MEanwhile the hainous and despightfull act
Of Satan done in Paradise, and how
Hee in the Serpent, had perverted Eve,
Her Husband shee, to taste the fatall fruit,
Was known in Heav'n; for what can scape the Eye
Of God All-seeing, or deceave his Heart
Omniscient, who in all things wise and just,
Hinder'd not Satan to attempt the minde
Kind pity chokes my spleen; brave scorn forbids Those tears to issue which swell my eyelids; I must not laugh, nor weep sins and be wise; Can railing, then, cure these worn maladies? Is not our mistress, fair Religion, As worthy of all our souls' devotion As virtue was in the first blinded age? Are not heaven's joys as valiant to assuage Lusts, as earth's honour was to them? Alas, As we do them in means, shall they surpass Us in the end? and shall thy father's spirit Meet blind philosophers in heaven, whose merit Of strict life may be imputed faith, and hear Thee, whom he taught so easy ways and near To follow, damn'd? Oh, if thou dar'st, fear this;
When in nineteen-thirty-seven, Etta Moten, sweetheart of our Art Study group, kept her promise, as if clocked, to honor my house at our first annual tea, my pride
tipped sky, but when she, Parisian-poised and as smart as a chrome-toned page from Harper’s Bazaar, gave my shocked guests this hideous African nude, I could have cried.
And for many subsequent suns, we, who had placed apart this hour to proclaim our plunge into modern art, mocked
To all events I squirted you knowing this not to be this came to pass when we were out and it looked good. Why wouldn’t you want a fresh piece of outlook to stand in down the years? See, your house, a former human energy construction, crashed with us for a few days in May and sure enough, the polar inscape brought about some easier poems, which I guessed was a good thing. At least some of us were relaxed, Steamboat Bill included.
He didn’t drink nothing. It was one thing to be ready for their challenge, quite another to accept it.
In love, his grammar grew rich with intensifiers, and adverbs fell madly from the sky like pheasants for the peasantry, and he, as sated as they were, lolled under shade trees until roused by moonlight and the beautiful fraternal twins and and but. Oh that was when he knew he couldn’t resist a conjunction of any kind. One said accumulate, the other was a doubter who loved the wind and the mind that cleans up after it. For love he wanted to break all the rules,
I would invoke that man Who chipped for all posterity an ass (The one that Jesus rode) Out of hard stone, and set its either wing Among the wings of the most saintly clan On Chartres Cathedral, and that it might sing The praise to all who pass Of its unearthly load, Hung from its neck a harp-like instrument. I would invoke that man To aid my argument.
The ass smiles on us all, Being astonished that an ass might rise To such sure eminence
To a Venetian coin, the first Gazetta For its generic title became debtor.
Whither excursive Fancy tends thy Flight? Like Eastern Caliph masking thee at night, By Vezier memory attended still, Thou pertly pryest in each domicil.
We reconstruct lives in the intensive care unit, pieced together in a buffet dinner: two widows with cancerous breasts in their balled hands; a 30-year-old man in a three-month coma from a Buick and a brick wall; a woman who bleeds off and on from her gullet; a prominent socialite, our own nurse,
Granny’s come to our house, And ho! my lawzy-daisy! All the childern round the place Is ist a-runnin’ crazy! Fetched a cake fer little Jake, And fetched a pie fer Nanny, And fetched a pear fer all the pack That runs to kiss their Granny!
Lucy Ellen’s in her lap, And Wade and Silas Walker Both’s a-ridin’ on her foot, And ’Pollos on the rocker; And Marthy’s twins, from Aunt Marinn’s, And little Orphant Annie,
On this first day of spring, snow covers the fruit trees, mingling improbably with the new blossoms like identical twins brought up in different hemispheres. It is not what Housman meant when he wrote of the cherry hung with snow, though he also knew how death can mistake the seasons,
CALM was the day, and through the trembling air Sweet breathing Zephyrus did softly play, A gentle spirit, that lightly did delay Hot Titan's beams, which then did glister fair; When I whose sullen care, Through discontent of my long fruitless stay In prince's court, and expectation vain Of idle hopes, which still do fly away Like empty shadows, did afflict my brain, Walked forth to ease my pain Along the shore of silver streaming Thames, Whose rutty bank, the which his river hems, Was painted all with variable flowers, And all the meads adorned with dainty gems, Fit to deck maidens' bowers,
Lord, Thou hast given me a cell Wherein to dwell, A little house, whose humble roof Is weather-proof: Under the spars of which I lie Both soft, and dry; Where Thou my chamber for to ward Hast set a guard Of harmless thoughts, to watch and keep Me, while I sleep. Low is my porch, as is my fate, Both void of state; And yet the threshold of my door Is worn by th' poor, Who thither come and freely get
Comment form: