdon's shaggy side
He wound with toilsome march his long array.
Stout Glo'ster stood aghast in speechless trance:
"To arms!" cried Mortimer, and couched his quiv'ring lance.

On a rock, whose haughty brow
Frowns o'er cold Conway's foaming flood,
Robed in the sable garb of woe
With haggard eyes the Poet stood;
(Loose his beard and hoary hair
Streamed like a meteor to the troubled air)
And with a master's hand, and prophet's fire,
Struck the deep sorrows of his lyre.
"Hark, how each giant-oak and desert-cave
Sighs to the torrent's awful voice beneath!
O'er thee, O King! their hundred arms they wave,
Revenge on thee in hoarser murmurs breathe;
Vocal no more, since Cambria's fatal day,
To high-born Hoel's harp, or soft Llewellyn's lay.

"Cold is Cadwallo's tongue,
That hushed the stormy main;
Brave Urien sleeps upon his craggy bed:
Mountains, ye mourn in vain
Modred, whose magic song
Made huge Plinlimmon bow his cloud-topt head.
On dreary Arvon's shore they...
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THERE is sweet music here that softer falls 
Than petals from blown roses on the grass, 
Or night-dews on still waters between walls 
Of shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass; 
Music that gentlier on the spirit lies, 5 
Than tired eyelids upon tired eyes; 
Music that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful skies. 
Here are cool mosses deep, 
And thro' the moss the ivies creep, 
And in the stream the long-leaved flowers weep, 10 
And from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs in sleep. 

Why are we weigh'd upon with heaviness, 
And utterly consumed with sharp distress, 
While all things else have rest from weariness? 
All things have rest: why should we toil alone, 15 
We only toil, who are the first of things, 
And make perpetual moan, 
Still from one sorrow to another thrown: 
Nor ever fold our wings, 
And cease from wanderings, 20 
Nor steep our brows in slumber's holy balm; 
Nor harken what the inner spirit sings, 
'There is no joy but calm!'¡ª 
Why should we only toil, the roof and crown of things? 

Lo! in the middle of the wood, 25 
The folded leaf is woo'd from out the bud 
With winds upon the branch,...
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 The Muse is stern unto her favoured sons,
Giving to some the keys of all the joy
Of the green earth, but holding even that joy
Back from their life;
Bidding them feed on hope,
A plant of bitter growth,
Deep-rooted in the past;
Truth, 'tis a doubtful art
To make Hope sweeten
Time as it flows;
For no man knows
Until the very last,
Whether it be a sovereign herb that he has eaten,
Or his own heart.

O stern, implacable Muse,
Giving to Keats so richly dowered,
Only the thought that he should be
Among the English poets after death;
Letting him fade with that expectancy,
All powerless to unfold the future!
What boots it that our age has snatched him free
From thy too harsh embrace,
Has given his fame the certainty
Of comradeship with Shakespeare's?
He lies alone
Beneath the frown of the old Roman stone
And the cold Roman violets;
And not our wildest incantation
Of his most sacred lines,
Nor all the praise that sets
Towards his pale grave,
Like oceans towards the moon,
Will move the Shadow with the pensive brow
To break his dream,
And give unto him now
One word! --

When the young master reasoned
That our puissant England
Reared her great poets by neglect,
Trampling them down in the by-paths of Life
And fostering them with glory after death,
Did any flame of triumph from his own fame
Fall swift...
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 Thou dear and well-loved haunt of happy hours,
How often in some distant gallery,
Gained by a little painful spiral stair,
Far from the halls and corridors where throng
The crowd of casual readers, have I passed
Long, peaceful hours seated on the floor
Of some retired nook, all lined with books,
Where reverie and quiet reign supreme!
Above, below, on every side, high shelved
From careless grasp of transient interest,
Stand books we can but dimly see, their charm
Much greater that their titles are unread;
While on a level with the dusty floor
Others are ranged in orderly confusion,
And we must stoop in painful posture while
We read their names and learn their histories.
The little gallery winds round about
The middle of a most secluded room,
Midway between the ceiling and the floor.
A type of those high thoughts, which while we read
Hover between the earth and furthest heaven
As fancy wills, leaving the printed page;
For books but give the theme, our hearts the rest,
Enriching simple words with unguessed harmony
And overtones of thought we only know.
And as we sit long hours quietly,
Reading at times, and at times simply dreaming,
The very room itself becomes a friend,
The confidant of intimate hopes and fears;
A place where are engendered pleasant thoughts,
And possibilities before unguessed
Come to fruition born of sympathy.
And...
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 I

Thou who hast made thy dwelling fair
With flowers beneath, above with starry lights,
And set thine altars everywhere,--
On mountain heights,
In woodlands dim with many a dream,
In valleys bright with springs,
And on the curving capes of every stream:
Thou who hast taken to thyself the wings
Of morning, to abide
Upon the secret places of the sea,
And on far islands, where the tide
Visits the beauty of untrodden shores,
Waiting for worshippers to come to thee
In thy great out-of-doors!
To thee I turn, to thee I make my prayer,
God of the open air.


II

Seeking for thee, the heart of man
Lonely and longing ran,
In that first, solitary hour,
When the mysterious power
To know and love the wonder of the morn
Was breathed within him, and his soul was born;
And thou didst meet thy child,
Not in some hidden shrine,
But in the freedom of the garden wild,
And take his hand in thine,--
There all day long in Paradise he walked,
And in the cool of evening with thee talked.


III

Lost, long ago, that garden bright and pure,
Lost, that calm day too perfect to endure,
And lost the childlike love that worshipped and was sure!
For men have dulled their eyes with sin,
And dimmed the light of heaven with doubt,
And built their temple walls to shut thee in,
And framed...
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 1
We are reading the story of our lives
which takes place in a room.
The room looks out on a street.
There is no one there,
no sound of anything.
The tress are heavy with leaves,
the parked cars never move.
We keep turning the pages, hoping for something,
something like mercy or change,
a black line that would bind us
or keep us apart.
The way it is, it would seem
the book of our lives is empty.
The furniture in the room is never shifted,
and the rugs become darker each time
our shadows pass over them.
It is almost as if the room were the world.
We sit beside each other on the couch,
reading about the couch.
We say it is ideal.
It is ideal.

2
We are reading the story of our lives,
as though we were in it,
as though we had written it.
This comes up again and again.
In one of the chapters
I lean back and push the book aside
because the book says
it is what I am doing.
I lean back and begin to write about the book.
I write that I wish to move beyond the book.
Beyond my life into another life.
I put the pen down.
The book says: "He put the pen down
and turned and watched her reading
the part about herself falling in love."
The book is more accurate...
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